The assistance of the French king was no doubt deemed by the cabal a considerable support in the schemes which they were forming; but it is not easily conceived they could imagine themselves capable of directing and employing an associate of so domineering a character. They ought justly to have suspected, that it would be the sole intention of Lewis, as it evidently was his interest, to raise incurable jealousies between the king and his people; and that he saw how much a steady, uniform government in this island, whether free or absolute, would form invincible barriers to his ambition. Should his assistance be demanded, if he sent a small supply, it would serve only to enrage the people, and render the breach altogether irreparable; if he furnished a great force, sufficient to subdue the nation, there was little reason to trust his generosity with regard to the use which he would make of this advantage.
In all its other parts, the plan of the cabal, it must be confessed, appears equally absurd and incongruous. If the war with Holland were attended with great success, and involved the subjection of the republic, such an accession of force must fall to Lewis, not to Charles: and what hopes afterwards of resisting by the greatest unanimity so mighty a monarch? How dangerous, or rather how ruinous, to depend upon his assistance against domestic discontents! If the Dutch, by their own vigor, and the assistance of allies, were able to defend themselves, and could bring the war to an equality, the French arms would be so employed abroad, that no considerable reënforcement could thence be expected to second the king’s enterprises in England. And might not the project of overawing or subduing the people be esteemed of itself sufficiently odious, without the aggravation of sacrificing that state which they regarded as their best ally, and with which, on many accounts, they were desirous of maintaining the greatest concord and strictest confederacy? Whatever views likewise might be entertained of promoting by these measures the Catholic religion, they could only tend to render all the other schemes abortive, and make them fall with inevitable ruin upon the projectors. The Catholic religion, indeed, where it is established, is better fitted than the Protestant for supporting an absolute monarchy; but would any man have bought of it as the means of acquiring arbitrary authority in England, where it was more detested than even slavery itself?
It must be allowed that the difficulties, and even inconsistencies, attending the schemes of the cabal, are so numerous and obvious, that one feels at first an inclination to deny the reality of those schemes, and to suppose them entirely the chimeras of calumny and faction. But the utter impossibility of accounting, by any other hypothesis, for those strange measures embraced by the court, as well as for the numerous circumstances which accompanied them, obliges us to acknowledge, (though there remains no direct evidence of it,[*]) that a formal plan was laid for changing the religion, and subverting the constitution of England; and that the king and the ministry were in reality conspirators against the people. What is most probable in human affairs, is not always true and a very minute circumstance overlooked in our speculations, serves often to explain events which may seem the most surprising and unaccountable.
* Since the publication of this History, the author has had
occasion to see the most direct and positive evidence of
this conspiracy. From the urbanity and candor of the
principal of the Scotch college at Paris, he was admitted to
peruse James II.‘s Memoirs, kept there. They amount to
several volumes of small folio, all writ with that prince’s
own hand, and comprehending the remarkable incidents of his
life, from his early youth till near the time of his death.
His account of the French alliance is as follows: The
intention of the king and duke was chiefly to change the
religion of England, which they deemed an easy undertaking,
because of the great propensity, as they imagined, of the
cavaliers and church party to Popery: the treaty with Lewis
was concluded at Versailles in the end of 1669, or beginning
of 1670, by Lord Arundel of Wardour, whom no historian
mentions as having had any hand in these transactions. The
purport of it was, that Lewis was to give Charles two
hundred thousand pounds a year in quarterly payments, in
order to enable him to settle the Catholic religion in
England; and he was also to supply him with an army of six
thousand men, in case of any insurrection. When that work
was finished, England was to join with France in making war
upon Holland. In case of success, Lewis was to have the
inland provinces; the prince of Orange, Holland in
sovereignty; and Charles, Sluice, the Brille, Walkeren, with
the rest of the seaports as far as Mazeland Sluice. The
king’s project was first to effect the change of religion in
England; but the duchess of Orleans, in the interview at
Dover, persuaded him to begin with the Dutch war, contrary
to the remonstrances of the duke of York, who insisted that
Lewis, after serving his own purpose, would no longer
trouble himself about England. The duke makes no mention of
any design to render the king absolute; but that was no
doubt implied in the other project, which was to be effected
entirely by royal authority. The king was so zealous a
Papist, that he wept for joy when he saw the prospect of
reuniting his kingdom to the Catholic church.
Sir John Dalrymple has since published some other curious particulars with regard to this treaty. We find that it was concerted and signed with the privity alone of four Popish counsellors of the king’s; Arlington, Arundel, Clifford, and Sir Richard-Bealing. The secret was kept from Buckingham, Ashley, and Lauderdale. In order to engage them to take part in it, a very refined and a very mean artifice was fallen upon by the king. After the secret conclusion and signature of the treaty, the king pretended to these three ministers that for smaller matters,[*] and the ordinary occurrences of life nor had he application enough to carry his view to distant consequences, or to digest and adjust any plan of political operations.
* Duke of Buckingham’s character of King Charles II.
As he scarcely ever thought twice on any one subject, every appearance of advantage was apt to seduce him; and when he found his way obstructed by unlooked-for difficulties, he readily turned aside into the first path, where he expected more to gratify the natural indolence of his disposition. To this versatility or pliancy of genius he himself was inclined to trust; and he thought that, after trying an experiment for enlarging his authority, and altering the national religion, he could easily, if it failed, return into the ordinary channel of government. But the suspicions of the people, though they burst not forth at once, were by this attempt rendered altogether incurable; and the more they reflected on the circumstances attending it, the more resentment and jealousy were they apt to entertain. They observed, that the king never had any favorite; that he was never governed by his ministers, scarcely even by his mistresses; and that he himself was the chief spring of all public counsels. Whatever appearance, therefore, of a change might be assumed, they still suspected that the same project was secretly in agitation; and they deemed no precaution too great to secure them against the pernicious consequences of such measures.
He wished to have a treaty and alliance with France for mutual supports and for a Dutch war; and when various pretended obstacles and difficulties were surmounted, a sham treaty was concluded with their consent and approbation, containing every article of the former real treaty, except that of the king’s change of religion. However, there was virtually involved, even in this treaty, the assuming of absolute government in England; for the support of French troops, and a war with Holland, so contrary to the interests and inclinations of his people, could mean nothing else. One cannot sufficiently admire the absolute want of common sense which appears throughout the whole of this criminal transaction. For if Popery was so much the object of national horror, that even the king’s three ministers, Buckingham, Ashley, and Lauderdale, and such profligate ones, too, either would not or durst not receive it, what hopes could he entertain of forcing the nation into that communion? Considering the state of the kingdom, full of veteran and zealous soldiers, bred during the civil wars, it is probable that he had not kept the crown two months after a declaration so wild and extravagant. This was probably the reason why the king of France and the French minister always dissuaded him from taking off the mask, till the successes of the Dutch war should render that measure prudent and practicable.
The king, sensible of this jealousy, was inclined thenceforth not to trust his people, of whom he had even before entertained a great diffidence; and though obliged to make a separate peace, he still kept up connections with the French monarch. He apologized for deserting his ally, by representing to him all the real, undissembled difficulties under which he labored; and Lewis, with the greatest complaisance and good humor, admitted the validity of his excuses. The duke likewise, conscious that his principles and conduct had rendered him still more obnoxious to the people, maintained on his own account a separate correspondence with the French court, and entered into particular connections with Lewis, which these princes dignified with the name of friendship. The duke had only in view to secure his succession, and favor the Catholics, and it must be acknowledged to his praise, that though his schemes were in some particulars dangerous to the people, they gave the king no just ground of jealousy. A dutiful subject, and an affectionate brother, he knew no other rule of conduct than obedience; and the same unlimited submission which afterwards, when king, he exacted of his people, he was ever willing, before he ascended the throne, to pay to his sovereign.
As the king was at peace with all the world, and almost the only prince in Europe placed in that agreeable situation, he thought proper to offer his mediation to the contending powers, in order to compose their differences. France, willing to negotiate under so favorable a mediator, readily accepted of Charles’s offer; but it was apprehended that, for a like reason, the allies would be inclined to refuse it. In order to give a sanction to his new measures, the king invited Temple from his retreat, and appointed him ambassador to the states. That wise minister, reflecting on the unhappy issue of his former undertakings, and the fatal turn of counsels which had occasioned it, resolved, before he embarked anew, to acquaint himself, as far as possible, with the real intentions of the king, in those popular measures which he seemed again to have adopted. After blaming the dangerous schemes of the cabal, which Charles was desirous to excuse, he told his majesty very plainly, that he would find it extremely difficult, if not absolutely impossible, to introduce into England the same system of government and religion which was established in France: that the universal bent of the nation was against both; and it required ages to change the genius and sentiments of a people: that many, who were at bottom indifferent in matters of religion, would yet oppose all alterations on that head because they considered, that nothing but force of arms could subdue the reluctance of the people against Popery; after which, they knew there could be no security for civil liberty: that in France, every circumstance had long been adjusted to that system of government, and tended to its establishment and support: that the commonalty, being poor and dispirited, were of no account; the nobility, engaged by the prospect or possession of numerous offices, civil and military, were entirely attached to the court; the ecclesiastics, retained by like motives, added the sanction of religion to the principles of civil policy: that in England, a great part of the landed property belonged either to the yeomanry or middling gentry; the king had few offices to bestow; and could not himself even subsist, much less maintain an army, except by the voluntary supplies of his parliament: that if he had an army on foot, yet, if composed of Englishmen, they would never be prevailed on to promote ends which the people so much feared and hated: that the Roman Catholics in England were not the hundredth part of the nation, and in Scotland not the two hundredth; and it seemed against all common sense to hope, by one part, to govern ninety-nine, who were of contrary sentiments and dispositions: and that foreign troops, if few, would tend only to inflame hatred and discontent; and how to raise and bring over at once, or to maintain many, it was very difficult to imagine. To these reasonings Temple added the authority of Gourville, a Frenchman, for whom he knew the king had entertained a great esteem. “A king of England,” said Gourville, “who will be the man of his people, is the greatest king in the world; but if he will be any thing more, he is nothing at all.” The king heard at first this discourse with some impatience; but being a dexterous dissembler, he seemed moved at last, and laying his hand on Temple’s, said, with an appearing cordiality, “And I will be the man of my people.”