1695.
Between the months of February and July, to which the Royal and the Episcopal letters belonged, there occurred an incident which comes in juxtaposition with what has been related of ecclesiastical powers exercised by the Crown. The Archbishop of Canterbury was in the month of May nominated as the first of the Lords Justices of England for the administration of public affairs during His Majesty’s absence in Holland and Flanders.
William had repeatedly left England since the Revolution. In 1691 he was absent from January to March, and from May to October; in 1692 from March to October; in 1693 from March to November; in 1694 from May to November. Like Richard Coeur de Lion, like the three Edwards, like the fifth Henry, William of Orange was a man of war from his youth, and his military vocation led him, as it led them, away from the peaceful duties of home government. As they at the head of steel-clad knights and sturdy bowmen marched over the Tweed or through Normandy, Picardy, and Poitou; as they led crusaders to fight battles at Jaffa, Askelon, and Jerusalem, so did he who now swayed the English sceptre, carry his troops over into the Netherlands to bear the brunt of the Landen fight, or recover the strongholds of Namur.
LORDS JUSTICES.
When William had been abroad before in the life-time of Mary, she ruled as Queen Consort, rendering a special regency needless; now that she slept in her grave, it was necessary that representatives appointed by the Crown should during the Royal absence govern the threefold realm.
Churchmen in ancient times had held the highest offices in the State, and had been the Prime Ministers of Kings. Whilst Richard I. was pining in captivity on his return from Palestine, Archbishop Hubert Walter acted as Chief Justiciary of the kingdom, and even in person laid siege to the castles of malcontents and reduced them to his master’s sway; and whilst the not less brave, but more prudent, Henry V. was winning laurels at Agincourt, Archbishop Chicheley acted as Prime Minister at home, and took his place at the head of the Council-Board.[246] After the Reformation, Churchmen, though of diminished influence, appeared in high political positions. Juxon held the staff of Lord Treasurer, and Williams kept the Great Seal; but after the blow struck at the Church by the Long Parliament, no ecclesiastic occupied any important State office until the reign of William III. Upon this new turn in the wheel, curiously enough, came the restoration of high civil authority to ecclesiastical hands. At the same moment, the Church appeared submissive to the State, and the State appeared in submission to the chief ruler of the Church. The former kind of submission was real, the latter only apparent.
1695.
The Archbishop did not fill the place of a Prime Minister like Chicheley, any more than he took the command of troops like Hubert Walter. It is difficult to say who in the month of May, 1695, was Prime Minister; as the Duke of Leeds, who had headed the late administration, just then, though still nominally President of the Council, lay prostrate in disgrace, and his name is omitted in the list of Lords Justices who held the Regency. The Whigs were recovering power, and with the seven members of that party who were commissioned to act in the Royal name, there appeared but one Tory. William III. himself always acted as Minister of Foreign Affairs whether he was at home or abroad, and during his absence from England on this occasion probably the management of domestic business principally rested with Somers, Keeper of the Great Seal, and Shrewsbury, Secretary of State. The Archbishop, as standing next to the Royal family, took precedence in the Commission, but the actual power which he exercised must not be measured by that circumstance.
On the 10th of October William returned, after having had the satisfaction of seeing a Marshal of France surrender to the allies, the Castle of Namur. The sound of bells from every steeple, the twinkling—for in those days it could hardly be a glare—of lights in every window, and street crowds rending the air with hurrahs, welcomed the victor as he passed through London to his favourite residence at Kensington. Speedily afterwards he made a Royal progress, and visited Newmarket, where, on Sunday, October the 20th, the Vice-Chancellor, accompanied by the principal members of the University of Cambridge, in all their sedate magnificence, waited on His Majesty, and delivered a congratulatory speech. The usual kissing of hands and assurances of favour wound up the ceremony.[247] He also visited Oxford, where he had been unpopular; but now, if we were to judge by the reception prepared, we should conclude the tide had turned; for Latin orations, musical concerts, and a splendid banquet were all arranged in honour of his presence. However, he would stay in the beautiful city only a few hours, excusing himself on the ground that he had seen the Colleges before. He had no admiration for Oxford, and Oxford had no admiration for him; and between the two no love was lost, when he drove off in his lumbering coach on the road to London.
ECCLESIASTICAL INJUNCTIONS.