CHAPTER X.
Times have their changes; sorrows make us wise: The sun itself must set as well as rise! Perkin Warbeck.
While matters were going forward in Ireland as we have endeavoured to describe them in the preceding chapters, the tide, meanwhile, of political occurrences in England arose to a tempestuous and uncontrollable flood, that was wholly unexpected by Tyrconnel, and quite unapprehended by his royal master. To England, therefore, we now must trace our steps.
The various unpopular and arbitrary acts of King James the Second paralyzed those loyal effusions that burst forth when he ascended the royal throne of the Stuarts. The acquittal of the seven bishops who had been arbitrarily imprisoned in the tower still further increased the king's unpopularity. The confiscation too of property which followed, and the attainder of many loyal Protestants, soon swelled high the torrent that shortly was to burst against the abutments of his throne, and destroy that prerogative of power which he had so unjustly and so unconstitutionally assumed. Many now doubted the justness of the appellation of "James the Just," which had been awarded him shortly subsequent to his having been proclaimed king. Indeed his going publicly to mass two days consequent to his succession to the crown, at the time gave surprise and offence to the nation. Some events too occurred in those superstitious days, that in the present times would be slightly passed over, but which, albeit, were certainly considered as ill omens in that age. At the solemnity of the coronation, the crown not being properly fitted for the royal head, was often observed in a tottering condition, and likely to fall off. Mr. Henry Sidney supported it once with his hand, and pleasantly told the king,[30] that "this was not the first time that his family had supported the crown." "In one of the churches in London, the king's arms, stained on a glass window, suddenly fell down and broke in pieces, while the rest remained standing, without a possibility of discovery why that part should fall down sooner than the rest. The canopy also, which had been borne over his head at the coronation, did break." [31]
James II. espoused the Princess Maria d'Este, the sister of Francis Duke of Modena, who was as beautiful as she was unfortunate. The queen had been married some time without presenting her royal consort with a child. When this event did take place, malice, falsehood, envy, and intrigue, were not slow in pronouncing that the heir apparent thus born was a "suppositious Prince of Wales." Then followed the ridiculous episodes of the "sham conception," and "the warming-pan," which were all a tissue of forgery and falsehood, still further intended to diminish the king's decreasing popularity, and bring his person and throne into disrepute. But upon the whole mass and evidence of history that is presented, the only conclusion to be drawn was this, and only this—that the Prince of Wales, so far from being suppositious, was royally and legally born, the royal and lawful successor to his father's throne and realms.
In consequence of all these combining unpopular results, a resolution was taken by many of the disappointed, disaffected nobility and gentry, of calling in the Prince of Orange of Nassau to ascend the throne of Britain. And in pursuance of this determination several noblemen and gentlemen were secretly deputed to go over to the prince, and invite him to assume the sceptre of England. To these invitations the prince fully acceded, and firmly determined to head the party. It need not be told the reader that the Prince of Orange was the son-in-law of King James, having espoused his daughter, the Princess Mary. The intriguing party used all their endeavours to prevent the secret of their project from being divulged. In this matter the Earl of Sunderland basely betrayed his royal master. Meanwhile King James remained wholly incredulous to the belief of the existence of these political machinations; and although he was advised thereto by Mr. Skelton, his Majesty's Envoy at the Hague, "that a great project was secretly carrying on against him," yet was this incredulous sovereign so sure of success, that he quite neglected this intelligence, conceiving that it was only an artifice to divert him from his designs; and he, therefore, to all such reports closed an unwilling and unbelieving ear.
Numbers of the English nobility and gentry now addressed the Prince of Orange to deliver them from that oppression under which they bent. And in reply to a long memoiré presented to the prince, he published two manifestoes, declaratory of, and justifying his descent upon England, which were accompanied by his embarkation from the states of Holland, and shortly followed by his arrival in England, where by numbers his Highness was warmly received. Many personages of high rank declared to him their support; and furthermore, several regiments of the army of King James joined the standard of the Prince of Orange.
At length the landing of the prince, and the cordial reception with which he met withal, awoke the royal and too incredulous James from his trance, and he now finally resolved upon the measure of flying from his discontented subjects, whom he considered had betrayed him by thus calling in a foreigner to assume the sovereignty; and he forth-with determined to sail with what expedition he might from the shores of England, and put himself at once under the protection of the King of France.