884 ROMAN CATHOLICS AND QUAKERS RELEASED FROM PRISON. [1685. all persons confined for the refusal of the oaths of allegiance and supremacy.' It is implied that "the dissenters were relieved by this tolerant disposition. The relief extended only to Roman Catholics and Quakers. The Puritan dissenters Presbyterians, or Independents, or Baptists,-had evinced no objection to the oath which renounced the authority of the Pope. Those who continued in prison were there for offences under the Conventicle Acts and the Five Mile Act. The Roman Catholics would not take the oath of supremacy; the Quakers would not take any oath. "I have not been able," says a high authority, "to find any proof that any person, not a Roman Catholic or a Quaker, regained his freedom under these orders." The orders, signed by Sunderland, were issued on the 19th of April. The relief to the Roman Catholics was a natural manifestation of the disposition of the government. The relief to Quakers was the result of a conviction that they were a harmless sect, who carefully abstained from all political action, and avoided even political conversation. The influence of William Penn, who had returned home from Pennsylvania, was laudably exercised to obtain this relief for the Society of which he was a member. The number of Quakers liberated was estimated at above fourteen hundred. Roman Catholics were liberated "to the amount of some thousands." The real disposition of the government towards Protestant dissenters was at that period amply manifested by the proceedings in the Scottish Parliament. The meeting of the Estates preceded that of the English Parliament by nearly a month. In obedience to a special letter from the king, calling for new penal laws against the Covenanters, it was enacted on the 8th of May, that the punishment of death, and confiscation of land and goods, should be awarded against those who should preach in a conventicle under a roof, or should attend a conventicle in the open air, either as preacher or auditor. The persecution of the times of Charles II. was continued with increased fury.§ The soldiery were let loose upon the districts where the Covenanters were still unsubdued, to kill and plunder. The tale of two unhappy women who were condemned to be drowned, and were tied to stakes when the tide had receded, there to await the lingering but certain death that would follow its return, is not a fiction. Romance has not imagined any cruelty so horrible as that perpetrated by the scoundrel Major Winram. Of the two women whose drowning he superintended, one was a girl of eighteen, of the name of Margaret Wilson. She had seen her elder friend perish. She was half dead herself when she was taken out of the water. "Dear Margaret," said her neighbours, "only say God save the king." Her answer was, "God save him, if he will, for it is his salvation I desire." Beyond this she refused to go. She would not abjure the cause of her religion, and consent to attend the episcopal worship; and she was again thrown into the engulphing waves. The old laws against nonconformists were severe enough, and were executed with sufficient ferocity, to justify any resistance, even without the addition of the infamous law which James caused to be passed against those who attended conventicles. The *"History," 8vo edition, vol. xiv. p. 13. Macaulay, "History," vol. i. 8vo, p. 509. Note. Lingard. § We anticipated the date of the murder of "The Christian Carrier," to indicate the mode of proceeding with the Covenanters by the sanguinary Claverhouse. See p. 351. 1685.] ELECTIONS-MEETING OF PARLIAMENT. 385 biographer of James thus explains the motives of the sovereign who desired, according to his panegyrists, "liberty of conscience and freedom of worship: "The king's earnestness to have the field conventicles suppressed was not from any spirit of persecution-though those wretches deserved no quarter— but from an apprehension of new troubles." * He made the Puritan religion a pretence for manifesting his hatred of the Puritan love of freedom. The Parliament had been summoned to meet on the 19th of May. No one doubted that the House of Commons would exceed all former Parliaments in subserviency, looking to the influences which had been exercised in the returns of members. Burnet, the Whig, complains of "the injustice and violence used in elections, beyond what had been ever practised in former times." Evelyn, the Tory, writes, "Elections for the coming Parliament in England were thought to be very indirectly carried on in most places." + Again, he says, "There are many of the new members whose elections and returns were universally censured, many of them being persons of no condition, or interest in the nation or places for which they served." The boroughs were almost wholly in the hands of the Court; the old Charters having been superseded by new Charters, which placed the returns in the power of a corrupt few, nominated by the Crown. "It was reported that lord Bath carried down with him [into Cornwall] no fewer than fifteen Charters, so that some called him the Prince Elector." James had some ambitious projects floating in his mind, and especially exciting him to secure an obedient Parliament. The interference of the French king with the parliamentary system of England, during the reign of Charles, was perfectly known to his successor. James was not quite so abject as his brother; but nevertheless he was ready to receive the French livres, and to submit his policy to the wishes of his patron, till he could make himself sufficiently secure of a large revenue for life. Then he would manifest a real independMeanwhile he talked to foreign ministers about maintaining the balance of power in Europe. He aspired to vie with the Court of France in its ceremonial observances towards ambassadors. His pride made him bear his yoke somewhat impatiently. "He seemed resolved," says Burnet, “not to be governed by French counsels." He gave out that he would cultivate the friendship of the Prince of Orange and the United Provinces. The courtiers said that a prince now ruled who would make France as dependent on England as England had been dependent on France. Louis slily said that "for all the high things given out in his name, the king of England was willing to take his money, as well as his brother had done." § ence. The Parliament assembled on the 19th of May. Under the Stuarts there had been a vast increase of the Peerage. In the reign of James the Second there were fifteen dukes and duchesses, two marquises, sixty-seven earls and countesses, nine viscounts, and sixty-six barons and baronesses, making a total of one hundred and fifty-nine. Eighty years before, there was no duke, only one marquis, about nineteen earls, three or four viscounts, and forty lords.|| The learned Doctor of Laws, from whose Court Calendar we derive this information, estimates that through luxury, licentiousness, and want of fit educa "Life of James II.," vol. ii., p. 12. "Diary." May 10. § Burnet. Ibid. May 22. VOL. IV. c c 386 SERVILE SPIRIT OF THE COMMONS. [1685. tion, "it was lately difficult to find, as some are bold to affirm, the courage, wisdom, justice, integrity, honour, sobriety, and courtesy of the ancient nobility." Of the riches of the Peerage he has no doubt. He computes the yearly revenue of all England to be about fourteen millions, and assigns one eleventh of the whole to the nobility. Including twenty-five spiritual Peers (the see of York was vacant), there were a hundred and eighty-one Lords of Parliament. The number of Members of the House of Commons was five hundred and thirteen.* From the printed List of Members, it appeared that there were not more than a hundred and thirty-five who had sat in former Parliaments. The Whig majority was gone. The country gentlemen, whether Whig or Tory, who were returned for the Counties, were a weak minority compared with the representatives of the newly chartered Corporations. The composition of the House of Commons was such that it would have been difficult for the people to over-estimate the extent to which their so-called representatives would go in placing the property and liberty of the country at the feet of the king. The language of James, in his Speech from the Throne, argues an undoubting confidence in the machinery which he had procured for obtaining a large revenue, and for enforcing a due compliance with his projects for restoring the influence of his own religion. He repeated not only the substance, but the exact words, of the speech which he had addressed to the Privy Council on the day of his accession; "the better," said the king, "to evidence to you that I spoke then not by chance." In demanding the settlement of the Revenue for his life, for the many weighty necessities of government, he added these words, "which I must not suffer to be precarious." Mr. Fox has pointed out that "in arguing for his demand, as he styles it, of revenue, he says, not that the Parliament ought not, but that he must not suffer the well-being of the government, depending upon such revenue, to be precarious; whence it is evident, that he intended to have it understood that, if the Parliament did not grant, he purposed to levy a revenue without their consent." Think not, says the incipient despot, that you are to supply me with a little money from time to time, out of your inclination to frequent parliaments. "This would be a very improper method to take with me. The best way to engage me to meet you often is always to use me well." And the whole House of Commons, with one exception, were awed by the "vultus instantis tyranni"-and voted unanimously that the grant of revenue should be for life. The one bold member was sir Edward Seymour, a Cavalier of the staunchest breed. He did not oppose the grant, but he maintained that the first thing to do was to ascertain who were legal members of the House. This was more especially a duty, he said, when the laws and religion of England were in evident peril. No member dared to follow up this attack of a man whose high ancestry gave a special impulse to his proud courage. The members of this Parliament "were neither men of parts nor estates; so there was no hope left of either working on their understandings, or of making them see their interest in not giving the king all at There was no prospect of any strength in opposing anything that the king should ask of them." § An attempt was made a few days later, once. § Burnet. * Chamberlayne, "Present State of England," 1687, Part II. p. 91. Evelyn, May 22. The writer, David Hume, who has had the chief direction of the English histori 1685.] CONVICTION AND PUNISHMENT OF TITUS OATES. 387 to obtain some security in the matter of religion; by passing a resolution in Committee "to assist and stand by his majesty, according to our duty and allegiance, for the support and defence of the reformed religion of the Church of England, as now by law established." This was a great deal more than his majesty desired. Nor was a concurrent resolution less unpalatable,—that the House be moved to make an humble Address to his majesty, to publish his royal Proclamation "for putting the laws in execution against all Dissenters whatsoever from the Church of England." Barillon, the French ambassador, writes that these votes gave great offence to the king and queen, and that orders were issued to the Court members to get rid of them. When the House had to decide upon the resolution of its Committee, the previous question was moved; and it was resolved, unanimously, "That this House doth acquiesce, entirely rely, and rest wholly satisfied, in his majesty's gracious word, and repeated declaration, to support and defend the religion of the Church of England, as it is by law established, which is dearer to us than our lives." There were two remarkable trials at this period, which must have had a considerable influence upon public opinion. The one was the prosecution of Titus Oates for perjury; the other the prosecution of Richard Baxter for libel. Of the justice of the conviction of Oates there can be little doubt. The atrocious severity of his punishment was to gratify the revenge of the Roman Catholics, who crowded Westminster Hall on his trial, on the 7th of May. The chief witness to the Popish Plot had long been lying in prison, heavily ironed, in default of payment of the excessive fine imposed upon him on his conviction for libelling the duke of York. He had been accustomed to browbeat juries, and to be lauded to the skies by judges. He had now to bear all the tyrannous invective which judges thought it decent to use in state prosecutions; and, what to his unabashed impudence was far more terrible, he was to be pilloried in Palace Yard, and at the Royal Exchange. He was to be whipped from Aldgate to Newgate on one day, and then again to be whipped from Newgate to Tyburn. He was to be imprisoned for life. He was to stand in the pillory five times every year. His conviction, says Reresby, "was a grateful hearing to the king." His majesty said "that Oates being thus convicted, the Popish Plot was dead." Reresby is proud of his ready reply: "I answering, that it had long since been dead, and that now it would be buried, his majesty so well approved of the turn, that going with him afterwards to the princess of Denmark, I heard him repeat it to her." * Whilst the small joke was circulating about the Court, the wretched Oates was tortured in a way which even the haters of his perjuries must have thought excessive. He was flogged at the cart's tail on the first day, almost to death. Intercession was made to the king to remit the second flogging. The answer was, "he shall go through with it, if he has breath in his body.” He did go through with it, and survived even seventeen hundred lashes. It is clear that the judges meant him to be flogged to death. He could not be cal mind for nearly a century, had the impudence to fabricate a debate in the House of Commons for this occasion, in which he makes the opposers of the grant use arguments well worthy of a free and enlightened assembly. Mr. Fox pointed out that this was a pure invention, utterly unsupported by any contemporary writers, or even by tradition. "Memoirs," p. 299. 388 CONVICTION OF RICHARD BAXTER. [1685. executed for his offence; but he could be subjected to the torments of a lingering execution. Flogging, under the government of James the Second, became a favourite punishment. Another of the plot witnesses, Dangerfield, was scourged for a libel, and he died. His death was laid upon a violent man who struck him with a cane, injuring his eye, as he was carried in a coach back to Newgate after his flogging; and that man, Francis, was hanged for murder. The lacerated body of Dangerfield showed that the brutal assault of Francis was a secondary cause of Dangerfield's death. If Titus Oates was unmercifully scourged for the satisfaction of the Papists, Richard Baxter was harassed, insulted, fined, and imprisoned, for the terror of the Puritans. Baxter was tried for a seditious libel, contained in his Paraphrase on the New Testament, in which he somewhat bitterly complained of the wrongs of the Dissenters. Baxter's counsel moved for a postponement of the trial. "I would not give him a minute more to save his life,' exclaimed the brutal Chief Justice: "Yonder stands Oates in the pillory, and if Baxter stood by his side the two greatest rogues and rascals in England would be there." The trial, if trial it could be called, went on. The barristers who defended the venerable man, now in his seventieth year, were insulted by the ermined slave of the Crown. Baxter himself attempted to speak, and he was thus met by Jeffreys: Richard, Richard! dost thou think we will hear thee poison the court? Richard, thou art an old fellow, an old knave; thou hast written books enough to load a cart; every one is as full of sedition (I might say treason), as an egg is full of meat; hadst thou been whipt out of thy writing trade forty years ago it had been happy. Thou pretendest to be a preacher of the gospel of peace, and thou hast one foot in the grave; it is time for thee to begin to think what account thou intendest to give; but leave thee to thyself, and I see thou wilt go on as thou hast begun; but, by the grace of God, I'll look after thee. I know thou hast a mighty party, and I see a great many of the brotherhood in corners, waiting to see what will become of the mighty Don; and a doctor of the party [looking to Dr. Bates] at your elbow, but by the grace of Almighty God I will crush you all." * The famous non-conformist,-he who, in the earnestness of his piety and the purity of his life, was unsurpassed by the greatest of the great divines of the English Church from which he differed so little,was of course found guilty. He was surrounded by friends and admirers, who wept aloud. "Snivelling calves!" exclaimed Jeffreys. He was anxious, it was said, that the prisoner should be whipped at the cart's tail, but that was overruled by the three other judges. Baxter was unable to pay his fine of five hundred marks; and he remained in prison for eighteen months; when his pardon was obtained. The king, in his Speech to the two Houses on the 23rd of May, informed them that he had received news that morning from Scotland, that Argyle had landed in the West Highlands, with men from Holland. The Houses sympathised with the king in his anger that Argyle had charged him with usurpation and tyranny." The earl had been three years and a half in Holland, an exile under his unjust sentence. Many who had fled from the oppressions exercised upon the Presbyterians had gathered around him. He * "State Trials." |