The apologists of James II. have endeavoured to lay the entire blame of these cruelties on Jefferies, and to represent the king as ignorant of them. Roger North tells a story of his brother's interference, which is plainly contradicted by known dates, and the falsehood of which throws just suspicion on his numerous anecdotes. See State Trials, xi. 303. But the king speaks with apparent approbation of what he calls Jefferies's campaign, in writing to the Prince of Orange (Dalrymple, 165); and I have heard that there are extant additional proofs of his perfect acquaintance with the details of those assizes; nor, indeed, can he be supposed ignorant of them. Jefferies himself, before his death, declared that he had not been half bloody enough for him by whom he was employed. Burnet, 651 (note to Oxford edition, vol. iii.). The king, or his biographer in his behalf, makes a very awkward apology for the execution of Major Holmes, which is shown by himself to have been a gross breach of faith. Life of James, ii. 43.
It is unnecessary to dwell on what may be found in every history: the trials of Mrs. Lisle, Mrs. Gaunt, and Alderman Cornish; the former before Jefferies, the two latter before Jones, his successor as chief justice of K. B., a judge nearly as infamous as the former, though not altogether so brutal. Both Mrs. Lisle's and Cornish's convictions were without evidence, and consequently were reversed after the revolution. State Trials, vol. xi.
[107] Several proofs of this appear in the correspondence of Barillon. Fox, 135; Mazure, ii. 22. The nuncio, M. d'Adda, was a moderate man, and united with the moderate catholic peers, Bellasis, Arundel, and Powis. Id. 127. This party urged the king to keep on good terms with the Prince of Orange, and to give way about the test. Id. 184, 255. They were disgusted at Father Petre's introduction into the privy council; 308, 353. But it has ever been the misfortune of that respectable body to suffer unjustly for the follies of a few. Barillon admits, very early in James's reign, that many of them disliked the arbitrary proceedings of the court; "ils prétendent être bons Anglois, c'est-à-dire, ne pas désirer que le roi d'Angleterre ôte à la nation ses privilèges et ses libertés." Mazure, i. 404.
William openly declared his willingness to concur in taking off the penal laws, provided the test might remain. Burnet, 694; Dalrymple, 184; Mazure, ii. 216, 250, 346. James replied that he must have all or nothing. Id. 353.
[108] I do not know that this intrigue has been brought to light before the recent valuable publication of M. Mazure, certainly not with such full evidence. See i. 417; ii. 128, 160, 165, 167, 182, 188, 192. Barillon says to his master in one place: "C'est une matière fort délicate à traiter. Je sais pourtant qu'on en parle au roi d'Angleterre; et qu'avec le temps on ne désespère pas de trouver des moyens pour faire passer la couronne sur la tête d'un heritier catholique. Il faut pour cela venir à bout de beaucoup des choses qui ne sont encore que commencées."
[109] Burnet, Dalrymple, Mazure.
[110] The correspondence began by an affectedly obscure letter of Lady Sunderland to the Prince of Orange, dated March 7, 1687. Dalrymple, 187. The meaning, however, cannot be misunderstood. Sunderland himself sent a short letter of compliment by Dykvelt, May 28, referring to what that envoy had to communicate. Churchill, Nottingham, Rochester, Devonshire, and others, wrote also by Dykvelt. Halifax was in correspondence at the end of 1686.
[111] Sunderland does not appear, by the extracts from Barillon's letters published by M. Mazure, to have been the adviser of the king's most injudicious measures. He was united with the queen, who had more moderation than her husband. It is said by Barillon that both he and Petre were against the prosecution of the bishops, ii. 448. The king himself ascribes this step to Jefferies, and seems to glance also at Sunderland as its adviser. Life of James, ii. 156. He speaks more explicitly as to Jefferies in Macpherson's Extracts, 151. Yet Lord Clarendon's Diary, ii. 49, tends to acquit Jefferies. Probably the king had nobody to blame but himself. One cause of Sunderland's continuance in the apparent support of a policy which he knew to be destructive was his poverty. He was in the pay of France, and even importunate for its money. Mazure, 372; Dalrymple, 270 et post. Louis only gave him half what he demanded. Without the blindest submission to the king, he was every moment falling; and this drove him in to a step as injudicious as it was unprincipled, his pretended change of religion, which was not publicly made till June 1688, though he had been privately reconciled, it is said (Mazure, ii. 463) more than a year before by Father Petre.
[112] "This defection of those his majesty had hitherto put the greatest confidence in [Clarendon and Rochester], and the sullen disposition of the church of England party in general, made him think it necessary to reconcile another; and yet he hoped to do it in such a manner as not to disgust quite the church-man neither." Life of James, ii. 102.
[113] London Gazette, March 18, 1687; Ralph, 945.