Chapter VIII · (continued 3)

This exhibition of fury against the Catholics was reported all over Europe with astonishment and awe; but, on the other hand, it roused Charles to dismiss Shaftesbury from the presidency of the Council, and to order James to assume his proper place at Court. Russell, Capel, Cavendish, and Powle, seeing their party reduced to impotence in the Council, resigned, and Essex threw up the Treasury, and was succeeded by Hyde, the second son of Clarendon. Sir William Temple also retired again to his rural retreat, and Sydney Godolphin became a leading man in the Council. Both Hyde and Godolphin were men of much talent, but decided Tories. The character of Lawrence Hyde has been vigorously sketched by Macaulay. He was a Cavalier of the old school, a zealous champion of the Crown and of the Church, and a hater of Republicans and Nonconformists. He had, consequently, a great body of personal adherents. The clergy, especially, looked on him as their own man, and extended to his foibles an indulgence of which, to say the truth, he stood in some need, for he drank deep, and when he was in a rage—and he was very often in a rage—he swore like a trooper. "Godolphin," says the same authority, "had low and frivolous personal tastes, and was much addicted to racing, card-playing, and cock-fighting."

Between these new ministers and the Opposition the contest grew more vehement. Shaftesbury persuaded Monmouth to return in 1680, and much rejoicing was got up for him in public. The king was extremely angry, and ordered him to retire, but Monmouth paid no attention to the paternal command; and there was great talk of a certain black box, in which the proofs of the marriage of Monmouth's mother, Lucy Walters or Barlow, were contained. Charles summoned all the persons alleged to know of this box and its contents, and questioned them, when there clearly appeared to be no such box or such evidence; and these facts were published in the Gazette. Still, the duke was extremely popular with the people, and occupied a prominent place in the public eye. He was Duke of Monmouth in England, of Buccleuch in Scotland, Master of the Horse, Commander of the First Troop of Life Guards, Chief Justice in Eyre south of Trent, a Knight of the Garter, and Chancellor of the University of Cambridge; and the Opposition did all they could to enhance his importance. The war of Whig and Tory, now the established terms, was fierce.

Of course the Popish plot continued to play its part, its puppets being moved, and its victims selected by the great political Oppositionists. There was also another plot, called from the hiding-place of the incriminating documents, the Meal-Tub plot, in which the Presbyterians were charged with conspiring to raise an army and establish a Republic. The chief object of all these got-up plots was to drive James from the succession, and two parties were at work for this purpose, who agreed so far as excluding James, but were divided as to the successor to be set up. Monmouth was the idol of Shaftesbury and his party; William of Orange the selected favourite of Temple, Hyde, Godolphin, and their party—a far more intellectual and able one. Against James this common object of his exclusion told fearfully; for the rest, the deep and cautious character of the Dutchman, and the light and frivolous one of Monmouth, made William's chance far the best. Shaftesbury, Buckingham, and their adherents contrived to win over the Duchess of Portsmouth to part of their views by concealing the rest. They represented to her that if the king were brought to nominate his successor, as Cromwell had done, and as an Act of Parliament would enable him to do, her eldest son might be chosen. The bait took, especially when it was coupled with the terrors of an impeachment in default of compliance, which threatened her ruin and that of her children. She flattered herself that the illegitimacy of her son might be got over, and went zealously into the affair. On the other hand, Shaftesbury made himself sure that if this plan were accomplished, Monmouth would be the successor-elect. She pledged herself to use all her influence with Charles, and she was empowered to assure him of a large supply of money from Parliament, and the same power of naming his successor as had been given to Henry VIII.

Charles appeared to fall into the scheme, but demanded no less than eight hundred thousand pounds. For this he probably would have sold his brother's birthright. The question of James's exclusion was discussed in the Council, and Charles ordered James to return again to Scotland. But what probably saved James was want of faith between the leaders of the two exclusion factions and Charles, and between each other. Each faction knew that the other had its own successor in view, and both doubted Charles too much to trust him with the money before the Exclusion Act was passed. Barillon, the French ambassador, whose object was to maintain James, also came in as a third party, with French money, to embarrass and divide them. To cut the main difficulty, Shaftesbury determined to damage James irrevocably before the country; he, therefore, on the 26th of October, 1680, brought forward a wretch called Dangerfield to accuse the duke, before the Commons, of having been at the bottom of the late plot against the Presbyterians; of having given him the instructions to forge and distribute the lists and commissions; of having presented him with twenty guineas; given him a promise of much greater reward; and ridiculed his hesitation to shed the king's blood.

The audacity of an Opposition that could bring forward so horrible a charge against the heir-apparent, on the evidence of a scoundrel branded by sixteen convictions for base crimes, is something incredible. But no sooner had Dangerfield made the statement, than the House was thrown into a wonderful agitation, and Lord William Russell rose and moved that effectual measures be taken to suppress Popery and prevent a Popish succession. From that day to the 2nd of November a succession of other witnesses and depositions were brought before the House to strengthen the charge. The deposition of Bedloe, on his deathbed, affirming all his statements, was read; one Francisco de Faria, a converted Jew, asserted that an offer had been made to him by the late Portuguese ambassador, to whom he was interpreter, to assassinate Oates, Bedloe, and Shaftesbury; Dugdale related all his proofs against the lords in the Tower; Prance repeated the story of the murder of Godfrey, with fresh embellishments; and Mr. Treby read the report of the Committee of inquiry into the plot. The House, almost beside itself, passed a Bill to disable the Duke of York, as a Papist, from succeeding, and stipulating that any violence offered to the king should be revenged on the whole body of the Papists. But on the 15th of November the Lords rejected it by sixty-three against thirty. Shaftesbury then proposed, as the last means of safety, that the king should divorce the queen, marry again, and have a chance of legitimate issue; but on this the king put an effectual damper. Disappointed in both these objects, the Opposition resorted to the cowardly measure of shedding more innocent blood, in order to have a fresh opportunity of exciting the alarm and rage of the people against Popery. They selected, from the five Popish lords in the Tower, the Lord Stafford for their victim. He was nearly seventy years of age, and in infirm health, and they flattered themselves he would not be able to make much defence. He was arraigned in Westminster Hall before a Court of Managers, as in the case of Lord Strafford. The trial lasted seven days, and Oates, Dugdale, Prance, Tuberville, and Denis, all men of the most infamous and perjured character, charged him with having held consultations with emissaries of the Pope, and having endeavoured to engage Dugdale to assassinate the king, and so forth. The old earl made an admirable defence, in which he dissected most effectually the characters of his traducers; but he was condemned by a majority of fifty-five to thirty-one, and was beheaded on Tower Hill on the 29th of December, 1680. The sheriffs of London objected to the order for his beheading, contending that he ought to suffer all the horrors of the law against traitors; but the king commanded them to obey his order. On the scaffold the earl, whose mild and pious demeanour made a deep impression on the Popery-frightened people, declared his entire innocence, and the people, standing with bare heads, replied, "We believe you, my lord. God bless you, my lord!"