But the most ungenerous proceeding was that of depriving the old and faithful Lord Ormond of the Lord-Lieutenancy of Ireland. Ormond had not only stood firmly by Charles I., but had suffered unrepiningly the evil fortunes of Charles II. He had shared his exile, and had done all in his power for his restoration. He had opposed all the endeavours by the Popish Plot and the Exclusion Bill to get rid of James, and was highly respected in his office in Ireland. He had lately lost his eldest son, Lord Ossory, and, though aged, was still vigorous and zealous in discharge of his duties. But he had the unpardonable faults of being a firm Protestant and as firm an advocate for the constitutional restrictions of the Crown. James recalled him from his Lord-Lieutenancy on the plea that he was wanted at Court in his other office of Lord Steward of the Household. But the ancient chief felt the ungrateful act, and, at a farewell dinner at Dublin to the officers of the garrison, in toasting the health of the king, he filled a cup of wine to the brim, and, holding it aloft without spilling a drop, declared that whatever the courtiers might say, neither hand, heart, nor reason yet failed him—that he knew no approach of dotage.
Having made these changes in the ministry, James lost no time in letting his subjects see that he meant to enjoy his religion without the restraints to which he had been accustomed. He had been used to attend Mass with the queen in her oratory, with the doors carefully closed; but the second Sunday after his accession he ordered the chapel doors to be thrown wide open, and went thither in procession. The Duke of Somerset, who bore the sword of State, stopped at the threshold. James bade him advance, saying, "Your father would have gone farther." But Somerset replied, "Your Majesty's father would not have gone so far." At the moment of the elevation of the Host, the courtiers were thrown into a strange agitation. The Catholics fell on their knees, and the Protestants hurried away. On Easter Sunday Mass was attended with still greater ceremony. Somerset stopped at the door, according to custom, but the Dukes of Norfolk, Northumberland, Grafton, Richmond, and many other noblemen, accompanied the king as far as the gallery. Godolphin and Sunderland also complied, but Rochester absolutely refused to attend. Not satisfied with proclaiming his Catholicism, James produced two papers, which he said he had found in the strong box of the late king, wherein Charles was made to avow his persuasion that there could be no true Church but the Roman, and that all who dissented from that Church, whether communities or individuals, became heretic. James declared the arguments to be perfectly unanswerable, and challenged Sancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury, to attempt it. This was not very consistent with his speech as regarded the Church of England, and his next step was as great a violation of his assurance that he would not invade any man's property. Funds for carrying on the Government were necessary, and James declared that as the customs and part of the excise had only been granted to Charles for his life, they had now lapsed, and that it would produce great inconvenience to wait for the meeting of Parliament for their re-enactment. Nothing prevented him from calling Parliament at once, but James undoubtedly had a fancy for trying his father's favourite measure of levying taxes without Parliament. It was contended that as no law for customs or excise now existed, all goods newly imported would come in duty free, and ruin the merchants who had to sell goods which had paid the duty. North, Lord Guildford, recommended that the duties should be levied as usual, but the proceeds kept in the Exchequer till Parliament met and authorised their appropriation; but Jeffreys was a councillor much more after the king's heart. He recommended that an edict should at once be issued, ordering the duties to be paid as usual to his Majesty, and this advice was carried, every one being afraid of being declared disloyal, or a trimmer, who voted against it. The proclamation was issued, but, to render it more palatable, it announced that a Parliament would be very soon called, and as many addresses as possible from public bodies, sanctioning the measure, were procured. The barristers and students of the Middle Temple, in their address, thanked the king for preserving the customs, and both they and the two universities expressed the most boundless obedience to the king's sovereign and unlimited power. But the public at large looked on with silent foreboding. "The compliments of these bodies," says Dalrymple, "only served to remind the nation that the laws had been broken."
Before venturing to assemble Parliament James endeavoured to render Louis of France acquiescent in this step. He knew from the history of the late reign how averse Louis was from English Parliaments, which were hostile to his designs against the Continental nations. He therefore had a private interview with Barillon, in which he apologised most humbly for the necessity of calling a Parliament. He begged him to assure his master of his grateful attachment, and that he was determined to do nothing without his consent. If the Parliament attempted to meddle in any foreign affairs, he would send them about their business. Again he begged him to explain this, and that he desired to consult his brother of France in everything, but then he must have money by some means. This hint of money was followed up the next day by Rochester, and Barillon hastened to convey the royal wishes. But Louis had lost no time in applying the effectual remedy for a Parliament, the moment the assembling of one became menaced. He sent over five hundred thousand crowns, which Barillon carried in triumph to Whitehall, and James wept tears of joy and gratitude over the accursed bribe. But he and his ministers soon hinted that the money, though most acceptable, would not render him independent of Parliament, and Barillon pressed his sovereign to send more with an urgency which rather offended Louis, and rendered it possible that the ambassador had a pretty good commission out of what he obtained. James sent over to Versailles Captain Churchill, already become Lord Churchill, and in time to become known to us and all the world as the Duke of Marlborough. He was to express James's gratitude and his assurances of keeping in view the interests of France, and so well did the proceedings of Churchill in Paris and of Barillon in England, prosper, that successive remittances, amounting to two millions of livres, were sent over. But of this, except four hundred and seventy thousand livres, the arrears of the late king's pension, and about thirty thousand pounds for the corruption of the House of Commons, Louis strictly forbade Barillon paying over more at present to James without his orders. In fact, he was no more assured of the good faith of James than he had been of that of Charles; and he had ample reason for his distrust, for at the very same time James was negotiating a fresh treaty with his son-in-law, the Prince of Orange.
It is impossible to comprehend the full turpitude of this conduct of James without keeping steadily in view the aims of both James and Louis. James's, like that of all the Stuarts, was simply to destroy the British constitution and reign absolutely. To do this the money of France was needed to render them independent of Parliaments, and a prospect of French troops should the English at length rebel against these attempts at their enslavement. The object of Louis was to keep England from affording any aid to any power on the Continent, whilst he was endeavouring to overrun it with his armies.
On the day of the coronation in England (April 23rd), St. George's Day, the Parliament in Scotland met. James called on the Scots to set a good example to the approaching Parliament of England in a liberal provision for the Crown; and the Scottish Estates, as if complimented by this appeal, not only responded to it by annexing the excise to the Crown for ever, and offering him besides two hundred and sixty thousand pounds a year for his own life, but declared their abhorrence of "all principles derogatory to the king's sacred, supreme, sovereign, and absolute power and authority." They did more, they passed an Act making it death for any one to preach in a conventicle, whether under a roof or in the open air. In England the elections were going on most favourably, and therefore James seized on the opportunity, whilst all appeared smiling and secure, to indulge his appetite for a little vengeance.
On the 7th of May, Titus Oates, the enemy of James and of Popery, the arch-instrument of the Whig agitators, was brought up to the bar of the King's Bench, before the terrible Jeffreys. When he was now brought up, the Court was crowded with people, a large proportion of them being Catholics, glad to see the punishment of their ruthless enemy. But if they expected to see him depressed or humbled, they were much disappointed. He came up bold and impudent as ever. Jeffreys flung his fiercest Billingsgate at him, but Oates returned him word for word unabashed. On his last trial he had sworn he had attended a council of Jesuits on the 24th of April, 1671, in London, but it was now proved beyond doubt that on that very day Oates was at St. Omer. He had sworn also to being present at the commission of treasonable acts by Ireland, the Jesuit, in London, on the 8th and 12th of August, and on the 2nd of September of the same year. It was now also clearly proved that Ireland left London that year on the 2nd of August, and did not return till the 14th of September. Oates was convicted of perjury on both indictments, and was sentenced to pay a thousand marks on each indictment; to be stripped of his clerical habit; to be pilloried in Palace Yard, and led round Westminster Hall, with an inscription over his head describing his crime. He was again to be pilloried in front of the Royal Exchange, and after that to be whipped from Aldgate to Newgate, and after two days' interval whipped again from Newgate to Tyburn. If he survived this, which was not expected, he was to be confined for life, but five times every year he was to stand again in the pillory.
If the crimes of this wretch were monstrous, his punishment was equally so. He had the assurance on his trial to call many persons of distinction, including members of Parliament, to give evidence in his favour, but he was answered only by bitter reproaches, for having led them into the spilling of much innocent blood. The lash was applied the first day so unmercifully, that though he endured it for some time, it compelled him to utter the most horrible yells. Several times he fainted, but the flagellations never stopped, and when the flogging ceased, it was doubted whether he was alive. The most earnest entreaties were made to the king and queen to have the second flogging omitted, but they were both inexorable. Yet the guilty wretch survived through all, though he was said to have received seventeen hundred stripes the second day on his already lacerated body. So long as James reigned, he was subjected to the pillory five times a year, but he lived to be pardoned at the Revolution, and receive a pension of five pounds a week in lieu of that granted him by Charles II. He died in 1705.
Dangerfield, who had not only succeeded in destroying so many innocent victims, but had displayed villainy and ingratitude of the blackest dye, was also convicted, and sentenced to pay five hundred pounds, and to be pilloried twice and whipped twice over the same ground as Oates. He was extremely insolent on his trial, but on hearing his sentence he was struck with horror, flew into the wildest exclamations, declared himself a dead man, and chose a text for his funeral sermon. Singularly enough, his end was really at hand. On returning from his whipping a gentleman named Robert Francis, of Gray's Inn, stepped up to the coach and asked him how his back was. Dangerfield replied by a curse, and Francis thrusting at him with his cane, wounded him in the eye; the wound was declared to occasion his death, though the unmerciful flogging was probably the real cause, and Francis was tried for the murder, and hanged.
JAMES II.