No More Learning

There was
in the statute book a law which had been passed soon after the close of
the long and bloody contest between the Houses of York and Lancaster,
and which had been framed for the purpose of averting calamities such as
the alternate victories of those Houses had brought on the nobility and
gentry of the realm. By this law it was provided that no person should,
by adhering to a King in possession, incur the penalties of treason.
When the regicides were brought to trial after the Restoration, some of
them insisted that their case lay within the equity of this act. They
had obeyed, they said, the government which was in possession, and were
therefore not traitors. The Judges admitted that this would have been
a good defence if the prisoners had acted under the authority of an
usurper who, like Henry the Fourth and Richard the Third, bore the regal
title, but declared that such a defence could not avail men who had
indicted, sentenced, and executed one who, in the indictment, in the
sentence, and in the death warrant, was designated as King. It followed,
therefore, that whoever should support a Regent in opposition to James
would run great risk of being hanged, drawn, and quartered, if ever
James should recover supreme power; but that no person could, without
such a violation of law as Jeffreys himself would hardly venture to
commit, be punished for siding with a King who was reigning, though
wrongfully, at Whitehall, against a rightful King who was in exile at
Saint Germains. [648]

It should seem that these arguments admit of no reply; and they were
doubtless urged with force by Danby, who had a wonderful power of
making every subject which he treated clear to the dullest mind, and by
Halifax, who, in fertility of thought and brilliancy of diction, had no
rival among the orators of that age. Yet so numerous and powerful were
the Tories in the Upper House that, notwithstanding the weakness of
their case, the defection of their leader, and the ability of their
opponents, they very nearly carried the day. A hundred Lords divided.
Forty-nine voted for a Regency, fifty-one against it. In the minority
were the natural children of Charles, the brothers in law of James, the
Dukes of Somerset and Ormond, the Archbishop of York and eleven Bishops.
No prelate voted in the majority except Compton and Trelawney. [649]

It was near nine in the evening before the House rose. The following day
was the thirtieth of January, the anniversary of the death of Charles
the First. The great body of the Anglican clergy had, during many years,
thought it a sacred duty to inculcate on that day the doctrines of
nonresistance and passive obedience. Their old sermons were now of
little use; and many divines were even in doubt whether they could
venture to read the whole Liturgy. The Lower House had declared that the
throne was vacant. The Upper had not yet expressed any opinion. It was
therefore not easy to decide whether the prayers for the sovereign ought
to be used. Every officiating minister took his own course. In most of
the churches of the capital the petitions for James were omitted: but
at Saint Margaret's, Sharp, Dean of Norwich, who had been requested
to preach before the Commons, not only read to their faces the whole
service as it stood in the book, but, before his sermon, implored, in
his own words, a blessing on the King, and, towards the close of his
discourse, declaimed against the Jesuitical doctrine that princes might
lawfully be deposed by their subjects. The Speaker, that very afternoon,
complained to the House of this affront. "You pass a vote one day," he
said; "and on the next day it is contradicted from the pulpit in your
own hearing. " Sharp was strenuously defended by the Tories, and had
friends even among the Whigs: for it was not forgotten that he had
incurred serious danger in the evil times by the courage with which, in
defiance of the royal injunction, he had preached against Popery. Sir
Christopher Musgrave very ingeniously remarked that the House had not
ordered the resolution which declared the throne vacant to be published.
Sharp, therefore, was not only not bound to know anything of that
resolution, but could not have taken notice of it without a breach of
privilege for which he might have been called to the bar and reprimanded
on his knees. The majority felt that it was not wise at that conjuncture
to quarrel with the clergy; and the subject was suffered to drop. [650]

While the Commons were discussing Sharp's sermon, the Lords had again
gone into a committee on the state of the nation, and had ordered the
resolution which pronounced the throne vacant to be read clause by
clause.

The first expression on which a debate arose was that which recognised
the original contract between King and people. It was not to be
expected that the Tory peers would suffer a phrase which contained the
quintessence of Whiggism to pass unchallenged. A division took place;
and it was determined by fifty-three votes to forty-six that the words
should stand.

The severe censure passed by the Commons on the administration of James
was next considered, and was approved without one dissentient voice.
Some verbal objections were made to the proposition that James had
abdicated the government. It was urged that he might more correctly be
said to have deserted it. This amendment was adopted, it should seem,
with scarcely any debate, and without a division. By this time it was
late; and the Lords again adjourned. [651]

Up to this moment the small body of peers which was under the guidance
of Danby had acted in firm union with Halifax and the Whigs. The effect
of this union had been that the plan of Regency had been rejected, and
the doctrine of the original contract affirmed. The proposition that
James had ceased to be King had been the rallying point of the two
parties which had made up the majority. But from that point their path
diverged. The next question to be decided was whether the throne
was vacant; and this was a question not merely verbal, but of grave
practical importance. If the throne was vacant, the Estates of the Realm
might place William in it. If it was not vacant, he could succeed to it
only after his wife, after Anne, and after Anne's posterity.

It was, according to the followers of Danby, an established maxim that
our country could not be, even for a moment, without a rightful prince.
The man might die; but the magistrate was immortal. The man might
abdicate; but the magistrate was irremoveable. If, these politicians
said, we once admit that the throne is vacant, we admit that it is
elective. The sovereign whom we may place on it will be a sovereign, not
after the English, but after the Polish, fashion. Even if we choose the
very person who would reign by right of birth, still that person will
reign not by right of birth, but in virtue of our choice, and will take
as a gift what ought to be regarded as an inheritance. That salutary
reverence with which the blood royal and the order of primogeniture have
hitherto been regarded will be greatly diminished. Still more serious
will the evil be, if we not only fill the throne by election, but fill
it with a prince who has doubtless the qualities of a great and good
ruler, and who has wrought a wonderful deliverance for us, but who is
not first nor even second in the order of succession. If we once say
that, merit, however eminent, shall be a title to the crown, we disturb
the very foundations of our polity, and furnish a precedent of which
every ambitious warrior or statesman who may have rendered any great
service to the public will be tempted to avail himself. This danger we
avoid if we logically follow out the principles of the constitution to
their consequences. There has been a demise of the crown. At the instant
of the demise the next heir became our lawful sovereign. We consider the
Princess of Orange as next heir; and we hold that she ought, without any
delay, to be proclaimed, what she already is, our Queen.

The Whigs replied that it was idle to apply ordinary rules to a country
in a state of revolution, that the great question now depending was not
to be decided by the saws of pedantic Templars, and that, if it were
to be so decided, such saws might be quoted on one side as well as the
other. If it were a legal maxim that the throne could never be vacant,
it was also a legal maxim that a living man could have no heir. James
was still living. How then could the Princess of Orange be his heir?
The truth was that the laws of England had made full provision for the
succession when the power of a sovereign and his natural life terminated
together, but had made no provision for the very rare cases in which his
power terminated before the close of his natural life; and with one
of those very rare cases the Convention had now to deal. That James no
longer filled the throne both Houses had pronounced. Neither common law
nor statute law designated any person as entitled to fill the throne
between his demise and his decease. It followed that the throne was
vacant, and that the Houses might invite the Prince of Orange to fill
it. That he was not next in order of birth was true: but this was
no disadvantage: on the contrary, it was a positive recommendation.
Hereditary monarchy was a good political institution, but was by no
means more sacred than other good political institutions. Unfortunately,
bigoted and servile theologians had turned it into a religious mystery,
almost as awful and as incomprehensible as transubstantiation itself.
To keep the institution, and yet to get rid of the abject and noxious
superstitions with which it had of late years been associated and which
had made it a curse instead of a blessing to society, ought to be
the first object of English statesmen; and that object would be best
attained by slightly deviating for a time from the general rule of
descent, and by then returning to it.

Many attempts were made to prevent an open breach between the party of
the Prince and the party of the Princess. A great meeting was held at
the Earl of Devonshire's House, and the dispute was warm. Halifax was
the chief speaker for William, Danby for Mary. Of the mind of Mary Danby
knew nothing. She had been some time expected in London, but had been
detained in Holland, first by masses of ice which had blocked up the
rivers, and, when the thaw came, by strong westerly winds. Had she
arrived earlier the dispute would probably have been at once quieted.
Halifax on the other side had no authority to say anything in William's
name. The Prince, true to his promise that he would leave the settlement
of the government to the Convention, had maintained an impenetrable
reserve, and had not suffered any word, look, or gesture, indicative
either of satisfaction or of displeasure, to escape him. One of his
countrymen, who had a large share of his confidence, had been invited
to the meeting, and was earnestly pressed by the Peers to give them some
information. He long excused himself. At last he so far yielded to their
urgency as to say, "I can only guess at His Highness's mind. If you wish
to know what I guess, I guess that he would not like to be his wife's
gentleman usher: but I know nothing. " "I know something now, however,"
said Danby. "I know enough, and too much. " He then departed; and the
assembly broke up. [652]

On the thirty-first of January the debate which had terminated thus in
private was publicly renewed in the House of Peers. That day had been
fixed for the national thanksgiving. An office had been drawn up for
the occasion by several Bishops, among whom were Ken and Sprat. It is
perfectly free both from the adulation and from the malignity by which
such compositions were in that age too often deformed, and sustains,
better perhaps than any occasional service which has been framed during
two centuries, a comparison with that great model of chaste, lofty, and
pathetic eloquence, the Book of Common Prayer. The Lords went in the
morning to Westminster Abbey. The Commons had desired Burnet to preach
before them at Saint Margaret's. He was not likely to fall into the same
error which had been committed in the same place on the preceding day.
His vigorous and animated discourse doubtless called forth the loud hums
of his auditors. It was not only printed by command of the House, but
was translated into French for the edification of foreign Protestants.
[653] The day closed with the festivities usual on such occasions. The
whole town shone brightly with fireworks and bonfires: the roar of
guns and the pealing of bells lasted till the night was far spent; but,
before the lights were extinct and the streets silent, an event had
taken place which threw a damp on the public joy.

The Peers had repaired from the Abbey to their house, and had resumed
the discussion on the state of the nation. The last words of the
resolution of the Commons were taken into consideration; and it soon
became clear that the majority was not disposed to assent to those
words. To near fifty Lords who held that the regal title still belonged
to James were now added seven or eight who held that it had already
devolved on Mary. The Whigs, finding themselves outnumbered, tried to
compromise the dispute. They proposed to omit the words which pronounced
the throne vacant, and simply to declare the Prince and Princess King
and Queen. It was manifest that such a declaration implied, though it
did not expressly affirm, all that the Tories were unwilling to concede.
For nobody could pretend that William had succeeded to the regal office
by right of birth. To pass a resolution acknowledging him as King was
therefore an act of election; and how could there be an election without
a vacancy? The proposition of the Whig Lords was rejected by fifty-two
votes to forty-seven. The question was then put whether the throne was
vacant. The contents were only forty-one: the noncontents fifty-five. Of
the minority thirty-six protested. [654]

During the two following days London was in an unquiet and anxious
state. The Tories began to hope that they might be able again to bring
forward their favourite plan of Regency with better success. Perhaps
the Prince himself, when he found that he had no chance of wearing
the crown, might prefer Sancroft's scheme to Danby's. It was better
doubtless to be a King than to be a Regent: but it was better to be a
Regent than to be a gentleman usher. On the other side the lower and
fiercer class of Whigs, the old emissaries of Shaftesbury, the old
associates of College, began to stir in the City. Crowds assembled
in Palace Yard, and held threatening language. Lord Lovelace, who was
suspected of having encouraged these assemblages, informed the Peers
that he was charged with a petition requesting them instantly to declare
the Prince and Princess of Orange King and Queen. He was asked by whom
the petition was signed. "There are no hands to it yet," he answered;
"but, when I bring it here next, there shall be hands enough. " This
menace alarmed and disgusted his own party. The leading Whigs were, in
truth, even more anxious than the Tories that the deliberations of the
Convention should be perfectly free, and that it should not be in the
power of any adherent of James to allege that either House had acted
under force. A petition, similar to that which had been entrusted to
Lovelace, was brought into the House of Commons, but was contemptuously
rejected. Maynard was foremost in protesting against the attempt of the
rabble in the streets to overawe the Estates of the Realm. William
sent for Lovelace, expostulated with him strongly, and ordered the
magistrates to act with vigour against all unlawful assemblies. [655]
Nothing in the history of our revolution is more deserving of admiration
and of imitation than the manner in which the two parties in the
Convention, at the very moment at which their disputes ran highest,
joined like one man to resist the dictation of the mob of the capital.

But, though the Whigs were fully determined to maintain order and to
respect the freedom of debate, they were equally determined to make no
concession. On Saturday the second of February the Commons, without a
division, resolved to adhere to their resolution as it originally stood.
James, as usual, came to the help of his enemies. A letter from him to
the Convention had just arrived in London. It had been transmitted to
Preston by the apostate Melfort, who was now high in favour at Saint
Germains. The name of Melfort was an abomination to every Churchman.
That he was still a confidential minister was alone sufficient to prove
that his master's folly and perverseness were incurable. No member of
either House ventured to propose that a paper which came from such a
quarter should be read. The contents, however, were well known to all
the town. His Majesty exhorted the Lords and Commons not to despair of
his clemency, and graciously assured them that he would pardon those who
had betrayed him, some few excepted, whom he did not name. How was
it possible to do any thing for a prince who, vanquished, deserted,
banished, living on alms, told those who were the arbiters of his fate
that, if they would set him on his throne again, he would hang only a
few of them? [656]

The contest between the two branches of the legislature lasted some days
longer. On Monday the fourth of February the Peers resolved that they
would insist on their amendments but a protest to which thirty-nine
names were subscribed was entered on the journals. [657] On the
following day the Tories determined to try their strength in the Lower
House. They mustered there in great force. A motion was made to agree to
the amendments of the Lords. Those who were for the plan of Sancroft
and those who were for the plan of Danby divided together; but they were
beaten by two hundred and eighty-two votes to a hundred and fifty-one.
The House then resolved to request a free conference with the Lords.
[658]

At the same time strenuous efforts were making without the walls
of Parliament to bring the dispute between the two branches of the
legislature to a close. Burnet thought that the importance of the crisis
justified him in publishing the great secret which the Princess had
confided to him. He knew, he said, from her own lips, that it had long
been her full determination, even if she came to the throne in the
regular course of descent, to surrender her power, with the sanction of
Parliament, into the hands of her husband. Danby received from her an
earnest, and almost angry, reprimand. She was, she wrote, the Prince's
wife; she had no other wish than to be subject to him; the most
cruel injury that could be done to her would be to set her up as his
competitor; and she never could regard any person who took such a course
as her true friend. [659] The Tories had still one hope. Anne might
insist on her own rights, and on those of her children. No effort was
spared to stimulate her ambition, and to alarm her conscience. Her uncle
Clarendon was especially active. A few weeks only had elapsed since
the hope of wealth and greatness had impelled him to bely the boastful
professions of his whole life, to desert the royal cause, to join with
the Wildmans and Fergusons, nay, to propose that the King should be
sent a prisoner to a foreign land and immured in a fortress begirt
by pestilential marshes. The lure which had produced this strange
transformation was the Viceroyalty of Ireland. Soon, however, it
appeared that the proselyte had little chance of obtaining the splendid
prize on which his heart was set. He found that others were consulted
on Irish affairs. His advice was never asked, and, when obtrusively and
importunately offered, was coldly received. He repaired many times to
Saint James's Palace, but could scarcely obtain a word or a look. One
day the Prince was writing, another day he wanted fresh air and must
ride in the Park; on a third he was closeted with officers on military
business and could see nobody. Clarendon saw that he was not likely to
gain anything by the sacrifice of his principles, and determined to take
them back again. In December ambition had converted him into a rebel.
In January disappointment reconverted him into a royalist. The uneasy
consciousness that he had not been a consistent Tory gave a peculiar
acrimony to his Toryism. [660] In the House of Lords he had done all in
his power to prevent a settlement. He now exerted, for the same end,
all his influence over the Princess Anne. But his influence over her
was small indeed when compared with that of the Churchills, who wisely
called to their help two powerful allies, Tillotson, who, as a spiritual
director, had, at that time, immense authority, and Lady Russell, whose
noble and gentle virtues, proved by the most cruel of all trials, had
gained for her the reputation of a saint. The Princess of Denmark, it
was soon known, was willing that William should reign for life; and it
was evident that to defend the cause of the daughters of James against
themselves was a hopeless task. [661]

And now William thought that the time had come when he ought to explain
himself. He accordingly sent for Halifax, Danby, Shrewsbury, and some
other political leaders of great note, and, with that air of stoical
apathy under which he had, from a boy, been in the habit of concealing
his strongest emotions, addressed to them a few deeply meditated and
weighty words.

He had hitherto, he said, remained silent; he had used neither
solicitation nor menace: he had not even suffered a hint of his opinions
or wishes to get abroad: but a crisis had now arrived at which it was
necessary for him to declare his intentions. He had no right and no wish
to dictate to the Convention. All that he claimed was the privilege of
declining any office which he felt that he could not hold with honour to
himself and with benefit to the public.

A strong party was for a Regency. It was for the Houses to determine
whether such an arrrangement would be for the interest of the nation.
He had a decided opinion on that point; and he thought it right to say
distinctly that he would not be Regent.

Another party was for placing the Princess on the throne, and for giving
to him, during her life, the title of King, and such a share in the
administration as she might be pleased to allow him. He could not stoop
to such a post. He esteemed the Princess as much as it was possible for
man to esteem woman: but not even from her would he accept a subordinate
and a precarious place in the government. He was so made that he could
not submit to be tied to the apron strings even of the best of wives.
He did not desire to take any part in English affairs; but, if he did
consent to take a part, there was one part only which he could usefully
or honourably take. If the Estates offered him the crown for life, he
would accept it. If not, he should, without repining, return to his
native country. He concluded by saying that he thought it reasonable
that the Lady Anne and her posterity should be preferred in the
succession to any children whom he might have by any other wife than the
Lady Mary. [662]

The meeting broke up; and what the Prince had said was in a few hours
known all over London. That he must be King was now clear. The
only question was whether he should hold the regal dignity alone or
conjointly with the Princess. Halifax and a few other politicians,
who saw in a strong light the danger of dividing the supreme executive
authority, thought it desirable that, during William's life, Mary should
be only Queen Consort and a subject. But this arrangement, though much
might doubtless be said for it in argument, shocked the general feeling
even of those Englishmen who were most attached to the Prince. His wife
had given an unprecedented proof of conjugal submission and affection;
and the very least return that could be made to her would be to bestow
on her the dignity of Queen Regnant. William Herbert, one of the most
zealous of the Prince's adherents, was so much exasperated that he
sprang out of the bed to which he was confined by gout, and vehemently
declared that he never would have drawn a sword in His Highness's cause
if he had foreseen that so shameful an arrangement would be made. No
person took the matter up so eagerly as Burnet. His blood boiled at
the wrong done to his kind patroness. He expostulated vehemently with
Bentinck, and begged to be permitted to resign the chaplainship. "While
I am His Highness's servant," said the brave and honest divine,
"it would be unseemly in me to oppose any plan which may have his
countenance. I therefore desire to be set free, that I may fight the
Princess's battle with every faculty that God has given me. " Bentinck
prevailed on Burnet to defer an open declaration of hostilities till
William's resolution should be distinctly known. In a few hours the
scheme which had excited so much resentment was entirely given up; and
all those who considered James as no longer king were agreed as to the
way in which the throne must be filled. William and Mary must be King
and Queen. The heads of both must appear together on the coin: writs
must run in the names of both: both must enjoy all the personal
dignities and immunities of royalty: but the administration, which could
not be safely divided, must belong to William alone. [663]

And now the time arrived for the free conference between the Houses. The
managers for the Lords, in their robes, took their seats along one side
of the table in the Painted Chamber: but the crowd of members of the
House of Commons on the other side was so great that the gentlemen who
were to argue the question in vain tried to get through. It was not
without much difficulty and long delay that the Serjeant at Arms was
able to clear a passage. [664]

At length the discussion began. A full report of the speeches on both
sides has come down to us.
There are few students of history who have
not taken up that report with eager curiosity and laid it down with
disappointment. The question between the Houses was argued on both
sides as a question of law. The objections which the Lords made, to the
resolution of the Commons were verbal and technical, and were met by
verbal and technical answers. Somers vindicated the use of the word
abdication by quotations from Grotius and Brissonius, Spigelius
and Bartolus. When he was challenged to show any authority for the
proposition that England could be without a sovereign, he produced the
Parliament roll of the year 1399, in which it was expressly set forth
that the kingly office was vacant during the interval between the
resignation of Richard the Second and the enthroning of Henry the
Fourth. The Lords replied by producing the Parliament roll of the first
year of Edward the Fourth, from which it appeared that the record of
1399 had been solemnly annulled. They therefore maintained that the
precedent on which Somers relied was no longer valid. Treby then came to
Somers's assistance, and brought forth the Parliament roll of the first
year of Henry the Seventh, which repealed the act of Edward the Fourth,
and consequently restored the validity of the record of 1399. After
a colloquy of several hours the disputants separated. [665] The Lords
assembled in their own house. It was well understood that they were
about to yield, and that the conference had been a mere form. The
friends of Mary had found that, by setting her up as her husband's
rival, they had deeply displeased her. Some of the Peers who had
formerly voted for a Regency had determined to absent themselves or to
support the resolution of the Lower House. Their opinion, they said,
was unchanged: but any government was better than no government, and the
country could not bear a prolongation of this agony of suspense. Even
Nottingham, who, in the Painted Chamber, had taken the lead against the
Commons, declared that, though his own conscience would not suffer him
to give way, he was glad that the consciences of other men were less
squeamish. Several Lords who had not yet voted in the Convention had
been induced to attend; Lord Lexington, who had just hurried over
from the Continent; the Earl of Lincoln, who was half mad; the Earl of
Carlisle, who limped in on crutches; and the Bishop of Durham, who had
been in hiding and had intended to fly beyond sea, but had received an
intimation that, if he would vote for the settling of the government,
his conduct in the Ecclesiastical Commission should not be remembered
against him. Danby, desirous to heal the schism which he had caused,
exhorted the House, in a speech distinguished by even more than his
usual ability, not to persevere in a contest which might be fatal to
the state. He was strenuously supported by Halifax. The spirit of the
opposite party was quelled. When the question was put whether King James
had abdicated the government only three lords said Not Content. On the
question whether the throne was vacant, a division was demanded.
The Contents were sixty-two; the Not Contents forty-seven. It was
immediately proposed and carried, without a division, that the Prince
and Princess of Orange should be declared King and Queen of England.
[666]

Nottingham then moved that the wording of the oaths of allegiance
and supremacy should be altered in such a way that they might be
conscientiously taken by persons who, like himself, disapproved of what
the Convention had done, and yet fully purposed to be loyal and dutiful
subjects of the new sovereigns. To this proposition no objection was
made. Indeed there can be little doubt that there was an understanding
on the subject between the Whig leaders and those Tory Lords whose votes
had turned the scale on the last division. The new oaths were sent
down to the Commons, together with the resolution that the Prince and
Princess should be declared King and Queen. [667]

It was now known to whom the crown would be given. On what conditions it
should be given, still remained to be decided. The Commons had appointed
a committee to consider what steps it might be advisable to take,
in order to secure law and liberty against the aggressions of future
sovereigns; and the committee had made a report. [668] This report
recommended, first, that those great principles of the constitution
which had been violated by the dethroned King should be solemnly
asserted, and, secondly, that many new laws should be enacted, for the
purpose of curbing the prerogative and purifying the administration of
justice. Most of the suggestions of the committee were excellent; but it
was utterly impossible that the Houses could, in a month, or even in
a year, deal properly with matters so numerous, so various, and so
important. It was proposed, among other things, that the militia
should be remodelled, that the power which the sovereign possessed of
proroguing and dissolving Parliaments should be restricted; that the
duration of Parliaments should be limited; that the royal pardon should
no longer be pleadable to a parliamentary impeachment; that toleration
should be granted to Protestant Dissenters; that the crime of high
treason should be more precisely defined; that trials for high treason
should be conducted in a manner more favourable to innocence; that the
judges should hold their places for life; that the mode of appointing
Sheriffs should be altered; that juries should be nominated in such a
way as might exclude partiality and corruption; that the practice of
filing criminal informations in the King's Bench should be abolished;
that the Court of Chancery should be reformed; that the fees of public
functionaries should be regulated; and that the law of Quo Warranto
should be amended. It was evident that cautious and deliberate
legislation on these subjects must be the work of more than one
laborious session; and it was equally evident that hasty and crude
legislation on subjects so grave could not but produce new grievances,
worse than those which it might remove. If the committee meant to give a
list of the reforms which ought to be accomplished before the throne was
filled, the list was absurdly long. If, on the other hand, the committee
meant to give a list of all the reforms which the legislature would do
well to make in proper season, the list was strangely imperfect. Indeed,
as soon as the report had been read, member after member rose to suggest
some addition. It was moved and carried that the selling of offices
should be prohibited, that the Habeas Corpus Act should be made more
efficient, and that the law of Mandamus should be revised. One gentleman
fell on the chimneymen, another on the excisemen; and the House resolved
that the malpractices of both chimneymen and excisemen should be
restrained. It is a most remarkable circumstance that, while the whole
political, military, judicial, and fiscal system of the kingdom was thus
passed in review, not a single representative of the people proposed the
repeal of the statute which subjected the press to a censorship. It was
not yet understood, even by the most enlightened men, that the liberty
of discussion is the chief safeguard of all other liberties. [669]

The House was greatly perplexed. Some orators vehemently said that too
much time had already been lost, and that the government ought to be
settled without the delay of a day. Society was unquiet: trade was
languishing: the English colony in Ireland was in imminent danger of
perishing, a foreign war was impending: the exiled King might, in a few
weeks, be at Dublin with a French army, and from Dublin he might soon
cross to Chester. Was it not insanity, at such a crisis, to leave the
throne unfilled, and, while the very existence of Parliaments was
in jeopardy, to waste time in debating whether Parliaments should be
prorogued by the sovereign or by themselves? On the other side it was
asked whether the Convention could think that it had fulfilled its
mission by merely pulling down one prince and putting up another. Surely
now or never was the time to secure public liberty by such fences as
might effectually prevent the encroachments of prerogative. [670] There
was doubtless great weight in what was urged on both sides. The
able chiefs of the Whig party, among whom Somers was fast rising to
ascendency, proposed a middle course. The House had, they said, two
objects in view, which ought to be kept distinct. One object was to
secure the old polity of the realm against illegal attacks: the other
was to improve that polity by legal reforms. The former object might be
attained by solemnly putting on record, in the resolution which called
the new sovereigns to the throne, the claim of the English nation to
its ancient franchises, so that the King might hold his crown, and the
people their privileges, by one and the same title deed. The latter
object would require a whole volume of elaborate statutes. The former
object might be attained in a day; the latter, scarcely in five years.
As to the former object, all parties were agreed: as to the latter,
there were innumerable varieties of opinion. No member of either House
would hesitate for a moment to vote that the King could not levy taxes
without the consent of Parliament: but it would be hardly possible to
frame any new law of procedure in cases of high treason which would not
give rise to long debate, and be condemned by some persons as unjust to
the prisoner, and by others as unjust to the crown. The business of an
extraordinary convention of the Estates of the Realm was not to do
the ordinary work of Parliaments, to regulate the fees of masters in
Chancery, and to provide against the exactions of gaugers, but to put
right the great machine of government. When this had been done, it would
be time to inquire what improvement our institutions needed: nor would
anything be risked by delay; for no sovereign who reigned merely by the
choice of the nation could long refuse his assent to any improvement
which the nation, speaking through its representatives, demanded.

On these grounds the Commons wisely determined to postpone all reforms
till the ancient constitution of the kingdom should have been restored
in all its parts, and forthwith to fill the throne without imposing on
William and Mary any other obligation than that of governing according
to the existing laws of England. In order that the questions which had
been in dispute between the Stuarts and the nation might never again be
stirred, it was determined that the instrument by which the Prince and
Princess of Orange were called to the throne, and by which the order
of succession was settled, should set forth, in the most distinct and
solemn manner, the fundamental principles of the constitution. This
instrument, known by the name of the Declaration of Right, was prepared
by a committee, of which Somers was chairman. The fact that the low born
young barrister was appointed to so honourable and important a post in a
Parliament filled with able and experienced men, only ten days after
he had spoken in the House of Commons for the first time, sufficiently
proves the superiority of his abilities. In a few hours the Declaration
was framed and approved by the Commons. The Lords assented to it with
some amendments of no great importance. [671]

The Declaration began by recapitulating the crimes and errors which
had made a revolution necessary. James had invaded the province of the
legislature; had treated modest petitioning as a crime; had oppressed
the Church by means of an illegal tribunal; had, without the consent
of Parliament, levied taxes and maintained a standing army in time of
peace; had violated the freedom of election, and perverted the course
of justice. Proceedings which could lawfully be questioned only in
Parliament had been made the subjects of prosecution in the King's
Bench. Partial and corrupt juries had been returned: excessive bail
had been required from prisoners, excessive fines had been imposed:
barbarous and unusual punishments had been inflicted: the estates of
accused persons had been granted away before conviction. He, by whose
authority these things had been done, had abdicated the government.
The Prince of Orange, whom God had made the glorious instrument of
delivering the nation from superstition and tyranny, had invited the
Estates of the Realm to meet and to take counsel together for the
securing of religion, of law, and of freedom. The Lords and Commons,
having deliberated, had resolved that they would first, after the
example of their ancestors, assert the ancient rights and liberties of
England. Therefore it was declared that the dispensing power, lately
assumed and exercised, had no legal existence; that, without grant of
Parliament, no money could be exacted by the sovereign from the subject;
that, without consent of Parliament, no standing army could be kept
up in time of peace. The right of subjects to petition, the right of
electors to choose representatives freely, the right of Parliaments
to freedom of debate, the right of the nation to a pure and merciful
administration of justice according to the spirit of its own mild laws,
were solemnly affirmed. All these things the Convention claimed, in the
name of the whole nation, as the undoubted inheritance of Englishmen.
Having thus vindicated the principles of the constitution, the Lords and
Commons, in the entire confidence that the deliverer would hold sacred
the laws and liberties which he had saved, resolved that William and
Mary, Prince and Princess of Orange, should be declared King and Queen
of England for their joint and separate lives, and that, during their
joint lives, the administration of the government should be in the
Prince alone. After them the crown was settled on the posterity of Mary,
then on Anne and her posterity, and then on the posterity of William.

By this time the wind had ceased to blow from the west. The ship
in which the Princess of Orange had embarked lay off Margate on the
eleventh of February, and, on the following morning, anchored at
Greenwich. [672] She was received with many signs of joy and affection:
but her demeanour shocked the Tories, and was not thought faultless even
by the Whigs. A young woman, placed, by a destiny as mournful and awful
as that which brooded over the fabled houses of Labdacus and Pelops, in
such a situation that she could not, without violating her duty to her
God, her husband, and her country, refuse to take her seat on the throne
from which her father had just been hurled, should have been sad, or at
least serious. Mary was not merely in high, but in extravagant, spirits.
She entered Whitehall, it was asserted, with a girlish delight at
being mistress of so fine a house, ran about the rooms, peeped into the
closets, and examined the quilt of the state bed, without seeming to
remember by whom those magnificent apartments had last been occupied.
Burnet, who had, till then, thought her an angel in human form, could
not, on this occasion, refrain from blaming her. He was the more
astonished because, when he took leave of her at the Hague, she had,
though fully convinced that she was in the path of duty, been deeply
dejected. To him, as to her spiritual guide, she afterwards explained
her conduct. William had written to inform her that some of those
who had tried to separate her interest from his still continued their
machinations: they gave it out that she thought herself wronged; and,
if she wore a gloomy countenance, the report would be confirmed. He
therefore intreated her to make her first appearance with an air of
cheerfulness. Her heart, she said, was far indeed from cheerful; but she
had done her best; and, as she was afraid of not sustaining well a
part which was uncongenial to her feelings, she had overacted it. Her
deportment was the subject of reams of scurrility in prose and verse: it
lowered her in the opinion of some whose esteem she valued; nor did the
world know, till she was beyond the reach of praise and censure,
that the conduct which had brought on her the reproach of levity
and insensibility was really a signal instance of that perfect
disinterestedness and selfdevotion of which man seems to be incapable,
but which is sometimes found in woman. [673]

On the morning of Wednesday, the thirteenth of February, the court of
Whitehall and all the neighbouring streets were filled with gazers. The
magnificent Banqueting House, the masterpiece of Inigo, embellished
by masterpieces of Rubens, had been prepared for a great ceremony. The
walls were lined by the yeomen of the guard. Near the northern door, on
the right hand, a large number of Peers had assembled. On the left were
the Commons with their Speaker, attended by the mace. The southern door
opened: and the Prince and Princess of Orange, side by side, entered,
and took their place under the canopy of state.

Both Houses approached bowing low. William and Mary advanced a few
steps. Halifax on the right, and Powle on the left, stood forth; and
Halifax spoke. The Convention, he said, had agreed to a resolution which
he prayed Their Highnesses to hear. They signified their assent; and the
clerk of the House of Lords read, in a loud voice, the Declaration of
Right. When he had concluded, Halifax, in the name of all the Estates of
the Realm, requested the Prince and Princess to accept the crown.

William, in his own name and in that of his wife, answered that the
crown was, in their estimation, the more valuable because it was
presented to them as a token of the confidence of the nation. "We
thankfully accept," he said, "what you have offered us. " Then, for
himself, he assured them that the laws of England, which he had once
already vindicated, should be the rules of his conduct, that it should
be his study to promote the welfare of the kingdom, and that, as to
the means of doing so, he should constantly recur to the advice of the
Houses, and should be disposed to trust their judgment rather than his
own. [674] These words were received with a shout of joy which was heard
in the streets below, and was instantly answered by huzzas from many
thousands of voices. The Lords and Commons then reverently retired
from the Banqueting House and went in procession to the great gate
of Whitehall, where the heralds and pursuivants were waiting in their
gorgeous tabards. All the space as far as Charing Cross was one sea of
heads. The kettle drums struck up; the trumpets pealed: and Garter King
at arms, in a loud voice, proclaimed the Prince and Princess of Orange
King and Queen of England, charged all Englishmen to pay, from that
moment, faith and true allegiance to the new sovereigns, and besought
God, who had already wrought so signal a deliverance for our Church and
nation, to bless William and Mary with a long and happy reign. [675]

Thus was consummated the English Revolution. When we compare it with
those revolutions which have, during the last sixty years, overthrown
so many ancient governments, we cannot but be struck by its peculiar
character. Why that character was so peculiar is sufficiently obvious,
and yet seems not to have been always understood either by eulogists or
by censors.

The continental revolutions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
took place in countries where all trace of the limited monarchy of the
middle ages had long been effaced. The right of the prince to make laws
and to levy money had, during many generations, been undisputed. His
throne was guarded by a great regular army. His administration could
not, without extreme peril, be blamed even in the mildest terms.
His subjects held their personal liberty by no other tenure than his
pleasure. Not a single institution was left which had, within the memory
of the oldest man, afforded efficient protection to the subject against
the utmost excess of tyranny. Those great councils which had once curbed
the regal power had sunk into oblivion. Their composition and their
privileges were known only to antiquaries. We cannot wonder, therefore,
that, when men who had been thus ruled succeeded in wresting supreme
power from a government which they had long in secret hated, they should
have been impatient to demolish and unable to construct, that they
should have been fascinated by every specious novelty, that they should
have proscribed every title, ceremony, and phrase associated with the
old system, and that, turning away with disgust from their own national
precedents and traditions, they should have sought for principles of
government in the writings of theorists, or aped, with ignorant and
ungraceful affectation, the patriots of Athens and Rome. As little can
we wonder that the violent action of the revolutionary spirit should
have been followed by reaction equally violent, and that confusion
should speedily have engendered despotism sterner than that from which
it had sprung.

Had we been in the same situation; had Strafford succeeded in his
favourite scheme of Thorough; had he formed an army as numerous and
as well disciplined as that which, a few years later, was formed by
Cromwell; had a series of judicial decisions, similar to that which
was pronounced by the Exchequer Chamber in the case of shipmoney,
transferred to the crown the right of taxing the people; had the
Star Chamber and the High Commission continued to fine, mutilate, and
imprison every man who dared to raise his voice against the government;
had the press been as completely enslaved here as at Vienna or
at Naples; had our Kings gradually drawn to themselves the whole
legislative power; had six generations of Englishmen passed away without
a single session of parliament; and had we then at length risen up in
some moment of wild excitement against our masters, what an outbreak
would that have been! With what a crash, heard and felt to the farthest
ends of the world, would the whole vast fabric of society have fallen!
How many thousands of exiles, once the most prosperous and the most
refined members of this great community, would have begged their bread
in continental cities, or have sheltered their heads under huts of bark
in the uncleared forests of America! How often should we have seen
the pavement of London piled up in barricades, the houses dinted with
bullets, the gutters foaming with blood! How many times should we have
rushed wildly from extreme to extreme, sought refuge from anarchy in
despotism, and been again driven by despotism into anarchy! How many
years of blood and confusion would it have cost us to learn the very
rudiments of political science! How many childish theories would have
duped us! How many rude and ill poised constitutions should we have set
up, only to see them tumble down! Happy would it have been for us if
a sharp discipline of half a century had sufficed to educate us into a
capacity of enjoying true freedom.

These calamities our Revolution averted. It was a revolution strictly
defensive, and had prescription and legitimacy on its side. Here, and
here only, a limited monarchy of the thirteenth century had come down
unimpaired to the seventeenth century. Our parliamentary institutions
were in full vigour. The main principles of our government were
excellent. They were not, indeed, formally and exactly set forth in a
single written instrument; but they were to be found scattered over our
ancient and noble statutes; and, what was of far greater moment, they
had been engraven on the hearts of Englishmen during four hundred years.
That, without the consent of the representatives of the nation, no
legislative act could be passed, no tax imposed, no regular soldiery
kept up, that no man could be imprisoned, even for a day, by the
arbitrary will of the sovereign, that no tool of power could plead the
royal command as a justification for violating any right of the humblest
subject, were held, both by Whigs and Tories, to be fundamental laws of
the realm. A realm of which these were the fundamental laws stood in no
need of a new constitution.

But, though a new constitution was not needed, it was plain that changes
were required. The misgovernment of the Stuarts, and the troubles which
that misgovernment had produced, sufficiently proved that there was
somewhere a defect in our polity; and that defect it was the duty of the
Convention to discover and to supply.

Some questions of great moment were still open to dispute. Our
constitution had begun to exist in times when statesmen were not
much accustomed to frame exact definitions. Anomalies, therefore,
inconsistent with its principles and dangerous to its very existence,
had sprung up almost imperceptibly, and, not having, during many years,
caused any serious inconvenience, had gradually acquired the force of
prescription. The remedy for these evils was to assert the rights of
the people in such language as should terminate all controversy, and to
declare that no precedent could justify any violation of those rights.

When this had been done it would be impossible for our rulers to
misunderstand the law: but, unless something more were done, it was by
no means improbable that they might violate it. Unhappily the Church
had long taught the nation that hereditary monarchy, alone among our
institutions, was divine and inviolable; that the right of the House of
Commons to a share in the legislative power was a right merely human,
but that the right of the King to the obedience of his people was from
above; that the Great Charter was a statute which might be repealed by
those who had made it, but that the rule which called the princes of
the blood royal to the throne in order of succession was of celestial
origin, and that any Act of Parliament inconsistent with that rule was
a nullity. It is evident that, in a society in which such superstitions
prevail, constitutional freedom must ever be insecure. A power which is
regarded merely as the ordinance of man cannot be an efficient check on
a power which is regarded as the ordinance of God. It is vain to hope
that laws, however excellent, will permanently restrain a King who,
in his own opinion, and in that of a great part of his people, has an
authority infinitely higher in kind than the authority which belongs to
those laws. To deprive royalty of these mysterious attributes, and to
establish the principle that Kings reigned by a right in no respect
differing from the right by which freeholders chose knights of the
shire, or from the right by which judges granted writs of Habeas Corpus,
was absolutely necessary to the security of our liberties.

Thus the Convention had two great duties to perform. The first was to
clear the fundamental laws of the realm from ambiguity. The second was
to eradicate from the minds, both of the governors and of the governed,
the false and pernicious notion that the royal prerogative was something
more sublime and holy than those fundamental laws. The former object was
attained by the solemn recital and claim with which the Declaration
of Right commences; the latter by the resolution which pronounced the
throne vacant, and invited William and Mary to fill it.

The change seems small. Not a single flower of the crown was touched.
Not a single new right was given to the people. The whole English law,
substantive and adjective, was, in the judgment of all the greatest
lawyers, of Holt and Treby, of Maynard and Somers, exactly the same
after the Revolution as before it. Some controverted points had been
decided according to the sense of the best jurists; and there had been
a slight deviation from the ordinary course of succession. This was all;
and this was enough.

As our Revolution was a vindication of ancient rights, so it was
conducted with strict attention to ancient formalities. In almost every
word and act may be discerned a profound reverence for the past. The
Estates of the Realm deliberated in the old halls and according to the
old rules. Powle was conducted to his chair between his mover and his
seconder with the accustomed forms. The Serjeant with his mace brought
up the messengers of the Lords to the table of the Commons; and the
three obeisances were duly made. The conference was held with all the
antique ceremonial. On one side of the table, in the Painted Chamber,
the managers of the Lords sate covered and robed in ermine and gold. The
managers of the Commons stood bareheaded on the other side. The speeches
present an almost ludicrous contrast to the revolutionary oratory of
every other country. Both the English parties agreed in treating with
solemn respect the ancient constitutional traditions of the state. The
only question was, in what sense those traditions were to be understood.
The assertors of liberty said not a word about the natural equality of
men and the inalienable sovereignty of the people, about Harmodius or
Timoleon, Brutus the elder or Brutus the younger. When they were told
that, by the English law, the crown, at the moment of a demise, must
descend to the next heir, they answered that, by the English law, a
living man could have no heir. When they were told that there was no
precedent for declaring the throne vacant, they produced from among the
records in the Tower a roll of parchment, near three hundred years old,
on which, in quaint characters and barbarous Latin, it was recorded that
the Estates of the Realm had declared vacant the throne of a perfidious
and tyrannical Plantagenet. When at length the dispute had been
accommodated, the new sovereigns were proclaimed with the old pageantry.
All the fantastic pomp of heraldry was there, Clarencieux and Norroy,
Portcullis and Rouge Dragon, the trumpets, the banners, the grotesque
coats embroidered with lions and lilies. The title of King of France,
assumed by the conqueror of Cressy, was not omitted in the royal style.
To us, who have lived in the year 1848, it may seem almost an abuse of
terms to call a proceeding, conducted with so much deliberation, with so
much sobriety, and with such minute attention to prescriptive etiquette,
by the terrible name of Revolution.

And yet this revolution, of all revolutions the least violent, has been
of all revolutions the most beneficent. It finally decided the great
question whether the popular element which had, ever since the age of
Fitzwalter and De Montfort, been found in the English polity, should be
destroyed by the monarchical element, or should be suffered to develope
itself freely, and to become dominant. The strife between the two
principles had been long, fierce, and doubtful. It had lasted through
four reigns. It had produced seditions, impeachments, rebellions,
battles, sieges, proscriptions, judicial massacres. Sometimes liberty,
sometimes royalty, had seemed to be on the point of perishing. During
many years one half of the energy of England had been employed in
counteracting the other half. The executive power and the legislative
power had so effectually impeded each other that the state had been of
no account in Europe. The King at Arms, who proclaimed William and Mary
before Whitehall Gate, did in truth announce that this great struggle
was over; that there was entire union between the throne and the
Parliament; that England, long dependent and degraded, was again a power
of the first rank; that the ancient laws by which the prerogative was
bounded would henceforth be held as sacred as the prerogative itself,
and would be followed out to all their consequences; that the executive
administration would be conducted in conformity with the sense of the
representatives of the nation; and that no reform, which the two
Houses should, after mature deliberation, propose, would be obstinately
withstood by the sovereign. The Declaration of Right, though it made
nothing law which had not been law before, contained the germ of the law
which gave religious freedom to the Dissenter, of the law which secured
the independence of the judges, of the law which limited the duration of
Parliaments, of the law which placed the liberty of the press under the
protection of juries, of the law which prohibited the slave trade, of
the law which abolished the sacramental test, of the law which relieved
the Roman Catholics from civil disabilities, of the law which reformed
the representative system, of every good law which has been passed
during a hundred and sixty years, of every good law which may hereafter,
in the course of ages, be found necessary to promote the public weal,
and to satisfy the demands of public opinion.

The highest eulogy which can be pronounced on the revolution of 1688
is this, that it was our last revolution. Several generations have
now passed away since any wise and patriotic Englishman has meditated
resistance to the established government. In all honest and reflecting
minds there is a conviction, daily strengthened by experience, that the
means of effecting every improvement which the constitution requires may
be found within the constitution itself.

Now, if ever, we ought to be able to appreciate the whole importance of
the stand which was made by our forefathers against the House of Stuart.
All around us the world is convulsed by the agonies of great nations.
Governments which lately seemed likely to stand during ages have been on
a sudden shaken and overthrown. The proudest capitals of Western Europe
have streamed with civil blood. All evil passions, the thirst of gain
and the thirst of vengeance, the antipathy of class to class, the
antipathy of race to race, have broken loose from the control of divine
and human laws. Fear and anxiety have clouded the faces and depressed
the hearts of millions. Trade has been suspended, and industry
paralysed. The rich have become poor; and the poor have become poorer.
Doctrines hostile to all sciences, to all arts, to all industry, to all
domestic charities, doctrines which, if carried into effect, would, in
thirty years, undo all that thirty centuries have done for mankind,
and would make the fairest provinces of France and Germany as savage as
Congo or Patagonia, have been avowed from the tribune and defended by
the sword. Europe has been threatened with subjugation by barbarians,
compared with whom the barbarians who marched under Attila and Alboin
were enlightened and humane.