The Tories welcomed the accession of James with immense enthusiasm; they presented addresses of extravagant loyalty, and in the elections for the new Parliament, exerted themselves with a zeal which provoked the remark of one of their own party. Elections “were thought to be very indirectly carried on in most places. God grant a better issue of it than some expect.” “The truth is, there were many of the new members whose elections and returns were universally censured.”[139] When Parliament assembled, the King repeated, exactly, his reported declaration respecting the Established Church; thus confirming the false impression which his words were sure to produce, and this, too, notwithstanding the acknowledgment which he records respecting it in his Memoirs. “The Lords and Commons,” says the Bishop of Norwich, “hummed joyfully, and loudly, at those parts of the speech which concerned our religion, and the established Government.”[140] The House of Commons, resolving itself into a Grand Committee of Religion, determined to “stand by His Majesty” in the defence of the Reformed faith, and to beg him to “publish a proclamation, putting the laws in execution against all Dissenters whatsoever from the Church of England.”[141]
1685.
Perhaps the object of these resolutions was to embarrass the Government, to disturb the alliance between the King and the High Church party, and to decoy the Tories into an act, by which they would commit themselves, and run the risk of breaking with the Court. Certainly the resolutions tended to lay open to persecution, directly and distinctly, not only Protestant Nonconformists,—whom the Government and the Court, as well as the High Church party, were anxious to repress,—but also Roman Catholics, whom the High Church party wished to crush, the Court stood prepared to favour, and the Government were ready to tolerate, for the sake of pleasing their Royal Master. It has been suggested, that a reluctance in the majority of the House to trouble Protestant Dissenters just then, produced a reaction respecting the resolutions, but there is no foundation for this idea; whereas, it is perfectly plain, that the King and the Queen were exceedingly annoyed by the proceedings in the Commons’ House, and ordered the Court members to oppose them.[142] To crush Protestant Nonconformists was a thing which, taken by itself, James would have been very glad to do, but to persecute the members of his own Church, was a thing from which he very naturally recoiled. Obsequiousness to the Crown, in this case, triumphed over zeal against Popery; and the House underwent the mortification of eating its own words, and revoking the resolutions which had been passed in Committee, by declaring it would rest satisfied with His Majesty’s repeated declaration, to support the religion of the Church of England, as by law established.[143]
BAXTER’S TRIAL.
The disposition of the Government towards Protestant Dissenters appears in the trial of Richard Baxter. Three weeks after the King’s accession, this distinguished minister was committed to the King’s Bench, for a Paraphrase on the New Testament, which he published. On the 18th of May, being then unwell, he moved for an allowance of further time, in order to prepare his defence; but in reply to this very reasonable application, Jeffreys, the Chief Justice, who by his behaviour on the Bench whilst trying the venerable prisoner, has secured for himself everlasting infamy, savagely growled out, “I will not give him a minute’s time more, to save his life.” “Yonder stands Oates in the pillory, and he says he suffers for the truth, and so says Baxter; but if Baxter did but stand on the other side of the pillory with him, I would say, two of the greatest rogues and rascals in the kingdom stood there.”[144] Twelve days afterwards, Baxter appeared at the bar in Guildhall, with his friends Sir Henry Ashurst, Dr. Bates, Dr. Sharp, and Dr. Moore[145] attending by his side; when Jeffreys indulged in that coarse, vulgar, and well-known rhetoric, a single specimen of which is sufficient for our purpose. “What ailed the old blockhead, the unthankful villain, that he would not conform? Was he wiser or better than other men? He hath been ever since, the spring of the faction. I am sure he hath poisoned the world with his linsey-woolsey doctrine. Hang him! this one old fellow hath cast more reproach upon the constitution and discipline of our Church, than will be wiped off this hundred years; but I’ll handle him for it; for, by God, he deserves to be whipped through the City.”
1685.
An eye-witness states, that during this abuse, he himself could but smile sometimes,—notwithstanding his own tears, and those of others,—when he saw the Judge imitate “our modern pulpit drollery,” and drive “on furiously, like Hannibal over the Alps, with fire and vinegar, pouring all the contempt and scorn upon Baxter, as if he had been a link-boy or knave.”[146] After the Judge had secured a verdict from the Jury, the prisoner wrote a letter to the Bishop of London, to intercede in his behalf. Whether the latter complied with this request, we do not know; but there is reason to believe that Jeffreys wished to see the Puritan whipped at the cart-tail, and that the prevention of the punishment is to be attributed to the interference of his brother Justices, who might well think it mad and brutal to treat after such a fashion a man of the highest reputation, and one who had declined a mitre. But the aged Divine did not escape being fined five hundred marks, and condemned to imprisonment until he paid the sum. As he declined to do it, he remained in the King’s Bench until the 24th of November, 1686, when he obtained release by warrant, upon giving sureties for his good behaviour.
REBELLION.
Scarcely had James ascended the throne, when one rebellion broke out in Scotland, followed by the trial and execution of the Earl of Argyle; and another broke out in the West of England, followed by the trial and execution of the Duke of Monmouth. The latter aspiring to the Crown, issued an absurd manifesto, took the title of King, and entered in Royal state the Town of Bridgewater. This conduct could not be endured, and, consequently, an Army marched against the Pretender, and defeated him at Sedgemoor.
Mew, the warlike prelate of Winchester, who had fought both for Charles I. and Charles II., employed his coach-horses in dragging the King’s artillery to the field. Fell, Bishop of Oxford, assisted in organizing a body of volunteers for the King’s service; whilst, at the same time, Ken, whose loyalty is beyond suspicion, affected by the sight of mutilated bodies left to rot by the roadside, remonstrated against the cruelty of the officers; and, with an exemplary benevolence, visited and relieved, at Wells and other places, those who had been taken prisoners. The Church of England had made loud protestations of loyalty to King James; but the Protestant Nonconformists, whose constitutional loyalty in general cannot be impeached, were compromised, in the estimation of some, by the part which a few of them took in Monmouth’s rebellion. This unfavourable opinion received encouragement from sympathy with Dissenters, expressed for selfish purposes, by the unfortunate Duke himself, whose career could bring nothing but discredit on his friends; probably, these circumstances sharpened the severity of the persecution which marked the earlier part of James’ reign.