Chapter LXX: James II (3)

The council for the bishops pleaded, that the law allowed subjects, if they thought themselves aggrieved in any particular, to apply by petition to the king, provided they kept within certain bounds, which the same law prescribed to them, and which, in the present petition, the prelates had strictly observed: that an active obedience in cases which were contrary to conscience, was never pretended to be due to government; and law was allowed to be the great measure of the compliance and submission of subjects: that when any person found commands to be imposed upon him which he could not obey, it was more respectful in him to offer his reasons for refusal, than to remain in a sullen and refractory silence: that it was no breach of duty in subjects, even though not called upon, to discover their sense of public measures, in which every one had so intimate a concern: that the bishops in the present case were called upon, and must either express their approbation by compliance, or their disapprobation by petition: that it could be no sedition to deny the prerogative of suspending the laws; because there really was no such prerogative, nor ever could be, in a legal and limited government: that even if this prerogative were real, it had yet been frequently controverted before the whole nation, both in Westminster Hall and in both houses of parliament; and no one had ever dreamed of punishing the denial of it as criminal: that the prelates, instead of making an appeal to the people, had applied in private to his majesty, and had even delivered their petition so secretly, that, except by the confession extorted from them before the council, it was found impossible to prove them the authors: and that though the petition was afterwards printed and dispersed, it was not so much as attempted to be proved that they had the least knowledge of the publication.

These arguments were convincing in themselves, and were heard with a favorable disposition by the audience. Even some of the judges, though their seats were held during pleasure, declared themselves in favor of the prisoners. The jury, however, from what cause is unknown, took several hours to deliberate, and kept, during so long a time, the people in the most anxious expectation. But when the wished-for verdict, not guilty, was at last pronounced, the intelligence was echoed through the hall, was conveyed to the crowds without, was carried into the city, and was propagated with infinite joy throughout the kingdom.

Ever since Monmouth’s rebellion, the king had every summer encamped his army on Hounslow Heath, that he might both improve their discipline, and by so unusual a spectacle overawe the mutinous people. A Popish chapel was openly erected in the midst of the camp; and great pains were taken, though in vain, to bring over the soldiers to that communion. The few converts whom the priests had made, were treated with such contempt and ignominy, as deterred every one from following the example. Even the Irish officers, whom the king introduced into the army, served rather, from the aversion borne them, to weaken his interest among them. It happened, that the very day on which the trial of the bishops was finished, James had reviewed the troops, and had retired into the tent of Lord Feversham, the general; when he was surprised to hear a great uproar in the camp, attended with the most extravagant symptoms of tumultuary joy. He suddenly inquired the cause, and was told by Feversham, “It was nothing but the rejoicing of the soldiers for the acquittal of the bishops.” “Do you call that nothing?” replied he: “but so much the worse for them.”

The king was still determined to rush forward in the same course in which he was already, by his precipitate career, so fatally advanced. Though he knew that every order of men, except a handful of Catholics, were enraged at his past measures, and still more terrified with the future prospect; though he saw that the same discontents had reached the army, his sole resource during the general disaffection; yet was he incapable of changing his measures, or even of remitting his violence in the prosecution of them. He struck out two of the judges, Powel and Holloway, who had appeared to favor the bishops: he issued orders to prosecute all those clergymen who had not read his declaration; that is, the whole church of England, two hundred excepted: he sent a mandate to the new fellows whom he had obtruded on Magdalen College, to elect for president, in the room of Parker, lately deceased, one Gifford, a doctor of the Sorbonne, and titular bishop of Madura: and he is even said to have nominated the same person to the see of Oxford. So great an infatuation is perhaps an object of compassion rather than of anger; and is really surprising in a man who, in other respects, was not wholly deficient in sense and accomplishments.

A few days before the acquittal of the bishops, an event happened which, in the king’s sentiments, much overbalanced all the mortifications received on that occasion. The queen was delivered of a son, who was baptized by the name of James. This blessing was impatiently longed for, not only by the king and queen, but by all the zealous Catholics both abroad and at home. They saw, that the king was past middle age; and that on his death the succession must devolve to the prince and princess of Orange, two zealous Protestants, who would soon replace every thing on ancient foundations. Vows, therefore, were offered at every shrine for a male successor: pilgrimages were undertaken, particularly one to Loretto, by the duchess of Modena; and success was chiefly attributed to that pious journey. But in proportion as this event was agreeable to the Catholics, it increased the disgust of the Protestants, by depriving them of that pleasing though somewhat distant prospect, in which at present they flattered themselves. Calumny even went so far as to ascribe to the king the design of imposing on the world a supposititious child, who might be educated in his principles, and after his death support the Catholic religion in his dominions. The nation almost universally believed him capable, from bigotry, of committing any crime; as they had seen that, from like motives, he was guilty of every imprudence: and the affections of nature, they thought, would be easily sacrificed to the superior motive of propagating a Catholic and orthodox faith. The present occasion was not the first when that calumny had been invented. In the year 1682, the queen, then duchess of York, had been pregnant; and rumors were spread that an imposture would at that time be obtruded upon the nation: but happily, the infant proved a female, and thereby spared the party all the trouble of supporting their improbable fiction.[*]

* This story is taken notice of in a weekly paper, the
Observator, published at that very time, 23d of August,
1682. Party zeal is capable of swallowing the most
incredible story; but it is surely singular, that the same
calumny, when once baffled, should yet be renewed with such
success.