THE CHARACTER (continued 6)

75.

JAMES II.

Born 1633. Created Duke of York. Succeeded Charles II 1685. Fled to France 1688. Died 1701.

By BURNET.

I will digress a little to give an account of the Duke's character, whom I knew for some years so particularly, that I can say much upon my own knowledge. He was very brave in his youth, and so much magnified by Monsieur Turenne, that, till his marriage lessened him he really clouded the King, and pass'd for the superior genius. He was naturally candid and sincere, and a firm friend, till affairs and his religion wore out all his first principles and inclinations. He had a great desire to understand affairs: And in order to that he kept a constant journal of all that pass'd, of which he shewed me a great deal. The Duke of Buckingham gave me once a short but severe character of the two brothers. It was the more severe, because it was-true: The King (he said) could see things if he would, and the Duke would see things if he could. He had no true judgment, and was soon determined by those whom he trusted: But he was obstinate against all other advices. He was bred with high notions of the Kingly authority, and laid it down for a maxim, that all who opposed the King were rebels in their hearts. He was perpetually in one amour or other, without being very nice in his choice: Upon which the King said once, he believed his brother had his mistresses given him by his Priests for penance. He gave me this account of his changing his religion: When he escaped out of the hands of the Earl of Northumberland, who had the charge of his education trusted to him by the Parliament, and had used him with great respect, all due care was taken, as soon as he got beyond sea, to form him to a strict adherence to the Church of England: Among other things much was said of the authority of the Church, and of the tradition from the Apostles in support of Episcopacy: So that, when he came to observe that there was more reason to submit to the Catholick Church than to one particular Church, and that other traditions might be taken on her word, as well as Episcopacy was received among us, he thought the step was not great, but that it was very reasonable to go over to the Church of Rome: And Doctor Steward having taught him to believe a real but unconceivable presence of Christ in the Sacrament, he thought this went more than half way to transubstantiation. He said, that a Nun's advice to him to pray every day, that, if he was not in the right way, God would set him right, did make a great impression on him. But he never told me when or where he was reconciled. He suffered me to say a great deal to him on all these heads. I shewed the difference between submission and obedience in matters of order and indifferent things, and an implicite submission from the belief of infallibility. I also shewed him the difference between a speculation of a mode of Christ's presence, when it rested in an opinion, and an adoration founded on it: Tho' the opinion of such a presence was wrong, there was no great harm in that alone: But the adoration of an undue object was idolatry. He suffered me to talk much and often to him on these heads. But I plainly saw, it made no impression: And all that he seemed to intend by it was, to make use of me as an instrument to soften the aversion that people began to be possessed with to him. He was naturally eager and revengeful: And was against the taking off any that set up in an opposition to the measures of the Court, and who by that means grew popular in the House of Commons. He was for rougher methods. He continued for many years dissembling his religion, and seemed zealous for the Church of England: But it was chiefly on design to hinder all propositions that tended to unite us among our selves. He was a frugal Prince, and brought his Court into method and magnificence: For he had 100000_l_. a year allowed him. He was made High Admiral: And he came to understand all the concerns of the sea very particularly. He had a very able Secretary about him, Sir William Coventry; a man of great notions and eminent vertues, the best Speaker in the House of Commons, and capable of bearing the chief ministry, as it was once thought he was very near it. The Duke found, all the great seamen had a deep tincture from their education: They both hated Popery, and loved liberty: They were men of severe tempers, and kept good discipline. But in order to the putting the fleet into more confident hands, the Duke began a method of sending pages of honour, and other young persons of quality, to be bred to the sea. And these were put in command, as soon as they were capable of it, if not sooner. This discouraged many of the old seamen, when they saw in what a channel advancement was like to go; who upon that left the service, and went and commanded merchantmen. By this means the vertue and discipline of the navy is much lost. It is true, we have a breed of many gallant men, who do distinguish themselves in action. But it is thought, the Nation has suffered much by the vices and disorders of those Captains, who have risen by their quality, more than by merit or service.

76.

By BURNET.

He was a Prince that seemed made for greater things, than will be found in the course of his Life, more particularly of his Reign: He was esteemed in the former parts of his Life, a Man of great Courage, as he was quite thro' it a man of great application to business: He had no vivacity of thought, invention or expression: But he had a good judgment, where his Religion or his Education gave him not a biass, which it did very often: He was bred with strange Notions of the Obedience due to Princes, and came to take up as strange ones, of the Submission due to Priests: He was naturally a man of truth, fidelity, and justice: But his Religion was so infused in him, and he was so managed in it by his Priests, that the Principles which Nature had laid in him, had little power over him, when the concerns of his Church stood in the way: He was a gentle Master, and was very easy to all who came near him: yet he was not so apt to pardon, as one ought to be, that is the Vicegerent of that God, who is slow to anger, and ready to forgive: He had no personal Vices but of one sort: He was still wandring from one Amour to another, yet he had a real sense of Sin, and was ashamed of it: But Priests know how to engage Princes more entirely into their interests, by making them compound for their Sins, by a great zeal for Holy Church, as they call it. In a word, if it had not been for his Popery, he would have been, if not a great yet a good Prince. By what I once knew of him, and by what I saw him afterwards carried to, I grew more confirmed in the very bad opinion, which I was always apt to have, of the Intrigues of the Popish Clergy, and of the Confessors of Kings: He was undone by them, and was their Martyr, so that they ought to bear the chief load of all the errors of his inglorious Reign, and of its fatal Catastrophe. He had the Funeral which he himself had desired, private, and without any sort of Ceremony.