1. The Accession of James II. 1685.—The character of the new king, James II., resembled that of his father. He had the same unalterable belief that whatever he wished to do was absolutely right; the same incapacity for entering into the feelings or motives of his opponents, and even more than his father's inability to see faults in those who took his side. He was bent on procuring religious liberty for the Catholics, and at first imagined it possible to do this with the help of the clergy and laity of the Church of England. In his first speech to the Privy Council he announced his intention of preserving the established government in Church and State. He had mass, indeed, celebrated with open doors in his chapel at Whitehall, and he continued to levy taxes which had been granted to his brother for life only; yet, as he issued writs for a Parliament, these things did not count much against him. Unless, indeed, he was to set the law and constitution at defiance he could do no otherwise than summon Parliament, as out of 1,400,000l. which formed the revenue of the Crown, 900,000l. lapsed on Charles's death. James, however, secured himself against all eventualities by procuring from Louis a promise of financial aid in case of Parliament's proving restive. Before Parliament met, the king's inclinations were manifested by sentences pronounced by judges eager to gain his favour. On the one hand, Titus Oates was subjected to a flogging so severe that it would have killed anyone less hardy than himself. On the other hand, Richard Baxter, the most learned and moderate of Dissenters, was sent to prison after being scolded and insulted by Jeffreys, who, at the end of the late reign, had, through James's influence, been made Chief Justice of the King's Bench.
James II.: from the National Portrait Gallery.
2. A Tory Parliament. 1685.—Parliament met on May 19. The House of Commons was Tory by an enormous majority, partly because the remodelled corporations (see p. [625]) returned Tory members, but still more because the feeling of the country ran strongly in James's favour. The Commons granted to him the full revenue which had been enjoyed by his brother, and refused to listen to a few of its members who raised objections to some things which had been recently done. The House had not been long in session when it heard of two invasions, the one in Scotland and the other in England.
Yeomen of the Guard: from Sandford's Coronation Procession of James II.