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to the King (who after all was only upholding the natural rights of his own brother); before all, their attempt to meddle with the true

refuses any compromise. Is dissolved

at once.

succession to the Crown, which is so dear to the English

mind, had produced a complete reaction; and when the King, after a few days, dissolved the tempestuous Parliament, he had virtually triumphed.

vengeance.

He could even think at once of vengeance. A carpenter of the Charles's name of College, known as the Protestant joiner, the inventor of the Protestant flail, was accused of a design upon the King. The false witnesses hitherto employed in the Popish Plot were willing enough to sell their perjuries to their former enemies. Acquitted in London, College was tried before a more Tory jury in Oxford, and found guilty amid the applause of the bystanders. The next blow was aimed against Shaftesbury himself. It was resolved to try him upon the charge of treason; but the London sheriffs were zealous Whigs, the jury was of the same way of thinking, and they ignored the indictment. It became obviously necessary, before severe measures could be thought of, to change the character of the corporations. A writ of Quo Warranto was issued, by which the City of London was accused of irregularities, and their charter was confiscated. Laws against Nonconformists were at the same time put rigorously into execution. The process which had answered so well in London was speedily applied to other corporations. There were few of these bodies who had not either wittingly or unwittingly been guilty of some breach of the law. One by one they were compelled to resign their charters, and to receive others granted wholly in a Tory spirit. The reaction drove the Whig party to despair. Their excitement

Despair and

fury of
the Whigs.

had been so strong, it was impossible for them to settle down, as wisdom dictated, to wait quietly till their turn should come again. They began to think of more violent means, and meetings were held in which there was some talk even of an insurrection. This was Shaftesbury's plan; but he was unsupported by the wiser members of his party, and found it necessary to withdraw in November to the Continent. There was indeed no proper ground for insurrection, for however tyrannous the conduct of the King might have been, he was careful to keep within the letter of the law. At the same time, communications were opened with the discontented Presbyterians of Scotland; and it is certain that the agitation for some violent means of opposing the Crown was widespread. Russell and Essex appear to have retired from the scheme; but some of the in

1683]

RYE-HOUSE PLOT

759

Rye-House Plot.

ferior and more violent members of the party went even further. They made a plan for murdering the King at a place called the Rye-House, which has given its name to the whole Whig conspiracy. The plot was revealed by one of its members. The Court found no difficulty in mixing the more general feeling of discontent with the assassination plot. Russell, Essex, and Sidney were arrested. Lord Howard turned King's evidence, and though what he said had no connection with the plot to murder the King, he narrated the meetings which had been held before the departure of Shaftesbury, and thus inculpated Russell. Disregarding the fact that there was but one witness, which is not sufficient to prove an act of treason, the jury found Russell guilty. The same day Essex was found dead in the Tower; in all probability he died by his own hand, as his temperament was known to be morbid and melancholy. Russell was executed. The next victim was Sidney, whose trial was conducted by Jeffreys, now Chief-Justice. Again there was an absence of sufficient witness; but a treatise in which he had supported the advantages of Republicanism was produced, and allowed, contrary to all right, to take the place of a second witness, and Sidney too was put to death.

Duke of York

by Halifax.

The discovery and punishment of this plot rendered the power of the Crown for the time irresistible. Charles was enabled charles beto disregard the law and to continue beyond the time comes absolute. fixed by statute without a Parliament. He was able also to allow the Duke of York, contrary to law, to take his seat again at the Council, and again to have the management of the navy. This illegal course was not followed without opposition, for Halifax, again taking the weaker side, opposed all infractions of the Constitution. On the other hand, the Duke of York, full of arbitrary ideas, opposed only was supported by his brother-in-law, Laurence Hyde, Lord Rochester, and by the Duchess of Portland and her friends Godolphin and Sunderland. The contest between these two parties occupied the last year of the reign. Halifax was for returning to the policy of the Triple Alliance, and withstanding Louis, who was again following his course of aggression; while the Duke of York and his friend Rochester still hoped to bring to completion the arrangement with that monarch which had disgraced the earlier part of the reign, and which had rendered Charles for so long a mere vassal of France. Halifax was so far triumphant that he succeeded in getting Rochester removed from his position as First Lord of the Treasury. The quarrel was still unsettled when Charles, in whose hands the decision must

Death of
Charles.

have rested, unexpectedly died; at length, upon his deathbed, summoning courage to declare his adhesion to the Roman Church, which he had long secretly favoured, though for political reasons he had refrained from all outward exhibitions of his creed.

Character of

The character of Charles and the part he played in history are alike interesting. He was gifted with excellent abilities, Charles's reign, with elegant and artistic tastes, with wit, and a great amount of tact. But all his natural advantages were neutralized by his selfishness. His own ease and the pursuit of pleasure were the objects dearest to him, yet throughout his reign he showed himself an able politician. The natural champion of hereditary right, his effort was throughout to make good the claims of hereditary sovereignty, and, in the face of a very strong opposition, he had so far managed to hold his own position, that in almost every crisis of the reign he managed to obtain his own way, even while allowing the fullest play to party feeling. He kept the formation of the ministry in his own hands, using men of all parties as suited his objects, and closed his reign with a brief period of triumph. He was indeed so successful, and there was such an appearance of prosperity about the country, that those who did not know the secret of his connection with France, regarded that very withdrawal from European politics which we consider the great blot in his reign as the work of clever policy; and foreign Courts congratulated him that, in the midst of trouble and want abroad, he had kept his own kingdom in peace, and secured the prosperity of his people. He perhaps underrated the growth of the country during the Commonwealth, and the strength of the new forces which had sprung into existence during that period. But he was not ignorant of their existence. He was satisfied, however, to secure his own personal success without regard to the future, and thus, though apparently triumphant at the close of his reign, he had obtained that triumph in such a way as to leave behind him a deep-seated feeling of opposition, which his more earnest brother, not perhaps more arbitrary in character but far less skilful in the art of compromise, and far less gifted with the charms of manner which had served Charles in such good stead, shortly excited to an irresistible exhibition of strength.

JAMES II.

1685---1688.

1. Aune Hyde = James, born 1633 = 2. Mary of Modena.

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HE death of Charles II. was somewhat unexpected, and took place in the midst of a violent struggle for influence in the Cabinet. It was uncertain at the time whether Rochester or Rochester superHalifax would gain the upper hand. The views of sedes Halifax. Halifax were strictly constitutional, and his foreign policy would have gone hand in hand with his domestic views, England would have been freed from her vassalage to France, and the principles of the Triple Alliance upheld. Rochester was a far more complacent character. He was ready to support any measure which would secure him power. The accession of James settled the question. Although Halifax had laid him under a deep debt of gratitude by his conduct during the debate on the Exclusion Bill, his principles were not such as to suit the bigoted and imperious James; and in the reconstitution of the Ministry, while Rochester was raised to the position of LordTreasurer, who was then regarded as Prime Minister, Halifax was removed from the very important office of Privy Seal to the dignified but uninfluential position of Lord President. Both Godolphin and

Sunderland, the Secretary, had voted for the Exclusion Bill, but Godolphin's unostentatious ability, and Sunderland's pliancy and mastery of the art of management, rendered them necessary to the King. These three ministers formed in fact the inner Council or Cabinet, on whose advice the King acted; the rest of the Ministry being either opposed to their measures, or regarded with concealed dislike by the King.

In the first moment of excitement James had declared to the Council, in a speech which was afterwards published, his determination to rule constitutionally, and before all things to support the English Church. The facts of his reign were curiously at variance

James collects the customs

without

Parliament.

with this declaration. His very first action seemed to give the lie to it. The customs had been settled upon Charles for life only, and could not therefore be legally collected till a Parliament should renew the grant. It was one of those cases when a violation of the law was perhaps necessary, as the course of trade was likely to be deranged if goods were admitted for some weeks free of duty. But instead of following the constitutional advice of his Lord-Keeper, Guildford, who recommended that, though collected, the customs should be kept apart and not used, James preferred to listen to his other legal adviser, Jeffreys, whom he had raised to a peerage and a place in the Council, and issued a proclamation that the customs should be collected and employed exactly as though granted.

It was however impossible to continue the Government without a Parliament; the feeling against illegal taxation was too strong. This necessity placed James in some difficulty. If he faced his Parliament, he had to make up his mind as to the position he intended to occupy with regard to the affairs of Europe. It was possible that his Parliament would prove refractory. It would almost certainly demand that England should not continue, as at present, a cipher in European politics. But James had projects of internal government which he determined to carry out whether the Parliament were refractory or not. These could only be gained by the possession of money, and except in a Parliamentary way, there was no means of obtaining it, unless he received it, as his brother had done, from the French King, and remained, as his brother had been, a mere vassal to that Prince. Louis saw the importance of the occasion, and im

Receives money
unwillingly
from Louis,

mediately upon the death of Charles sent James a present of £37,000, which was afterwards increased by a further present of £30,000, and it was only with a

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