controversialist of the Roman Catholic church.a Besides these personal objects, Castlemain laboured to reconcile the Pope to Louis XIV., and to procure the interposition of Innocent for the preservation of the general peace. But of these objects, specious as they were, the attainment of the first would strengthen France, and that of the second imported a general acquiescence in her unjust aggrandizement. Even the triumph of monarchy and popery in England, together with the projects already entertained for the suppression of the Northern heresy, as the Reformation was then called, and for the conquest of Holland, which was considered as a nest of heretics, could not fail to alarm the most zealous of those Catholic powers who dreaded the power of Louis, and were averse to strengthen his allies. It was impossible that intelligence of such suggestions at Rome should not immediately reach the courts of Vienna and Madrid, or should not be communicated by them to the Prince of Orange. Castlemain suffered himself to be engaged in contests for precedency with the Spanish minister, which served, and were perhaps intended, to embroil him more deeply with the Pope. James at first resented the refusal to promote Petre," and for a time seemed to espouse the quarrel of his ambassador. D'Adda was obliged, by his station, and by his intercourse with Lord Sunderland, to keep up friendly appearances with Petre, but Barillon easily discovered that the papal minister disliked that Jesuit and his order, whom he considered as devoted to France. The Pope instructed his minister to complain of the conduct of Castlemain, as very ill becoming the representative of so pious and so prudent a king. D'Adda made this representation to James at a private audience where the Queen and Lord Sunderland were present. That zealous princess, with more fervour than dignity, often interrupted his narrative by exclamations of horror at the liberty with which a Catholic minister had spoken to the successor of St. Peter. Lord Sunderland said to him, "The King will do whatever you please." James professed the most unbounded devotion to the Holy See; and assured D'Adda that he would write a letter to his Holiness, to express his regret for the unbecoming conduct of his am a C D'Adda, 28 July (8 Agosto), 1687. b Barillon, 22 Nov. (2 Dec.), ubi suprà. с Barillon, 7 (17) June, 1686. Fox MSS. 133. Barillon, 28 Feb. (10 Mar.), 1687. Fox, i. 174. 66 a D'Adda, 13 (23) May, 1687. 'Jesu, e possibile!" b bassador. When this submission was made, Innocent formally forgave Castlemain for his indiscreet zeal in promoting the wishes of his sovereign; and James publicly announced the admission of his ambassador at Rome into the Privy Council, both to console the unfortunate minister, and the more to show how much he set at defiance the laws which forbade both the embassy and the preferment.c CHAPTER III. State of the Army.-Attempts of the King to convert the Army.-The Princess Anne.-Dryden.-Lord Middleton and others.-Revocation of the Edict of Nantes.-Attempt to convert Rochester.-Conduct of the Queen.-Religious Conference.-Failure of the Attempt.-His Dismissal. DURING the summer, the King had assembled a body of 15,000 troops, who were encamped on Hounslow Heath; a spectacle new to the people of England, who, though full of martial spirit, have never regarded with favour the separate profession of arms. He viewed this encampment with a complacency natural to princes, and he expressed his feelings to the Prince of Orange in a tone of no friendly boast. He caressed the officers, and he openly declared that he should keep none but those on whom he could rely. A Catholic chapel was opened on the camp, and missionaries were distributed among the soldiers. The numbers of the army rendered a D'Adda, 20 (30) May and 27 May (6 June.), 1689. b Letter of Innocent XI. to James, 16 Aug. 1687. Dod, Ch. Hist. iii. 511. Lond. Gaz. 26 Sept. 1687. The army, on the 1st of January, 1685, amounted to 19,978. Accounts in the War Office. The number of the army in Great Britain in 1824 is 22,019 (Army Estimates), the population being 14,391,681 (Population Returns); which gives a proportion of nearly one out of every 654 persons, or of one soldier out of every 160 men of the fighting age. The population of England and Wales, in 1685, not exceeding five millions, the proportion of the army to it was one soldier to every 250 persons, or of one soldier to every sixty-five men of the fighting age. Scotland, in 1685, had a separate establishment. The army of James, at his accession, therefore, was more than twice and a half greater in comparison with the popu lation than the present force (1822). The comparative wealth, if it could be estimated, would probably afford similar results. e & iv. James to the Prince of Orange, 29 June, 1686. Dalry, Appendix to Books iii. a it an object of very serious consideration. Supposing it to be only 32,000 in England and Scotland, it was double the number kept up in Great Britain in the year 1792, when the population of the island had certainly more than doubled. As it was kept on foot without consent of parliament, there was no limit to its numbers, but the means of supporting it possessed by the King; which might be derived from the misapplication of funds granted for other purposes, or be supplied by foreign powers interested in destroying the liberties of the kingdom. The means of governing this army were at first a source of perplexity to the King; but, in the sequel, a new object of apprehension to the people. The petition of right, in affirmance of the ancient laws, had forbidden the exercise of martial law within the kingdom. The ancient mode of establishing those summary jurisdictions and punishments which seem to be necessary to secure the obedience of armies was, in a great measure, wanting. The servile ingenuity of aspiring lawyers was, therefore, set at work to devise some new expedient for more easily destroying the constitution, according to the forms of law. For this purpose they revived the provisions of some ancient statutes which had made desertion a capital felony, though these statutes were, in the opinion of the best lawyers, either rapealed, or confined to soldiers serving in the case of actual or immediately impending hostilities. Even this device did not provide the means of punishing the other military offences, which are so dangerous to the order of armies, that there can be little doubt of their having been actually punished by other means, however confessedly illegal. Several soldiers were tried, convicted, and executed for the felony of desertion; and the scruples of Judges on the legality of these proceedings induced the King more than once to recur to his ordinary measure for the purification of tribunals, by the removal of the Judges, and by the dismissal from the recordership of London of Sir John Holt, who was destined, in better times, to be one of the most inflexible guardians of the laws. The only person who ventured to express the general feeling respecting the army was Mr. Samuel Johnson, who had been chaplain to Lord Russell, and who was then in prison for a work which he published some years before against the succession of James, under the title of Julian the b Statute 3 Charles I. c. I. b7 H. VII. c. 1. 3 H. VIII. c. 5.; & 2 & 3 Edw. VI. c. 2. Hale, Pleas of the Crown, Book i. c. 63 a Apostate. He now wrote, and sent to an agent to be dispersed (for there was no proof of actual dispersion or sale)," an address to the army, expostulating with them on the danger of serving under illegally commissioned officers, and for objects inconsistent with the safety of their country. He also wrote another paper, in which he asserted that "resistance may be used in case our religion or our rights should be invaded." For these acts he was tried, convicted, and sentenced to pay a small fine, to be thrice pilloried, and to be whipped by the common hangman from Newgate to Tyburn. For both these publications, his spirit was, doubtless, deserving of the highest applause. The prosecution in the first case can hardly be condemned, and the conviction still less. But the cruelty of the punishment reflects the highest dishonour on the Judges, more especially on Sir Edward Herbert, whose high pretensions to morality and humanity deeply aggravate the guilt of his concurrence in this atrocious judgment. Previous to the infliction of the punishment, he was degraded from his sacred character by Crew, Sprat, and White, three bishops authorised to exercise ecclesiastical jurisdiction in the diocese of London during the suspension of Compton. When, as part of the formality, the Bible was taken out of his hands, he struggled to preserve it, and, bursting into tears, cried out, "You cannot take from me the consolation contained in the sacred volume." The barbarous judgment was "executed with great rigour and cruelty." In the course of a painful and ignominious progress of two miles through crowded streets, he received 317 stripes, inflicted with a whip of nine cords knotted. It will be a consolation to the reader, as soon as he has perused the narrative of these enormities, to learn, though with some disturbance to the order of time, that amends were in some measure made to Mr. Johnson, and that his persecutors were reduced to the bitter mortification of humbling themselves before their victim. After the Revolution, the judgment pronounced on him was voted by the House of Commons to be illegal and cruel.d Crew, Bishop of Durham, one of the commissioners who deprived him, made him a considerable com a State Trials, xi. 1339. b In fact, however, many were dispersed. Kennett, iii. 450. Comm. Journ. 24 June, 1690. These are the words of the Report of a Committee who examined evidence on the case, and whose resolutions were adopted by the house. They sufficiently show that Echard's extenuating statements are false. Comm. Journ. ubi suprà. d a pensation in money; and Withins, the Judge who delivered the sentence, counterfeited a dangerous illness, and pretended that his dying hours were disturbed by the remembrance of what he had done, in order to betray Johnson, through his humane and Christian feelings, into such a declaration of forgiveness as might contribute to shelter the cruel Judge from further animadversion. The desire of the King to propagate his religion was a natural consequence of zealous attachment to it. But it was a very dangerous quality in a monarch, especially when the principles of religious liberty were not adopted by any European government. The royal apostle is seldom convinced of the good faith of the opponent whom he has failed to convert. He soon persuades himself that the pertinacity of the heretic arises more from the depravity of his nature than from the errors of his judgment. He first shows displeasure to his perverse antagonists; he then withdraws advantages from them; he, in many cases, may think it reasonable to bring them to reflection by some degree of hardship; and the disappointed disputant may at last degenerate into a furious persecutor. The attempt to convert the army was peculiarly dangerous to the King's own object. He boasted of the number of converts in one of his regiments of Guards, without considering the consequences of teaching controversy to an army. The political canvas carried on among the officers, and the controversial sermons preached to the soldiers, probably contributed to awaken that spirit of enquiry and discussion in his camp which he ought to have dreaded as his most formidable enemy. He early destined the revenue of the Archbishop of York to be a provision for converts. He probably was sincere in his professions, that he meant only to make it a provision for those who had sacrificed interest to religion. But experience shows how easily such a provision swells into a reward, and how naturally it at length becomes a premium for hypocrisy. It was natural that his passion for proselytes should show itself towards his own children. The Pope, in his conversations with Lord Castlemain, said, that without the conversion of the Princess Anne, no advantage obtained for the Catholic religion could be permanently secured. The King assented to this opinion, and had, indeed, before attempted to dispose his daughter favourably to his religion, influenced probably by pab State Trials, xi, 1354. * Narciss. Luttrell, Februrary, 1690, D'Adda, 30 April (10 Maggio) 1686. d Barillon, 17 June (27 June) 1686. Fox MSS. i. 131 . d |