Decides for a convention. Jan. 22, 1689.

be untrue. He resolved to pursue to the full his constitutional policy. He summoned the Lords, and as no House of Commons could be for the moment got at, he requested all those gentlemen who had sat in Parliament during the reign of Charles II. to meet him, and discuss the state of the nation. The upshot of this debate was that William should issue writs in his own name summoning a convention, freely elected, and to all intents, except in name, a Parliament; and that to this convention should be referred the question of the settlement of England.

Almost identically the same course was followed with regard to Scotland. There, too, Protestant outbreaks had taken place, and the chief agents of James's tyranny had been imprisoned or put to flight. A number of important Scotchmen being in London, were assembled to advise the Prince, and they recommended, that in Scotland, as in England, the Estates should be convened on the 14th of March following.

Three views of arranging the succession.

As was certain to be the case, the elections, now free, were largely in favour of the Whigs. Yet still there was a considerable minority of Tories, almost all of whom, however, were in favour of some strong course for securing future good government. The plan of the highest Tories, among whom were most of the clergy, was to open a negotiation with James, and to let him return upon conditions. A second plan, which originated with Sancroft, was to allow James to continue nominally on the throne, but to put the Government entirely into the hands of a regent named by Parliament. This seemed to Sancroft a way by which oaths of allegiance could be kept and good government secured. A third party, at the head of which was Danby, asserted that the English crown could not be vacant; the flight of the King having terminated his reign, the Princess Mary, as next of kin-for he was willing to ignore the doubtful Prince of Wales-became "ipso facto" Queen. The Whigs, on the other hand, throwing to the winds all notion of Divine right, asserted the principle which had been gradually accepted in England since the Revolution of 1640, that the monarch held his position only in virtue of a contract with the people, that when that contract was broken the people had a right to remove him and to choose another king. In the Commons, the majority of the Whigs was so great that there was not much difficulty in arrivelare the throne ing at a resolution. This resolution asserted that "King James II., having endeavoured to subvert the Constitution of the kingdom by breaking the original contract between King and

Commons de

vacant.

1689]

WILLIAM AND MARY

789

people, and by the advice of Jesuits and other wicked people having violated the fundamental laws, and having withdrawn himself out of the kingdom, had abdicated the Government, and that the throne had thereby became vacant." In the Lords more difficulty arose. The Tories insisted upon discussing, first of all, the plan for the regency, and it was only lost by a majority of two. Danby had now the opportunity of bringing forward his plan. He had hitherto acted with the Whigs, but when the question was raised whether the throne was vacant or not, holding, as has been said, the view that this was impossible, he joined the Tories with his followers, and the majority decided in the negative. For a moment great difficulties arose. The House of Commons refused to accept any change in the resolution ; the Lords for a time held firm.

William all this time carefully abstained from declaring any opinion in the matter. But it now seemed as if his wife would probably be made Queen, while he himself must occupy the position of minister. The fidelity of Mary saved him from the awkward position. She wrote to Danby expressing her abhorrence of such a scheme. Sure of his wife's views, William now expressed himself strongly. Danby gave way, and a sort of compromise compromise was hit upon, by which it was declared that the throne decided on. should be filled by William and Mary as joint sovereigns, the administration of Government being in the hands of the Prince.

STATE OF SOCIETY.

1660-1688.

IN

ter of the

period of the later Stuarts.

wears.

In Europe.

N reading the history of the later Stuarts, we cannot but be struck by the great change which has taken place since the Restoration. Modern charac- The shadow of the Middle Ages has wholly disappeared; we find ourselves in presence of an entirely modern world, of a state of society easy to understand, of a political life which, in most respects, exactly resembles our own. Europe had assumed the form which, with certain changes, it still The Thirty Years' War had completed the religious struggle. At the Peace of Westphalia, the Protestant and Catholic religions had found fixed limits which have never since been materially altered. The shadowy importance of the mediaval Empire had disappeared, the independence of the great Princes of Germany was acknowledged, and the Empire became little more than a loosely connected confederation. Spain, the great power of the last century, had been hurrying onward in its course of decay, and was no longer a source of dread to Europe, or a power whose friendship or enmity was of the first importance in political calculations. The short-lived greatness of Holland was already on the decline, though her fleets were still the most formidable in Europe, and her wealth increasing. The pre-eminence of Spain had passed to France. The consolidation of the monarchy was there completed; the part she had taken in the later years of the Thirty Years' War had secured her a position of paramount importance in Germany. French diplomacy mingled authoritatively in the policy of every nation, a large army kept in a complete state of organization even in peace secured the power the country had won. Even on the sea the French navy found a rival only in Holland.

16881

CHARACTER OF THE PERIOD

At home.

791

The same establishment of modern forms and relations was visible at home. The medieval baron, the Tudor lord of the council, had given way to the modern nobleman. The country gentleman and the wealthy trader, now admitted into the ranks of the gentry, had come into existence. The great religious questions of the sixteenth century, the great political questions of the seventeenth century, had been alike fought out. The deep enthusiasm, the fixed convictions, and the laborious and subtle policy of the preceding generation had disappeared, to make room for questions of personal power, and the more petty interests of party politics. Of course, great principles and interests have arisen from want of convictime to time in later days, but one of the most essential tion. differences between modern and mediæval times is the absence of certainty, the general weakness of men's convictions, and a readiness to compromise. The rapid changes through which England had been passing naturally produced such a state of mind in the reign of Charles II. Loyalty, and the belief in the divine right of kings, had received an irretrievable blow. Puritanism, the subjection of the State to the purposes of religion, had been tried and had failed. The enthusiasm which had marked the earlier efforts of the Puritan party had proved evanescent; the enthusiasm which greeted the Restoration was of even shorter duration. The old beliefs of the preceding centuries had received rude shocks. Bacon had opened the way for a new method of natural philosophy, and thrown even an undue amount of discredit upon the deductive method of inquiry. Hobbes had traced royalty to a contract between the governor and the governed, a contract permanent indeed, and leaving the monarch's authority inalienable and apparently despotic, but leading directly to the more liberal views which were prevalent at the Revolution. He had assaulted the very source of religious authority by applying reason as the sole means of explaining inspiration. Thus shaken, both by experience and through their intellects, from their old creeds, men had lost for the time the power of clear conviction. This exclusion of seriousness from public life was fostered by the careless and pleasure-loving character of the King, for it must not be forgotten that constitutional monarchy in the present meaning of the term had not yet been established, the King, and not the Prime Minister, was still the source of all political advance ; it was therefore necessary for aspirants to office to find means of pleasing the monarch, whose personal character thus exercised an influence far greater than at present. As a con

sequence of this, the political leaders of the time were courtiers, and the Court was filled with men by no means representing the deeper feelings and opinions of the nation, but drawn from that class who were most affected by all the causes which were operating to produce intellectual and political scepticism. At the same time, the enormous salaries paid to the great officials reduced politics to a trade, and rendered office an object so desirable, as to outweigh, in the eyes of those whose consciences were not very scrupulous, considerable sacrifices of principle. Even the greatest questions thus assumed a mere personal and political character, and when the Revolution came, it was the work rather of a party driven to desperation by the complete failure of their plans, and by the headstrong conduct of the King, than that of a nation stirred to its depths by strong love of principle and truth. There is in it none of the grandeur which marked the opening of the Long Parliament, nor did it count among its leaders one man of heroic character. Yet, although a deplorable want of principle is throughout visible in the politics of the time, and the personal influence exercised upon them by the King very great, the very opposite lessons which had been taught by the Great Rebellion had not been wholly in vain. The Revolution was, in fact, the completion of the work of the Rebellion thrown into a practical form. Although the struggle between the Puritan and Episcopalian was for the present laid aside, there was enough of religious party feeling left to render all classes hostile to the Catholic Church; while the Puritan regarded it as the chief enemy to that spiritual creed which he considered the first necessity of life, the English Churchman saw in it the threatening enemy to his own position as a member of a dominant and national Church. All classes recognized the necessity of constitutional government, not indeed in the strict sense in which we now employ the word, but with a very strong determination to uphold the safeguards, such as they were, of life and property, which the English Constitution offered. It was when the desire of the Kings Charles and James (directed to establishing on the one hand a despotism resembling that of the French, and on the other the Roman Catholic religion) hurried them into actions which seemed to touch the security of person and property, that the nation almost universally combined to change its dynasty.

Thus the objects of party were very similar to those which have ever since existed, either personal aggrandizement in the possession of power, or the maintenance of constitutional right; and as, on the whole, these objects were sought by Parliamentary means, we are