The History of England, from the Accession of James II Volume III Part 25

says Ronquillo. "Il est absolument mal propre pour le role qu'il a a jouer a l'heure qu'il est," says Avaux. "Slothful and sickly," says Evelyn. March 29. 1689.]

[Footnote 61: See Harris's description of Loo, 1699.]

[Footnote 62: Every person who is well acquainted with Pope and Addison will remember their sarcasms on this taste. Lady Mary Wortley Montague took the other side. "Old China," she says, "is below n.o.body's taste, since it has been the Duke of Argyle's, whose understanding has never been doubted either by his friends or enemies."]

[Footnote 63: As to the works at Hampton Court, see Evelyn's Diary, July 16. 1689; the Tour through Great Britain, 1724; the British Apelles; Horace Walpole on Modern Gardening; Burnet, ii. 2, 3.

When Evelyn was at Hampton Court, in 1662, the cartoons were not to be seen. The Triumphs of Andrea Mantegna were then supposed to be the finest pictures in the palace.]

[Footnote 64: Burnet, ii. 2.; Reresby's Memoirs. Ronquillo wrote repeatedly to the same effect. For example, "Bien quisiera que el Rey fuese mas comunicable, y se acomodase un poco mas al humor sociable de los Ingleses, y que estubiera en Londres: pero es cierto que sus achaques no se lo permiten." July 8/18 1689. Avaux, about the same time, wrote thus to Croissy from Ireland: "Le Prince d'Orange est toujours a Hampton Court, et jamais a la ville: et le peuple est fort mal satisfait de cette maniere bizarre et retiree."]

[Footnote 65: Several of his letters to Heinsius are dated from Holland House.]

[Footnote 66: Narcissus Luttrell's Diary; Evelyn's Diary, Feb. 25 1689/1690]

[Footnote 67: De Foe makes this excuse for William

"We blame the King that he relies too much On strangers, Germans, Huguenots, and Dutch, And seldom does his great affairs of state To English counsellors communicate.

The fact might very well be answered thus, He has too often been betrayed by us.

He must have been a madman to rely On English gentlemen's fidelity.

The foreigners have faithfully obeyed him, And none but Englishmen have e'er betrayed him."]

--The True Born Englishman, Part ii.]

[Footnote 68: Ronquillo had the good sense and justice to make allowances which the English did not make. After describing, in a despatch dated March 1/11. 1689, the lamentable state of the military and naval establishments, he says, "De esto no tiene culpa el Principe de Oranges; porque pensar que se han de poder volver en dos meses tres Reynos de abaxo arriba es una extravagancia." Lord President Stair, in a letter written from London about a month later, says that the delays of the English administration had lowered the King's reputation, "though without his fault."]

[Footnote 69: Burnet, ii. 4.; Reresby.]

[Footnote 70: Reresby's Memoirs; Burnet MS. Hart. 6584.]

[Footnote 71: Burnet, ii. 3, 4. 15.]

[Footnote 72: ibid. ii. 5.]

[Footnote 73:

"How does he do to distribute his hours, Some to the Court, and some to the City, Some to the State, and some to Love's powers, Some to be vain, and some to be witty?"]

--The Modern Lampooners, a poem of 1690]

[Footnote 74: Burnet ii. 4]

[Footnote 75: Ronquillo calls the Whig functionaries "Gente que no tienen practica ni experiencia." He adds, "Y de esto procede el pasa.r.s.e un mes y un otro, sin executa.r.s.e nada." June 24. 1689. In one of the innumerable Dialogues which appeared at that time, the Tory interlocutor puts the question, "Do you think the government would be better served by strangers to business?" The Whig answers, "Better ignorant friends than understanding enemies."]

[Footnote 76: Negotiations de M. Le Comte d'Avaux, 4 Mars 1683; Torcy's Memoirs.]

[Footnote 77: The original correspondence of William and Heinsius is in Dutch. A French translation of all William's letters, and an English translation of a few of Heinsius's Letters, are among the Mackintosh MSS. The Baron Sirtema de Grovestins, who has had access to the originals, frequently quotes pa.s.sages in his "Histoire des luttes et rivalites entre les puissances maritimes et la France." There is very little difference in substance, though much in phraseology, between his version and that which I have used.]

[Footnote 78: Though these very convenient names are not, as far as I know, to be found in any book printed during the earlier years of William's reign, I shall use them without scruple, as others have done, in writing about the transactions of those years.]

[Footnote 79: Burnet, ii. 8.; Birch's Life of Tillotson; Life of Kettlewell, part iii. section 62.]

[Footnote 80: Swift, writing under the name of Gregory Misosarum, most malignantly and dishonestly represents Burnet as grudging this grant to the Church. Swift cannot have been ignorant that the Church was indebted for the grant chiefly to Burnet's persevering exertions.]

[Footnote 81: See the Life of Burnet at the end of the second volume of his history, his ma.n.u.script memoirs, Harl. 6584, his memorials touching the First Fruits and Tenths, and Somers's letter to him on that subject.

See also what Dr. King, Jacobite as he was, had the justice to say in his Anecdotes. A most honourable testimony to Burnet's virtues, given by another Jacobite who had attacked him fiercely, and whom he had treated generously, the learned and upright Thomas Baker, will be found in the Gentleman's Magazine for August and September, 1791.]

[Footnote 82: Oldmixon would have us believe that Nottingham was not, at this time, unwilling to give up the Test Act. But Oldmixon's a.s.sertion, unsupported by evidence, is of no weight whatever; and all the evidence which he produces makes against his a.s.sertion.]

[Footnote 83: Burnet, ii. 6.; Van Citters to the States General, March 1/11 1689; King William's Toleration, being an explanation of that liberty of conscience which may be expected from His Majesty's Declaration, with a Bill for Comprehension and Indulgence, drawn up in order to an Act of Parliament, licensed March 25. 1689.]

[Footnote 84: Commons' Journals, May 17. 1689.]

[Footnote 85: Sense of the subscribed articles by the Ministers of London, 1690; Calamy's Historical Additions to Baxter's Life.]

[Footnote 86: The bill will be found among the Archives of the House of Lords. It is strange that this vast collection of important doc.u.ments should have been altogether neglected, even by our most exact and diligent historians. It was opened to me by one of the most valued of my friends, Mr. John Lefevre; and my researches were greatly a.s.sisted by the kindness of Mr. Thoms.]

[Footnote 87: Among the Tanner MSS. in the Bodleian Library is a very curious letter from Compton to Sancroft, about the Toleration Bill and the Comprehension Bill, "These," says Compton, "are two great works in which the being of our Church is concerned: and I hope you will send to the House for copies. For, though we are under a conquest, G.o.d has given us favour in the eyes of our rulers; and they may keep our Church if we will." Sancroft seems to have returned no answer.]

[Footnote 88: The distaste of the High Churchman for the Articles is the subject of a curious pamphlet published in 1689, and ent.i.tled a Dialogue between Timothy and t.i.tus.]

[Footnote 89: Tom Brown says, in his scurrilous way, of the Presbyterian divines of that time, that their preaching "brings in money, and money buys land; and land is an amus.e.m.e.nt they all desire, in spite of their hypocritical cant. If it were not for the quarterly contributions, there would be no longer schism or separation." He asks how it can be imagined that, while "they are maintained like gentlemen by the breach they will ever preach up healing doctrines?"--Brown's Amus.e.m.e.nts, Serious and Comical. Some curious instances of the influence exercised by the chief dissenting ministers may be found in Hawkins's Life of Johnson. In the Journal of the retired citizen (Spectator, 317.) Addison has indulged in some exquisite pleasantry on this subject. The Mr. Nisby whose opinions about the peace, the Grand Vizier, and laced coffee, are quoted with so much respect, and who is so well regaled with marrow bones, ox cheek, and a bottle of Brooks and h.e.l.lier, was John Nesbit, a highly popular preacher, who about the time of the Revolution, became pastor of a dissenting congregation in flare Court Aldersgate Street. In Wilson's History and Antiquities of Dissenting Churches and Meeting Houses in London, Westminster, and Southwark, will be found several instances of nonconformist preachers who, about this time, made handsome fortunes, generally, it should seem, by marriage.]

[Footnote 90: See, among many other tracts, Dodwell's Cautionary Discourse, his Vindication of the Deprived Bishops, his Defence of the Vindication, and his Paraenesis; and Bisby's Unity of Priesthood, printed in 1692. See also Hody's tracts on the other side, the Baroccian MS., and Solomon and Abiathar, a Dialogue between Eucheres and Dyscheres.]

[Footnote 91: Burnet, ii. 135. Of all attempts to distinguish between the deprivations of 1559 and the deprivations of 1689, the most absurd was made by Dodwell. See his Doctrine of the Church of England concerning the independency of the Clergy on the lay Power, 1697.]

[Footnote 92: As to this controversy, see Burnet, ii. 7, 8, 9.; Grey's Debates, April 19. and 22. 1689; Commons' Journals of April 20. and 22.; Lords' Journals, April 21.]

[Footnote 93: Lords' Journals, March 16. 1689.]

[Footnote 94: Burnet, ii. 7, 8.]

[Footnote 95: Burnet says (ii. 8.) that the proposition to abolish the sacramental test was rejected by a great majority in both Houses. But his memory deceived him; for the only division on the subject in the House of Commons was that mentioned in the text. It is remarkable that Gwyn and Rowe, who were tellers for the majority, were two of the strongest Whigs in the House.]

[Footnote 96: Lords' Journals, March 21. 1689.]

[Footnote 97: Lords' Journals, April 5. 1689; Burnet, ii. 10.]

[Footnote 98: Commons' Journals, March 28. April 1. 1689; Paris Gazette, April 23. Part of the pa.s.sage in the Paris Gazette is worth quoting. "Il y eut, ce jour le (March 28), une grande contestation dans la Chambre Ba.s.se, sur la proposition qui fut faite de remettre les seences apres les fetes de Pasques observees toujours par l'Eglise Anglicane. Les Protestans conformistes furent de cet avis; et les Presbyterians emporterent a la pluralite des voix que les seances recommenceroient le Lundy, seconde feste de Pasques." The Low Churchmen are frequently designated as Presbyterians by the French and Dutch writers of that age.

There were not twenty Presbyterians, properly so called, in the House of Commons. See A. Smith and Cutler's plain Dialogue about Whig and Tory, 1690.]

[Footnote 99: Accounts of what pa.s.sed at the Conferences will be found in the Journals of the Houses, and deserve to be read.]

[Footnote 100: Journals, March 28. 1689; Grey's Debates.]

[Footnote 101: I will quote some expressions which have been preserved in the concise reports of these debates. Those expressions are quite decisive as to the sense in which the oath was understood by the legislators who framed it. Musgrave said, "There is no occasion for this proviso. It cannot be imagined that any bill from hence will ever destroy the legislative power." Pinch said, "The words established by law, hinder not the King from pa.s.sing any bill for the relief of Dissenters. The proviso makes the scruple, and gives the occasion for it." Sawyer said, "This is the first proviso of this nature that ever was in any bill. It seems to strike at the legislative power." Sir Robert Cotton said, "Though the proviso looks well and Healing, yet it seems to imply a defect. Not able to alter laws as occasion requires!

This, instead of one scruple, raises more, as if you were so bound up to the ecclesiastical government that you cannot make any new laws without such a proviso." Sir Thomas Lee said, "It will, I fear, creep in that other laws cannot be made without such a proviso therefore I would lay it aside."]

[Footnote 102: Lady Henrietta whom her uncle Clarendon calls "pretty little Lady Henrietta," and "the best child in the world" (Diary, Jan.

168-I), was soon after married to the Earl of Dalkeith, eldest son of the unfortunate Duke of Monmouth.]