made a privy counsellor, and who caused the king to remove the protestant counsellors, some whereof, it seems, had continued to sit, telling him that the king of France, his master, would never assist him if he did not immediately do it, by which it is apparent how the poor prince is managed by the French. Scotland declares for king William and queen Mary, with the reasons of their setting aside king James, not as abdicating, but forfeiting his right by mal-administration; they proceeded with much more caution and prudence than we did, who precipitated all things to the great reproach of the nation, all which had been managed by some crafty ill-principled men. The new privy council have a republican spirit, manifestly undermining all future succession of the crown and prosperity of the church of England, which yet, I hope, they will not be able to accomplish so soon as they expect, though they get into all the places of trust and of profit. 21 April. This was one of the most seasonable springs, free from the usual sharp east winds, that I have observed since the year 1660 (the year of the Restoration), which was much such an one. 26. I heard the lawyers plead before the lords the writ of error in the judgment of Oates, as to the charge against him of perjury, which after debate they referred to the answer of Holloway, &c., who were his judges. I then went with the bishop of St. Asaph to the archbishop at Lambeth, where they entered into discourse concerning the final destruction of Antichrist, both concluding that the third trumpet and vial were now pouring out. My lord St. Asaph considered the killing of the two witnesses to be the utter destruction of the Cevennes protestants by the French and duke of Savoy, and the other the Waldenses and Pyrenean christians, who by all appearance from good history, had kept the primitive faith from the very apostles' time till now. The doubt his grace suggested was, whether it could be made evident that the present persecution had made so great an havoc of those faithful people as of the other, and whether there were not yet some among them in being, who met together, it being stated from the text 11 Apoc. that they should both be slain together. They both much approved of Mr. Mede's way of interpretation, and that he only failed in resolving too hastily on the king of Sweden's (Gustavus Adolphus) success in Germany. They agreed that it would be good to employ some intelligent French minister to travel as far as the Pyrenees to understand the present state of the church there, it being a country where hardly any one travels. 26 April. There now came certain news that king James had not only landed in Ireland, but that he had surprised Londonderry, and was become master of that kingdom, to the great shame of our Government, who had been so often solicited to provide against it by timely succour, and which they might so easily have done. This is a terrible beginning of more troubles, especially should an army come thence into Scotland, people being generally disaffected here and everywhere else, so that the sea and land men would scarce serve without compulsion. A new oath was now fabricating for all the clergy to take, of obedience to the present Government, in abrogation of the former oaths of allegiance, which it is foreseen many of the bishops and others of the clergy will not take. The penalty is to be the loss of their dignity and spiritual preferment. This is thought to have been driven on by the presbyterians, our new governors. God in mercy send us help, and direct the counsels to his glory and good of his church ! Public matters went very ill in Ireland; confusion and dissension amongst ourselves, stupidity, inconstancy, emulation, the governors employing unskilful men in greatest offices, no person of public spirit and ability appearing, threaten us with a very sad prospect of what may be the conclusion, without God's infinite mercy. A fight by admiral Herbert with the French, he imprudently setting on them in 2 creek as they were landing men in Ireland, by which we came off with great 323 slaughter and little honour. So strangely negligent and remiss were we in pre paring a timely and sufficient fleet. The Scots commissioners offer the crown to the new king and queen on conditions.-Act of poll-money came forth, sparing none.— paying dues to the church of England clergy, or serving in office according to law, Now came forth the act of indulgence for the dissenters, but not exempting them with several other clauses.—A most splendid ambassy from Holland to congratulate the king and queen on their accession to the crown. * * * * * * 16. King if on his landing, or within twenty days after, they should return to their obedience. is our fleet not yet at sea, through some prodigious sloth, and men minding only their present interest; the French riding masters at sea, taking many great prizes, to our wonderful reproach. No certain news from Ireland; various reports of Scotland; discontents at home. The king of Denmark at last joins with the confederates, and the two northern powers are reconciled. The East India company likely to be dissolved by parliament for many arbitrary actions. Oates acquitted of perjury, to all honest men's admiration. WILLIAM III. Calm as an under-current-strong to draw And ploughing storm-the spirit of Nassau (By constant impulse of religious awe With the wide world's commotions) from its end The hero comes to liberate, not defy; And, while he marches on with righteous hope, The vacillating bondman of the Pope Shrinks from the verdict of his steadfast eye. WORDSWORTH. SCOTLAND AFTER THE LANDING OF WILLIAM III. SIR WALTER SCOTT. Scotland may be said to have been, for some time, without a government; and, indeed, now that all prospect of war seemed at an end, men of all parties posted up to London, as the place where the fate of the kingdom must be finally settled. The prince of Orange recommended the same measure which had been found efficient in England; and a convention of the Scottish estates was summoned to meet in March, 1689. The interval was spent by both parties in preparing for a contest. The episcopal party continued devoted to the late king. They possessed a superiority among the nobility, providing the bishops should be permitted to retain their seats in the convention. But among the members for counties, and especially the representatives of burghs, the great majority was on the side of the whigs, or Williamites, as the friends of the prince of Orange began to be called. If actual force were to be resorted to, the Jacobites relied on the faith of the duke of Gordon, who was governor of the castle of Edinburgh, on the attachment of the Highland clans, and the feudal influence of the nobles and gentry of the north. The whigs might reckon on the full force of the five western shires, besides a large proportion of the south of Scotland. The same party had on their side the talents and abilities of Dalrymple, Fletcher, and other men of strong political genius, far superior to any that was possessed by the tories. But if the parties should come to an open rupture, the whigs had no soldier of reputation to oppose to the formidable talents of Dundee. The exiled king having directed his adherents to attend the convention, and, if possible, secure a majority there, Dundee appeared on the occasion with a train of sixty horse, who had most of them served under him on former occasions. The principal whigs, on their part, secretly brought into the town the armed Cameronians, whom they concealed in garrets and cellars till the moment should come for their being summoned to appear in arms. These preparations for violence show how inferior in civil polity Scotland must have been to England, since it seemed that the great national measures which were debated with calmness, and adopted with deliberation in the convention of England, were, in that of North Britain, to be decided, apparently, by an appeal to the sword. Yet the convention assembled peaceably, though under ominous circumstances. The town was filled with two factions of armed men, lately distinguished as the persecuting and the oppressed parties, and burning with hatred against each other. The guns of the castle, from the lofty rock on which it is situated, lay loaded and prepared to pour their thunders on the city; and under these alarming circumstances, the peers and commons of Scotland were to consider and decide upon the fate of her Each party had the deepest motives for exertion. crown. The cavaliers, or Jacobites, chiefly belonging by birth to the aristocracy, forgot James's errors in his misfortunes, or indulgently ascribed them to a few bigoted priests and selfish counsellors, by whom, they were compelled to admit, the royal ear had been too exclusively possessed. They saw, in their now aged monarch, the son of the venerated martyr, Charles I., whose memory was so dear to them, and the descendant of the hundred princes who had occupied the Scottish throne, according to popular belief, for a thousand years, and under whom their ancestors had acquired their fortunes, their titles and their fame. James himself, whatever were the political errors of his reign, had been able to attach to himself individually, many both of the nobility and gentry of Scotland, who regretted him as a friend as well as a sovereign, and recollected the familiarity with which he could temper his stately courtesy, and the favours which many had personally received from him. The compassion due to fallen majesty was in this case enhanced, when it was considered that James was to be uncrowned, in order that the prince and princess of Orange, his son-in-law and daughter, might be raised to the throne in his stead, a measure too contrary to the ordinary feelings of nature not to create some disgust. Besides, the cavaliers generally were attached to the episcopal form of worship, and to the constitution of a church, which, while it supported with credit the dignity of the sacred order, affected not the rigorous discipline and vexatious interference in the affairs of private families, for which they censured the presbyterians. Above all, the Jacobites felt that they themselves must sink in power and influence with the dethronement of king James, and must remain a humbled and inferior party in the kingdom which they lately governed, hated for what had passed, and suspected in regard to the future. The whigs, with warmer hopes of success, had even more urgent motives for political union and exertion. They reckoned up the melancholy roll of James's I was one to me to give an unquestionable proof the first day she came to Whitehall. of those who had the honour to wait upon her in her own apartment. She ran about it, looking into every closet and conveniency, and turning up the quilts upon the bed as people do when they come into an inn, and with no other sort of concern in her appearance but such as they express; a behaviour, which, though at that time I was extremely caressed by her, I thought very strange and unbecoming. For whatever necessity there was for deposing king James, he was still her father, who had been so lately driven from that table and that bed; and if she felt no tenderness, I thought she should at least have looked grave, or even pensively sad, at so melancholy a reverse of his fortune." Scotland, following the example of England, declared that James had forfeited its throne, and offered the Scottish crown to William and Mary, accompanying the offer by a declaration of rights which went further than the English one in defining the royal prerogative, and the rights of the people. The earl of Argyle, son of the nobleman who had been executed in James's reign, sir John Dalrymple and sir James Montgomery, were appointed to repair to London with this offer of the Scottish crown. William and Mary at once, of course, accepted it, and both the king and queen took the Scottish coronation oath, repeating it after Argyle. At the clause which bound him to "root out all heretics and enemies to the true worship of God by the presbyterian form," William, however, paused, and emphatically declared that he would never become a persecutor. The commissioners assured him that this was not meant; "Then,” said William, “ I take the oath in that sense only." On the 1st of March the new oath of allegiance was tendered; in England the words " rightful and lawful sovereigns," being omitted in deference to the Tories, but notwithstanding this omission many refused to take it. Several members of the commons left the house, and the earls of Clarendon, Lichfield, and Exeter, the archbishop of Canterbury, and seven bishops refused to take it. Amongst the latter were five of those who had resisted the arbitrary power of James, and been confined in the Tower; but who could not conscientiously violate the oath of allegiance they had taken to the late king, however much they would oppose his illegal acts. Four hundred of the clergy, amongst whom were some of the most distinguished, followed the example of the bishops and were called henceforth Nonjurors. Louis XIV., by whom the fugitive king of England had been generously received, determined to give him effective help to regain his crown, and sent troops to Ireland (which still continued faithful to James), to act in his quarrel. This rendered a war with France inevitable, to the great joy of William, the master passion of whose mind had been for years past a desire to humble the French monarch and check his ambitious schemes. Meantime, Tyrconnel, the lordlieutenant of Ireland, acted in James's interest with vigour and success. He amused the friends of the prince of Orange with half-promises, and even deceived the cautious William himself. A messenger sent from James informed him early in February that he (the king) was coming to Ireland with a French fleet and army. Tyrconnel then declared to the chiefs of the Protestant party that he thought the new English government ought to be acknowledged by Ireland, but that he, as a soldier, must ask the sanction of his old master to abandon the hopeless royal cause. He therefore summoned lord Mountjoy to Dublin-that nobleman was possessed of almost boundless influence in the north of Ireland-and sent him, and chief-justice Rich, on a mission to St. Germains, to assure the banished king that the defence of the country was impossible, and that their loyalty would have to yield to necessity. But, meantime James had received a secret warning from Tyrconnel that the As message was a feint and that he must secure the dangerous protestant leader. soon, therefore, as Mountjoy reached Paris, he was imprisoned in the Bastille. Deprived of their chief, Tyrconnel succeeded in disarming the protestants, and then set about recruiting his army with catholics; it soon amounted to fifty thousand men, all eager to reinstate their popish sovereign. There was great promise of success, and on the 12th of March, James himself landed at Kinsale. He was received by the Irish with enthusiasm, proceeded to Cork, and from Cork to Dublin, which he entered in a magnificent procession of bishops, priests, and his own followers. His authority was recognised throughout Ireland, except in Ulster, and there the only places of protestant strength which held out were Londonderry and Enniskillen. James summoned the Irish parliament to meet at Dublin on the 7th of May. He professed a sincere desire to give liberty of conscience to all his subjects, but the intolerance of his catholic adherents rendered this wish fruitless; whilst the "land hunger," which has been said to be at the bottom of all Irish insurrections, obliged him to repeal in this parliament the act of settlement by which the English and Scottish colonists held their land in Ireland. This act was soon followed by another declaring the lands of all absentees (the greater number of protestants had fled from the island), and all abettors of the prince of Orange, forfeit to the crown. An act of liberty of conscience was also passed; but it was in reality useless. Protestants were excluded from all the schools and colleges, and the Romanist clergy took possession of the protestant churches; they (the protestants) being forbidden to assemble for any purpose under pain of death. James could not make up his mind, however, to any fixed plan of operation with regard to England. Lord Dundee, his most loyal adherent in Scotland, entreated him to land his Irish troops in the west of that country, where all the clans of the Highlands would join him, and he might march into England to strike a blow for his lost crown. But James determined first to subdue Ulster. A fatal resolution! Dundee was soon after killed at Killiecrankie, and the siege of Londonderry was raised; whilst the Inniskilleners defeated general Macarty and 6000 of James's troops at Newton Butler. Marshal Schomberg landed at Carrickfergus with 16,000 men, and the English fleet blockaded Brest, and prevented succours reaching king James. Meantime William had become unpopular in England, and there was a strong reaction in favour of James. The new king had found it impossible to satisfy the wants and wishes of those who believed that they had given him a crown; his morose temper and taciturnity were also repulsive to the English, and his English ministers were irritated by the greater confidence he placed in his Dutch followers. Dissensions had also arisen in the royal family. The princess Anne demanded and obtained a settlement of £50,000 a year from the parliament in opposition to William's wishes; and the sisters quarrelled so bitterly that Queen Mary refused, even on her death-bed, to see Anne. The country was benefited however in the second session of William's first parliament by the passing of the Bill of Rights. James was now in difficulties. Ireland was found to be unable to support his army. The king of France could do no more than send him 6000 soldiers, some money and clothes for his troops, while the English fleet scoured the channel, carried provisions to marshal Schomberg's soldiers, and took the only man-of-war James possessed, out of the very Road of Dublin where it lay at anchor. The Irish and French officers quarrelled, and at this time James received the tidings of William's having landed in Ireland. The Stuart king at once left Dublin and marched to Dundalk; from thence falling back on Ardee. William making a compass crossed the hills between Newry and Dundalk, and on his approach James retired to the left bank of the Boyne. On the 29th he crossed the Boyne and took up an ** Y |