The Comic History of England

by Gilbert Abbott À Beckett

The Marquess of Halifax had sat at the council board for some time with Rochester, who, though swearing from morning till night, and drunk from night till morning, was the recognised head of the high church party, and the great hope of the religious section of the community. Halifax, not exactly liking the projects of his royal master, and the character of his colleague, turned a little refractory; and being dismissed from office, became in the natural order of things the leader of the opposition. His hostility told even upon the haughty Jeffreys, who was made to perform the unpleasant operation of biting the dust—a fate to which those who are always opening their mouths and showing their teeth are necessarily reduced when they are brought to a prostrate condition. James was so much disgusted and disappointed that he dissolved the Parliament, to avoid further discussion, thus as it were turning off the gas by which a light was being thrown upon his own real views and character.

The undisguised object of James was to Catholicise the whole country by dismissing from office all who had the slightest shade of Protestantism in their principles; and even Rochester, the head of the high church party, having got argumentative and disputatious over his drink, was turned out of the council. This ejectment was judicious in the main, though the immediate cause for it scarcely warranted the act; but the council room had been little better than a public-house parlour during the whole time that Rochester had been suffered to sit in it. James next drew up a declaration of liberty of conscience, to be read in all the churches, but the bishops, with very great spirit, resisted the introduction of the obnoxious document. They were consequently summoned on a charge of high misdemeanor before the King's Bench, when Jeffreys tried to cajole them with such amiable observations as "Now then, what's this little affair? There's some mistake, is there not? but we shall soon put it all to rights, I dare say;"—a style of conciliation to which the bishops did not take as kindly as the king and his creatures desired. The people were greatly in favour of the prelates, who were cheered on their way to their trial by an enthusiastic mob of juveniles; for it is worthy of remark, that the boys are ever in advance of their age, as the pioneers of popular opinion.

The jury, having in their own hearts an echo to the general voice, acquitted the defendants, after an adjournment and a locking up for a night, which had been rendered necessary by the obstinacy of a Mr. Arnold, the king's brewer, who supplied the palace with beer, and insisted upon putting what he called "nice pints," for the purpose of raising difficulties in the minds of his colleagues. A verdict of "Not guilty" was however eventually returned, and a round of applause having started in the court itself, passed from group to group till it got to Temple Bar, where the porters taking it up with terrific force, gave it a lift down Fleet Street, and it was thence forwarded by easy stages as far as the Tower. London was illuminated in honour of the occasion, and the Pope having been hanged in effigy, some wag put "a light in his laughing eye," which caused it to twinkle for a few moments, until, like the fire of genius, it consumed the frame in which it was deposited.

On the 10th of June, 1688, the queen, Mary d'Este, the second wife of James, was declared to have been delivered of a "fine bouncing boy," but the people, who would have no Papist heir to the throne, declared the alleged "bouncing boy" to be a bounce altogether. There was not over nicety in the mode chosen to account for the presence of the child, by those who would not believe that it was the son of the king and queen; but the most popular story was, that the little fellow had been brought in a warming-pan into the royal bedchamber. This was hauling the young Pretender rather prematurely over the coals, but as the contents of the warming-pan were never regularly sifted, we cannot vouch for the truth or falsehood of the account that has been handed down to us. The event, whether real or fictitious, was celebrated by a brilliant display of fireworks, which proved a sad failure; for the lightning, which was exceedingly vivid, completely took the shine out of the feu d'artifice, and thoroughly "paled," as if with a pail of cold water, "their ineffectual fires."

All eyes were now turned upon William, Prince of Orange, who, naturally enough, became as proud as a peacock at having so many eyes upon him. Having received a very pressing invitation from England, he determined to come over and question the legitimacy of the alleged Prince of Wales—our young friend of the warming-pan. On Friday, the 16th of October, 1688, William of Orange set sail, and stood over for the English coast; but old Boreas, who stands as sentinel over the British Isles, began railing and blustering in such a boisterous manner, that the invading fleet was driven out of its course, and the order on board every ship was to "Ease her," "Back her," or "Turn her astarn," to prevent a collision that might have proved disagreeable. The fleet, however, sailed definitively on the 1st of November, and arriving at Torbay on the 4th, he landed there amid the usual kissing of hands, grasping of legs, hanging on at the coat tails, and tugging affectionately at the cloak skirts, which form the ordinary demonstrations of affectionate loyalty towards any new object, who can bid tolerably high for it. Nevertheless, the people did not come out half so strongly as he could have desired; and, indeed, he complained that the warmth of his first reception had soon cooled down to mere politeness with the chill off. It is said that he even threatened to return, but recollecting that such quick returns would be productive of no profit, he abandoned the notion of going home, and said to himself, very sensibly, "Well, well! now I am here, I suppose I must make the best of it."

James was completely taken aback at the news of what had occurred, and tried to get up a little bit of popularity by turning quack doctor and running about in all directions to touch people for tne king's evil. It was, however, a mere piece of claptrap, or, as some term it, touch and go; for directly the people had been touched they were found to go without evincing the smallest symptoms of attachment to their doctor and master. James had certainly got a considerable number of soldiers; but he could not rely upon them for three reasons—first, because they were not to be trusted; secondly, because they were not to be depended upon; and thirdly, because there was no reliance to be placed upon them. Any one of these causes would of itself have been sufficient; but James was almost as difficult of conviction as the celebrated angler, who only abandoned his fishing expedition upon finding that there were, in the first place, no fish; secondly, that he had no fishing-rod; and thirdly, that if there were any fish, he did not think they would allow him to catch them.

The soldiers soon began to justify James's doubt of their fidelity, by rapidly deserting him. Lord Colchester went first, and the example was so catching that it ran through all the forces, and when James made up his mind to join the army, he made the mortifying discovery that there was nothing to join, for all the officers were unattached to the cause of the sovereign. The bishops advised him to call a Parliament, and the little Prince of Wales was packed off in a parcel, with "This side upwards" legibly inscribed on the crown of his hat, to Portsmouth. In the midst of his other distresses, the king's nose began to bleed, in consequence, it was said, of the repeated blows he had endured from the soldiery, who had flown in his face with the utmost disloyalty. He consequently made up his mind and his portmanteau to retreat, when, in stopping at Andover, he asked his son-in-law, Prince George of Denmark, and the young Duke of Ormond, to sup with him. They accepted the invitation; but in the morning they were both missing, having run off—without paying their bills—to join the Prince of Orange, whom they found in quarters. On arriving at Whitehall, James found that even his daughter Anne had followed her husband's example and joined the enemy.

As every one else was flying, James began to think that it was high time for himself to run for it. The little Prince of Wales, who had been forwarded to Portsmouth, was actually declined as a parcel on which the carriage had not been paid, and was sent back like a returned letter to London. The queen, putting the little fellow under her arm, walked over Westminster Bridge, popped into the Gravesend coach, and hailed a yacht, which took her and her infant to Calais. James, only waiting to pocket the great seal, ran after his wife; but finding the bauble heavy, and that the great seal, by making him look conspicuous, would perhaps seal his doom, he pitched it into the river. On reaching Lambeth they exclaimed, "Hoy, a hoy!" and a hoy was provided in which he took his passage; but the vessel putting in at the Isle of Sheppy for ballast, the people attacked him with great rudeness, and called him, without knowing who he was, a "hatchet-faced Jesuit." This proves he must have had a very sharp expression, for with a face like a hatchet, he would no doubt have had teeth like a saw, and presented altogether a rather formidable aspect. To save himself from outrage he announced himself as the king, but this disclosure had only the effect of making them rob as well as insult him, for knowing he had money of his own, they were determined to get it out of him. He was seized by a mob of fish-women, sailors, and smugglers, who turned his pockets inside out, and bullied him so severely that he howled out piteously for mercy, and adopted a favourite oath of his brother Charles's, when a salmon lighting rather heavily on his eye, he exclaimed, "Odds fish!" with considerable earnestness. He at length "put up" at the nearest public-house, where he wrote a note to Lord Winchilsea. Upon the arrival of this nobleman, the king sat down and had a good cry, but Winchilsea sagaciously observed to him, "Come, come; it's no use taking on so; you had much better take yourself off as speedily as possible."

The moment the flight of James from his palace was known, the city was thrown into the utmost excitement, and by way of making each other more nervous than need be, the inhabitants set all the bells ringing with incessant vehemence. The people might have knocked each other down with feathers, so agitated had they become; and in their frenzy they not only began burning all the Popish chapels, but looked everywhere for Father Petre to make the same use of him that his namesake saltpetre might have been turned to on such a very explosive occasion. Father Petre had taken himself off to France, but the pope's nuncio, who was in general denounced by the mob, disguised himself as a footman, and kept jumping up behind a carriage, to look as if he was in service, whenever he observed any one apparently watching him with suspicion. Judge Jeffreys having been stupidly intoxicated over some sittings in banco at a public-house, followed by a trial at bar of some cream gin that had been strongly recommended to his lordship for mixing, was unable of course to fly—or even to stand—but, disguised as a sailor, he was perambulating the streets of Wapping. Having been discovered, he was seized by the mob, who, instead of exercising a summary jurisdiction, and hanging him at once, as they might have done had they determined to pay him in his own coin, turned him over to the Lord Mayor as a preliminary to a regular trial.

A provisional Government of the bishops and peers was formed in London, and a note despatched to the Prince of Orange, saying, "that the first time he came that way, if he would drop in they should be very happy to see him." James showed considerable obstinacy before he could be got rid of; and he continued exercising, as long as he could, some of the smaller functions of royalty. He came back to London, and to the surprise of everybody, sat down to dinner as usual at Whitehall, forgetting, perhaps, that his father had taken a chop there on a previous occasion for having given offence to his people. Four battalions of the Dutch Guards were marched into Westminster by way of hint, which James for some time refused to take, and he had actually gone to bed, when Halifax roused him up by the information that he must start off to Ham, as the Prince of Orange was expected at Whitehall the first thing in the morning. James observed that the place suggested to him was very chilly, and as he could not bear cold Ham, he had much rather go to Rochester if it was all the same to Halifax. This was agreed to on behalf of the Prince of Orange; and James, taking the Gravesend boat, quitted London with a very few followers. There was an explosion of cockney sentimentality on this occasion; for the citizens, who had been the first to demand his expulsion, began shedding tears in teacupfuls when they witnessed the departure of the sovereign. Having remained for the night at Gravesend, he started the next morning for Rochester, and after a very brief stay, he went in a fishing-smack smack across the channel to Ambleteuse, a small town in Picardy. From thence he hastened to the Court of Louis the Fourteenth, where James still enjoyed the empty title of king, which was not the only empty thing he possessed, for his pockets were in the same condition until Louis replenished them. He sometimes compared them to a couple of exhausted non-receivers, for these were utterly exhausted, and were not in the receipt of anything but what he obtained from his brother sovereign's munificence. Some historians tell us that James had made a purse, but if he had, it is doubtful whether he had any money remaining to stock it with after the fishermen, who made all fish that came to their net, had encountered him at Torbay, and deprived him of all the loose cash he had about him.