XIV. The house of lords, after this struggle against principles un- CHAP. doubtedly very novel in the discussions of parliament, gave way to the strength of circumstance and the steadiness of the commons. James II. They resolved not to insist on their amendments to the original vote; and followed this up by a resolution that the prince and princess of Orange shall be declared king and queen of England, and all the dominions thereunto belonging *. But the commons with a noble patriotism delayed to concur in this hasty settlement of the crown, till they should have completed the declaration of those fundamental rights and liberties for the sake of which alone they had gone forward with this great revolution. That declaration being at once an exposition of the misgovernment which had compelled them to dethrone the late king, and of the conditions upon which they elected his successors, was incorporated in the final resolution to which both houses came on the 13th of February, extending the limitation of the crown as far as the state of affairs required: That William and Mary, prince and princess of Orange, be, and be declared king and queen of England, France, and Ireland, and the dominions thereunto belonging, to hold the crown and dignity of the said kingdoms and dominions to them, the said prince and princess, during their lives, and the life of the survivor of them; and that the sole and full exercise of the regal power be only in and executed by the said prince of Orange, in the names of the said prince and princess, during their joint lives; and after their decease the said crown and royal dignity of the said kingdoms and dominions to be to the heirs of the *This was carried by sixty-two to fortyseven, according to lord Clarendon, several of the tories going over, and others who had been hitherto absent coming down to vote. Forty peers protested, including twelve bishops, out of seventeen present. Trelawney, who had voted against the regency, was one of them; but not Compton, Lloyd of St. Asaph, Crewe, Sprat, or Hall; the three former, I believe, being in the majority. Lloyd had been absent when the vote passed against a regency, out of It had been resolved, Jan. 29, that XIV. CHAP. body of the said princess; for default of such issue, to the princess Anne of Denmark, and the heirs of her body; and for default of James II. such issue, to the heirs of the body of the said prince of Orange. Thus, to sum up the account of this extraordinary change in our established monarchy, the convention pronounced, under the slight disguise of a word unusual in the language of English law, that the actual sovereign had forfeited his right to the nation's allegiance. It swept away by the same vote the reversion of his posterity and of those who could claim the inheritance of the crown. It declared that, during an interval of nearly two months, there was no king of England, the monarchy lying, as it were, in abeyance from the 23d of December to the 13th of February. It betowed the crown on William, jointly with his wife indeed, but so that her participation of the sovereignty should be only in name*. It postponed the succession of the princess Anne during his life. Lastly, it made no provision for any future devolution of the crown in failure of issue from those to whom it was thus limited, leaving that to the wisdom of future parliaments. Yet only eight years before, nay much less, a large part of the nation had loudly proclaimed the incompetency of a full parliament, * See Burnet's remarkable conversation with Bentinck, wherein the former warmly opposed the settlement of the crown on the prince of Orange alone, as Halifax had suggested. But nothing in it is more remarkable than that the bishop does not perceive that this was virtually done; for it would be difficult to prove that Mary's royalty differed at all from that of a queen consort, except in having her name in the style. She was exactly in the same predicament as Philip had been during his marriage with Mary I. Her admirable temper made her acquiesce in this exclusion from power, which the sterner character of her husband demanded; and with respect to the conduct of the convention, it must be observed, that the nation owed her no particular debt of gratitude, nor had she any better claim than her sister to fill a throne by election, which had been declared vacant. In fact, there was no middle course between what was done, and following the precedent of Philip, as to which Bentinck said, he fancied the prince would not like to be his wife's gentleman usher; for a divided sovereignty was a monstrous and impracticable expedient in theory, however the submissive disposition of the queen might have prevented its mischiefs. Burnet seems to have had a puzzled view of this, for he says afterwards:" it seemed to be a doublebottomed monarchy, where there were two joint sovereigns; but those who know the queen's temper and principles had no apprehensions of divided counsels, or of a distracted government." Vol. ii. 2. The convention had not trusted to the queen's temper and principles. It required a distinct act of parliament (2 W. and M. c. 6.) to enable her to exercise the regal power during the king's absence from England. XIV. with a lawful king at its head, to alter the lineal course of suc- CHAP. cession. No whig had then openly professed the doctrine that not only a king, but an entire royal family might be set aside for James II. public convenience. The notion of an original contract was denounced as a republican chimera. The deposing of kings was branded as the worst birth of popery and fanaticism. If other revolutions have been more extensive in their effect on the established government, few perhaps have displayed a more rapid transition of public opinion. For it cannot be reasonably doubted that the majority of the nation went along with the vote of their representatives. Such was the termination of that contest which the house of Stuart had obstinately maintained against the liberties, and of late, against the religion of England; or rather, of that far more ancient controversy between the crown and the people which had never been wholly at rest since the reign of John. During this long period, the balance, except in a few irregular intervals, had been swayed in favour of the crown; and though the government of England was always a monarchy limited by law, though it always, or at least since the admission of the commons into the legislature, partook of the three simple forms, yet the character of a monarchy was evidently prevalent over the other parts of the constitution. But since the revolution of 1688, and particularly from thence to the death of George II., it seems equally just to say, that the predominating character has been aristocratical; the prerogative being in some respects too limited, and in others too little capable of effectual exercise, to counterbalance the hereditary peerage, and that class of great territorial proprietors, who, in a political division, are to be reckoned among the proper aristocracy of the kingdom. This, however, will be more fully explained in the two succeeding chapters, which are to terminate the present work. 448 CHAPTER XV. ON THE REIGN OF WILLIAM III. CHAP. Declaration of Rights-Bill of Rights-Military Force without Consent declared illegal -Discontent with the new Government—Its Causes-Incompatibility of the Revolution with received Principles-Character and Errors of William-Jealousy of the WhigsBill of Indemnity-Bill for restoring Corporations-Settlement of the Revenue-Appropriation of Supplies-Dissatisfaction of the King-No republican Party in Existence-William employs Tories in Ministry-Intrigues with the late King-Schemes for his Restoration-Attainder of Sir John Fenwick-Ill Success of the War-Its Expenses-Treaty of Ryswick-Jealousy of the Commons-Army reduced-Irish Forfeitures resumed-Parliamentary Inquiries-Treaties of Partition-Improvements in Constitution under William-Bill for Triennial Parliaments-Law of TreasonStatute of Edward III.—Its constructive Interpretation-Statute of William III.Liberty of the Press-Law of Libel-Religious Toleration-Attempt at Comprehension-Schism of the Non-jurors-Laws against Roman Catholics-Act of Settlement-Limitations of Prerogative contained in it-Privy Council superseded by a Cabinet-Exclusion of Placemen and Pensioners from Parliament-Independence of Judges-Oath of Abjuration. THE Revolution is not to be considered as a mere effort of the nation on a pressing emergency to rescue itself from the violence William. 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 CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND. XV. William. 449 the line of succession, while no positive enactments would have CHAP. 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 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, *Parl. Hist. v. 54. VOL. II. 3 M |