[1] Letter from Lady Cavendish to Sylvia. Lady Cavendish, like most of the clever girls of that generation, had Scudery's romances always in her head. She is Dorinda: her correspondent, supposed to be her cousin Jane Allington, is Sylvia: William is Ormanzor, and Mary Phenixana. London Gazette, Feb. 14 1688/9; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary. Luttrell's Diary, which I shall very often quote, is in the library of All Souls' College. I am greatly obliged to the Warden for the kindness with which he allowed me access to this valuable manuscript.
[2] See the London Gazettes of February and March 1688/9, and Narcissus Luttrell's Diary,
[3] Wagenaar, lxi. He quotes the proceedings of the States of the 2nd of March, 1689. London Gazette, April 11, 1689; Monthly Mercury for April, 1689.
[4] "I may be positive," says a writer who had been educated at Westminster School, "where I heard one sermon of repentance, faith, and the renewing of the Holy Ghost, I heard three of the other; and 'tis hard to say whether Jesus Christ or King Charles the First were oftener mentioned and magnified." Bisset's Modern Fanatick, 1710.
[5] Paris Gazette, Jan 26/Feb 5 1689. Orange Gazette, London, Jan. 10. 1688/9
[6] Grey's Debates; Howe's speech; Feb. 26. 1688/9; Boscawen's speech, March 1; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary, Feb. 23-27.
[7] Grey's Debates; Feb. 26. 1688/9
[8] This illustration is repeated to satiety in sermons and pamphlets of the time of William the Third. There is a poor imitation of Absalom and Ahitophel entitled the Murmurers. William is Moses; Corah, Dathan and Abiram, nonjuring Bishops; Balaam, I think, Dryden; and Phinchas Shrewsbury,
[9] Reresby's Memoirs.
[10] Here, and in many other places, I abstain from citing authorities, because my authorities are too numerous to cite. My notions of the temper and relative position of political and religious parties in the reign of William the Third, have been derived, not from any single work, but from thousands of forgotten tracts, sermons, and satires; in fact, from a whole literature which is mouldering in old libraries.
[11] The following passage in a tract of that time expresses the general opinion. "He has better knowledge of foreign affairs than we have; but in English business it is no dishonour to him to be told his relation to us, the nature of it, and what is fit for him to do."--An Honest Commoner's Speech.
[12] London Gazette, Feb. 18. 1688/9
[13] London Gazette, Feb. 18. 1688/9; Sir J. Reresby's Memoirs.
[14] London Gazette, Feb. 18. 1688/9; Lords' Journals.
[15] Burnet, ii. 4.
[16] These memoirs will be found in a manuscript volume, which is part of the Harleian Collection, and is numbered 6584. They are in fact, the first outlines of a great part of Burnet's History of His Own Times. The dates at which the different portions of this most curious and interesting book were composed are marked. Almost the whole was written before the death of Mary. Burnet did not begin to prepare his History of William's reign for the press till ten years later. By that time his opinions both of men and of things, had undergone great changes. The value of the rough draught is therefore very great: for it contains some facts which he afterwards thought it advisable to suppress, and some judgments which he afterwards saw cause to alter. I must own that I generally like his first thoughts best. Whenever his History is reprinted, it ought to be carefully collated with this volume.
When I refer to the Burnet MS. Harl. 6584, I wish the reader to understand that the MS. contains something which is not to be found in the History.
As to Nottingham's appointment, see Burnet, ii. 8; the London Gazette of March 7. 1688/9; and Clarendon's Diary of Feb. 15.
[17] London Gazette, Feb. 18. 1688/9
[18] Don Pedro de Ronquillo makes this objection.
[19] London Gazette, March 11 1688/9.
[20] Ibid.
[21] I have followed what seems to me the most probable story. But it has been doubted whether Nottingham was invited to be Chancellor, or only to be First Commissioner of the Great Seal. Compare Burnet ii. 3., and Boyer's History of William, 1702. Narcissus Luttrell repeatedly, and even as late as the close of 1692, speaks of Nottingham as likely to be Chancellor.
[22] Roger North relates an amusing story about Shaftesbury's embarrassments.
[23] London Gazette March 4. 1688/9
[24] Burnet ii. 5.
[25] The Protestant Mask taken off from the Jesuited Englishman, 1692.
[26] These appointments were not announced in the Gazette till the 6th of May; but some of them were made earlier.
[27] Kennet's Funeral Sermon on the first Duke of Devonshire, and Memoirs of the Family of Cavendish, 1708.
[28] See a poem entitled, A Votive Tablet to the King and Queen.
[29] See Prior's Dedication of his Poems to Dorset's son and
successor, and Dryden's Essay on Satire prefixed to the
Translations from Juvenal. There is a bitter sneer on Dryden's
effeminate querulousness in Collier's Short View of the Stage. In
Blackmore's Prince Arthur, a poem which, worthless as it is,
contains some curious allusions to contemporary men and events,
are the following lines
"The poets' nation did obsequious wait
For the kind dole divided at his gate.
Laurus among the meagre crowd appeared,
An old, revolted, unbelieving bard,
Who thronged, and shoved, and pressed, and would be heard.
Sakil's high roof, the Muses' palace, rung
With endless cries, and endless sons he sung.
To bless good Sakil Laurus would be first;
But Sakil's prince and Sakil's God he curst.
Sakil without distinction threw his bread,
Despised the flatterer, but the poet fed."
I need not say that Sakil is Sackville, or that Laurus is a
translation of the famous nickname Bayes.
[30] Scarcely any man of that age is more frequently mentioned
in pamphlets and satires than Howe. In the famous petition of
Legion, he is designated as "that impudent scandal of
Parliaments." Mackay's account of him is curious. In a poem
written in 1690, which I have never seen except in manuscript,
are the following lines
"First for Jack Howe with his terrible talent,
Happy the female that scapes his lampoon;
Against the ladies excessively valiant,
But very respectful to a Dragoon."
[31] Sprat's True Account; North's Examen; Letter to Chief Justice Holt, 1694; Letter to Secretary Trenchard, 1694.
[32] Van Citters, Feb 19/March 1 1688/9
[33] Stat. I W.&M. sess. i. c. I. See the Journals of the two Houses, and Grey's Debates. The argument in favour of the bill is well stated in the Paris Gazettes of March 5. and 12. 1689.
[34] Both Van Citters and Ronquillo mention the anxiety which was felt in London till the result was known.
[35] Lords' Journals, March 1688/9
[36] See the letters of Rochester and of Lady Ranelagh to Burnet on this occasion.
[37] Journals of the Commons, March 2. 1688/9 Ronquillo wrote as follows: "Es de gran consideracion que Seimor haya tomado el juramento; porque es el arrengador y el director principal, en la casa de los Comunes, de los Anglicanos." March 8/18 1688/9
[38] Grey's Debates, Feb. 25, 26, and 27. 1688/9
[39] Commons' Journals, and Grey's Debates, March 1. 1688/9
[40] I W. & M. sess. I c.10; Burnet, ii. 13.
[41] Commons' Journals, March 15. 1688/9 So late as 1713, Arbuthnot, in the fifth part of John Bull, alluded to this transaction with much pleasantry. "As to your Venire Facias," says John to Nick Frog, "I have paid you for one already."
[42] Wagenaar, lxi.
[43] Commons' Journals, March 15. 1688/9.
[44] Reresby's Memoirs.
[45] Commons' Journals, and Grey's Debates, March 15. 1688/9; London Gazette, March 18.
[46] As to the state of this region in the latter part of the seventeenth and the earlier part of the eighteenth century, see Pepys's Diary, Sept. 18. 1663, and the Tour through the whole Island of Great Britain, 1724.
[47] London Gazette, March 25. 1689; Van Citters to the States General, March 22/April 1 Letters of Nottingham in the State Paper Office, dated July 23 and August 9. 1689; Historical Record of the First Regiment of Foot, printed by authority. See also a curious digression in the Compleat History of the Life and Military Actions of Richard, Earl of Tyrconnel, 1689.
[48] Stat. I W.&M. sess. I. c. 5.; Commons' Journals, March 28. 1689.
[49] Stat. I W.& M. sess. I. c. 2.
[50] Ronquillo, March 8/18. 16S9.
[51] See the account given in Spence's Anecdotes of the Origin of Dryden's Medal.
[52] Guardian, No. 67.
[53] There is abundant proof that William, though a very affectionate, was not always a polite husband. But no credit is due to the story contained in the letter which Dalrymple was foolish enough to publish as Nottingham's in 1773, and wise enough to omit in the edition of 1790. How any person who knew any thing of the history of those times could be so strangely deceived, it is not easy to understand particularly as the handwriting bears no resemblance to Nottingham's, with which Dalrymple was familiar. The letter is evidently a common newsletter, written by a scribbler, who had never seen the King and Queen except at some public place, and whose anecdotes of their private life rested on no better authority than coffeehouse gossip.
[54] Ronquillo; Burnet, ii. 2.; Duchess of Marlborough's Vindication. In a pastoral dialogue between Philander and Palaemon, published in 1691, the dislike with which women of fashion regarded William is mentioned. Philander says
"But man methinks his reason should recall,
Nor let frail woman work his second fall."
[55] Tutchin's Observator of November 16. 1706.
[56] Prior, who was treated by William with much kindness, and who was very grateful for it, informs us that the King did not understand poetical eulogy. The passage is in a highly curious manuscript, the property of Lord Lansdowne.
[57] Memoires originaux sur le regne et la cour de Frederic I, Roi de Prusse, ecrits par Christophe Comte de Dohna. Berlin, 1833. It is strange that this interesting volume should be almost unknown in England. The only copy that I have ever seen of it was kindly given to me by Sir Robert Adair. "Le Roi," Dohna says, "avoit une autre qualite tres estimable, qui est celle de n'aimer point qu'on rendit de mauvais offices a personne par des railleries." The Marquis de La Foret tried to entertain His Majesty at the expense of an English nobleman. "Ce prince," says Dohna "prit son air severe, et, le regardant sans mot dire, lui fit rentrer les paroles dans le ventre. Le Marquis m'en fit ses plaintes quelques heures apres. 'J'ai mal pris ma bisque,' dit- il; 'j'ai cru faire l'agreable sur le chapitre de Milord . . mais j'ai trouva a qui parler, et j'ai attrape un regard du roi qui m'a fait passer l'envie de tire.'" Dohna supposed that William might be less sensitive about the character of a Frenchman, and tried the experiment. But, says he, "j'eus a peu pres le meme sort que M. de la Foret."
[58] Compare the account of Mary by the Whig Burnet with the mention of her by the Tory Evelyn in his Diary, March 8. 1694/5, and with what is said of her by the Nonjuror who wrote the Letter to Archbishop Tennison on her death in 1695. The impression which the bluntness and reserve of William and the grace and gentleness of Mary had made on the populace may be traced in the remains of the street poetry of that time. The following conjugal dialogue may still be seen on the original broadside.
"Then bespoke Mary, our most royal Queen,
'My gracious king William, where are you going?'
He answered her quickly, 'I count him no man
That telleth his secret unto a woman.'
The Queen with a modest behaviour replied,
'I wish that kind Providence may be thy guide,
To keep thee from danger, my sovereign Lord,
He which will the greatest of comfort afford.'"
These lines are in an excellent collection formed by Mr. Richard Heber, and now the property of Mr. Broderip, by whom it was kindly lent to me; in one of the most savage Jacobite pasquinades of 1689, William is described as
"A churle to his wife, which she makes but a jest."
[59] Burnet, ii. 2.; Burnet, MS. Harl. 6484. But Ronquillo's account is much more circumstantial. "Nada se ha visto mas desfigurado; y, quantas veces he estado con el, le he visto toser tanto que se le saltaban las lagrimas, y se ponia moxado y arrancando; y confiesan los medicos que es una asma incurable," Mar. 8/18 1689. Avaux wrote to the same effect from Ireland. "La sante de l'usurpateur est fort mauvaise. L'on ne croit pas qu'il vive un an." April 8/18.
[60] "Hasta decir los mismos Hollandeses que lo desconozcan," says Ronquillo. "Il est absolument mal propre pour le role qu'il a a jouer a l'heure qu'il est," says Avaux. "Slothful and sickly," says Evelyn. March 29. 1689.
[61] See Harris's description of Loo, 1699.
[62] Every person who is well acquainted with Pope and Addison will remember their sarcasms on this taste. Lady Mary Wortley Montague took the other side. "Old China," she says, "is below nobody's taste, since it has been the Duke of Argyle's, whose understanding has never been doubted either by his friends or enemies."
[63] As to the works at Hampton Court, see Evelyn's Diary, July 16. 1689; the Tour through Great Britain, 1724; the British Apelles; Horace Walpole on Modern Gardening; Burnet, ii. 2, 3.
When Evelyn was at Hampton Court, in 1662, the cartoons were not to be seen. The Triumphs of Andrea Mantegna were then supposed to be the finest pictures in the palace.
[64] Burnet, ii. 2.; Reresby's Memoirs. Ronquillo wrote repeatedly to the same effect. For example, "Bien quisiera que el Rey fuese mas comunicable, y se acomodase un poco mas al humor sociable de los Ingleses, y que estubiera en Londres: pero es cierto que sus achaques no se lo permiten." July 8/18 1689. Avaux, about the same time, wrote thus to Croissy from Ireland: "Le Prince d'Orange est toujours a Hampton Court, et jamais a la ville: et le peuple est fort mal satisfait de cette maniere bizarre et retiree."
[65] Several of his letters to Heinsius are dated from Holland House.
[66] Narcissus Luttrell's Diary; Evelyn's Diary, Feb. 25 1689/1690
[67] De Foe makes this excuse for William
"We blame the King that he relies too much
On strangers, Germans, Huguenots, and Dutch,
And seldom does his great affairs of state
To English counsellors communicate.
The fact might very well be answered thus,
He has too often been betrayed by us.
He must have been a madman to rely
On English gentlemen's fidelity.
The foreigners have faithfully obeyed him,
And none but Englishmen have e'er betrayed him."
The True Born Englishman, Part ii.
[68] Ronquillo had the good sense and justice to make allowances which the English did not make. After describing, in a despatch dated March 1/11. 1689, the lamentable state of the military and naval establishments, he says, "De esto no tiene culpa el Principe de Oranges; porque pensar que se han de poder volver en dos meses tres Reynos de abaxo arriba es una extravagancia." Lord President Stair, in a letter written from London about a month later, says that the delays of the English administration had lowered the King's reputation, "though without his fault."
[69] Burnet, ii. 4.; Reresby.
[70] Reresby's Memoirs; Burnet MS. Hart. 6584.
[71] Burnet, ii. 3, 4. 15.
[72] ibid. ii. 5.
[73] "How does he do to distribute his hours,
Some to the Court, and some to the City,
Some to the State, and some to Love's powers,
Some to be vain, and some to be witty?"
The Modern Lampooners, a poem of 1690
[74] Burnet ii. 4
[75] Ronquillo calls the Whig functionaries "Gente que no tienen practica ni experiencia." He adds, "Y de esto procede el pasarse un mes y un otro, sin executarse nada." June 24. 1689. In one of the innumerable Dialogues which appeared at that time, the Tory interlocutor puts the question, "Do you think the government would be better served by strangers to business?" The Whig answers, "Better ignorant friends than understanding enemies."
[76] Negotiations de M. Le Comte d'Avaux, 4 Mars 1683; Torcy's Memoirs.
[77] The original correspondence of William and Heinsius is in Dutch. A French translation of all William's letters, and an English translation of a few of Heinsius's Letters, are among the Mackintosh MSS. The Baron Sirtema de Grovestins, who has had access to the originals, frequently quotes passages in his "Histoire des luttes et rivalites entre les puissances maritimes et la France." There is very little difference in substance, though much in phraseology, between his version and that which I have used.
[78] Though these very convenient names are not, as far as I know, to be found in any book printed during the earlier years of William's reign, I shall use them without scruple, as others have done, in writing about the transactions of those years.
[79] Burnet, ii. 8.; Birch's Life of Tillotson; Life of Kettlewell, part iii. section 62.
[80] Swift, writing under the name of Gregory Misosarum, most malignantly and dishonestly represents Burnet as grudging this grant to the Church. Swift cannot have been ignorant that the Church was indebted for the grant chiefly to Burnet's persevering exertions.
[81] See the Life of Burnet at the end of the second volume of his history, his manuscript memoirs, Harl. 6584, his memorials touching the First Fruits and Tenths, and Somers's letter to him on that subject. See also what Dr. King, Jacobite as he was, had the justice to say in his Anecdotes. A most honourable testimony to Burnet's virtues, given by another Jacobite who had attacked him fiercely, and whom he had treated generously, the learned and upright Thomas Baker, will be found in the Gentleman's Magazine for August and September, 1791.
[82] Oldmixon would have us believe that Nottingham was not, at this time, unwilling to give up the Test Act. But Oldmixon's assertion, unsupported by evidence, is of no weight whatever; and all the evidence which he produces makes against his assertion.
[83] Burnet, ii. 6.; Van Citters to the States General, March 1/11 1689; King William's Toleration, being an explanation of that liberty of conscience which may be expected from His Majesty's Declaration, with a Bill for Comprehension and Indulgence, drawn up in order to an Act of Parliament, licensed March 25. 1689.
[84] Commons' Journals, May 17. 1689.
[85] Sense of the subscribed articles by the Ministers of London, 1690; Calamy's Historical Additions to Baxter's Life.
[86] The bill will be found among the Archives of the House of Lords. It is strange that this vast collection of important documents should have been altogether neglected, even by our most exact and diligent historians. It was opened to me by one of the most valued of my friends, Mr. John Lefevre; and my researches were greatly assisted by the kindness of Mr. Thoms.
[87] Among the Tanner MSS. in the Bodleian Library is a very curious letter from Compton to Sancroft, about the Toleration Bill and the Comprehension Bill, "These," says Compton, "are two great works in which the being of our Church is concerned: and I hope you will send to the House for copies. For, though we are under a conquest, God has given us favour in the eyes of our rulers; and they may keep our Church if we will." Sancroft seems to have returned no answer.
[88] The distaste of the High Churchman for the Articles is the subject of a curious pamphlet published in 1689, and entitled a Dialogue between Timothy and Titus.
[89] Tom Brown says, in his scurrilous way, of the Presbyterian divines of that time, that their preaching "brings in money, and money buys land; and land is an amusement they all desire, in spite of their hypocritical cant. If it were not for the quarterly contributions, there would be no longer schism or separation." He asks how it can be imagined that, while "they are maintained like gentlemen by the breach they will ever preach up healing doctrines?"--Brown's Amusements, Serious and Comical. Some curious instances of the influence exercised by the chief dissenting ministers may be found in Hawkins's Life of Johnson. In the Journal of the retired citizen (Spectator, 317.) Addison has indulged in some exquisite pleasantry on this subject. The Mr. Nisby whose opinions about the peace, the Grand Vizier, and laced coffee, are quoted with so much respect, and who is so well regaled with marrow bones, ox cheek, and a bottle of Brooks and Hellier, was John Nesbit, a highly popular preacher, who about the time of the Revolution, became pastor of a dissenting congregation in flare Court Aldersgate Street. In Wilson's History and Antiquities of Dissenting Churches and Meeting Houses in London, Westminster, and Southwark, will be found several instances of nonconformist preachers who, about this time, made handsome fortunes, generally, it should seem, by marriage.
[90] See, among many other tracts, Dodwell's Cautionary Discourse, his Vindication of the Deprived Bishops, his Defence of the Vindication, and his Paraenesis; and Bisby's Unity of Priesthood, printed in 1692. See also Hody's tracts on the other side, the Baroccian MS., and Solomon and Abiathar, a Dialogue between Eucheres and Dyscheres.
[91] Burnet, ii. 135. Of all attempts to distinguish between the deprivations of 1559 and the deprivations of 1689, the most absurd was made by Dodwell. See his Doctrine of the Church of England concerning the independency of the Clergy on the lay Power, 1697.
[92] As to this controversy, see Burnet, ii. 7, 8, 9.; Grey's Debates, April 19. and 22. 1689; Commons' Journals of April 20. and 22.; Lords' Journals, April 21.
[93] Lords' Journals, March 16. 1689.
[94] Burnet, ii. 7, 8.
[95] Burnet says (ii. 8.) that the proposition to abolish the sacramental test was rejected by a great majority in both Houses. But his memory deceived him; for the only division on the subject in the House of Commons was that mentioned in the text. It is remarkable that Gwyn and Rowe, who were tellers for the majority, were two of the strongest Whigs in the House.
[96] Lords' Journals, March 21. 1689.
[97] Lords' Journals, April 5. 1689; Burnet, ii. 10.
[98] Commons' Journals, March 28. April 1. 1689; Paris Gazette, April 23. Part of the passage in the Paris Gazette is worth quoting. "Il y eut, ce jour la (March 28), une grande contestation dans la Chambre Basse, sur la proposition qui fut faite de remettre les séences apres les fetes de Pasques observees toujours par l'Eglise Anglicane. Les Protestans conformistes furent de cet avis; et les Presbyterians emporterent a la pluralite des voix que les seances recommenceroient le Lundy, seconde feste de Pasques." The Low Churchmen are frequently designated as Presbyterians by the French and Dutch writers of that age. There were not twenty Presbyterians, properly so called, in the House of Commons. See A. Smith and Cutler's plain Dialogue about Whig and Tory, 1690.
[99] Accounts of what passed at the Conferences will be found in the Journals of the Houses, and deserve to be read.
[100] Journals, March 28. 1689; Grey's Debates.
[101] I will quote some expressions which have been preserved in the concise reports of these debates. Those expressions are quite decisive as to the sense in which the oath was understood by the legislators who framed it. Musgrave said, "There is no occasion for this proviso. It cannot be imagined that any bill from hence will ever destroy the legislative power." Pinch said, "The words established by law, hinder not the King from passing any bill for the relief of Dissenters. The proviso makes the scruple, and gives the occasion for it." Sawyer said, "This is the first proviso of this nature that ever was in any bill. It seems to strike at the legislative power." Sir Robert Cotton said, "Though the proviso looks well and Healing, yet it seems to imply a defect. Not able to alter laws as occasion requires! This, instead of one scruple, raises more, as if you were so bound up to the ecclesiastical government that you cannot make any new laws without such a proviso." Sir Thomas Lee said, "It will, I fear, creep in that other laws cannot be made without such a proviso therefore I would lay it aside."
[102] Lady Henrietta whom her uncle Clarendon calls "pretty little Lady Henrietta," and "the best child in the world" (Diary, Jan. 168-I), was soon after married to the Earl of Dalkeith, eldest son of the unfortunate Duke of Monmouth.
[103] The sermon deserves to be read. See the London Gazette of April 14. 1689; Evelyn's Diary; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary; and the despatch of the Dutch Ambassadors to the States General.
[104] A specimen of the prose which the Jacobites wrote on this subject will be found in the Somers Tracts. The Jacobite verses were generally too loathsome to be quoted. I select some of the most decent lines from a very rare lampoon
"The eleventh of April has come about,
To Westminster went the rabble rout,
In order to crown a bundle of clouts,
a dainty fine King indeed.
"Descended he is from the Orange tree;
But, if I can read his destiny,
He'll once more descend from another tree,
a dainty fine King indeed.
"He has gotten part of the shape of a man,
But more of a monkey, deny it who can;
He has the head of a goose, but the legs of a crane,
A dainty fine King indeed."
A Frenchman named Le Noble, who had been banished from his own country for his crimes, but, by the connivance of the police, lurked in Paris, and earned a precarious livelihood as a bookseller's hack published on this occasion two pasquinades, now extremely scarce, "Le Couronnement de Guillemot et de Guillemette, avec le Sermon du grand Docteur Burnet," and "Le Festin de Guillemot." In wit, taste and good sense, Le Noble's writings are not inferior to the English poem which I have quoted. He tells us that the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of London had a boxing match in the Abbey; that the champion rode up the Hall on an ass, which turned restive and kicked over the royal table with all the plate; and that the banquet ended in a fight between the peers armed with stools and benches, and the cooks armed with spits. This sort of pleasantry, strange to say, found readers; and the writer's portrait was pompously engraved with the motto "Latrantes ride: to tua fama manet."
[105] Reresby's Memoirs.
[106] For the history of the devastation of the Palatinate, see the Memoirs of La Fare, Dangeau, Madame de la Fayette, Villars, and Saint Simon, and the Monthly Mercuries for March and April, 1689. The pamphlets and broadsides are too numerous to quote. One broadside, entitled "A true Account of the barbarous Cruelties committed by the French in the Palatinate in January and February last," is perhaps the most remarkable.
[107] Memoirs of Saint Simon.
[108] I will quote a few lines from Leopold's letter to James: "Nunc autem quo loco res nostrae sint, ut Serenitati vestrae auxilium praestari possit a nobis, qui non Turcico tantum bello impliciti, sed insuper etiam crudelissimo et iniquissimo a Gallis, rerun suarum, ut putabant, in Anglia securis, contra datam fidem impediti sumus, ipsimet Serenitati vestrae judicandum relinquimus . . . . Galli non tantum in nostrum et totius Christianae orbis perniciem foedifraga arma cum juratis Sanctae Crucis hostibus sociare fas sibi ducunt; sed etiam in imperio, perfidiam perfidia cumulando, urbes deditione occupatas contra datam fidem immensis tributis exhaurire exhaustas diripere, direptas funditus exscindere aut flammis delere Palatia Principum ab omni antiquitate inter saevissima bellorum incendia intacta servata exurere, templa spoliare, dedititios in servitutem more apud barbaros usitato abducere, denique passim, imprimis vero etiam in Catholicorum ditionibus, alia horrenda, et ipsam Turcorum tyrannidem superantia immanitatis et saevitiae exempla edere pro ludo habent."
[109] See the London Gazettes of Feb. 25. March 11. April 22. May 2. and the Monthly Mercuries. Some of the Declarations will be found in Dumont's Corps Universel Diplomatique.
[110] Commons Journals, April 15. 16. 1689.
[111] Oldmixon.
[112] Commons' Journals, April 19. 24. 26. 1689.
[113] The Declaration is dated on the 7th of May, but was not published in the London Gazette till the 13th.
[114] The general opinion of the English on this subject is clearly expressed in a little tract entitled "Aphorisms relating to the Kingdom of Ireland," which appeared during the vacancy of the throne.
[115] King's State of the Protestants of Ireland, ii. 6. and iii. 3.
[116] King, iii. 3. Clarendon, in a letter to Rochester (June 1. 1686), calls Nugent "a very troublesome, impertinent creature."
[117] King, iii. 3.
[118] King, ii. 6., iii. 3. Clarendon, in a letter to Ormond (Sep. 28. 1686), speaks highly of Nagle's knowledge and ability, but in the Diary (Jan. 31. 1686/7) calls him "a covetous, ambitious man."
[119] King, ii. 5. 1, iii. 3. 5.; A Short View of the Methods made use of in Ireland for the Subversion and Destruction of the Protestant Religion and Interests, by a Clergyman lately escaped from thence, licensed Oct. 17. 1689.
[120] King, iii. 2. I cannot find that Charles Leslie, who was zealous on the other side, has, in his Answer to King, contradicted any of these facts. Indeed Leslie gives up Tyrconnel's administration. "I desire to obviate one objection which I know will be made, as if I were about wholly to vindicate all that the Lord Tyrconnel and other of King James's ministers have done in Ireland, especially before this revolution began, and which most of any thing brought it on. No; I am far from it. I am sensible that their carriage in many particulars gave greater occasion to King James's enemies than all the other in maladministrations which were charged upon his government." Leslie's Answer to King, 1692.
[121] A True and Impartial Account of the most material Passages in Ireland since December 1688, by a Gentleman who was an Eyewitness; licensed July 22. 1689.
[122] True and Impartial Account, 1689; Leslie's Answer to King, 1692.
[123] There have been in the neighbourhood of Killarney specimens of the arbutus thirty feet high and four feet and a half round. See the Philosophical Transactions, 227.
[124] In a very full account of the British isles published at Nuremberg in 1690 Kerry is described as "an vielen Orten unwegsam und voller Wilder and Geburge." Wolves still infested Ireland. "Kein schadlich Thier ist da, ausserhalb Wolff and Fuchse." So late as the year 1710 money was levied on presentments of the Grand Jury of Kerry for the destruction of wolves in that county. See Smith's Ancient and Modern State of the County of Kerry, 1756. I do not know that I have ever met with a better book of the kind and of the size. In a poem published as late as 1719, and entitled Macdermot, or the Irish Fortune Hunter, in six cantos, wolfhunting and wolfspearing are represented as common sports in Munster. In William's reign Ireland was sometimes called by the nickname of Wolfland. Thus in a poem on the battle of La Hogue, called Advice to a Painter, the terror of the Irish army is thus described
"A chilling damp And Wolfland howl runs thro' the rising camp."
[125] Smith's Ancient and Modern State of Kerry.
[126] Exact Relation of the Persecutions, Robberies, and Losses, sustained by the Protestants of Killmare in Ireland, 1689; Smith's Ancient and Modern State of Kerry, 1756.
[127] Ireland's Lamentation, licensed May 18. 1689.
[128] A True Relation of the Actions of the Inniskilling men, by Andrew Hamilton, Rector of Kilskerrie, and one of the Prebends of the Diocese of Clogher, an Eyewitness thereof and Actor therein, licensed Jan. 15. 1689/90; A Further Impartial Account of the Actions of the Inniskilling men, by Captain William Mac Cormick, one of the first that took up Arms, 1691.
[129] Hamilton's True Relation; Mac Cormick's Further Impartial Account.
[130] Concise View of the Irish Society, 1822; Mr. Heath's interesting Account of the Worshipful Company of Grocers, Appendix 17.
[131] The Interest of England in the preservation of Ireland, licensed July 17. 1689.
[132] These things I observed or learned on the spot.
[133] The best account that I have seen of what passed at Londonderry during the war which began in 1641 is in Dr. Reid's History of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland.
[134] The Interest of England in the Preservation of Ireland; 1689.
[135] My authority for this unfavourable account of the corporation is an epic poem entitled the Londeriad. This extraordinary work must have been written very soon after the events to which it relates; for it is dedicated to Robert Rochfort, Speaker of the House of Commons; and Rochfort was Speaker from 1695 to 1699. The poet had no invention; he had evidently a minute knowledge of the city which he celebrated; and his doggerel is consequently not without historical value. He says
"For burgesses and freemen they had chose
Broguemakers, butchers, raps, and such as those
In all the corporation not a man
Of British parents, except Buchanan."
This Buchanan is afterwards described as
"A knave all o'er
For he had learned to tell his beads before."
[136] See a sermon preached by him at Dublin on Jan. 31. 1669. The text is "Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake."
[137] Walker's Account of the Siege of Derry, 1689; Mackenzie's Narrative of the Siege of Londonderry, 1689; An Apology for the failures charged on the Reverend Mr. Walker's Account of the late Siege of Derry, 1689; A Light to the Blind. This last work, a manuscript in the possession of Lord Fingal, is the work of a zealous Roman Catholic and a mortal enemy of England. Large extracts from it are among the Mackintosh MSS. The date in the titlepage is 1711.
[138] As to Mountjoy's character and position, see Clarendon's letters from Ireland, particularly that to Lord Dartmouth of Feb. 8., and that to Evelyn of Feb. 14 1685/6. "Bon officier, et homme d'esprit," says Avaux.
[139] Walker's Account; Light to the Blind.
[140] Mac Cormick's Further Impartial Account.
[141] Burnet, i. 807; and the notes by Swift and Dartmouth. Tutchin, in the Observator, repeats this idle calumny.
[142] The Orange Gazette, Jan. 10 1688/9.
[143] Memoires de Madame de la Fayette.
[144] Burnet, i. 808; Life of James, ii. 320.; Commons' Journals, July 29. 1689.
[145] Avaux to Lewis, Mar 25/April 4 1659.
[146] Clarke's Life of James, ii. 321.; Mountjoy's Circular Letter, dated Jan. 10 1688/9;; King, iv. 8. In "Light to the Blind" Tyrconnel's "wise dissimulation" is commended.
[147] Avaux to Lewis April, 11. 1689.
[148] Printed Letter from Dublin, Feb. 25. 1689; Mephibosheth and Ziba, 1689.
[149] The connection of the priests with the old Irish families is mentioned in Petty's Political Anatomy of Ireland. See the Short View by a Clergyman lately escaped, 1689; Ireland's Lamentation, by an English Protestant that lately narrowly escaped with life from thence, 1689; A True Account of the State of Ireland, by a person who with great difficulty left Dublin, 1689; King, ii. 7. Avaux confirms all that these writers say about the Irish officers.
[150] At the French War Office is a report on the State of Ireland in February 1689. In that report it is said that the Irish who had enlisted as soldiers were forty-five thousand, and that the number would have been a hundred thousand if all who volunteered had been admitted. See the Sad and Lamentable Condition of the Protestants in Ireland, 1689; Hamilton's True Relation, 1690; The State of Papist and Protestant Properties in the Kingdom of Ireland, 1689; A true Representation to the King and People of England how Matters were carried on all along in Ireland, licensed Aug. 16. 1689; Letter from Dublin, 1689; Ireland's Lamentation, 1689; Compleat History of the Life and Military Actions of Richard, Earl of Tyrconnel, Generalissimo of all the Irish forces now in arms, 1689.
[151] See the proceedings in the State Trials.
[152] King, iii. 10.
[153] Ten years, says the French ambassador; twenty years, says a Protestant fugitive.
[154] Animadversions on the proposal for sending back the nobility and gentry of Ireland; 1689/90.
[155] King, iii. 10; The Sad Estate and Condition of Ireland, as represented in a Letter from a Worthy Person who was in Dublin on Friday last March. 1689; Short View by a Clergyman, 1689; Lamentation of Ireland 1689; Compleat History of the Life and Actions of Richard, Earl of Tyrconnel, 1689; The Royal Voyage, acted in 1689 and 1690. This drama, which, I believe, was performed at Bartholomew Fair, is one of the most curious of a curious class of compositions, utterly destitute of literary merit, but valuable as showing what were then the most successful claptraps for an audience composed of the common people. "The end of this play," says the author in his preface, "is chiefly to expose the perfidious base, cowardly, and bloody nature of the Irish." The account which the fugitive Protestants give of the wanton destruction of cattle is confirmed by Avaux in a letter to Lewis, dated April 13/23 1689, and by Desgrigny in a letter to Louvois, dated May 17/27. 1690. Most of the despatches written by Avaux during his mission to Ireland are contained in a volume of which a very few copies were printed some years ago at the English Foreign Office. Of many I have also copies made at the French Foreign Office. The letters of Desgrigny, who was employed in the Commissariat, I found in the Library of the French War Office. I cannot too strongly express my sense of the liberality and courtesy with which the immense and admirably arranged storehouses of curious information at Paris were thrown open to me.
[156] "A remarkable thing never to be forgotten was that they that were in government then"--at the end of 1688--"seemed to favour us and endeavour to preserve Friends." history of the Rise and Progress of the People called Quakers in Ireland, by Wight and Rutty, Dublin, 1751. King indeed (iii. 17) reproaches the Quakers as allies and tools of the Papists.
[157] Wight and Rutty.
[158] Life of James, ii. 327. Orig. Mem. Macarthy and his feigned name are repeatedly mentioned by Dangeau.
[159] Exact Relation of the Persecutions, Robberies and Losses sustained by the Protestants of Killmare in Ireland, 1689.
[160] A true Representation to the King and People of England how Matters were carried on all along in Ireland by the late King James, licensed Aug. 16. 1689; A true Account of the Present State of Ireland by a Person that with Great Difficulty left Dublin, licensed June 8. 1689.
[161] Hamilton's Actions of the Inniskilling Men, 1689.
[162] Walker's Account, 1689.
[163] Mackenzie's Narrative; Mac Cormack's Further Impartial Account; Story's Impartial History of the Affairs of Ireland, 1691; Apology for the Protestants of Ireland; Letter from Dublin of Feb. 25. 1689; Avaux to Lewis, April 15/25. 1689.
[164] Memoires de Madame de la Fayette; Madame de Sevigne to Madame de Grignan, Feb. 28. 1689.
[165] Burnet, ii. 17; Clarke's Life of James II., 320, 321, 322,
[166] Maumont's Instructions.
[167] Dangeau, Feb. 15/25 17/27 1689; Madame de Sevigne, 18/28 Feb. 20/March; Memoires de Madame de la Fayette.
[168] Memoirs of La Fare and Saint Simon; Note of Renaudot on English affairs 1697, in the French Archives; Madame de Sevigne, Feb 20/March 2, March 11/21, 1689; Letter of Madame de Coulanges to M. de Coulanges, July 23. 1691.
[169] See Saint Simon's account of the trick by which Avaux tried to pass himself off at Stockholm as a Knight of the Order of the Holy Ghost.
[170] This letter, written to Lewis from the harbour of Brest, is in the Archives of the French Foreign Office, but is wanting in the very rare volume printed in Downing Street.
[171] A full and true Account of the Landing and Reception of the late King James at Kinsale, in a letter from Bristol, licensed April 4. 1689; Leslie's Answer to King; Ireland's Lamentation; Avaux, March 13/23
[172] Avaux, March. 13/23 1689; Life of James, ii. 327. Orig. Mem.
[173] Avaux, March 15/25. 1689.
[174] Ibid. March 25/April 4 1689
[175] A full and true Account of the Landing and Reception of the late King James; Ireland's Lamentation; Light to the Blind.
[176] See the calculations of Petty, King, and Davenant. If the average number of inhabitants to a house was the same in Dublin as in London, the population of Dublin would have been about thirty- four thousand.
[177] John Damon speaks of College Green near Dublin. I have seen letters of that age directed to the College, by Dublin. There are some interesting old maps of Dublin in the British Museum.
[178] Clarendon to Rochester, Feb. 8. 1685/6, April 20. Aug. 12. Nov. 30. 1686.
[179] Clarke's Life of James II, ii. 330.; Full and true Account of the Landing and Reception, &c.; Ireland's Lamentation.
[180] Clarendon's Diary; Reresby's Memoirs; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary. I have followed Luttrell's version of Temple's last words. It agrees in substance with Clarendon's, but has more of the abruptness natural on such an occasion. If anything could make so tragical an event ridiculous, it would be the lamentation of the author of the Londeriad
"The wretched youth against his friend exclaims,
And in despair drowns himself in the Thames."
[181] Much light is thrown on the dispute between the English and Irish parties in James's Council, by a remarkable letter of Bishop Maloney to Bishop Tyrrel, which will be found in the Appendix to Kings State of the Protestants.
[182] Avaux, March 25/April 4 1689, April. But it is less from any single letter, than from the whole tendency and spirit of the correspondence of Avaux, that I have formed my notion of his objects.
[183] "Il faut donc, oubliant qu'il a este Roy d'Angleterre et d'Escosse, ne penser qu'a ce qui peut bonifier l'Irlande, et luy faciliter les moyens d'y subsister." Louvois to Avaux, June 3/13. 1689.
[184] See the despatches written by Avaux during April 1689; Light to the Blind.
[185] Avaux, April 6/16 1689.
[186] Avaux, May 8/18 1689.
[187] Pusignan to Avaux March 30/April 9 1689.
[188] This lamentable account of the Irish beer is taken from a despatch which Desgrigny wrote from Cork to Louvois, and which is in the archives of the French War Office.
[189] Avaux, April 13/23. 1689; April 20/30,
[190] Avaux to Lewis, April 15/25 1689, and to Louvois, of the same date.
[191] Commons' Journals, August 12. 1689; Mackenzie's Narrative.
[192] Avaux, April 17/27. 1689. The story of these strange changes of purpose is told very disingenuously in the Life of James, ii. 330, 331, 332. Orig. Mem.
[193] Life of James, ii. 334, 335. Orig. Mem.
[194] Memoirs of Saint Simon. Some English writers ignorantly speak of Rosen as having been, at this time, a Marshal of France. He did not become so till 1703. He had long been a Marechal de Camp, which is a very different thing, and had been recently promoted to the rank of Lieutenant General.
[195] Avaux, April 4/14 1689, Among the MSS. in the British Museum is a curious report on the defences of Londonderry, drawn up in 1705 for the Duke of Ormond by a French engineer named Thomas.
[196] Commons' Journals, August 12. 1689.
[197] The best history of these transactions will be found in the journals of the House of Commons, August 12. 1689. See also the narratives of Walker and Mackenzie.
[198] Mackenzie's Narrative,
[199] Walker and Mackenzie.
[200] See the Character of the Protestants of Ireland 1689, and the Interest of England in the Preservation of Ireland, 1689. The former pamphlet is the work of an enemy, the latter of a zealous friend.
[201] There was afterwards some idle dispute about the question whether Walker was properly Governor or not. To me it seems quite clear that he was so.
[202] Mackenzie's Narrative; Funeral Sermon on Bishop Hopkins, 1690.
[203] Walker's True Account, 1689. See also The Apology for the True Account, and the Vindication of the True Account, published in the same year. I have called this man by the name by which he was known in Ireland. But his real name was Houstoun. He is frequently mentioned in the strange volume entitled Faithful Contendings Displayed.
[204] A View of the Danger and Folly of being publicspirited, by William Hamill, 1721
[205] See Walker's True Account and Mackenzie's Narrative.
[206] Walker; Mackenzie; Avaux, April 26/May 6 1689. There is a tradition among the Protestants of Ulster that Maumont fell by the sword of Murray: but on this point the report made by the French ambassador to his master is decisive. The truth is that there are almost as many mythical stories about the siege of Londonderry as about the siege of Troy. The legend about Murray and Maumont dates from 1689. In the Royal Voyage which was acted in that year, the combat between the heroes is described in these sonorous lines
"They met; and Monsieur at the first encounter
Fell dead, blaspheming, on the dusty plain,
And dying, bit the ground."
[207] "Si c'est celuy qui est sorti de France le dernier, qui s'appelloit Richard, il n'a jamais veu de siege, ayant toujours servi en Rousillon."--Louvois to Avaux, June 8/18. 1689.
[208] Walker; Mackenzie; Avaux to Louvois, May 2/12. 4/14 1689; James to Hamilton, May 28/June 8 in the library of the Royal Irish Academy. Louvois wrote to Avaux in great indignation. "La mauvaise conduite que l'on a tenue devant Londondery a couste la vie a M. de Maumont et a M. de Pusignan. Il ne faut pas que sa Majesté Britannique croye qu'en faisant tuer des officiers generaux comme des soldats, on puisse ne l'en point laisser manquer. Ces sortes de gens sont rates en tout pays, et doivent estre menagez."
[209] Walker; Mackenzie; Avaux, June 16/26 1689.
[210] As to the discipline of Galmoy's Horse, see the letter of Avaux to Louvois, dated Sept. 10/30. Horrible stories of the cruelty, both of the colonel and of his men, are told in the Short View, by a Clergyman, printed in 1689, and in several other pamphlets of that year. For the distribution of the Irish forces, see the contemporary maps of the siege. A catalogue of the regiments, meant, I suppose to rival the catalogue in the Second Book of the Iliad, will be found in the Londeriad.
[211] Life of Admiral Sir John Leake, by Stephen M. Leake, Clarencieux King at Arms, 1750. Of this book only fifty copies were printed.
[212] Avaux, May 8/18 May 26/June 5 1689; London Gazette, May 9.; Life of James, ii. 370.; Burchett's Naval Transactions; Commons' Journals, May 18, 21. From the Memoirs of Madame de la Fayette it appears that this paltry affair was correctly appreciated at Versailles.
[213] King, iii. 12; Memoirs of Ireland from the Restoration, 1716. Lists of both Houses will be found in King's Appendix.
[214] I found proof of Plowden's connection with the Jesuits in a Treasury Letterbook, June 12, 1689.
[215] "Sarsfield," Avaux wrote to Louvois, Oct. 11/21. 1689, "n'est pas un homme de la naissance de mylord Galloway" (Galmoy, I suppose) "ny de Makarty: mais c'est un gentilhomme distingue par son merite, qui a plus de credit dans ce royaume qu'aucun homme que je connoisse. Il a de la valeur, mais surtout de l'honneur et de la probite a toute epreuve . . . homme qui sera toujours a la tete de ses troupes, et qui en aura grand soin." Leslie, in his Answer to King, says that the Irish Protestants did justice to Sarsfield's integrity and honour. Indeed justice is done to Sarsfield even in such scurrilous pieces as the Royal Flight.
[216] Journal of the Parliament in Ireland, 1689. The reader must not imagine that this journal has an official character. It is merely a compilation made by a Protestant pamphleteer and printed in London.
[217] Life of James, ii. 355.
[218] Journal of the Parliament in Ireland.
[219] Avaux May 26/June 5 1689.
[220] A True Account of the Present State of Ireland, by a Person that with Great Difficulty left Dublin, 1689; Letter from Dublin, dated June 12. 1689; Journal of the Parliament in Ireland.
[221] Life of James, ii. 361, 362, 363. In the Life it is said that the proclamation was put forth without the privity of James, but that he subsequently approved of it. See Welwood's Answer to the Declaration, 1689.
[222] Light to the Blind; An Act declaring that the Parliament of England cannot bind Ireland against Writs of Error and Appeals, printed in London, 1690.
[223] An Act concerning Appropriate Tythes and other Duties payable to Ecclesiastical Dignitaries. London 1690.
[224] An Act for repealing the Acts of Settlement and Explanation and all Grants, Patents, and Certificates pursuant to them or any of them. London, 1690.
[225] See the paper delivered to James by Chief Justice Keating, and the speech of the Bishop of Meath. Both are in King's Appendix. Life of James, ii. 357-361.
[226] Leslie's Answer to King; Avaux, May 26/June 5 1689; Life of James, ii. 358.
[227] Avaux May 28/June 7 1689, and June 20/July 1. The author of Light to the Blind strongly condemns the indulgence shown to the Protestant Bishops who adhered to James.
[228] King, iii. 11.; Brief Memoirs by Haynes, Assay Master of the Mint, among the Lansdowne MSS. at the British Museum, No. 801. I have seen several specimens of this coin. The execution is surprisingly good, all circumstances considered.
[229] King, iii. 12.
[230] An Act for the Attainder of divers Rebels and for preserving the Interest of loyal Subjects, London, 1690.
[231] King, iii. 13.
[232] His name is in the first column of page 30. in that edition of the List which was licensed March 26, 1690. I should have thought that the proscribed person must have been some other Henry Dodwell. But Bishop Kennet's second letter to the Bishop of Carlisle, 1716, leaves no doubt about the matter.
[233] A list of most of the Names of the Nobility, Gentry, and Commonalty of England and Ireland (amongst whom are several Women and Children) who are all, by an Act of a Pretended parliament assembled in Dublin, attainted of High Treason, 1690; An Account of the Transactions of the late King James in Ireland, 1690; King, iii. 13.; Memoirs of Ireland, 1716.
[234] Avaux July 27/Aug 6. 1689.
[235] King's State of the Protestants in Ireland, iii. 19.
[236] Ibid. iii. 15.
[237] Leslie's Answer to King.
[238] "En comparazion de lo que se hace in Irlanda con los Protestantes, es nada." April 29/May 6 1689; "Para que vea Su Santitad que aqui estan los Catolicos mas benignamente tratados que los Protestantes in Irlanda." June 19/29
[239] Commons' Journals, June 15. 1689.
[240] Stat. 1 W.&M. sess. 1. c. 29.
[241] Grey's Debates, June 19. 1689.
[242] Ibid. June 22. 1689.
[243] Hamilton's True Relation; Mac Cormick's Further Account. Of the island generally, Avaux says, "On n'attend rien de cette recolte cy, les paysans ayant presque tous pris les armes.--Letters to Louvois, March 19/29 1689.
[244] Hamilton's True Relation.
[245] Walker.
[246] Walker; Mackenzie.
[247] Avaux, June 16/26 1689.
[248] Walker; Mackenzie; Light to the Blind; King, iii. 13; Leslie's Answer to King; Life of James, ii, 364. I ought to say that on this occasion King is unjust to James.
[249] Leslie's Answer to King; Avaux, July 5/15. 1689. "Je trouvay l'expression bien forte: mais je ne voulois rien repondre, car le Roy s'estoit, desja fort emporte."
[250] Mackenzie.
[251] Walker's Account. "The fat man in Londonderry" became a proverbial expression for a person whose prosperity excited the envy and cupidity of his less fortunate neighbours.
[252] This, according to Narcissus Luttrell was the report made by Captain Withers, afterwards a highly distinguished officer, on whom Pope wrote an epitaph.
[253] The despatch which positively commanded Kirke to attack the boom, was signed by Schomberg, who had already been appointed commander in chief of all the English forces in Ireland. A copy of it is among the Nairne MSS. in the Bodleian Library. Wodrow, on no better authority than the gossip of a country parish in Dumbartonshire, attributes the relief of Londonderry to the exhortations of a heroic Scotch preacher named Gordon. I am inclined to think that Kirke was more likely to be influenced by a peremptory order from Schomberg, than by the united eloquence of a whole synod of presbyterian divines.
[254] Walker; Mackenzie; Histoire de la Revolution d'Irlande, Amsterdarn, 1691; London Gazette, Aug. 5/15; 1689; Letter of Buchan among the Nairne MSS.; Life of Sir John Leake; The Londeriad; Observations on Mr. Walker's Account of the Siege of Londonderry, licensed Oct, 4. 1689.
[255] Avaux to Seignelay, July 18/28 to Lewis, Aug. 9/19
[256] "You will see here, as you have all along, that the tradesmen of Londonderry had more skill in their defence than the great officers of the Irish army in their attacks." Light to the Blind. The author of this work is furious against the Irish gunners. The boom he thinks, would never have been broken if they had done their duty. Were they drunk? Were they traitors? He does not determine the point. "Lord," he exclaims, "who seest the hearts of people, we leave the judgment of this affair to thy mercy. In the interim those gunners lost Ireland."
[257] In a collection entitled "Derriana," which was published more than sixty years ago, is a curious letter on this subject.
[258] Bernardi's Life of Himself, 1737.
[259] Hamilton's True Relation; Mac Cormick's Further Account; London Gazette, Aug. 22. 1689; Life of James, ii. 368, 369.; Avaux to Lewis, Aug. 30., and to Louvois of the same date. Story mentions a report that the panic among the Irish was caused by the mistake of an officer who called out "Right about face" instead of "Right face." Neither Avaux nor James had heard any thing about this mistake. Indeed the dragoons who set the example of flight were not in the habit of waiting for orders to turn their backs on an enemy. They had run away once before on that very day. Avaux gives a very simple account of the defeat: "Ces mesmes dragons qui avoient fuy le matin lascherent le pied avec tout le reste de la cavalerie, sans tirer un coup de pistolet; et ils s'enfuirent tous avec une telle epouvante qu'ils jetterent mousquetons, pistolets, et espees; et la plupart d'eux, ayant creve leurs chevaux, se deshabillerent pour aller plus viste a pied."
[260] Hamilton's True Relation.
[261] Act. Parl. Scot., Aug. 31. 1681.
[262] Balcarras's Memoirs; Short History of the Revolution in Scotland in a letter from a Scotch gentleman in Amsterdam to his friend in London, 1712.
[263] Balcarras's Memoirs; Life of James ii. 341.
[264] A Memorial for His Highness the Prince of Orange in relation to the Affairs of Scotland, by two Persons of Quality, 1689.
[265] See Calvin's letter to Haller, iv. Non. Jan. 155I: "Priusquam urbem unquam ingrederer, nullae prorsus erant feriae praeter diem Dominicum. Ex quo sum revocatus hoc temperamentum quaesivi, ut Christi natalis celebraretur."
[266] In the Act Declaration, and Testimony of the Seceders, dated in December, 1736 it is said that "countenance is given by authority of Parliament to the observation of holidays in Scotland, by the vacation of our most considerable Courts of justice in the latter end of December." This is declared to be a national sin, and a ground of the Lord's indignation. In March 1758, the Associate Synod addressed a Solemn Warning to the Nation, in which the same complaint was repeated. A poor crazy creature, whose nonsense has been thought worthy of being reprinted even in our own time, says: "I leave my testimony against the abominable Act of the pretended Queen Anne and her pretended British, really Brutish Parliament, for enacting the observance of that which is called the Yule Vacancy."--The Dying Testimony of William Wilson sometime Schoolmaster in Park, in the Parish of Douglas, aged 68, who died in 1757.
[267] An Account of the Present Persecution of the Church in Scotland, in several Letters, 1690; The Case of the afflicted Clergy in Scotland truly represented, 1690; Faithful Contendings Displayed; Burnet, i. 805
[268] The form of notice will be found in the book entitled Faithful Contendings Displayed.
[269] Account of the Present Persecution, 1690; Case of the afflicted Clergy, 1690; A true Account of that Interruption that was made of the Service of God on Sunday last, being the 17th of February, 1689, signed by James Gibson, acting for the Lord Provost of Glasgow.
[270] Balcarras's Memoirs; Mackay's Memoirs.
[271] Burnet, ii. 21.
[272] Scobell, 1654, cap. 9., and Oliver's Ordinance in Council of the 12th of April in the same year.
[273] Burnet and Fletcher of Saltoun mention the prosperity of Scotland under the Protector, but ascribe it to a cause quite inadequate to the production of such an effect. "There was," says Burnet, "a considerable force of about seven or eight thousand men kept in Scotland. The pay of the army brought so much money into the kingdom that it continued all that while in a very flourishing state . . . . . . We always reckon those eight years of usurpation a time of great peace and prosperity." "During the time of the usurper Cromwell," says Fletcher, "we imagined ourselves to be in a tolerable condition with respect to the last particular (trade and money) by reason of that expense which was made in the realm by those forces that kept us in subjection." The true explanation of the phenomenon about which Burnet and Fletcher blundered so grossly will be found in a pamphlet entitled "Some seasonable and modest Thoughts partly occasioned by and partly concerning the Scotch East India Company," Edinburgh, 1696. See the Proceedings of the Wednesday Club in Friday Street, upon the subject of an Union with Scotland, December 1705. See also the Seventh Chapter of Mr. Burton's valuable History of Scotland.
[274] See the paper in which the demands of the Scotch Commissioners are set forth. It will be found in the Appendix to De Foe's History of the Union, No. 13.
[275] Act. Parl. Scot., July 30. 1670.
[276] Burnet, ii. 23.
[277] See, for example, a pamphlet entitled "Some questions resolved concerning episcopal and presbyterian government in Scotland, 1690." One of the questions is, whether Scottish presbytery be agreeable to the general inclinations of that people. The author answers the question in the negative, on the ground that the upper and middle classes had generally conformed to the episcopal Church before the Revolution.
[278] The instructions are in the Leven and Melville Papers. They bear date March 7, 1688/9. On the first occasion on which I quote this most valuable collection, I cannot refrain from acknowledging the obligations under which I, and all who take an interest in the history of our island, lie to the gentleman who has performed so well the duty of an editor.
[279] As to the Dalrymples; see the Lord President's own writings, and among them his Vindication of the Divine Perfections; Wodrow's Analecta; Douglas's Peerage; Lockhart's Memoirs; the Satyre on the Familie of Stairs; the Satyric Lines upon the long wished for and timely Death of the Right Honourable Lady Stairs; Law's Memorials; and the Hyndford Papers, written in 1704/5 and printed with the Letters of Carstairs. Lockhart, though a mortal enemy of John Dalrymple, says, "There was none in the parliament capable to take up the cudgels with him."
[280] As to Melville, see the Leven and Melville Papers, passim, and the preface; the Act. Parl. Scot. June 16. 1685; and the Appendix, June 13.; Burnet, ii. 24; and the Burnet MS. Had. 6584.
[281] Creichton's Memoirs.
[282] Mackay's Memoirs.
[283] Memoirs of the Lindsays.
[284] About the early relation between William and Dundee, some Jacobite, many years after they were both dead, invented a story which by successive embellishments was at last improved into a romance which it seems strange that even a child should believe to be true. The last edition runs thus. William's horse was killed under him at Seneff, and his life was in imminent danger. Dundee, then Captain Graham, mounted His Highness again. William promised to reward this service with promotion but broke his word and gave to another the commission which Graham had been led to expect. The injured hero went to Loo. There he met his successful competitor, and gave him a box on the ear. The punishment for striking in the palace was the loss of the offending right hand; but this punishment the Prince of Orange ungraciously remitted. "You," he said, "saved my life; I spare your right hand: and now we are quits."
Those who down to our own time, have repeated this nonsense seem to have thought, first, that the Act of Henry the Eighth "for punishment of murder and malicious bloodshed within the King's Court" (Stat 33 Hen. VIII. c. 2.) was law in Guelders; and, secondly, that, in 1674, William was a King, and his house a King's Court. They were also not aware that he did not purchase Loo till long after Dundee had left the Netherlands. See Harris's Description of Loo, 1699.
This legend, of which I have not been able to discover the slightest trace in the voluminous Jacobite literature of William's reign, seems to have originated about a quarter of a century after Dundee's death, and to have attained its full absurdity in another quarter of a century.
[285] Memoirs of the Lindsays.
[286] Ibid.
[287] Burnet, ii. 22.; Memoirs of the Lindsays.
[288] Balcarras's Memoirs.
[289] Act. Parl. Scot., Mar. 14. 1689; History of the late Revolution in Scotland, 1690; An Account of the Proceedings of the Estates of Scotland, fol. Lond. 1689.
[290] Balcarras's narrative exhibits both Hamilton and Athol in a most unfavourable light. See also the Life of James, ii. 338, 339.
[291] Act. Parl. Scot., March 14. 1688/9; Balcarras's Memoirs; History of the late Revolution in Scotland; Life of James, ii. 342.
[292] Balcarras's Memoirs; History of the late Revolution in Scotland, 1690.
[293] Act. Parl. Scot., March 14. and 15. 1689; Balcarras's Memoirs; London Gazette, March 25.; History of the late Revolution in Scotland, 1690; Account of the Proceedings of the Estates of Scotland, 1689.
[294] See Cleland's Poems, and the commendatory poems contained in the same volume, Edinburgh, 1697. It has been repeatedly asserted that this William Cleland was the father of William Cleland, the Commissioner of Taxes, who was well known twenty year later in the literary society of London, who rendered some not very reputable services to Pope, and whose son John was the author of an infamous book but too widely celebrated. This is an entire mistake. William Cleland, who fought at Bothwell Bridge, was not twenty-eight when he was killed in August, 1689; and William Cleland, the Commissioner of Taxes, died at sixty-seven in September, 1741. The former therefore cannot have been the father of the latter. See the Exact Narrative of the Battle of Dunkeld; the Gentleman's Magazine for 1740; and Warburton's note on the Letter to the Publisher of the Dunciad, a letter signed W. Cleland, but really written by Pope. In a paper drawn up by Sir Robert Hamilton, the oracle of the extreme Covenanters, and a bloodthirsty ruffian, Cleland is mentioned as having been once leagued with those fanatics, but afterwards a great opposer of their testimony. Cleland probably did not agree with Hamilton in thinking it a sacred duty to cut the throats of prisoners of war who had been received to quarter. See Hamilton's Letter to the Societies, Dec 7. 1685.
[295] Balcarras's Memoirs.
[296] Balcarras's Memoirs. But the fullest account of these proceedings is furnished by some manuscript notes which are in the library of the Faculty of Advocates. Balcarras's dates are not quite exact. He probably trusted to his memory for them. I have corrected them from the Parliamentary Records.
[297] Act. Parl. Scot., Mar. 16. 1688/9; Balcarras's Memoirs; History of the late Revolution in Scotland, 1690; Account of the Proceedings of the Estates of Scotland, 1689; London Gaz., Mar. 25. 1689; Life of James, ii. 342. Burnet blunders strangely about these transactions.
[298] Balcarras's Memoirs; MS. in the Library of the Faculty of Advocates.
[299] Act. Parl. Scot., Mar. 19. 1688/9; History of the late Revolution in Scotland, 1690.
[300] Balcarras.
[301] Ibid.
[302] Act. Parl. Scot.; History of the late Revolution, 1690; Memoirs of North Britain, 1715.
[303] Balcarras.
[304] Every reader will remember the malediction which Sir Walter Scott, in the Fifth Canto of Marmion, pronounced on the dunces who removed this interesting monument.
[305] "It will be neither secuir nor kynd to the King to expect it be (by) Act of Parliament after the settlement, which will lay it at his door."--Dalrymple to Melville, 5 April, 1689; Leven and Melville Papers.
[306] There is a striking passage on this subject in Fortescue.
[307] Act. Parl. Scot., April 1 1689; Orders of Committee of Estates, May 16. 1689; London Gazette, April 11
[308] As it has lately been denied that the extreme Presbyterians entertained an unfavourable opinion of the Lutherans, I will give two decisive proof of the truth of what I have asserted in the text. In the book entitled Faithful Contendings Displayed is a report of what passed at the General Meeting of the United Societies of Covenanters on the 24th of October 1688. The question was propounded whether there should be an association with the Dutch. "It was concluded unanimously," says the Clerk of the Societies, "that we could not have an association with the Dutch in one body, nor come formally under their conduct, being such a promiscuous conjunction of reformed Lutheran malignants and sectaries, to loin with whom were repugnant to the testimony of the Church of Scotland." In the Protestation and Testimony drawn up on the 2nd of October 1707, the United Societies complain that the crown has been settled on "the Prince of Hanover, who has been bred and brought up in the Lutheran religion which is not only different from, but even in many things contrary unto that purity in doctrine, reformation, and religion, we in these nations had attained unto, as is very well known." They add "The admitting such a person to reign over us is not only contrary to our solemn League and Covenant, but to the very word of God itself, Deut. xvii."
[309] History of the late Revolution in Scotland; London Gazette, May 16, 1689. The official account of what passed was evidently drawn up with great care. See also the Royal Diary, 1702. The writer of this work professes to have derived his information from a divine who was present.
[310] See Crawford's Letters and Speeches, passim. His style of begging for a place was peculiar. After owning, not without reason, that his heart was deceitful and desperately wicked, he proceeded thus: "The same Omnipotent Being who hath said, when the poor and needy seek water and there is none, and their tongue faileth for thirst, he will not forsake them; notwithstanding of my present low condition, can build me a house if He think fit."- -Letter to Melville, of May 28. 1689. As to Crawford's poverty and his passion for Bishops' lands, see his letter to Melville of the 4th of December 1690. As to his humanity, see his letter to Melville, Dec 11 1690. All these letters are among the Leven and Melville Papers, The author of An Account of the Late Establishment of Presbyterian Government says of a person who had taken a bribe of ten or twelve pounds, "Had he been as poor as my Lord Crawford, perhaps he had been the more excusable." See also the dedication of the celebrated tract entitled Scotch Presbyterian Eloquence Displayed.
[311] Burnet, ii. 23. 24.; Fountainhall Papers, 73, Aug, 1684; 14. and 15. Oct. 1684; 3. May, 1685; Montgomery to Melville, June 22. 1689, in the Leven and Melville Papers; Pretences of the French Invasion Examined; licensed May 25. 1692.
[312] See the Life and Correspondence of Carstairs, and the interesting memorials of him in the Caldwell Papers, printed 1854. See also Mackay's character of him, and Swift's note. Swift's word is not to be taken against a Scotchman and a Presbyterian. I believe, however, that Carstairs, though an honest and pious man in essentials, had his full share of the wisdom of the serpent.
[313] Sir John Dalrymple to Lord Melville, June 18. 20 25. 1689; Leven and Melville Papers.
[314] There is an amusing description of Sir Patrick in the Hyndford MS., written about 1704, and printed among the Carstairs Papers. "He is a lover of set speeches, and can hardly give audience to private friends without them."
[315] "No man, though not a member, busier than Saltoun."-- Lockhart to Melville, July 11 1689; Leven and Melville Papers. See Fletcher's own works, and the descriptions of him in Lockhart's and Mackay's Memoirs.
[316] Dalrymple says, in a letter of the 5th of June, "All the malignant, for fear, are come into the Club; and they all vote alike."
[317] Balcarras.
[318] Captain Burt's Letters from Scotland.
[319] "Shall I tire yon with a description of this unfruitful country, where I must lead you over their hills all brown with heath, or their valleys scarce able to feed a rabbit. . . , Every part of the country presents the same dismal landscape. No grove or brook lend their music to cheer the stranger,"--Goldsmith to Bryanton, Edinburgh, Sept. 26. 1753. In a letter written soon after from Leyden to the Reverend Thomas Contarine, Goldsmith says, "I was wholly taken up in observing the face of the country, Nothing can equal its beauty. Wherever I turned my eye, fine houses, elegant gardens, statues, grottos, vistas presented themselves, Scotland and this country bear the highest contrast: there, hills and rocks intercept every prospect; here it is all a continued plain." See Appendix C, to the First Volume of Mr. Forster's Life of Goldsmith,
[320] Northern Memoirs, by R. Franck Philanthropus, 1690. The author had caught a few glimpses of Highland scenery, and speaks of it much as Burt spoke in the following generation: "It is a part of the creation left undressed; rubbish thrown aside when the magnificent fabric of the world was created; as void of form as the natives are indigent of morals and good manners."
[321] Journey through Scotland, by the author of the Journey through England, 1723.
[322] Almost all these circumstances are taken from Burt's Letters. For the tar, I am indebted to Cleland's poetry. In his verses on the "Highland Host" he says
"The reason is, they're smeared with tar,
Which doth defend their head and neck,
Just as it doth their sheep protect."
[323] A striking illustration of the opinion which was entertained of the Highlander by his Lowland neighbours, and which was by them communicated to the English, will be found in a volume of Miscellanies published by Afra Behn in 1685. One of the most curious pieces in the collection is a coarse and profane Scotch poem entitled, "How the first Hielandman was made." How and of what materials he was made I shall not venture to relate. The dialogue which immediately follows his creation may be quoted, I hope, without much offence.
"Says God to the Hielandman, 'Quhair wilt thou now?'
'I will down to the Lowlands, Lord, and there steal a cow.'
'Ffy,' quod St. Peter, 'thou wilt never do weel,
'An thou, but new made, so sone gais to steal.'
'Umff,' quod the Hielandman, and swore by yon kirk,
'So long as I may geir get to steal, will I nevir work."'
Another Lowland Scot, the brave Colonel Cleland, about the same time, describes the Highlander in the same manner
"For a misobliging word
She'll dirk her neighbour o'er the board.
If any ask her of her drift,
Forsooth, her nainself lives by theft."
Much to the same effect are the very few words which Franck Philanthropus (1694) spares to the Highlanders: "They live like lairds and die like loons, hating to work and no credit to borrow: they make depredations and rob their neighbours." In the History of the Revolution in Scotland, printed at Edinburgh in 1690, is the following passage: "The Highlanders of Scotland are a sort of wretches that have no other consideration of honour, friendship, obedience, or government, than as, by any alteration of affairs or revolution in the government, they can improve to themselves an opportunity of robbing or plundering their bordering neighbours."
[324] Since this passage was written I was much pleased by finding that Lord Fountainhall used, in July 1676, exactly the same illustration which had occurred to me. He says that "Argyle's ambitious grasping at the mastery of the Highlands and Western Islands of Mull, Ila, &c. stirred up other clans to enter into a combination for hearing him dowse, like the confederat forces of Germanic, Spain, Holland, &c., against the growth of the French."
[325] In the introduction to the Memoirs of Sir Ewan Cameron is a very sensible remark: "It may appear paradoxical: but the editor cannot help hazarding the conjecture that the motives which prompted the Highlanders to support King James were substantially the same as those by which the promoters of the Revolution were actuated." The whole introduction, indeed, well deserves to be read.
[326] Skene's Highlanders of Scotland; Douglas's Baronage of Scotland.
[327] See the Memoirs of the Life of Sir Ewan Cameron, and the Historical and Genealogical Account of the Clan Maclean, by a Senachie. Though this last work was published so late as 1838, the writer seems to have been inflamed by animosity as fierce as that with which the Macleans of the seventeenth century regarded the Campbells. In the short compass of one page the Marquess of Argyle is designated as "the diabolical Scotch Cromwell," "the vile vindictive persecutor," "the base traitor," and "the Argyle impostor." In another page he is "the insidious Campbell, fertile in villany," "the avaricious slave," "the coward of Argyle" and "the Scotch traitor." In the next page he is "the base and vindictive enemy of the House of Maclean" "the hypocritical Covenanter," "the incorrigible traitor," "the cowardly and malignant enemy." It is a happy thing that passions so violent can now vent themselves only in scolding.
[328] Letter of Avaux to Louvois, April 6/16 1689, enclosing a paper entitled Memoire du Chevalier Macklean.
[329] See the singularly interesting Memoirs of Sir Ewan Cameron of Lochiel, printed at Edinburgh for the Abbotsford Club in 1842. The MS. must have been at least a century older. See also in the same volume the account of Sir Ewan's death, copied from the Balhadie papers. I ought to say that the author of the Memoirs of Sir Ewan, though evidently well informed about the affairs of the Highlands and the characters of the most distinguished chiefs, was grossly ignorant of English politics and history. I will quote what Van Litters wrote to the States General about Lochiel, Nov 26/Dec 6 1689: "Sir Evan Cameron, Lord Locheale, een man,-- soo ik hoor van die hem lange gekent en dagelyk hebben mede omgegaan,--van so groot verstant, courage, en beleyt, als weyniges syns gelycke syn."
[330] Act. Parl., July 5. 1661.
[331] See Burt's Third and Fourth Letters. In the early editions is an engraving of the market cross of Inverness, and of that part of the street where the merchants congregated. I ought here to acknowledge my obligations to Mr. Robert Carruthers, who kindly furnished me with much curious information about Inverness and with some extracts from the municipal records.
[332] I am indebted to Mr. Carruthers for a copy of the demands of the Macdonalds and of the answer of the Town Council.
[333] Colt's Deposition, Appendix to the Act. Parl of July 14. 1690.
[334] See the Life of Sir Ewan Cameron.
[335] Balcarras's Memoirs; History of the late Revolution in Scotland.
[336] There is among the Nairne Papers in the Bodleian Library a curious MS. entitled "Journal de ce qui s'est passe en Irlande depuis l'arrivee de sa Majeste." In this journal there are notes and corrections in English and French; the English in the handwriting of James, the French in the handwriting of Melfort. The letters intercepted by Hamilton are mentioned, and mentioned in a way which plainly shows that they were genuine; nor is there the least sign that James disapproved of them.
[337] "Nor did ever," says Balcarras, addressing James, "the Viscount of Dundee think of going to the Highlands without further orders from you, till a party was sent to apprehend him."
[338] See the narrative sent to James in Ireland and received by him July 7, 1689. It is among the Nairne Papers. See also the Memoirs of Dundee, 1714; Memoirs of Sir Ewan Cameron; Balcarras's Memoirs; Mackay's Memoirs. These narratives do not perfectly agree with each other or with the information which I obtained from Inverness.
[339] Memoirs of Dundee; Tarbet to Melville, 1st June 7688, in the Levers and Melville Papers.
[340] Narrative in the Nairne Papers; Depositions of Colt, Osburne, Malcolm, and Stewart of Ballachan in the Appendix to the Act. Parl. of July 14. 1690; Memoirs of Sir Ewan Cameron. A few touches I have taken from an English translation of some passages in a lost epic poem written in Latin, and called the Grameis. The writer was a zealous Jacobite named Phillipps. I have seldom made use of the Memoirs of Dundee, printed in 1714, and never without some misgiving. The writer was certainly not, as he pretends, one of Dundee's officers, but a stupid and ignorant Grub Street garreteer. He is utterly wrong both as to the place and as to the time of the battle of Killiecrankie. He says that it was fought on the banks of the Tummell, and on the 13th of June. It was fought on the banks of the Garry, and on the 27th of July. After giving such a specimen of inaccuracy as this, it would be idle to point out minor blunders.
[341] From a letter of Archibald Karl of Argyle to Lauderdale, which bears date the 25th of June, 1664, it appears that a hundred thousand marks Scots, little more than five thousand pounds sterling, would, at that time, have very nearly satisfied all the claims of Mac Callum More on his neighbours.
[342] Mackay's Memoirs; Tarbet to Melville, June 1, 1689, in the Leven and Melville Papers; Dundee to Melfort, June 27, in the Nairne Papers,
[343] See Mackay's Memoirs, and his letter to Hamilton of the 14th of June, 1689.
[344] Memoirs of Sir Ewan Cameron.
[345] Memoirs of Sir Ewan Cameron.
[346] Memoirs of Sir Ewan Cameron.
[347] Dundee to Melfort, June 27. 1689.
[348] See Faithful Contendings Displayed, particularly the proceedings of April 29. and 30. and of May 13. and 14., 1689; the petition to Parliament drawn up by the regiment, on July 18. 1689; the protestation of Sir Robert Hamilton of November 6. 1689; and the admonitory Epistle to the Regiment, dated March 27. 1690. The Society people, as they called themselves, seem to have been especially shocked by the way in which the King's birthday had been kept. "We hope," they wrote, "ye are against observing anniversary days as well as we, and that ye will mourn for what ye have done." As to the opinions and temper of Alexander Shields, see his Hind Let Loose.
[349] Siege of the Castle of Edinburgh, printed for the Bannatyne Club; Lond. Gaz,, June 10/20. 1689.
[350] Act. Parl. Scot., June 5. June 17. 1689.
[351] The instructions will be found among the Somers Tracts.
[352] As to Sir Patrick's views, see his letter of the 7th of June, and Lockhart's letter of the 11th of July, in the Leven and Melville Papers.
[353] My chief materials for the history of this session have been the Acts, the Minutes, and the Leven and Melville Papers.
[354] "Athol," says Dundee contemptuously, "is gone to England, who did not know what to do."--Dundee to Melfort, June 27. 1689. See Athol's letters to Melville of the 21st of May and the 8th of June, in the Leven and Melville Papers.
[355] Memoirs of Sir Ewan Cameron.
[356] Mackay's Memoirs.
[357] Ibid.
[358] Van Odyck to the Greffier of the States General, Aug. 2/12 1689.
[359] Memoirs of Sir Ewan Cameron.
[360] Balcarras's Memoirs.
[361] Mackay's Short Relation, dated Aug. 17. 1689.
[362] Memoirs of Sir Ewan Cameron.
[363] Memoirs of Sir Ewan Cameron; Mackay's Memoirs.
[364] Douglas's Baronage of Scotland.
[365] Memoirs of Sir Ewan Cameron.
[366] Memoirs of Sir Ewan Cameron.
[367] As to the battle, see Mackay's Memoirs, Letters, and Short Relation; the Memoirs of Dundee; Memoirs of Sir Ewan Cameron; Nisbet's and Osburne's depositions in the Appendix to the Act. Parl. Of July 14. 1690. See also the account of the battle in one of Burt's Letters. Macpherson printed a letter from Dundee to James, dated the day after the battle. I need not say that it is as impudent a forgery as Fingal. The author of the Memoirs of Dundee says that Lord Leven was scared by the sight of the highland weapons, and set the example of flight. This is a spiteful falsehood. That Leven behaved remarkably well is proved by Mackay's Letters, Memoirs, and Short Relation.
[368] Mackay's Memoirs. Life of General Hugh Mackay by J. Mackay of Rockfield.
[369] Letter of the Extraordinary Ambassadors to the Greffier of the States General, August 2/12. 1689; and a letter of the same date from Van Odyck, who was at Hampton Court.
[370] Memoirs of Sir Ewan Cameron; Memoirs of Dundee.
[371] The tradition is certainly much more than a hundred and twenty years old. The stone was pointed out to Burt.
[372] See the History prefixed to the poems of Alexander Robertson. In this history he is represented as having joined before the battle of Killiecrankie. But it appears from the evidence which is in the Appendix to the Act. Parl. Scot. of July 14. 1690, that he came in on the following day.
[373] Mackay's Memoirs.
[374] Mackay's Memoirs; Memoirs of Sir Ewan Cameron.
[375] Memoirs of Sir Ewan Cameron.
[376] Memoirs of Sir Ewan Cameron.
[377] See Portland's Letters to Melville of April 22 and May 15. 1690, in the Leven and Melville Papers.
[378] Mackay's Memoirs; Memoirs of Sir Ewan Cameron.
[379] Exact Narrative of the Conflict at Dunkeld between the Earl of Angus's Regiment and the Rebels, collected from several Officers of that Regiment who were Actors in or Eyewitnesses of all that's here narrated in Reference to those Actions; Letter of Lieutenant Blackader to his brother, dated Dunkeld, Aug. 21. 1689; Faithful Contendings Displayed; Minute of the Scotch Privy Council of Aug. 28., quoted by Mr. Burton.
[380] The history of Scotland during this autumn will be best studied in the Leven and Melville Papers.
[381] See the Lords' Journals of Feb. 5. 1688 and of many subsequent days; Braddon's pamphlet, entitled the Earl of Essex's Memory and Honour Vindicated, 1690; and the London Gazettes of July 31. and August 4. and 7. 1690, in which Lady Essex and Burnet publicly contradicted Braddon.
[382] Whether the attainder of Lord Russell would, if unreversed, have prevented his son from succeeding to the earldom of Bedford is a difficult question. The old Earl collected the opinions of the greatest lawyers of the age, which may still be seen among the archives at Woburn. It is remarkable that one of these opinions is signed by Pemberton, who had presided at the trial. This circumstance seems to prove that the family did not impute to him any injustice or cruelty; and in truth he had behaved as well as any judge, before the Revolution, ever behaved on a similar occasion.
[383] Grey's Debates, March 1688/9.
[384] The Acts which reversed the attainders of Russell Sidney, Cornish, and Alice Lisle were private Acts. Only the titles therefore are printed in the Statute Book; but the Acts will he found in Howell's Collection of State Trials.
[385] Commons' Journals, June 24. 1689.
[386] Johnson tells this story himself in his strange pamphlet entitled, Notes upon the Phoenix Edition of the Pastoral Letter, 1694.
[387] Some Memorials of the Reverend Samuel Johnson, prefixed to the folio edition of his works, 1710.
[388] Lords' Journals, May 15. 1689.
[389] North's Examen, 224. North's evidence is confirmed by several contemporary squibs in prose and verse. See also the eikon Brotoloigon, 1697.
[390] Halifax MS. in the British Museum.
[391] Epistle Dedicatory to Oates's eikon Basiliki
[392] In a ballad of the time are the following lines
"Come listen, ye Whigs, to my pitiful moan,
All you that have ears, when the Doctor has none."
These lines must have been in Mason's head when he wrote the couplet
"Witness, ye Hills, ye Johnsons, Scots, Shebbeares;
Hark to my call: for some of you have ears."
[393] North's Examen, 224. 254. North says "six hundred a year." But I have taken the larger sum from the impudent petition which Oates addressed to the Commons, July 25. 1689. See the Journals.
[394] Van Citters, in his despatches to the States General, uses this nickname quite gravely.
[395] Lords' Journals, May 30. 1689.
[396] Lords' Journals, May 31. 1689; Commons' Journals, Aug. 2.; North's Examen, 224; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary.
[397] Sir Robert was the original hero of the Rehearsal, and was called Bilboa. In the remodelled Dunciad, Pope inserted the lines
"And highborn Howard, more majestic sire, With Fool of Quality completes the quire."
Pope's highborn Howard was Edward Howard, the author of the British Princes.
[398] Key to the Rehearsal; Shadwell's Sullen Lovers; Pepys, May 5. 8. 1668; Evelyn, Feb. 16. 1684/5.
[399] Grey's Debates and Commons' Journals, June 4. and 11 1689.
[400] Lords' Journals, June 6. 1689.
[401] Commons' Journals, Aug. 2. 1689; Dutch Ambassadors Extraordinary to the States General, July 30/Aug 9
[402] Lords' Journals, July 30. 1689; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary; Clarendon's Diary, July 31. 1689.
[403] See the Commons' Journals of July 31. and August 13 1689.
[404] Commons' Journals, Aug. 20
[405] Oldmixon accuses the Jacobites, Burnet the republicans. Though Burnet took a prominent part in the discussion of this question, his account of what passed is grossly inaccurate. He says that the clause was warmly debated in the Commons, and that Hampden spoke strongly for it. But we learn from the journals (June 19 1689) that it was rejected nemine contradicente. The Dutch Ambassadors describe it as "een propositie 'twelck geen ingressie schynt te sullen vinden."
[406] London Gazette, Aug. 1. 1689; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary.
[407] The history of this Bill may be traced in the journals of the two Houses, and in Grey's Debates.
[408] See Grey's Debates, and the Commons' Journals from March to July. The twelve categories will be found in the journals of the 23d and 29th of May and of the 8th of June.
[409] Halifax MS. in the British Museum.
[410] The Life and Death of George Lord Jeffreys; Finch's speech in Grey's Debates, March 1. 1688/9.
[411] See, among many other pieces, Jeffreys's Elegy, the Letter to the Lord Chancellor exposing to him the sentiments of the people, the Elegy on Dangerfield, Dangerfield's Ghost to Jeffreys, The Humble Petition of Widows and fatherless Children in the West, the Lord Chancellor's Discovery and Confession made in the lime of his sickness in the Tower; Hickeringill's Ceremonymonger; a broadside entitled "O rare show! O rare sight! O strange monster! The like not in Europe! To be seen near Tower Hill, a few doors beyond the Lion's den."
[412] Life and Death of George Lord Jeffreys.
[413] Tutchin himself gives this narrative in the Bloody Assizes.
[414] See the Life of Archbishop Sharp by his son. What passed between Scott and Jeffreys was related by Scott to Sir Joseph Jekyl. See Tindal's History; Echard, iii. 932. Echard's informant, who is not named, but who seems to have had good opportunities of knowing the truth, said that Jeffreys died, not, as the vulgar believed, of drink, but of the stone. The distinction seems to be of little importance. It is certain that Jeffreys was grossly intemperate; and his malady was one which intemperance notoriously tends to aggravate.
[415] See a Full and True Account of the Death of George Lord Jeffreys, licensed on the day of his death. The wretched Le Noble was never weary of repeating that Jeffreys was poisoned by the usurper. I will give a short passage as a specimen of the calumnies of which William was the object. "Il envoya," says Pasquin "ce fin ragout de champignons au Chancelier Jeffreys, prisonnier dans la Tour, qui les trouva du meme goust, et du mmee assaisonnement que furent les derniers dont Agrippine regala le bon-homme Claudius son epoux, et que Neron appella depuis la viande des Dieux." Marforio asks: "Le Chancelier est donc mort dans la Tour?" Pasquin answers: "Il estoit trop fidele a son Roi legitime, et trop habile dans les loix du royaume, pour echapper a l'Usurpateur qu'il ne vouloit point reconnoistre. Guillemot prit soin de faire publier que ce malheureux prisonnier estoit attaque du'ne fievre maligne; mais, a parler franchement, i1 vivroit peutestre encore s'i1 n'avoit rien mange que de la main de ses anciens cuisiniers."--Le Festin de Guillemot, 1689. Dangeau (May q.) mentions a report that Jeffreys had poisoned himself.
[416] Among the numerous pieces in which the malecontent Whigs vented their anger, none is more curious than the poem entitled the Ghost of Charles the Second. Charles addresses William thus:
"Hail my blest nephew, whom the fates ordain
To fill the measure of the Stuart's reign,
That all the ills by our whole race designed
In thee their full accomplishment might find
'Tis thou that art decreed this point to clear,
Which we have laboured for these fourscore year."
[417] Grey's Debates, June 12 1689.
[418] See Commons' Journals, and Grey's Debates, June 1. 3. and 4. 1689; Life of William, 1704.
[419] Burnet MS. Harl. 6584.; Avaux to De Croissy, June 16/26 1689.
[420] As to the minutes of the Privy Council, see the Commons' Journals of June 22. and 28., and of July 3. 5. 13. and 16.
[421] The letter of Halifax to Lady Russell is dated on the 23d of July 1689, about a fortnight after the attack on him in the Lords, and about a week before the attack on him in the Commons.
[422] See the Lords' Journals of July 10. 1689, and a letter from London dated July 11/21, and transmitted by Croissy to Avaux. Don Pedro de Ronquillo mentions this attack of the Whig Lords on Halifax in a despatch of which I cannot make out the date.
[423] This was on Saturday the 3d of August. As the division was in Committee, the numbers do not appear in the journals. Clarendon, in his Diary, says that the majority was eleven. But Narcissus Luttrell, Oldmixon, and Tindal agree in putting it at fourteen. Most of the little information which I have been able to find about the debate is contained in a despatch of Don Pedro de Ronquillo. "Se resolvio" he says, "que el sabado, en comity de toda la casa, se tratasse del estado de la nation para representarle al Rey. Emperose por acusar al Marques de Olifax; y reconociendo sus emulos que no tenian partido bastante, quisieron remitir para otro dia esta motion: pero el Conde de Elan, primogenito del Marques de Olifax, miembro de la casa, les dijo que su padre no era hombre para andar peloteando con el, y que se tubiesse culpa lo acabasen de castigar, que el no havia menester estar en la corte para portarse conforme a su estado, pues Dios le havia dado abundamente para poderlo hazer; conque por pluralidad de votes vencio su partido." I suspect that Lord Eland meant to sneer at the poverty of some of his father's persecutors, and at the greediness of others.
[424] This change of feeling, immediately following the debate on the motion for removing Halifax, is noticed by Ronquillo.
[425] As to Ruvigny, see Saint Simon's Memoirs of the year 1697: Burnet, i. 366. There is some interesting information about Ruvigny and about the Huguenot regiments in a narrative written by a French refugee of the name of Dumont. This narrative, which is in manuscript, and which I shall occasionally quote as the Dumont MS., was kindly lent to me by the Dean of Ossory.
[426] See the Abrege de la Vie de Frederic Duc de Schomberg by Lunancy, 1690, the Memoirs of Count Dohna, and the note of Saint Simon on Dangeau's Journal, July 30, 1690.
[427] See the Commons' Journals of July 16. 1689, and of July 1. 1814.
[428] Journals of the Lords and Commons, Aug. 20. 1689; London Gazette, Aug, 22.
[429] J'estois d'avis qu', apres que la descente seroit faite, si on apprenoit que des Protestans se fassent soulevez en quelques endroits du royaume, on fit main basse sur tous generalement."-Avaux, July 31/Aug 10 1689.
[430] "Le Roy d'Angleterre m'avoit ecoute assez paisiblement la première fois que je luy avois propose ce qu'il y avoit a faire contre les Protestans."--Avaux, Aug. 4/14
[431] Avaux, Aug. 4/14. He says, "Je m'imagine qu'il est persuade que, quoiqu'il ne donne point d'ordre sur cela, la plupart des Catholiques de la campagne se jetteront sur les Protestans."
[432] Lewis, Aug 27/Sept 6, reprimanded Avaux, though much too gently, for proposing to butcher the whole Protestant population of Leinster, Connaught, and Munster. "Je n'approuve pas cependant la proposition que vous faites de faire main basse sur tous les Protestans du royaume, du moment qu', en quelque endroit que ce soit, ils se seront soulevez: et, outre que la punition du'ne infinite d'innocens pour peu de coupables ne seroit pas juste, d'ailleurs les represailles contre les Catholiques seroient d'autant plus dangereuses, que les premiers se trouveront mieux armez et soutenus de toutes les forces d'Angleterre."
[433] Ronquillo, Aug. 9/19 speaking of the siege of Londonderry, expresses his astonishment "que una plaza sin fortification y sin genies de guerra aya hecho una defensa tan gloriosa, y que los sitiadores al contrario ayan sido tan poltrones."
[434] This account of the Irish army is compiled from numerous letters written by Avaux to Lewis and to Lewis's ministers. I will quote a few of the most remarkable passages. "Les plus beaux hommes," Avaux says of the Irish, "qu'on peut voir. Il n'y en a presque point au dessous de cinq pieds cinq a six pouces." It will be remembered that the French foot is longer than ours. "Ils sont tres bien faits: mais; il ne sont ny disciplinez ny armez, et de surplus sont de grands voleurs." "La plupart de ces regimens sont levez par des gentilshommes qui n'ont jamais este á l'armee. Ce sont des tailleurs, des bouchers, des cordonniers, qui ont forme les compagnies et qui en sont les Capitaines." "Jamais troupes n'ont marche comme font celles-cy. Ils vent comme des bandits, et pillent tout ce qu'ils trouvent en chemin." "Quoiqu'il soit vrai que les soldats paroissent fort resolus a bien faire, et qu'ils soient fort animez contre les rebelles, neantmoins il ne suffit pas de cela pour combattre . . . . . Les officiers subalternes sont mauvais, et, a la reserve d'un tres peut nombre, il n'y en a point qui ayt soin des soldats, des armes, et de la discipline." "On a beaucoup plus de confiance en la cavalerie, dont la plus grande partie est assez bonne." Avaux mentions several regiments of horse with particular praise. Of two of these he says, "On ne peut voir de meilleur regiment." The correctness of the opinion which he had formed both of the infantry and of the cavalry was, after his departure from Ireland, signally proved at the Boyne.
[435] I will quote a passage or two from the despatches written at this time by Avaux. On September 7/17. he says: "De quelque coste qu'on se tournat, on ne pouvoir rien prevoir que de desagreable. Mais dans cette extremite chacun s'est evertue. Les officiers ont fait leurs recrues avec beaucoup de diligence." Three days later he says: "Il y a quinze jours que nous n'esperions guare de pouvoir mettre les choses en si bon estat mais my Lord Tyrconnel et tous les Irlandais ont travaille avec tant d'empressement qu'on s'est mis en estat de deffense."
[436] Avaux, Aug 25/Sep 4 Aug 26/Sep 5; Life of James, ii. 373.; Melfort's vindication of himself among the Nairne Papers. Avaux says: "Il pourra partir ce soir a la nuit: car je vois bien qu'il apprehende qu'il ne sera pas sur pour luy de partir en plein jour."
[437] Story's Impartial History of the Wars of Ireland, 1693; Life of James, ii. 374; Avaux, Sept. 7/17 1689; Nihell's journal, printed in 1689, and reprinted by Macpherson.
[438] Story's Impartial History.
[439] Ibid.
[440] Avaux, Sep. 10/20. 1689; Story's Impartial History; Life of James, ii. 377, 378 Orig. Mem. Story and James agree in estimating the Irish army at about twenty thousand men. See also Dangeau, Oct. 28. 1689.
[441] Life of James, ii. 377, 378. Orig. Mem.
[442] See Grey's Debates, Nov. 26, 27, 28. 1689, and the Dialogue between a Lord Lieutenant and one of his deputies, 1692.
[443] Nihell's Journal. A French officer, in a letter to Avaux, written soon after Schomberg's landing, says, "Les Huguenots font plus de mal que les Anglois, et tuent force Catholiques pour avoir fait resistance."
[444] Story; Narrative transmitted by Avaux to Seignelay, Nov 26/Dec 6 1689 London Gazette, Oct. 14. 1689. It is curious that, though Dumont was in the camp before Dundalk, there is in his MS. no mention of the conspiracy among the French.
[445] Story's Impartial History; Dumont MS. The profaneness and dissoluteness of the camp during the sickness are mentioned in many contemporary pamphlets both in verse and prose. See particularly a Satire entitled Reformation of Manners, part ii.
[446] Story's Impartial History.
[447] Avaux, Oct. 11/21. Nov. 14/24 1689; Story's Impartial History; Life of James, ii. 382, 383. Orig. Mem.; Nihell's Journal.
[448] Story's Impartial History; Schomberg's Despatches; Nihell's Journal, and James's Life; Burnet, ii. 20.; Dangeau's journal during this autumn; the Narrative sent by Avaux to Seignelay, and the Dumont MS. The lying of the London Gazette is monstrous. Through the whole autumn the troops are constantly said to be in good condition. In the absurd drama entitled the Royal Voyage, which was acted for the amusement of the rabble of London in 1689, the Irish are represented as attacking some of the sick English. The English put the assailants to the rout, and then drop down dead.
[449] See his despatches in the appendix to Dalrymple's Memoirs.
[450] London Gazette; May 20 1689.
[451] Commons' Journals, Nov. 13, 23. 1689; Grey's Debates, Nov. 13. 14. 18. 23. 1689. See, among numerous pasquinades, the Parable of the Bearbaiting, Reformation of Manners, a Satire, the Mock Mourners, a Satire. See also Pepys's Diary kept at Tangier, Oct. 15. 1683.
[452] The best account of these negotiations will be found in Wagenaar, lxi. He had access to Witsen's papers, and has quoted largely from them. It was Witsen who signed in violent agitation, "zo als" he says, "myne beevende hand getuigen kan." The treaties will be found in Dumont's Corps Diplomatique. They were signed in August 1689.
[453] The treaty between the Emperor and the States General is dated May 12. 1689. It will be found in Dumont's Corps Diplomatique.
[454] See the despatch of Waldeck in the London Gazette, Aug. 26, 1689; historical Records of the First Regiment of Foot; Dangeau, Aug. 28.; Monthly Mercury, September 1689.
[455] See the Dear Bargain, a Jacobite pamphlet clandestinely printed in 1690. "I have not patience," says the writer, "after this wretch (Marlborough) to mention any other. All are innocent comparatively, even Kirke himself."
[456] See the Mercuries for September 1689, and the four following months. See also Welwood's Mercurius Reformatus of Sept. 18. Sept. 25. and Oct. 8. 1689. Melfort's Instructions, and his memorials to the Pope and the Cardinal of Este, are among the Nairne Papers; and some extracts have been printed by Macpherson.
[457] See the Answer of a Nonjuror to the Bishop of Sarum's challenge in the Appendix to the Life of Kettlewell. Among the Tanner MSS. in the Bodleian Library is a paper which, as Sancroft thought it worth preserving, I venture to quote. The writer, a strong nonjuror, after trying to evade, by many pitiable shifts the argument drawn by a more compliant divine from the practice of the primitive Church, proceeds thus: "Suppose the primitive Christians all along, from the time of the very Apostles, had been as regardless of their oaths by former princes as he suggests will he therefore say that their practice is to be a rule? Ill things have been done, and very generally abetted, by men of otherwise very orthodox principles." The argument from the practice of the primitive Christians is remarkably well put in a tract entitled The Doctrine of Nonresistance or Passive Obedience No Way concerned in the Controversies now depending between the Williamites and the Jacobites, by a Lay Gentleman, of the Communion of the Church of England, as by Law establish'd, 1689.
[458] One of the most adulatory addresses ever voted by a Convocation was to Richard the Third. It will be found in Wilkins's Concilia. Dryden, in his fine rifacimento of one of the finest passages in the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, represents the Good Parson as choosing to resign his benefice rather than acknowledge the Duke of Lancaster to be King of England. For this representation no warrant can be found in Chaucer's Poem, or any where else. Dryden wished to write something that would gall the clergy who had taken the oaths, and therefore attributed to a Roman Catholic priest of the fourteenth century a superstition which originated among the Anglican priests of the seventeenth century.
[459] See the defence of the profession which the Right Reverend Father in God John Lake, Lord Bishop of Chichester, made upon his deathbed concerning passive obedience and the new oaths. 1690.
[460] London Gazette, June 30. 1689; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary. "The eminentest men," says Luttrell.
[461] See in Kettlewell's Life, iii. 72., the retractation drawn by him for a clergyman who had taken the oaths, and who afterwards repented of having done so.
[462] See the account of Dr. Dove's conduct in Clarendon's Diary, and the account of Dr. Marsh's conduct in the Life of Kettlewell.
[463] The Anatomy of a Jacobite Tory, 1690.
[464] Dialogue between a Whig and a Tory.
[465] Narcissus Luttrell's Diary, Nov. 1697, Feb. 1692.
[466] Life of Kettlewell, iii. 4.
[467] See Turner's Letter to Sancroft, dated on Ascension Day, 1689. The original is among the Tanner MSS. in the Bodleian Library. But the letter will be found with much other curious matter in the Life of Ken by a Layman, lately published. See also the Life of Kettlewell, iii. 95.; and Ken's letter to Burnet, dated Oct. 5. 1689, in Hawkins's Life of Ken. "I am sure," Lady Russell wrote to Dr. Fitzwilliam, "the Bishop of Bath and Wells excited others to comply, when he could not bring himself to do so, but rejoiced when others did." Ken declared that he had advised nobody to take the oaths, and that his practice had been to remit those who asked his advice to their own studies and prayers. Lady Russell's assertion and Ken's denial will be found to come nearly to the same thing, when we make those allowances which ought to be made for situation and feeling, even in weighing the testimony of the most veracious witnesses. Ken, having at last determined to cast in his lot with the nonjurors, naturally tried to vindicate his consistency as far as he honestly could. Lady Russell, wishing to induce her friend to take the oaths, naturally made as munch of Ken's disposition to compliance as she honestly could. She went too far in using the word "excited." On the other hand it is clear that Ken, by remitting those who consulted him to their own studies and prayers, gave them to understand that, in his opinion, the oath was lawful to those who, after a serious inquiry, thought it lawful. If people had asked him whether they might lawfully commit perjury or adultery, he would assuredly have told them, not to consider the point maturely and to implore the divine direction, but to abstain on peril of their souls.
[468] See the conversation of June 9. 1784, in Boswell's Life of Johnson, and the note. Boswell, with his usual absurdity, is sure that Johnson could not have recollected "that the seven bishops, so justly celebrated for their magnanimous resistance to arbitrary power, were yet nonjurors." Only five of the seven were nonjurors; and anybody but Boswell would have known that a man may resist arbitrary power, and yet not be a good reasoner. Nay, the resistance which Sancroft and the other nonjuring bishops offered to arbitrary power, while they continued to hold the doctrine of nonresistance, is the most decisive proof that they were incapable of reasoning. It must be remembered that they were prepared to take the whole kingly power from James and to bestow it on William, with the title of Regent. Their scruple was merely about the word King.
I am surprised that Johnson should have pronounced William Law no reasoner. Law did indeed fall into great errors; but they were errors against which logic affords no security. In mere dialectical skill he had very few superiors. That he was more than once victorious over Hoadley no candid Whig will deny. But Law did not belong to the generation with which I have now to do.
[469] Ware's History of the Writers of Ireland, continued by Harris.
[470] Letter to a member of the Convention, 1689
[471] Johnson's Notes on the Phoenix Edition of Burnet's Pastoral Letter, 1692.
[472] The best notion of Hickes's character will be formed from his numerous controversial writings, particularly his Jovian, written in 1684, his Thebaean Legion no Fable, written in 1687, though not published till 1714, and his discourses upon Dr. Burnet and Dr. Tillotson, 1695. His literary fame rests on works of a very different kind.
[473] Collier's Tracts on the Stage are, on the whole his best pieces. But there is much that is striking in his political pamphlets. His "Persuasive to Consider anon, tendered to the Royalists, particularly those of the Church of England," seems to me one of the best productions of the Jacobite press.
[474] See Brokesby's Life of Dodwell. The Discourse against Marriages in different Communions is known to me, I ought to say, only from Brokesby's copious abstract. That Discourse is very rare. It was originally printed as a preface to a sermon preached by Leslie. When Leslie collected his works he omitted the discourse, probably because he was ashamed of it. The Treatise on the Lawfulness of Instrumental Music I have read; and incredibly absurd it is.
[475] Dodwell tells us that the title of the work in which he first promulgated this theory was framed with great care and precision. I will therefore transcribe the title-page. "An Epistolary Discourse proving from Scripture and the First Fathers that the Soul is naturally Mortal, but Immortalized actually by the Pleasure of God to Punishment or to Reward, by its Union with the Divine Baptismal Spirit, wherein is proved that none have the Power of giving this Divine Immortalizing Spirit since the Apostles but only the Bishops. By H. Dodwell." Dr. Clarke, in a Letter to Dodwell (1706), says that this Epistolary Discourse is "a book at which all good men are sorry, and all profane men rejoice."
[476] See Leslie's Rehearsals, No. 286, 287.
[477] See his works, and the highly curious life of him which was compiled from the papers of his friends Hickes and Nelson.
[478] See Fitzwilliam's correspondence with Lady Russell, and his evidence on the trial of Ashton, in the State Trials. The only work which Fitzwilliam, as far as I have been able to discover, ever published was a sermon on the Rye House Plot, preached a few weeks after Russell's execution. There are some sentences in this sermon which I a little wonder that the widow and the family forgave.
[479] Cyprian, in one of his Epistles, addresses the confessors thus: "Quosdam audio inficere numerum vestrum, et laudem praecipui nominis prava sua conversatione destruere. . . Cum quanto nominis vestri pudore delinquitur quando alius aliquis temulentus et lasciviens demoratur; alius in eam patriam unde extorris est regreditur, ut deprehensus non eam quasi Christianus, sed quasi nocens pereat." He uses still stronger language in the book de Unitate Ecclesiae: "Neque enim confessio immunem facet ab insidiis diaboli, aut contra tentationes et pericula et incursus atque impetus saeculares adhuc in saeculo positum perpetua securitate defendit; caeterum nunquam in confessoribus fraudes et stupra et adulteria postmodum videremus, quae nunc in quibusdam videntes ingemiscimus et dolemus."
[480] Much curious information about the nonjurors will be found in the Biographical Memoirs of William Bowyer, printer, which forms the first volume of Nichols's Literary Anecdotes of the eighteenth century. A specimen of Wagstaffe's prescriptions is in the Bodleian Library.
[481] Cibber's play, as Cibber wrote it, ceased to he popular when the Jacobites ceased to be formidable, and is now known only to the curious. In 1768 Bickerstaffe altered it into the Hypocrite, and substituted Dr. Cantwell, the Methodist, for Dr. Wolfe, the Nonjuror. "I do not think," said Johnson, "the character of the Hypocrite justly applicable to the Methodists; but it was very applicable to the nonjurors." Boswell asked him if it were true that the nonjuring clergymen intrigued with the wives of their patrons. "I am afraid," said Johnson, "many of them did." This conversation took place on the 27th of March 1775. It was not merely in careless tally that Johnson expressed an unfavourable opinion of the nonjurors. In his Life of Fenton, who was a nonjuror, are these remarkable words: "It must be remembered that he kept his name unsullied, and never suffered himself to be reduced, like too many of the same sect, to mean arts and dishonourable shifts." See the Character of a Jacobite, 1690. Even in Kettlewell's Life compiled from the papers of his friends Hickes and Nelson, will be found admissions which show that, very soon after the schism, some of the nonjuring clergy fell into habits of idleness, dependence, and mendicancy, which lowered the character of the whole party. "Several undeserving persons, who are always the most confident, by their going up and down, did much prejudice to the truly deserving, whose modesty would not suffer them to solicit for themselves . . . . . . Mr. Kettlewell was also very sensible that some of his brethren spent too much of their time in places of concourse and news, by depending for their subsistence upon those whom they there got acquainted with."
[482] Reresby's Memoirs, 344
[483] Birch's Life of Tillotson.
[484] See the Discourse concerning the Ecclesiastical Commission, 1689.
[485] Birch's Life of Tillotson; Life of Prideaux; Gentleman's Magazine for June and July, 1745.
[486] Diary of the Proceedings of the Commissioners, taken by Dr. Williams afterwards Bishop of Chichester, one of the Commissioners, every night after he went home from the several meetings. This most curious Diary was printed by order of the House of Commons in 1854.
[487] Williams's Diary.
[488] Williams's Diary.
[489] Ibid.
[490] See the alterations in the Book of Common Prayer prepared by the Royal Commissioners for the revision of the Liturgy in 1689, and printed by order of the House of Commons in 1854.
[491] It is difficult to conceive stronger or clearer language than that used by the Council. Touton toinun anagnosthenton orisan e agia sunodos, eteran pistin medeni ekseinai prospherein, egoun suggraphein, e suntithenia, para ten oristheisan para ton agion pateron ton en te Nikaeon sunegthonton sun agio pneumati tous de tolmontas e suntithenai pistin eteran, egoun prokomizein, e prospherein tois ethegousin epistrephein eis epignosin tes agetheias e eks Ellinismou e eks Ioudaismon, i eks aireseos oiasdepotoun, toutous, ei men eien episkopoi i klerikoi, allotrious einai tous episkopon, tes episkopes, kai tous klerikous ton kliron ei de laikoi eien, agathematizesthai-- Concil. Ephes. Actio VI.
[492] Williams's Diary; Alterations in the Book of Common Prayer.
[493] It is curious to consider how those great masters of the Latin tongue who used to sup with Maecenas and Pollio would have been perplexed by "Tibi Cherubim et Seraphim incessabili voce proclamant, Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, Dominus Deus Sabaoth;" or by "Ideo cum angelis et archangelis, cum thronis et dominationibus."
[494] I will give two specimens of Patrick's workmanship. "He maketh me," says David, "to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters." Patrick's version is as follows: "For as a good shepherd leads his sheep in the violent heat to shady places, where they may lie down and feed (not in parched but) in fresh and green pastures, and in the evening leads them (not to muddy and troubled waters, but) to pure and quiet streams; so hath he already made a fair and plentiful provision for me, which I enjoy in peace without any disturbance."
In the Song of Solomon is an exquisitely beautiful verse. "I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if ye find my beloved, that ye tell him that I am sick of love." Patrick's version runs thus: "So I turned myself to those of my neighbours and familiar acquaintance who were awakened by my cries to come and see what the matter was; and conjured them, as they would answer it to God, that, if they met with my beloved, they would let him know-- What shall I say?--What shall I desire you to tell him but that I do not enjoy myself now that I want his company, nor can be well till I recover his love again."
[495] William's dislike of the Cathedral service is sarcastically noticed by Leslie in the Rehearsal, No. 7. See also a Letter from a Member of the House of Commons to his Friend in the Country, 1689, and Bisset's Modern Fanatic, 1710.
[496] See the Order in Council of Jan. 9. 1683.
[497] See Collier's Desertion discussed, 1689. Thomas Carte, who was a disciple, and, at one time, an assistant of Collier, inserted, so late as the year 1747, in a bulky History of England, an exquisitely absurd note in which he assured the world that, to his certain knowledge, the Pretender had cured the scrofula, and very gravely inferred that the healing virtue was transmitted by inheritance, and was quite independent of any unction. See Carte's History of England, vol, i. page 297.
[498] See the Preface to a Treatise on Wounds, by Richard Wiseman, Sergeant Chirurgeon to His Majesty, 1676. But the fullest information on this curious subject will he found in the Charisma Basilicon, by John Browne, Chirurgeon in ordinary to His Majesty, 1684. See also The Ceremonies used in the Time of King Henry VII. for the Healing of them that be Diseased with the King's Evil, published by His Majesty's Command, 1686; Evelyn's Diary, March 18. 1684; and Bishop Cartwright's Diary, August 28, 29, and 30. 1687. It is incredible that so large a proportion of the population should have been really scrofulous. No doubt many persons who had slight and transient maladies were brought to the king, and the recovery of these persons kept up the vulgar belief in the efficacy of his touch.
[499] Paris Gazette, April 23. 1689.
[500] See Whiston's Life of himself. Poor Whiston, who believed in every thing but the Trinity, tells us gravely that the single person whom William touched was cured, notwithstanding His Majesty's want of faith. See also the Athenian Mercury of January 16. 1691.
[501] In several recent publications the apprehension that differences might arise between the Convocation of York and the Convocation of Canterbury has been contemptuously pronounced chimerical. But it is not easy to understand why two independent Convocations should be less likely to differ than two Houses of the same Convocation; and it is matter of notoriety that, in the reigns of William the Third and Anne, the two Houses of the Convocation of Canterbury scarcely ever agreed.
[502] Birch's Life of Tillotson; Life of Prideaux. From Clarendon's Diary, it appears that he and Rochester were at Oxford on the 23rd of September.
[503] See the Roll in the Historical Account of the present Convocation, appended to the second edition of Vox Cleri, 1690. The most considerable name that I perceive in the list of proctors chosen by the parochial clergy is that of Dr. John Mill, the editor of the Greek Testament.
[504] Tillotson to Lady Russell, April 19. 1690.
[505] Birch's Life of Tillotson. The account there given of the coldness between Compton and Tillotson was taken by Birch from the MSS. of Henry Wharton, and is confirmed by many circumstances which are known from other sources of intelligence.
[506] Chamberlayne's State of England, 18th edition.
[507] Condo ad Synodum per Gulielmum Beveregium, 1689.
[508] Narcissus Luttrell's Diary; Historical Account of the Present Convocation.
[509] Kennet's History, iii. 552.
[510] Historical Account of the Present Convocation, 1689.
[511] Historical Account of the Present Convocation; Burnet, ii. 58.; Kennet's History of the Reign of William and Mary.
[512] Historical Account of the Present Convocation; Kennet's History.
[513] Historical Account of the Present Convocation; Kennet.
[514] Historical Account of the Present Convocation.
[515] That there was such a jealousy as I have described is admitted in the pamphlet entitled Vox Cleri. "Some country ministers now of the Convocation, do now see in what great ease and plenty the City ministers live, who have their readers and lecturers, and frequent supplies, and sometimes tarry in the vestry till prayers be ended, and have great dignities in the Church, besides their rich parishes in the City." The author of this tract, once widely celebrated, was Thomas Long, proctor for the clergy of the diocese of Exeter. In another pamphlet, published at this time, the rural clergymen are said to have seen with an evil eye their London brethren refreshing themselves with sack after preaching. Several satirical allusions to the fable of the Town Mouse and the Country Mouse will be found in the pamphlets of that winter.
[516] Burnet, ii, 33, 34. The best narratives of what passed in this Convocation are the Historical Account appended to the second edition of Vox Cleri, and the passage in Kennet's History to which I have already referred the reader. The former narrative is by a very high churchman, the latter by a very low churchman. Those who are desirous of obtaining fuller information must consult the contemporary pamphlets. Among them are Vox Populi; Vox Laici; Vox Regis et Regni; the Healing Attempt; the Letter to a Friend, by Dean Prideaux the Letter from a Minister in the Country to a Member of the Convocation; the Answer to the Merry Answer to Vox Cleri; the Remarks from the Country upon two Letters relating to the Convocation; the Vindication of the Letters in answer to Vox Cleri; the Answer to the Country Minister's Letter. All these tracts appeared late in 1689 or early in 1690.
[517] "Halifax a eu une reprimande severe publiquement dans le conseil par le Prince d'Orange pour avoir trop balance."--Avaux to De Croissy, Dublin, June 1689. "his mercurial Wit," says Burnet, ii. 4., "was not well suited with the King's phlegm."
[518] Clarendon's Diary, Oct. 10 1689; Lords' Journals, Oct. 19. 1689.
[519] Commons' Journals, Oct. 24. 1689.
[520] Ibid., Nov. 2. 1689.
[521] Commons' Journals, Nov. 7. 19., Dec. 30 1689. The rule of the House then was that no petition could be received against the imposition of a tax. This rule was, after a very hard fight, rescinded in 1842. The petition of the Jews was not received, and is not mentioned in the Journals. But something may be learned about it from Narcissus Luttrell's Diary and from Grey's Debates, Nov. 19. 1689,
[522] James, in the very treatise in which he tried to prove the Pope to be Antichrist, says "For myself, if that were yet the question, I would with all my heart give my consent that the Bishop of Rome should have the first seat." There is a remarkable letter on this subject written by James to Charles and Buckingham, when they were in Spain. Heylyn, speaking of Laud's negotiation with Rome, says: "So that upon the point the Pope was to content himself among us in England with a priority instead of a superiority over other Bishops, and with a primacy instead of a supremacy in those parts of Christendom, which I conceive no man of learning and sobriety would have grudged to grant him,"
[523] Stat. 1 W & M. sess. 2. c 2.
[524] Treasury Minute Book, Nov. 3. 1689.
[525] Commons' Journals and Grey's Debates, Nov. 13, 14. 18. 19. 23. 28. 1689.
[526] Commons' Journals and Grey's Debates, November 26. and 27. 1689.
[527] Commons' Journals, November 28., December 2. 1689.
[528] Commons' Journals and Grey's Debates, November 30., December 2 1689.
[529] London Gazette, Septemher 2 1689; Observations upon Mr. Walker's Account of the Siege of Londonderry, licensed October 4. 1689; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary; Mr. J. Mackenzie's Narrative a False Libel, a Defence of Mr. G. Walker written by his Friend in his Absence, 1690.
[530] Walker's True Account, 1689; An Apology for the Failures charged on the True Account, 1689; Reflections on the Apology, 1689; A Vindication of the True Account by Walker, 1689; Mackenzie's Narrative, 1690; Mr. Mackenzie's Narrative a False Libel, 1690; Dr. Walker's Invisible Champion foyled by Mackenzie, 1690; Weiwood's Mercurius Reformatus, Dec. 4. and 11 1689. The Oxford editor of Burnet's History expresses his surprise at the silence which the Bishop observes about Walker. In the Burnet MS. Harl. 6584. there is an animated panegyric on Walker. Why that panegyric does not appear in the History, I am at a loss to explain.
[531] Commons' Journals, November 18 and 19. 1689; and Grey's Debates.
[532] Wade's Confession, Harl. MS. 6845.
[533] See the Preface to the First Edition of his Memoirs, Vevay, 1698.
[534] "Colonel Ludlow, an old Oliverian, and one of King Charles the First his Judges, is arrived lately in this kingdom from Switzerland."-Narcissus Luttrell's Diary, September 1689.
[535] Third Caveat against the Whigs, 1712.
[536] Commons' Journals, November 6. and 8. 1689; Grey's Debates; London Gazette, November 18.
[537] "Omme solum forti patria, quia patris." See Addison's Travels. It is a remarkable circumstance that Addison, though a Whig, speaks of Ludlow in language which would better have become a Tory, and sneers at the inscription as cant.
[538] Commons' Journals, Nov. 1. 7. 1689.
[539] Roger North's Life of Dudley North.
[540] Commons' Journals, Oct. 26. 1689.
[541] Lords' Journals, October 26. and 27. 1689.
[542] Commons' Journals, Oct. 26. 1689.
[543] Commons' Journals, Oct. 26. 1689; Wood's Athenae Oxonienses; Dod's Church History, VIII. ii. 3.
[544] Commons' Journals, October 28. 5689. The proceedings will be found in the collection of State Trials.
[545] Lords' Journals, Nov. 2. and 6. 1689.
[546] Lords' Journals, Dec. 20. 1689; Life of Dudley North.
[547] The report is in the Lords' Journals, Dec. 20. 1689. Hampden's examination was on the 18th of November.
[548] This, I think, is clear from a letter of Lady Montague to Lady Russell, dated Dec. 23. 1689, three days after the Committee of Murder had reported.
[549] Commons' Journals, Dec. 14. 1689; Grey's Debates; Boyer's Life of William.
[550] Commons' Journals, Dec. 21.; Grey's Debates; Oldmixon.
[551] Commons' Journals, Jan. 2. 1689/90
[552] Thus, I think, must be understood some remarkable words in a letter written by William to Portland, on the day after Sacheverell's bold and unexpected move. William calculates the amount of the supplies, and then says: "S'ils n'y mettent des conditions que vous savez, c'est une bonne affaire: mais les Wigges sont si glorieux d'avoir vaincu qu'ils entreprendront tout."
[553] "The authority of the chair, the awe and reverence to order, and the due method of debates being irrecoverably lost by the disorder and tumultuousness of the House."--Sir J. Trevor to the King, Appendix to Dalrymple's Memoirs, Part ii. Book 4.
[554] Commons' Journals, Jan. 10. 1689/90 I have done my best to frame an account of this contest out of very defective materials. Burnet's narrative contains more blunders than lines. He evidently trusted to his memory, and was completely deceived by it. My chief authorities are the Journals; Grey's Debates; William's Letters to Portland; the Despatches of Van Citters; a Letter concerning the Disabling Clauses, lately offered to the House of Commons, for regulating Corporations, 1690; The True Friends to Corporations vindicated, in an answer to a letter concerning the Disabling Clauses, 1690; and Some Queries concerning the Election of Members for the ensuing Parliament, 1690. To this last pamphlet is appended a list of those who voted for the Sacheverell Clause. See also Clarendon's Diary, Jan. 10. 1689/90, and the Third Part of the Caveat against the Whigs, 1712. William's Letter of the 10th of January ends thus. The news of the first division only had reached Kensington. "Il est a present onze eures de nuit, et dix eures la Chambre Basse estoit encore ensemble. Ainsi je ne vous puis escrire par cette ordinaire l'issue de l'affaire. Les previos questions les Tories l'ont emporte de cinq vois. Ainsi vous pouvez voir que la chose est bien disputee. J'ay si grand somiel, et mon toux m'incomode que je ne vous en saurez dire davantage. Jusques a mourir a vous."
On the same night Van Citters wrote to the States General. The debate he said, had been very sharp. The design of the Whigs, whom he calls the Presbyterians, had been nothing less than to exclude their opponents from all offices, and to obtain for themselves the exclusive possession of power.
[555] Commons' Journals, Jan. 11 1689/90.
[556] Narcissus Luttrell's Diary, Jan. 16. 1690; Van Citters to the States General, Jan. 21/31
[557] Commons' Journals, Jan. 16. 1689/90
[558] Roger North's Life of Guildford.
[559] See the account of the proceedings in the collection of State Trials.
[560] Commons' Journals, Jan. 20. 1689/90; Grey's Debates, Jan. 18. and 20.
[561] Commons' Journals, Jan. 21. 1689/90 On the same day William wrote thus from Kensington to Portland: "C'est aujourd'hui le grand jour l'eguard du Bill of Indemnite. Selon tout ce que is puis aprendre, il y aura beaucoup de chaleur, et rien determiner; et de la maniere que la chose est entourre, il n'y a point d'aparence que cette affaire viene a aucune conclusion. Et ainsi il se pouroit que la cession fust fort courts; n'ayant plus dargent a esperer; et les esprits s'aigrissent ton contre l'autre de plus en plus." Three days later Van Citters informed the States General that the excitement about the Bill of Indemnity was extreme.
[562] Burnet, ii. 39.; MS. Memoir written by the first Lord Lonsdale in the Mackintosh Papers.
[563] Burnet, ii. 40.
[564] Narcissus Luttrell's Diary, January and February.
[565] William to Portland, Jan. 10/20 1690. "Les Wiges ont peur de me perdre trop tost, avant qu'ils n'ayent fait avec moy ce qu'ils veulent: car, pour leur amitie, vous savez ce qu'il y a a compter ladessus en ce pays icy." Jan. 14/24 "Me voila le plus embarasse du monde, ne sachant quel parti prendre, estant toujours persuade que, sans que j'aille en Irlande, l'on n'y faira rien qui vaille. Pour avoir du conseil en cette affaire, je n'en ay point a attendre, personne n'ausant dire ses sentimens. Et l'on commence deja a dire ouvertement que ce sont des traitres qui m'ont conseille de preudre cette resolution." Jan. 21/31 "Je nay encore rien dit,"--he means to the Parliament,--"de mon voyage pour l'Irlande. Et je ne suis point encore determine si j'en parlerez: mais je crains que nonobstant j'aurez une adresse pour n'y point aller ce qui m'embarassera beaucoup, puis que c'est une necssite absolue que j'y aille."
[566] William to Portland, Jan 28/Feb 7 1690; Van Citters to the States General, same date; Evelyn's Diary; Lords' Journals, Jan. 27. I will quote William's own words. "Vous voirez mon harangue imprimee: ainsi je ne vous en direz rien. Et pour les raisone qui m'y ont oblige, je les reserverez a vous les dire jusques a vostre retour. Il semble que les Toris en sont bien aise, male point les Wiggs. Ils estoient tous fort surpris quand je leur parlois, n'ayant communique mon dessin qu'a une seule personne. Je vie des visages long comme un aune, change de couleur vingt fois pendant que je parlois. Tous ces particularites jusques a vostre heureux retour."
[567] Evelyn's Diary; Clarendon's Diary, Feb. 9. 1690; Van Citters to the States General, Jan 31/Feb 10.; Lonsdale MS. quoted by Dalrymple.
[568] Narcissus Luttrell's Diary
[569] Clarendon's Diary, Feb. 11. 1690.
[570] Van Citters to the States General, February 14/24. 1690; Evelyn's Diary.
[571] William to Portland, Feb 28/March 10 29. 1690; Van Citters to the States General, March 4/14; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary.
[572] Van Citters, March 11/21 1689/90; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary.
[573] Van Citters to the States General, March 11/21 1690.
[574] The votes were for Sawyer 165, for Finch 141, for Bennet, whom I suppose to have been a Whig, 87. At the University every voter delivers his vote in writing. One of the votes given on this occasion is in the following words, "Henricus Jenkes, ex amore justitiae, eligit virum consultissimum Robertum Sawyer."
[575] Van Citters to the States General, March 18/28 1690.
[576] It is amusing to see how absurdly foreign pamphleteers, ignorant of the real state of things in England, exaggerated the importance of John Hampden, whose name they could not spell. In a French Dialogue between William and the Ghost of Monmouth, William says, "Entre ces membres de la Chambre Basse etoit un certain homme hardy, opiniatre, et zele a l'exces pour sa creance; on l'appelle Embden, egalement dangereux par son esprit et par son credit. . . . je ne trouvay point de chemin plus court pour me delivrer de cette traverse que de casser le parlement, en convoquer un autre, et empescher que cet homme, qui me faisoit tant d'ombrages, ne fust nomme pour un des deputez au nouvel parlement." "Ainsi," says the Ghost, "cette cassation de parlement qui a fait tant de bruit, et a produit tant de raisonnemens et de speculations, n'estoit que pour exclure Embden. Mais s'il estoit si adroit et si zele, comment as-tu pu trouver le moyen de le faire exclure du nombre des deputez?" To this very sensible question the King answers, "Il m'a fallu faire d'etranges manoeuvres pour en venir a bout."--L'Ombre de Monmouth, 1690.
[577] "A present tout dependra d'un bon succes en Irlande; et a quoy il faut que je m'aplique entierement pour regler le mieux que je puis toutte chose. . . . je vous asseure que je n'ay pas peu sur les bras, estant aussi mal assiste que je suis."-William to Portland, Jan 28/Feb 7 1690.
[578] Van Citters, Feb. 14/24 1689/90; Memoir of the Earl of Chesterfield by himself; Halifax to Chesterfield, Feb. 6.; Chesterfield to Halifax, Feb 8. The editor of the letters of the second Earl of Chesterfield, not allowing for the change of style, has misplaced this correspondence by a year.
[579] Van Citters to the States General, Feb. 11/21 1690.
[580] A strange peculiarity of his constitution is mentioned in an account of him which was published a few months after his death. See the volume entitled "Lives and Characters of the most Illustrious Persons, British and Foreign, who died in the year 1712."
[581] Monmouth's pension and the good understanding between him and the Court are mentioned in a letter from a Jacobite agent in England, which is in the Archives of the French War Office. The date is April 8/18 1690.
[582] The grants of land obtained by Delamere are mentioned by Narcissus Luttrell. It appears from the Treasury Letter Book of 1690 that Delamere continued to dun the government for money after his retirement. As to his general character it would not be safe to trust the representations of his enemies. But his own writings, and the admissions of the divine who preached his funeral sermon, show that his temper was not the most gentle. Clarendon remarks (Dec. 17. 1688) that a little thing sufficed to put Lord Delamere into a passion. In the poem entitled the King of Hearts, Delamere is described as--
"A restless malecontent even when preferred."
His countenance furnished a subject for satire:
"His boding looks a mind distracted show;
And envy sits engraved upon his brow."
[583] My notion of Lowther's character has been chiefly formed from two papers written by himself, one of which has been printed, though I believe not published. A copy of the other is among the Mackintosh MSS. Something I have taken from contemporary satires. That Lowther was too ready to expose his life in private encounters is sufficiently proved by the fact that, when he was First Lord of the Treasury, he accepted a challenge from a custom house officer whom he had dismissed. There was a duel; and Lowther was severely wounded. This event is mentioned in Luttrell's Diary, April 1690.
[584] Burnet, ii. 76
[585] Roger North's Life of Guildford.
[586] Till some years after this time the First Lord of the Treasury was always the man of highest rank at the Board. Thus Monmouth, Delamere and Godolphin took their places according to the order of precedence in which they stood as peers.
[587] The dedication, however, was thought too laudatory. "The only thing," Mr. Pope used to say, "he could never forgive his philosophic master was the dedication to the Essay."--Ruffhead's Life of Pope.
[588] Van Citters to the States General April 25/May 5, 1690. Narcissus Luttrell's Diary; Treasury Letter Book, Feb. 4. 1689/90
[589] The Dialogue between a Lord Lieutenant and one of his Deputies will not be found in the collection of Warrington's writings which was published in 1694, under the sanction, as it should seem, of his family.
[590] Van Citters, to the States General, March 18/28 April 4/14 1690; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary; Burnet, ii. 72.; The Triennial Mayor, or the Rapparees, a Poem, 1691. The poet says of one of the new civic functionaries:
"Soon his pretence to conscience we can rout,
And in a bloody jury find him out,
Where noble Publius worried was with rogues."
[591] Treasury Minute Book, Feb. 5. 1689/90
[592] Van Citters, Feb. 11/21 Mar. 14/24 Mar. 18/28 1690.
[593] Van Citters, March 14/24 1690. The sermon is extant. It was preached at Bow Church before the Court of Aldermen.
[594] Welwood's Mercurius Reformatus, Feb. 12. 1690.
[595] Commons' Journals, March 20, 21, 22. 1689/89
[596] Commons Journals, March 28. 1690, and March 1. and March 20. 1688/9
[597] Grey's Debates, March 27. and 28 1690.
[598] Commons' Journals, Mar. 28. 1690. A very clear and exact account of the way in which the revenue was settled was sent by Van Citters to the States General, April 7/17 1690.
[599] Burnet, ii. 43.
[600] In a contemporary lampoon are these lines:
"Oh, happy couple! In their life
There does appear no sign of strife.
They do agree so in the main,
To sacrifice their souls for gain."
The Female Nine, 1690.
[601] Swift mentions the deficiency of hospitality and magnificence in her household. Journal to Stella, August 8. 1711.
[602] Duchess of Marlborough's Vindication. But the Duchess was so abandoned a liar, that it is impossible to believe a word that she says, except when she accuses herself.
[603] See the Female Nine.
[604] The Duchess of Marlborough's Vindication. With that habitual inaccuracy, which, even when she has no motive for lying, makes it necessary to read every word written by her with suspicion, she creates Shrewsbury a Duke, and represents herself as calling him "Your Grace." He was not made a Duke till 1694.
[605] Commons' Journals, December 17 and 18 1689.
[606] Vindication of the Duchess of Marlborough.
[607] Van Citters, April 8/18 1690.
[608] Van Citters, April 8/18 Narcissus Luttrell's Diary.
[609] Lords' Journals, April 8. and 10 1690; Burnet, ii. 41.
[610] Van Citters, April 25/May 5 1690.
[611] Commons' Journals, April 8. and 9. 1690; Grey's Debates; Burnet, ii. 42. Van Citters, writing on the 8th, mentions that a great struggle in the Lower House was expected.
[612] Commons' Journals, April 24. 1690; Grey's Debates.
[613] Commons' Journals, April 24, 25, and 26; Grey's Debates; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary. Narcissus is unusually angry. He calls the bill "a perfect trick of the fanatics to turn out the Bishops and most of the Church of England Clergy." In a Whig pasquinade entitled "A speech intended to have been spoken on the Triennial Bill, on Jan. 28. 1692/3 the King is said to have "browbeaten the Abjuration Bill."
[614] Lords' Journals, May 1. 1690. This bill is among the Archives of the House of Lords. Burnet confounds it with the bill which the Commons had rejected in the preceding week. Ralph, who saw that Burnet had committed a blunder, but did not see what the blunder was, has, in trying to correct it, added several blunders of his own; and the Oxford editor of Burnet has been misled by Ralph.
[615] Lords' Journals, May 2. and 3. 1690; Van Citters, May 2.; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary; Burnet, ii. 44.; and Lord Dartmouth's note. The changes made by the Committee may be seen on the bill in the Archives of the House of Lords.
[616] These distinctions were much discussed at the time. Van Citters, May 20/30 1690.
[617] Stat. 2 W.&M. sess. 1. C. 10.
[618] Roger North was one of the many malecontents who were never tired of harping on this string.
[619] Stat. 2 W.&M. sess. 1. c. 6.; Grey's Debates, April 29., May 1. 5, 6, 7. 1690.
[620] Story's Impartial History; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary.
[621] Avaux, Jan. 15/25 1690.
[622] Macariae Excidium. This most curious work has been recently edited with great care and diligence by Mr. O'Callaghan. I owe so much to his learning and industry that I most readily excuse the national partiality which sometimes, I cannot but think, perverts his judgment. When I quote the Macariae Excidium, I always quote the Latin text. The English version is, I am convinced, merely a translation from the Latin, and a very careless and imperfect translation.
[623] Avaux, Nov. 14/24 1689.
[624] Louvois writes to Avaux, Dec 26/Jan 5 1689/90. "Comme le Roy a veu par vos lettres que le Roy d'Angleterre craignoit de manquer de cuivre pour faire de la monnoye, Sa Majeste a donne ordre, que l'on mist sur le bastiment qui portera cette lettre une piece de canon du calibre de deux qui est eventee, de laquelle ceux qui travaillent a la monnoye du Roy d'Angleterre pourront se servir pour continuer a faire de la monnoye."
[625] Louvois to Avaux, Nov. 1/11. 1689. The force sent by Lewis to Ireland appears by the lists at the French War Office to have amounted to seven thousand two hundred and ninety-one men of all ranks. At the French War Office is a letter from Marshal d'Estrees who saw the four Irish regiments soon after they had landed at Brest. He describes them as "mal chausses, mal vetus, et n'ayant point d'uniforme dans leurs habits, si ce n'est qu'ils sont tous fort mauvais." A very exact account of Macarthy's breach of parole will be found in Mr. O'Callaghan's History of the Irish Brigades. I am sorry that a writer to whom I owe so much should try to vindicate conduct which, as described by himself, was in the highest degree dishonourable.
[626] Lauzun to Louvois. May 28/June 7 and June 1 1690, at the French War Office.
[627] See the later letters of Avaux.
[628] Avaux to Louvois, March 14/24 1690; Lauzun to Louvois March 23/April 3
[629] Story's Impartial History; Lauzun to Louvois, May 20/30. 1690.
[630] Lauzun to Louvois, May 28/June 7 1690.
[631] Lauzun to Louvois, April 2/12 May 10/20. 1690. La Hoguette, who held the rank of Marechal de Camp, wrote to Louvois to the same effect about the same time.
[632] "La Politique des Anglois a ete de tenir ces peuples cy comme des esclaves, et si bas qu'il ne leur estoit pas permis d'apprendre a lire et a écrire. Cela les a rendu si bestes qu'ils n'ont presque point d'humanite. Rien de les esmeut. Ils sont peu sensibles a l'honneur; et les menaces ne les estonnent point. L'interest meme ne les peut engager au travail. Ce sont pourtant les gens du monde les mieux faits,"--Desgrigny to Louvois, May 27/June 6 1690.
[633] See Melfort's Letters to James, written in October 1689. They are among the Nairne Papers, and were printed by Macpherson.
[634] Life of James, ii. 443. 450.;and Trials of Ashton and Preston.
[635] Avaux wrote thus to Lewis on the 5th of June 1689: "Il nous est venu des nouvelles assez considerables d'Angleterre et d'Escosse. Je me donne l'honneur d'en envoyer des memoires a vostre Majeste, tels que je les ay receus du Roy de la Grande Bretagne. Le commencement des nouvelles dattees d'Angleterre est la copie d'une lettre de M. Pen, que j'ay veue en original." The Memoire des Nouvelles d'Angleterre et d'Escosse, which was sent with this despatch, begins with the following sentences, which must have been part of Penn's letter: "Le Prince d'Orange commence d'estre fort dégoutte de l'humeur des Anglois; et la face des choses change bien viste, selon la nature des insulaires; et sa sante est fort mauvaise. Il y a un nuage qui commence a se former au nord des deux royaumes, ou le Roy a beaucoup d'amis, ce qui donne beaucoup d'inquietude aux principaux amis du Prince d'Orange, qui, estant riches, commencent a estre persuadez que ce sera l'espée qui decidera de leur sort, ce qu'ils ont tant taché d'eviter. Ils apprehendent une invasion d'Irlande et de France; et en ce cas le Roy aura plus d'amis que jamais."
[636] "Le bon effet, Sire, que ces lettres d'Escosse et d'Angleterre ont produit, est qu'elles ont enfin persuade le Roy d'Angleterre qu'il ne recouvrera ses estats que les armes a la main; et ce n'est pas peu de l'en avoir convaincu."
[637] Van Citters to the States General, March 1/11 1689. Van Citters calls Penn "den bekenden Archquaker."
[638] See his trial in the Collection of State Trials, and the Lords' Journals of Nov. 11, 12. and 27. 1689.
[639] One remittance of two thousand pistoles is mentioned in a letter of Croissy to Avaux, Feb. 16/26 1689. James, in a letter dated Jan. 26. 1689, directs Preston to consider himself as still Secretary, notwithstanding Melfort's appointment.
[640] Narcissus Luttrell's Diary; Commons' Journals, May 14. 15. 20. 1690; Kingston's True History, 1697.
[641] The Whole Life of Mr. William Fuller, being an Impartial Account of his Birth, Education, Relations and Introduction into the Service of the late King James and his Queen, together with a True Discovery of the Intrigues for which he lies now confined; as also of the Persons that employed and assisted him therein, with his Hearty Repentance for the Misdemeanours he did in the late Reign, and all others whom he hath injured; impartially writ by Himself during his Confinement in the Queen's Bench, 1703. Of course I shall use this narrative with caution.
[642] Fuller's Life of himself,
[643] Clarendon's Diary, March 6. 1690; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary.
[644] Clarendon's Diary, May 10. 1690.
[645] He wrote to Portland, "Je plains la povre reine, qui est en des terribles afflictions."
[646] See the Letters of Shrewsbury in Coxe's Correspondence, Part I, chap. i,
[647] That Lady Shrewsbury was a Jacobite, and did her best to make her son so, is certain from Lloyd's Paper of May 1694, which is among the Nairne MSS., and was printed by Macpherson.
[648] This is proved by a few words in a paper which James, in November 1692, laid before the French government. "Il y a" says he, "le Comte de Shrusbery, qui, etant Secretaire d'Etat du Prince d'Orange, s'est defait de sa charge par mon ordre." One copy of this most valuable paper is in the Archives of the French Foreign Office. Another is among the Nairne MSS. in the Bodleian Library. A translation into English will be found in Macpherson's collection.
[649] Burnet, ii. 45.
[650] Shrewsbury to Somers, Sept. 22. 1697.
[651] Among the State Poems (vol. ii. p. 211.) will be found a piece which some ignorant editor has entitled, "A Satyr written when the K--- went to Flanders and left nine Lords Justices." I have a manuscript copy of this satire, evidently contemporary, and bearing the date 1690. It is indeed evident at a glance that the nine persons satirised are the nine members of the interior council which William appointed to assist Mary when he went to Ireland. Some of them never were Lords Justices.
[652] From a narrative written by Lowther, which is among the Mackintosh MSS,
[653] See Mary's Letters to William, published by Dalrymple.
[654] Clarendon's Diary, May 30. 1690.
[655] Gerard Croese.
[656] Burnet, ii. 46.
[657] The Duchess of Marlborough's Vindication.
[658] London Gazettes, June 5. 12. 16. 1690; Hop to the States General from Chester, June 9/19. Hop attended William to Ireland as envoy from the States.
[659] Clarendon's Diary, June 7. and 12. 1690; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary; Baden, the Dutch Secretary of Legation, to Van Citters, June 10/20; Fuller's Life of himself; Welwood's Mercurius Reformatus, June 11 1690.
[660] Clarendon's Diary, June 8. 1690.
[661] Ibid., June 10.
[662] Baden to Van Citters, June 20/30 1690.; Clarendon's Diary, June 19. Narcissus Luttrell's Diary.
[663] Clarendon's Diary, June 25.
[664] Narcissus Luttrell's Diary.
[665] Memoirs of Saint Simon.
[666] London Gazette, June 26. 1690; Baden to Van Citters, June 24/July 4.
[667] Mary to William, June 26. 1690; Clarendon's Diary of the same date; Narcissus Luttrell's. Diary.
[668] Mary to William, June 28. and July 2. 1690.
[669] Report of the Commissioners of the Admiralty to the Queen, dated Sheerness, July 18. 1690; Evidence of Captains Cornwall, Jones, Martin and Hubbard, and of Vice Admiral Delaval; Burnet, ii. 52., and Speaker Onslow's Note; Memoires du Marechal de Tourville; Memoirs of Transactions at Sea by Josiah Burchett, Esq., Secretary to the Admiralty, 1703; London Gazette, July 3.; Historical and Political Mercury for July 1690; Mary to William, July 2.; Torrington to Caermarthen, July I. The account of the battle in the Paris Gazette of July 15. 1690 is not to be read without shame: "On a sceu que les Hollandois s'estoient tres bien battus, et qu'ils s'estoient comportez en cette occasion en braves gens, mais que les Anglois n'en avoient pas agi de meme." In the French official relation of le battle off Cape Bevezier,-- an odd corruption of Pevensey,--are some passages to the same effect: "Les Hollandois combattirent avec beaucoup de courage et de fermete; mais ils ne furent pas bien secondez par les Anglois." "Les Anglois se distinguerent des vaisseax de Hollande par le peu de valeur qu'ils montrerent dans le combat."
[670] Life of James, ii. 409.; Burnet, ii. 5.
[671] London Gazette, June 30. 1690; Historical and Political Mercury for July 1690.
[672] Nottingham to William, July 15. 1690.
[673] Burnet, ii. 53, 54.; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary, July 7. 11. 1690 London Gazette, July 14. 1690.
[674] Mary to William, July 3. 10. 1690; Shrewsbury to Caermarthen, July 15.
[675] Mary to the States General, July 12.; Burchett's Memoirs; An important Account of some remarkable Passages in the Life of Arthur, Earl of Torrington, 1691.
[676] London Gazette, June 19 1690; History of the Wars in Ireland by an Officer in the Royal Army, 1690,; Villare Hibernicum, 1690;. Story's Impartial History, 1691; Historical Collections relating to the town of Belfast, 1817. This work contains curious extracts from MSS. of the seventeenth century. In the British Museum is a map of Belfast made in 1685 so exact that the houses may be counted.
[677] Lauzun to Louvois, June 16/26. The messenger who brought the news to Lauzun had heard the guns and seen the bonfires. History of the Wars in Ireland by an Officer of the Royal Army, 1690; Life of James, ii. 392. Orig. Mem.; Burnet, ii. 47. Burnet is strangely mistaken when he says that William had been six days in Ireland before his arrival was known to James.
[678] A True and Perfect Journal of the Affairs of Ireland by a Person of Quality, 1690; King, iii. 18. Luttrell's proclamation will be found in King's Appendix.
[679] Villare Hibernicum, 1690.
[680] The order addressed to the Collector of Customs will be found in Dr. Reid's History of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland.
[681] "La gayete peinte sur son visage," says Dumont, who saw him at Belfast, "nous fit tout esperer pour les heureux succes de la campagne."
[682] Story's Impartial Account; MS. Journal of Colonel Bellingham; The Royal Diary.
[683] Story's Impartial Account.
[684] Lauzun to Louvois, June 23/July 3 1690; Life of James, ii. 393, Orig. Mem.
[685] Story's Impartial Account; Dumont MS.
[686] Much interesting information respecting the field of battle and the surrounding country will be found in Mr. Wilde's pleasing volume entitled "The Beauties of the Boyne and Blackwater."
[687] Memorandum in the handwriting of Alexander, Earl of Marchmont. He derived his information from Lord Selkirk, who was in William's army.
[688] James says (Life, ii 393. Orig. Mem.) that the country afforded no better position. King, in a thanksgiving sermon which he preached at Dublin after the close of the campaign, told his hearers that "the advantage of the post of the Irish was, by all intelligent men, reckoned above three to one." See King's Thanksgiving Sermon, preached on Nov 16. 1690, before Lords Justices. This is, no doubt, an absurd exaggeration. But M. de la Hoguette, one of the principal French officers who was present at the battle of the Boyne, informed Louvois that the Irish army occupied a good defensive position, Letter of La Hoguette from Limerick, July 31/Aug 1690.
[689] Narcissus Luttrell's Diary, March, 1690.
[690] See the Historical records of the Regiments of the British army, and Story's list of the army of William as it passed in review at Finglass, a week after the battle.
[691] See his Funeral Sermon preached at the church of Saint Mary Aldermary on the 24th of June 1690.
[692] Story's Impartial History; History of the Wars in Ireland by an Officer of the Royal Army; Hop to the States General, June 30/July 10. 1690.
[693] London Gazette, July 7. 1690; Story's Impartial History; History of the Wars in Ireland by an Officer of the Royal Army; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary; Lord Marchmont's Memorandum; Burnet, ii. 50. and Thanksgiving Sermon; Dumont MS.
[694] La Hoguette to Louvois, July 31/Aug 10 1690.
[695] That I have done no injustice to the Irish infantry will appear from the accounts which the French officers who were at the Boyne sent to their government and their families. La Hoguette, writing hastily to Louvois on the 4/14th of July, says: "je vous diray seulement, Monseigneur, que nous n'avons pas este battus, mais que les ennemys ont chasses devant eux les trouppes Irlandoises comme des moutons, sans avoir essaye un seul coup de mousquet."
Writing some weeks later more fully from Limerick, he says, "J'en meurs de honte." He admits that it would have been no easy matter to win the battle, at best. "Mais il est vray aussi," he adds, "que les Irlandois ne firent pas la moindre resistance, et plierent sans tirer un seul coup." Zurlauben, Colonel of one of the finest regiments in the French service, wrote to the same effect, but did justice to the courage of the Irish horse, whom La Hoguette does not mention.
There is at the French War Office a letter hastily scrawled by Boisseleau, Lauzun's second in command, to his wife after the battle. He wrote thus: "Je me porte bien, ma chere feme. Ne t'inquieste pas de moy. Nos Irlandois n'ont rien fait qui vaille. Ils ont tous lache le pie."
Desgrigny writing on the 10/20th of July, assigns several reasons for the defeat. "La première et la plus forte est la fuite des Irlandois qui sont en verite des gens sur lesquels il ne faut pas compter du tout." In the same letter he says: "Il n'est pas naturel de croire qu'une armee de vingt cinq mille hommes qui paroissoit de la meilleure volonte du monde, et qui a la veue des ennemis faisoit des cris de joye, dut etre entierement defaite sans avoir tire l'epee et un seul coup de mousquet. Il y a en tel regiment tout entier qui a laisse ses habits, ses armes, et ses drapeaux sur le champ de bataille, et a gagne les montagnes avec ses officiers."
I looked in vain for the despatch in which Lauzun must have given Louvois a detailed account of the battle.
[696] Lauzun wrote to Seignelay, July 16/26 1690, "Richard Amilton a ete fait prisonnier, faisant fort bien son devoir."
[697] My chief materials for the history of this battle are Story's Impartial Account and Continuation; the History of the War in Ireland by an Officer of the Royal Army; the despatches in the French War Office; The Life of James, Orig. Mem. Burnet, ii. 50. 60; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary; the London Gazette of July 10. 1690; the Despatches of Hop and Baden; a narrative probably drawn up by Portland, which William sent to the States General; Portland's private letter to Melville; Captain Richardson's Narrative and map of the battle; the Dumont MS., and the Bellingham MS. I have also seen an account of the battle in a Diary kept in bad Latin and in an almost undecipherable hand by one of the beaten army who seems to have been a hedge schoolmaster turned Captain. This Diary was kindly lent to me by Mr. Walker, to whom it belongs. The writer relates the misfortunes of his country in a style of which a short specimen may suffice: "1 July, 1690. O diem illum infandum, cum inimici potiti sunt pass apud Oldbridge et nos circumdederunt et fregerunt prope Plottin. Hinc omnes fugimus Dublin versus. Ego mecum tuli Cap Moore et Georgium Ogle, et venimus hac nocte Dub."
[698] See Pepys's Diary, June 4. 1664. "He tells me above all of the Duke of York, that he is more himself, and more of judgment is at hand in him, in the middle of a desperate service than at other times." Clarendon repeatedly says the same. Swift wrote on the margin of his copy of Clarendon, in one place, "How old was he (James) when he turned Papist and a coward?"--in another, "He proved a cowardly Popish king."
[699] Pere Orleans mentions that Sarsfield accompanied James. The battle of the Boyne had scarcely been fought when it was made the subject of a drama, the Royal Flight, or the Conquest of Ireland, a Farce, 1690. Nothing more execrable was ever written. But it deserves to be remarked that, in this wretched piece, though the Irish generally are represented as poltroons, an exception is made in favour of Sarsfield. "This fellow," says James, aside, "I will make me valiant, I think, in spite of my teeth." "Curse of my stars!" says Sarsfield, after the battle. "That I must be detached! I would have wrested victory out of heretic Fortune's hands."
[700] Both La Hoguette and Zurlauben informed their government that it had been necessary to fire on the Irish fugitives, who would otherwise have thrown the French ranks into confusion.
[701] Baden to Van Citters, July 8. 1690.
[702] New and Perfect Journal, 1690; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary.
[703] Story; London Gazette, July 10. 1690.
[704] True and Perfect journal; Villare Hibernicum; Story's Impartial History.
[705] Story; True and Perfect journal; London Gazette, July 10 1690 Burnet, ii. 51.; Leslie's Answer to King.
[706] Life of James, ii. 404., Orig. Mem.; Monthly Mercury for August, 1690.
[707] True and Perfect journal. London Gazette, July 10 and 14. 1690; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary. In the Life of James Bonnell, Accountant General of Ireland, (1703) is a remarkable religious meditation, from which I will quote a short passage. "How did we see the Protestants on the great day of our Revolution, Thursday the third of July, a day ever to be remembered by us with the greatest thankfulness, congratulate and embrace one another as they met, like persons alive from the dead, like brothers and sisters meeting after a long absence, and going about from house to house to give each other joy of God's great mercy, enquiring of one another how they past the late days of distress and terror, what apprehensions they had, what fears or dangers they were under; those that were prisoners, how they got their liberty, how they were treated, and what, from time to time, they thought of things."
[708] London Gazette, July 14. 1690; Story; True and Perfect Journal; Dumont MS. Dumont is the only person who mentions the crown. As he was present, he could not be mistaken. It was probably the crown which James had been in the habit of wearing when he appeared on the throne at the King's Inns.
[709] Monthly Mercury for August 1690; Burnet, ii. 50; Dangeau, Aug. 2. 1690, and Saint Simon's note; The Follies of France, or a true Relation of the extravagant Rejoicings, &c., dated Paris, Aug. 8. 1690.
[710] "Me tiene," the Marquis of Cogolludo, Spanish minister at Rome, says of this report, "en sumo cuidado y desconsuelo, pues esta seria la ultima ruina de la causa comun."--Cogolludo to Ronquillo, Rome, Aug. 2. 1690,
[711] Original Letters, published by Sir Henry Ellis.
[712] "Del sucesso de Irlanda doy a v. Exca la enorabuena, y le aseguro no ha bastado casi la gente que tengo en la Secretaria para repartir copias dello, pues le he enbiado a todo el lugar, y la primera al Papa."--Cogolludo to Ronquillo, postscript to the letter of Aug. 2. Cogolludo, of course, uses the new style. The tidings of the battle, therefore, had been three weeks in getting to Rome.
[713] Evelyn (Feb. 25. 1689/90) calls it "a sweet villa."
[714] Mary to William, July 5. 1690.
[715] Mary to William, July 6. and 7. 1690; Burnet, ii. 55.
[716] Baden to Van Citters, July 8/18 1690.
[717] See two letters annexed to the Memoirs of the Intendant Foucault, and printed in the work of M. de Sirtema des Grovestins in the archives of the War Office at Paris is a letter written from Brest by the Count of Bouridal on July 11/21 1690. The Count says: "Par la relation du combat que j'ay entendu faire au Roy d'Angleterre et a plusieurs de sa suite en particulier, il ne me paroit pas qu'il soit bien informe de tout ce qui s'est passe dans cette action, et qu'il ne scait que la deroute de ses troupes."
[718] It was not only on this occasion that James held this language. From one of the letters quoted in the last note it appears that on his road front Brest to Paris he told every body that the English were impatiently expecting him. "Ce pauvre prince croit que ses sujets l'aiment encore."
[719] Life of James, ii. 411, 412.; Burnet, ii. 57; and Dartmouth's note.
[720] See the articles Galere and Galerien, in the Encyclopedie, with the plates; A True Relation of the Cruelties and Barbarities of the French upon the English Prisoners of War, by R. Hutton, licensed June 27. 1690.
[721] See the Collection of Medals of Lewis the Fourteenth.
[722] This anecdote, true or false, was current at the time, or soon after. In 1745 it was mentioned as a story which old people had heard in their youth. It is quoted in the Gentleman's Magazine of that year from another periodical work.
[723] London Gazette, July 7. 1690.
[724] Narcissus Luttrell's Diary.
[725] I give this interesting passage in Van Citters's own words. "Door geheel het ryk alles te voet en te paarde in de wapenen op was; en' t gene een seer groote gerustheyt gaf was dat alle en een yder even seer tegen de Franse door de laatste voorgevallen bataille verbittert en geanimeert waren. Gelyk door de troupes, dewelke ik op de weg alomme gepasseert ben, niet anders heb konnen hooren als een eenpaarig en gener al geluydt van God bless King William en Queen Mary." July 25/Aug 4 1690.
[726] As to this expedition I have consulted the London Gazettes of July 24. 28. 31. Aug. 4. 1690 Narcissus Luttrell's Diary; Welwood's Mercurius Reformatus, Sept. 5. the Gazette de Paris; a letter from My. Duke, a Deputy Lieutenant of Devonshire, to Hampden, dated July 25. a letter from Mr. Fulford of Fulford to Lord Nottingham, dated July 26. a letter of the same date from the Deputy Lieutenants of Devonshire to the Earl of Bath; a letter of the same date from Lord Lansdowne to the Earl of Bath. These four letters are among the MSS. of the Royal Irish Academy. Extracts from the brief are given in Lyson's Britannia. Dangeau inserted in his journal, August 16., a series of extravagant lies. Tourville had routed the militia, taken their cannon and colours burned men of war, captured richly laden merchantships, and was going to destroy Plymouth. This is a fair specimen of Dangeau's English news. Indeed he complains that it was hardly possible to get at true information about England.
[727] Dedication of Arthur.
[728] See the accounts of Anderton's Trial, 1693; the Postman of March 12. 1695/6; the Flying Post of March 7. 1700; Some Discourses upon Dr. Burnet and Dr. Tillotson, by Hickes, 1695. The appendix to these Discourses contains a curious account of the inquisition into printing offices tinder the Licensing Act.
[729] This was the ordinary cant of the Jacobites. A Whig writer had justly said in the preceding year, "They scurrilously call our David a man of blood, though, to this day, he has not suffered a drop to be spilt."--Alephibosheth and Ziba, licensed Aug. 30. 1689.
[730] "Restore unto us again the publick worship of thy name, the reverent administration of thy sacraments. Raise up the former government both in church and state, that we may be no longer without King, without priest, without God in the world."
[731] A Form of Prayer and Humiliation for God's Blessing upon His Majesty and his Dominions, and for Removing and Averting of God's judgments from this Church and State, 1690.
[732] Letter of Lloyd, Bishop of Norwich, to Sancroft, in the Tanner MSS.
[733] Narcissus Luttrell's Diary.
[734] A Modest Inquiry into the Causes of the present Disasters in England, and who they are that brought the French into the English Channel described, 1690; Reflections upon a Form of Prayer lately set out for the Jacobites, 1690; A Midnight Touch at an Unlicensed Pamphlet, 1690. The paper signed by the nonjuring Bishops has often been reprinted.
[735] William to Heinsius, July 4/14. 1690.
[736] Story; London Gazette, Aug 4. 1690; Dumont MS.
[737] Story; William to Heinsius, July 31/Aug 10 1690; Lond. Gaz., Aug, 11.
[738] Mary to William, Aug. 7/15 Aug 22/Sept, Aug. 26/Sept 5 1690
[739] Macariae Excidium; Mac Geoghegan; Life of James, ii. 420.; London Gazette, Aug. 14. 1690.
[740] The impatience of Lauzun and his countrymen to get away from Ireland is mentioned in a letter of Oct. 21. 1690, quoted in the Memoirs of James, ii. 421. "Asimo," says Colonel Kelly, the author of the Macariae Excidium, "diuturnam absentiam tam aegre molesteque ferebat ut bellum in Cypro protrahi continuarique ipso ei auditu acerbissimum esset. Nec incredibile est ducum in illius exercitu nonnullos, potissimum qui patrii coeli dulcedinem impatientius suspirabant, sibi persuasisse desperatas Cypri res nulla humana ope defendi sustentarique posse." Asimo is Lauzun, and Cyprus Ireland.
[741] "Pauci illi ex Cilicibus aulicis, qui cum regina in Syria commorante remanserant, . . . . non cessabant universam nationem foede traducere, et ingestis insuper convitiis lacerare, pavidos et malefidos proditores ac Ortalium consceleratissimos publice appellando."--Macariae Excidium. The Cilicians are the English. Syria is France.
[742] "Tanta infamia tam operoso artificio et subtili commento in vulgus sparsa, tam constantibus de Cypriorum perfidia atque opprobrio rumoribus, totam, qua lata est, Syriam ita pervasit, ut mercatores Cyprii, . . . . propter inustum genti dedecus, intra domorum septa clausi nunquam prodire auderent; tanto eorum odio populus in universum exarserat."--Macariae Excidium.
[743] I have seen this assertion in a contemporary pamphlet of which I cannot recollect the title.
[744] Story; Dumont MS,
[745] Macariae Excidium. Boisseleau remarked the ebb and flow of courage among the Irish. I have quoted one of his letters to his wife. It is but just to quote another. "Nos Irlandois n'avoient jamais vu le feu; et cela les a surpris. Presentement, ils sont si faches de n'avoir pas fait leur devoir que je suis bien persuadé qu'ils feront mieux pour l'avenir."
[746] La Hoguette, writing to Louvois from Limerick, July 31/Aug 10 1690, says of Tyrconnel: "Il a d'ailleurs trop peu de connoissance des choses de notre metier. Il a perdu absolument la confiance des officiers du pays, surtout depuis le jour de notre deroute; et, en effet, Monseigneur, je me crois oblige de vous dire que des le moment ou les ennemis parurent sur le bord de la riviere le premier jour, et dans toute la journee du lendemain, il parut a tout le monde dans une si grande lethargie qu'il etoit incapable de prendre aucun parti, quelque chose qu'on lui proposat."
[747] Desgrigny says of the Irish: "Ils sont toujours prets de nous egorger par l'antipathie qu'ils ont pour nous. C'est la nation du monde la plus brutale, et qui a le moins d'humanite." Aug. 1690.
[748] Story; Account of the Cities in Ireland that are still possessed by the Forces of King James, 1690. There are some curious old maps of Limerick in the British Museum.
[749] Story; Dumont MS.
[750] Story; James, ii. 416.; Burnet, ii. 58.; Dumont MS.
[751] Story; Dumont MS.
[752] See the account of the O'Donnels in Sir William Betham's Irish Antiquarian Researches. It is strange that he makes no mention of Baldearg, whose appearance in Ireland is the most extraordinary event in the whole history of the race. See also Story's impartial History; Macariae Excidium, and Mr. O'Callaghan's note; Life of James, ii. 434.; the Letter of O'Donnel to Avaux, and the Memorial entitled, "Memoire donnee par un homme du Comte O'Donnel a M. D'Avaux."
[753] The reader will remember Corporal Trim's explanation of radical heat and radical moisture. Sterne is an authority not to be despised on these subjects. His boyhood was passed in barracks; he was constantly listening to the talk of old soldiers who had served under King William, and has used their stories like a man of true genius.
[754] Story; William to Waldeck, Sept. 22. 1690; London Gazette, Sept. 4, Berwick asserts that when the siege was raised not a drop of rain had fallen during a month, that none fell during the following three weeks, and that William pretended that the weather was wet merely to hide the shame of his defeat. Story, who was on the spot say, "It was cloudy all about, and rained very fast, so that every body began to dread the consequences of it;" and again "The rain which had already falled had soften the ways... This was one reason for raising the siege; for, if we had not, granting the weather to continue bad, we must either have taken the town, or of necessity have lost our cannon." Dumont, another eyewitness, says that before the siege was raised the rains had been most violent; that the Shannon was swollen; that the earth was soaked; that the horses could not keep their feet.
[755] London Gazette, September 11 1690; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary. I have seen a contemporary engraving of Covent Garden as it appeared on this night.
[756] Van Citters to the States General, March 19/29. 1689.
[757] As to Marlborough's expedition, see Story's Impartial History; the Life of James, ii. 419, 420.; London Gazette, Oct. 6. 13. 16. 27. 30. 1690; Monthly Mercury for Nov. 1690; History of King, William, 1702; Burnet, ii. 60.; the Life of Joseph Pike, a Quaker of Cork
[758] Balcarras; Annandale's Confession in the Leven and Melville Papers; Burnet, ii. 35. As to Payne, see the Second Modest Inquiry into the Cause of the present Disasters, 1690.
[759] Balcarras; Mackay's Memoirs; History of the late Revolution in Scotland, 1690; Livingstone's Report, dated May 1; London Gazette, May 12. 1690.
[760] History of the late Revolution in Scotland, 1690.
[761] Mackay's Memoirs and Letters to Hamilton of June 20. and 24. 1690 Colonel Hill to Melville, July 10 26.; London Gazette, July 17. 21. As to Inverlochy, see among the Culloden papers, a plan for preserving the peace of the Highlands, drawn up, at this time, by the father of President Forbes.
[762] Balcarras.
[763] See the instructions to the Lord High Commissioner in the Leven and Melville Papers.
[764] Balcarras.
[765] Act. Parl. June 7. 1690.
[766] Balcarras.
[767] Faithful Contendings Displayed; Case of the present Afflicted Episcopal Clergy in Scotland, 1690.
[768] Act. Parl. April 25. 1690.
[769] See the Humble Address of the Presbyterian Ministers and Professors of the Church of Scotland to His Grace His Majesty's High Commissioner and to the Right Honourable the Estates of Parliament.
[770] See the Account of the late Establishment of Presbyterian Government by the Parliament of Scotland, Anno 1690. This is an Episcopalian narrative. Act. Parl. May 26. 1690.
[771] Act. Parl. June 7. 1690.
[772] An Historical Relation of the late Presbyterian General Assembly in a Letter from a Person in Edinburgh to his Friend in London licensed April 20. 1691.
[773] Account of the late Establishment of the Presbyterian Government by the Parliament of Scotland, 1690.
[774] Act. Parl. July 4. 1690.
[775] Act. Parl. July 19 1690; Lockhart to Melville, April 29. 1690.
[776] Balcarras; Confession of Annandale in the Leven and Melville Papers.
[777] Balcarras; Notes of Ross's Confession in the Leven and Melville Papers.
[778] Balcarras; Mary's account of her interview with Montgomery, printed among the Leven and Melville Papers.
[779] Compare Balcarras with Burnett, ii. 62. The pamphlet entitled Great Britain's Just Complaint is a good specimen of Montgomery's manner.
[780] Balcarras; Annandale's Confession.
[781] Burnett, ii. 62, Lockhart to Melville, Aug. 30. 1690 and Crawford to Melville, Dec. 11. 1690 in the Leven and Melville Papers; Neville Payne's letter of Dec 3 1692, printed in 1693.
[782] Historical Relation of the late Presbyterian General Assembly, 1691; The Presbyterian Inquisition as it was lately practised against the Professors of the College of Edinburgh, 1691.
[783] One of the most curious of the many curious papers written by the Covenanters of that generation is entitled, "Nathaniel, or the Dying Testimony of John Matthieson in Closeburn." Matthieson did not die till 1709, but his Testimony was written some years earlier, when he was in expectation of death. "And now," he says, "I as a dying man, would in a few words tell you that are to live behind my thoughts as to the times. When I saw, or rather heard, the Prince and Princess of Orange being set up as they were, and his pardoning all the murderers of the saints and receiving all the bloody beasts, soldiers, and others, all these officers of their state and army, and all the bloody counsellors, civil and ecclesiastic; and his letting slip that son of Belial, his father in law, who, both by all the laws of God and man, ought to have died, I knew he would do no good to the cause and work of God."
[784] See the Dying Testimony of Mr. Robert Smith, Student of Divinity, who lived in Douglas Town, in the Shire of Clydesdale, who died about two o'clock in the Sabbath morning, Dec. 13. 1724, aged 58 years; and the Dying Testimony of William Wilson, sometime Schoolmaster of Park in the Parish of Douglas, aged 68, who died May 7. 1757.
[785] See the Dying Testimony of William Wilson, mentioned in the last note. It ought to be remarked that, on the subject of witchcraft, the Divines of the Associate Presbytery were as absurd as this poor crazy Dominie. See their Act, Declaration, and Testimony, published in 1773 by Adam Gib.
[786] In the year 1791, Thomas Henderson of Paisley wrote, in defence of some separatists who called themselves the Reformed Presbytery, against a writer who had charged them with "disowning the present excellent sovereign as the lawful King of Great Britain." "The Reformed Presbytery and their connections," says Mr. Henderson, "have not been much accustomed to give flattering titles to princes." . . . . . "However, they entertain no resentment against the person of the present occupant, nor any of the good qualities which he possesses. They sincerely wish that he were more excellent than external royalty can make him, that he were adorned with the image of Christ," &c., &c., &c. "But they can by no means acknowledge him, nor any of the episcopal persuasion, to be a lawful king over these covenanted lands."
[787] An enthusiast, named George Calderwood, in his preface to a Collection of Dying Testimonies, published in 1806, accuses even the Reformed Presbytery of scandalous compliances. "As for the Reformed Presbytery," he says, "though they profess to own the martyr's testimony in hairs and hoofs, yet they have now adopted so many new distinctions, and given up their old ones, that they have made it so evident that it is neither the martyr's testimony nor yet the one that that Presbytery adopted at first that they are now maintaining. When the Reformed Presbytery was in its infancy, and had some appearance of honesty and faithfulness among them, they were blamed by all the other parties for using of distinctions that no man could justify, i.e. they would not admit into their communion those that paid the land tax or subscribed tacks to do so; but now they can admit into their communions both rulers and members who voluntarily pay all taxes and subscribe tacks." . . . . "It shall be only referred to government's books, since the commencement of the French war, how many of their own members have accepted of places of trust, to be at government's call, such as bearers of arms, driving of cattle, stopping of ways, &c.; and what is all their license for trading by sea or land but a serving under government?"
[788] The King to Melville, May 22. 1690, in the Leven and Melville Papers.
[789] Account of the Establishment of Presbyterian Government.
[790] Carmichael's good qualities are fully admitted by the Episcopalians. See the Historical Relation of the late Presbyterian General Assembly and the Presbyterian Inquisition.
[791] See, in the Leven and Melville Papers, Melville's Letters written from London at this time to Crawford, Rule, Williamson, and other vehement Presbyterians. He says: "The clergy that were put out, and come up, make a great clamour: many here encourage and rejoyce at it . . . . There is nothing now but the greatest sobrietie and moderation imaginable to be used, unless we will hazard the overturning of all; and take this as earnest, and not as imaginations and fears only."
[792] Principal Acts of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland held in and begun at Edinburgh the 16th day of October, 1690; Edinburgh, 1691.
[793] Monthly Mercuries; London Gazettes of November 3. and 6. 1690.
[794] Van Citters to the States General, Oct. 3/13 1690.
[795] Lords' Journals, Oct. 6. 1690; Commons' Journals, Oct. 8.
[796] I am not aware that this lampoon has ever been printed. I have seen it only in two contemporary manuscripts. It is entitled The Opening of the Session, 1690.
[797] Commons' Journals, Oct. 9, 10 13, 14. 1690.
[798] Commons' Journals of December, 1690, particularly of Dec. 26. Stat. 2 W. & M. sess 2. C. 11.
[799] Stat. 2 W. and M. sess. 2. c. I. 3, 4.
[800] Burnet, ii. 67. See the journals of both Houses, particularly the Commons' Journals of the 10th of December and the Lords' Journals of the 30th of December and the 1st of January. The bill itself will be found in the archives of the House of Lords.
[801] Lords' Journals, Oct. 30. 1690. The numbers are never given in the Lords' Journals. That the majority was only two is asserted by Ralph, who had, I suppose, some authority which I have not been able to find.
[802] Van Citters to the States General, Nov. 14/24 1690. The Earl of Torrington's speech to the House of Commons, 1710.
[803] Burnet, ii. 67, 68.; Van Citters to the States General, Nov. 22/Dec 1 1690; An impartial Account of some remarkable Passages in the Life of Arthur, Earl of Torrington, together with some modest Remarks on the Trial and Acquitment, 1691; Reasons for the Trial of the Earl of Torrington by Impeachment, 1690; The Parable of the Bearbaiting, 1690; The Earl of Torrington's Speech to the House of Commons, 1710. That Torrington was coldly received by the peers I learned from an article in the Noticias Ordinarias of February 6 1691, Madrid.
[804] In one Whig lampoon of this year are these lines
"David, we thought, succeeded Saul,
When William rose on James's fall;
But now King Thomas governs all."
In another are these lines:
"When Charles did seem to fill the throne,
This tyrant Tom made England groan."
A third says:
"Yorkshire Tom was rais'd to honour,
For what cause no creature knew;
He was false to the royal donor
And will be the same to you."
[805] A Whig poet compares the two Marquesses, as they were often called, and gives George the preference over Thomas.
"If a Marquess needs must steer us,
Take a better in his stead,
Who will in your absence cheer us,
And has far a wiser head."
[806] "A thin, illnatured ghost that haunts the King."
[807] "Let him with his blue riband be
Tied close up to the gallows tree
For my lady a cart; and I'd contrive it,
Her dancing son and heir should drive it."
[808] As to the designs of the Whigs against Caermarthen, see Burnet, ii. 68, 69, and a very significant protest in the Lords' journals, October 30. 1690. As to the relations between Caermarthen and Godolphin, see Godolphin's letter to William, dated March 20. 1691, in Dalrymple.
[809] My account of this conspiracy is chiefly taken from the evidence, oral and documentary, which was produced on the trial of the conspirators. See also Burnet, ii. 69, 70., and the Life of James, ii. 441. Narcissus Luttrell remarks that no Roman Catholic appeared to have been admitted to the consultations of the conspirators.
[810] The genuineness of these letters was once contested on very frivolous grounds. But the letter of Turner to Sancroft, which is among the Tanner papers in the Bodleian Library, and which will be found in the Life of Ken by a Layman, must convince the most incredulous.
[811] The words are these: "The Modest inquiry--The Bishops' Answer--Not the chilling of them--But the satisfying of friends." The Modest Inquiry was the pamphlet which hinted at Dewitting.
[812] Lords' and Commons' Journals Jan 5 1690/1; London Gazette, Jan 8