PERSECUTION RENEWED.
The persecution of Dissenters, commenced before the breaking out of Monmouth’s rebellion, continued to rage, with additional vehemence, after the rebellion had been extinguished. The trade of the informer revived. The spiritual courts overflowed with causes. Ministers were seized, their houses searched, their rooms and closets broken open, and ransacked. The shopkeeper was taken from his business, the farmer from his homestead, husbands were separated from their wives, and parents from their children. The rich were mulcted in heavy fines, or bribes were wrung from them by informers—a present of wine or a few gold pieces being often sacrificed to these harpies, for the sake of escaping imprisonment. The loss of liberty is always an object of terror, but in those days it appeared with horrible aggravations—for dungeons were covered with filth of the most loathsome description; gaolers and turnkeys exercised despotic power, and extorted exorbitant fees; prisoners of all kinds were crowded together to suffocation; fever and pestilence were engendered and nourished; and numbers perished before their trial. It may seem incredible, but it is nevertheless a fact, that Ellwood the Quaker, and the friend of Milton, when immured in Newgate for his religion, saw the quarters of those who had been executed for treason placed close to the prisoners’ cells, and their heads tossed about like foot-balls.[149] The fear of punishment under such circumstances induced Nonconformists, in their worship, to return to those methods of secrecy and concealment which have been already described. Some proved faithless to their profession, and sought refuge from intolerant cruelty, in the bosom of the Establishment: on the other hand, there were not wanting Episcopalians, who seeing humanity outraged, professedly in support of the Church to which they belonged, left it in disgust, and cast in their lot with the sufferers for conscience’ sake.
1685.
PERSECUTION RENEWED.
The storm continued for two years; and as it terminated the series under the Stuarts, it seems to have been the worst—in this respect resembling the persecution under the Emperor Diocletian. The Quakers stated, in their petition to King James, that there had been of late above one thousand five hundred Friends in prison, of whom one thousand three hundred and eighty-three remained unreleased. Three hundred and fifty had died in gaol, since the year 1660; nearly one hundred of them since the year 1680. William Penn reckoned that altogether, more than five thousand perished for the sake of religion;[150] and Jeremy White is said to have collected a list of sixty thousand, who had suffered in some way or other for conscientious opinions. Making a large abatement from such rumours, there must have been an enormous extent of imprisonment, exile, extortion, oppression, and misery inflicted during those two reigns to account for such a rumour having been listened to for a moment.[151] Sulpicius Severus, speaking of the persecution under Diocletian, remarked, that Christians never achieved a more glorious victory than when they could not be subdued by years of slaughter. And, in the same spirit, Neal observes, that Nonconformists did not decrease, amidst all the engines of intolerance which were worked against them; their continuance and increase being attributed to their firmness of character, their practical and awakening ministry, their severe morality, their domestic religion, their able and learned ministers, the disgust excited by the conduct of their adversaries, and the reaction produced by carrying Tory principles to an unbearable extreme. In statements of this kind an author’s eye is wont to rest mainly on fines, imprisonments, and violent assaults. But there were other persecutions which Nonconformists had to endure. Much is made, by our High Church brethren, of the persecution which lingers amidst legal toleration. They point to attacks in the newspapers, to slander privately circulated, to innuendo and defamation, to irritation and annoyance in subtle forms; but no social persecution complained of in the present day, can be compared with what Nonconformists, in addition to fines, imprisonments, and brutal treatment, had to endure, when such a Christian gentleman and scholar as John Howe scarcely dared to walk the streets. In the library of Canterbury Cathedral is a large volume of MS. plays, recitations, and performances, in the reign of Charles II., wherein Roman Catholics and Nonconformists of all kinds are lampooned and abused with a vast deal more of coarseness than wit. Such things impressively indicate what the state of social feelings must have been at the time towards all who were not included within the pale of the Establishment.
CHAPTER VIII.
COURT INTRIGUES.
Important changes occurred in the Cabinet towards the close of 1685. Halifax, President of the Council—but no favourite with the King on account of his opposition to Roman Catholicism, the repeal of the Test Act, and the Royal foreign policy—was dismissed in the month of October. In December he was succeeded by Sunderland, who, from having conformed to Roman Catholic ceremonies at the commencement of the reign, and from having encouraged his Master in anti-Protestant proceedings, had succeeded in securing and retaining his good opinion. There existed a violent Popish party at Court, consisting of the Earl of Castelmaine, husband to one of Charles’ mistresses,[152] of Henry Jermyn, created Lord Dover by James II., of the Earl of Tyrconnel, and of another Irishman, named White. These persons promoted measures as rash as they were violent, and in so doing acted in concert with a few Jesuits who dwelt in England, at the head of whom was Father Petre. The Order at that time had come into collision with the Pontiff, Innocent XI. They were now in a state of alliance with the French King, who resisted Ultramontane pretensions, rather than in a state of obedience to the occupant of St. Peter’s Chair. Then, as it has happened at other times, parties in a Church which boasts of unity, were engaged in carrying on the most opposite intrigues: the Jesuits counselling the English King to set the liberties and wishes of his subjects at defiance, and to play the despot out-and-out; while the Roman Court advised him to preserve caution, and to keep within the lines of the British Constitution. Sunderland united with the Jesuits, and the other extreme Roman Catholic politicians, in encouraging the Monarch to follow those ways which ultimately led to his downfall. The Minister, to strengthen his own position, embraced the King’s religion. He had before conformed to Catholic rites, but now he professed himself a decided convert, giving to James the credit of having effected the change. After the elevation of Sunderland came the dismissal of Rochester, who had long been a Trimmer, as well as an adviser of moderation. To recover the good opinion of the King and Queen he professed to be open to conviction, courted Popish advocates, and listened to controversies between Divines of the opposite Church—but, at last, this cunning intriguer thought it the safest plan not to go over to Rome.[153]
1686.
James, encouraged in his extreme folly, rushed headlong to utter ruin. It was not because he had become a Roman Catholic, it was not simply because he sought to promote the interests of the Church which he had espoused; it was because, in seeking to accomplish that end, he violated the Constitution of his country. His despotism, not his religion, was the immediate cause of his losing a throne. He violated the law—that most sacred palladium in the eyes of an Englishman.