Volume Vi Part 10 (1/2)

[Sidenote: The New Ministry.]

A new Parliament was at once summoned and its election took place in a tumult of national excitement. The process of Parliamentary corruption now took a further step. Danby had begun the bribery of members. With the election of 1679 began on a large and systematic scale the bribery or ”treating” of const.i.tuents. If members had come to realize the money value of the seats they held, the voters for these members were quick to realize the money value of the seats they bestowed. ”I am told,” writes the Venetian amba.s.sador, Sarotti, ”that in the more conspicuous and populous places their election will cost some of the candidates five thousand scudi (about a thousand pounds) each.” The new members were still for the most part Churchmen and country gentlemen, but they shared the alarm of the country, and even before their a.s.sembly in March their temper had told on the king's policy. James was sent to Brussels.

Charles began to disband the army and promised that Danby should soon withdraw from office. In his speech from the throne he asked for supplies to maintain the Protestant att.i.tude of his Government in foreign affairs. But it was impossible to avert Danby's fall. The Commons insisted on carrying his impeachment to the bar of the Lords. It was necessary to dismiss him from his post of Treasurer and to construct a new ministry. In the existing temper of the Houses such a ministry could only be found in the men who had brought about Danby's fall.

Shaftesbury became President of the Council. The chiefs of the Country party, Lord Russell and Lord Cavendish, took their seats at the board with Lords Holles and Robartes, the older representatives of the Presbyterian party which had merged in the general Opposition. Savile, Lord Halifax, as yet known only as a keen and ingenious speaker, entered the ministry in the train of Shaftesbury with whom his family was connected. Lord Sunderland, a man adroit and unscrupulous but as yet ranked in the Opposition, was admitted to the Council; while Lord Ess.e.x and Sir H. Capel, two of the most popular among the Country leaders, went to the Treasury and Admiralty. The recall of Sir William Temple, the negotiator of the Triple Alliance, from his emba.s.sy at the Hague to fill the post of Secretary of State promised a foreign policy which would again place England high among the European powers.

[Sidenote: Temple and his Council.]

Temple returned with a plan of administration which, fruitless as it directly proved, is of great importance as marking the silent change which was pa.s.sing over the English Const.i.tution. Like many men of his time he was equally alarmed at the power both of the Crown and of the Parliament. In moments of national excitement the power of the Houses seemed irresistible. They had overthrown Clarendon. They had overthrown Clifford and the Cabal. They had just overthrown Danby. But though they were strong enough in the end to punish ill government they showed no power of securing good government or of permanently influencing the policy of the Crown. For nineteen years in fact with a Parliament always sitting Charles had had it pretty much his own way. He had made war against the will of the nation and he had refused to make war when the nation demanded it. While every Englishman hated France he had made England a mere dependency of the French king. The remedy for this state of things, as it was afterwards found, was a very simple one. By a change which we shall have to trace the ministry has now become a Committee of State-officers named by the majority of the House of Commons from amongst the more prominent of its representatives in either House, whose object in accepting office is to do the will of that majority. So long as the majority of the House of Commons itself represents the more powerful current of public opinion it is clear that such an arrangement makes government an accurate reflection of the national will. But obvious as such a plan may seem to us, it had as yet occurred to no English statesman. To Temple the one remedy seemed to lie in the restoration of the royal Council to its older powers.

[Sidenote: The Cabinet.]

This body, composed as it was of the great officers of the Court, the royal Treasurer and Secretaries, and a few n.o.bles specially summoned to it by the sovereign, formed up to the close of Elizabeth's reign a sort of deliberative a.s.sembly to which the graver matters of public administration were commonly submitted by the Crown. A practice, however, of previously submitting such measures to a smaller body of the more important councillors must always have existed; and under James this secret committee, which was then known as the Cabala or Cabal, began almost wholly to supersede the Council itself. In the large and balanced Council which was formed after the Restoration all real power rested with the ”Cabala” of Clarendon, Southampton, Ormond, Monk, and the two Secretaries; and on Clarendon's fall these were succeeded by Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley, and Lauderdale. It was by a mere coincidence that the initials of the latter names formed the word ”Cabal,” which has ever since retained the sinister meaning their unpopularity gave to it. The effect of these smaller committees had undoubtedly been to remove the check which the larger numbers and the more popular composition of the royal Council laid upon the Crown. The unscrupulous projects which made the Cabal of Clifford and his fellows a byword among Englishmen could never have been laid before a Council of great peers and hereditary officers of State. To Temple therefore the organization of the Council seemed to furnish a check on mere personal government which Parliament was unable to supply. For this purpose he proposed that the Cabala or Cabinet, as it was now becoming the fas.h.i.+on to term the confidential committee of the Council, should be abolished.

The Council itself was restricted to thirty members, and their joint income was not to fall below 300,000, a sum little less than what was estimated as the income of the whole House of Commons. A body of great n.o.bles and proprietors, not too numerous for secret deliberation and wealthy enough to counterbalance either the Commons or the Crown, would form, Temple hoped, a barrier against the violence and aggression of the one power and a check on the mere despotism of the other.

[Sidenote: The Habeas Corpus Act.]

Whatever might be the fate of these schemes the new Council and the new ministry gave fair hope of a wise and patriotic government. But the difficulties were still great. The nation was frenzied with suspicion and panic. The elections to the new Parliament had taken place amidst a whirl of excitement which left no place for candidates of the Court. The appointment of the new ministry indeed was welcomed with a general burst of joy, and its policy and that of the two Houses showed at once that a more liberal spirit had entered into public affairs. In two remarkable acts of the new Parliament English freedom made an advance even on the work of 1641. From the moment when printing began to tell on public opinion it had been gagged by a system of licenses. The regulations framed under Henry the Eighth subjected the press to the control of the Star Chamber, and the Martin Marprelate libels brought about a yet more stringent control under Elizabeth. Even the Long Parliament laid a heavy hand on the press, and the great remonstrance of Milton in his ”Areopagitica” fell dead on the ears of his Puritan a.s.sociates. But the statute for the regulation of printing which was pa.s.sed immediately after the Restoration expired finally in 1679 and the temper of the present Parliament at once put an end to any attempt at re-establis.h.i.+ng the censors.h.i.+p. To the new freedom of the press the Habeas Corpus Act added new security for the personal freedom of every Englishman. Against arbitrary imprisonment provision had been made in the earliest ages by a famous clause in the Great Charter. No free man could be held in prison save on charge or conviction of crime or for debt; and every prisoner on a criminal charge could demand as a right from the court of King's Bench the issue of a writ of ”habeas corpus,” which bound his gaoler to produce both the prisoner and the warrant on which he was imprisoned that the court might judge whether he was imprisoned according to law.

In cases, however, of imprisonment on a warrant of the royal Council it had been sometimes held by judges that the writ could not be issued, and under Clarendon's administration instances had in this way occurred of imprisonment without legal remedy. But his fall was quickly followed by the introduction of a bill to secure this right of the subject, and after a long struggle the Act which is known as the Habeas Corpus Act pa.s.sed finally in the Parliament of 1679. By this great statute the old practice of the law was freed from all difficulties and exceptions.

Every prisoner committed for any crime save treason or felony was declared ent.i.tled to his writ even in the vacations of the courts, and heavy penalties were enforced on judges or gaolers who refused him this right. Every person committed for felony or treason was ent.i.tled to be released on bail unless indicted at the next session of gaol-delivery after his commitment, and to be discharged if not indicted at the sessions which followed. It was forbidden under the heaviest penalties to evade this operation of the writ as it had been evaded under Clarendon by sending a prisoner to any places or fortresses beyond the seas.

[Sidenote: The Bill of Securities.]

Great as was the value of the Habeas Corpus Act it pa.s.sed almost unnoticed amidst the political storm which the ministry had to face. The question of the Succession threw all others into the shade. At the bottom of the national panic lay the dread of a Catholic king, a dread which the after history of James fully justified. Unluckily on the question of the succession the new ministers were themselves divided.

Shaftesbury was earnest for the exclusion of James and he was followed in his plan of exclusion by Lord Russell. Against a change in the order of hereditary succession however Charles was firm; and he was supported in his resistance by a majority of the Council with Temple and Lord Ess.e.x, Lord Halifax, and Lord Sunderland at its head. It was with the a.s.sent of this party that Charles brought forward a plan for preserving the rights of the Duke of York while restraining his powers as sovereign. By this project the presentation to Church livings was to be taken out of his hands on his accession. The last Parliament of the preceding reign was to continue to sit; and the appointment of all Councillors, Judges, Lord-Lieutenants, and officers in the fleet, was vested in the two Houses so long as a Catholic sovereign was on the throne. The extent of these provisions showed the pressure which Charles felt, but Shaftesbury was undoubtedly right in setting the plan aside as at once insufficient and impracticable. The one real security for English freedom lay in a thorough understanding between King and Parliament; and the scheme of Charles set them against one another as rival powers in the realm. It was impossible in fact that such a harmony could exist between a Protestant Parliament and a Catholic sovereign.

[Sidenote: The Exclusion Bill.]

Shaftesbury therefore continued to advocate the Exclusion in the royal Council; and a bill for depriving James of his right to the Crown and for devolving it on the next Protestant in the line of succession was introduced into the Commons by his adherents. In spite of a powerful opposition from patriots like Lord Cavendish and Sir William Coventry who still shrank from a change in the succession the bill pa.s.sed the House by a large majority. It was known that Charles would use his influence with the Peers for its rejection, and the Earl therefore fell back on the tactics of Pym. A bold Remonstrance was prepared in the Commons. The City of London, in which Shaftesbury's popularity had now risen to its greatest height, was ready with an address to the two Houses in favour of the bill. All Charles could do was to gain time by a sudden prorogation of the Parliament and by its dissolution at the end of May. But delay would have been useless had the Country party remained at one. The temper of the nation and of the House of Commons was so hotly p.r.o.nounced in favour of the Exclusion of the Duke that but for the disunion among the ministers it must in the end have been secured.

England would then have been spared the necessity for the Revolution of 1688. Though the disunion grew greater and hotter indeed the wiser leaders of the Country party were already leaning to the very change which the Revolution brought about. If James were pa.s.sed over his daughter Mary, the wife of the Prince of Orange, stood next in the order of succession; and the plan devised by Temple, Lord Ess.e.x, and Lord Halifax after the failure of their Bill of Securities was to bring the Prince over to England during the prorogation, to introduce him into the Council, and to pave his way to the throne.

[Sidenote: Shaftesbury and Monmouth.]

Unhappily Shaftesbury was contemplating a very different course. Ever since William had set aside his proposals in 1674, and above all since his marriage with the Duke's daughter, Shaftesbury had looked on the Prince of Orange as a mere adherent of the royal house and a supporter of the royal plans. He saw, too, that firm as was William's Protestantism he was as jealous as Charles himself of any weakening of the royal power or invasion of the royal prerogative. Shaftesbury's keen wit was already looking forward to the changes which a few years were to bring about; and his motive for setting aside William's claims is probably to be found in the maxim ascribed to him, that ”a bad t.i.tle makes a good king.” Whatever were his motives however he had resolved not only to set aside the claims of the Duke and the Duke's children, Mary and Anne, as well as William's own claim as grandson of Charles I., but to place the Duke of Monmouth on the throne. Monmouth, reputed to be the eldest of the king's b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, a weak and worthless profligate in temper, was popular through his personal beauty and his reputation for bravery. The tale was set about of a secret marriage between the king and his mother which would have made him lawful heir to the throne, and Shaftesbury brought him into public notice by inducing the king to put him at the head of the troops sent to repress a rising of the extreme Covenanters which broke out at this moment in the western counties of Scotland. Monmouth showed courage in routing the insurgents at Bothwell Brig on the Clyde as well as judgement in the mercy he extended to them after their defeat; and on his return Shaftesbury pressed the king to give him the command of the Guards, which would have put the only military force possessed by the Crown in Monmouth's hands.

[Sidenote: Shaftesbury's Second Dismissal.]

Sunderland, Halifax, and Ess.e.x, on the other hand--for Temple took less and less part in public affairs--were not only steadily opposed to Shaftesbury's project, but saw themselves marked out for ruin in the event of its success. They had advised the dissolution of the last Parliament; and the Earl's anger had vented itself in threats that the advisers of the dissolution should pay for it with their heads. The danger came home to them when a sudden illness of the king and the absence of James made Monmouth's accession a possible contingency. The three ministers at once induced Charles to recall the Duke of York; and though he withdrew to Scotland on the king's recovery Charles deprived Monmouth of his charge as Captain-General of the Forces and ordered him like James to leave the realm. Left alone in his cause by the opposition of his colleagues, Shaftesbury threw himself more and more on the support of the Plot. The prosecution of its victims was pushed recklessly on. Three Catholics were hanged in London. Eight priests were put to death in the country. Pursuivants and informers spread terror through every Catholic household. He counted on the rea.s.sembling of the Parliament to bring all this terror to bear upon the king. But Charles had already marked the breach which the Earl's policy had made in the ranks of the Country party. He saw that Shaftesbury was unsupported by any of his colleagues save Russell. To Temple, Ess.e.x, or Halifax, it seemed possible to bring about the succession of Mary without any violent revolution; but to set aside the rights not only of James but of his Protestant children and even of the Prince of Orange was to ensure a civil war. It was with their full support therefore that Charles in October 1679 deprived Shaftesbury of his post of Lord President of the Council.

[Sidenote: Shaftesbury's struggle.]

The dismissal was the signal for a struggle to whose danger Charles was far from blinding himself. What had saved him till now was his cynical courage. In the midst of the terror and panic of the Plot men ”wondered to see him quite cheerful amidst such an intricacy of troubles,” says the courtly Reresby, ”but it was not in his nature to think or perplex himself much about anything.” Even in the heat of the tumult which followed on Shaftesbury's dismissal Charles was seen fis.h.i.+ng and sauntering as usual in Windsor Park. But closer observers than Reresby saw beneath this veil of indolent unconcern a consciousness of new danger. ”From this time,” says Burnet, ”his temper was observed to change very visibly.” He became in fact ”sullen and thoughtful; he saw that he had to do with a strange sort of people, that could neither be managed nor frightened.” But he faced the danger with his old unscrupulous coolness. He reopened secret negotiations with France.

Lewis was as alarmed as Charles himself at the warlike temper of the nation, and as anxious to prevent the calling of a Parliament; but the terms on which he offered a subsidy were too humiliating even for the king's acceptance. The failure forced him to summon a new Parliament; and the panic which Shaftesbury was busily feeding with new tales of ma.s.sacre and invasion returned members even more violent than the members of the House he had just dismissed. The project of Monmouth's succession was pressed with more daring than ever. Pamphlets appeared in open support of his claim. The young Duke himself suddenly quitted Holland and reappeared at Court; and though Charles forced him after a time to leave London he refused to leave England altogether. Shaftesbury counted on the new Parliament to back the Duke's claim, and a host of pet.i.tions called on the king to suffer it to meet at the opening of 1680. Even the Council shrank from the king's proposal to prorogue its a.s.sembly to the coming November. But Charles prorogued it in the teeth of his counsellors. Alone as he stood he was firm in his resolve to gain time, for time, as he saw, was working in his favour. The tide of public sympathy was beginning to turn. The perjury of Oates was proving too much at last for the credulity of juries; and the acquittal of four of his victims showed that the panic was beginning to ebb. A far stronger proof of this was seen in the immense efforts which Shaftesbury made to maintain a belief in the plot. Fresh informers were brought forward to swear to a conspiracy for the a.s.sa.s.sination of the Earl himself, and to the share of the Duke of York in the designs of his fellow-religionists.

A paper found in a meal-tub was produced as evidence of the new danger.

Gigantic torchlight processions paraded the streets of London, and the effigy of the Pope was burnt amidst the wild outcry of a vast mult.i.tude.

[Sidenote: The Reaction begins.]

Acts of yet greater daring showed the lengths to which Shaftesbury was ready to go. He had grown up amidst the tumults of civil war, and, greyheaded as he was, the fire and vehemence of his early days seemed to wake again in the recklessness with which he drove on the nation to a struggle in arms. Early in 1680 he formed a committee for promoting agitation throughout the country; and the pet.i.tions which it drew up for the a.s.sembly of the Parliament were sent to every town and grand jury and sent back again with thousands of signatures. Monmouth, in spite of the king's orders, returned at Shaftesbury's call to London; and a daring pamphlet pointed him out as the nation's leader in the coming struggle ”against Popery and tyranny.” So great was the alarm of the Council that the garrison in every fortress was held in readiness for instant war. But the danger was really less than it seemed. The tide of opinion had fairly turned. Acquittal followed acquittal. A reaction of horror and remorse at the cruelty which had hurried victim after victim to the gallows succeeded to the pitiless frenzy which Shaftesbury had fanned into a flame. Anxious as the nation was for a Protestant sovereign its sense of justice revolted against the wrong threatened to James's Protestant children; and every gentleman in the realm felt insulted at the project of setting Mary aside to put the crown of England on the head of a royal b.a.s.t.a.r.d.