The first royalist party which took the management of affairs, after the return of Charles II., was in fact the legal party, represented by its ablest chief, the high chancellor Clarendon. From 1660 to 1667, Clarendon was prime minister, and possessed of the greatest influence in England. Clarendon and his friends reappeared with their ancient system, the absolute sovereignty of the king, restrained within legal limits, controlled in matters of taxation by the parliament, and in matters of private right and individual liberty by the tribunals of justice; but possessing, in the practice of government, properly so called, an almost entire independence, and the most decisive preponderance, to the exclusion, or even in spite of, the wishes of the majority in parliament, and especially of those of the House of Commons. On other points, they evinced a proper respect for legal order, a solicitude for the interests of the country, a noble sentiment of its dignity, and a moral tone highly grave and honourable. Such was the character of Clarendon's administration for seven years.
But the fundamental ideas upon which this administration rested, the absolute sovereignty of the king, and the government raised beyond the sphere of the influence of parliament, were antiquated and dead in the public mind. Notwithstanding the reaction of the first moments of the Restoration, twenty years of parliamentary dominion had placed them beyond resuscitation. A new element shortly burst out in the heart of the royalist party, personified in the Deists, rakes, or libertines, who participated in the ideas of the time, partook the belief that power was vested in the Commons, and caring little for legal order, or the absolute sovereignty of the king, were anxious only for their own success, and sought it wherever they perceived any means of influence or power to exist. They formed a party which allied itself with the discontented national party, and Clarendon was overthrown.
Then came a new system of government, carried on by that portion of the royalist party that I have just described. The rakes or libertines formed the ministry that is styled the ministry of the Cabal, and several of the administrations that succeeded it. Let us see what were their characteristics. No solicitude as to principles, laws, or rights; no regard for justice or truth; the adoption of such means of success as each occasion presented; if success depended on the influence of the Commons, everything was prostituted to gain it; if it were necessary to disregard the Commons, it was done without scruple, asking their pardon the next moment. Corruption was tried one day, cajolery with the nation the next: no care was evinced for the general interests of the country, for its dignity or its honour; in a word, it was a government essentially selfish and immoral, scorning all doctrines and views of public advantage; but at bottom, and in the practice of affairs, sufficiently intelligent and liberal. Such was the character of the Cabal, of the ministry of the Earl of Danby, and of the whole English government from 1667 to 1679. In spite of its immorality, and its disdain for principles and the true interests of the country, this government was less odious and unpopular than the ministry of Clarendon had been. And why? Because it was more in the spirit of the age, and understood better the sentiments of the people, even whilst it mocked them. It was not antiquated and foreign to the feelings of the country like that of Clarendon; and though it did the nation much greater injury, it was less distasteful to it.
At last there came a moment when corruption, servility, and disregard for the public rights and honour were pushed to such a point, as to render farther sufferance impossible. There was a general outcry against the government of the libertines. A national and patriotic party was formed in the House of Commons. The king was induced to call its chiefs to the council. Then came into the direction of affairs Lord Essex, the son of him who had commanded the first parliamentary armies during the civil war, Lord Russell, and a man who, without having any of their virtues, was far superior to them in political ability, Lord Shaftesbury. Thus placed at the head of affairs, the national party gave tokens of its incapacity; it knew not how to gain the moral force of the country; it was unable to conciliate the interests, habits, and prejudices either of the king, of the court, or of the persons with whom it had to transact business. It conveyed to no one, either to king or people, any great idea of its talents or energy. After remaining a short time in power, it sank. The virtues of its chiefs, their generous courage, the nobleness of their deaths, have exalted them in history, and justly placed them in the highest rank; but their political capacity did not equal their virtue, and they knew not how to exercise the power which had been unable to corrupt them, or make the cause triumphant for which they could lay their heads on the block.
Let us see in what state the English Restoration was after the failure of this attempt. It had, like the Revolution, in some sort tried all parties and administrations—the legal, the corrupt, and the national—and none had succeeded. The country and the court found themselves in a situation almost analogous to that in which England was in 1653 at the close of the revolutionary storm. Recourse was had to the same expedient: what Cromwell had done for lessening the evils of the Revolution, Charles II. did for the advantage of his crown—he plunged into the career of absolute power.
James II. succeeded his brother. Then a second question was added to that of absolute power—the question of religion. James wished to make papistry dominant as well as despotism. Thus we see, as at the commencement of the Revolution, a religious rising and a political rising, both directed against the government. It has been often asked what would have happened if William III. had not been in existence, or if he had not come with his Hollanders to put an end to the quarrel between James II. and the English people? I am decidedly of opinion that the same event would have been accomplished. The whole of England, excepting a very small party, was aroused at that epoch against James, and most assuredly the Revolution of 1688 would have been effected under one form or another. But that crisis was hastened by causes more influential than the internal state of England. It was a European event as well as an English. It is at this point that the English Revolution is connected by facts themselves, independently of the influence which its example has exercised, to the general course of European civilisation.
Whilst the struggle was breaking out in England which I have just alluded to—the war of absolute power against civil and religious liberty—one of the same kind was proceeding on the continent, very different as to the actors, the forms it assumed, and the theatre of action, but at bottom the same, and for the same cause. The pure unmixed monarchy of Louis XIV. was striving to become a universal monarchy; at least it gave occasion for the apprehension, and in fact Europe was impressed with that fear. A league amongst certain status in Europe was formed to oppose this attempt, and the chief of that league was the head of the party for securing religious and civil liberty in Europe—William, Prince of Orange. The Protestant republic of Holland, with William as its leader, undertook to resist the pure monarchy represented and led on by Louis XIV. The apparent question at issue was not as to civil and religious liberty in the interior of states, but of the independence of those states. Louis XIV. and his opponents had no idea that they were contesting between them the same question that was at stake in England. Their struggle was maintained, not as between parties, but as between states; it was carried on by war and diplomacy, and not by political party movements and revolutions. But at bottom it was the same question that was agitated.
When, therefore, James II. recommenced in England the contest between absolute power and liberty, it occurred in the midst of the general war which was going forward in Europe between Louis XIV. and the Prince of Orange, the representatives of two great systems fighting on the Scheldt as well as on the Thames. The league against Louis XIV. was so strong, that several sovereigns entered it, either publicly, or in a concealed but effective manner, who were assuredly greatly averse to the flourishing of civil and religious liberty. The Emperor of Germany and Pope Innocent XI. supported William against Louis XIV. And William passed into England, less to serve the internal interests of that country, than to draw it fully into the league against Louis. He took this new kingdom as an additional force which he needed, and which his adversary had previously made use of against him. So long as Charles II. and James II. had reigned, England had belonged to Louis XIV.; it was he who had disposed of its force, and had invariably directed it against Holland. England was therefore drawn from the party of pure and universal monarchy, to become the main instrument and support of religious liberty. This is the European side of the Revolution of 1688, and it is by this connection that it took a station in the events of Europe considered as a whole, independently of the part it played by its example, and the influence it exercised over the minds of men in the following century.
Thus we see, as I stated at the commencement, that the true meaning and essential character of this revolution was the attempt to abolish absolute power in temporal as well as in spiritual matters. This fact is to be found in all the phases of the Revolution, in its first period up to the Restoration, and in the second up to the crisis of 1688, whether we consider it in its interior development as to England, or in its relations with Europe in general.
It remains for us to study the same great event—the struggle between pure monarchy and free inquiry on the continent, or at least its causes and approaches. This will be the object of my next and last lecture.