CHAPTER XXXIV

JAMES II AND THE “GLORIOUS REVOLUTION" (1685-1688)

Strength of the Monarchy at the Accession of James, in 1685. Charles, though lazy, dissipated, and unprincipled, was tactful and wary, and left his brother in a position of unusual strength. The Whig opposition was crushed and discouraged; the municipal corporations were under royal control; France stood in need of the friendship of the English King, while the Dutch, the Protestant princes of Germany, and Spain, the Empire, and the Papacy, all of whom dreaded French ascendancy, courted his alliance. Moreover, James, during the first few months of his reign, steadily strengthened his position: he obtained an ample grant from Parliament and, in order to face a rebellion which was easily suppressed, he secured a large standing army. Had he been content with the religious situation as Charles had left it, he might have ruled long and successfully, but his rash ambition to reëstablish the Church of Rome alienated even the most devoted of his supporters, the Tory High Churchmen, drove them into the ranks of the opposition, and led to his overthrow.

Personal Traits of the New King. James was nearly fifty-two years old. During twelve years of exile he had seen service both in the French and the Spanish armies. Then, and afterwards as a naval commander in the Dutch wars, he had shown himself to be brave and not without ability. Also, as Lord High Admiral, he had, in the teeth of great obstacles, proved an enlightened administrator, fond of details, and, for a man who lived at Court in those days, comparatively free from vices of drunkenness and gambling. But here his virtues ended. He was dull and obstinate, ready to sacrifice everything for the advancement of his Church. Much of the cruelty charged to him may have been due to the agents whom he trusted, but a chief duty of rulers should be to choose worthy servants and upright counselors; James's failure to do this was a main cause for his downfall.

The First Measures of the Reign. From his very accession, 6 February, 1685, he celebrated mass with open doors, though he disarmed the apprehension of the bulk of his subjects by declaring to the Council that he would make it his endeavor " to preserve the Government in Church and State as it is by law established." Many Catholics and Quakers were released from prison; but the penal laws were rigidly enforced against the bulk of the Dissenters. Oates, already under sentence of perjury, received a flogging from which it is a marvel that he survived. In addition, he was sentenced to prison for life and to be pilloried five times a year.

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Parliament Meets and Grants James a Fixed Revenue. — Parliament, which met 19 May, 1685, readily granted to James for life, the revenues of the late King, together with certain additional duties, which, added together, gave him about £1,900,000 a year, a sum which, considering that he was a thrifty Monarch, abundantly sufficed for his ordinary needs. Less pliable in religious matters, Parliament met the King's proposal to remove the tests excluding Catholics from office by insisting that the anti-Catholic laws be strictly enforced. Such was the situation when news came that Monmouth had landed on the south coast. Pausing only to pass an Act of Attainder against him and to set a price on his head, the Houses adjourned, July 2.

The Exiles. Argyle lands in Scotland. Failure and Execution. Following the final triumph of Charles, crowds of bitter-tempered exiles had fled to the Low Countries. Their hopes centered in Monmouth, who, until his father's death, had been content to shine as a social leader at the Hague. Next to him in importance was the Earl of Argyle, head of the great clan Campbell and son of the famous covenanting leader who had been executed after the Restoration. Egged on by the busy plotters, Monmouth and Argyle were induced to attempt simultaneous invasions of England and Scotland. Argyle, who started in May, finally reached the land of his own people on the west coast; but, owing to dissensions, desertions, inadequate supplies, and lack of enthusiasm for the cause, he failed miserably. His forces were scattered, he himself was captured and taken to Edinburgh where, 30 June, 1685, he was beheaded, meeting his fate with lofty resignation.

Monmouth's Rising and Its Failure (1685).—Meantime, 11 June, Monmouth landed at Lyme Regis. There, at the market cross, a Declaration was read which charged James with all manner of horrid and unlikely crimes such as burning London, strangling Godfrey,

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1 They were persone grate with the Sovereign because passive resistance was one of the tenets of their religion.

and poisoning his late brother and stated that the young Duke had come to deliver the land from popery and tyranny and to submit his claims to a free and lawful Parliament. The peasants in the country round about pressed eagerly to join him; but the gentry held aloof. At Taunton, Monmouth, contrary to his promise, proclaimed himself King. He soon had to reckon with a royal army, composed partly of regular troops and partly of local militia, which encamped, 5 July, at Sedgemoor in the Somerset marshes. Here they easily repulsed a night attack and scattered the Duke's raw levies, fighting valiantly, but poorly mounted on cart-horses, and many of them armed only with scythes tied on poles. The battle of Sedgemoor was the last important battle fought on English soil. Monmouth, who fled when he found the battle was going against him, was discovered two days later, hiding in a ditch, disguised as a shepherd. Although he pled abjectly for his life, it proved of no avail. He was beheaded 15 July, 1685. Monmouth's popularity among the peasants of Somerset and Dorset amounted to veneration. Refusing to believe that he was dead, they cherished for years the hope that he would reappear to lead them.

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Kirke's Lambs" and Jeffreys' "Bloody Assize."

The venge

ance of James was swift and terrible. First, Colonel Kirke with his regiment of "Lambs " butchered scores without trial, enriching himself, however, by sparing those from whom he could extort money." In the infamous "Bloody Assize," held by Judge Jeffreys in the autumn, more than 300 were hanged, drawn and quartered, and 800 more were transported. For generations there were spots in the countryside that the natives would not pass after nightfall, from the gruesome memories preserved of bodies swinging in chains and of heads and quarters fixed on poles. During the trials, Jeffreys, who afterwards boasted that he had hanged more traitors than any of his predecessors since the Conquest, roared, swore and joked at the trembling victims in a way that made his name a terror for years to All that can be said for him is that he was only a degree worse than the typical judge of the century, and that, owing to a painful malady, he drank so heavily that he was scarcely ever sober. Some have tried to excuse James from responsibility for the acts of his brutal judges, but to those who appealed for mercy he showed himself harder than the marble chimneypiece in his audience chamber, and he not only rewarded Jeffreys with the Lord Chancellorship on his return

come.

1 So called from a device on their banner representing the Lamb of God. Of late the view has been gaining ground that the charges against Kirke may have been exaggerated.

from the West, but honored him with his fullest confidence throughout the reign.

The Turning Point in the Reign. Foreign Relations. In spite of the hatred smoldering in the west, the power of James seemed unassailable. He had crushed and overawed those who dared to rise against him. The Church and the bulk of his subjects were still loyal, he had an adequate regular revenue, and a strong standing army. Nevertheless, the autumn of 1685 marked a decisive turn in the tide of his affairs. The situation abroad and the execution of Monmouth, followed by a long succession of follies, led to his downfall within the space of three years. His connection with Louis XIV was most unfortunate; for while he gave the French King no active assistance, he received subsidies from him and was popularly supposed, at home and abroad, to be a partner in the French King's designs of establishing an ascendancy on the Continent, bound to be stoutly resisted by Catholic as well as Protestant rulers. Not only was James hampered by an unpopular ally, but also, by putting Monmouth out of the way, he removed a great cause of dissension between his opponents, some of whom supported the late Duke as the successor to the English throne. Now all parties united for William of Orange. So, when James began to make it clear that he was bent on reintroducing Catholicism into England, the ground was prepared for an irresistible conbination-European and English against him. Such being the situation, it was most unfortunate for the prospects of James that Louis, in October, 1685, revoked the Edict of Nantes, which, in theory at least, had protected his Huguenot subjects for over a century. Many of them took refuge in England, and the tales they told revived the terror which had somewhat subsided after the discrediting of Oates and his gang. What Louis had done in France James might do in England.

James Breaks with his Parliament (November, 1685). — It was at this unfortunate juncture that James began to show his hand. He had three measures which he was determined to put through: to maintain intact the standing army, which had been increased from 6000 to 20,000 in consequence of Monmouth's rising; to obtain the repeal of the Test Act, for the purpose of retaining a number of Catholics who already held office in the army and to make it possible to put others in military and civil positions; and, finally, to repeal the Habeas Corpus Act, which prevented him from dealing summarily with those who were disposed to resist his authority. Parliament, which met 9 November, vigorously opposed these projects. This so angered the King that he prorogued the Houses before they had passed a money

bill to pay for the expenses incurred in suppressing the recent insurrection. He also dismissed from office many who had voted against his measures. Parliament never met again during the reign.

James's New Counselors. The chief power soon fell into the hands of Lord Sunderland. While, perhaps, not so black as he is usually painted, he was inordinately ambitious, never hesitating to change his politics or his religion whenever he thought he saw a chance to advance his interests. Though he did not profess himself a Roman Catholic till the summer of 1688, he attached himself, not long after James broke with Parliament, to a small group of extremists whose policy was decidedly French and Jesuit. Among them were Father Petre and Richard Talbot, the latter commonly known as "lying Dick Talbot," a crafty intriguer who masqueraded as a jovial roisterer. The ill-advised designs of those men and a few more who joined with them, were a source of grave apprehension to the moderate Roman Catholics, especially to the nuncio and the vicar apostolic whom the Pope had sent over to restrain the zeal of James, and to counteract the intrigues of France.

The Case of Sir Edward Hales (June, 1686). - James awakened concern by one rash act after another. Since Parliament had refused to sanction the repeal of the Test Act, he determined to render it void by filling offices in spite of its restrictions. However, in order to give his procedure a show of legality in the eyes of subjects, he decided to extort from the judges a decision in his favor. Four who refused to do his bidding were replaced by others more pliant. To bring the case before the courts, the coachman of Sir Edward Hales was employed to start suit against his master for holding a commission in the army, contrary to the Test Act. Eleven of the twelve judges decided that, notwithstanding the provisions of the Act, he was entitled by a royal authorization to hold office. Thus fortified, James, in July, admitted four Roman Catholics to the Privy Council. More startling still, he proceeded to invade the two strongholds of Anglicanism, the Church and the Universities. He issued dispensations enabling Roman Catholics to hold ecclesiastical benefices, he appointed to the Bishopric of Oxford one who was a Roman Catholic at heart, and made a professed Romanist Dean of Christ Church; moreover, Jesuit chaplains were introduced at University College, where they set up a press for printing controversial pamphlets.

The Court of Ecclesiastical Commission (July, 1686). — It was necessary, if the King was to control the Church, to have a means of punishing those who refused to obey him. To that end, he revived what was in substance the Court of High Commission, which had been