With the Bill founded on the principle of comprehension another was brought forward, based on the principle of toleration. It proposed to exempt Protestant Dissenters “from the penalties of certain laws.”[43] The measure made way through the House of Commons, and it forced itself through the House of Lords;[44] but because distasteful to the King on account of its limiting toleration to Protestant Nonconformists, it was put aside by some contemptible trick, when other Bills were presented for the Royal assent.[45]
On the day of the prorogation, the Commons by a formal resolution pronounced the prosecution of Protestant Dissenters to be a grievance to the subject, a detriment to the Protestant interest, an encouragement to Popery, and a danger to the kingdom’s peace.[46] However strange it is to find such a resolution in the Journals, after a Bill had been carried through the two Houses to the same effect a few days before, the fact may be explained by the circumstance that the Commons had become aware of the foul play practised on these cherished measures. It seems incredible, but such was the factious spirit existing, that the Court and High Church party—who were prepared to vindicate, or to wink at all kinds of excesses in the despotism of the Crown—positively objected to the resolution, as an unconstitutional method of invalidating Acts of Parliament.[47]
OXFORD PARLIAMENT.
Charles II. dissolved his fourth Parliament on the 18th of January, 1681, and summoned a fifth to meet at Oxford on the 21st of March.[48] This fifth Parliament opened amidst great excitement. The members for London, who had sat before, received the thanks of the citizens for searching into the Popish plot, and for supporting the Comprehension, the Toleration, and the Exclusion Bills. They rode to the City on the banks of the Isis, attended by a large body of horsemen, with ribbons stuck in their hats, displaying the watchwords, “No Popery—No Slavery.” Other members received similar addresses, and proceeded to the scholastic halls,—for the occasion transferred into senate-houses,—stirred by the conviction that a great political and ecclesiastical crisis had arisen. Met by the King with gracious but hollow sayings of the accustomed stamp, Parliament did not pass over the recent breach of decency committed in reference to the Toleration Bill, and reflections not more sharp than just were uttered by Liberal members. It was said, that those who charged the Country party with being Republicans were Revolutionists themselves, like thieves in a crowd, crying “Gentlemen, have a care of your pockets;”[49] that if Bills could be so thrown away the Commons vainly spent their time in passing them, and that what had been done inflicted a heavy blow on the English Constitution. The Commons requested a conference with the Lords, and took up the subject with spirit, declaring, as recorded in the Lords’ Journals, an intention to search out the accomplices in the piece of impudent knavery, which had just been practised on their own House.[50] Another Bill of Exclusion made its appearance, and another debate on Popery arose; but a dissolution within one week put an end to all Parliamentary inquiry, and extinguished all Parliamentary discussion.
1681.
Amidst much false alarm, and much popular folly, there existed a reasonable antipathy to the superstition and intolerance of Rome; the return of Papal ascendancy being, at that moment, no unreasonable object of fear; for with it would have inevitably arrived a new reign of civil and spiritual despotism. Protestantism on the one side, and Popery on the other, stood face to face in irreconcilable conflict; and during the storm which raged from one end of the Island to the other, there came into play two famous party watchwords, which, though in our time they have become nearly superseded, are not yet wholly swept out of existence. It is curious to notice that “Whig” and “Tory”—names then and since appropriated to political uses—had a religious origin: Whig being the title coined to fit the Presbyterian Covenanters of Scotland, suspected of anti-Monarchical principles; and “Tory” being meant to designate the Roman Catholic Irishmen, who seized the property of English settlers, and whose religion was considered most favourable to despotism.
EXCLUSION BILL.
Whilst, in these days of enlightenment and of perfectly altered circumstances, we can see how, without sacrificing universal religious liberty, we can protect ourselves against the danger of Papal ascendancy and despotism, should that danger again threaten us, it is proper to take into account the whole case respecting the conduct of our ancestors in the last two Stuart reigns, and to remember that they dreaded such broad toleration, because they apprehended it would lead to the supremacy of Romanism; and they could not see how it was possible, in this case, to concede liberty without opening a gate for the entrance of injustice. There was wisdom in the end they kept in view, though there was error in the method they employed for its attainment.
1681.
It is ridiculous to look upon the Earl of Shaftesbury as the Æolus who let loose the anti-Papal winds. He doubtless availed himself of the public favour to accomplish ends of his own, and the elevation of the Duke of Monmouth to the honour of legitimacy and heirship was with him a favourite idea, equally absurd and mischievous; but the desire, prevalent for a time, of cutting off the entail of the crown from the King’s brother, was no creation of a single person, but the offspring of public sentiment, and the outgrowth of years on years. Indignation against Popery, and the support of an Exclusion Bill, intimately connected as cause and effect, were two distinct things: but although the former continued in unabated force, the latter dwindled away, and the nation came to acquiesce, so far as the succession to the throne was concerned, in the policy of the Court. The reasons are easily assigned. Popular falsehoods respecting the Popish plots exploded in disgrace, and honest folks saw they had been deceived by knaves. From dislike to Rome, her doctrines, her polity, and her worship, some diseased secretions, which had gathered over feeling, came to be rubbed off. Romanists had been found less desperate plotters than had been dreamed. Limitations upon the descent of the crown appeared more efficacious than they had done before. The probability of another Civil War, if James were excluded, alarmed many; personal sympathy with a Sovereign required to perform so unnatural an act as that of disinheriting a brother, prevailed with more; and perhaps, considering the Royal ages, the uncertainty of the contemplated emergency influenced most. In this last respect, a manifest difference exists between the policy of an Exclusion Bill founded on a contingency which might never occur, and the policy of a Revolution based upon the despotic proceedings of an actual King. That these reasons proved effective is plain; whether they were valid and wise is another point. The sequel showed a Revolution to be inevitable. To have anticipated the event of 1688 might have saved England some trouble and much suffering; but England has always been slow to depart from constitutional principles, and has always loved to stand as long as possible “in the old ways.” The conflict which opened in 1643 had been put off until it could be put off no longer: and the men of the second half of the seventeenth century were, as it regarded an unwillingness to come to extremities, just like their fathers of the first. What really followed the departure from the scheme of Exclusion justified some of the worst fears of its supporters. The Duke was restored to his former position, and carried things with a high hand.[51]