Chapter II · (continued 2)

The unanimous vote for trusting the safety of religion to the king’s declaration passed not without observation, the rights of the Church of England being the only point upon which, at this time, the parliament were in any degree jealous of the royal power. The committee of religion had voted unanimously, “That it is the opinion of the committee, that this House will stand by his majesty with their lives and fortunes, according to their bounden duty and allegiance, in defence of the reformed Church of England, as it is now by law established; and that an humble address be presented to his majesty, to desire him to issue forth his royal proclamation, to cause the penal laws to be put in execution against all dissenters from the Church of England whatsoever.” But upon the report of the House, the question of agreeing with the committee was evaded by a previous question, and the House, with equal unanimity, resolved: “That this House doth acquiesce, and entirely rely, and rest wholly satisfied, on his majesty’s gracious word, and repeated declaration to support and defend the religion of the Church of England, as it is now by law established, which is dearer to us than our lives.” Mr. Echard, and Bishop Kennet, two writers of different principles, but both churchmen, assign, as the motive of this vote, the unwillingness of the party then prevalent in parliament to adopt severe measures against the Protestant dissenters; but in this notion they are by no means supported by the account, imperfect as it is, which Sir John Reresby gives of the debate, for he makes no mention of tenderness towards dissenters, but states as the chief argument against agreeing with the committee, that it might excite a jealousy of the king; and Barillon expressly says, that the first vote gave great offence to the king, still more to the queen, and that orders were, in consequence, issued to the court members of the House of Commons to devise some means to get rid of it. Indeed, the general circumstances of the times are decisive against the hypothesis of the two reverend historians; nor is it, as far as I know, adopted by any other historians. The probability seems to be, that the motion in the committee had been originally suggested by some Whig member, who could not, with prudence, speak his real sentiments openly, and who thought to embarrass the government, by touching upon a matter where the union between the church party and the king would be put to the severest test. The zeal of the Tories for persecution made them at first give into the snare; but when, upon reflection, it occurred that the involving of the Catholics in one common danger with the Protestant dissenters must be displeasing to the king, they drew back without delay, and passed the most comprehensive vote of confidence which James could desire.

Further to manifest their servility to the king, as well as their hostility to every principle that could by implication be supposed to be connected with Monmouth or his cause, the House of Commons passed a bill for the preservation of his majesty’s person, in which, after enacting that a written or verbal declaration of a treasonable intention should be tantamount to a treasonable act, they inserted two remarkable clauses, by one of which to assert the legitimacy of Monmouth’s birth, by the other, to propose in parliament any alteration in the succession of the crown, were made likewise high treason. We learn from Burnet, that the first part of this bill was strenuously and warmly debated, and that it was chiefly opposed by Serjeant Maynard, whose arguments made some impression even at that time; but whether the serjeant was supported in his opposition, as the word chiefly would lead us to imagine, or if supported, by whom, that historian does not mention; and, unfortunately, neither of Maynard’s speech itself, nor indeed of any opposition whatever to the bill, is there any other trace to be found. The crying injustice of the clause which subjected a man to the pains of treason merely for delivering his opinion upon a controverted fact, though he should do no act in consequence of such opinion, was not, as far as we are informed, objected to or at all noticed, unless indeed the speech above alluded to, in which the speaker is said to have descanted upon the general danger of making words treasonable, be supposed to have been applied to this clause as well as to the former part of the bill. That the other clause should have passed without opposition or even observation, must appear still more extraordinary, when we advert, not only to the nature of the clause itself, but to the circumstances of there being actually in the House no inconsiderable number of members who had in the former reign repeatedly voted for the Exclusion Bill.

It is worthy of notice, however, that while every principle of criminal jurisprudence, and every regard to the fundamental rights of the deliberative assemblies, which make part of the legislature of the nation, were thus shamelessly sacrificed to the eagerness which, at this disgraceful period, so generally prevailed of manifesting loyalty, or rather abject servility to the sovereign, there still remained no small degree of tenderness for the interests and safety of the Church of England, and a sentiment approaching to jealousy upon any matter which might endanger, even by the most remote consequences, or put any restriction upon her ministers. With this view, as one part of the bill did not relate to treasons only, but imposed new penalties upon such as should, by writing, printing, preaching, or other speaking, attempt to bring the king or his government into hatred or contempt, there was a special proviso added, “that the asserting and maintaining, by any writing, printing, preaching, or any other speaking, the doctrine, discipline, divine worship, or government of the Church of England as it is now by law established, against popery or any other different or dissenting opinions, is not intended, and shall not be interpreted or construed to be any offence within the words or meaning of this Act.” It cannot escape the reader, that only such attacks upon popery as were made in favour of the doctrine and discipline of the Church of England, and no other, were protected by this proviso, and consequently that, if there were any real occasion for such a guard, all Protestant dissenters who should write or speak against the Roman superstition were wholly unprotected by it, and remained exposed to the danger, whatever it might be, from which the Church was so anxious to exempt her supporters.

This bill passed the House of Commons, and was sent up to the House of Lords on the 30th of June. It was read a first time on that day, but the adjournment of both houses taking place on the 2nd of July, it could not make any further progress at that time; and when the parliament met afterwards in autumn, there was no longer that passionate affection for the monarch, nor consequently that ardent zeal for servitude which were necessary to make a law with such clauses and provisoes palatable or even endurable.

It is not to be considered as an exception to the general complaisance of parliament, that the Speaker, when he presented the Revenue Bill, made use of some strong expressions, declaring the attachment of the Commons to the national religion. Such sentiments could not be supposed to be displeasing to James, after the assurances he had given of his regard for the Church of England. Upon this occasion his majesty made the following speech:—

“My lords and gentlemen,—I thank you very heartily for the bill you have presented me this day; and I assure you, the readiness and cheerfulness that has attended the despatch of it is as acceptable to me as the bill itself.

“After so happy a beginning, you may believe I would not call upon you unnecessarily for an extraordinary supply; but when I tell you that the stores of the navy and ordnance are extremely exhausted, that the anticipations upon several branches of the revenue are great and burthensome; that the debts of the king, my brother, to his servants and family, are such as deserve compassion; that the rebellion in Scotland, without putting more weight upon it than it really deserves, must oblige me to a considerable expense extraordinary: I am sure, such considerations will move you to give me an aid to provide for those things, wherein the security, the ease, and the happiness of my government are so much concerned. But above all, I must recommend you to the care of the navy, the strength and glory of this nation; that you will put it into such a condition as may make us considered and respected abroad. I cannot express my concern upon this occasion more suitable to my own thoughts of it than by assuring you I have a true English heart, as jealous of the honour of the nation as you can be; and I please myself with the hopes that by God’s blessing and your assistance, I may carry the reputation of it yet higher in the world than ever it has been in the time of any of my ancestors; and as I will not call upon you for supplies but when they are of public use and advantage, so I promise you, that what you give me upon such occasions shall be managed with good husbandry; and I will take care it shall be employed to the uses for which I ask them.”

Rapin, Hume, and Ralph observe upon this speech, that neither the generosity of the Commons’ grant, nor the confidence they expressed upon religious matters, could extort a kind word in favour of their religion. But this observation, whether meant as a reproach to him for his want of gracious feeling to a generous parliament, or as an oblique compliment to his sincerity, has no force in it. His majesty’s speech was spoken immediately upon, passing the bills which the Speaker presented, and he could not therefore take notice of the Speaker’s words unless he had spoken extempore; for the custom is not, nor I believe ever was, for the Speaker to give beforehand copies of addresses of this nature. James would not certainly have scrupled to repeat the assurances which he had so lately made in favour of the Protestant religion, as he did not scruple to talk of his true English heart, honour of the nation, &c., at a time when he was engaged with France; but the speech was prepared for an answer to a money bill, not for a question of the Protestant religion and church, and the false professions in it are adapted to what was supposed to be the only subject of it.

The only matter in which the king’s views were in any degree thwarted was the reversal of Lord Stafford’s attainder, which, having passed the House of Lords, not without opposition, was lost in the House of Commons; a strong proof that the popish plot was still the subject upon which the opposers of the court had most credit with the public. Mr. Hume, notwithstanding his just indignation at the condemnation of Stafford, and his general inclination to approve of royal politics, most unaccountably justifies the Commons in their rejection of this bill, upon the principle of its being impolitic at that time to grant so full a justification of the Catholics, and to throw so foul an imputation upon the Protestants. Surely if there be one moral duty that is binding upon men in all times, places, and circumstances, and from which no supposed views of policy can excuse them, it is that of granting a full justification to the innocent; and such Mr. Hume considers the Catholics, and especially Lord Stafford, to have been. The only rational way of accounting for this solitary instance of non-compliance on the part of the Commons is either to suppose that they still believed in the reality of the popish plot, and Stafford’s guilt, or that the Church party, which was uppermost, had such an antipathy to popery, as indeed to every sect whose tenets differed from theirs, that they deemed everything lawful against its professors.

On the 2nd of July parliament was adjourned for the purpose of enabling the principal gentlemen to be present in their respective counties at a time when their services and influence might be so necessary to government. It is said that the House of Commons consisted of members so devoted to James, that he declared there were not forty in it whom he would not himself have named. But although this may have been true, and though from the new modelling of the corporations, and the interference of the court in elections, this parliament, as far as regards the manner of its being chosen, was by no means a fair representative of the legal electors of England, yet there is reason to think that it afforded a tolerably correct sample of the disposition of the nation, and especially of the Church party, which was then uppermost.

The general character of the party at this time appears to have been a high notion of the king’s constitutional power, to which was superadded a kind of religious abhorrence of all resistance to the monarch, not only in cases where such resistance was directed against the lawful prerogative, but even in opposition to encroachments which the monarch might make beyond the extended limits which they assigned to his prerogative. But these tenets, and still more the principle of conduct naturally resulting from them, were confined to the civil, as contra-distinguished from the ecclesiastical polity of the country. In Church matters they neither acknowledged any very high authority in the crown, nor were they willing to submit to any royal encroachment on that side; and a steady attachment to the Church of England, with a proportionable aversion to all dissenters from it, whether Catholic or Protestant, was almost universally prevalent among them. A due consideration of these distinct features in the character of a party so powerful in Charles’s and in James’s time, and even when it was lowest (that is, during the reigns of the two first princes of the House of Brunswick), by no means inconsiderable, is exceedingly necessary to the right understanding of English history. It affords a clue to many passages otherwise unintelligible. For want of a proper attention to this circumstance, some historians have considered the conduct of the Tories in promoting the revolution as an instance of great inconsistency. Some have supposed, contrary to the clearest evidence, that their notions of passive obedience, even in civil matters, were limited, and that their support of the government of Charles and James was founded upon a belief that those princes would never abuse their prerogative for the purpose of introducing arbitrary sway. But this hypothesis is contrary to the evidence both of their declarations and their conduct. Obedience without reserve, an abhorrence of all resistance, as contrary to the tenets of their religion, are the principles which they professed in their addresses, their sermons, and their decrees at Oxford; and surely nothing short of such principles could make men esteem the latter years of Charles II., and the opening of the reign of his successor, an era of national happiness and exemplary government. Yet this is the representation of that period, which is usually made by historians and other writers of the Church party. “Never were fairer promises on one side, nor greater generosity on the other,” says Mr. Echard. “The king had as yet, in no instance, invaded the rights of his subjects,” says the author of the Caveat against the Whigs. Thus, as long as James contented himself with absolute power in civil matters, and did not make use of his authority against the Church, everything went smooth and easy; nor is it necessary, in order to account for the satisfaction of the parliament and people, to have recourse to any implied compromise by which the nation was willing to yield its civil liberties as the price of retaining its religious constitution. The truth seems to be, that the king, in asserting his unlimited power, rather fell in with the humour of the prevailing party than offered any violence to it. Absolute power in civil matters, under the specious names of monarchy and prerogative, formed a most essential part of the Tory creed; but the order in which Church and king are placed in the favourite device of the party is not accidental, and is well calculated to show the genuine principles of such among them as are not corrupted by influence. Accordingly, as the sequel of this reign will abundantly show, when they found themselves compelled to make an option, they preferred, without any degree of inconsistency, their first idol to their second, and when they could not preserve both Church and king, declared for the former.

It gives certainly no very flattering picture of the country to describe it as being in some sense fairly represented by this servile parliament, and not only acquiescing in, but delighted with the early measures of James’s reign; the contempt of law exhibited in the arbitrary mode of raising his revenue; his insulting menace to the parliament, that if they did not use him well, he would govern without them; his furious persecution of the Protestant dissenters, and the spirit of despotism which appeared in all his speeches and actions. But it is to be remembered that these measures were in nowise contrary to the principles or prejudices of the Church party, but rather highly agreeable to them; and that the Whigs, who alone were possessed of any just notions of liberty, were so outnumbered and discomforted by persecution, that such of them as did not think fit to engage in the rash schemes of Monmouth or Argyle, held it to be their interest to interfere as little as possible in public affairs, and by no means to obtrude upon unwilling hearers opinions and sentiments which, ever since the dissolution of the Oxford parliament, in 1681, had been generally discountenanced, and of which the peaceable, or rather triumphant, accession of James to the throne was supposed to seal the condemnation.