THE "POPISH PLOT" (1678).—The already exasperated nation was infuriated by an alleged "Popish Plot" for the subverting of the government, and for the murder of the king and of all Protestants. Titus Oates, a perjurer, was the main witness. Many innocent Roman Catholics were put to death. This pretended plot led to stringent measures shutting out papists from office. Halifax, an able man who called himself "a trimmer," because he did not always stay on one side or with one party, opposed a bill that would have excluded the king's brother from the succession, and it failed.
HABEAS CORPUS ACT.—In 1679 the Habeas Corpus Act was passed, providing effectually against the arbitrary imprisonment of subjects. Persons arrested must be brought to trial, or proved in open court to be legally confined.
PARTIES: RUSSELL AND SIDNEY.—At this time the party names of Whig and Tory came into vogue. Insurgent Presbyterians in Scotland had been called "Whigs," a Scotch word meaning whey, or sour milk. The nickname was now applied to Shaftesbury's adherents, opponents of the court, who wished to exclude the Duke of York from the throne on account of his being a Catholic. Tories, also a nickname, the designation of the supporters of the court, meant originally Romanist outlaws, or robbers, in the bogs of Ireland. Many of the Whigs began to devise plans of insurrection, from hatred of Charles's arbitrary system of government. Some of them were disposed to put forward Monmouth, the eldest of Charles's illegitimate sons, and a favorite of the common people. The "Rye-House Plot" for the assassination of the king and his brother was the occasion of the trial and execution of two eminent patriots,—William, Lord Russell, and Algernon Sidney, a warm advocate of republican government. Both, it is believed, were unjustly condemned. The Duke of York assumed once more the office of admiral. Charles, before his death, received the sacrament from a priest of the Church of Rome (1685).
JAMES II. (1685-1688): MONMOUTH'S REBELLION.—A few months after James's accession, the Duke of Monmouth landed in England; but his effort to get the crown failed. His forces, mostly made up of peasants, were defeated at Sedgemoor; and he perished on the scaffold. Vengeance was taken upon all concerned in the revolt; and Chief Justice Jeffreys, for his brutal conduct in the "Bloody Assizes," in which, savage as he was, he nevertheless became rich by the sale of pardons, was rewarded with the office of lord chancelor.
JAMES'S ARBITRARY GOVERNMENT.—James paid no heed to his promise to defend the Church of England. Of a slow and obstinate mind, he could not yield to the advice of moderate Roman Catholics, and of the Pope, Innocent XI.; but set out, by such means as dispensing with the laws, to restore the old religion, and at the same time to extinguish civil liberty. He turned out the judges who did not please him. He created a new Ecclesiastical Commission, for the coercion of the clergy, with the notorious Jeffreys at its head. After having treated with great cruelty the Protestant dissenters, he unlawfully issued a Declaration of Indulgence (1687) in their favor, in order to get their support for his schemes in behalf of his own religion. He turned out the fellows of Magdalen College, Oxford, for refusing to appoint a Catholic for their president. He sent seven bishops to the Tower in 1688, who had signed a petition against the order requiring a second Declaration of Indulgence to be read in the churches. Popular sympathy was strongly with the accused, and the news of their acquittal was received in the streets of London with shouts of joy.
REVOLUTION OF 1688: WILLIAM AND MARY (1689-1694).—The birth of a Prince of Wales by his second wife, Mary of Modena, increased the disaffection of the English people. His two daughters by his first wife—Mary and Anne—were married to Protestants; Mary, to William, Prince of Orange and stadtholder of Holland, and Anne to George, Prince of Denmark. By a combination of parties hostile to the king, William was invited to take the English throne. James was blind to the signs of the approaching danger, and to the warnings of Louis XIV. of France. When it was too late, he attempted in vain to disarm the conspiracy by concessions. William landed in safety at Torbay. He was joined by persons of rank. Lord Churchill, afterwards the celebrated Duke of Marlborough, left the royal force of which he had the command, and went over to him. The king's daughter, Anne, fled to the insurgents in the North. William was quite willing that James should leave the kingdom, and purposely caused him to be negligently guarded by Dutch soldiers. He fled to France, never to return. Parliament declared the throne to be, on divers grounds, vacant, and promulgated a Declaration of Right affirming the ancient rights and liberties of England. It offered the crown to William and Mary, who accepted it (1689). A few months later, the estates of Scotland bestowed upon them the crown of that country. Presbyterianism was made the established form of religion there. The union of the kingdoms was consummated under their successor, Anne, when Scotland began to be represented in the English Parliament.
THE MASSACRE OF GLENCOE.—A Highland chief, MacIan of Glencoe, with many of his followers, was treacherously slaughtered by order of Dalrymple, the Master of Stair, who governed Scotland, and had obtained by misrepresentation from William leave to extirpate that "set of thieves," as he had called them.
WILLIAM IN IRELAND.—The sovereignty of Ireland passed, with that of England, to William and Mary. There James II., supported by France, made a stout resistance. It was a conflict of the Irish Catholics, together with the descendants of the Norman-English settlers, comprising together about a million of people, against the English and Scottish colonists, not far from two hundred thousand in number. The latter, with steadfast courage, sustained a siege in Londonderry until the city was relieved by ships from England. Many of the inhabitants had perished from hunger. The victory of William at Boyne (1690), where Schomberg, his brave general, a Huguenot French marshal, fell, decided the contest. William led his troops in person through the Boyne River, with his sword in his left hand, since his right arm was disabled by a wound. James was a spectator of the fight at a safe distance.
ENGLISH LIBERTY.—In William's reign, liberty in England was fortified by the Bill of Rights, containing a series of safeguards against regal usurpation. Papists were made ineligible to the throne. The Toleration Act afforded to Protestant dissenters a large measure of protection and freedom. The press was made free from censorship (1695), and newspapers began to be published. Provision was made for the fair trial of persons indicted for treason. The Act of Settlement (1701) settled the crown, if there should be no heirs of Anne or of William, upon the Princess Sophia, Electress of Hanover, the daughter of Elizabeth of Bohemia, and granddaughter of James I., and on her heirs, being Protestants.
THE GRAND ALLIANCE: TO THE PEACE OF RYSWICK.—The next war which Louis XIV. began was that of the succession in the territory of the Palatinate, which he claimed, on the extinction of the male line of electors, for Elizabeth Charlotte, the gifted and excellent sister of the deceased Elector Charles, and the wife of the Duke of Orleans, the king's brother.