First Measures of Fames.

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the throne with the acquiescence of all, but for a brief time was even popular.

Aware of the suspicions which had been entertained of his disposition to assert an arbitrary authority, and to exalt the Roman Catholic religion above and at the expense of Protestantism, he had the judgment, in his first speech to the Privy Council, to endeavour to remove both those causes of apprehension; and in clear emphatic language declared his resolution to maintain the established government in both Church and State; his firm reliance on the loyalty of Churchmen, which he promised to requite with steady support and protection; and his entire contentment with the degree of authority which the law of England secured to the Sovereign, so that he should never desire any power beyond it.

nation at large. obtained for him

The speech was his only attempt at conciliation during his whole reign, perhaps it might be said during his whole life, but it succeeded perfectly. The Council received it with acclamation, and when it was published it was applauded with equal fervour by the His general roughness of manner had a reputation for sincerity; and the boast of both parties, of the assertors of the civil rights of the people, and of the resolute champions of Protestant doctrine, was that they had for their security the promise of a King who never broke his word.

So complete was the reaction in his favour that an attempt to dethrone him, which was made in the course of the summer, only added to his strength. The Duke of Monmouth, who made it, a few years before had been the most popular man in the kingdom; he was an illegitimate son of the late King, and had been distinguished at Court

by marks of his father's favour, which were not bestowed on any of his brothers. He had commanded a British division in the short war against Holland, where he had gained the hearts of the soldiers, and had earned some reputation as a brave and skilful officer. He had equally ingratiated himself with Churchmen as a faithful adherent of the Church, so that many of them asserted his legitimacy in spite of the King's denial. And no small number of those who had supported the Exclusion Bill had done so with the express object of securing his succession to the throne.

But when, four months after his father's death, he crossed over to the Dorsetshire coast in the hope of deposing James by force of arms, scarcely one of those who had formerly favoured his pretensions joined him. Both Houses of Parliament, with an unanimity which they had hardly shown since the first year of the restored monarchy, concurred in attainting him, setting a price on his head, and in passing Votes of extraordinary Supply to enable the King to crush his enterprise in the bud. At the end of a month the whole force which he had been able to collect did not exceed 6,000 men, nearly all of whom belonged to the poorer classes, and who proved wholly unable to make a stand against the King's troops, though greatly inferior in number. In the one brief conflict which took place, and in which Monmouth himself failed to show the daring courage which becomes one who depends on victory for a crown, he was utterly defeated, was taken prisoner; and, in accordance with the Bill of Attainder already passed, was executed without any further form of trial.

Such an enterprise, made ridiculous by the ease with which it was crushed, was manifestly calculated to strengthen

Suppression of Monmouth's Rebellion.

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the victorious King. Nor could it have failed to do so materially had not the ferocious cruelty, not unmixed with sordid baseness with which he chastised it, spread a wide alarm, and, among people of sense, humanity, and moderation, a disgust deeper and more mischievous to himself than the terror which it was meant to excite. Hundreds, including many innocent persons, were executed; James refusing every petition for mercy, and showing that, as Lord Churchill said, "Marble itself was not harder than he," while the fate of many of those who were spared cast even deeper personal disgrace on the Court, since the Queen herself did not scruple to make a profit of them, but received a large portion of the price for which they were sold to work as slaves in the West Indies.

In one point of view, indeed, the ease and speed with which his enemy had been overthrown had a most pernicious influence on James's subsequent fortunes. His was a head easily turned by the slightest appearance of success. Before he had been a fortnight on the throne, he had drawn an argument from the absence of all opposition to his accession, to encourage him in violations both of the common and Constitutional law. He had issued a proclamation, ordering the continuance of the collection of the customs

1 "Le Roy d'Angleterre a ajouté à cela que j'avais vu avec quelle facilité il avait été reconnu et proclamé Roy; que le reste arrivera de la même manière en se conduisant avec fermeté et sagesse," the "rest" being to levy the customs and other branches of the revenue enjoyed by the late King for the next three months by his own authority, which would be "un coup décisif. Car dans la suite il me sera (said he) bien plus facile ou d'éloigner le Parlement, ou de me maintenir par des autres voyes que me paraîtraient bien plus convenables." Barillon, to Louis XIV., relating a conversation which he had had with James, Feb. 18th, Charles having died on the 6th.-DALRYMPLE, Vol. III., part I., pp. 100, IOI.

and other taxes by his own authority, without waiting for Parliament to grant them to him. He had gone to mass with all possible publicity and pomp, as if in express defiance of those penal laws which his brother had been forced to abandon the attempt to relax. And when, in the middle of May, the Parliament met, in his opening speech he had addressed them in language which was hardly to be distinguished from a threat, and which clearly indicated his expectation that his compliance with the laws, and with the Constitutional limitations of his authority, was to be acknowledged to flow from his own condescension, and not from any right which the people could possess to enforce it.

In fact, he had already resolved to trample on both. Almost his earliest act as King had been to renew the dependence on the French King which had been so disgraceful to his brother; soliciting, with the most abject humiliation, a continuance of the yearly subsidy which had been paid to Charles; and assuring Barillon, the French Ambassador, that the object for which, above all others, he desired this aid, was the establishment of the Roman Catholic religion in every part of his dominions on a secure and permanent footing; and next to that, if, indeed, the two objects were not parts of one and the same plan, to render his authority absolute,1 so that he might be able to coerce the Houses of Parliament, or, if he found them too refractory, to dispense with convoking them altogether.

And he had already organized a Council, fully prepared to co-operate with him in one part of his design. The Earl

1 'Qu'il savait assez que jamais il ne serait en une entière sureté que la religion catholique ne fut établie en Angleterre de façon à ne pouvoir être ruinée ni détruite." BARILLON in DALRYMPLE, p. 141, date

March 26th.

Designs of Fames.

23

of Rochester, his brother-in-law, was Lord Treasurer; the Earl of Sunderland was Secretary of State; the Earl of Godolphin was the Queen's Chamberlain; and these men came together to Barillon to announce to him the King's resolution to make himself independent of his Parliament, and to assure him that, with that view, he would refuse to accept a revenue which should only be granted from year to year; an arrangement which "would lay him under the necessity of continually convoking Parliament, and thus," as he regarded the matter, "change the form of government."

Rather than submit to such a necessity, he was prepared "to maintain himself by open force in the enjoyment of the same revenues which had been granted to his brother during his life." And they urged on the Frenchman that his own Sovereign's interests were so closely concerned in James's success, that it was well worth his while to support him by an increased contribution. While, not contented with thus prostrating himself at the French King's feet, James wrote at the same time to the Prince of Orange, the husband of his daughter, who, as yet, was the heiress of his crown, to insist on his renouncing his hostility to Louis, a demand to which William, while acceding to others of his requests, abstained from replying.

The French King gave the money, and James proceeded to prosecute his designs with energy, every day laying aside more and more the mask of moderation which he had at first assumed. Even if he should not be able to induce the Parliament to grant him his revenues for life, he did not propose as yet to dismiss it, because its consent was indispensable to two measures which he had greatly at heart. Two laws, which had been passed in the late reign,