Chapter LXXI: James II (1)

{1688.} While every motive, civil and religious, concurred to alienate from the king every rank and denomination of men, it might be expected that his throne would, without delay fall to pieces by its own weight: but such is the influence of established government, so averse are men from beginning hazardous enterprises, that, had not an attack been made from abroad, affairs might long have remained in their present delicate situation, and James might at last have prevailed in his rash and ill-concerted projects.

The prince of Orange, ever since his marriage with the lady Mary, had maintained a very prudent conduct; agreeably to that sound understanding with which he was so eminently endowed. He made it a maxim to concern himself little in English affairs, and never by any measure to disgust any of the factions, or give umbrage to the prince who filled the throne. His natural inclination, as well as his interest, led him to employ himself with assiduous industry in the transactions on the continent, and to oppose the grandeur of the French monarch, against whom he had long, both from personal and political considerations, conceived a violent animosity. By this conduct he gratified the prejudices of the whole English nation: but, as he crossed the inclinations of Charles, who sought peace by compliance with France, he had much declined in the favor and affections of that monarch.

James, on his accession, found it so much his interest to live on good terms with the heir apparent, that he showed the prince some demonstrations of friendship; and the prince, on his part, was not wanting in every instance of duty and regard towards the king. On Monmouth’s invasion, he immediately despatched over six regiments of British troops, which were in the Dutch service; and he offered to take the command of the king’s forces against the rebels. How little however he might approve of James’s administration, he always kept a total silence on the subject, and gave no countenance to those discontents which were propagated with such industry throughout the nation.

It was from the application of James himself that the prince first openly took any part in English affairs. Notwithstanding the lofty ideas which the king had entertained of his prerogative, he found that the edicts emitted from it still wanted much of the authority of laws, and that the continuance of them might in the issue become dangerous both to himself and to the Catholics, whom he desired to favor. An act of parliament alone could insure the indulgence or toleration which he had labored to establish; and he hoped that, if the prince would declare in favor of that scheme, the members who had hitherto resisted all his own applications, would at last be prevailed with to adopt it. The consent, therefore, of the prince to the repeal of the penal statutes and of the test was strongly solicited by the king; and in order to engage him to agree to that measure, hopes were given,[*] that England would second him in all those enterprises which his active and extensive genius had with such success planned on the continent. He was at this time the centre of all the negotiations of Christendom.

* Bennet vol. i. p. 711. D’Avanx, April 15, 1688.

The emperor and the king of Spain, as the prince well knew, were enraged by the repeated injuries which they had suffered from the ambition of Lewis, and still more by the frequent insults which his pride had made them undergo. He was apprised of the influence of these monarchs over the Catholic princes of the empire: he had himself acquired great authority with the Protestant: and he formed a project of uniting Europe in one general league against the encroachments of France, which seemed so nearly to threaten the independence of all its neighbors.

No characters are more incompatible than those of a conqueror and a persecutor; and Lewis soon found, that besides his weakening France by the banishment of so many useful subjects, the refugees had inflamed all the Protestant rations against him, and had raised him enemies, who, in defence of their religion as well as liberty, were obstinately resolved to oppose his progress. The city of Amsterdam and other towns in Holland, which had before fallen into a dependence on France, being terrified with the accounts which they every moment received of the furious persecutions against the Hugonots, had now dropped all domestic faction, and had entered into an entire confidence with the prince of Orange.[*] The Protestant princes of the empire formed a separate league at Magdebourg for the defence of their religion. The English were anew enraged at the blind bigotry of their sovereign, and were disposed to embrace the most desperate resolutions against him. From a view of the state of Europe during this period, it appears that Lewis, besides sullying an illustrious reign, had wantonly, by this persecution, raised invincible barriers to his arms, which otherwise it had been difficult, if not impossible, to resist.

* D’Avaux, July 24, 1681; June 10 October 15, November 11
1688; vol. iv p. 30.

The prince of Orange knew how to avail himself of all these advantages. By his intrigues and influence, there was formed at Augsbourg a league, in which the whole empire united for its defence against the French monarch. Spain and Holland became parties in the alliance. The accession of Savoy was afterwards obtained. Sweden and Denmark seemed to favor the same cause. But though these numerous states composed the greater part of Europe, the league was still deemed imperfect and unequal to its end, so long as England maintained that neutrality in which she had hitherto persevered.

James, though more prone to bigotry, was more sensible to his own and to national honor than his brother; and had he not been restrained by the former motive, he would have maintained with more spirit the interests and independence of his kingdoms. When a prospect, therefore, appeared of effecting his religious schemes by opposing the progress of France, he was not averse to that measure; and he gave his son-in-law room to hope, that, by concurring with his views in England, he might prevail with him to second those projects which the prince was so ambitious of promoting.

A more tempting offer could not be made to a person of his enterprising character: but the objections to that measure, upon deliberation, appeared to him unsurmountable. The king, he observed, had incurred the hatred of his own subjects. Great apprehensions were entertained of his designs: the only resource which the nation saw, was in the future succession of the prince and princess: should he concur in those dreaded measures, he should draw on himself all the odium under which the king labored; the nation might even refuse to bear the expense of alliances, which would in that case become so suspicious: and he might himself incur danger of losing a succession which was awaiting him, and which the egregious indiscretion of the king seemed even to give him hopes of reaping before it should devolve to him by the course of nature. The prince, therefore, would go no further than to promise his consent to the repeal of the penal statutes, by which the nonconformists as well as Catholics were exposed to punishment: the test he deemed a security absolutely necessary for the established religion.

The king did not remain satisfied with a single trial. There was one Stuart, a Scotch lawyer, who had been banished for pretended treasonable practices; but who had afterwards obtained a pardon, and had been recalled. By the king’s directions, Stuart wrote several letters to Pensionary Fagel, with whom he had contracted an acquaintance in Holland; and besides urging all the motives for an unlimited toleration, he desired that his reasons should, in the king’s name, be communicated to the prince and princess of Orange. Fagel during a long time made no reply; but finding that his silence was construed into an assent, he at last expressed his own sentiments and those of their highnesses. He said, that it was their fixed opinion, that no man, merely because he differed from the established faith, should ever, while he remained a peaceable subject, be exposed to any punishment, or even vexation: that the prince and princess gave heartily their consent for repealing legally all the penal statutes, as well those which had been enacted against the Catholics as against the Protestant nonconformists; and would concur with the king in any measure for that purpose: that the test was not to be considered as a penalty inflicted on the professors of any religion, but as a security provided for the established worship: that it was no punishment on men to be excluded from public offices, and to live peaceably on their own revenues or industry: that even in the United Provinces, which were so often cited as models of toleration, though all sects were admitted, yet civil offices were enjoyed by the professors of the established religion alone: that military commands, indeed, were sometimes bestowed on Catholics; but as they were conferred with great precaution, and still lay under the control of the magistrate, they could give no just reason for umbrage: and that their highnesses, however desirous of gratifying the king, and of endeavoring by every means to render his reign peaceable and happy, could not agree to any measure which would expose their religion to such imminent danger.

When this letter was published, as it soon was, it inspired great courage into the Protestants of all denominations, and served to keep them united in their opposition to the encroachments of the Catholics. On the other hand, the king, who was not content with a simple toleration for his own religion, but was resolved that it should enjoy great credit, if not an absolute superiority, was extremely disgusted, and took every occasion to express his displeasure, as well against the prince of Orange as the United Provinces. He gave the Algerine pirates, who preyed on the Dutch, a reception in his harbors, and liberty to dispose of their prizes. He revived some complaints of the East India Company with regard to the affair of Bantam,[*] He required the six British regiments in the Dutch service to be sent over. He began to put his navy in a formidable condition. And from all his movements, the Hollanders entertained apprehensions that he sought only an occasion and pretence for making war upon them.

The prince, in his turn, resolved to push affairs with more vigor, and to preserve all the English Protestants in his interests, as well as maintain them firm in their present union against the Catholics. He knew that men of education in England were, many of them, retained in their religion more by honor than by principle;[**] and that, though every one was ashamed to be the first proselyte, yet if the example were once set by some eminent persons, interest would every day make considerable conversions to a communion which was so zealously encouraged by the sovereign.

* D’Avaux, 21st of January, 1687.

** Burnet.

Dykvelt therefore was sent over as envoy to England; and the prince gave him instructions, besides publicly remonstrating on the conduct of affairs both at home and abroad, to apply in his name, after a proper manner, to every sect and denomination. To the church party he sent assurances of favor and regard, and protested, that his education in Holland had nowise prejudiced him against Episcopal government. The nonconformists were exhorted not to be deceived by the fallacious caresses of a Popish court, but to wait patiently till, in the fulness of time, laws enacted by Protestants should give them that toleration which, with so much reason, they had long demanded. Dykvelt executed his commission with such dexterity, that all orders of men cast their eyes towards Holland, and expected thence a deliverance from those dangers with which their religion and liberty were so nearly threatened.

Many of the most considerable persons, both in church and state, made secret applications to Dykvelt, and through him to the prince of Orange. Admiral Herbert too, though a man of great expense, and seemingly of little religion, had thrown up his employments, and had retired to the Hague, where he assured the prince of the disaffection of the seamen, by whom that admiral was extremely beloved. Admiral Russel, cousin german to the unfortunate lord of that name, passed frequently between England and Holland, and kept the communication open with all the great men of the Protestant party. Henry Sidney, brother to Algernon, and uncle to the earl of Sunderland, came over under pretence of drinking the waters at Spaw, and conveyed still stronger assurances of a universal combination against the measures of the king. Lord Dumblaine, son of the earl of Danby, being master of a frigate, made several voyages to Holland, and carried from many of the nobility tenders of duty, and even considerable sums of money,[*] to the prince of Orange.

* D’Avaux, 14th and 24th of September, 8th and 15th of
October, 1688.

There remained, however, some reasons which retained all parties in awe, and kept them from breaking out into immediate hostility. The prince, on the one hand, was afraid of hazarding, by violent measures, an inheritance which the laws insured to the princess; and the English Protestants, on the other, from the prospect of her succession, still entertained hopes of obtaining at last a peaceable and a safe redress of all their grievances. But when a son was born to the king, both the prince and the English nation were reduced to despair, and saw no resource but in a confederacy for their mutual interests. And thus the event which James had so long made the object of his most ardent prayers, and from which he expected the firm establishment of his throne, proved the immediate cause of his ruin and downfall.

Zuylestein, who had been sent over to congratulate the king on the birth of his son, brought back to the prince invitations from most of the great men in England, to assist them by his arms in the recovery of their laws and liberties. The bishop of London, the earls of Danby, Nottingham, Devonshire, Dorset, the duke of Norfolk, the lords Lovelace Delamere, Paulet, Eland, Mr. Hambden, Powle, Lester, besides many eminent citizens of London; all these persons, though of opposite parties, concurred in their applications to the prince. The whigs, suitably to their ancient principles of liberty, which had led them to attempt the exclusion bill, easily agreed to oppose a king, whose conduct had justified whatever his worst enemies had prognosticated concerning his succession. The tories and the church party, finding their past services forgotten, their rights invaded, their religion threatened, agreed to drop for the present all overstrained doctrines of submission, and attend to the great and powerful dictates of nature. The nonconformists, dreading the caresses of known and inveterate enemies, deemed the offers of toleration more secure from a prince educated in those principles, and accustomed to that practice. And thus all faction was for a time laid asleep in England; and rival parties, forgetting their animosity, had secretly concurred in a design of resisting their unhappy and misguided sovereign. The earl of Shrewsbury, who had acquired great popularity by deserting, at this time, the Catholic religion, in which he had been educated, left his regiment, mortgaged his estate for forty thousand pounds, and made a tender of his sword and purse to the prince of Orange. Lord Wharton, notwithstanding his age and infirmities, had taken a journey for the same purpose. Lord Mordaunt was at the Hague, and pushed on the enterprise with that ardent and courageous spirit for which he was so eminent. Even Sunderland, the king’s favorite minister, is believed to have entered into a correspondence with the prince; and, at the expense of his own honor and his master’s interests, to have secretly favored a cause which, he foresaw, was likely soon to predominate.[*]

* D’Avaux was always of that opinion. See his Negotiations,
6th and 20th of May, 18th, 27th of September, 22d of
November, 1688. On the whole, that opinion is the most
probable.

The prince was easily engaged to yield to the applications of the English, and to embrace the defence of a nation which, during its present fears and distresses, regarded him as its sole protector. The great object of his ambition was to be placed at the head of a confederate army, and by his valor to avenge the injuries which he himself, his country, and his allies, had sustained from the haughty Lewis. But while England remained under the present government, he despaired of ever forming a league which would be able, with any probability of success, to make opposition against that powerful monarch. The ties of affinity could not be supposed to have great influence over a person of the prince’s rank and temper much more as he knew that they were at first unwillingly contracted by the king, and had never since been cultivated by any essential favors or good offices. Or should any reproach remain upon him for violating the duties of private life, the glory of delivering oppressed nations would, he hoped, be able, in the eyes of reasonable men, to make ample compensation. He could not well expect, on the commencement of his enterprise, that it would lead him to mount the throne of England: but he undoubtedly foresaw, that its success would establish his authority in that kingdom. And so egregious was James’s temerity, that there was no advantage so great or obvious, which that prince’s indiscretion might not afford his enemies.

The prince of Orange, throughout his whole life, was peculiarly happy in the situations in which he was placed. He saved his own country from ruin, he restored the liberties of these kingdoms, he supported the general independency of Europe. And thus, though his virtue, it is confessed, be not the purest which we meet with in history, it will be difficult to find any person whose actions and conduct have contributed more eminently to the general interests of society and of mankind.

The time when the prince entered on his enterprise was well chosen; as the people were then in the highest ferment on account of the insult which the imprisonment and trial of the bishops had put upon the church, and indeed upon all the Protestants of the nation. His method of conducting his preparations was no less wise and politic. Under other pretences he had beforehand made considerable augmentations to the Dutch navy; and the ships were at that time lying in harbor. Some additional troops were also levied; and sums of money raised for other purposes, were diverted by the prince to the use of this expedition. The states had given him their entire confidence; and partly from terror of the power of France, partly from disgust at some restraints laid on their commerce in that kingdom, were sensible how necessary success in this enterprise was become to their domestic happiness and security. Many of the neighboring princes regarded him as their guardian and protector, and were guided by him in all their counsels. He held conferences with Castanaga, governor of the Spanish Netherlands, with the electors of Brandenburgh and Saxony, with the landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, and with the whole house of Lunenbourg. It was agreed, that these princes should replace the troops employed against England, and should protect the United Provinces during the absence of the prince of Orange. Their forces were already on their march for that purpose: a considerable encampment of the Dutch army was formed at Nimeguén: every place was in movement: and though the roots of this conspiracy reached from one end of Europe to the other, so secret were the prince’s counsels, and so fortunate was the situation of affairs, that he could still cover his preparations under other pretences; and little suspicion was entertained of his real intentions.

The king of France, menaced by the league of Augsbourg, had resolved to strike the first blow against the allies; and having sought a quarrel with the emperor and the elector Palatine, he had invaded Germany with a great Army, and had laid siege to Philipsbourg. The elector of Cologne, who was also bishop of Liege and Munster, and whose territories almost entirely surrounded the United Provinces, had died about this time; and the candidates for that rich succession were Prince Clement of Bavaria, supported by the house of Austria, and the cardinal of Furstemberg, a prelate dependent on France. The pope, who favored the allies, was able to throw the balance between the parties, and Prince Clement was chosen; a circumstance which contributed extremely to the security of the states. But as the cardinal kept possession of many of the fortresses, and had applied to France for succor, the neighboring territories were full of troops; and by this means the preparations of the Dutch and their allies seemed intended merely for their own defence against the different enterprises of Lewis.

All the artifices, however, of the prince could not entirely conceal his real intentions from the sagacity of the French court. D’Avaux, Lewis’s envoy at the Hague, had been able by a comparison of circumstances, to trace the purposes of the preparations in Holland; and he instantly informed his master of the discovery. Lewis conveyed the intelligence to James, and accompanied the information with an important offer. He was willing to join a squadron of French ships to the English fleet; and to send over any number of troops which James should judge requisite for his security. When this proposal was rejected, he again offered to raise the siege of Philipsbourg, to march his army into the Netherlands, and by the terror of his arms to detain the Dutch forces in their own country. This proposal met with no better reception.

James was not, as yet, entirely convinced that his son-in-law intended an invasion upon England. Fully persuaded himself of the sacredness of his own authority, he fancied that a like belief had made deep impression on his subjects: and notwithstanding the strong symptoms of discontent which broke out every where, such a universal combination in rebellion appeared to him nowise credible. His army, in which he trusted, and which he had considerably augmented, would easily be able, he thought, to repel foreign force, and to suppress any sedition among the populace. A small number of French troops, joined to these, might tend only to breed discontent; and afford them a pretence for mutinying against foreigners, so much feared and hated by the nation. A great body of auxiliaries might indeed secure him both against an invasion from Holland, and against the rebellion of his own subjects; but would be able afterwards to reduce him to dependence, and render his authority entirely precarious. Even the French invasion of the Low Countries might be attended with dangerous consequences; and would suffice, in these jealous times, to revive the old suspicion of a combination against Holland, and against the Protestant religion, a suspicion which had already produced such discontents in England. These were the views suggested by Sunderland, and it must be confessed, that the reasons on which they were founded were sufficiently plausible; as indeed the situation to which the king had reduced himself was, to the last degree, delicate and perplexing.

Still Lewis was unwilling to abandon a friend and ally, whose interests he regarded as closely connected with his own. By the suggestion of Skelton, the king’s minister at Paris, orders were sent to D’Avaux to remonstrate with the states, in Lewis’s name, against those preparations which they were making to invade England. The strict amity, said the French minister, which subsists between the two monarchs, will make Lewis regard every attempt against his ally as an act of hostility against himself. This remonstrance had a bad effect and put the states in a flame. What is this alliance, they asked, between France and England, which has been so care fully concealed from us? Is it of the same nature with the former; meant for our destruction, and for the extirpation of the Protestant religion? If so, it is high time for us to provide for our own defence, and to anticipate those projects which are forming against us.

Even James was displeased with the officious step taken by Lewis for his service. He was not reduced, he said, to the condition of the cardinal of Furstemberg, and obliged to seek the protection of France. He recalled Skelton, and threw him into the Tower for his rash conduct. He solemnly disavowed D’Avaux’s memorial; and protested that no alliance subsisted between him and Lewis, but what was public and known to all the world. The states, however, still affected to appear incredulous on that head; [*] and the English, prepossessed against their sovereign, firmly believed, that he had concerted a project with Lewis for their entire subjection. Portsmouth, it was said, was to be put into the hands of that ambitious monarch: England was to be filled with French and Irish troops: and every man who refused to embrace the Romish superstition, was by these bigoted princes devoted to certain destruction.

* That there really was no new alliance formed betwixt
France and England, appears both, from Sunderland’s Apology,
and from D’Avaux’s Negotiations, lately published: see vol.
iv. p. 18. Eng translation, 27th of September, 1687; 16th of
March, 6th of May, 10th of August, 2d, 23d, and 24th of
September, 5th and 7th of October, 11th of November, 1688.

These suggestions were every where spread abroad, and tended to augment the discontents of which both the fleet and army, as well as the people, betrayed every day the most evident symptoms. The fleet had begun to mutiny; because Stricland, the admiral, a Roman Catholic, introduced the mass aboard his ship, and dismissed the Protestant chaplain. It was with some difficulty the seamen could be appeased; and they still persisted in declaring that they would not fight against the Dutch, whom they called friends and brethren; but would willingly give battle to the French, whom they regarded as national enemies. The king had intended to augment his army with Irish recruits; and he resolved to try the experiment on the regiment of the duke of Berwick, his natural son: but Beaumont, the lieutenant-colonel, refused to admit them; and to this opposition five captains steadily adhered. They were all cashiered; and had not the discontents of the army on this occasion become very apparent, it was resolved to have punished those officers for mutiny.

The king made a trial of the dispositions of his army, in a manner still more undisguised. Finding opposition from all the civil and ecclesiastical orders of the kingdom, he resolved to appeal to the military, who, if unanimous, were able alone to serve all his purposes, and to enforce universal obedience. His intention was to engage all the regiments, one after another, to give their consent to the repeal of the test and penal statutes; and accordingly, the major of Litchfield’s drew out the battalion before the king, and told them, that they were required either to enter into his majesty’s views in these particulars, or to lay down their arms. James was surprised to find that, two captains and a few Popish soldiers excepted, the whole battalion immediately embraced the latter part of the alternative. For some time he remained speechless; but having recovered from his astonishment, he commanded them to take up their arms; adding with a sullen, discontented air, “That for the future, he would not do them the honor to apply for their approbation.”

While the king was dismayed with these symptoms of general disaffection, he received a letter from the marquis of Albeville, his minister at the Hague, which informed him with certainty, that he was soon to look for a powerful invasion from Holland; and that Pensionary Fagel had at length acknowledged, that the scope of all the Dutch naval preparations was to transport forces into England. Though James could reasonably expect no other intelligence, he was astonished at the news: he grew pale, and the letter dropped from his hand: his eyes were now opened, and he found himself on the brink of a frightful precipice, which his delusions had hitherto concealed from him. His ministers and counsellors, equally astonished, saw no resource but in a sudden and precipitate retraction of all those fatal measures by which he had created to himself so many enemies, foreign and domestic. He paid court to the Dutch, and offered to enter into any alliance with them for common security: he replaced in all the counties the deputy lieutenants and justices who had been deprived of their commissions for their adherence to the test and the penal laws: he restored the charters of London, and of all the corporations: he annulled the court of ecclesiastical commission: he took off the bishop of London’s suspension: he reinstated the expelled president and fellows of Magdalen College: and he was even reduced to caress those bishops whom he had so lately prosecuted and insulted. All these measures were regarded as symptoms of fear, not of repentance. The bishops, instead of promising succor or suggesting comfort, recapitulated to him all the instances of his maleadministration, and advised him thenceforwards to follow more salutary counsel. And as intelligence arrived of a great disaster which had befallen the Dutch fleet, it is commonly believed, that the king recalled, for some time, the concessions which he had made to Magdalen College; a bad sign of his sincerity in his other concessions. Nay, so prevalent were his unfortunate prepossessions, that amidst all his present distresses, he could not forbear, at the baptism of the young prince, appointing the pope to be one of the god-fathers.

The report that a supposititious child was to be imposed on the nation, had been widely spread, and greedily received, before the birth of the prince of Wales: but the king, who, without seeming to take notice of the matter, might easily have quashed that ridiculous rumor, had, from an ill-timed haughtiness, totally neglected it. He disdained, he said, to satisfy those who could deem him capable of so base and villanous an action. Finding that the calumny gained ground, and had made deep impression on his subjects, he was now obliged to submit to the mortifying task of ascertaining the reality of the birth. Though no particular attention had been beforehand given to insure proof, the evidence both of the queen’s pregnancy and delivery was rendered indisputable and so much the more, as no argument or proof of any importance, nothing but popular rumor and surmise, could be thrown into the opposite scale.

Meanwhile the prince of Orange’s declaration was dispersed over the kingdom, and met with universal approbation. All the grievances of the nation were there enumerated: the dispensing and suspending power; the court of ecclesiastical commission; the filling of all offices with Catholics, and the raising of a Jesuit to be privy counsellor; the open encouragement given to Popery, by building every where churches, colleges, and seminaries for that sect; the displacing of judges, if they refused to give sentence according to orders received from court; the annulling of the charters of all the corporations, and the subjecting of elections to arbitrary will and pleasure; the treating of petitions, even the most modest, and from persons of the highest rank, as criminal and seditious; the committing of the whole authority of Ireland, civil and military, into the hands of Papists; the assuming of an absolute power over the religion and laws of Scotland, and openly exacting in that kingdom an obedience without reserve; and the violent presumptions against the legitimacy of the prince of Wales. In order to redress all these grievances, the prince said, that he intended to come over to England with an armed force, which might protect him from the king’s evil counsellors; and that his sole aim was to have a legal and free parliament assembled, who might provide for the safety and liberty of the nation, as well as examine the proofs of the prince of Wales’s legitimacy. No one, he added, could entertain such hard thoughts of him as to imagine, that he had formed any other design than to procure the full and lasting settlement of religion, liberty, and property. The force which he meant to bring with him, was totally disproportioned to any views of conquest; and it were absurd to suspect, that so many persons of high rank, both in church and state, would have given him so many solemn invitations for such a pernicious purpose. Though the English ministers, terrified with his enterprise, had pretended to redress some of the grievances complained of, there still remained the foundation of all grievances, that upon which they could in an instant be again erected, an arbitrary and despotic power in the crown. And for this usurpation there was no possible remedy, but by a full declaration of all the rights of the subject in a free parliament.

So well concerted were the prince’s measures, that, in three days, above four hundred transports were hired; the army quickly fell down the rivers and canals from Nimeguen; the artillery, arms, stores, and horses, were embarked; and the prince set sail from Helvoet-Sluice, with a fleet of near five hundred vessels, and an army of above fourteen thousand men. He first encountered a storm, which drove him back: but his loss being soon repaired, the fleet put to sea under the command of Admiral Herbert, and made sail with a fair wind towards the west of England. The same wind detained the king’s fleet in their station near Harwich, and enabled the Dutch to pass the Straits of Dover without opposition. Both shores were covered with multitudes of people, who, besides admiring the grandeur of the spectacle, were held in anxious suspense by the prospect of an enterprise, the most important which, during some ages, had been undertaken in Europe. The prince had a prosperous voyage, and landed his army safely in Torbay on the fifth of November, the anniversary of the gunpowder treason.

The Dutch army marched first to Exeter; and the prince’s declaration was there published. That whole county was so terrified with the executions which had ensued upon Monmouth’s rebellion, that no one for several days joined the prince. The bishop of Exeter in a fright fled to London and carried to court intelligence of the invasion. As a reward of his zeal, he received the archbishopric of York, which had long been kept vacant, with an intention, as was universally believed, of bestowing it on some Catholic. The first person who joined the prince, was Major Burrington; and he was quickly followed by the gentry of the counties of Devon and Somerset. Sir Edward Seymour made proposals for an association, which every one signed. By degrees, the earl of Abingdon, Mr. Russel, son of the earl of Bedford, Mr. Wharton, Godfrey, Howe, came to Exeter. All England was in commotion. Lord Delamere took arms in Cheshire, the earl of Danby seized York, the earl of Bath, governor of Plymouth, declared for the prince, the earl of Devonshire made a like declaration in Derby. The nobility and gentry of Nottinghamshire embraced the same cause; and every day there appeared some effect of that universal combination into which the nation had entered against the measures of the king. Even those who took not the field against him, were able to embarrass and confound his counsels. A petition for a free parliament was signed by twenty-four bishops and peers of the greatest distinction, and was presented to the king. No one thought of opposing or resisting the invader.

But the most dangerous symptom was the disaffection which, from the general spirit of the nation, not from any particular reason, had crept into the army. The officers seemed ill disposed to prefer the interests of their country and of their religion, to those principles of honor and fidelity which are commonly esteemed the most sacred ties by men of that profession. Lord Colchester, son of the earl of Rivers, was the first officer that deserted to the prince; and he was attended by a few of his troops. Lord Lovelace made a like effort: but was intercepted by the militia under the duke of Beaufort, and taken prisoner; Lord Cornbury, son of the earl of Clarendon, was more successful. He attempted to carry over three regiments of cavalry; and he actually brought a considerable part of them to the prince’s quarters. Several officers of distinction informed Feversham, the general, that they could not in conscience fight against the prince of Orange.

Lord Churchill had been raised from the rank of a page had been invested with a high command in the army, had been created a peer, and had owed his whole fortune to the king’s favor: yet even he could resolve, during the present extremity, to desert his unhappy master, who had ever reposed entire confidence in him. He carried with him the duke of Grafton, natural son of the late king, Colonel Berkeley, and some troops of dragoons. This conduct was a signal sacrifice to public virtue of every duty in private life; and required ever after, the most upright, disinterested, and public-spirited behavior to render it justifiable.

The king had arrived at Salisbury, the head-quarters of his army, when he received this fatal intelligence. That prince, though a severe enemy, had ever appeared a warm, steady, and sincere friend; and he was extremely shocked with this, as with many other instances of ingratitude to which he was now exposed. There remained none in whom he could confide. As the whole army had discovered symptoms of discontent, he concluded it full of treachery; and being deserted by those whom he had most favored and obliged, he no longer expected that others would hazard their lives in his service. During this distraction and perplexity, he embraced a sudden resolution of drawing off his army, and retiring towards London; a measure which could only serve to betray his fears, and provoke further treachery.

But Churchill had prepared a still more mortal blow for his distressed benefactor. His lady and he had an entire ascendant over the family of Prince George of Denmark; and the time now appeared seasonable for overwhelming the unhappy king, who was already staggering with the violent shocks which he had received. Andover was the first stage of James’s retreat towards London; and there Prince George together with the young duke of Ormond,[*] Sir George Huet, and some other persons of distinction, deserted him in the night-time, and retired to the prince’s camp.

* His grandfather, the first duke of Ormond, had died this
year July 21.

No sooner had this news reached London, than the princess Anne, pretending fear of the king’s displeasure, withdrew herself in company with the bishop of London and Lady Churchill. She fled to Nottingham; where the earl of Dorset received her with great respect, and the gentry of the county quickly formed a troop for her protection.

The late king, in order to gratify the nation, had intrusted the education of his nieces entirely to Protestants; and as these princesses were deemed the chief resource of the established religion after their father’s defection, great care had been taken to instil into them, from their earliest infancy, the strongest prejudices against Popery. During the violence too of such popular currents as now prevailed in England, all private considerations are commonly lost in the general passion; and the more principle any person possesses, the more apt is he, on such occasions, to neglect and abandon his domestic duties. Though these causes may account for the behavior of the princess, they had nowise prepared the king to expect so astonishing an event. He burst into tears when the first intelligence of it was conveyed to him. Undoubtedly he foresaw in this incident the total expiration of his royal authority: but the nearer and more intimate concern of a parent laid hold of his heart, when he found himself abandoned in his uttermost distress by a child, and a virtuous child, whom he had ever regarded with the most tender affection. “God help me,” cried he, in the extremity of his agony; “my own children have forsaken me!” It is indeed singular, that a prince, whose chief blame consisted in imprudencies and misguided principles, should be exposed, from religious antipathy, to such treatment as even Nero, Domitian, or the most enormous tyrants that have disgraced the records of history, never met with from their friends and family.

So violent were the prejudices which at this time prevailed, that this unhappy father, who had been deserted by his favorite child, was believed, upon her disappearing, to have put her to death: and it was fortunate that the truth was timely discovered, otherwise the populace, even the king’s guards themselves, might have been engaged, in revenge, to commence a massacre of the priests and Catholics.

The king s fortune now exposed him to the contempt of his enemies and his behavior was not such as could gain him the esteem of his friends and adherents. Unable to resist the torrent, he preserved not presence of mind in yielding to it; but seemed in this emergence as much depressed with adversity, as he had before been vainly elated by prosperity. He called a council of all the peers and prelates who were in London; and followed their advice in issuing writs for a new parliament, and in sending Halifax, Nottingham, and Godolphin as commissioners to treat with the prince of Orange. But these were the last acts of royal authority which he exerted. He even hearkened to imprudent counsel, by which he was prompted to desert the throne, and to gratify his enemies beyond what their fondest hopes could have promised them.

The queen, observing the fury of the people, and knowing how much she was the object of general hatred, was struck with the deepest terror, and began to apprehend a parliamentary impeachment, from which, she was told, the queens of England were not exempted. The Popish courtiers, and above all the priests, were aware that they should be the first sacrifice, and that their perpetual banishment was the smallest penalty which they must expect from national resentment. They were, therefore, desirous of carrying the king along with them, whose presence, they knew, would still be some resource and protection to them in foreign countries, and whose restoration, if it ever happened, would again reinstate them in power and authority. The general defection of the Protestants made the king regard the Catholics as his only subjects on whose counsel he could rely; and the fatal catastrophe of his father afforded them a plausible reason for making him apprehend a like fate. The great difference of circumstances was not, during men’s present distractions, sufficiently weighed. Even after the people were inflamed by a long civil war, the execution of Charles I. could not be deemed a national deed: it was perpetrated by a fanatical army pushed on by a daring and enthusiastic leader; and the whole kingdom had ever entertained, and did still entertain, a violent abhorrence against that enormity. The situation of public affairs, therefore, no more resembled what it was forty years before, than the prince of Orange, either in birth, character, fortune, or connections, could be supposed a parallel to Cromwell.

The emissaries of France, and among the rest Barillon, the French ambassador, were busy about the king, and they had entertained a very false notion, which they instilled into him, that nothing would more certainly retard the public settlement, and beget universal confusion, than his deserting the kingdom.

The prince of Orange had with good reason embraced a contrary opinion; and he deemed it extremely difficult to find expedients for securing the nation, so long as the king kept possession of the crown. Actuated, therefore, by this public motive, and no less, we may well presume, by private ambition, he was determined to use every expedient which might intimidate the king, and make him quit that throne which he himself was alone enabled to fill. He declined a personal conference with James’s commissioners, and sent the earls of Clarendon and Oxford to treat with them: the terms which he proposed implied almost a present participation of the sovereignty: and he stopped not a moment the march of his army towards London.

The news which the king received from all quarters, served to continue the panic into which he was fallen, and which his enemies expected to improve to their advantage. Colonel Copel, deputy governor of Hull, made himself master of that important fortress; and threw into prison Lord Langdale, the governor, a Catholic; together with Lord Montgomery, a nobleman of the same religion. The town of Newcastle received Lord Lumley, and declared for the prince of Orange and a free parliament. The duke of Norfolk, lord lieutenant of the county of that name, engaged it in the same measure. The prince’s declaration was read at Oxford by the duke of Ormond, and was received with great applause by that loyal university, who also made an offer of their plate to the prince. Every day some person of quality or distinction, and among the rest the duke of Somerset, went over to the enemy. A violent declaration was dispersed in the prince’s name, but without his participation; in which every one was commanded to seize and punish all Papists, who, contrary to law, pretended either to carry arms or exercise any act of authority. It may not be unworthy of notice that a merry ballad, called Lillibullero, being at this time published in derision of the Papists and the Irish, it was greedily received by the people, and was sung by all ranks of men, even by the king’s army, who were strongly seized with the national spirit. This incident both discovered and served to increase the general discontent of the kingdom.

The contagion of mutiny and disobedience had also reached Scotland, whence the regular forces, contrary to the advice of Balcarras the treasurer, were withdrawn, in order to reënforce the English army. The marquis of Athole, together with Viscount Tarbat and others, finding the opportunity favorable, began to form intrigues against Perth, the chancellor; and the Presbyterians and other malecontents flocked from all quarters to Edinburgh. The chancellor, apprehensive of the consequences, found it expedient to abscond; and the populace, as if that event were a signal for their insurrection, immediately rose in arms, and rifled the Popish chapel in the king’s palace. All the Catholics, even all the zealous royalists, were obliged to conceal themselves; and the privy council, instead of their former submissive strains of address to the king, and violent edicts against their fellow-subjects, now made applications to the prince of Orange, as the restorer of law and liberty.

The king, every moment alarmed more and more by these proofs of a general disaffection, not daring to repose trust in any but those who were exposed to more danger than himself, agitated by disdain towards ingratitude, by indignation against disloyalty, impelled by his own fears and those of others, precipitately embraced the resolution of escaping into France; and he sent off beforehand the queen and the infant prince, under the conduct of Count Lauzun, an old favorite of the French monarch. He himself disappeared in the night-time, attended only by Sir Edward Hales; and made the best of his way to a ship which waited for him near the mouth of the river. As if this measure had not been the most grateful to his enemies of any that he could adopt, he had carefully concealed his intention from all the world; and nothing could equal the surprise which seized the city, the court, and the kingdom, upon the discovery of this strange event. Men beheld, all of a sudden, the reins of government thrown up by the hand which held them; and saw none who had any right, or even pretension, to take possession of them.

The more effectually to involve every thing in confusion, the king appointed not any one who should, in his absence, exercise any part of the administration; he threw the great seal into the river; and he recalled all those writs which had been issued for the election of the new parliament. It is often supposed, that the sole motive which impelled him to this sudden desertion, was his reluctance to meet a free parliament and his resolution not to submit to those terms which his subjects would deem requisite for the security of their liberties and their religion. But it must be considered, that his subjects had first deserted him, and entirely lost his confidence; that he might reasonably be supposed to entertain fears for his liberty, if not for his life; and that the conditions would not probably be moderate, which the nation, sensible of his inflexible temper, enraged with the violation of their laws and the danger of their religion, and foreseeing his resentment on account of their past resistance, would, in his present circumstances exact from him.

By this temporary dissolution of government, the populace were masters; and there was no disorder which, during their present ferment, might not be dreaded from them. They rose in a tumult and destroyed all the mass-houses. They even attacked and rifled the houses of the Florentine envoy and Spanish ambassador, where many of the Catholics had lodged their most valuable effects. Jefferies, the chancellor, who had disguised himself in order to fly the kingdom, was discovered by them, and so abused, that he died a little after. Even the army, which should have suppressed those tumults, would, it was apprehended, serve rather to increase the general disorder. Feversham had no sooner heard of the king’s flight, than he disbanded the troops in the neighborhood, and without either disarming or paying them, let them loose to prey upon the country.

In this extremity, the bishops and peers who were in town, being the only remaining authority of the state, (for the privy council, composed of the king’s creatures, was totally disregarded,) thought proper to assemble, and to interpose for the preservation of the community. They chose the marquis of Halifax speaker: they gave directions to the mayor and aldermen for keeping the peace of the city: they issued orders, which were readily obeyed, to the fleet, the army, and all the garrisons: and they made applications to the prince of Orange, whose enterprise they highly applauded, and whose success they joyfully congratulated.

The prince on his part was not wanting to the tide of success which flowed in upon him, nor backward in assuming that authority which the present exigency had put into his hands. Besides the general popularity attending his cause, a new incident made his approach to London still more grateful. In the present trepidation of the people, a rumor arose, either from chance or design, that the disbanded Irish had taken arms, and had commenced a universal massacre of the Protestants. This ridiculous belief was spread all over the kingdom in one day, and begat every where the deepest consternation. The alarum bells were rung; the beacons fired; men fancied that they saw at a distance the smoke of the burning cities, and heard the groans of those who were slaughtered in their neighborhood. It is surprising that the Catholics did not all perish in the rage which naturally succeeds to such popular panics.

While every one, from principle, interest, or animosity, turned his back on the unhappy king, who had abandoned his own cause, the unwelcome news arrived, that he had been seized by the populace at Feversham, as he was making his escape in disguise; that he had been much abused, till he was known; but that the gentry had then interposed and protected him, though they still refused to consent to his escape. This intelligence threw all parties into confusion. The prince sent Zuylestein with orders that the king should approach no nearer than Rochester; but the message came too late. He was already arrived in London, where the populace, moved by compassion for his unhappy fate, and actuated by their own levity, had received him with shouts and acclamations.

During the king’s abode at Whitehall, little attention was paid to him by the nobility or any persons of distinction. They had all of them been previously disgusted on account of his blind partiality to the Catholics; and they knew that they were now become criminal in his eyes by their late public applications to the prince of Orange. He himself showed not any symptom of spirit, nor discovered any intention of resuming the reins of government which he had once thrown aside. His authority was now plainly expired; and as he had exercised his power, while possessed of it, with very precipitate and haughty counsels, he relinquished it by a despair equally precipitate and pusillanimous.