Constitutional History of England, Henry VII to George II. Volume 2 of 3

by Henry Hallam

[752] See Marvell's "Seasonable Argument to persuade all the grand Juries in England to petition for a new Parliament." He gives very bad characters of the principal members on the court side; but we cannot take for granted all that comes from so unscrupulous a libeller. Sir Harbottle Grimstone had first thrown out, in the session of 1675, that a standing parliament was as great a grievance as a standing army, and that an application ought to be made to the king for a dissolution. This was not seconded; and met with much disapprobation from both sides of the house. Parl. Hist. vii. 64. But the country party, in two years' time, had changed their views, and were become eager for a dissolution. An address to that effect was moved in the House of Lords, and lost by only two voices, the Duke of York voting for it. Id. 800. This is explained by a passage in Coleman's Letters; where that intriguer expresses his desire to see parliament dissolved, in the hope that another would be more favourable to the toleration of catholics. This must mean that the dissenters might gain an advantage over the rigorous church of England men, and be induced to come into a general indulgence.

[753] This test, 30 Car. 2, stat. 2, is the declaration subscribed by members of both houses of parliament on taking their seats, that there is no transubstantiation of the elements in the Lord's supper; and that the invocation of saints, as practised in the church of Rome, is idolatrous. The oath of supremacy was already taken by the Commons, though not by the Lords; and it is a great mistake to imagine that catholics were legally capable of sitting in the lower house before the act of 1679. But it had been the aim of the long parliament in 1642 to exclude them from the House of Lords; and this was of course revived with greater eagerness, as the danger from their influence grew more apparent. A bill for this purpose passed the Commons in 1675, but was thrown out by the peers. Journals, May 14, Nov. 8. It was brought in again in the spring of 1678. Parl. Hist. 990. In the autumn of the same year it was renewed, when the Lords agreed to the oath of supremacy, but omitted the declaration against transubstantiation, so far as their own house was affected by it. Lords' Journals, Nov. 20, 1678. They also excepted the Duke of York from the operation of the bill; which exception was carried in the Commons by two voices. Parl. Hist. 1040. The Duke of York and seven more lords protested.

The violence of those times on all sides will account for this theological declaration; but it is more difficult to justify its retention at present. Whatever influence a belief in the pope's supremacy may exercise upon men's politics, it is hard to see how the doctrine of transubstantiation can directly affect them; and surely he who renounces the former, cannot be very dangerous on account of his adherence to the latter. Nor is it less extraordinary to demand, from many of those who usually compose a House of Commons, the assertion that the practice of the church of Rome in the invocation of saints is idolatrous; since, even on the hypothesis that a country gentleman has a clear notion of what is meant by idolatry, he is, in many cases, wholly out of the way of knowing what the church of Rome or any of its members believe or practise. The invocation of saints, as held and explained by that church in the council of Trent, is surely not idolatrous, with whatever error it may be charged; but the practice at least of uneducated Roman catholics seems fully to justify the declaration; understanding it to refer to certain superstitions, countenanced or not eradicated by their clergy. I have sometimes thought that the legislator of a great nation sets off oddly by solemnly professing theological positions about which he knows nothing, and swearing to the possession of property which he does not enjoy. [1827.]

[754] The second reading of the exclusion bill was carried, May 21, 1679, by 207 to 128. The debates are in Parliamentary History, 1125 et post. In the next parliament it was carried without a division. Sir Leoline Jenkins alone seems to have taken the high ground, that "parliament cannot disinherit the heir of the Crown; and that, if such an act should pass, it would be invalid in itself."—Id. 1191.

[755] While the exclusion bill was passing the Commons, the king took the pains to speak himself to almost every lord, to dissuade him from assenting to it when it should come up; telling them, at the same time, let what would happen, he would never suffer such a villainous bill to pass. Life of James, 553.

[756] Ralph, p. 498. The atrocious libel, entitled, "An Appeal from the Country to the City," published in 1679, and usually ascribed to Ferguson (though said in Biogr. Brit. art. L'Estrange, to be written by Charles Blount), was almost sufficient of itself to excuse the return of public opinion towards the throne. State Tracts, temp. Car. II.; Ralph, i. 476; Parl. Hist. iv. Appendix. The king is personally struck at in this tract with the utmost fury: the queen is called Agrippina, in allusion to the infamous charges of Oates; Monmouth is held up as the hope of the country. "He will stand by you, therefore you ought to stand by him. He who hath the worst title, always makes the best king." One Harris was tried for publishing this pamphlet. The jury at first found him guilty of selling; an equivocal verdict, by which they probably meant to deny, or at least to disclaim, any assertion of the libellous character of the publication. But Scroggs telling them it was their province to say guilty or not guilty, they returned a verdict of guilty. State Trials, vii. 925.

Another arrow dipped in the same poison was a "Letter to a Person of Honour concerning the Black Box." Somers Tracts, viii. 189. The story of a contract of marriage between the king and Mrs. Waters, Monmouth's mother, concealed in a black box, had lately been current; and the former had taken pains to expose its falsehood by a public examination of the gentleman whose name had been made use of. This artful tract is intended to keep up the belief of Monmouth's legitimacy, and even to graft it on the undeniable falsehood of that tale; as if it had been purposely fabricated to delude the people by setting them on a wrong scent. See also another libel of the same class, p. 197.

Though Monmouth's illegitimacy is past all question, it has been observed by Harris that the Princess of Orange, in writing to her brother about Mrs. Waters, in 1655, twice names her as his wife. Thurloe, i. 665, quoted in Harris's Lives, iv. 168. But though this was a scandalous indecency on her part, it proves no more than that Charles, like other young men in the heat of passion, was foolish enough to give that appellation to his mistress; and that his sister humoured him in it.

Sidney mentions a strange piece of Monmouth's presumption. When he went to dine with the city in October 1680, it was remarked that the bar, by which the heralds denote illegitimacy, had been taken off the royal arms on his coach. Letters to Saville, p. 54.

[757] Life of James, 592 et post. Compare Dalrymple, p. 265 et post. Barillon was evidently of opinion that the king would finally abandon his brother. Sunderland joined the Duchess of Portsmouth, and was one of the thirty peers who voted for the bill in November 1680. James charges Godolphin also with deserting him. P. 615. But his name does not appear in the protest signed by twenty-five peers; though that of the privy seal, Lord Anglesea, does. The Duchess of Portsmouth sat near the Commons at Stafford's trial, "dispensing her sweetmeats and gracious looks among them."—P. 638.