English, Scotch, and Irish Protestants, who had | Archbishop of York, some of the bishops, and such been serving on the continent. The recent butcheries of Jeffreys had left such a dread and horror that few of the people joined the invaders; and the city of Exeter, though it could not resist, did not at first seem to welcome the invaders. The clergy would not attend a sermon preached in the cathedral church by Burnet, who had come over with William; and even the dissenters refused to admit the Scottish preacher, Ferguson, into their meetinghouse. This veteran revolutionist called for a hammer, and, saying, "I will take the kingdom of heaven by storm," broke open the door. William's intention had been to march at once into the heart of the kingdom, but he was embarrassed, if not discouraged, by the appearance of lukewarmness and timidity, and he continued more than a week at Exeter close to his shipping, which still lay unmolested by the English fleet. It is stated that he more than once thought of reembarking, and that he threatened to publish the names of all those who had invited him over, as a proper reward for their treachery, folly, and cowardice.1 But, though it might have suited him to make some such threat, we doubt very much whether he ever really entertained any such intention, or despaired of his success. Meanwhile, James was trembling and wavering, and touching people in London for the king's evil, being assisted therein, not by a Protestant priest, as the law prescribed in those miracles, but by Piten, a Jesuit. If he could have counted on the men he was not without the means of defense. Besides the regular army which had been so long encamped at Hounslow, he had 3000 Irish troops in Chester, nearly 3000 Scottish troops in Carlisle, and the militia of several counties were under arms. But all the common soldiers that were not papists were disaffected, and some of the principal officers were in league with the Prince of Orange and his friends. Lord Colchester, a friend of the late Duke of Monmouth, was the first that openly deserted. He carried with him a few of his men; but Lord Cornbury, son of the Earl of Clarendon, who was lying at Salisbury with three regiments of horse, attempted to go over with all that force. He found unexpected obstacles in the military honor of his subalterns, and was obliged to fly to the prince almost alone; but he was soon followed by most of the men, and the rest were scattered and rendered useless to James. The city of London, meanwhile, was in disorder, and the mob pulled down the nunnery recently opened at St. John's, Clerkenwell. A council of war was called at Whitehall on the 16th of November. The members of it were assured that a parliament would be called as early as possible, and they recommended his majesty to put himself at the head of his faithful army. The little Prince of Wales was sent for safety to Portsmouth, and there was a sudden and great flight of the priests and monks who had occasioned all this calamity. On the morning of the 18th the king set out for the army; but he returned and received an address from the Archbishop of Canterbury, the 1 Rapin.-Lord Dartmouth. of the peers as were in London, who all prayed for the calling of parliament. On the following morning he set out for head-quarters, now at Salisbury, with Barillon, the French ambassador; but, whereever he advanced, he found unequivocal symptoms of disaffection; and, fearing (probably not without reason) to be betrayed into the hands of his son-in-law by his favorite Churchill, he in five days began to retrace his steps toward the capital. Churchill and the Duke of Grafton, one of Charles II.'s illegitimates, went over to the Prince of Orange, who by this time had no cause to complain of lukewarmness, and who, encouraged by risings in his favor in Cheshire, in Derbyshire, and in the North, had advanced from Exeter to Wincanton. Captain Churchill, brother to Lord Churchill, had joined the Dutch fleet with his ship. The king, in the midst of these difficulties, was visited by a violent bleeding of the nose, and, if he had ever had any courage, he was now wholly deserted by it. As he was retreating from his own army he stopped on the evening of the 24th at Andover, where he invited his son-in-law, Prince George of Denmark, and the young Duke of Ormond, whom he had recently gratified with the Order of the Garter, to sup with him. The very next morning both the prince and the duke were missing; they had gone straight from the royal table to horse, and had ridden to the Prince of Orange with Lord Drumlanrig and Mr. Boyle. The illustrious Dane had been wont to say, when he heard of the desertion of any of those whom James had delighted to honor, Est il possible?" (Is it possible?) The king now said "Est il possible gone too?" But when, on the morrow, he arrived at Whitehall, and found that his daughter Anne had imitated her husband's example, he exclaimed, in an agony and with tears, "God help me! my very children have forsaken me." Anne had absconded from the palace in the night with the fascinating Lady Churchill, who is generally accused of inducing the princess to make up her mind. The two ladies slept in the city at 66 This is the account given, many years after, by Lady Churchill, then Duchess of Marlborough:-"Upon the landing of the Prince of Orange, in 1688, the king went down to Salisbury to his army, and the Prince of Denmark with him; but the news quickly came from thence that the Prince of Denmark had left the king, and was gone over to the Prince of Orange, and that the king was coming back to London. This put the princess into a great fright. She sent for me, told me her distress, and declared, that rather than see her father, she would out at window. This was her expression. A little before a note had been left with me, to inform me where I might find the Bishop of London (who in that critical time absconded) if her royal highness should have occasion for a friend. The princess, on this alarm, immediately sent me to the bishop. I acquainted him with her resolution to leave the court, and to put herself under his care. It was hereupon agreed that, when he had advised with his friends in the city, he should come about midnight, in a hackney-coach, to the neighborhood of the Cock-pit, in order to convey the princess to some place where she might be private and safe. The princess went to bed at the usual time, to prevent suspicion. I came to her soon after; and by the back stairs which went down from her closet, her royal highness, my Lady Fitzharding, and I, with one servant, walked to the coach, where we found the bishop, and the Earl of Dorset. They conducted us that night to the bishop's house in the city, and the next day to my Lord Dorset's, at Copt Hall. ... As this flight of the princess to Nottingham has by some been ig norantly, not to say maliciously, imputed to my policy and premed itated contrivance, I thought it necessary to give this short, but exact relation of it. It was a thing sudden and unconcerted; nor had a general pardon to offenders was passed under the great seal, and promises and professions were lavished to an incredulous and now triumphant people. come up from the fleet not grateful to his majesty; the papists in office lay down their commissions and fly; universal consternation is among them; it looks like a revolution!" the house of Compton, the bishop of London, who, the next morning, with the Earl of Dorset, escorted them to Lord Dorset's mansion at Copt Hall, whence they repaired to the Earl of Northamp-"Addresses," says Evelyn on the 2d of December, ton's. They afterward went to Nottingham, where a small army of volunteers gathered round the orthodox but unfeeling daughter of James. Compton, the bishop of London, who had been a sailor in his youth, put on his harness again, and rode before the princess with a drawn sword in his hand and with pistols at his saddle-bow. It was considered that the decencies were preserved by Anne's not going directly after her husband to the enemy's camp; but the companion of her flight assures us that the princess did not think herself safe till she saw that she was surrounded by the Prince of Orange's friends. By this time Plymouth had declared for the prince, and so had Bath and Bristol, York and Hull; and all the chief nobility and gentry were flocking to his standard, and aiding in the composition or publication of manifestoes and declarations. The Dutch army was joyfully expected in the ultra-loyal city of Oxford; and the university, to complete their recantation, sent to make William an offer of all their plate. There was a fresh flight of priests, and Jesuits, and court favorites, among whom was the obnoxious Father Petre. All that remained of the council in London were distracted and panic-struck; and Chancellor Jeffreys saw the gallows or a worse death before him. Unmeaning proclamations were issued, and negotiations were set on foot with the Prince of Orange; I any share in it further than obeying my mistress's orders in the particulars I have mentioned; though, indeed, I had reason enough on my own account to get out of the way, Lord Churchill having likewise, at that time, left the king, and gone over to the other party." But by this time James himself was convinced that nothing was left to him but flight. The officers of the navy prevented the embarkation of the little Prince of Wales at Portsmouth. The child was brought back to London, and, on the night of the 10th of December, the queen, disguised as an Italian lady, fled with it across the river to Lambeth, lighted on her doleful way by the flames of burning, popish chapels. From Lambeth the queen and prince were conveyed in a coach to Gravesend, where they embarked in a yacht, which landed them at Calais. Within twenty-four hours the stupefied king followed them. He canceled the patents for the new sheriffs, with the writs issued for calling a parliament; and, taking away the great seal with him, he fled with Sir Edward Hales across the Thames to Lambeth, throwing the seal into the river as he passed. Relays of horses had been provided by Sheldon, one of the equeries, and they rode with all speed to Feversham, where they embarked in a custom-house hoy. But it blew a strong gale, and the master of the little vessel, seeing that he wanted more ballast, ran into the western end of the Isle of Sheppey, where the people seized the disguised king as a fugitive Jesuit, treated him with proportionable rudeness, and carried him back a prisoner to Feversham. Then he made himself known; told the rabble, who had been call ing him "a hatchet-faced Jesuit," that he was their king, procured pen, ink, and paper, wrote a note to Lord Winchelsea, the lieutenant of the county, who hastened to him to rescue him out of the rude hands of that rabble rout of fishermen, sailors, and smugglers, who took his money but refused to let him go. Never, perhaps, did a fallen despot present so miserable a spectacle. His mind was a complete wreck: he alternately implored and threatened; he told the mob that the Prince of Orange was seeking his life, and he screamed for a boat! a boat! that he might escape. When he was conducted by Lord Winchelsea from the public-house to a private house in the town, he fell aweeping, and deplored his great misfortune in losing a piece of the wood of the true cross, which had belonged to Edward the Confessor. When the news of his capture was carried to the Prince of Orange, who was then at Windsor, the messenger was referred to Burnet, who exclaimed, "Why did you not let him go?" As soon as the king's flight from his palace was known in the city, the populace proceeded to very violent extremities, being excited and maddened by all kinds of reports, some if not all of which were invented by those who were managing or favoring this revolution. It was reported, for example, that the Irish part of the now disbanded army had begun a massacre of the Protestants; and this was sufficient to set the bells a-ringing and the beaconfires blazing in all directions. In this frenzy they destroyed more popish chapels, broke open the houses of some of the foreign ambassadors, and made search for Father Petre and his Jesuits. Petre was safe in France; but the pope's nuncio was fain to disguise himself as a footman. In the midst of this search a wretch fell into their hands, whose life would not have been safe for an instant with any other people in Europe in a similar state of excite ment. This was Lord Chancellor Jeffreys, who was found in Wapping, disguised as a sailor. They cudgeled him, it is true, but they drew no knife or mortal weapon against the butcher. With a rare reverence for the forms of justice, they carried him before the lord mayor, who committed him for safety, and at his own request, to the Tower. In the midst of these tumults a provisional government was formed in a council of about thirty of the bishops and peers that were in London; the governor of the Tower was changed; and the Prince of Orange was invited into the capital. This council also ordered Lord Feversham to repair to his helpless master with two hundred of the life-guards and no more, and to leave it to his majesty either to return to his good city of London or to retire to the continent, as he should think fit. The provisional government and the Prince of Orange made no doubt that James would instantly turn his face toward France; but, to the astonishment of all, James, either by choice or compulsion, or through some deceptions practiced upon him, came back to London, and invited his son-in-law, the Prince of Orange, to meet him at Whitehall, that they might there amicably settle the distractions of the nation. But William had certainly no wish for any such interview, and he and his friends were probably alarmed by the commiseration which the Londoners had testified for the fallen sovereign on his passage through the city. What William and his party wanted was the immediate expatriation of the king, which could be converted into a virtual abdication; and to this end they drove, being assisted by some whom James still considered as his personal friends. And, as if to revive that intolerance of all popery to which immeasurably more than to any other cause he owed his ruin, he, on the day of his arrival at Whitehall, went to mass, and then, dining in public, had a Jesuit to say grace.' He, however, resumed some of the functions of royalty, and showed no inclination to be gone. To quicken him, four battalions of the Dutch guards and a squadron of horse were marched into Westminster; and James's ex-minister Halifax and the lords Shrewsbury and Delamere waited upon him with a peremptory message. Lord Craven, who was at 1 Evelyn, who was present. Charley & Autograph oF CHARLES II. From Original in Harleian Library. Jamesk AUTOGRAPH OF JAMES II. From Original in Harleian Library. Whitehall with a few of the guards, declared that as to shed tears, and to implore blessings on his dishonored head. That night he slept at Gravesend, and on the morrow he proceeded to Rochester, where he spent four days, still watched by Dutch troops, who, of course, favored rather than obstruct the Dutch should not enter there as long as he had breath in his body; but James had none of the spirit of this octogenarian noble, and resistance was clearly worse than useless. The English guards were withdrawn, and the Dutchmen surrounded the paled that flight which his fears and every thing he saw ace. Then Halifax waited upon James, who was in his bed, and coolly told him that he must go to Ham, a house belonging to the Dowager Duchess of Lauderdale, as the Prince of Orange intended to enter London on the following morning. James merely said that Ham was cold and damp, and that he should prefer going to Rochester. As this was a step toward France, he was soon informed that his son-in-law agreed; and about noon on the following day James embarked in the royal barge for Gravesend. He was attended by the lords Arran, Dunbarton, Litchfield, Aylesbury, and Dundee, and followed and watched by a number of Dutch troops in other boats. The people of London almost forgot the past, and many of them were so much affected 1" 17th December. This night was a council: his majesty refuses to assent to all the proposals, and goes away again to Rochester. "18th. I saw him take barge. A sad sight"-Evelyn. and heard urged him to. On the night of the 23d of December he rose from his bed, dressed himself, walked through the garden of the house down to the Medway, and put off in a boat with his natural son the Duke of Berwick, two ex-captains of the navy, and a groom of the chambers. On the following morning he reached a fishing-smack, which had been hired for the voyage, and, passing the guardships at the Nore without molestation or challenge, he landed, on the morning of the 25th, at the small town of Ambleteuse. And thus was Britain happily delivered from the perverse and incurable dynasty of the Stuarts, and (in the words of a true though in some respects mistaken patriot, who lived in his exile to rejoice at this revolution) "freed from those pestilential vapors which poisoned it in the late reigns." 1 Ludlow. HE four terms, Abso- form of government in which the whole power of lutism--Constitution- the state is placed in the hands, whether of one alism Republican- person or of a body of persons, not responsible to the ism--Democratism-- rest of the community: its most perfect form may may serve, with a lit- be that of a monarchy, but its principle and essence tle explanation, to may equally subsist in an aristocracy or governdesignate the succes- ment of nobles, in a theocracy or government of sive stages in the priests, or in any other oligarchy or government growth of opinion by a particular class. And although, again, the abupon the subject of solutism is most perfect when the governing power civil government, or does not even derive its authority in the first inthe successive forms stance from the will of the people, but perpetuates which Civil Govern- itself either by natural descent or by its own indement naturally assumes in a revolution directed by pendent nomination or election of its successors, opinion. 1. By Absolutism we understand every even this is not necessary to constitute its essential |