CHAPTER XV.

ON THE REIGN OF WILLIAM III.

§ 1. Declaration of Rights. § 2. Bill of Rights. 3. Military Force without Consent declared illegal. 4. Discontent with the new Government. 5. Its Causes. Incompatibility of the Revolution with received Principles. § 6. Character and Errors of William. § 7. Jealousy of the Whigs. Bill of Indemnity. §. Bill for restoring Corporations. 9. Settlement of the Revenue. 10. Appropriation of Supplies. 11. Dissatisfaction of the King. 12. No Republican Party in Existence. 13. William employs Tories in Ministry. Intrigues with the late King. 14. Schemes for his Restoration. § 15. Attainder of Sir John Fenwick. 16. Il Success of the War. 17. Its Expenses. 18. Treaty of Ryswick. 19. Jealousy of the Commons. Army reduced. 20. Irish forfeitures resumed. § 21. Parliamentary Inquiries. ◊ 22. Treaties of Partition. § 23. Improvements in Constitution under William. § 24. Bill for Triennial Parliaments. 25. Law of Treason. 26. Liberty of the Press. 27. Law of Libel. § 28. Religious Toleration. § 29. Attempt at Comprehension. 30. Schism of the Nonjurors. 31. Laws against Roman Catholics. 32. Act of Settlement. § 33. Limitations of Prerogative contained in it. § 34. Privy Council superseded by a Cabinet. 35. Exclusion of Placemen and Pensioners from Parliament. § 36. Independence of Judges. 37. Oath of Abjuration.

§ 1. THE Revolution is not to be considered as a mere effort of the nation on a pressing emergency to rescue itself from the violence of a particular monarch; much less as grounded upon the danger of the Anglican church, its emoluments, and dignities, from the bigotry of a hostile religion. It was rather the triumph of those principles which, in the language of the present day, are denominated liberal or constitutional, over those of absolute monarchy, or of monarchy not effectually controlled by stated boundaries. It was the termination of a contest between the regal power and that of parliament, which could not have been brought to so favourable an issue by any other means. But, while the chief renovation in the spirit of our government was likely to spring from breaking the line of succession, while no positive enactments would have sufficed to give security to freedom with the legitimate race of Stuart on the throne, it would have been most culpable, and even preposterous, to permit this occasion to pass by without asserting and defining those rights and liberties which the very indeterminate nature of the king's prerogative at common law, as well as the unequivocal extension it had lately received, must continually place in jeopardy. The house of lords, indeed, as I have observed in the last chapter, would have conferred the crown on William and Mary, leaving the redress of grievances to future arrangement; and some eminent lawyers in the

478

DECLARATION OF RIGHTS.

CHAP. XV. commons, Maynard and Pollexfen, seem to have had apprehensions of keeping the nation too long in a state of anarchy. But the great majority of the commons wisely resolved to go at once to the root of the nation's grievances, and show their new sovereign that he was raised to the throne for the sake of those liberties by violating which his predecessor had forfeited it.

The declaration of rights presented to the prince of Orange by the marquis of Halifax, as speaker of the lords, in the presence of both houses, on the 18th of February, consists of three parts: a recital of the illegal and arbitrary acts committed by the late king, and of their consequent vote of abdication; a declaration, nearly following the words of the former part, that such enumerated acts are illegal; and a resolution that the throne shall be filled by the prince and princess of Orange, according to the limitations mentioned in the last chapter. Thus the declaration of rights was indissolubly

connected with the revolution-settlement, as its motive and its condition.

The lords and commons in this instrument declare: That the pretended power of suspending laws, and the execution of laws, by regal authority without consent of parliament, is illegal; That the pretended power of dispensing with laws by regal authority, as it hath been assumed and exercised of late, is illegal; That the commission for creating the late court of commissioners for ecclesiastical causes, and all other commissions and courts of the like nature, are illegal and pernicious; That levying of money for or to the use of the crown, by pretence of prerogative without grant of parliament, for longer time or in any other manner than the same is or shall be granted, is illegal; That it is the right of the subjects to petition the king, and that all commitments or prosecutions for such petitions are illegal; That the raising or keeping a standing army within the kingdom in time of peace, unless it be with consent of parliament, is illegal; That the subjects which are protestants may have arms for their defence suitable to their condition, and as allowed by law; That elections of members of parliament ought to be free; That the freedom of speech or debates, or proceedings in parliament, ought not to be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of parliament; That excessive bail ought not to be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishment inflicted; That juries ought to be duly impanelled and returned, and that jurors which pass upon men in trials of high treason ought to be freeholders; That all grants and promises of fines and forfeitures of particular persons, before conviction, are illegal and void; And that, for redress of all grievances, and for the amending, strengthening, and preserving of the laws, parliaments ought to be held frequently.

§ 2. This declaration was, some months afterwards, confirmed by a regular act of the legislature in the BILL OF RIGHTS, which establishes at the same time the limitation of the crown according to the vote of both houses, and adds the important provision, that all persons who shall hold communion with the church of Rome, or shall marry a papist, shall be excluded, and for ever incapable to possess, inherit, or enjoy, the crown and government of this realm; and in all such cases the people of these realms shall be absolved from their allegiance, and the crown shall descend to the next heir. This was as near an approach to a generalisation of the principle of resistance as could be admitted with any security for public order.

The bill of rights contained only one clause extending rather beyond the propositions laid down in the declaration. This relates to the dispensing power, which the lords had been unwilling absolutely to condemn. They softened the general assertion of its illegality sent up from the other house, by inserting the words "as it has been exercised of late." In the bill of rights therefore a clause was introduced, that no dispensation by non obstante to any statute should be allowed, except in such cases as should be specially provided for by a bill to be passed during the present session. This reservation went to satisfy the scruples of the lords, who did not agree without difficulty to the complete abolition of a prerogative so long recognised, and in many cases so convenient. But the palpable danger of permitting it to exist in its indefinite state, subject to the interpretation of time-serving judges, prevailed with the commons over this consideration of conveniency; and though in the next parliament the judges were ordered by the house of lords to draw a bill for the king's dispensing in such cases wherein they should find it necessary, and for abrogating such laws as had been usually dispensed with and were become useless, the subject seems to have received no further attention.1

§ 3. Except in this article of the dispensing prerogative, we cannot say, on comparing the bill of rights with what is proved to be the law by statutes, or generally esteemed to be such on the authority of our best writers, that it took away any legal power of the crown, or enlarged the limits of popular and parliamentary privilege. The most questionable proposition, though at the same time one of the most important, was that which asserts the illegality of a standing army in time of peace, unless with consent of parliament. It seems difficult to perceive in what respect this infringed on any private man's right, or by what clear reason (for no statute could be pretended) the king was debarred from enlisting soldiers by voluntary contract for the defence of his dominions,

1 The Bill of Rights' is given at the end of the present chapter.

480

DISCONTENT WITH NEW GOVERNMENT.

CHAP. XV. especially after an express law had declared the sole power over the militia, without giving any definition of that word, to reside in the crown. This had never been expressly maintained by Charles II.'s parliaments; though the general repugnance of the nation to what was certainly an innovation might have provoked a body of men who did not always measure their words to declare its illegality. It was however at least unconstitutional, by which, as distinguished from illegal, I mean a novelty of much importance, tending to endanger the established laws. And it is manifest that the king could never inflict penalties by martial law, or generally by any other course, on his troops, nor quarter them on the inhabitants, nor cause them to interfere with the civil authorities; so that, even if the proposition so absolutely expressed may be somewhat too wide, it still should be considered as virtually correct. But its distinct assertion in the bill of rights put a most essential restraint on the monarchy, and rendered it in effect for ever impossible to employ any direct force or intimidation against the established laws and liberties of the people.

§ 4. A revolution so thoroughly remedial, and accomplished with so little cost of private suffering, so little of angry punishment or oppression of the vanquished, ought to have been hailed with unbounded thankfulness and satisfaction. The nation's deliverer and chosen sovereign, in himself the most magnanimous and heroic character of that age, might have expected no return but admiration and gratitude. Yet this was very far from being the case. In no period of time under the Stuarts were public discontent and opposition of parliament more prominent than in the reign of William III.; and that high-souled prince enjoyed far less of his subjects' affection than Charles II. No part of our history perhaps is read upon the whole with less satisfaction than these thirteen years during which he sat upon his elective throne. It will be sufficient for me to sketch generally the leading causes, and the errors both of the prince and people, which hindered the blessings of the Revolution from being duly appreciated by its contemporaries.

§ 5. The votes of the two houses, that James had abdicated, or in plainer words forfeited, his royal authority, that the crown was vacant, that one out of the regular line of succession should be raised to it, were so untenable by any known law, so repugnant to the principles of the established church, that a nation accustomed to think upon matters of government only as lawyers and churchmen dictated could not easily reconcile them to its preconceived notions of duty. The first burst of resentment against the late king was mitigated by his fall; compassion, and even confidence, began to take place of it; his adherents-some denying or extenuating

the faults of his administration, others more artfully representing them as capable of redress by legal measures-having recovered from their consternation, took advantage of the necessary delay before the meeting of the convention, and of the time consumed in its debates, to publish pamphlets and circulate rumours in his behalf. Thus, at the moment when William and Mary were proclaimed (though it seems highly probable that a majority of the kingdom sustained the bold votes of its representatives), there was yet a very powerful minority who believed the constitution to be most violently shaken, if not irretrievably destroyed, and the rightful sovereign to have been excluded by usurpation. The clergy were moved by pride and shame, by the just apprehension that their influence over the people would be impaired, by jealousy or hatred of the nonconformists, to deprecate so practical a confutation of the doctrines they had preached, especially when an oath of allegiance to their new sovereign came to be imposed; and they had no alternative but to resign their benefices, or wound their reputations and consciences by submission upon some casuistical pretext. Eight bishops, including the primate and several of those who had been foremost in the defence of the church during the late reign, with about four hundred clergy, some of them highly distinguished, chose the more honourable course of refusing the new oaths; and thus began the schism of the nonjurors, more mischievous in its commencement than its continuance, and not so dangerous to the government of William III. and George I. as the false submission of less sincere men.

§ 6. The demeanour of William, always cold and sometimes harsh, his foreign origin (a sort of crime in English eyes) and foreign favourites, the natural and almost laudable prejudice against one who had risen by the misfortunes of a very near relation, conspired with a desire of power not very judiciously displayed by him to keep alive this disaffection; and the opposite party, regardless of all the decencies of political lying, took care to aggravate it by the vilest calumnies against one who, though not exempt from errors, must be accounted the greatest man of his own age. It is certain that his government was in very considerable danger for three or four years after the Revolution, and even to the peace of Ryswick. The change appeared so marvellous, and contrary to the bent of men's expectation, that it could not be permanent. Hence he was surrounded by the timid and the treacherous; by those who meant to have merits to plead after a restoration, and those who meant at least to be secure. A new and revolutionary government is seldom fairly dealt with. Mankind, accustomed to forgive almost everything in favour of legitimate prescriptive power, exact an ideal faultlessness from that which claims allegiance on the score of ST. C. H. E.

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