1680.] THE DUKE OF YORK PRESENTED AS A ROMISH RECUSANT. 355 racter of the proud dwelling of the Plantagenets was utterly destroyed. If Wren had not had a violent distaste of Gothic architecture; if his royal employer had not been wholly wanting in that patriotism which would have preserved the main features of the Windsor of Edward III. and of Elizabeth, as associated with the glorious days of the monarchy-his incongruous pile would not have remained for a century and a half a significant monument of the corrupt taste of the latter days of the Stuarts. To Frenchify Windsor Castle was worthy of the king who needed French gold to pay for his buildings and his mistresses; to reward Signor Verrio for seating him enthroned amongst the cardinal Virtues, or as the grand arbiter of the destinies of Europe. Catherine of Braganza sits in serene majesty, surrounded by the gods, on one of Verrio's ceilings. Mrs. Eleanor Gwynn had the more solid honour of dwelling within view of the Castle, at Burford House, so called after her son, lord Burford, afterwards the duke of St. Albans.* Windsor is as characteristic of the age as Whitehall. Reresby describes Charles in 1680 as living an unusually quiet life whilst Wren was building and Verrio painting: "The king shewed me a great deal of what he had done to the house, which was indeed very fine, and acquainted me with what he intended to do more; for then it was he was upon finishing that most majestic structure. He lived quite privately at this time; there was little or no resort to him; and his days he passed in fishing or walking in the park."+ Charles was thus "sauntering" at Windsor when the denouement of the great drama of his house was rapidly approaching. Evelyn has this record in his Diary, on the 24th of July, 1680: "Went with my wife and daughter to Windsor, to see that stately court, now nearly finished. There was erected in the court the king on horseback, lately cast in copper, and set on a rich pedestal of white marble, the work of Mr. Gibbons, at the expense of Toby Rustat, a page of the back stairs, who, by his wonderful frugality, had arrived to a great estate in money, and did many works of charity, as well as this of gratitude to his master, which cost him 10007. He is a very simple, ignorant, but honest and loyal creature." There were many others of the simple, ignorant, honest, and loyal of Charles's subjects who would be ready to aver, with Toby Rustat, as the Latin inscription on the pedestal of this statue avers, that Charles II. was not only the most merciful of masters but the best of kings. The page of the back stairs who witnessed his never-failing urbanity would receive that quality as the evidence of every other merit. But from the more rational thinkers a severer judgment was to be expected. The duke of York "now reigned absolute in the king's affairs," writes Reresby. Against the duke was all the Whig hostility now concentrated. The tale of Monmouth's legitimacy was revived. The king, on the 3rd of June, renewed his declaration that he was never married to any other than the queen. On the 26th of June, Shaftesbury, accompanied by several lords and commoners, came before the Grand Jury at Westminster, and presented the duke as a Popish recusant. The chief justice defeated this bold measure by Windsor has at length found fit chroniclers of its various subjects of historical interest, as well as of the minuter topographical details which illustrate manners and customs, in the elabo rate work of Mr. Tighe and Mr. Davis-"Annals of Windsor," 2 vols. 1858. "Memoirs," p. 231. + Ibid., p. 232. 356 PROGRESS OF THE DUKE OF MONMOUTH. 1680.] discharging the jury, whilst Shaftesbury was in consultation with some of the judges. The Parliament had been summoned to meet on the 21st of October. The great question of the exclusion of the duke of York from the succession to the throne was sure to be renewed. It was thought that the king could be gained over to consent to this departure from the principle of hereditary right. The duchess of Portsmouth had been induced by the Whig leaders, by threats and promises, to undertake the recommendation of the exclusion to the king, he having the right of naming his successor by will. He was to receive an ample grant of money; he might secure the power of naming his favourite son, Monmouth, to wear the crown after his decease. Burnet says that he was assured that the duchess of Portsmouth " once drew the king to consent to it." James in his Memoirs implies this, when he found that "his being sent away again began to be more discoursed of than ever." He suspected that "the king himself began to waver; and accordingly he soon found by discoveries on that subject that his majesty now doubted whether he could stand by him or no. The duke represented to him his constant and late engagement to the contrary, but found him so changed that it gave him great reason now at last to apprehend what he had been oft told, but never believed, that his majesty would abandon him in the end."* The day before the meeting of Parliament the duke of York sailed for Scotland. The French ambassador, Barillon, represents James as declaring that he would make his enemies repent-"as much as to say that he hopes to be able to excite troubles in Scotland and Ireland." Even in England his cause would not have been without supporters. "The papists lifted up their crest in great arrogance." It was a moment of deep anxiety. Two of Charles's ministers, Godolphin and Sunderland, advised him to consent to a Bill of Exclusion. The duchess of Portsmouth had bribes and blandishments to mould that royal will upon whose consistency there could be no reliance. But the intrigue failed. The king wanted the vote of money to precede the Exclusion Bill. The Whig leaders wanted his assent to the Bill before the vote of money. The Session was opened on the 21st of October-that first meeting of the new Parliament which had been prorogued seven times. Charles in his speech promised to support the Protestant religion "against all the conspiracies of our enemies." He would concur "in any new remedies which shall be proposed, that may consist with preserving the succession of the Crown in its due and legal course of descent." On the 26th lord Russell moved "that we may resolve to take into our consideration how to suppress Popery, and to prevent a Popish successor." On the 2nd of November, the Bill of Exclusion was brought in. With the projected exclusion of the duke of York was intimately associated the design to set up the duke of Monmouth as the future heir to the Crown. The king's declaration of his son's illegitimacy was little heeded by the people. "This duke, whom for distinction they called the Protestant duke, though the son of an abandoned woman, the people made their idol."‡ Dryden has painted Shaftesbury remonstrating with Monmouth on his doubts and apprehensions, when a crown was within his view: * Clarke's "Life of James II."-Extract from James's "Memoirs," vol. i. p. 595. 1680.] PARLIAMENT THE EXCLUSION BILL. "Did you for this expose yourself to show, With chariots, horsemen, and a numerous train.” * 357 The "glorious progress" of Monmouth was in the West of England, in August, 1680. The country people came from miles round to see him in his way to Longleat. At Ilchester the streets were strewed with flowers. At White Lackington House, near Ilminster, he was met by two thousand horsemen. A woman pressed upon him, and touched his hand, to be cured of the king's evil, as if he already sat in the chair of Edward the Confessor. A thousand young men, all clothed uniformly in white linen, went three miles out of Exeter to meet him, and preceded him, hand in hand, as he entered their city. There were no riotous proceedings; but these demonstrations were very significant of the feelings of the middle classes towards the duke of York. The Protestant duke and the Papist duke were in direct antagonism. Monmouth understood how to keep alive this political cry. Ralph Thoresby went to see him at Whitehall after his progress. Being told "that we came from Leeds, the great clothing-place, he answered, with a smile, we were not for Popery there, no more than they in the West, alluding to his extraordinary kind entertainment there, as in the public news." There was no political dishonesty in thus appealing to popular opinion against the dreaded predominance of Popery. But to set up the son of Lucy Waters as a pretender to the Crown was a great mistake of some of the Whig statesmen-a mistake which inevitably tended to disgust the sober-minded, and to lead to that re-action which enabled Charles to walk once more in the old ways of despotism. After many days' debate in the House of Commons, a Bill was passed on the 15th of November, "for securing of the Protestant religion, by disabling James, duke of York, to inherit the imperial Crown of England and Ireland, and the dominions and territories thereunto belonging." It was carried to the Peers by lord Russell. "A great number of members accompanied him and it; and as soon as it was delivered gave a mighty shout; which tumultuous and barbarous way of proceeding had too great a resemblance of forty-one, not to convince all judicious persons that this would prove a prelude of the same tragedy, if not timely prevented."§ The debate of the Lords was carried on with unusual heat. The two greatest orators, Shaftesbury and Halifax, were pitted against each other in this contest, although their general principles were the same. All accounts of this debate assign to Halifax the honour of having thrown out the Exclusion Bill, by his almost unexampled eloquence. It was rejected on the first reading by a majority of 33-63 dividing against 30. Halifax and others who opposed the exclusion of the duke of York, desired to enact limitations of the sovereign power, should he succeed to the Crown. The constitutional difference between these two propositions has been forcibly put by Mr. Fox, in his History of James the Second: "The question of what are to be the powers of the Crown is surely "Absalom and Achitophel." + "Life of James, Duke of Monmouth." By George Roberts, vol. i. chapter vii. Thoresby's "Diary," vol. i. p. 66. § "Life of James II.," vol. i. p. 617. |