CHAPTER II.
PROTESTANT OPPOSITION.
The fall of the Earl of Danby is to be attributed to an artful contrivance by the French Court; which, from revenge against him for his real enmity, accomplished his ruin, by pretending that he was a friend. By means of Montague—who laid before the House of Commons despatches, written to him by the Minister, most unwillingly, but at the King’s command—Louis XIV. established against Danby, charges of intrigues with France for obtaining money, quite sufficient to extinguish for ever all the credit which he had ever had with his own countrymen. His plea of unwillingness to enter into his master’s policy with regard to France, although true, proved inadequate to save him from impeachment by the Commons, who acted upon the constitutional principle—that the King’s Ministers are responsible for what they perform in the King’s name. Danby, though made a victim of revenge, and in truth, suffering “not on account of his delinquency, but on account of his merits,” had put himself in such a false position, that Parliament could do no otherwise than demand his removal from office. How far the extreme step of impeachment can be justified is another question; and, at all events, the charge of his being Popishly affected is truly absurd. The accusation of his concealing the Popish plot, of suppressing the evidence, and of discountenancing the witnesses, could not be made even plausible, for though he had been sceptical at first respecting the story told by Oates, as any sensible man might well be, he had afterwards fully committed himself to the proceedings against the accused Papists; yet perhaps there is some truth in an amusing passage written by one who cherished strong prejudices against him:—“The Earl of Danby thought he could serve himself of this plot of Oates, and accordingly endeavoured at it; but it is plain that he had no command of the engine, and instead of his sharing the popularity of nursing it, he found himself so intrigued that it was like a wolf by the ears: he could neither hold it nor let it go, and for certain it bit him at last, just as when a barbarous mastiff attacks a man, he cries ‘poor cur,’ and is pulled down at last.”[14]
The resolution of the Commons on the 19th of December, 1678, to impeach the Lord Treasurer, was followed by a prorogation on the 30th, and a dissolution on the 24th of January, 1679; this Parliament having then sat for the long space of eighteen years.
1679.
The King immediately summoned a new Parliament, to meet at the end of forty days; and again, as in 1661, a general election took place under circumstances of immense excitement. Protestants believed the cause of the Reformation to be in imminent danger from the Popish tendencies of the King, from the avowed Romanism of the Duke of York, from the intrigues of France, and from the want of principle in public men. Therefore, multitudes rushed to the poll with the idea, that only by voting for unmistakable and zealous Protestants, could they save England from being dragged back to the condition in which she was found before the Reformation. Thousands of horsemen rode into cities and county towns to record their names in favour of the Established Church. People had to sleep in market-places, to lie like sheep around market crosses.[15] Candidates were chaired at midnight with the bray of trumpets and a blaze of torches; but with all this Protestant enthusiasm, elections could not be carried without bribery, treating, and corruption. Horses were demanded in proportion to the number of electors; there occurred an enormous consumption of beer, bread, and cakes at Norwich; and as for the Knight of the Shire of Surrey, “they ate and drank him out near to £2,000, by a most abominable custom.”[16] Popular candidates pledged to oppose the Court against Popery succeeded almost everywhere.
Scarcely had the shouts which hailed these returns died away, when a remarkable interview took place between certain dignitaries of the Church and the Popish heir to the throne.
As the Duke of York’s religious opinions had increasingly attracted the attention and excited the alarm of the nation at large, the rulers of the Church shared in the anxiety, and were very desirous, if possible, to see him reclaimed from the Roman communion. The origin of a project, with the view of accomplishing this purpose, is ascribed to the new Archbishop of Canterbury.
PROTESTANT OPPOSITION.
Upon the death of Sheldon, William Sancroft, at the time Prolocutor to the Lower House of Convocation, was elevated to the primacy, for reasons differently stated by different persons. Probably, in this case, the reason is to be found in his unambitious spirit and in his amiable disposition, as suggested by Dryden:
“Zadoc the priest, whom, shunning power and place,
His lowly mind advanced to David’s grace.”
If it was supposed that he would become the pliant tool of the Monarch; events at the Revolution contradicted the idea, and the circumstances now to be described show that the Archbishop, after his exaltation, determined to act as a zealous Protestant. He, with his aged brother, Morley, of Winchester, and not without the consent of the King, obtained an audience from His Royal Highness, and delivered to him an address on the subject of reconversion. Sancroft spoke of the Church of England as most afflicted, a lily amongst thorns, bearing on her body the marks of the Lord Jesus—the scars of old, and the impressions of new wounds. But the greatest amongst the multitude of her sorrows was, the speaker said, that the Duke should forsake her fellowship, after the education which he had received, and after the solemn charge which his dying father gave his elder brother, touching the duty of everlasting fidelity to the Established Church. The Duke was described by the Primate as the bright morning and evening star, which arose and set with the sun, but he had withdrawn his light; and now the two Bishops, who had undertaken to plead with him in the cause of Protestantism, assured His Royal Highness of their intercessions on his behalf, and asked whether, with his noble and generous heart, he would throw back these prayers? They inquired, if those to whom he had surrendered himself, had not renounced reason and common sense, and really taught him to put out his own eyes, that they might lead him whither they would? His case did not seem hopeful to his Protestant advisers, yet they declared that they had too good an opinion of his understanding, to believe that he would sell himself at so cheap a rate. Nothing of such moment as religion was to be huddled up in a dark and implicit manner. It was his duty to “prove all things, and hold fast that which is good.” The prelates offered their assistance, referred to plain texts and obvious facts “in a hundred books,” and then concluded their address with this syllogism: “That Church which teacheth and practiseth the doctrines destructive of salvation is to be relinquished. But the Church of Rome teacheth and practiseth doctrines destructive of salvation. Therefore the Church of Rome is to be relinquished.”[17]
1679.
This speech, in which compliments and reproofs oddly struggle with each other, and which ends with a logical formula, perfectly impotent under the circumstances, bears upon it traces of Sancroft’s ornate but feeble style of thought and expression. It produced no effect; and the Royal auditor, after saying that it would be presumptuous, in an illiterate man like himself, to enter into controversial disputes with persons of learning, politely dismissed the Bishops, pleading that the pressure of business prevented further discussion.[18] The strain of remark on the one side, the mode of reply on the other, and the interchange of courtesies between the two parties, present a striking contrast to the conversations between John Knox and the Duke’s great-grandmother. The Archbishop of Canterbury appears much more amiable than the Scotch Presbyterian Reformer; and James is much more prudent than Mary Queen of Scots: but how tame and lifeless appears all the smooth eloquence of the Primate, compared with the burning words of the Elijah-like Presbyterian; and how unimpressible is the saturnine Prince, compared with the modern Jezebel, who wept and stormed at Holyrood.
SANCROFT.
No doubt can exist of Sancroft’s sincere opposition to Popery. Wilkins, in his Concilia, gives, in addition to Royal proclamations on that subject, a letter written by the Primate to the Bishop of London, dated April 9, 1681, in which he requires that the three canons against Popish recusants, agreed upon in the Synod of London in 1605, namely, the 65th, the 66th, and the 114th, should be put in use, considering, he says, in language then so current on that topic, “how acceptable a service it will be to Almighty God, to assist His Majesty’s pious purpose herein; and, on the other side, how severe a punishment, the last canon of the three appoints, to those who shall neglect their duty herein.”[19] It is remarkable, that after the death of Sheldon, we find in Wilkins, no more documents enforcing the execution of the laws against Nonconformists; an omission which indicates the very different disposition of the new occupant of the see, from that which had been manifested by his predecessor.
1678–80.
In the affairs of his own Church, Sancroft endeavoured to effect some useful reforms and improvements. Considerable laxity prevailed in the admission of candidates to holy orders, testimonials to character being often signed as a mere form, without sufficient knowledge of the persons in whose favour they were given. To check this injurious practice, Sancroft, in the month of August, 1678,[20] sent directions to his suffragans, that thenceforth such recommendations should be more carefully prepared, should contain fuller particulars, and should be more cautiously used. The poverty of vicarages, and other small ecclesiastical benefices, still continued: the augmentation of them was an old remedy, the failure of schemes for the purpose an old disappointment. Even the Act in relation to this matter in 1676, had been carried into only partial execution; and, therefore, many of the difficulties, so long complained of by the clergy, still remained. Consequently, Sancroft, in the year 1680, sent an appeal to the Bishops of his province, urging strongly the application of the Act; and requiring every Bishop, Dean, and Archdeacon to send particulars of all the augmentations made by them or their predecessors.[21] What he recommended to others he practised himself, for he liberally improved many of the livings in his gift. The chronic disease of the Church forced itself on the Archbishop’s attention: many unsuitable persons being appointed to benefices, and private advantage taking precedence of public welfare, among the motives deciding the administration of patronage. As a cure to some extent, Charles issued a warrant, constituting the Archbishop, the Bishop of London, and four laymen proper and competent judges of men deserving to be preferred, and forbidding the Secretary of State to apply to the Royal fountain of favour, for the bestowment of ecclesiastical preferments, without first communicating with this council of reference.[22] What share Sancroft had in the origin or the execution of the plan we do not know; but the object was one which, from what we learn of his character, would commend itself to his judgment. The practice of simony continued, and an Archdeacon of Lincoln, convicted of that offence in the ecclesiastical court, petitioned the King for pardon;—upon the petition being referred to Sancroft, he replied that the crime of which the man had been convicted, was “a pestilence that walketh in darkness,” and that if he were saved from punishment, the markets of Simon Magus would be more frequented than ever.[23]
TEMPLE.
After the impeachment and imprisonment of the Earl of Danby, in spite of Royal endeavours to screen him, His Majesty being then left without an adviser, sent for Sir William Temple, and appointed him Secretary of State, in the room of Coventry. This ingenious politician proposed, that there should be a Council, consisting of thirty members, fifteen of them to be Officers of State, chosen by the King; the other fifteen, popular leaders of the two Houses. The idea was, to blend the Government and the Opposition together, or, rather, to prevent the existence of any opposition at all.[24] The Council of statesmen formed on this model included, on the one hand, Essex, Sunderland, and Halifax—men attached to Court interests, in favour with the King, and suspected by the people; and on the other hand, the Earl of Shaftesbury, a leading spirit of the old Cabal, now an extreme opponent of the Court policy, and Lord William Russell, an eminently zealous Protestant, and popular Member of the House of Commons. The last two names are interwoven from the beginning, with the popular plan for setting aside the Duke of York—the first three Ministers being entirely opposed to it, and advocating the legitimate succession, with certain safeguards for the protection of Protestantism. This division of opinion in the Council reflected and magnified itself in the divisions of Parliament.
1679.
Parliament met in March. The King and such Ministers as agreed with him, proposed terms of compromise in reference to the succession. The Chancellor, in April, stated that His Majesty was willing to distinguish a Popish from a Protestant successor; and so to limit the authority of the latter in reference to the Church, that all benefices in the gift of the Crown should be conferred in such a manner as to ensure the appointment of pious and learned Protestants.[25] Other restrictions of a political kind were proposed, which, as Charles said, would “pare the nails” of a Popish King.
The Exclusion Bill was carried by the Commons in the month of May, but the effect was neutralized by a sudden prorogation of Parliament before the month had expired.[26] Parliament being dissolved by proclamation on the 12th of July, a new one was called for the following October.
DANGERFIELD’S PLOT.
The fourth Parliament of Charles II. met in October, 1679, and, after repeated prorogation, assembled for the despatch of business in October, 1680. Another informer just at that time rose to notoriety, whose name deserves to be coupled with that of Oates. Dangerfield is represented as a handsome young man, whom profligacy and debt brought within the walls of Newgate, where he was visited by a Roman Catholic woman named Cellier, one “who had a great share of wit, and was abandoned to lewdness.”[27] The man professed to become a convert to her religion, and, through the influence of his new friend with persons at Court, obtained an introduction to the Duke of York, into whose ears he poured tales of treason. This time a plot was attributed to the Presbyterians, who, according to Dangerfield, were raising forces to overthrow the Government. James gave the man twenty guineas; Charles ordered an additional reward of forty. The adventurer, finding his trade so gainful, determined to push his object further. He lodged an information at the Custom House against Colonel Mansel, a Presbyterian, whom he charged with being the quarter-master of the army of revolt; but the revenue officers, on searching his house, found not what they expected, but only a bundle of papers behind the bed. The papers were plainly treasonable; not less plainly did they bear signs of forgery. The accused traced home the infamous trick to the unprincipled informer. Dangerfield, once more committed to Newgate, not for debt, but for something worse, now changed his story, and declared that, at the instigation of Cellier and Lady Powis, who had become mixed up in the affair, he had engaged in a sham plot, as a cover for a real one. Though no Presbyterian conspiracy existed, there was, he affirmed, a Popish one, and a proof of the former being a fiction might be obtained from a bundle of papers secreted in a meal tub. The meal was searched, the papers were found; they demonstrated the artifice, and the trumpery contrivance has gained a place in history under the title of the “Meal Tub Plot.” Powis and Cellier were now, in their turn, imprisoned. The grand jury ignored the bill against the former, and the latter obtained an acquittal at the Old Bailey. Dangerfield received a pardon; yet, though all three at the time escaped the penalties of the law, Dangerfield subsequently received a cruel whipping for the crime of perjury.[28] This miserable creature has been represented either as a tool employed by the Catholics to retaliate upon the friends of Titus Oates, or as a tool employed by the friends of Titus Oates to decoy Catholics into an attempt at injuring the Presbyterians. The former is the Protestant, the latter the Catholic hypothesis. Neither of them seems satisfactory; the latter is almost incredible. At all events, every reader must see that tissues of lies were woven in those days as unaccountably and as plentifully as spiders’ webs in autumn nights.
1680.
Whilst these plots were common talk, and indignation against Romanism was fomented in a thousand ways, the Corporation of Bristol made the following presentment:—
EXCLUSION BILL.
We lament that “at this time more heats and animosities should be fomented among us, than hath been since His Majesty’s most happy restoration, which gives us just cause to suspect, however such men cover themselves under the umbrage of zeal and religion, that they are influenced by Jesuitical principles. For the Jesuits have not a fairer prospect of bringing us under the tyranny of Rome, than by continuing and carrying on of differences among ourselves. Divide et impera is their maxim. From this evil spirit and principle this city hath been represented as ill inclined to His Majesty’s person and Government, our worthy mayor, a person of unquestionable loyalty to the King, and of exemplary zeal for the Church, [being] traduced as fanatically disposed, and all those true sons of the Church of England who have any moderation towards Dissenting Protestants, to be more dangerous to the Church than the Papists themselves, when we cannot but think that a hearty union among all Protestants is now more than ever necessary to preserve us from our open and avowed enemy.”[29]
Union amongst Protestants at such a time seemed to be dictated by reason and policy, but Churchmen who looked with neighbourly kindness upon Nonconformists were apt to be suspected of laxity of principle and a want of zeal; and the very paper from which I have given an extract is endorsed as a “seditious presentment.”
1680.
In the month of October, the Exclusion Bill reappeared and passed, all the argument and eloquence of the members from day to day, through long sittings, being devoted to this question. Interwoven with the debate from beginning to end, like dark threads in shot silk, are references to the recent Popish plot and its attendant circumstances. Whilst treated as a legal and political question,[30] its ecclesiastical bearings were most prominent and most vital, in the estimation of zealous Protestants both within and outside the walls of Parliament.[31] The central point in this controversy, whatever might be its political relations, and however it might be mixed up with party interests, was of a religious nature. Had the Church not been united with the State, had all Christian congregations been left to their own resources, and been exempt from Government control, the case would have been very different, though even then religious considerations would have certainly become mixed up with the question; but, as it was, with such an interlacing between things political and things ecclesiastical, with the King as supreme temporal Ruler of the Church, and Defender of the Faith, to have a Roman Catholic placed in that position justly appeared to Protestants not merely as inexpedient, but as totally unreasonable and absurd. The ecclesiastical argument formed the stronghold of the exclusion policy, and its opponents could by no sophistry overturn it. Still they had much to say. They praised the Duke as a man of ability, who had fulfilled important naval duties, and deserved well of his country. The attempt to set such a man aside, a man with so much decision of purpose, and with so many friends, they contended, would incur the risk of plunging Great Britain into another civil war. And beyond all personal and national reasons against his exclusion, they took the high ground—so dear to the Stuart race—of the Divine right of kings, and denounced the attempt to deprive the heir apparent of his crown as nothing short of robbery and wickedness.[32]
EXCLUSION BILL.
The Bill carried in the House of Commons met an adverse fate in the House of Lords. Shaftesbury did his utmost for its support, and the Country party amongst the peers gallantly rallied around him, but after a telling speech from the Earl of Halifax, the measure was defeated by 63 against 30. The division took place at the then late hour of eleven o’clock at night, the King being present, and the whole being described as “one of the greatest days ever known in the House of Lords.”[33] In the large majority against the second reading, appeared no less than fourteen Bishops, who, for the course they adopted, were charged with tearing “out the bowels of their Mother the Church.” They upheld the doctrine of Divine right, in opposition to the Protestant zeal of the day, which looked in a different direction, and they thought that limitations, such as the King and the Court party were willing to impose upon the legitimate successor to the crown, would suffice to preserve the Reformed Church in its integrity and its supremacy.