Great offence was given to the Commons by the action of the king in appointing new bishops to certain vacant sees at the very time when they were debating an act for taking away bishops' votes. And here I cannot but with grief and wonder remember the virulence and animosity expressed on all occasions from many of good knowledge in the excellent and wise profession of the common law, towards the church and churchmen. All opportunities were taken uncharitably to improve mistakes into crimes.

Unfortunately the king sent to the House of Lords a remonstrance from the bishops against their constrained absence from the legislature. This led to violent scenes in the House of Commons, which might have been beneficial to him, had he not been misadvised by Lord Digby. At this time many of his own Council were adverse to him. Injudiciously, the king caused Lord Kimbolton and five members of the Commons to be accused of high treason, advised thereto by Lord Digby. The king's attorney, Herbert, delivered to Parliament a paper, whereby, besides Lord Kimbolton, Denzil Hollis, Sir Arthur Haslerig, Mr. Pym, Mr. Hampden, and Mr. Strode, stood accused of conspiring against the king and Parliament.

The sergeant at arms demanded the persons of the accused members to be delivered to him in his majesty's name, but the Commons refused to comply, sending a message to the king that the members should be forthcoming as soon as a legal charge should be preferred against them. The next day the king, attended by his own guard and a few gentlemen, went into the House to the great amazement of all; and the Speaker leaving the chair, the king went into it. Asking the Speaker whether the accused members were in the House, and he making no answer, the king said he perceived that the birds had flown, but expected that they should be sent to him as soon as they returned; and assured them in the word of a king that no force was intended, but that he would proceed against them in a fair and legal way; and so he returned to Whitehall.

The next day the king went to the City, where the accused had taken refuge. He dined with the sheriffs, but many of the rude people during his passage through the City flocked together, pressed very near his coach, and cried out, "Privilege of Parliament; privilege of Parliament; to your tents, O Israel!" The king returned to Whitehall and next day published a proclamation for the apprehension of the members, forbidding any person to harbour them.

Both Houses of Parliament speedily manifested sympathy with the accused persons, and a committee of citizens was formed in the City for their defence. The proceedings of the king and his advisers were declared to be a high breach of the privileges of Parliament. Such was the temper of the populace that the king thought it convenient to remove from London and went with the queen and royal children to Hampton Court. The next day the members were brought in triumph to Parliament by the trained bands of London. The sheriffs were called into the House of Commons and thanked for their extraordinary care and love shown to the Parliament.

Though the king had removed himself out of the noise of Westminster, yet the effects of it followed him very close, for printed petitions were pressed on him every day. In a few days he removed from Hampton Court to Windsor, where he could be more secure from any sudden popular attempt, of which he had reason to be very apprehensive.

After many disagreements with Parliament the king in 1642 published a declaration, that had been long ready, in which he recapitulated all the insolent and rebellious actions which Parliament had committed against him: and declared them "to be guilty; and forbade all his subjects to yield any obedience to them": and at the same time published his proclamation; by which he "required all men who could bear arms to repair to him at Nottingham by August 25, on which day he would set up his royal standard there, which all good subjects were obliged to attend."

According to the proclamation, on August 25 the standard was erected, about six in the evening of a very stormy day. But there was not yet a single regiment levied and brought there, so that the trained bands drawn thither by the sheriff was all the strength the king had for his person, and the guard of the standard. There appeared no conflux of men in obedience to the proclamation. The arms and ammunition had not yet come from York, and a general sadness covered the whole town, and the king himself appeared more melancholy than he used to be. The standard was blown down the same night it had been set up.

Intelligence was received the next day that the rebel army, for such the king had declared it, was horse, foot, and cannon at Northampton, whereas his few cannon and ammunition were still at York. It was evident that all the strength he had to depend upon was his horse, which were under the command of Prince Rupert at Leicester, not more than 800 in number, whilst the enemy had, within less than twenty miles of that place, double the number of horse excellently well armed and appointed, and a body of 5,000 foot well trained and disciplined.

Very speedily intelligence came that Portsmouth was besieged by land and sea by the Parliamentary forces, and soon came word that it was lost to the king through the neglect of Colonel Goring. The king removed to Derby and then to Shrewsbury. Prince Rupert was successful in a skirmish at Worcester. The two universities presented their money and plate to King Charles, but one cause of his misfortunes was the backwardness of some of his friends in lending him money.

Banbury Castle surrendered to Charles, and, marching to Oxford, he there experienced a favourable reception and recruited his army. At the battle of Edghill neither side gained the advantage, though altogether about 5,000 men fell on the field. Negotiations were entered into between the king and the Parliament, and these were renewed again and again, but never with felicitous issues.

On June 13, 1645, the king heard that General Fairfax was advanced to Northampton with a strong army, much superior to the numbers he had formerly been advised of. The battle began at ten the next morning on a high ground about Naseby. The first charge was given by Prince Rupert, with his usual vigour, so that he bore down all before him, and was soon master of six pieces of cannon. But though the king's troops prevailed in the charge they never rallied again in order, nor could they be brought to make a second charge. But the enemy, disciplined under such generals as Fairfax and Cromwell, though routed at first, always formed again. This was why the king's forces failed to win a decisive victory at Edghill, and now at Naseby, after Prince Rupert's charge, Cromwell brought up his troops with such effect that in the end the king was compelled to quit the field, leaving Fairfax, who was commander-in-chief of the Parliamentary army, master of his foot, cannon, and baggage.

It will not be seasonable in this place to mention the names of those noble persons who were lost in this battle, when the king and the kingdom were lost in it; though there were above one hundred and fifty officers, and gentlemen of prime quality, whose memories ought to be preserved, who were dead on the spot. The enemy left no manner of barbarous cruelty unexercised that day; and in the pursuit thereof killed above one hundred women, whereof some were officers' wives of quality. The king and Prince Rupert with the broken troops marched by stages to Hereford, where Prince Rupert left the king to hasten to Bristol, that he might put that place in a state of defence.

Nothing can here be more wondered at than that the king should amuse himself about forming a new army in counties that had been vexed and worn out with the oppressions of his own troops, and not have immediately repaired into the west, where he had an army already formed. Cromwell having taken Winchester and Basing, the king sent some messages to Parliament for peace, which were not regarded. A treaty between the king and the Scots was set on foot by the interposition of the French, but the parties disagreed about church government. To his son Charles, Prince of Wales, who had retired to Scilly, the king wrote enjoining him never to surrender on dishonourable terms.

Having now no other resource, the king placed himself under the protection of the Scots army at Newark. But at the desire of the Scots he ordered the surrender of Oxford and all his other garrisons. Also the Parliament, at the Scots' request, sent propositions of peace to him, and these proposals were promptly enforced by the Scots. The Chancellor of Scotland told him that the Parliament, after the battles that had been fought, had got the strongholds and forts of the kingdom into their hands, that they had gained a victory over all, and had a strong army to maintain it, so that they might do what they would with church and state, that they desired neither him nor any of his race to reign any longer over them, and that if he declined to yield to the propositions made to him, all England would join against him to depose him.

With great magnanimity and resolution the king replied that they must proceed their own way; and that though they had all forsaken him, God had not. The Scots began to talk sturdily in answer to a demand that they should deliver up the king's person to Parliament. They denied that the Parliament had power absolutely to dispose of the king's person without their approbation; and the Parliament as loudly replied that they had nothing to do in England but to observe orders. But these discourses were only kept up till they could adjust accounts between them, and agree what price should be paid for the delivery of his person, whom one side was resolved to have, and the other as resolved not to keep. So they quickly agreed that, upon payment of L200,000 in hand, and security for as much more upon days agreed upon, they would deliver up the king into such hands as Parliament should appoint to receive him.

And upon this infamous contract that excellent prince was in the end of January, 1647, wickedly given up by his Scottish subjects to those of the English who were trusted by the Parliament to receive him. He was brought to his own house at Holmby, in Northants, a place he had taken much delight in. Removed before long to Hampton Court, he escaped to the Isle of Wight, where he confided himself to Colonel Hammond and was lodged in Carisbrooke Castle. To prevent his further escape his old servants were removed from him.

In a speech in Parliament Cromwell declared that the king was a man of great parts and a great understanding (faculties they had hitherto endeavoured to have thought him to be without), but that he was so great a dissembler and so false a man, that he was not to be trusted. He concluded therefore that no more messages should be sent to the king, but that they might enter on those counsels which were necessary without having further recourse to him, especially as at that very moment he was secretly treating with the Scottish commissioners, how he might embroil the nation in a new war, and destroy the Parliament. The king was removed to Hurst Castle after a vain attempt by Captain Burley to rescue him.

A committee being appointed to prepare a charge of high treason against the king, of which Bradshaw was made President, his majesty was brought from Hurst Castle to St. James's, and it was concluded to have him publicly tried. From the time of the king's arrival at St. James's, when he was delivered into the custody of Colonel Tomlinson, he was treated with much more rudeness and barbarity than ever before. No man was suffered to see or speak to him but the soldiers who were his guard.

When he was first brought to Westminster Hall, on January 20, 1649, before their high court of justice, he looked upon them and sat down without any manifestation of trouble, never stirring his hat; all the impudent judges sitting covered and fixing their eyes on him, without the least show of respect. To the charges read out against him the king replied that for his actions he was accountable to none but God, though they had always been such as he need not be ashamed of before all the world.

Several unheard-of insolences which this excellent prince was forced to submit to before that odious judicatory, his majestic behaviour, the pronouncing that horrible sentence upon the most innocent person in the world, the execution of that sentence by the most execrable murder ever committed since that of our blessed Saviour, and the circumstances thereof, are all so well-known that the farther mentioning it would but afflict and grieve the reader, and make the relation itself odious; and therefore no more shall be said here of that lamentable tragedy, so much to the dishonour of the nation and the religion professed by it.

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LORD MACAULAY

History of England

Thomas Babington Macaulay was born October 25, 1800, and died December 28, 1859. He was the son of Zachary Macaulay, a West Indian merchant and noted philanthropist. He brilliantly distinguished himself as a prizeman at Cambridge, and on leaving the University devoted himself enthusiastically to literary pursuits. Fame was speedily won by his contributions to the "Edinburgh Review," especially by his article on Milton. Though called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn, in 1826, Macaulay never practised, but through his strong Whig sympathies he was drawn into politics, and in 1830 entered Parliament for the pocket-borough of Calne. He afterwards was elected M.P. for Edinburgh. Appointed Secretary of the Board of Control for India, he resided for six years in that country, returning home in 1838. In 1840 he was made War Secretary. It was during his official career that he wrote his magnificent "Lays of Ancient Rome." An immense sensation was produced by his remarkable "Essays," issued in three volumes; but even greater was the popularity achieved by his "History of England." Macaulay was one of the most versatile men of his time. His easy and graceful style was the vehicle of extraordinary acquisitions, his learning being prodigious and his memory phenomenal.

England in Earlier Times

I purpose to write the History of England from the accession of King James II. down to a time within the memory of men still living. I shall recount the errors which, in a few months, alienated a loyal gentry and priesthood from the House of Stuart. I shall trace the course of that revolution which terminated the long struggle between our sovereigns and their parliaments, and bound up together the rights of the people and the title of the reigning dynasty.

Unless I greatly deceive myself, the general effect of this chequered narrative, faithfully recording disasters mingled with triumphs, will be to excite thankfulness in all religious minds, and hope in the breasts of all patriots. For the history of our country during the period concerned is eminently the history of physical, of moral, and of intellectual improvement.

Nothing in the early existence of Britain indicated the greatness she was destined to attain. Of the western provinces which obeyed the Caesars, she was the last conquered, and the first flung away. Though she had been subjugated by the Roman arms, she received only a faint tincture of Roman arts and letters. No magnificent remains of Roman porches and aqueducts are to be found in Britain, and the scanty and superficial civilisation which the islanders acquired from their southern masters was effaced by the calamities of the 5th century.

From the darkness that followed the ruin of the Western Empire Britain emerges as England. The conversion of the Saxon colonists to Christianity was the first of a long series of salutary revolutions. The Church has many times been compared to the ark of which we read in the Book of Genesis; but never was the resemblance more perfect than during that evil time when she rode alone, amidst darkness and tempest, on the deluge beneath which all the great works of ancient power and wisdom lay entombed, bearing within her that feeble germ from which a second and more glorious civilisation was to spring.

Even the spiritual supremacy of the Pope was, in the dark ages, productive of far more good than evil. Its effect was to unite the nations of Western Europe in one great commonwealth. Into this federation our Saxon ancestors were now admitted. Learning followed in the train of Christianity. The poetry and eloquence of the Augustan age was assiduously studied in the Mercian and Northumbrian monasteries. The names of Bede and Alcuin were justly celebrated throughout Europe. Such was the state of our country when, in the 9th century, began the last great migration of the northern barbarians.

Large colonies of Danish adventurers established themselves in our island, and for many years the struggle continued between the two fierce Teutonic breeds, each being alternately paramount. At length the North ceased to send forth fresh streams of piratical emigrants, and from that time the mutual aversion of Danes and Saxons began to subside. Intermarriage became frequent. The Danes learned the religion of the Saxons, and the two dialects of one widespread language were blended. But the distinction between the two nations was by no means effaced, when an event took place which prostrated both at the feet of a third people.

The Normans were then the foremost race of Christendom. Originally rovers from Scandinavia, conspicuous for their valour and ferocity, they had, after long being the terror of the Channel, founded a mighty state which gradually extended its influence from its own Norman territory over the neighbouring districts of Brittany and Maine. They embraced Christianity and adopted the French tongue. They renounced the brutal intemperance of northern races and became refined, polite and chivalrous, their nobles being distinguished by their graceful bearing and insinuating address.

The battle of Hastings, and the events which followed it, not only placed a Duke of Normandy on the English throne, but gave up the whole population of England to the tyranny of the Norman race. The subjugation of a nation has seldom, even in Asia, been more complete. During the century and a half which followed the Conquest, there is, to speak strictly, no English history. Had the Plantagenets, as at one time seemed likely, succeeded in uniting all France under their government, it is probable that England would never have had an independent existence. England owes her escape from dependence on French thought and customs to separation from Normandy, an event which her historians have generally represented as disastrous. The talents and even the virtues of her first six French kings were a curse to her. The follies and vices of the seventh, King John, were her salvation. He was driven from Normandy, and in England the two races were drawn together, both being alike aggrieved by the tyranny of a bad king. From that moment the prospects brightened, and here commences the history of the English nation.

In no country has the enmity of race been carried further than in England. In no country has that enmity been more completely effaced. Early in the fourteenth century the amalgamation of the races was all but complete: and it was soon made manifest that a people inferior to none existing in the world has been formed by the mixture of three branches of the great Teutonic family with each other, and with the aboriginal Britons. A period of more than a hundred years followed, during which the chief object of the English was, by force of arms, to establish a great empire on the Continent. The effect of the successes of Edward III. and Henry V. was to make France for a time a province of England. A French king was brought prisoner to London; an English king was crowned at Paris.

The arts of peace were not neglected by our fathers during that period. English thinkers aspired to know, or dared to doubt, where bigots had been content to wonder and to believe. The same age which produced the Black Prince and Derby, Chandos and Hawkwood, produced also Geoffrey Chaucer and John Wycliffe. In so splendid and imperial a manner did the English people, properly so called, first take place among the nations of the world. But the spirit of the French people was at last aroused, and after many desperate struggles and with many bitter regrets, our ancestors gave up the contest.

The First Civil War

Cooped up once more within the limits of the island, the warlike people employed in civil strife those arms which had been the terror of Europe. Two aristocratic factions, headed by two branches of the royal family, engaged in the long and fierce struggle known as the Wars of the White and Red Roses. It was at length universally acknowledged that the claims of all the contending Plantagenets were united in the House of Tudor.

It is now very long since the English people have by force subverted a government. During the 160 years which preceded the union of the Roses, nine kings reigned in England. Six of those kings were deposed. Five lost their lives as well as their crowns. Yet it is certain that all through that period the English people were far better governed than were the Belgians under Philip the Good, or the French under that Louis who was styled the Father of his people. The people, skilled in the use of arms, had in reserve that check of physical force which brought the proudest king to reason.

One wise policy was during the Middle Ages pursued by England alone. Though to the monarch belonged the power of the sword, the nation retained the power of the purse. The Continental nations ought to have acted likewise; as they failed to conserve this safeguard of representation with taxation, the consequence was that everywhere excepting in England parliamentary institutions ceased to exist. England owed this singular felicity to her insular situation.

The great events of the reigns of the Tudors and the Stuarts were followed by a crisis when the crown passed from Charles II. to his brother, James II. The new king commenced his administration with a large measure of public good will. He was a prince who had been driven into exile by a faction which had tried to rob him of his birthright, on the ground that he was a deadly enemy to the religion and laws of England. He had triumphed, he was on the throne, and his first act was to declare that he would defend the Church and respect the rights of the people.

But James had not been many hours king when violent disputes arose. The first was between the two heads of the law, concerning customs and the levying of taxes. Moreover, the time drew near for summoning Parliament, and the king's mind was haunted by an apprehension, not to be mentioned, even at this distance of time, without shame and indignation. He was afraid that by summoning his Parliament he might incur the displeasure of the King of France. Rochester, Godolphin, and Sunderland, who formed the interior Cabinet, were perfectly aware that their late master, Charles II., had been in the habit of receiving money from the court of Versailles. They understood the expediency of keeping Louis in good humour, but knew that the summoning of the legislature was not a matter of choice.

As soon as the French king heard of the death of Charles and of the accession of James, he hastened to send to the latter a munificent donation of L35,000. James was not ashamed to shed tears of delight and gratitude. Young Lord Churchill was sent as extraordinary ambassador to Versailles to assure Louis of the gratitude and affection of the King of England. This brilliant young soldier had in his 23rd year distinguished himself amongst thousands of brave men by his serene intrepidity when engaged with his regiment in operations, together with French forces against Holland. Unhappily, the splendid qualities of John Churchill were mingled with alloy of the most sordid kind.

Subservience to France

The accession of James in 1685 had excited hopes and fears in every Continental court. One government alone, that of Spain, wished that the trouble that had distracted England for three generations, might be eternal. All other governments, whether republican or monarchical, Protestant or Romanist, wished to see those troubles happily terminated. Under the kings of the House of Stuart, she had been a blank in the map of Europe. That species of force which, in the 14th century, had enabled her to humble France and Spain, had ceased to exist. The Government was no longer a limited monarchy after the fashion of the Middle Ages; it had not yet become one after the modern fashion. The chief business of the sovereign was to infringe the privileges of the legislature; that of the legislature was to encroach on the prerogatives of the sovereign.

The king readily received foreign aid, which relieved him from the misery of being dependent on a mutinous Parliament. The Parliament refused to the king the means of supporting the national honour abroad, from an apprehension, too well founded, that those means might be employed in order to establish despotism at home. The effect of these jealousies was that our country, with all her vast resources, was of as little weight in Christendom as the duchy of Savoy or the duchy of Lorraine, and certainly of far less weight than the small province of Holland. France was deeply interested in prolonging this state of things. All other powers were deeply interested in bringing it to a close. The general wish of Europe was that James should govern in conformity with law and with public opinion. From the Escurial itself came letters expressing an earnest hope that the new King of England would be on good terms with his Parliament and his people. From the Vatican itself came cautions against immoderate zeal for the Catholic faith.

The king early put the loyalty of his Protestant friends to the proof. While he was a subject he had been in the habit of hearing mass with closed doors in a small oratory which had been fitted up for his wife. He now ordered the doors to be thrown open, in order that all who came to pay him their duty might see the ceremony. Soon a new pulpit was erected in the palace, and during Lent sermons were preached there by Popish divines, to the great displeasure of zealous churchmen.

A more serious innovation followed. Passion week came, and the king determined to hear mass with the same pomp with which his predecessors had been surrounded. The rites of the Church of Rome were once more, after an interval of 127 years, performed at Westminster on Easter Sunday with regal splendour.

Monmouth and his Fate

The English exiles in Holland induced the Duke of Monmouth, a natural son of Charles II., to attempt an invasion of England, and on June 11, 1685, he landed with about 80 men at Lyme, where he knelt on the shore, thanked God for having preserved the friends of liberty and pure religion from the perils of the sea, and implored the divine blessing on what was yet to be done by land. The little town was soon in an uproar with men running to and fro, and shouting "A Monmouth! a Monmouth! the Protestant religion!" An insurrection was inaugurated and recruits came in rapidly. But Parliament was loyal, and the Commons ordered a bill of attainder against Monmouth for high treason. The rebel army was defeated in a fight at Sedgmore, and Monmouth in his misery complained bitterly of the evil counsellors who had induced him to quit his happy retreat in Brabant. Fleeing from the field of battle the unfortunate duke was found hidden in a ditch, was taken to London, lodged in the Tower, and beheaded, with the declaration on his lips, "I die a Protestant of the Church of England."

After the execution of Monmouth the counties that had risen against the Government endured all the cruelties that a ferocious soldiery let loose on them could inflict. The number of victims butchered cannot now be ascertained, the vengeance being left to the dissolute Colonel Percy Kirke. But, a still more cruel massacre was schemed. Early in September Judge Jeffreys set out on that circuit of which the memory will last as long as our race or language. Opening his commission at Winchester, he ordered Alice Lisle to be burnt alive simply because she had given a meal and a hiding place to wretched fugitives entreating her protection. The clergy of Winchester remonstrated with the brutal judge, but the utmost that could be obtained was that the sentence should be commuted from burning to beheading.

The Brutal Judge

Then began the judicial massacre known as the Bloody Assizes. Within a few weeks Jeffreys boasted that he had hanged more traitors than all his predecessors together since the Conquest. Nearly a thousand prisoners were also transported into slavery in the West Indian islands. No English sovereign has ever given stronger proofs of a cruel nature than James II. At his court Jeffreys, when he had done his work, leaving carnage, mourning, and terror behind him, was cordially welcomed, for he was a judge after his master's own heart. James had watched the circuit with interest and delight. At a later period, when all men of all parties spoke with horror of the Bloody Assizes, the wicked judge and the wicked king attempted to vindicate themselves by throwing the blame on each other.

The king soon went further. He made no secret of his intention to exert vigorously and systematically for the destruction of the Established Church all the powers he possessed as her head. He plainly declared that by a wise dispensation of Providence, the Act of Supremacy would be the means of healing the fatal breach which it had caused. Henry and Elizabeth had usurped a dominion which rightfully belonged to the Holy See. That dominion had, in the course of succession, descended to an orthodox prince, and would by him be held in trust for the Holy See. He was authorised by law to suppress spiritual abuses; and the first spiritual abuse which he would suppress would be the liberty which the Anglican clergy assumed of defending their own religion, and of attacking the doctrines of Rome.

No course was too bold for James. To confer a high office in the Established Church on an avowed enemy of that Church was indeed a bold violation of the laws and of the royal word. The Deanery of Christchurch became vacant. It was the head of a Cathedral. John Massey, notoriously a member of the Church of Rome, and destitute of any other recommendation, was appointed. Soon an altar was decked at which mass was daily celebrated. To the Pope's Nuncio the king said that what had thus been done at Oxford should very soon be done at Cambridge.

The temper of the nation was such as might well make James hesitate. During some months discontent steadily and rapidly rose. The celebration of Roman Catholic worship had long been prohibited by Act of Parliament. During several generations no Roman Catholic clergyman had dared to exhibit himself in any public place with the badges of his office. Every Jesuit who set foot in this country was liable to be hanged, drawn, and quartered.

But all disguise was now thrown off. Roman Catholic chapels arose all over the land. A society of Benedictine monks was lodged in St. James's Palace. Quarrels broke out between Protestant and Romanist soldiers. Samuel Johnson, a clergyman of the Church of England, who had issued a tract entitled "A humble and hearty Appeal to all English Protestants in the Army," was flung into gaol. He was then flogged and degraded from the priesthood. But the zeal of the Anglican clergy displayed. They were Jed by a united Phalanx, in the van of which appeared a rank of steady and skillful veterans, Tillotson, Stillingfleet, Prideaux, Patrick, Tenison, Wake. Great numbers of controversial tracts against Popery were issued by these divines.

Scotland also rose in anger against the designs of the king, and if he had not been proof against all warning the excitement in that country would have sufficed to admonish him. On March 18, 1687, he took a momentous step. He informed the Privy Council that he had determined to prorogue Parliament till the end of November, and to grant, by his own authority, entire liberty of conscience to all his subjects. On April 4th appeared the memorable Declaration of Indulgence. In this document the king avowed that it was his earnest wish to see his people members of that Church to which he himself belonged. But since that could not be, he announced his intention to protect them in the free exercise of their religion. He authorised both Roman Catholics and Protestant Dissenters to perform their worship publicly.

That the Declaration was unconstitutional is universally agreed, for a monarch competent to issue such a document is nothing less than an absolute ruler. This was, in point of fact, the most audacious of all attacks of the Stuarts on public freedom. The Anglican party was in amazement and terror, for it would now be exposed to the free attacks of its enemies on every side. And though Dissenters appeared to be allowed relief, what guarantee was there for the sincerity of the Court? It was notorious that James had been completely subjugated by the Jesuits, for only a few days before the publication of the Indulgence, that Order had been honoured with a new mark of his confidence, by appointing as his confessor an Englishman named Warner, a Jesuit renegade from the Anglican Church.

Petition of the Seven Bishops and their Trial

A meeting of bishops and other eminent divines was held at Lambeth Palace. The general feeling was that the king's Declaration ought not to be read in the churches. After long deliberation, preceded by solemn prayer, a petition embodying the general sense, was written by the Archbishop with his own hand. The king was assured that the Church still was, as she had ever been, faithful to the throne. But the Declaration was illegal, for Parliament had pronounced that the sovereign was not constitutionally competent to dispense with statutes in matters ecclesiastical. The Archbishop and six of his suffragans signed the petition. The six bishops crossed the river to Whitehall, but the Archbishop, who had long been forbidden the Court, did not accompany them. James directed that the bishops should be admitted to the royal presence, and they found him in very good humour, for he had heard from his tool Cartwright that they were disposed to obey the mandate, but wished to secure some little modifications in form.

After reading the petition the king's countenance grew dark and he exclaimed, "This is the standard of rebellion." In vain did the prelates emphasise their protests of loyalty. The king persisted in characterising their action as being rebellious. The bishops respectfully retired, and that evening the petition appeared in print, was laid out in the coffeehouses and was cried about the streets. Everywhere people rose from their beds, and came out to stop the hawkers, and the sale was so enormous that it was said the printer cleared a thousand pounds in a few hours by this penny broadside.

The London clergy disobeyed the royal order, for the Declaration was read in only four churches in the city, where there were about a hundred. For a short time the king stood aghast at the violence of the tempest he had raised, but Jeffreys maintained that the government would be disgraced if such transgressors as the seven bishops were suffered to escape with a mere reprimand. They were notified that they must appear before the king in Council. On June 8 they were examined by the Privy Council, the result being their committal to the Tower. From all parts of the country came the report that other prelates had signed similar petitions and that very few of the clergy throughout the land had obeyed the king. The public excitement in London was intense. While the bishops were before the Council a great multitude filled the region all round Whitehall, and when the Seven came forth under a guard, thousands fell on their knees and prayed aloud for the men who had confronted a tyrant inflamed with the bigotry of Mary.

The king learned with indignation that the soldiers were drinking the health of the prelates, and his officers told him that this could not be prevented. Before the day of trial the agitation spread to the furthest corners of the island. Scotland sent letters assuring the bishops of the sympathy of the Presbyterians, hostile though they were to prelacy. The people of Cornwall were greatly moved by the danger of Bishop Trelawney, and the peasants chanted a ballad of which the burden is still remembered:

"And shall Trelawney die, and shall Trelawney die? Then thirty thousand Cornish boys will know the reason why."

The miners from their caverns re-echoed the song with a variation:

"Then twenty thousand underground will know the reason why."

The bishops were charged with having published a false, malicious, and seditious libel. But the case for the prosecution speedily broke down in the hands of the crown lawyers. They were vehemently hissed by the audience. The jury gave the verdict of "Not Guilty." As the news spread all London broke out into acclamation. The bishops were greeted with cries of "God bless you; you have saved us all to-day." The king was greatly disturbed at the news of the acquittal, and exclaimed in French, "So much the worse for them." He was at that moment in the camp at Hounslow, where he had been reviewing the troops. Hearing a great shout behind him, he asked what the uproar meant. "Nothing," was the answer; "the soldiers are glad that the bishops are acquitted." "Do you call that nothing?" exclaimed the king. And then he repeated, "So much the worse for them." He might well be out of temper. His defeat had been complete and most humiliating.

The Prince of Orange

In May, 1688, while it was still uncertain whether the Declaration would or would not be read in the churches, Edward Russell had repaired to the Hague, where he strongly represented to the Prince of Orange, husband of Mary, eldest daughter of Charles I., the state of the public mind, and had advised His Highness to appear in England with a strong body of troops, and to call the people to arms. William had seen at a glance the whole importance of the crisis. "Now or never," he exclaimed in Latin. He quickly received numerous assurances of support from England. Preparations were rapidly made, and on November I, 1688, he set sail with his fleet, and landed at Torbay on November 4. Resistance was impossible. The troops of James's army quietly deserted wholesale, many joining the Dutch camp at Honiton. First the West of England, and then the North, revolted against James. Evil news poured in upon him. When he heard that Churchill and Grafton had forsaken him, he exclaimed, "Est-il possible?" On December 8 the king fled from London secretly. His home in exile was at Saint Germains.

William and Mary were proclaimed King and Queen of the United Kingdom, and thus was consummated the English Revolution. It was of all revolutions the least violent and yet the most beneficent.

After the Great Revolution

The Revolution had been accomplished. The rejoicings throughout the land were enthusiastic. Still more cordial was the rejoicing among the Dutch when they learned that the first minister of their Commonwealth had been raised to a throne. James had, during the last year of his reign, been even more hated in England by the Tories than by the Whigs; and not without cause; for to the Whigs he was only an enemy; and to the Tories he had been a faithless and thankless friend.

One misfortune of the new king, which some reactionaries imputed to him as a crime, was his bad English. He spoke our language, but not well. Our literature he was incapable of enjoying or understanding. He never once appeared in the theatre. The poets who wrote Pindaric verse in his praise complained that their flights of sublimity were beyond his comprehension. But his wife did her best to supply what was wanting. She was excellently qualified to be the head of the Court. She was English by birth and also in her tastes and feelings. The stainless purity of her private life and the attention she paid to her religious duties discourages scandal as well as vice.

The year 1689 is not less important in the ecclesiastical than in the civil history of England, for in that year was granted the first legal indulgence to Dissenters. And then also the two chief sections within the Anglican communion began to be called the High Church and Low Church parties. The Low Churchmen stood between the nonconformists and the rigid conformists. The famous Toleration Bill passed both Houses with little debate. It approaches very near the ideal of a great English law, the sound principle of which undoubtedly is that mere theological error ought not to be punished by the civil magistrate.

The War in Ireland

The discontent of the Roman Catholic Irishry with the Revolution was intense. It grew so manifestly, that James, assured that his cause was prospering in Ireland, landed on March 12, 1689, at Kinsale. On March 24 he entered Dublin. This event created sorrow and alarm in England. An Irish army, raised by the Catholics, entered Ulster and laid siege to Londonderry, into which city two English regiments had been thrown by sea. The heroic defence of Londonderry is one of the most thrilling episodes in the history of Ireland. The siege was turned into a blockade by the construction of a boom across the harbour by the besiegers. The citizens endured frightful hunger, for famine was extreme within the walls, but they never quailed. The garrison was reduced from 7,000 to 3,000. The siege, which lasted 105 days, and was the most memorable in the annals of the British Isles, was ended by the breaking of the boom by a squadron of three ships from England which brought reinforcements and provisions.

The Irish army retreated and the next event, a very decisive one, was the defeat at the Battle of the Boyne, where William and James commanded their respective forces. The war ended with the capitulation of Limerick, and the French soldiers, who had formed a great part of James's army, left for France.

The Battle of La Hogue

The year 1692 was marked by momentous events issuing from a scheme, in some respects well concerted, for the invasion of England by a French force, with the object of the restoration of James. A noble fleet of about 80 ships of the line was to convey this force to the shores of England, and in the French dockyards immense preparations were made. James had persuaded himself that, even if the English fleet should fall in with him, it would not oppose him. Indeed, he was too ready to believe anything written to him by his English correspondents.

No mightier armament had ever appeared in the English Channel than the fleet of allied British and Dutch ships, under the command of Admiral Russell. On May 19 it encountered the French fleet under the Count of Tourville, and a running fight took place which lasted during five fearful days, ending in the complete destruction of the French force off La Hogue. The news of this great victory was received in England with boundless joy. One of its happiest effects was the effectual calming of the public mind.

Creation of the Bank of England

In this reign, in 1694, was established the Bank of England. It was the result of a great change that had developed in a few years, for old men in William's reign could remember the days when there was not a single banking house in London. Goldsmiths had strong vaults in which masses of bullion could lie secure from fire and robbers, and at their shops in Lombard Street all payments in coin were made. William Paterson, an ingenious speculator, submitted to the government a plan for a national bank, which after long debate passed both Houses of Parliament.

In 1694 the king and the nation mourned the death from small-pox, a disease always working havoc, of Queen Mary. During her illness William remained day and night at her bedside. The Dutch Envoy wrote that the sight of his misery was enough to melt the hardest heart. When all hope was over, he said to Bishop Burnet, "There is no hope. I was the happiest man on earth; and I am the most miserable. She had no faults; none; you knew her well; but you could not know, none but myself could know, her goodness." The funeral was remembered as the saddest and most august that Westminister had ever seen. While the queen's remains lay in state at Whitehall, the neighbouring streets were filled every day, from sunrise to sunset, by crowds that made all traffic impossible. The two Houses with their maces followed the hearse, the Lords robed in scarlet and ermine, the Commons in long black mantles. No preceding sovereign had ever been attended to the grave by a Parliament: for till then the Parliament had always expired with the sovereign. The gentle queen sleeps among her illustrious kindred in the southern aisle of the Chapel of Henry the Seventh.

The affection of her husband was soon attested by a monument the most superb that was ever erected to any sovereign. No scheme had been so much her own, and none so dear to her heart, as that of converting the palace at Greenwich into a retreat for seamen. As soon as he had lost her, her husband began to reproach himself for neglecting her wishes. No time was lost. A plan was furnished by Wren; and soon an edifice, surpassing that asylum which the magnificent Louis had provided for his soldiers, rose on the margin of the Thames. The inscription on the frieze ascribes praise to Mary alone. Few who now gaze on the noble double edifice, crowned by twin domes, are aware that it is a memorial of the virtues of the good Queen Mary, of the love and sorrow of William, and of the greater victory of La Hogue.

On the Continent the death of Mary excited various emotions. The Huguenots, in every part of Europe to which they had wandered, bewailed the Elect Lady, who had retrenched her own royal state in order to furnish bread and shelter to the persecuted people of God. But the hopes of James and his companions in exile were now higher than they had been since the day of La Hogue. Indeed, the general opinion of politicians, both here and on the Continent, was that William would find it impossible to sustain himself much longer on the throne. He would not, it was said, have sustained himself so long but for the help of his wife, whose affability had conciliated many that were disgusted by his Dutch accent and habits. But all the statesmen of Europe were deceived: and, strange to say, his reign was decidedly more prosperous after the decease of Mary than during her life.

During the month which followed her death the king was incapable of exertion. His first letter was that of a brokenhearted man. Even his martial ardour had been tamed by misery. "I tell you in confidence," he wrote to Heincius, "that I feel myself to be no longer fit for military command. Yet I will try to do my duty: and I hope that God will strengthen me." So despondingly did he look forward to the most brilliant and successful of his many campaigns.

All Europe was looking anxiously towards the Low Countries. A great French army, commanded by Villeroy, was collected in Flanders. William crossed to the Continent to take command of the Dutch and British troops, who mustered at Ghent. The Elector of Bavaria, at the head of a great force, lay near Brussels. William had set his heart on capturing Namur. After a siege hard pressed, that fortress, esteemed the strongest in Europe, splendidly fortified by Vauban, surrendered to the allies on August 26, 1695.

The Treaty of Ryswick

The war was ended by the signing of the treaty of Ryswick by the ambassadors of France, England, Spain, and the United Provinces on September 10, 1697. King William was received in London with great popular rejoicing. The second of December was appointed a day of thanksgiving for peace, and the Chapter of St. Paul's resolved that on that day their new Cathedral, which had long been slowly rising on the ruins of a succession of pagan and Christian temples, should be opened for public worship. There was indeed reason for joy and thankfulness. England had passed through severe trials, and had come forth renewed in health and vigour.

Ten years before it had seemed that both her liberty and her independence were no more. Her liberty she had vindicated by a just and necessary revolution. Her independence she had reconquered by a not less just and necessary war. All dangers were over. There was peace abroad and at home. The kingdom, after many years of ignominious vassalage, had resumed its ancient place in the first rank of European powers. Many signs justified the hope that the Revolution of 1688 would be our last Revolution. Public credit had been re-established; trade had revived; the Exchequer was overflowing; and there was a sense of relief everywhere, from the Royal Exchange to the most secluded hamlets among the mountains of Wales and the fens of Lincolnshire.

Early in 1702 alarming reports were rife concerning William's state of health. Headaches and shivering fits returned on him almost daily, and it soon became evident that the great king's days were numbered. On February 20 William was ambling on a favourite horse, named Sorrel, through the park of Hampton Court. The horse stumbling on a mole-hill went down on his knees. The king fell off and broke his collar-bone. The bone was set, and to a young and vigorous man such an accident would have been a trifle. But the frame of William was not in a condition to bear even the slightest shock. He felt that his time was short, and grieved, with such a grief as only noble spirits feel, to think that he must leave his work but half finished. On March 4 he was attacked by fever, and he was soon sinking fast. He was under no delusion as to his danger. "I am fast drawing to my end," said he. His end was worthy of his life. His intellect was not for a moment clouded. His fortitude was the more admirable because he was not willing to die. From the words which escaped him he seemed to be frequently engaged in mental prayer. The end came between seven and eight in the morning. When his remains were laid out, it was found that he wore next to his skin a small piece of black silk riband. The lords in waiting ordered it to be taken off. It contained a gold ring and a lock of the hair of Mary.

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HENRY BUCKLE

History of Civilisation in England

Henry Thomas Buckle was born at Lee, in Kent, England, Nov. 24, 1821. Delicate health prevented him from following the ordinary school course. His father's death in 1840 left him independent, and the boy who was brought up in Toryism and Calvinism, became a philosophic radical and free-thinker. He travelled, he read, he acquired facility in nineteen languages and fluency in seven. Gradually he conceived the idea of a great work which should place history on an entirely new footing; it should concern itself not with the unimportant and the personal, but with the advance of civilisation, the intellectual progress of man. As the idea developed, he perceived that the task was greater than could be accomplished in the lifetime of one man. What he actually accomplished—the volumes which bear the title "The History of Civilisation in England"—was intended to be no more than an introduction to the subject; and even that introduction, which was meant to cover, on a corresponding scale, the civilisation of several other countries, was never finished. The first volume was published in 1857, the second in 1861; only the studies of England, France, Spain, and Scotland were completed. Buckle died at Damascus, on May 29, 1862.

I.—-General Principles

The believer in the possibility of a science of history is not called upon to hold either the doctrine of predestination or that of freedom of the will. The only positions which at the outset need to be conceded are that when we perform an action we perform it in consequence of some motive or motives; that those motives are the result of some antecedents; and that, therefore, if we were acquainted with the whole of the precedents and with all the laws of their movements we could with unerring certainty predict the whole of their immediate results.

History is the modification of man by nature and of nature by man. We shall find a regularity in the variations of virtuous and vicious actions that proves them to be the result of large and general causes which, working upon the aggregate of society, must produce certain consequences without regard to the decision of particular individuals.

Man is affected by purely physical agents—climate, food, soil, geographical conditions, and active physical phenomena. In the earliest civilisations nature is more prominent than man, and the imagination is more stimulated than the understanding. In the European civilisations man is the more prominent, and the understanding is more stimulated than the imagination. Hence the advance of European civilisation is characterised by a diminishing influence of physical laws and an increasing influence of mental laws. Clearly, then, of the two classes of laws which regulate the progress of mankind the mental class is more important than the physical. The laws of the human mind will prove to be the ultimate basis of the history of Europe. These are not to be ascertained by the metaphysical method of studying the inquirer's own mind alone, but by the historical method of studying many minds. And this whether the metaphysician belongs to the school which starts by examining the sensations, or to that which starts with the examination of ideas.

Dismissing the metaphysical method, therefore, we must turn to the historical, and study mental phenomena as they appear in the actions of mankind at large. Mental progress is twofold, moral and intellectual, the first having relation to our duties, the second to our knowledge. It is a progress not of capacity, but in the circumstances under which capacity comes into play; not of internal power, but of external advantage. Now, whereas moral truths do not change, intellectual truths are constantly changing, from which we may infer that the progress of society is due, not to the moral knowledge, which is stationary, but to the intellectual knowledge, which is constantly advancing.

The history of any people will become more valuable for ascertaining the laws by which past events were governed in proportion as their movements have been least disturbed by external agencies. During the last three centuries these conditions have applied to England more than to any other country; since the action of the people has there been the least restricted by government, and has been allowed the greatest freedom of play. Government intervention is habitually restrictive, and the best legislation has been that which abrogated former restrictive legislation.

Government, religion, and literature are not the causes of civilisation, but its effects. The higher religion enters only where the mind is intellectually prepared for its acceptance; elsewhere the forms may be adopted, but not the essence, as mediaeval Christianity was merely an adapted paganism. Similarly, a religion imposed by authority is accepted in its form, but not necessarily in its essence.

In the same way literature is valuable to a country in proportion as the population is capable of criticising and discriminating; that is, as it is intellectually prepared to select and sift the good from the bad.

II.—-Civilisation in England

It was the revival of the critical or sceptical spirit which remedied the three fundamental errors of the olden time. Where the spirit of doubt was quenched civilisation continued to be stationary. Where it was allowed comparatively free play, as in England and France, there has arisen that constantly progressive knowledge to which these two great nations owe their prosperity.

In England its primary and most important consequence is the growth of religious toleration. From the time of Elizabeth it became impossible to profess religion as the avowed warrant for persecution. Hooker, at the end of her reign, rests the argument of his "Ecclesiastical Polit" on reason; and this is still more decisively the case with Chillingworth's "Religion of Protestants" not fifty years later. The double movement of scepticism had overthrown its controlling authority.

In precisely the same way Boyle—perhaps the greatest of our men of science between Bacon and Newton—perpetually insists on the importance of individual experiments and the comparative unimportance of what we have received from antiquity.

The clergy had lost ground; their temporary alliance with James II. was ended by the Declaration of Indulgence. But they were half-hearted in their support of the Revolution, and scepticism received a fresh encouragement from the hostility between them and the new government; and the brief rally under Queen Anne was overwhelmed by the rise of Wesleyanism. Theology was finally severed from the department both of ethics and of government.

The eighteenth century is characterised by a craving after knowledge on the part of those classes from whom knowledge had hitherto been shut out. With the demand for knowledge came an increased simplicity in the literary form under which it was diffused. With the spirit of inquiry the desire for reform constantly increased, but the movement was checked by a series of political combinations which demand some attention.

The accession of George III. changed the conditions which had persisted since the accession of George I. The new king was able to head reaction. The only minister of ability he admitted to his counsels was Pitt, and Pitt retained power only by abandoning his principles. Nevertheless, a counter-reaction was created, to which England owes her great reforms of the nineteenth century.

III.—Development of France

In France at the time of the Reformation the clergy were far more powerful than in England, and the theological contest was much more severe. Toleration began with Henry IV. at the moment when Montaigne appeared as the prophet of scepticism. The death of King Henry was not followed by the reaction which might have been expected, and the rule of Richelieu was emphatically political in its motives and secular in its effects. It is curious to see that the Protestants were the illiberal party, while the cardinal remained resolutely liberal.

The difference between the development in France and England is due primarily to the recognition in England of the fact that no country can long remain prosperous or safe in which the people are not gradually extending their power, enlarging their privileges, and, so to say, incorporating themselves with the functions of the state. France, on the other hand, suffered far more from the spirit of protection, which is so dangerous, and yet so plausible, that it forms the most serious obstacle with which advancing civilisation has to contend.

The great rebellion in England was a war of classes as well as of factions; on the one side the yeomanry and traders, on the other the nobles and the clergy. The corresponding war of the Fronde in France was not a class war at all; it was purely political, and in no way social. At bottom the English rebellion was democratic; the leaders of the Fronde were aristocrats, without any democratic leanings.

Thus in France the protective spirit maintained its ascendancy intensified. Literature and science, allied to and patronised by government, suffered demoralisation, and the age of Louis XIV. was one of intellectual decay. After the death of Louis XIV. the French discovered England and English literature. Our island, regarded hitherto as barbarous, was visited by nearly every Frenchman of note for the two succeeding generations. Voltaire, in particular, assimilated and disseminated English doctrines.

The consequent development of the liberal spirit brought literature into collision with the government. Inquiry was opposed to the interests of both nobles and clergy. Nearly every great man of letters in France was a victim of persecution. It might be said that the government deliberately made a personal enemy of every man of intellect in the country. We can only wonder, not that the revolution came, but that it was still so long delayed; but ingrained prejudices prevented the crown from being the first object of attack. The hostility of the men of letters was directed first against the Church and Christianity. Religious scepticism and political emancipation did not advance hand in hand; much that was worst in the actual revolution was due to the fact that the latter lagged behind.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries some progress had been made in the principles of writing history. Like everything else, history suffered from the rule of Louis XIV. Again the advance was inaugurated by Voltaire. His principle is to concentrate on important movements, not on idle details. This was not characteristic of the individual author only, but of the spirit of the age. It is equally present in the works of Montesquieu and Turgot. The defects of Montesquieu are chiefly due to the fact that his materials were intractable, because science had not yet reduced them to order by generalising the laws of their phenomena. In the second half of the eighteenth century the intellectual movement began to be turned directly against the state. Economical and financial inquiries began to absorb popular attention. Rousseau headed the political movement, whereas the government in its financial straits turned against the clergy, whose position was already undermined, and against whom Voltaire continued to direct his batteries.

The suppression of the Jesuits meant a revival of Jansenism. Jansenism is Calvinistic, and Calvinism is democratic; but the real concentration of French minds was on material questions. The foundations of religious beliefs had been undermined, and hence arose the painful prevalence of atheism. The period was one of progress in the study of material laws in every field. The national intellect had taken a new bent, and it was one which tended to violent social revolt. The hall of science is the temple of democracy. It was in these conditions that the eyes of Frenchmen were turned to the glorious revolt in the cause of liberty of the American people. The spark was set to an inflammatory mass, and ignited a flame which never ceased its ravages until it had destroyed all that Frenchmen once held dear.

IV.—-Reaction in Spain

I have laid down four propositions which I have endeavoured to establish—that progress depends on a successful investigation of the laws of phenomena; that a spirit of scepticism is a condition of such investigation; that the influence of intellectual truths increases thereby relatively to that of moral truths; and that the great enemy of his progress is the protective spirit. We shall find these propositions verified in the history of Spain.

Physically, Spain most closely resembles those non-European countries where the influence of nature is more prominent than that of man, and whose civilisations are consequently influenced more by the imagination than by the understanding. In Spain, superstition is encouraged by the violent energies of nature. After the fall of the Roman Empire, Spain was first engaged in a long struggle on behalf of the Arianism of the Goths against the orthodoxy of the Franks. This was followed by centuries of struggle between the Christian Spaniard and the Mohammedan Moors. After the conquest of Granada, the King of Spain and Emperor, Charles V., posed primarily as the champion of religion and the enemy of heresy. His son Philip summarised his policy in the phrase that "it is better not to reign at all than to reign over heretics."

Loyalty was supported by superstition; each strengthened the other. Great foreign conquests were made, and a great military reputation was developed. But the people counted for nothing. The crown, the aristocracy, and the clergy were supreme—the last more so than ever in the seventeenth century. At the beginning of the eighteenth century the Bourbon replaced the Hapsburg dynasty. The Bourbons sought to improve the country by weakening the Church, but failed to raise the people, who had become intellectually paralysed. The greatest efforts at improvement were made by Charles III.; but Charles IV., unlike his predecessors, who had been practically foreigners, was a true Spaniard. The inevitable reaction set in.

In the nineteenth century individuals have striven for political reform, but they have been unable to make head against those general causes which have predetermined the country to superstition. Great as are the virtues for which the Spaniards have long been celebrated, those noble qualities are useless while ignorance is so gross and so general.

V.—The Paradox of Scottish History

In most respects Scotland affords a complete contrast to Spain, but in regard to superstition, there is a striking similarity. Both nations have allowed their clergy to exercise immense sway; in both intolerance has been, and still is, a crying evil; and a bigotry is habitually displayed which is still more discreditable to Scotland than to Spain. It is the paradox of Scotch history that the people are liberal in politics and illiberal in religion.

The early history of Scotland is one of perpetual invasions down to the end of the fourteenth century. This had the double effect of strengthening the nobles while it weakened the citizens, and increasing the influence of the clergy while weakening that of the intellectual classes. The crown, completely overshadowed by the nobility, was forced to alliance with the Church. The fifteenth century is a record of the struggles of the crown supported by the clergy against the nobility, whose power, however, they failed to break. At last, in the reign of James V., the crown and Church gained the ascendancy. The antagonism of the nobles to the Church was intensified, and consequently the nobles identified themselves with the Reformation.

The struggle continued during the regency which followed the death of James; but within twenty years the nobles had triumphed and the Church was destroyed. There was an immediate rupture between the nobility and the new clergy, who united themselves with the people and became the advocates of democracy. The crown and the nobles were now united in maintaining episcopacy, which became the special object of attack from the new clergy, who, despite the extravagance of their behaviour, became the great instruments in keeping alive and fostering the spirit of liberty.

When James VI. became also James I. of England, he used his new power to enforce episcopacy. Charles I. continued his policy; but the reaction was gathering strength, and became open revolt in 1637. The democratic movement became directly political. When the great civil war followed, the Scots sold the king, who had surrendered to them, to the English, who executed him. They acknowledged his son, Charles II., but not till he had accepted the Covenant on ignominious terms.

At the restoration Charles II. was able to renew the oppressive policy of his father and grandfather. The restored bishops supported the crown; the people and the popular clergy were mercilessly persecuted. Matters became even worse under James II., but the revolution of 1688 ended the oppression. The exiled house found support in the Highlands not out of loyalty, but from the Highland preference for anarchy; and after 1745 the Highlanders themselves were powerless. The trading spirit rose and flourished, and the barbaric hereditary jurisdictions were abolished. This last measure marked but did not cause the decadence of the power of the nobility. This had been brought about primarily by the union with England in 1707. In the legislature of Great Britain the Scotch peers were a negligible and despised factor. The coup de grace was given by the rebellion of 1745. The law referred to expressed an already accomplished fact.

The union also encouraged the development of the mercantile and manufacturing classes, which, in turn, strengthened the democratic movement. Meanwhile, a great literature was also arising, bold and inquiring. Nevertheless, it failed to diminish the national superstition.

This illiberality in religion was caused in the first place by the power of the clergy. Religion was the essential feature of the Scotch war against Charles I. Theological interests dominated the secular because the clergy were the champions of the political movement. Hence, in the seventeenth century, the clergy were enabled to extend and consolidate their own authority, partly by means of that great engine of tyranny, the kirk sessions, partly through the credulity which accepted their claims to miraculous interpositions in their favour. To increase their own ascendancy, the clergy advanced monstrous doctrines concerning evil spirits and punishments in the next life; painted the Deity as cruel and jealous; discovered sinfulness hateful to God in the most harmless acts; punished the same with arbitrary and savage penalties; and so crushed out of Scotland all mirth and nearly all physical enjoyment.

Scottish literature of the eighteenth century failed to destroy this illiberality owing to the method of the Scotch philosophers. The school which arose was in reaction against the dominant theological spirit; but its method was deductive not inductive. Now, the inductive method, which ascends from experience to theory is anti-theological. The deductive reasons down from theories whose validity is assumed; it is the method of theology itself. In Scotland the theological spirit had taken such firm hold that the inductive method could not have obtained a hearing; whereas in England and France the inductive method has been generally followed.

The great secular philosophy of Scotland was initiated by Hutchinson. His system of morals was based not on revealed principles, but on laws ascertainable by human intelligence; his positions were in fiat contradiction to those of the clergy. But his method assumes intuitive faculties and intuitive knowledge.

The next and the greatest name is that of Adam Smith, whose works, "The Theory of Moral Sentiments" and "Wealth of Nations," must be taken in conjunction. In the first he works on the assumption that sympathy is the mainspring of human conduct. In the "Wealth of Nations" the mainspring is selfishness. The two are not contradictory, but complementary. Of the second book it may be said that it is probably the most important which has ever been written, whether we consider the amount of original thought which it contains or its practical influence.

Beside Adam Smith stands David Hume. An accomplished reasoner and a profound thinker, he lacked the invaluable quality of imagination. This is the underlying defect of his history. Important and novel as are Hume's doctrines, his method was also deductive, and, like Adam Smith, he rests little on experience. After these two, Reid was the most eminent among the purely speculative thinkers of Scotland, but he stands far below them both. To Hume the spirit of inquiry and scepticism is essential; to Reid it is a danger.

The deductive method was no less prevalent in physical philosophy. Now, induction is more accessible to the average understanding than deduction. The deductive character of this Scottish literature prevented it from having popular effect, and therefore from weakening the national superstition, from which Scotland, even to-day, has been unable to shake herself free.

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WALTER BAGEHOT

The English Constitution

Walter Bagehot was born at Langport in Somerset, England, Feb. 3, 1826, and died on March 24, 1877. He was educated at Bristol and at University College, London. Subsequently he joined his father's banking and ship-owning business. From 1860 till his death, he was editor of the "Economist." He was a keen student not only of economic and political science subjects, which he handled with a rare lightness of touch, but also of letters and of life at large. It is difficult to say in which field his penetration, his humour, and his charm of style are most conspicuously displayed. The papers collected in the volume called "The English Constitution" appeared originally in the "Fortnightly Review" during 1865 and 1866. The Reform Bill, which transferred the political centre of gravity from the middle class to the artisan class had not yet arrived; and the propositions laid down by Bagehot have necessarily been in some degree modified in the works of more recent authorities, such as Professor Dicey and Mr. Sidney Low. But as a human interpretation of that exceedingly human monument, the British Constitution, Bagehot's work is likely to remain unchallenged for all time.

I.—-The Cabinet

No one can approach to an understanding of English institutions unless he divides them into two classes. In such constitutions there are two parts. First, those which excite and preserve the reverence of the population, the dignified parts, if I may so call them; and, next, the efficient parts, those by which it, in fact, works and rules. Every constitution must first win the loyalty and confidence of mankind, and then employ that homage in the work of government.

The dignified parts of government are those which bring it force, which attracts its motive power. The efficient parts only employ that power. If all subjects of the same government only thought of what was useful to them, the efficient members of the constitution would suffice, and no impressive adjuncts would be needed. But it is not true that even the lower classes will be absorbed in the useful. The ruder sort of men will sacrifice all they hope for, all they have, themselves, for what is called an idea. The elements which excite the most easy reverence will be not the most useful, but the theatrical. It is the characteristic merit of the English constitution that its dignified parts are imposing and venerable, while its efficient part is simple and rather modern.

The efficient secret of the English constitution is the nearly complete fusion of the executive and legislative powers. The connecting link is the cabinet. This is a committee of the legislative body, in choosing which indirectly but not directly the legislature is nearly omnipotent. The prime minister is chosen by the House of Commons, and is the head of the efficient part of the constitution. The queen is only at the head of its dignified part. The Prime Minister himself has to choose his associates, but can only do so out of a charmed circle.

The cabinet is an absolutely secret committee, which can dissolve the assembly which appointed it. It is an executive which is at once the nominee of the legislature, and can annihilate the legislature. The system stands in precise contrast to the presidential system, in which the legislative and executive powers are entirely independent.

A good parliament is a capital choosing body; it is an electoral college of the picked men of the nation. But in the American system the president is chosen by a complicated machinery of caucuses; he is not the choice of the nation, but of the wirepullers. The members of congress are excluded from executive office, and the separation makes neither the executive half nor the legislative half of political life worth having. Hence it is only men of an inferior type who are attracted to political life at all.

Again our system enables us to change our ruler suddenly on an emergency. Thus we could abolish the Aberdeen Cabinet, which was in itself eminently adapted for every sort of difficulty save the one it had to meet, but wanted the daemonic element, and substitute a statesman who had the precise sort of merit wanted at the moment. But under a presidential government you can do nothing of the kind. There is no elastic element; everything is rigid, specified, dated. You have bespoken your government for the time, and you must keep it. Moreover, under the English system all the leading statesmen are known quantities. But in America a new president before his election is usually an unknown quantity.

Cabinet government demands the mutual confidence of the electors, a calm national mind, and what I may call rationality—a power involving intelligence, yet distinct from it. It demands also a competent legislature, which is a rarity. In the early stages of human society the grand object is not to make new laws, but to prevent innovation. Custom is the first check on tyranny, but at the present day the desire is to adapt the law to changed conditions. In the past, however, continuous legislatures were rare because they were not wanted. Now you have to get a good legislature and to keep it good. To keep it good it must have a sufficient supply of business. To get it good is a precedent difficulty. A nation in which the mass of the people are intelligent, educated, and comfortable can elect a good parliament. Or what I will call a deferential nation may do so—I mean one in which the numerical majority wishes to be ruled by the wiser minority.

Of deferential countries England is the type. But it is not to their actual heavy, sensible middle-class rulers that the mass of the English people yield deference, but to the theatrical show of society. The few rule by their hold, not over the reason of the multitude, but over their imaginations and their habits.

II.—The Monarchy

The use of the queen in a dignified capacity is incalculable. The best reason why monarchy is a strong government is that it is an intelligible government; whereas a constitution is complex. Men are governed by the weakness of their imagination. To state the matter shortly, royalty is a government in which the attention of the nation is concentrated on one person doing interesting actions. A republic is a government in which that attention is divided between many who are all doing uninteresting actions. Secondly, if you ask the immense majority of the queen's subjects by what right she rules, they will say she rules by God's grace. They believe they have a mystic obligation to obey her. The crown is a visible symbol of unity with an atmosphere of dignity.

Thirdly, the queen is the head of society. If she were not so, the prime minister would be the first person in the country. As it is the House of Commons attracts people who go there merely for social purposes; if the highest social rank was to be scrambled for in the House of Commons, the number of social adventurers there would be even more numerous. It has been objected of late that English royalty is not splendid enough. It is compared with the French court, which is quite the most splendid thing in France; but the French emperor is magnified to emphasise the equality of everyone else. Great splendour in our court would incite competition. Fourthly, we have come to regard the crown as the head of our morality. Lastly, constitutional royalty acts as a disguise; it enables our real rulers to change without heedless people knowing it. Hence, perhaps, the value of constitutional royalty in times of transition.

Popular theory regards the sovereign as a co-ordinate authority with the House of Lords and the House of Commons. Also it holds that the queen is the executive. Neither is true. There is no authentic explicit information as to what the queen can do. The secrecy of the prerogative is an anomaly, but none the less essential to the utility of English royalty. Let us see how we should get on without a queen. We may suppose the House of Commons appointing the premier just as shareholders choose a director. If the predominant party were agreed as to its leader there would not be much difference at the beginning of an administration. But if the party were not agreed on its leader the necessity of the case would ensure that the chief forced on the minority by the majority would be an exceedingly capable man; where the judgment of the sovereign intervenes there is no such security. If, however, there are three parties, the primary condition of a cabinet polity is not satisfied. Under such circumstances the only way is for the moderate people of every party to combine in support of the government which, on the whole, suits every party best. In the choice of a fit minister, if the royal selection were always discreetly exercised, it would be an incalculable benefit, but in most cases the wisest course for the monarch would be inaction.

Now the sovereign has three rights, the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, and the right to warn. In the course of a long reign a king would acquire the same advantage which a permanent under-secretary has over his superior, the parliamentary secretary. But whenever there is discussion between a king and the minister, the king's opinion would have its full weight, and the minister's would not. The whole position is evidently attractive to an intelligent, sagacious and original sovereign. But we cannot expect a lineal series of such kings. Neither theory nor experience warrant any such expectations. The only fit material for a constitutional king is a prince who begins early to reign, who in his youth is superior to pleasure, is willing to labour, and has by nature a genius for discretion.

III.—The House of Lords and the House of Commons

The use of the order of the lords in its dignified capacity is very great. The mass of men require symbols, and nobility is the symbol of mind. The order also prevents the rule of wealth. The Anglo-Saxon has a natural instinctive admiration of wealth for its own sake; but from the worst form of this our aristocracy preserves us, and the reverence for rank is not so base as the reverence for money, or the still worse idolatry of office. But as the picturesqueness of society diminishes, aristocracy loses the single instrument of its peculiar power.

The House of Lords as an assembly has always been not the first, but the second. The peers, who are of the most importance, are not the most important in the House of Peers. In theory, the House of Lords is of equal rank with the House of Commons; in practice it is not. The evil of two co-equal houses is obvious. If they disagree, all business is suspended. There ought to be an available decisive authority somewhere. The sovereign power must be comeatable. The English have made it so by the authority of the crown to create new peers. Before the Reform Act the members of the peerage swayed the House of Commons, and the two houses hardly collided except on questions of privilege. After the Reform Bill the house ceased to be one of the latent directors and palpable alterers.

It was the Duke of Wellington who presided over the change, and from the duke himself we may learn that the use of the House of Lords is not to be a bulwark against revolution. It cannot resist the people if the people are determined. It has not the control of necessary physical force. With a perfect lower house, the second chamber would be of scarcely any value; but beside the actual house, a revising and leisured legislature is extremely useful. The cabinet is so powerful in the commons that it may inflict minor measures on the nation which the nation does not like. The executive is less powerful in the second chamber, which may consequently operate to impede minor instances of parliamentary tyranny.