Chapter X (7)

"The political capacity or authority of the King, and his name in the government, are perfect and cannot fail; but his person being human and mortal, and not otherwise privileged than the rest of mankind, is subject to all the defects and failings of it. He may therefore be incapable of directing the government and dispensing the public treasure, &c. either by absence, by infancy, lunacy, deliracy, or apathy, whether by nature or casual infirmity, or lastly, by some invincible prejudices of mind, contracted and fixed by education and habit, with unalterable resolutions superinduced, in matters wholly inconsistent and incompatible with the laws, religion, peace, and true policy of the kingdom. In all these cases (I say) there must be some one or more persons appointed to supply such defect, and vicariously to him, and by his power and authority, to direct public affairs. And this done I say further, that all proceedings, authorities, commissions, grants, &c. issued as formerly, are legal and valid to all intents, and the people's allegiance is the same still, their oaths and obligations no way thwarted.... So long as the government moves by the Kings authority, and in his name, all those sacred ties and settled forms of proceedings are kept, and no man's conscience burthened with anything he needs scruple to undertake."--Tanner MS.; Doyly's Life of Sancroft. It was not altogether without reason that the creatures of James made themselves merry with the good Archbishop's English.]

[Footnote 636: Evelyn, Jan. 15. 1688/9.]

[Footnote 637: Clarendon's Diary, Dee. 24 1688; Burnet, i. 819.; Proposals humbly offered in behalf of the Princess of Orange, Jan. 28. 1688/9.]

[Footnote 638: Burnet, i. 389., and the notes of Speaker Onslow.]

[Footnote 639: Evelyn's Diary, Sept. 26. 1672, Oct. 12. 1679, July 13. 1700; Seymour's Survey of London.]

[Footnote 640: Burnet, i. 388.; and Speaker Onslow's note.]

[Footnote 641: Citters, Jan 22/Feb 1 1689; Grey's Debates.]

[Footnote 642: Lords' and Commons' Journals, Jan. 22. 1688; Citters and Clarendon's Diary of the same date.]

[Footnote 643: Lords' Journals, Jan. 25. 1683; Clarendon's Diary, Jan. 23. 25.]

[Footnote 644: Commons' Journals, Jan. 28. 1688/9; Grey's Debates, Citters Jan 29/Feb 8 If the report in Grey's Debates be correct, Citters must have been misinformed as to Sawyer's speech.]

[Footnote 645: Lords' and Commons' Journals, Jan. 29. 1688/9]

[Footnote 646: Clarendon's Diary, Jan. 21. 1688/9; Burnet, i. 810; Doyly's Life of Sancroft;]

[Footnote 647: See the Act of Uniformity.]

[Footnote 648: Stat. 2 Hen. 7. c. I.: Lord Coke's Institutes, part iii. chap i.; Trial of Cook for high treason, in the Collection of State Trials; Burnet, i. 873. and Swift's note.]

[Footnote 649: Lords Journals Jan. 29. 1688/9; Clarendon's Diary; Evelyn's Diary; Citters; Eachard's History of the Revolution; Barnet, i. 813.; History of the Reestablishment of the Government, 1689. The numbers of the Contents and Not Contents are not given in the journals, and are differently reported by different writers. I have followed Clarendon, who took the trouble to make out lists of the majority and minority.]

[Footnote 650: Grey's Debates; Evelyn's Diary; Life of Archbishop Sharp, by his son; Apology for the New Separation, in a letter to Dr. John Sharp, Archbishop of York, 1691.]

[Footnote 651: Lords' Journals, Jan. 30. 1689/8; Clarendon's Diary.]

[Footnote 652: Dartmouth's note on Burnet i. 393. Dartmouth says that it was from Fagel that the Lords extracted the hint. This was a slip of the pen very pardonable in a hasty marginal note; but Dalrymple and others ought not to have copied so palpable a blunder. Fagel died in Holland, on the 5th of December 1688, when William was at Salisbury and James at Whitehall. The real person was, I suppose, Dykvelt, Bentinck, or Zulestein, most probably Dykvelt.]

[Footnote 653: Both the service and Burnet's sermon are still to be found in our great libraries, and will repay the trouble of perusal.]

[Footnote 654: Lords' Journals, Jan. 31. 1688/9.]

[Footnote 655: Citters, Feb. 5/15. 1689; Clarendon's Diary, Feb. 2. The story is greatly exaggerated in the work entitled Revolution Politics, an eminently absurd book, yet of some value as a record of the foolish reports of the day. Greys Debates.]

[Footnote 656: The letter of James, dated Jan 24/Feb 3 1689, will be found in Kennet. It is most disingenuously garbled in Clarke's Life of James. See Clarendon's Diary, Feb. 2. 4.; Grey's Debates; Lords' Journals, Feb. 2. 4. 1688/9.]

[Footnote 657: It has been asserted by several writers, and, among others, by Ralph and by M. Mazure, that Danby signed this protest. This is a mistake. Probably some person who examined the journals before they were printed mistook Derby for Danby. Lords' Journals, Feb. 4. 1688/9. Evelyn, a few days before, wrote Derby, by mistake, for Danby. Diary, Jan. 29. 1688/9]

[Footnote 658: Commons' Journals, Feb. 5. 1688/9]

[Footnote 659: Burnet, i. 819.]

[Footnote 660: Clarendon's Diary, Jan. 1, 4, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 1688/9; Burnet, i. 807.]

[Footnote 661: Clarendon's Diary, Feb, 5. 168/9; Duchess of Marlborough's Vindication; Mulgrave's Account of the Revolution.]

[Footnote 662: Burnet, i. 820. Burnet says that he has not related the events of this stirring time in chronological order. I have therefore been forced to arrange them by guess: but I think that I can scarcely be wrong in supposing that the letter of the Princess of Orange to Danby arrived, and that the Prince's explanation of his views was given, between Thursday the 31st of January, and Wednesday the 6th of February.]

[Footnote 663: Mulgrave's Account of the Revolution. In the first three editions, I told this story incorrectly. The fault was chiefly my own but partly Burnet's, by whose careless use of the pronoun _he_, I was misled. Burnet, i. 818]

[Footnote 664: Commons' Journals, Feb. 6. 1688/9]

[Footnote 665: See the Lords' and Commons' Journals of Feb. 6. 1688/9 and the Report of the Conference.]

[Footnote 666: Lords' Journals, Feb. 6. 1688/9; Clarendon's Diary; Burnet, i. 822. and Dartmouth's note; Citters, Feb. 8/18,. I have followed Clarendon as to the numbers. Some writers make the majority smaller and some larger.]

[Footnote 667: Lords Journals, Feb. 6, 7. 1688/9; Clarendon's Diary.]

[Footnote 668: Commons Journals, Jan. 29., Feb. 2. 1688/9.]

[Footnote 669: Commons' Journal's, Feb, 2. 1683.]

[Footnote 670: Grey's Debates; Burnet, i. 822.]

[Footnote 671: Commons' Journals, Feb. 4. 8. 11, 12.; Lords' Journals, Feb. 9. 11. 12, 1688/9]

[Footnote 672: London Gazette, Feb. 14. 1688/9; Citters, Feb. 12/22.]

[Footnote 673: Duchess of Marlborough's Vindication; Review of the Vindication; Burnet, i. 781. 825. and Dartmouth's note; Evelyn's Diary, Feb. 21. 1688/9.]

[Footnote 674: Lords' and Commons' Journals, Feb. 14 1688/9; Citters, Feb. 15/25. Citters puts into William's mouth stronger expressions of respect for the authority of Parliament than appear in the journals; but it is clear from what Powle said that the report in the journals was not strictly accurate.]

[Footnote 675: London Gazette, Feb. 14. 1688/9; Lords' and Commons' Journals, Feb. 13.; Citters, Feb 15/25; Evelyn, Feb. 21.]