1699.]

PENAL LAW AGAINST CATHOLICS.

235

The present measure was certain to be carried by the Tory majority in the Commons. The Whigs moved an amendment, to resume all grants of lands and revenues of the Crown made since the 6th of February, 1684—the date of the accession of James II. This was a much more sweeping resumption than the opponents of William contemplated. But they had the decency not to resist its adoption. The Commons again tacked the Resumption Bill to a money-bill; and fierce disputes ensued between the two Houses. The king, though bitterly mortified by the measure itself, saw the extreme peril of any conflict upon such a question, and exerted himself to get the Bill passed by the Lords. He gave his assent to it, and immediately prorogued the Parliament. The Commons were preparing a Resolution that an Address should be presented to the king, "that no person, not a native, except the Prince of Denmark, should be admitted to his councils in England or Ireland." The prorogation prevented this last personal affront. Somers, the only one of the Whig ministers that William had retained, now quitted office. The triumphant Tories succeeded in effecting his removal, although they could not succeed in blackening his character by a vote of the House of Commons.

This House, so furious in its hostility to the Crown, passed the most disgraceful law of this reign. The tolerant disposition of William had in England made the old penal laws against papists in many respects a dead letter. Tallard wrote to his court in 1698 that the Catholic religion "is here tolerated more openly than it was even in the time of king Charles II.; and it seems evident that the king of England has determined to leave it in peace, in order to secure his own." The "Act for the further preventing the growth of Popery " recites, that there has been a greater resort into this kingdom than formerly, of Popish bishops, priests, and Jesuits. Any person apprehending and prosecuting to conviction any such bishop, priest, or Jesuit, for saying mass, or exercising any priestly function, is to receive a reward of a hundred pounds. The punishment for such convicted persons, or for a papist keeping a school, is to be perpetual imprisonment. Every person educated in the Popish religion, upon attaining the age of eighteen, to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, and subscribe the declaration against transubstantiation and the worship of saints, and in default of such oath and subscription is declared incapable of purchasing lands, or of inheriting lands under any devise or limitation, the next of kin, being a Protestant, to enjoy such devised lands during life.* Many old and wealthy Catholic land-owners would necessarily come under the penalties of this atrocious law. But it is satisfactory to know that the chief object of the statute, which was to drive out these proprietors, was defeated, in most cases, by the more liberal spirit of the time. "The judges," says Mr. Hallam, "put such constructions upon the clause of forfeiture as eluded its efficacy; and, I believe, there were scarce any instances of a loss of property under this law."

To be governed by favourites is the most dangerous position in which a sovereign can be placed. To lavish gifts upon favourites is almost as dangerous even to a sovereign like William, who was not very likely to be governed by any man. The resumption of the Irish grants was a severe lesson to the king. It was very quickly followed by such a manifestation of

* 2 Gul. III. c. 4.

236

PORTLAND AND ALBEMARLE.

[1699.

the jealousy of Portland towards Albemarle, as must have taught William that it is scarcely safe for the very highest in station to have any absorbing friendships, such as private men may indulge in. Burnet says that Portland observed the favour of the king for Albemarle with great uneasiness. "He could not bear the visible superiority in favour that the other was grown up to; so he took occasion, from a small preference that was given him, in prejudice of his own post, as groom of the stole; and upon it withdrew from court, and laid down all his employments." The letters of William to Portland, written about the time of the termination of the stormy Session of 1699, exhibit a warmth of feeling very different from the supposed coldness of his nature: "Not to enter into a long dispute with you, on the subject of your retirement, I will say nothing to you about it, but I cannot help expressing my extreme grief at it, which is greater than you can imagine; and I am convinced if you felt half as much, you would soon change your resolution. . . . I conjure you to come and see me as often as you can, which will be a great consolation to me, in the affliction which you cause me, not being able to help loving you most tenderly as before." William succeeded, after much importunity, in obtaining the consent of Portland to continue the negotiations for the Second Partition Treaty: "I cannot help telling you that the welfare and the repose of all Europe may depend upon the negotiation which you have in hand with count Tallard."

The passing of the Act for disbanding the army, and the reduction of the navy by a Vote of the Commons, left England in a very weakened condition for internal defence, or for preserving to England its weight and influence in affairs abroad. Yet the king did not abate one jot of his resolution to maintain the attitude before Europe that belonged to the states which he governed. England and Holland were under treaties of alliance with Sweden, and were bound to render her assistance should she be attacked. The king,

1699.]

ADMIRAL ROOKE IN THE BALTIC.

237

Charles the Twelfth, was only in his eighteenth year, and it seemed a favourable opportunity for the king of Denmark, the elector of Saxony and king of Poland, and the czar of Russia, to form a league against him for the dismemberment of Sweden. The young hero threw himself into the affray with that characteristic energy which afterwards astonished the world; and he called upon England and Holland to assist him. The king of Denmark had insolently declared that now the king of England was unsupported by his Parliament: he would be able to do little in Europe. "I will teach the king of Denmark," said William, " that I can yet do something." He would ask for no vote from Parliament: he "apprehended," says Burnet, "that some of them might endeavour to put an affront upon him, and oppose the sending a fleet into the Sound." He did do something. He sent an armament of English and Dutch ships into the Baltic, under the command of sir George Rooke, when his remonstrances to Denmark and the other powers were unheeded. Rooke formed a junction with the Swedish fleet, and they drove the Danish navy into Copenhagen. Charles exerted himself with wonderful spirit, and prepared with his allies for a siege of the Danish capital. Frederick IV. of Denmark now professed his willingness to accept the mediation of England and Holland; and a treaty of peace was signed under their guarantee. "The king's conduct on this whole matter was highly applauded. He effectually protected the Swedes, and yet obliged them to accept of reasonable terms of peace." * The king of England, with his eight thousand soldiers and his seven thousand sailors, had manifested a spirit which was probably as impressive upon the minds of European statesmen as the ostentatious array of sixty thousand troops in the camp of Compiègne by the king of France. St Simon has described this wonderful pageant as he alone could describe the prodigal ostentation of the court of Louis. He resolved to show all Europe, which believed that his resources were exhausted by a long war, that in the midst of profound peace he was as fully prepared as ever for "He wanted to convince the world," says the compiler of the "Life of James II.," that he had concluded the peace more out of a Christian motive than the want of money." To present a superb spectacle to Madame de Maintenon he announced that he counted upon seeing the troops look their best. The officers vied with each other in the finery of their dresses, and the magnificence of their banquets. The temporary houses were furnished with all the splendour of the Parisian saloons. Marshal Boufflers kept open table at all hours. Every luxury which the epicures of France could desire was brought to the camp by unnumbered express carriages. The king showered gratuities of hundreds and thousands of francs upon the officers, according to their several degrees. These gifts were a very small compensation for the extravagant expenditure which the king had stimulated. "There was not a single regiment, officers and men, that was not ruined for several years." Twenty years afterwards, says St. Simon, some of the regiments were still in difficulties from this cause. "Truly did the king astonish Europe. But at what a cost!" When sovereigns, as well as private men, rush into prodigal expenditure to convince the world that they have no want of money," the real want is pretty sure to overtake them. Louis had to endure

arms.

* Burnet.

te

238

POLICY OF LOUIS THE FOURTEENTH.

[1699.

this bitter experience in his subsequent humiliation. His suffering people had to endure such poverty and privations as never can be the lot of an active and industrious nation, but through misgovernment and false ambition.

There can be little doubt that at this time, when Louis was carrying on the solemn farce of negotiating a second Treaty with William for securing the peace of Europe, he was organizing that system of intrigue in Spain which had for its object to make himself the virtual head of two great monarchies, and as such the powerful enemy of that Protestantism which it had been the chief object of his recent years to subject to the most atrocious persecution in his own realms. He had passed from a life of profligacy to a life of the most ostentatious piety. When, as Saint Simon records, the officers of Compiègne looked on with wonder as he walked with the most profound reverence at the side of the sedan-chair of Madame de Maintenon, he was testifying his homage to the devout widow of Scarron, who had become the keeper of his conscience. He had no qualms when he committed the atrocity of the revocation of the edict of Nantes; for his ambition was to destroy Heresy, and compel all his subjects to return to the bosom of the Church. The massacres, the imprisonments, the banishments, that attended this frightful persecution, touched not his heart, for he was manifesting his devotion to the great cause of Catholicism. He contemplated with no nice sense of honour the probable issue of intrigues which would lead him to break his faith to England and Holland; for were they not Protestant countries, and was not the head of them a heretic, who kept out the rightful Catholic king. It was the great monarch who set the fashion in all things,— in religion as in dress. He fancied that it was for him to make the court and the nation devout; and the mask was put on for a time by the court and nation. Addison writes to Halifax from Paris, in October, 1699, "As for the present state of learning, there is nothing published here which has not in it an air of devotion. Dacier has been forced to prove his Plato a very good Christian before he ventures to translate him, and has so far complied with the taste of the age that his whole book is overrun with texts of Scripture, and the notion of pre-existence supposed to be stolen from two verses out of the Prophets. Nay, the humour is grown so universal, that 'tis got among the poets, who are every day publishing legends and lives of saints in rhyme." * After this sacred literature came Voltaire; after this courtly holiness came the Regency.

Kemble. State Papers and Letters,' p. 237.

A Tory administration-Death of the duke of Gloucester-The electress Sophia of HanoverDeath of the king of Spain-Will of Charles, which Louis accepts-The new ParliamentThe king asks assistance for the States-The Act of Settlement-Impeachment of Somers and other Whigs-The Kentish Petition-The Legion Memorial-The Great Alliance formed by William-Death of king James-Louis declares the son of James king of EnglandWilliam opens his last Parliament-His accident-His message on the Union-Death of William the Third-Note: The Act of Settlement.

AFTER the prorogation of Parliament in April, the king, contrary to his usual custom, passed three months in England. He had gone through what he described as "the most dismal Session I ever had;" and he had no resource but to aim at the neutralization of the violence of the Tory party by opening to them most of the chief employments of the State. But it is evident that there was a great unwillingness in the minds of reflecting men to deem such arrangements likely to be permanent. No lawyer of eminence would accept the Great Seal; and after a month's delay it was given to Serjeant Wright, as Lord Keeper. Secretary Vernon wrote to the duke of Shrewsbury, that "when the serjeant took the Seals, he did it with a foresight that he should not hold them long, and therefore intended to move his majesty that his compliance might not turn to his prejudice by any change." * Sunderland was labouring,-whether honestly, or in his old intriguing spirit, it would be difficult to say,-to effect the return of Somers to the high office which he had so ably filled. Montague wrote to Somers that according to the report of Vernon, "lord Sunderland has found out a method, whereby the Seal may again be put in your hands." But he adds, "this seems only like a shift of lord Sunderland to lessen the odium "-that is, the odium excited by the dismissal of Somers.† The violent hatreds of the rival factions rendered it verv difficult for the king to conduct the government upon any settled principles. William quaintly observes in one of his letters, "We must always say here, * Vernon Letters, vol. iii. p. 59.

+ Hardwicke State Papers, vol. ii. p. 436.