Volume II Part 19 (1/2)

NORTHUMBERLAND strictly obeyed the injunction which had been laid on him, and did not open the door of the royal apartment till it was broad day. The antechamber was filled with courtiers who came to make their morning bow and with Lords who had been summoned to Council. The news of James's flight pa.s.sed in an instant from the galleries to the streets; and the whole capital was in commotion.

It was a terrible moment. The King was gone. The Prince had not arrived. No Regency had been appointed. The Great Seal, essential to the administration of ordinary justice, had disappeared. It was soon known that Feversham had, on the receipt of the royal order, instantly disbanded his forces. What respect for law or property was likely to be found among soldiers, armed and congregated, emanc.i.p.ated from the restraints of discipline, and dest.i.tute of the necessaries of life? On the other hand, the populace of London had, during some weeks, shown a strong disposition to turbulence and rapine. The urgency of the crisis united for a short time all who had any interest in the peace of society. Rochester had till that day adhered firmly to the royal cause.

He now saw that there was only one way of averting general confusion.

”Call your troop of Guards together,” he said to Northumberland, ”and declare for the Prince of Orange.” The advice was promptly followed. The princ.i.p.al officers of the army who were then in London held a meeting at Whitehall, and resolved that they would submit to William's authority, and would, till his pleasure should be known, keep their men together and a.s.sist the civil power to preserve order. [575] The Peers repaired to Guildhall, and were received there with all honour by the magistracy of the city. In strictness of law they were no better ent.i.tled than any other set of persons to a.s.sume the executive administration. But it was necessary to the public safety that there should be a provisional government; and the eyes of men naturally turned to the hereditary magnates of the realm. The extremity of the danger drew Sancroft forth from his palace. He took the chair; and, under his presidency, the new Archbishop of York, five Bishops, and twenty-two temporal Lords, determined to draw up, subscribe, and publish a Declaration.

By this instrument they declared that they were firmly attached to the religion and const.i.tution of their country, and that they had cherished the hope of seeing grievances redressed and tranquillity restored by the Parliament which the King had lately summoned, but that this hope had been extinguished by his flight. They had therefore determined to join with the Prince of Orange, in order that the freedom of the nation might be vindicated, that the rights of the Church might be secured, that a just liberty of conscience might be given to Dissenters, and that the Protestant interest throughout the world might be strengthened. Till His Highness should arrive, they were prepared to take on themselves the responsibility of giving such directions as might be necessary for the preservation of order. A deputation was instantly sent to lay this Declaration before the Prince, and to inform him that he was impatiently expected in London. [576]

The Lords then proceeded to deliberate on the course which it was necessary to take for the prevention of tumult. They sent for the two Secretaries of State. Middleton refused to submit to what he regarded as an usurped authority: but Preston, astounded by his master's flight, and not knowing what to expect, or whither to turn, obeyed the summons. A message was sent to Skelton, who was Lieutenant of the Tower, requesting his attendance at Guildhall. He came, and was told that his services were no longer wanted, and that he must instantly deliver up his keys.

He was succeeded by Lord Lucas. At the same time the Peers ordered a letter to be written to Dartmouth, enjoining him to refrain from all hostile operations against the Dutch fleet, and to displace all the Popish officers who held commands under him. [577]

The part taken in these proceedings by Sancroft, and by some other persons who had, up to that day, been strictly faithful to the principle of pa.s.sive obedience, deserves especial notice. To usurp the command of the military and naval forces of the state, to remove the officers whom the King had set over his castles and his s.h.i.+ps, and to prohibit his Admiral from giving battle to his enemies, was surely nothing less than rebellion. Yet several honest and able Tories of the school of Filmer persuaded themselves that they could do all these things without incurring the guilt of resisting their Sovereign. The distinction which they took was, at least, ingenious. Government, they said, is the ordinance of G.o.d. Hereditary monarchical government is eminently the ordinance of G.o.d. While the King commands what is lawful we must obey him actively. When he commands what is unlawful we must obey him pa.s.sively. In no extremity are we justified in withstanding him by force. But, if he chooses to resign his office, his rights over us are at an end. While he governs us, though he may govern us ill, we are bound to submit: but, if he refuses to govern us at all, we are not bound to remain for ever without a government. Anarchy is not the ordinance of G.o.d; nor will he impute it to us as a sin that, when a prince, whom, in spite of extreme provocations, we have never ceased to honour and obey, has departed we know not whither, leaving no vicegerent, we take the only course which can prevent the entire dissolution of society. Had our Sovereign remained among us, we were ready, little as he deserved our love, to die at his feet. Had he, when he quitted us, appointed a regency to govern us with vicarious authority during his absence, to that regency alone should we have looked for direction. But he has disappeared, having made no provision for the preservation of order or the administration of justice. With him, and with his Great Seal, has vanished the whole machinery by which a murderer can be punished, by which the right to an estate can be decided, by which the effects of a bankrupt can be distributed. His last act has been to free thousands of armed men from the restraints of military discipline, and to place them in such a situation that they must plunder or starve. Yet a few hours, and every man's hand will be against his neighbour. Life, property, female honour, will be at the mercy of every lawless spirit. We are at this moment actually in that state of nature about which theorists have written so much; and in that state we have been placed, not by our fault, but by the voluntary defection of him who ought to have been our protector. His defection may be justly called voluntary: for neither his life nor his liberty was in danger. His enemies had just consented to treat with him on a basis proposed by himself, and had offered immediately to suspend all hostile operations, on conditions which he could not deny to be liberal. In such circ.u.mstances it is that he has abandoned his trust. We retract nothing.

We are in nothing inconsistent. We still a.s.sert our old doctrines without qualification. We still hold that it is in all cases sinful to resist the magistrate: but we say that there is no longer any magistrate to resist. He who was the magistrate, after long abusing his powers, has at last abdicated them. The abuse did not give us a right to depose him: but the abdication gives us a right to consider how we may best supply his place.

It was on these grounds that the Prince's party was now swollen by many adherents who had previously stood aloof from it. Never, within the memory of man, had there been so near an approach to entire concord among all intelligent Englishmen as at this conjuncture: and never had concord been more needed. Legitimate authority there was none. All those evil pa.s.sions which it is the office of government to restrain, and which the best governments restrain but imperfectly, were on a sudden emanc.i.p.ated from control; avarice, licentiousness, revenge, the hatred of sect to sect, the hatred of nation to nation. On such occasions it will ever be found that the human vermin which, neglected by ministers of state and ministers of religion, barbarous in the midst of civilisation, heathen in the midst of Christianity, burrows among all physical and all moral pollution, in the cellars and garrets of great cities, will at once rise into a terrible importance. So it was now in London. When the night, the longest night, as it chanced, of the year, approached, forth came from every den of vice, from the bear garden at Hockley, and from the labyrinth of tippling houses and brothels in the Friars, thousands of housebreakers and highwaymen, cutpurses and ringdroppers. With these were mingled thousands of idle apprentices, who wished merely for the excitement of a riot. Even men of peaceable and honest habits were impelled by religious animosity to join the lawless part of the population. For the cry of No Popery, a cry which has more than once endangered the existence of London, was the signal for outrage and rapine. First the rabble fell on the Roman Catholic places of wors.h.i.+p. The buildings were demolished. Benches, pulpits, confessionals, breviaries were heaped up and set on fire. A great mountain of books and furniture blazed on the site of the convent at Clerkenwell. Another pile was kindled before the ruins of the Franciscan house in Lincoln's Inn Fields. The chapel in Lime Street, the chapel in Bucklersbury, were pulled down. The pictures, images and crucifixes were carried along the streets in triumph, amidst lighted tapers torn from the altars. The procession bristled thick with swords and staves, and on the point of every sword and of every staff was an orange. The King's printing house, whence had issued, during the preceding three years, innumerable tracts in defence of Papal supremacy, image wors.h.i.+p, and monastic vows, was, to use a coa.r.s.e metaphor which then, for the first time, came into use, completely gutted. The vast stock of paper, much of which was still unpolluted by types, furnished an immense bonfire. From monasteries, temples, and public offices, the fury of the mult.i.tude turned to private dwellings. Several houses were pillaged and destroyed: but the smallness of the booty disappointed the plunderers; and soon a rumour was spread that the most valuable effects of the Papists had been placed under the care of the foreign Amba.s.sadors. To the savage and ignorant populace the law of nations and the risk of bringing on their country the just vengeance of all Europe were as nothing. The houses of the Amba.s.sadors were besieged. A great crowd a.s.sembled before Barillon's door in St.

James's Square. He, however, fared better than might have been expected.

For, though the government which he represented was held in abhorrence, his liberal housekeeping and exact payments had made him personally popular. Moreover he had taken the precaution of asking for a guard of soldiers; and, as several men of rank, who hued near him, had done the same, a considerable force was collected in the Square. The rioters, therefore, when they were a.s.sured that no arms or priests were concealed under his roof, left him unmolested. The Venetian Envoy was protected by a detachment of troops: but the mansions occupied by the ministers of the Elector Palatine and of the Grand Duke of Tuscany were destroyed.

One precious box the Tuscan minister was able to save from the marauders. It contained nine volumes of memoirs, written in the hand of James himself. These volumes reached France in safety, and, after the lapse of more than a century, perished there in the havoc of a revolution far more terrible than that from which they had escaped.

But some fragments still remain, and, though grievously mutilated, and imbedded in great ma.s.ses of childish fiction, well deserve to be attentively studied.

The rich plate of the Chapel Royal had been deposited at Wild House, near Lincoln's Inn Fields, the residence of the Spanish amba.s.sador Ronquillo. Ronquillo, conscious that he and his court had not deserved ill of the English nation, had thought it unnecessary to ask for soldiers: but the mob was not in a mood to make nice distinctions.

The name of Spain had long been a.s.sociated in the public mind with the Inquisition and the Armada, with the cruelties of Mary and the plots against Elizabeth. Ronquillo had also made himself many enemies among the common people by availing himself of his privilege to avoid the necessity of paying his debts. His house was therefore sacked without mercy; and a n.o.ble library, which he had collected, perished in the flames. His only comfort was that the host in his chapel was rescued from the same fate. [578]

The morning of the twelfth of December rose on a ghastly sight. The capital in many places presented the aspect of a city taken by storm. The Lords met at Whitehall, and exerted themselves to restore tranquillity. The trainbands were ordered under arms. A body of cavalry was kept in readiness to disperse tumultuous a.s.semblages. Such atonement as was at that moment possible was made for the gross insults which had been offered to foreign governments. A reward was promised for the discovery of the property taken from Wild House; and Ronquillo, who had not a bed or an ounce of plate left, was splendidly lodged in the deserted palace of the Kings of England. A sumptuous table was kept for him; and the yeomen of the guard were ordered to wait in his antechamber with the same observance which they were in the habit of paying to the Sovereign. These marks of respect soothed even the punctilious pride of the Spanish court, and averted all danger of a rupture. [579]

In spite, however, of the well meant efforts of the provisional government, the agitation grew hourly more formidable. It was heightened by an event which, even at this distance of time, can hardly be related without a feeling of vindictive pleasure. A scrivener who lived at Wapping, and whose trade was to furnish the seafaring men there with money at high interest, had some time before lent a sum on bottomry. The debtor applied to equity for relief against his own bond; and the case came before Jeffreys. The counsel for the borrower, having little else to say, said that the lender was a Trimmer. The Chancellor instantly fired. ”A Trimmer! where is he? Let me see him. I have heard of that kind of monster. What is it made like?” The unfortunate creditor was forced to stand forth. The Chancellor glared fiercely on him, stormed at him, and sent him away half dead with fright. ”While I live,” the poor man said, as he tottered out of the court, ”I shall never forget that terrible countenance.” And now the day of retribution had arrived.

The Trimmer was walking through Wapping, when he saw a well known face looking out of the window of an alehouse. He could not be deceived. The eyebrows, indeed, had been shaved away. The dress was that of a common sailor from Newcastle, and was black with coal dust: but there was no mistaking the savage eye and mouth of Jeffreys. The alarm was given.

In a moment the house was surrounded by hundreds of people shaking bludgeons and bellowing curses. The fugitive's life was saved by a company of the trainbands; and he was carried before the Lord Mayor. The Mayor was a simple man who had pa.s.sed his whole life in obscurity, and was bewildered by finding himself an important actor in a mighty revolution. The events of the last twenty-four hours, and the perilous state of the city which was under his charge, had disordered his mind and his body. When the great man, at whose frown, a few days before, the whole kingdom had trembled, was, dragged into the justice room begrimed with ashes, half dead with fright, and followed by a raging mult.i.tude, the agitation of the unfortunate Mayor rose to the height. He fell into fits, and was carried to his bed, whence he never rose. Meanwhile the throng without was constantly becoming more numerous and more savage.

Jeffreys begged to be sent to prison. An order to that effect was procured from the Lords who were sitting at Whitehall; and he was conveyed in a carriage to the Tower. Two regiments of militia were drawn out to escort him, and found the duty a difficult one. It was repeatedly necessary for them to form, as if for the purpose of repelling a charge of cavalry, and to present a forest of pikes to the mob. The thousands who were disappointed of their revenge pursued the coach, with howls of rage, to the gate of the Tower, brandis.h.i.+ng cudgels, and holding up halters full in the prisoner's view. The wretched man meantime was in convulsions of terror. He wrung his hands; he looked wildly out, sometimes at one window, sometimes at the other, and was heard even above the tumult, crying ”Keep them off, gentlemen! For G.o.d's sake keep them off!” At length, having suffered far more than the bitterness of death, he was safely lodged in the fortress where some of his most ill.u.s.trious victims had pa.s.sed their last days, and where his own life was destined to close in unspeakable ignominy and horror. [580]

All this time an active search was making after Roman Catholic priests.

Many were arrested. Two Bishops, Ellis and Leyburn, were sent to Newgate. The Nuncio, who had little reason to expect that either his spiritual or his political character would be respected by the mult.i.tude, made his escape disguised as a lacquey in the train of the minister of the Duke of Savoy. [581]

Another day of agitation and terror closed, and was followed by a night the strangest and most terrible that England had ever seen. Early in the evening an attack was made by the rabble on a stately house which had been built a few months before for Lord Powis, which in the reign of George the Second was the residence of the Duke of Newcastle, and which is still conspicuous at the northwestern angle of Lincoln's Inn Fields.

Some troops were sent thither: the mob was dispersed, tranquillity seemed to be restored, and the citizens were retiring quietly to their beds. Just at this time arose a whisper which swelled fast into a fearful clamour, pa.s.sed in an hour from Piccadilly to Whitechapel, and spread into every street and alley of the capital. It was' said that the Irish whom Feversham had let loose were marching on London and ma.s.sacring every man, woman, and child on the road. At one in the morning the drums of the militia beat to arms. Everywhere terrified women were weeping and wringing their hands, while their fathers and husbands were equipping themselves for fight. Before two the capital wore a face of stern preparedness which might well have daunted a real enemy, if such an enemy had been approaching. Candles were blazing at all the windows. The public places were as bright as at noonday. All the great avenues were barricaded. More than twenty thousand pikes and muskets lined the streets. The late daybreak of the winter solstice found the whole City still in arms. During many years the Londoners retained a vivid recollection of what they called the Irish Night. When it was known that there had been no cause of alarm, attempts were made to discover the origin of the rumour which had produced so much agitation. It appeared that some persons who had the look and dress of clowns just arrived from the country had first spread the report in the suburbs a little before midnight: but whence these men came, and by whom they were employed, remained a mystery. And soon news arrived from many quarters which bewildered the public mind still more. The panic had not been confined to London. The cry that disbanded Irish soldiers were coming to murder the Protestants had, with malignant ingenuity, been raised at once in many places widely distant from each other. Great numbers of letters, skilfully framed for the purpose of frightening ignorant people, had been sent by stage coaches, by waggons, and by the post, to various parts of England. All these letters came to hand almost at the same time. In a hundred towns at once the populace was possessed with the belief that armed barbarians were at hand, bent on perpetrating crimes as foul as those which had disgraced the rebellion of Ulster. No Protestant would find mercy. Children would be compelled by torture to murder their parents. Babes would be stuck on pikes, or flung into the blazing ruins of what had lately been happy dwellings. Great mult.i.tudes a.s.sembled with weapons: the people in some places began to pull down bridges, and to throw up barricades: but soon the excitement went down.

In many districts those who had been so foully imposed upon learned with delight, alloyed by shame, that there was not a single Popish soldier within a week's march. There were places, indeed, where some straggling bands of Irish made their appearance and demanded food: but it can scarcely be imputed to them as a crime that they did not choose to die of hunger; and there is no evidence that they committed any wanton outrage. In truth they were much less numerous than was commonly supposed; and their spirit was cowed by finding themselves left on a sudden without leaders or provisions, in the midst of a mighty population which felt towards them as men feel towards a drove of wolves. Of all the subjects of James none had more reason to execrate him than these unfortunate members of his church and defenders of his throne. [582]

It is honourable to the English character that, notwithstanding the aversion with which the Roman Catholic religion and the Irish race were then regarded, notwithstanding the anarchy which was the effect of the flight of James, notwithstanding the artful machinations which were employed to scare the mult.i.tude into cruelty, no atrocious crime was perpetrated at this conjuncture. Much property, indeed, was destroyed and carried away. The houses of many Roman Catholic gentlemen were attacked. Parks were ravaged. Deer were slain and stolen. Some venerable specimens of the domestic architecture of the middle ages bear to this day the marks of popular violence. The roads were in many places made impa.s.sable by a selfappointed police, which stopped every traveller till he proved that he was not a Papist. The Thames was infested by a set of pirates who, under pretence of searching for arms or delinquents, rummaged every boat that pa.s.sed. Obnoxious persons were insulted and hustled. Many persons who were not obnoxious were glad to ransom their persons and effects by bestowing some guineas on the zealous Protestants who had, without any legal authority, a.s.sumed the office of inquisitors.

But in all this confusion, which lasted several days and extended over many counties, not a single Roman Catholic lost his life. The mob showed no inclination to blood, except in the case of Jeffreys; and the hatred which that bad man inspired had more affinity with humanity than with cruelty. [583]

Many years later Hugh Speke affirmed that the Irish Night was his work, that he had prompted the rustics who raised London, and that he was the author of the letters which had spread dismay through the country. His a.s.sertion is not intrinsically improbable: but it rests on no evidence except his own word. He was a man quite capable of committing such a villany, and quite capable also of falsely boasting that he had committed it. [584]

At London William was impatiently expected: for it was not doubted that his vigour and ability would speedily restore order and security. There was however some delay for which the Prince cannot justly be blamed. His original intention had been to proceed from Hungerford to Oxford, where he was a.s.sured of an honourable and affectionate reception: but the arrival of the deputation from Guildhall induced him to change his intention and to hasten directly towards the capital. On the way he learned that Feversham, in pursuance of the King's orders, had dismissed the royal army, and that thousands of soldiers, freed from restraint and dest.i.tute of necessaries, were scattered over the counties through which the road to London lay. It was therefore impossible for William to proceed slenderly attended without great danger, not only to his own person, about which he was not much in the habit of being solicitous, but also to the great interests which were under his care. It was necessary that he should regulate his own movements by the movements of his troops; and troops could then move but slowly over the highways of England in midwinter. He was, on this occasion, a little moved from his ordinary composure. ”I am not to be thus dealt with,” he exclaimed with bitterness; ”and that my Lord Feversham shall find.” Prompt and judicious measures were taken to remedy the evils which James had caused. Churchill and Grafton were entrusted with the task of rea.s.sembling the dispersed army and bringing it into order. The English soldiers were invited to resume their military character. The Irish were commanded to deliver up their arms on pain of being treated as banditti, but were a.s.sured that, if they would submit quietly, they should be supplied with necessaries. [585]

The Prince's orders were carried into effect with scarcely any opposition, except from the Irish soldiers who had been in garrison at Tilbury. One of these men snapped a pistol at Grafton. It missed fire, and the a.s.sa.s.sin was instantly shot dead by an Englishman. About two hundred of the unfortunate strangers made a gallant attempt to return to their own country. They seized a richly laden East Indiaman which had just arrived in the Thames, and tried to procure pilots by force at Gravesend. No pilot, however was to be found; and they were under the necessity of trusting to their own skill in navigation. They soon ran their s.h.i.+p aground, and, after some bloodshed, were compelled to lay down their arms. [586]

William had now been five weeks on English ground; and during the whole of that time his good fortune had been uninterrupted. His own prudence and firmness had been conspicuously displayed, and yet had done less for him than the folly and pusillanimity of others. And now, at the moment when it seemed that his plans were about to be crowned with entire success, they were disconcerted by one of those strange incidents which so often confound the most exquisite devices of human policy.

On the morning of the thirteenth of December the people of London, not yet fully recovered from the agitation of the Irish Night, were surprised by a rumour that the King had been detained, and was still in the island. The report gathered strength during the day, and was fully confirmed before the evening.

James had travelled with relays of coach horses along the southern sh.o.r.e of the Thames, and on the morning of the twelfth had reached Emley Ferry near the island of Sheppey. There lay the hoy in which he was to sail.

He went on board: but the wind blew fresh; and the master would not venture to put to sea without more ballast. A tide was thus lost.