To argue the municipal laws of a country in this case is idle. Those laws were only made for the common course of things, and can never be understood to have been designed to defeat the end of all laws whatsoever, which would be the consequence of a nation's tamely submitting to a violation of all their divine and human rights'. Mr. Lechmere argues to the same purpose in yet stronger terms.

2

But if these managers for the commons were explicit in their assertion of the whig principle, the counsel for Sacheverell by no means unfurled the opposite banner with equal courage. In this was chiefly manifested the success of the former. They had recourse to the petty chicane of arguing that he had laid down a general rule of obedience, without mentioning its exceptions; that the revolution was a case of necessity, and that they fully approved what was done therein. They set up a distinction which, though at that time perhaps novel, has sometimes since been adopted by tory writers; that resistance to the supreme power was indeed utterly illegal on any pretence whatever, but that the supreme power in this kingdom was the legislature, not the king; and that the revolution took effect by the concurrence of the lords and commons 3. This is of itself a descent from the high ground of to

State Trials, 127.

2 Id. 61.

3 State Trials, 196. 229. It is observed by Cunningham, p. 286, that Sacheverell's counsel, except Phipps, were ashamed of him, which is really not far from the case. Mr. serjeant Pratt, he says, refused a good fee to plead for him; "a rare example of honesty among lawyers. " Id. 290. "The doctor says Lockhart, employed sir Simon, afterwards lord Harcourt, and sir Constantine Phipps as his counsel, who defended him the best way they could, though they were hard put to it to maintain the hereditary right and ́un

ryism, and would not have been held by the sincere bigots of that creed. Though specious, however, the argument is a sophism, and does not meet the case of the revolution. For though the supreme power may be said to reside in the legislature, yet the prerogative within its due limits is just as much part of the constitution, and the question of resistance to lawful authority remains as before. Even if this resistance had been made by the two houses of parliament, it was but the case of the civil war, which had been explicitly condemned by more than one statute of Charles II. But as Mr. Lechmere said in reply, it was undeniable that the lords and commons did not join in that resistance at the revolution as part of the legislative and supreme power, but as part of the collective body of the nation'. And sir John Holland had before observed, "that there was a resistance at the revolution was most plain, if taking up arms in Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, Cheshire, and almost all the counties of England; if the desertion of a prince's own troops to an invading prince, and turning their arms against their sovereign, be resistance." It might in fact have been asked, whether the dukes of Leeds and Shrewsbury, then sitting in judgment on Sacheverell (and who afterwards voted him not guilty) might not have been convicted of

limited doctrine of non-resistance, and not condemn the revolution. And the truth of it is, these are so inconsistent with one another, that the chief arguments alleged in this and other parallel cases came to no more than this, that the revolution was an exception from the nature of government in general, and the constitution and laws of Britain in particular, which necessity, in that particular case, made expedient and lawful." Ibid.

State Trials, 407.

2 Id. 110.

treason, if the prince of Orange had failed of success '? The advocates indeed of the prisoner made so many concessions, as amounted to an abandonment of all the general question. They relied chiefly on numerous passages in the homilies, and most approved writers of the Anglican church, asserting the duty of unbounded passive obedience. But the managers eluded these in their reply with decent respect. The lords voted Sacheverell guilty by a majority of 67 to 59; several voting on each side rather according to their present faction than their own principles. They passed a slight sentence, interdicting him only

I

Cunningham says that the duke of Leeds spoke strongly in favour of the revolution, though he voted Sacheverell not guilty. P. 298. Lockhart observes, that he added success to necessity, as an essential point for rendering the revolution lawful.

2 The homilies are so much more vehement against resistance than Sacheverell was, that it would have been awkward to pass a rigorous sentence on him. In fact, he or any other clergyman had a right to preach the homily against rebellion instead of a sermon. As to their laying down general rules without adverting to the exceptions, an apology which the managers set up for them, it was just as good for Sacheverell; and the homilies expressly deny all possible exceptions. Tillotson had a plan of dropping these old compositions, which in some doctrinal points, as well as in the tenet of non-resistance, do not represent the sentiments of the modern church, though, in a general way, it subscribes to them; but the times were not ripe for this, or some other of that good prelate's designs. Wordsworth's Eccles. Biog. vol. vi. The quotations from the homilies and other approved works by Sacheverell's counsel are irresistible, and must have increased the party spirit of the clergy. "No conjuncture of circumstances whatever," says bishop Sanderson, "can make that expedient to be done at any time that is of itself, and in the kind, unlawful. For a man to take up arms offensive or defensive against a lawful sovereign, being a thing in its nature simply and de toto genere unlawful, may not be done by any man, at any time, in any case, upon colour or pretence whatsoever.” State Trials, 231.

any

from preaching for three years. This was deemed a sort of triumph by his adherents; but a severe punishment on a wretch so insignificant would have been misplaced, and the sentence may be compared to the nominal damages sometimes given in a suit instituted for the trial of a great right.

The shifting combinations of party in the reign of Anne, which affected the original distinctions of whig and tory, though generally known, must be shortly noticed. The queen, whose understanding and fitness for government were below mediocrity, had been attached to the tories, and bore an antipathy to her predecessor. Her first ministry, her first parliament, gave presage of a government to be wholly conducted by that party. But this prejudice was counteracted by the persuasions of that celebrated favourite, the wife of Marlborough, who, probably from some personal resentments, had thrown her influence into the scale of the whigs. The well-known records of their conversation and correspondence present a strange picture of good-natured feebleness on one side, of ungrateful insolence on the other. But the interior of a court will rarely endure daylight. Though Godolphin and Marlborough, in whom the queen reposed her entire confidence, had been thought tories, they became gradually alienated from that party, and communicated their own feelings to the queen. The house of commons very reasonably declined to make an hereditary grant to the latter out of the revenues of the post-office in post-office in 1702, when he had performed no extraordinary services, though they acceded to it without hesitation after the battle of Blenheim '. This gave some offence to Anne; and the chief

1 Parl. Hist. vi. 57. They did not scruple, however, to say what cost nothing but veracity and gratitude, that Marlborough had re

tory leaders in the cabinet, Rochester, Nottingham, and Buckingham, displaying a reluctance to carry on the war with such vigour as Marlborough knew to be necessary, were soon removed from office. Their revengeful attack on the queen, in the address to invite the princess Sophia, made a return to power hopeless for several years. Anne, however, entertained a desire very natural to an English sovereign, yet in which none but a weak one will expect to succeed, of excluding chiefs of parties from her councils. Disgusted with the tories, she was loth to admit the whigs; and thus Godolphin's administration, from 1704 to 1708, was rather sullenly supported, sometimes indeed thwarted, by that party. Cowper was made chancellor against the queen's wishes; but the junto, as it was called, of five eminent whig peers, Somers, Halifax, Wharton, Orford, and Sunderland were kept out through the queen's dislike, and in some measure, no question, through Godolphin's jealousy. They forced themselves into the cabinet about 1708, and effected the dismissal of Harley and St. John, who, though not of the regular tory school in connexion or principle, had already gone along with that faction in the late reign, and were now reduced by their dismissal to unite with it. The whig ministry of queen Anne, so often talked of, cannot in fact be said to have existed more than two years, from 1708 to 1710; her previous ad

trieved the honour of the nation. This was justly objected to, as reflecting on the late king, but carried by 180 to 80. Id. 58. Burnet.

' Coxe's Marlborough, i. 483. Mr. Smith was chosen speaker by 248 to 205, a slender majority; but some of the ministerial party seem to have thought him too much a whig. Id. 485. Parl. Hist. 450. The whig newspapers were long hostile to Marlborough.

* Burnet rather gently slides over these jealousies between Godol