CHAPTER X.
James, after his defeat on the banks of the Boyne, did not relinquish the hope of recovering his crown. In 1692, amidst preparations for a descent on the shores of England, he issued a Declaration, in which he promised to maintain the rights of the Established Church; but as for his past conduct, he had nothing to retract, nothing to deplore; and as to his future course, he held out no hopes that he would rule otherwise than he had been doing. Not only were all who should resist his new attempt to expect his vengeance, but whole classes of persons, amounting to some thousands, who had incurred his displeasure, were threatened with punishment. High in the list of culprits excluded from mercy, stood Tillotson and Burnet. Such a manifesto, of course, did the Exile’s cause more harm than good; and, therefore, in 1693, he reluctantly published another, pitched in a different key, promising an amnesty to those who would submit, and to all his subjects the restoration of Parliaments, the preservation of the Test Act, and a limitation of the dispensing power. These concessions were as tardy and ineffectual as they were insincere. “After all,” said one who was in the confidence of James, “the object of this Declaration is only to get us back to England. We shall fight the battle of the Catholics with much greater advantage at Whitehall than at St. Germains.”[275]
1693.
Within the gloomy courts and chambers of the old Palace of St. Germains—which in melancholy stateliness furnishes such a contrast to the cheerful prospect from its windows—James, with his Court of blinded partizans and his crowds of Jesuit priests, was aiming to convert certain English Protestants who had followed his unhappy fortunes, and was planning his return to the land of his fathers, with the hope of reconciling an heretical realm to the true Catholic Church. Schemes of insurrection were contrived before the death of Queen Mary; then came schemes for assassination. Previous to that period, the death of William had offered James no augmentation of hopes; afterwards, to clear off the reigning Prince from the stage seemed an advantageous step. That James originated any plot for the murder of his son-in-law cannot be proved, and ought not to be believed; nor can it be shown that he expressly sanctioned anything of the kind; but it can scarcely be questioned that he knew and connived at what was going on. Insurrection and assassination plots together opened up vistas into which the refugees at St. Germains wistfully peered, as they laid their heads together, and talked over the business in retired corners of the shaded alleys, or in secret nooks of the rambling palace galleries. A hundred priests, it is said, were to attend the anointed King in his expedition, carrying precious relics as pledges of victory—including the image of St. Victor, of which the miraculous virtue upon infidels and heretics had been proved, when it was sent as a present to France from the Queen of Poland. So confident of success were the plotters, that they talked of taking debentures on English estates, soon to fall into their hands; also pieces of preferment in Church and State were allotted to Royal favourites, and Jesuits rejoiced in the idea of setting up a branch of their order within the spacious precincts of Chelsea College.[276] These Papists abroad found sympathizing friends at home amongst the Nonjurors, some of whom were at the time charged with preaching from texts suggestive of treason and rebellion.
JACOBITES.
A correspondence between the Court of St. Germains and the English Jacobites, ranging from October, 1693, to August, 1694, brought to light by Macpherson, shows what was going on at that period. “It is His Majesty’s desire,” said an agent of the Exile, “that the Bishops and non-swearing Clergy send one or two of their number, especially one of the Bishops, to him, with all convenient speed, instructed by the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury [Sancroft], and the rest of the most considerable of them, to inform His Majesty of the readiness they were in last year to have joined him at his landing, and to have preached loyalty and due obedience to the people; and to bring assurances, under the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury’s hand, that they are in the same disposition still, and will join His Majesty whenever he shall land. For the same end, to encourage the people to come into their duty, and because that there may be some danger in inserting of names, ways of writing in white must be found out, and the paper sent by the boat, and not be brought by any of the persons who are sent. This is of the last importance for the King’s service, and therefore, tho’ difficult in appearance, must be complied with; and it’s hoped that there may be no danger, considering how safe all things come. The King is sorry he cannot put his own hand to this. The King’s affairs depend upon the punctual doing of what he desires, as you shall know in due time. The person sent may come safe by Holland. He must likewise bring as good an account as he can, of the number and names of the non-swearing Clergy; and likewise, how the non-swearing Clergy stand affected, and what the King may expect from them, with the best account he can of the state of the King’s affairs in general.”[277] “You are,” it is said in another letter, “to let the Bishop of Norwich [Lloyd] know from us, how much we are pleased with his zeal and faithfulness in our service, to assure him of our favour, and to return him our most hearty thanks.”[278]
1693.
Assurances were sent from this side the water to the plotters abroad, full of the spirit of revolt. “His Majesty [James] has likewise for him, six Protestant Bishops and 600 Ministers who have not taken the oaths, and almost all the Ministers of the Church of England who have taken the oaths; that is to say, as one of their Bishops writes to me, four parts in five are ready to join the King, or to preach in their churches to stir up the people in his favour,—500 of them having been ready to join him last year, in order to convince Protestants that their religion was in no danger, and in order to preach their sentiments to the inhabitants of the country, thro’ which the King should pass.”[279]
JACOBITES.
Another of these conspirators assured his accomplices abroad, that he would unite with his regiment a company of Clergymen of the Church of England, who were determined to serve as volunteers in this expedition; and he hoped also, by a stratagem, to seize the Prince and Princess of Orange, and to bring them as prisoners to His Majesty.[280]
Captain Crisp declared that the Bishop of Exeter was entirely in the King’s interest; and that five parts of seven in the county of Cornwall were on the same side.[281]
1694.
Sir Theophilus Oglethorpe, Sir John Fenwick, Major-General Sackville, and several other persons of quality and distinction, maintained that the persons mentioned, having made an exact inquiry through all the counties of England, found that the mind of the nation in general was entirely alienated from the Prince of Orange, by losses suffered at sea, by heavy taxes, by the interruption of commerce within and without the kingdom, and by the general disorder occasioned through a change in the circulation of the coin. It is distinctly affirmed, “that four parts out of five of the Clergy are disposed to declare for the King;”[282] and His Majesty was earnestly besought to think of some way to reconcile the Church party, and those of the Dissenters who were in Parliament, as it would contribute much to His Majesty’s service.[283] This was before the death of Mary, afterwards intrigues did not end in foolish, harmless, and untruthful correspondence. A conspiracy was formed to attack William when driving over a piece of bad road between Brentford and Turnham Green, but the conspirators were betrayed, and the bubble of vengeance immediately burst. Charnock, Keyes, and King, Roman Catholic Jacobites—who, with others of the same faith in religion and politics, had been deeply involved in this affair—suffered for their offence, the last-named declaring at the foot of the gallows, that what he had done was to be attributed to his own sinful passions, not to any Roman Catholic doctrine on the subject of tyrannicide. Two others of higher grade—Sir John Friend, belonging to the Jacobite nonjuring class, and Sir William Parkyns, a Jacobite, but a juror too—on the 3rd of April, also suffered death for their share in the conspiracy. The fate of these knights created immense excitement, chiefly on account of a circumstance which brings their execution before us. Jeremy Collier has been already mentioned as a distinguished nonjuring Divine, and a great sensation was produced in the vast crowds round the fatal tree by the sight of this clergyman—in company with two others less known, named Cook and Snatt—performing some peculiar religious rites at the last moment of the culprits’ lives. The three Divines were observed in the cart, not only praying with the unhappy men, but laying hands upon them as they knelt down—Collier solemnly pronouncing over them the form of absolution, prescribed in the Visitation of the Sick. A paper, professedly written by Friend, and delivered to the Sheriff, contained a prayer for King James’ restoration, and stated that the writer was a member of the Church, “though,” he adds, “a most unworthy and unprofitable part of it (meaning the nonjuring part), which suffers so much at present for a strict adherence to the laws and Christian principles.
For this I suffer, and for this I die.”[284]
JACOBITES.
People were astonished at the strange absolution performed. Multitudes more who heard of it shared in the wonder, and the circulation of the paper increased the excitement. To all but the most obstinate, the administering of absolution under the circumstances seemed like an act of sympathy with civil treason, and a gross perversion of Church formularies. London presently rose in a state of high commotion. The Tyburn affair was in everybody’s mouth, and broadsides and pamphlets bearing upon it were in everybody’s hands. The public authorities interfered, and at once seized Cook and Snatt. Collier eluded their search; and in some garret, cellar, or other out-of-the-way place, wrote a defence of what he had done. He had, he said, been sent for to Newgate; Sir William Parkyns had begged that the absolution of the Church might be pronounced over him in his last moments. Collier had been refused admittance to the prisoner in his cell on the day of execution, and so he went to Tyburn to pronounce absolution there. He used a form in the Prayer-Book; and as to the imposition of hands, complained of as an innovation, he concluded that it was a very ancient, and, at least, a very innocent ceremony.[285]
The Bishops, considering that a scandal had been brought upon the Church, published a declaration condemnatory both of the culprits’ papers and the Clergymen’s conduct. The papers they charged with making a favourable mention of so foul a thing as the assassination of His Majesty; and the Clergymen’s conduct they denounced as insolent, and without precedent either in the English Church or in any other.[286] All the Bishops in London signed this document, including Crew of Durham, and Sprat of Rochester, who, from their past career, were still suspected of Jacobite tendencies. Collier, whose boldness equalled his learning, returned to the charge, and from the depths of his obscurity re-proclaimed the doctrine of the imposition of hands as scriptural, and consonant with patristic teaching. He also pleaded on its behalf, in such a case as the one in question, no less a precedent than the conduct of Bishop Sanderson, oddly enough putting the Prelate in the place of the traitor under the fatal beam. “This eminent casuist,” says Collier, “about a day before his death, desired his chaplain, Mr. Pullin, to give him absolution; and at his performing that office, he pulled off his cap that Mr. Pullin might lay his hand upon his bare head.”[287]
1696.
Collier was the leading spirit in this transaction, and he willingly accepted the chief responsibility; yet he continued to hide himself, and finally escaped the constable’s clutches. His two companions, after a true Bill had been found against them by the Grand Jury of Middlesex, were set at liberty; and it is a question whether they could have been legally convicted of the commission of any crime against the law of the land—for absolution at the point of death, by the imposition of hands, whatever might be thought of it in a religious point of view, could not be regarded as a political offence; and absolving such men, although it looked like sympathy in their enterprise, could scarcely bring the absolvers within the compass of the statute of treason.
Another conspirator’s name gathered round it ecclesiastical complications. Sir John Fenwick, an active person amongst the numerous plotters against William, fell into the hands of justice in the month of June. A letter, from the Duke of Shrewsbury to William III., indicates what thoughts were entertained of this conspirator, and of the views of certain people in France at that juncture.
JACOBITES.
“I am not acquainted with the particulars my Lord Steward has sent your Majesty from Sir John Fenwick; he is generally reputed a fearful man, and though now he may not offer to say all, yet beginning to treat is no contradiction to that character. I am confident he knows what, if he will discover, may be much more valuable than his life. If he were well managed, possibly he might lay open a scene that would facilitate the business the next winter, which, without some such miracle, I doubt will be difficult enough.
“An acquaintance of mine saw a fresh letter to my Lady Walgrave, from my Lord Galmoy, at St. Germains, who I think is her husband, where he says he has never been credulous in the hopes of King James’ coming; but that now he is well assured, it will be attempted the end of this year, and with good appearance of success. The same person saw another letter from another hand, they would not say from whom, but from one more likely to know than the former, and spoke in the same language, but with more assurance.”[288]
Fenwick, after his capture, made revelations, as Shrewsbury supposed him not unlikely to do; but, to the great surprise and indignation of the latter, he learnt before long, that the cunning conspirator had woven a story, by which he had contrived to bring the Duke himself into suspicion. The fact is, that for a long time after the Revolution, things were said and done—whispered, insinuated, listened to, and winked at—which bore an ugly look in the eyes of honest people; and it is wonderful in what a perilous position the frail, eagle-faced champion of constitutional rights and of European Protestantism stood for years after he had accepted the British crown. True, some men were accused without good reason, but to many cases the adage applied, “Where there is smoke there is fire.”[289]
1696.
Charles, Earl of Middleton, took an active part in Jacobite intrigues, and he is worth notice here as an example of Jacobitism in alliance with Protestantism, or rather in alliance with views anti-Catholic. He married into a Popish family, but did not adopt their religion. Indeed, his principles on that score were very loose, although he knew how, with a clever stroke, to repel the onsets of Jesuitical sophistry. A priest one day tried to prove to him the doctrine of Transubstantiation. “Your Lordship,” said he, “believes in the Trinity;” Middleton stopped him by asking, “Who told you so?” The priest felt amazed, upon which the Peer added, it was the priest’s business to prove that his own belief was true, and not to question another man about his.[290] In one of the Earl’s furtive missions to England upon the business of the exiled Prince, he had met with Shrewsbury, and had evidently tried, in an underhand way, to work his mind into a Jacobite direction. Fenwick had got hold of this, and had made the most of it against the Duke, who now occupied the office of Secretary of State,[291] and had, during William’s absence, discharged, along with the Archbishop of Canterbury and others, the high function of a Lord Justice. The letter which Shrewsbury wrote to William is worth insertion, as illustrative of what went on behind the scenes, of the scrapes men fell into, of the way they got out of them, of the generosity and forgiving spirit of the King, and of the rickety condition of English Protestantism, if it had rested upon nothing better than the character of politicians.
JACOBITES.
“I want words,” says Shrewsbury, addressing William, “to express my surprise at the impudent and unaccountable accusation of Sir John Fenwick; I will, with all the sincerity imaginable, give your Majesty an account of the only thing I can recollect, that should give the least pretence to such an invention, and I am confident you will judge there are few men in the kingdom, that have not so far transgressed the law.
“After your Majesty was pleased to allow me to lay down my employment, it was more than a year before I once saw my Lord Middleton; then he came and stayed in town awhile, and returned to the country; but a little before the La Hogue business he came up again, and upon that alarm, being put in the Tower, where people were permitted to see him, I visited him as often as I thought decent for the nearness of our alliance. Upon his enlargement, one night at supper, when he was pretty well in drink, he told me he intended to go beyond seas, and asked if I would command him no service. I then told him by the course he was taking it would never be in his power to do himself or his friends service, and if the time should come that he expected, I looked upon myself as an offender not to be forgiven, and therefore he should never find me asking it. In the condition he was then, he seemed shocked at my answer, and it being some months after before he went, he never mentioned his own going, or anything else to me, but left a message with my aunt, that he thought it better to say nothing to me, but that I might depend upon his good offices upon any occasion, and in the same manner, he relied upon mine here, and had left me trustee for the small concern he had in England. I only bowed and told her I should always be ready to serve her or him or their children.
1696.
“Your Majesty now knows the extent of my crime, and, if I do not flatter myself, it is not more than a king may forgive.
“I am sure, when I consider with what reason, justice, and generosity, your Majesty has weighed this man’s information, I have little cause to apprehend your ill-opinion upon his malice. I wish it were as easy to answer for the reasonableness of the generality of the world. When such a base invention shall be made public, they may perhaps make me incapable of serving you, but if till now I had had neither interest nor inclination, the noble and frank manner with which your Majesty has used me upon this occasion shall ever be owned with all gratitude in my power.
“My Lord Steward being at the Baths, nothing was resolved as to Sir John Fenwick’s trial till his answer returns.
“I am, with all imaginable submission, your Majesty’s most faithful, dutiful, and obedient subject and servant,
“Shrewsbury.”[292]
Fenwick disclosed divisions amongst the Nonjurors, classifying them as compounders and non-compounders—the compounders being anxious for some security from King James, that English religion and liberty would be preserved in case of his restoration; and the non-compounders being prepared to cast themselves entirely upon his honour and generosity. Lloyd, the deprived Bishop of Norwich, adopted the latter view, and would hear of no terms in a matter of Divine right.[293]
JACOBITES.
The Bill for Fenwick’s attainder created much discussion in the House of Commons. The discussion took a theological turn upon the point of deficiency of evidence, the testimony of one witness not being backed by the testimony of a second. Much was said by the opponents of the attainder, respecting the eternal law of God and man, and of the Holy Scriptures requiring more witnesses than one to convict a person of a capital crime. “No man,” it was repeated, “shall be condemned to die by the mouth of one witness, but by two or three witnesses he shall suffer.” It was replied, that not the Levitical law, but the law of England, should be guide in such a case; then, some one rejoined, that he and those who thought with him, did not wish to base their argument simply on Scripture, but upon the fact that this law of Moses having been confirmed by our Saviour in the New Testament, it ought to be brought into connection with the law of the land.[294] In spite of attempts made to save Sir John, the Bill passed both Houses. Robert Nelson interceded with Tenison to plead with the King. “My very good friend,” returned the Primate, “give me leave to tell you, that you know not what spirit this man, nor I am of; I wish for his, nor no man’s blood, but how can I do my duty to God and my King, should I declare a man innocent; for my not being of the side of the Bill will convince the world that I think him so, when I am satisfied in my conscience, not only from Goodman’s evidence, but all the convincing testimonies in the world, that he is guilty. Laws ex post facto may indeed carry the face of rigour with them, but if ever a law was necessary this is.”[295]
1696.
An amusing circumstance occurred during the debate. Dr. John Williams, Hector of St. Mildred’s, Poultry, accepted the Bishopric of Chichester, and was consecrated at Lambeth, by Tenison and others, the day before the third reading of the Bill. Rushing into the Bishops’ chamber to robe himself, he was accosted by the Archbishop, “Brother, brother! you’ll overheat yourself; what’s the reason of all this pother?” “Nothing, may it please your Grace,” said he; “but I was fearful lest the Bill against Sir John Fenwick should be read before I could take my place in the House.” “Fye, my Lord,” said Tenison; “you might have spared yourself that labour, since you had not an opportunity of hearing the merits of the cause at the first and second reading; but since, as I perceive, you are come to give your vote, pray, brother, come in along with me, that you may hear it once read, before you do it.”[296]
After the Bill had passed, efforts were continued on the culprit’s behalf. His Lady petitioned the House of Lords and the House of Commons; also she threw herself as a suppliant at William’s feet in vain. Fenwick delivered a paper, supposed to have been drawn up by White, the deprived Bishop of Peterborough, in which he did not deny the facts sworn, but only complained of his attainder as unjust; at the same time declaring his loyalty to King James and to the Prince of Wales, but denouncing, with horror, the idea of assassinating William.[297]
JACOBITES.
Fenwick suffered upon Tower Hill the 20th of January, 1697. That wintry morning, cold with storms, White appeared with him on the scaffold, not to pronounce absolution or lay on hands, but simply to pray with a dying man.[298] Commending the King to the Divine protection—meaning James, but not using his name—Fenwick, as he laid his neck on the block, cried, “Lord Jesus, receive my soul.” His corpse was buried by torch-light in St. Martin’s Church.
Others were hanged for treasonable practices, including Cranburne, who professed himself a member of the Church of England; and Rookwood and Lowick, Roman Catholics, whose Jesu Maria and Paternosters are particularly mentioned by the Protestant narrator of their last end.[299]