1689.
The oaths of allegiance prescribed, as they led to momentous consequences, ought to be given. “I, A. B., do sincerely promise and swear, That I will be faithful, and bear true allegiance to their Majesties King William and Queen Mary. So help me God.” “I, A. B., do swear, That I do from my heart abhor, detest, and abjure, as impious and heretical, this damnable doctrine and position, That Princes excommunicated or deprived by the Pope, or any authority of the See of Rome, may be deposed or murdered by their subjects, or any other whatsoever. And I do declare, That no foreign prince, person, prelate, state or potentate, hath, or ought to have, any jurisdiction, power, superiority, pre-eminence, or authority, ecclesiastical or spiritual, within this realm. So help me God.”[107]
CHARACTER OF THE REVOLUTION.
Before the completion of this Parliamentary manifesto, the Princess Mary had come to England; and upon the 13th of February she took her place beside her husband in the Banqueting-house at Whitehall under a canopy of State, when the two Speakers, followed by the Lords and Commons respectively, were conducted into their presence by the Usher of the Black Rod, to offer the Crown upon conditions implied in the Declaration of Rights. When the document had been read, the Prince replied, “This is certainly the greatest proof of the trust you have in us that can be given, which is the thing which makes us value it the more; and we thankfully accept what you have offered to us. And as I had no other intention in coming hither, than to preserve your religion, laws, and liberties, so you may be sure that I shall endeavour to support them, and shall be willing to concur in anything that shall be for the good of the kingdom; and to do all that is in my power to advance the welfare and glory of the nation.” The day on which this tender was accepted, saw once more the gorgeous ceremonial by which Kings and Queens in England had been proclaimed. A long line of coaches passed from Westminster to the City, with a brilliant array of marshals’ men, trumpeters, and heralds. A pause at Temple Bar at the Gates, and then a formal opening took place in due order. The Lord Mayor in a coach, and the Aldermen, Sheriffs, and Recorder on horseback, conducted the Peers and Commons to the middle of Cheapside—the train bands lining the way. Then, after declaring that God had vouchsafed a miraculous deliverance from Popery and arbitrary power through His Highness the Prince of Orange, and after referring to the great and eminent virtue of Her Highness the Princess, whose zeal for the Protestant religion was sure to bring a blessing upon this nation—the heralds proclaimed William and Mary “King and Queen of England, France, and Ireland, with all the dominions and territories thereunto belonging.”[108]
1689.
That evening, the Queen sent two of her Chaplains to the Archbishop of Canterbury to beg his blessing; and, by a suspicious combination of two errands, desired them to attend the service in Lambeth Chapel, and notice whether prayers were offered for the Sovereigns. The Chaplain being alarmed, asked His Grace what should be done: he replied, “I have no new instructions to give.” The Chaplain interpreted this as entrusting him with a discretionary power, and, wishing to keep the Primate out of difficulty, prayed for the King and Queen who had just been proclaimed. The act provoked Sancroft, who sent for the Chaplain, and commanded him either to desist from such petitions, or to cease from officiating in Lambeth; for so long as King James lived, no other person could be Sovereign of England. Sancroft’s conviction that a Regency was the right thing seems to have deepened, when in the opinion of everybody else it passed utterly out of the question; for the Primate had a temper which increased in obstinacy in proportion as the object pursued became unattainable.
CHARACTER OF THE REVOLUTION.
1689.
The appointment of officers of State immediately followed the accession to the throne. The reader will bear in mind what has been said in former volumes respecting the mode of administering affairs in the Stuart reigns. No Ministry, in our sense of the term, existed then, men of different political opinions being employed as functionaries of Government. This usage survived the Revolution; and William surrounded himself with Whigs and Tories. Reserving to himself the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he appointed as President of the Council the Earl of Danby, although that nobleman differed from him in many opinions. Danby had countenanced encroachments by the Royal prerogatives; he had even maintained the doctrine of passive obedience. That doctrine he was now, through the necessities of the times, forced to abandon, and by serving under a Monarch whose throne rested on the Declaration of Rights, he virtually repudiated his earlier opinions. He had also persecuted Dissenters—a policy now professedly abandoned. Yet there remained in Lord Danby a strong attachment to high ecclesiastical views, and he was zealous for the old connection between Church and Crown as the best method of preserving both. Halifax, described as the Trimmer,[109] had become more of a Liberal, and to him was entrusted the Privy Seal and the Speakership of the Upper House. The Earl of Nottingham—another deserter from the Tory ranks—professed that although his principles did not allow him to take part in making William King, they bound him, now that the deed was done, to pay His Majesty a more strict obedience than he could expect from those who had made him Sovereign. He accepted the office of a Secretary of State—an act which, like that of Danby, served to give weight to the new administration in the eyes of Tories and High Churchmen. Shrewsbury, a popular Whig, and a young man of twenty-eight, was the other Secretary. The Great Seal came into the hands of Commissioners, the chief of whom was Sir John Maynard, who had upheld the Petition of Rights in 1628, had voted with the country party in the struggles preceding the Civil Wars, had subscribed the League and Covenant, and had advised Cromwell to accept the Crown. He was ninety years of age, and when presented to William at Whitehall the Prince remarked, he must have survived all the lawyers of his time. He replied, “he had like to have outlived the law itself, if His Highness had not come over.”[110] The Treasury fell into the hands of Whigs, amongst whom was Godolphin, the husband of Margaret Blagge, a man of practical ability, but of no fixed principle, a staunch Churchman, yet one of a class that could live amongst Jesuits under King James, and could keep on terms with Presbyterians under King William.
This administration—a Joseph’s coat of many colours—proceeded from a compromise which under existing circumstances seemed unavoidable. Intended to please different parties, it actually displeased them—a fact soon manifested. But no political appointment aroused so much criticism as the nomination of Burnet to the See of Salisbury. That See had become vacant through the death of Seth Ward; and it was the first piece of ecclesiastical preferment of which William had to dispose after his accession to the throne. The nomination of Bishops in our own time has occasionally provoked immense discussion, but perhaps nobody ever stepped up to the Episcopal Bench amidst such showers of abuse as Gilbert Burnet. To select a High Churchman would have been inconsistent and disastrous; and amongst eligible Low Churchmen, no one had such strong claims upon William as the friend whom he and his wife had consulted at the Hague, the Chaplain who had come with his Fleet, the Secretary who had drawn up his Declarations, and the clergyman who had advocated his cause from the pulpit. But the very grounds upon which rested Burnet’s claims made him the more objectionable to many. These grounds were decidedly political, yet though many a Bishop has been appointed for political reasons, the services now enumerated were not exactly such as to indicate qualification for the office of a spiritual overseership. At the same time it is unfair to Burnet’s memory not to say, that he was a man of piety, Protestant zeal, varied learning, large experience, and indefatigable industry. At a later period, after time had worn down the asperities of the controversy, a mitre could with much propriety have been given him; but it was scarcely in accordance with William’s policy in political appointments to bestow it at once upon one who had obtrusively acted as a partisan, and inspired so much dislike in the opposite party. It should be further stated that many Churchmen were deeply offended at Burnet’s elevation, because they had a strong aversion to what they call his Latitudinarian and Low Church views. Consequently, when it came to the point of sanctioning by consecration the Royal nominee, a difficulty arose. The Dean and Chapter of Salisbury were as prompt to elect as the King to propose; but the Archbishop of Canterbury no sooner heard of the congé d’élire, than he refused to engage in the requisite solemnity. Burnet himself goes so far as to say that Sancroft refused even to see him on the subject.[111] No friendly influence could induce the Primate to swerve from his determination; but by an evasion, such as unfortunately too often commends itself to clerical judgments, he resolved to grant a commission for others to do what he declined to do himself. The Vicar-General appeared, produced the commission, and through his officers received the usual fees. To make the matter worse, when the Archbishop’s conduct was complained of by his own party, either he, or some one in his name, contrived to abstract the document from the Registrar’s office; and it could not be recovered until after Sancroft’s death, when Burnet threatened to commence legal proceedings for obtaining what was necessary to prove the validity of his consecration and his right to the Bishopric.[112]