“I was very much surprised,” she writes, “when I heard of the four new privy counsellors, and am very sorry for it; for it will give great countenance to those sort of people, and methinks it has a very dismal prospect. Whatever changes there are in the world, I hope you will never forsake me, and I shall be happy.”[[100]]
These sentiments, consistent with the character of a Princess who is said, by one who knew her best, “to have had no ambition,”[[101]] were participated by the Prince of Denmark, who, although a privy counsellor during the reign of his father-in-law, had always been treated with coldness by that sovereign. Upon the declaration of Indulgences by James in his own person, without the consent of parliament, Lord Churchill began overtures to the Prince of Orange, through Dykefelt his agent, and Russell and Sidney, the great instruments of the revolution. The resolution of the Princess Anne to “suffer all extremities, even to death itself, rather than be brought to change her religion,” was transmitted through the same channel. The terms in which these assurances were conveyed, were worthy of the great mind from which they proceeded.
“In all things but this,” writes Lord Churchill to the Prince of Orange, “the King may command me; and I call God to witness that, even with joy I should expose my life for his service, so sensible am I of his favours. I know the troubling you, sir, with this much of myself, I being of so little use, is very impertinent; but I think it may be a great ease to your Highness and the Princess to be satisfied that the Princess of Denmark is safe in the trusting of me; I being resolved, though I cannot live the life of a saint, if there be ever occasion for it, to show the resolution of a martyr.”[[102]]
Happily, however, there proved to be no necessity for the performance of this brave determination; “the projects of that reign,” as the Duchess well observes, “being effectually disappointed as soon as they were openly avowed.”[[103]]
The birth of a son, and the ceremony which declared him to be Prince of Wales, accelerated, in a marked manner, the course of the infatuated King’s destruction. Nonconformists, and the High Church party, Whigs and Tories, now plainly foresaw a total subversion of government in Church and State, all hopes of a Protestant succession to the throne being annihilated. Those who had upheld the doctrine of passive obedience, perceived that they were authorised, by the measures which James adopted, to form schemes for the prevention of his further designs: otherwise there would be no difference between the constitution of Great Britain and that of an absolute monarchy. The doctrines of passive obedience had, it was well understood, been so industriously spread throughout the laity, as well as among the clergy, from a dread of those excesses which the Presbyterians and Conformists had permitted and extenuated in the last revolution, that many conscientious persons for some time doubted whether they ought to refuse an unlimited obedience to the sovereign. But the dangers of a sinking state, and of a tottering church, opened the eyes even of the most scrupulous, and convinced them that much ought to be sacrificed, in order to restrain the royal prerogative, and to save their best interests, and the objects of their veneration, from destruction.[[104]]
Under these threatening clouds, an union of all parties began to be considered as the only safe, the only practicable, the only honourable project to guard the country from anarchy, by protecting the laws. Nor can those be censured, who from considerations of such importance, and from general views, divest themselves, in such an extremity, of private interests, even of private obligations, for the sake of ensuring peace, by obtaining justice, and with it, the protection of a moderate and constitutional ruler. It requires infinite moral courage to give up the long-maintained and often-repeated dogmas of a party; and we are bound to hope, and to believe, that when great evils require so great a sacrifice, the motive which impels the change must proceed from some source higher than mere personal advancement. But unhappily, the world generally judges otherwise.
Lord Churchill, and the gifted woman who probably in a great degree participated his irresolution, and influenced his counsels, have shared largely in the condemnation bestowed upon others who adopted the same course which they, on this great occasion, thought it wise and right to pursue. Those who accuse them of ingratitude, must, however, recollect that there is a higher degree of gratitude than any which can be due to an earthly power; and that there are duties which no obligations can annul; a disregard of which becomes treachery in its most extended sense.
The conduct of Lord Churchill, throughout the reign of James the Second, was a consistent endeavour to withdraw from all participation in honours which he could not receive from the King without degradation, and from schemes which he must have viewed with disgust. Even when James sent to require his presence at the birth of the Prince of Wales, he declined to attend, assigning some slight reason. His desertion of James, as it was called, was the work of some years, not the sudden impulse of a day; it was wrung from Churchill unwillingly, and by painful degrees, and not till after his reflective mind had been saddened by an unparalleled succession of injuries inflicted upon his unhappy country, until mournful presage knew not where to stop. Brought up in notions of devoted loyalty to the Stuarts, his own family, that of his wife, his intimate friends, and his brothers, being all wedded to the same opinions and devoted to the same cause, the conduct of Churchill on this occasion astounded the King more, it is said, than that of any of the other men of character and influence of the time. It was easy for the enemies of Churchill, or of his party—for personal enemies he could scarcely have—to account for the measures taken with caution, but pursued with vigour and firmness, by this great man. Dean Swift, whose aspersions, unlike most ephemeral writings, ate into the heart of his victims like caustic, and when once engrafted on the memory even of the indifferent, can scarcely be erased, has thus in his own charitable way explained the matter.
In describing the character of Churchill he says:—“He was bred up in the height of what is called the Tory principle, and continued with a strong bias that way till the other party had bid higher for him than his friends could afford to give.”[[105]] In another singular production of the day, entitled “Oliver’s Pocket Looking Glass,” he was compared to Judas, and even reproached for ingratitude towards James, on the score of his lavish generosity to the degraded Arabella Churchill, the sister of the Duke.[[106]] But Churchill adopted not the measures which he prudently but resolutely adhered to, without a respectful but manly remonstrance with James, which proved his real attachment to the royal person, and his desire to warn him, if possible, from continuing his infatuated course.[[107]]
The recapitulation of those events by which the liberties of the people, and the stability of the Church of England, were secured, belong to history. The fatal blow given to the King’s power was struck by the union of the Tories and the Whigs. Whilst the majority of the laity and clergy laboured in conjunction to effect the important end in question, some there were who deemed that determined but calm resistance rebellion, and who formed the new party under the name of Jacobites.