As the peculiar relation in which this noble couple stood to this kingdom could not but interest them in English affairs, neither could it fail to attract towards them the attention of the English people. English Protestants sympathized with William in his continental policy. They disliked France almost as much as he did. The Huguenots driven to our shores were memorials before their eyes of Roman Catholic intolerance; and besides this, they knew that their own fellow countrymen naturalized in France had to suffer from the repeal of the Edict of Nantes, and that the wives and children of those so naturalized had to suffer in the same way. Moreover, they learned that dragoons were quartered upon English merchants residing in France, to prevent their passing the frontiers, and to compel them to change their religion.[7] These circumstances, backed by the humiliating fact, that the Stuarts were hirelings of Louis, brought the feelings of Protestant Englishmen into sympathy with those of the Netherland Stadtholder. He, in his turn, looked with anxiety towards this country whilst suffering under the misgovernment of James II. What James was doing for Dissenters by a stretch of prerogative, William wished to see done by constitutional law. Mary took a still more lively, because a patriotic, interest in these subjects, and disapproved of her father’s despotism and Popery. For the Church of England she had a strong affection, which she expressed to Archbishop Sancroft, when congratulating him upon the firmness of the clergy in their religion as well as their loyalty.[8]
PREPARATIONS FOR REVOLUTION.
Matters in England were brought to a crisis in the month of June. Upon Trinity Sunday, the 10th of the month—two days after the imprisonment of the seven Bishops—London was thrown into frantic excitement by a report that James’s Queen had presented him with a son and heir. A Popish successor would bring upon the country those calamities of which the prospect for two reigns had filled men with dismay. The bulk of the people could not believe the fact. They declared that the Queen had not been confined at all—that she for some time had worn a cushion under her dress—that her pretended son had been conveyed into her chamber in a silver warming-pan on a Sunday morning, when Whig lords and ladies, who otherwise might have detected the cheat, were lying in bed or were gone to prayers. Stories the most absurd and disgusting were believed. At that moment anything seemed more credible than the simple event which had really occurred. The news of this assumed Royal conspiracy flew over to Holland, and it created the utmost consternation, William and Mary sincerely believing what they were confidently told. At all events, the child—of whose supposititious character the idea vanished afterwards from all but the most fanatical minds—was publicly baptized in the Church of Rome, the Pope’s Nuncio standing sponsor. This added to the national exasperation, and the Whig and Protestant party immediately began to think of seeking succour from Holland, and putting an end at all hazards to the existing state of things.
1688.
William had before this become the head of the English opposition. Old Republicans and old Royalists, Anglican Churchmen who hated Rome, Latitudinarian Churchmen who loved liberty, and Evangelical Churchmen who believed in Calvinism—Presbyterians, Independents, and Baptists, the first anxious for comprehension, the second and third wishing only for freedom of worship—all had been turning their thoughts for some time to the Prince of Orange as the star of their hopes. English soldiers, English sailors, and English Divines, had publicly presented themselves in the old Gothic Binnenhof of the Hague, or held private interviews with the Dutch Governor. The Earl of Devonshire, Lord Shrewsbury, Admiral Herbert, Lord Lumley, and others, had written to His Highness, more or less explicitly, offering to devote to him their fortunes and their lives.
This went on in the spring of 1688, amidst excitements produced by the Declaration of Indulgence. Holland at the same period felt deep sympathy with England.
Dr. Edmund Calamy, grandson of the well-known Puritan, in the early part of 1688 lived as a student at Utrecht, and he says there prevailed in the States a conviction that their own, and the Protestant interest in general, could be preserved only by a revolution in England, since nothing else could prevent Europe from being ingulfed in France; he adds, the Dutch were disposed to assist in making head against King James, and in relieving the people, who cried to them for succour, as they, a century before, had appealed for help to Queen Elizabeth.[9]
PREPARATIONS FOR REVOLUTION.
A decided but perilous step was taken in England on the 30th of June, the day of the Bishops’ acquittal. By a letter written amidst the excitement of that event, which shook not the English throne but him who sat on it, seven members of the Whig party invited the Prince of Orange to come over. They informed him of the prevalent dissatisfaction of the people with the Government, and of their willingness to rise in defence of their liberties, if His Highness would land with sufficient strength to put himself at the head of the Protestant party. They stated that the soldiers unequivocally manifested an aversion to the Popish religion; that they certainly would desert the Royal standard in great numbers; and that not one out of ten in the navy could be trusted in case of an invasion. They promised to attend on His Highness as soon as he should land; and they commissioned a confidential messenger to consult with him about artillery and ammunition. This act of daring treason, or of triumphant patriotism—whichever the issue might determine it to be—decidedly turned the scales which quivered between further delay and immediate action. The “immortal seven,” as they have been called, who signed in cypher, were Shrewsbury, Devonshire, Danby, Lumley, Russel, Sydney, and Compton, Bishop of London.[10] The conspirators—perfect in number like the Bishops, now at the moment of their acquittal and ovation—thus cast the die which might bring death, which did bring freedom. The adhesion of Compton to this scheme is what most concerns us, as it indicates the early infusion of an ecclesiastical element into this undertaking—an element which became deeper, wider, stronger, as time rolled on. In less than a month afterwards the same dignitary replied to a letter from the Prince concerning the trial of the seven Bishops, and informed him how sensible he and others were of the advantage of having so powerful a friend; that they would make no ill use of it; and that they were so well satisfied of the justness of their cause, that they would lay down their lives rather than forsake it.[11]