quest that he would be silent. Sheldon, and others who, like him, disgraced the church of England by their unprincipled policy or their passions, not only gave it their earnest support at the time, but did all in their power to enforce its execution. As the king's temper was naturally tolerant, his co-operation in this severe measure would not easily be understood without the explanation that a knowledge of his secret policy enables us to give.

But the factious, fanatical, republican party (such were the usual epithets of the court at the time) had gradually led away by their delusions that parliament of cavaliers; or, in other words, the glaring vices of the king, and the manifestation of designs against religion and liberty, had dispossessed them of a confiding loyalty which, though highly dangerous from its excess, had always been rather ardent than servile. The sessions had been short, and the intervals of repeated prorogations much longer than usual: a policy not well calculated for that age, where the growing discontents and suspicions of the people acquired strength by the stoppage of the regular channel of complaint. Yet the house of commons, during this period, though unmanageable on the one point of toleration, had displayed no want of confidence in the king nor any animosity towards his administration; notwithstanding the flagrant abuses in the expenditure which the parliamentary commission of public accounts had brought to light, and the outrageous assault on sir John Coventry, a crime notoriously perpetrated by persons employed by the court, and probably by the king's direct order.3

§ 43. The war with Holland at the beginning of 1672, so repugnant to English interests, so unwarranted by any provocation, so infamously piratical in its commencement, so ominous of further schemes still more dark and dangerous, finally opened the eyes of all men of integrity. It was accompanied by the shutting up of the exchequer, an avowed bankruptcy at the moment of beginning an expensive war, and by the declaration of indulgence, or suspension of all penal laws in religion: an assertion of prerogative which seemed without limit. These exorbitances were the more scandalous that they happened during a very long prorogation. Hence the court so lost the confidence of the house of commons that, with all the lavish corruption of the following period, it could never regain

3 This is asserted by Burnet, and seems to be acknowledged by the duke of York. The court endeavoured to mitigate the effect of the bill brought into the commons in consequence of Coventry's injury; and so far succeeded, that, instead of a partial measure of protection for the members of the house of commons, as originally designed, it was turned into a general act, making it a capital felony to wound with

intention to maim or disfigure. But the name of the Coventry act has always clung to this statute.

4 The king promised the bankers interest at six per cent., instead of the money due to them from the exchequer; but this was never paid till the latter part of William's reign. It may be considered as the begining of our national debt.

380

DECLARATION OF INDULGENCE.

CHAP. XI.

a secure majority on any important question. The superiority of what was called the country party is referred to the session of February, 1673, in which they compelled the king to recall his proclamation suspending the penal laws, and raised a barrier against the encroachments of popery in the test act.

§ 44. The king's declaration of indulgence had been projected by Shaftesbury in order to conciliate or lull to sleep the protestant dissenters. It redounded, in its immediate effect, chiefly to their benefit; the catholics already enjoying a connivance at the private exercise of their religion, and the declaration expressly refusing them public places of worship. The plan was most laudable in itself, could we separate the motives which prompted it, and the means by which it was pretended to be made effectual. But in the declaration the king says, "We think ourselves obliged to make use of that supreme power in ecclesiastical matters which is not only inherent in us, but hath been declared and recognised to be so by several statutes and acts of parliament.” "We do," he says, not long afterwards, “declare our will and pleasure to be, that the execution of all and all manner of penal laws in matters ecclesiastical, against whatsoever sort of nonconformists or recusants, be immediately suspended, and they are hereby suspended." He mentions also his intention to license a certain number of places for the religious worship of nonconforming protestants.

It was generally understood to be an ancient prerogative of the crown to dispense with penal statutes in favour of particular persons, and under certain restrictions. It was undeniable that the king might, by what is called a "noli prosequi," stop any criminal prosecution commenced in his courts, though not an action for the recovery of a pecuniary penalty, which, by many statutes, was given to the common informer. He might, of course, set at liberty, by means of a pardon, any person imprisoned, whether upon conviction or by a magistrate's warrant. Thus the operation of penal statutes in religion might, in a great measure, be rendered ineffectual by an exercise of undisputed prerogatives; and thus, in fact, the catholics had been enabled, since the accession of the house of Stuart, to withstand the crushing severity of the laws. But a pretension, in explicit terms, to suspend a body of statutes, a command to magistrates not to put them in execution, arrogated a sort of absolute power which no benefits of the indulgence itself (had they even been less insidiously offered) could induce a lover of constitutional privileges to endure. Notwithstanding the affected distinction of temporal and ecclesiastical matters, it was evident that

Bridgeman, the lord keeper, resigned the great seal, according to Burnet, because he would not put it to the declaration of

indulgence, and was succeeded by Shaftesbury.

the king's supremacy was as much capable of being bounded by the legislature in one as in the other, and that every law in the statutebook might be repealed by a similar proclamation. The house of commons voted that the king's prerogative in matters ecclesiastical does not extend to repeal acts of parliament, and addressed the king to recall his declaration. The king, in his answer to this address, lamented that the house should question his ecclesiastical power, which had never been done before. This brought on a fresh rebuke, and, in a second address, they positively deny the king's right to suspend any law. “The legislative power," they say, has always been acknowledged to reside in the king and two houses of parliament. The king, in a speech to the house of lords, complained much of the opposition made by the commons, and found a majority of the former disposed to support him, though both houses concurred in an address against the growth of popery. At length, against the advice of the bolder part of his council, but certainly with a just sense of what he most valued, his ease of mind, Charles gave way to the public voice, and withdrew his declaration.

66

§ 45. The act of supremacy in the first year of Elizabeth had imposed on all accepting temporal as well as ecclesiastical offices an oath denying the spiritual jurisdiction of the pope. But though the refusal of this oath when tendered incurred various penalties, yet it does not appear that any were attached to its neglect, or that the oath was a previous qualification for the enjoyment of office, as it was made by a subsequent act of the same reign for sitting in the house of commons. It was found also by experience that persons attached to the Roman doctrine sometimes made use of strained constructions to reconcile the oath of supremacy to their faith. Nor could that test be offered to peers, who were excepted by a special provision. For these several reasons a more effectual security against popish counsellors, at least in notorious power, was created by the famous test act of 1673, which renders the reception of the sacrament according to the rites of the church of England, and a declaration renouncing the doctrine of transubstantiation, preliminary conditions without which no temporal office of trust can be enjoyed. In this fundamental article of faith no compromise or equivocation would be admitted by any member of the church of Rome. And, as the obligation extended to the highest ranks, this reached the end for which it was immediately designed; compelling not only the lord-treasurer Clifford, the boldest and most dangerous of that party, to retire from public business, but the duke of York himself, whose desertion of the protestant church was hitherto not absolutely undisguised, to quit the post of lord-admiral.

It is evident that a test might have been framed to exclude the Roman catholic as effectually as the present without bearing like

382

FALL OF THE CABAL.

CHAP. XI.

this on the protestant nonconformist. But, though the preamble of the bill, and the whole history of the transaction, show that the main object was a safeguard against popery, it is probable that a majority of both houses liked it the better for this secondary effect of shutting out the presbyterians still more than had been done by previous statutes of this reign. There took place, however, a remarkable coalition between the two parties; and many who had always acted as high-churchmen and cavaliers, sensible at last of the policy of their common adversaries, renounced a good deal of the intolerance and bigotry that had characterised the present parliament. The dissenters, with much prudence or laudable disinterestedness, gave their support to the test act. In return, a bill was brought in, and after some debate passed to the lords, repealing in a considerable degree the persecuting laws against their worship. The upper house, perhaps invidiously, returned it with amendments more favourable to the dissenters, and insisted upon them after a conference. A sudden prorogation very soon put an end to this bill, which was as unacceptable to the court as it was to the zealots of the church of England. It had been intended to follow it up by another, excluding all who should not conform to the established church from serving in the house of commons.

§ 46. It may appear remarkable that, as if content with these provisions, the victorious country party did not remonstrate against the shutting of the exchequer, nor even wage any direct war against the king's advisers. But the test act, and their steady protestation against the suspending prerogative, crushed the projects and dispersed the members of the cabal. The king had no longer any minister on whom he could rely; and, with his indolent temper, seems from this time, if not to have abandoned all hope of declaring his change of religion, yet to have seen both that and his other favourite projects postponed without much reluctance. From a real predilection, from the prospect of gain, and partly, no doubt, from some distant views of arbitrary power and a catholic establishment, he persevered a long time in clinging secretly to the interest of France; but his active co-operation in the schemes of 1669 was at an end. In the next session, of October, 1673, the commons drove Buckingham from the king's councils; they intimidated Arlington into a change of policy; and, though they did not succeed in removing the duke of Lauderdale, compelled him to confine himself chiefly to the affairs of Scotland.

CHAPTER XII.

§ 1. Earl of Danby's Administration. § 2. Opposition in the Commons. Frequently corrupt. 3. Character of Lord Dauby. § 4. Connexion of the Popular Party with France. Its Motives on both Sides. 5. Doubt as to their Acceptance of Money. 6. Secret Treaties of the King with France. § 7. Fall of Danby. His Impeachment. 8. Questions arising on it. His commitment to the Tower. 9. Pardon pleaded in Bar. 10. Votes of Bishops. § 11. Abatement of Impeachments by Dissolution. 12. Popish Plot. Coleman's Letters. § 13. Godfrey's Death. § 14. Injustice of Judges on the Trials. § 15. Parliament dissolved. Exclusion of Duke of York proposed. 16. Schemes of Shaftesbury and Monmouth. 17. Unsteadiness of the King. 18. Expedients to avoid the Exclusion. 19. Names of Whig and Tory. § 20. New Council formed by Sir William Temple. Long Prorogation of Parliament. 21. Petitions and Addresses. § 22. Violence of the Commons. Oxford Parliament. 23. Impeachment of Commoners for Treason constitutional. Fitzharris impeached. 24. Proceedings against Shaftesbury and his Colleagues. 25. Triumph of the Court. 26. Forfeiture of Charter of London, and of other places. 27. Projects of lord Russell and Sidney. § 28. Their Trials. § 29. High Tory Principles of the Clergy. Passive Obedience. Some contend for Absolute Power. Filmer. Sir George Mackenzie. Decree of University of Oxford. 30. Connexion with Louis broken off. King's death.

§ 1. THE period of lord Danby's administration, from 1673 to 1678, was full of chicanery and dissimulation on the king's side, of increasing suspiciousness on that of the commons. Forced by the voice of parliament and the bad success of his arms into peace with Holland, Charles struggled hard against a co-operation with her in the great confederacy of Spain and the empire to resist the encroachments of France on the Netherlands. Such was in that age the strength of the barrier fortresses, and so heroic the resistance of the prince of Orange, that, notwithstanding the extreme weakness of Spain, there was no moment in that war when the sincere and strenuous intervention of England would not have compelled Louis XIV. to accept the terms of the treaty of Aix la Chapelle. It was the treacherous attachment of Charles II. to French interests that brought the long congress of Nimeguen to an unfortunate termination; and, by surrendering so many towns of Flanders as laid the rest open to future aggression, gave rise to the tedious struggles of two more wars.

§ 2. In the behaviour of the house of commons during this period, previously at least to the session of 1678, there seems nothing which can incur much reprehension from those who reflect on the king's character and intentions; unless it be that they granted supplies rather too largely, and did not sufficiently provide against the perils of the time. But the house of lords contained, unfortunately, an