1679] TEMPLE'S GOVERNMENT 753 Temple designed to increase the Cabinet, and formed a Council of Thirty, among whom were many members of the Opposition, notably Russell and Essex, while Shaftesbury was not only admitted, but established as President. Without the advice of this Council, the King, it was understood, pledged himself not to act. For the moment the hopes of the Country party were raised. The plan however proved, as might have been expected, abortive. The number of thirty was much too large for rapid or secret action, and practically the real ministry came to consist of four only-Temple himself; the Earl of Sunderland, an able man of a mean spirit and unprincipled character, of whom it has been said that he was so intent on observing and courting particular persons, that he miscalculated grossly with respect to all the momentous events of his time; the Earl of Essex, an honest and sober member of the Country party; and Saville, Lord Halifax, a man of brilliant gifts, who had hitherto been also connected with that party, but the peculiarity of whose practice. mind led him always to see the advantages of both sides of a question, and to incline towards that party which was for the moment weakest: he was proud of the name of Trimmer, given him in contempt by more onesided and practical politicians. The formation of this inner Cabinet was entirely contrary to Temple's principle; his scheme at once broke down. Russell would no longer be a member of a ministry in which he had no voice; Shaftesbury appeared again as a leader of the Opposition. Under his guidance the Exclusion Bill was being read a second time, when the dissolved, King found it necessary, not only to prorogue, but to dissolve Parliament. Fails in Parliament after carrying the Habeas Corpus Act. Although it had failed in completing the Exclusion Bill, this Parliament had carried the great Act of Habeas Corpus. It must be remembered that, from the earliest times, certainly from the Great Charter, every Englishman had a right to trial. No freeman could be detained in prison except on a criminal charge, or after conviction, or for debt, and always had it in his power to obtain a writ of Habeas Corpus, that the Courts of law might judge of the sufficiency of the charge. But all sorts of obstacles had been put in the way of obtaining this writ. The present statute enacted, that any judge, at any time, should be obliged to grant this writ when applied for, and fixed the penalties to which the gaoler would be liable for refusing to obey and the judge for refusing to issue the writ. It also forbade imprisonment out of England. Popish Plot trials continue. The only political effect of this short Parliament was to exasperate the animosity of parties. The trials for the Plot continued uninterrupted, the judgment-seat was still defiled by the wicked conduct of Scroggs, Knowles, and Jones, who constantly and openly took the part of the accusers. But at length these unjust judges seemed to have taken fright as the accusations approached the Crown; when the trial of Sir George Wakeman, the Queen's physician, came on in July, though the evidence was precisely of the same character as before, the witnesses suddenly found themselves disbelieved, and after a long trial, Wakeman, and others who had been indicted with him, were acquitted. Thus one of Shaftesbury's great weapons in his attack upon the Court was broken. Still, however, Lord Stafford, with four other Peers, awaited their trial by the House of Lords. But the spell was broken, and incredulity began to spread. And now a new personage entered on the scene, whose appearance (though by the reaction it caused it ultimately proved a deathblow to Shaftesbury's policy) supplied him at the time with a fresh Popularity of the Duke of Monmouth. means for carrying on the assault. This was the Duke of Monmouth, the illegitimate son of Charles and Lucy Walters, who received from Charles an amount of care and love scarcely to be expected from such a man. He had been constantly present at Court, had been allowed in many points to assume the bearing of a Prince of the blood; and the Country party, regardless of his birth, began to look upon him as a rival to the Romanist Duke of York. So conscious was the Duke of York of this danger, that, when leaving England at the beginning of the last Parliament, he had exacted from the King, in the presence of his Council, a solemn declaration of Monmouth's illegitimacy. But in spite of this, the story which declared that the Duke was really the King's legitimate son held its ground. Highly popular in his manners, he had won the heart of the people, and had lately still further strengthened his position by the leniency with which he had concluded a religious war in Scotland, which contrasted favourably with the bigoted severity of the Duke of York. Oppressions in Scotland. The measures which had been taken in that country to force Episcopacy on an unwilling people had driven them to insurrection. After the disgrace of Middleton, at first Rothes, and subsequently Lauderdale, with the assistance of Archbishop Sharp, had been the chief agents in the persecution. The Covenanted feeling had showed itself most strongly in the Western 1679] REBELLION OF THE COVENANTERS 755 Lowlands. There many violent means had been tried to reduce the people to conformity; among others, the introduction of a number of Highlanders, known as the "Highland Host," who had been brought into the country and quartered on the inhabitants. So outrageous and unscrupulous had been their conduct, that, for the sake of the Loyalists, it had been found necessary to remove them. But against the Covenanters their excesses had proved as useless as the previous means of coercion. The Nonconformist feeling, however, was not confined to the West. In the county of Fife were found men of equally stern convictions, and there the standard of rebellion was raised. A certain official of the name of Carmichael had been using the laws against recusants for his own ends with unjustifiable severity, bringing charges against men he knew to be innocent, but whose consciences forbade them to support their innocence in courts whose competency they denied. Ten or twelve Covenanters of the more fanatic sort determined to punish him; the degree and character of that punishment they had not yet decided on. Under the leadership of a gentleman called Hackston of Rathillet, and of John Balfour, they lay waiting for their victim on Magus Heath, near Cupar. After the manner of their sect, they had begun their undertaking with deep prayer, and when Carmichael avoided them, they took it for a providential dealing that Archbishop Sharp Murder of Archcame across them as it were in his place. They fell bishop Sharp. upon him as he was driving with his daughter in his coach, and barbarously murdered him. They then fled to the West, the real stronghold of the extreme Covenanters. There they at once met with sympathy, and after some open acts in contempt of ecclesiastical law, in company with some 600 more, held an open air conventicle at Lowdon Hill. John Graham of Claverhouse marched against them, and was defeated at the skirmish of Drumclog. He was unable even to hold Glasgow against them, and the outbreak threatened to grow into a formidable insurrection. It was thought necessary to send Monmouth to suppress it. On the 22nd of June, at Bothwell Bridge, on the Clyde, he came up with the insurgents. They sent a petition, begging that they might have the free exercise of their religion, and that their matters might be settled in Parliament. The Duke was himself inclined to gentle measures, and to afford them some relief; but his orders were positive, he was not allowed to treat. Monmouth The consequence was the battle of Bothwell Bridge, in which the Covenanters were defeated with great Bridge. PER. MON. defeats them at Bothwell 2 c Duke of York subdues them by torture. slaughter. The illness of the King and Monmouth's leniency caused him to be recalled to England; his place was taken by the Duke of York, who set to work to break the spirit of the Covenanters with unsparing cruelty and an unscrupulous use of torture, which would alone have rendered his name odious. It was thus, with the favour his comely person and popular manners had already secured him, enhanced by a reputation for leniency and love of the Protestant religion, that Monmouth returned from a short absence on the Continent, whither he had betaken himself on leaving Scotland. He became at once the popular Enthusiasm hero; his return was celebrated by the ringing of bells and all the other signs of enthusiastic admiration; while the story of his legitimacy was repeated with more and more of authority. for Monmouth, He arrived at a critical moment. Shaftesbury had not been idle. A new Parliament had been summoned to meet in October; but, without proceeding to business, it was at once prorogued for a year. This interval was spent in exhibitions of national feeling organized by Shaftesbury. The anniversary of Queen Elizabeth's accession was celebrated with a great pageant, closing with the burning of the Pope in effigy. And now a new plan was devised for sustaining the national feeling. Petitions urging the King to assemble Parliament were prepared in all parts of the country. But signs were already visible that the reaction was coming. A proclamation was issued, which checked the petitions; and the violence of the Country party "Whigs" and (now called Whigs, a name applied to the Western "Tories." Covenanters of Scotland) began to rouse the loyalty which always exists among the English gentry. Counter addresses were forwarded to the Government, expressing their abhorrence of the petitions. The Loyalists were now called either Tories, a name taken from the wild Irish outlaws, or Abhorrers, from the word used in their addresses. Reaction in favour of the Duke of York. In 1680 the crisis came. Alarmed at the popularity of Monmouth, the Duke of York returned from Scotland, and it at once became evident that his influence was paramount with the King. Shaftesbury, who shrunk from no extremity, and who seems to have been blind to the approaching reaction, appeared before the grand jury of Westminster, and presented the Duke as a Popish recusant. While Shaftesbury was engaged in conversation, the judges thwarted this clever move by discharging the jury; still it was plain that the Duke's presence in England was 1680] THE EXCLUSION BILL 757 meets, Commons pass the The Lords throw it out. Anger of the Commons. for the present impossible, and he again returned to Scotland. At length, in October, Parliament met. The Commons proceeded to all extremities. The Exclusion Bill was brought Parliament in and passed. The Commons would hear of no compromise, though the King offered anything short of ex- Exclusion Bill. clusion. Sunderland and Godolphin entreated him to yield. Halifax, true to his policy of defending the weak, alone stood firm. His unrivalled eloquence was successful; the Bill was thrown out in the Lords. Filled with anger, the Commons passed a series of measures, each more violent than the last. They refused to pass any Money Bill till the Exclusion Bill was carried. They addressed the King to remove Halifax from his Council for ever. They resolved that no member of the House of Commons should accept any office from the Crown. They declared that the fire of London was due to the Papists, who designed thereby to introduce Papacy and arbitrary power. It was impossible for the King to remain quiet under such circumstances; Parliament he was compelled to dissolve Parliament on the 18th dissolved, of January 1681. Meanwhile Monmouth had been making a sort of royal progress through England, escorted from house to house by a band of gentlemen. He had even ventured to drop the bar sinister from his arms, and to touch for the King's evil. It seemed as though even yet the Whigs would be triumphant; in spite of the acquittal of Wakeman, the prosecution of the Papist Lords was still continued, and the Whigs had sufficient influence to secure the unjust death of Lord Stafford. But the King and his advisers were conscious that the tide had already begun to turn; and, determined to allow his enemies to put themselves completely in the wrong, Charles decided on making one more attempt at Parliamentary government. In March 1681 a new Parliament was assembled; but, afraid of the vicinity of London, the at Oxford, King summoned it to meet him at Oxford. The Whig chiefs came, attended by troops of armed men, and the kingdom seemed upon the verge of civil war. Charles again offered a final alternative to the Exclusion Bill. He was willing, he said, that the Duke of York should be banished from the kingdom, that the Government should be carried on in his name by a regent, that that regent should be the Protestant Prince of Orange. The Commons would listen to no proposition short of the complete exclusion. But they had overshot their mark. Their extreme violence, dread of a civil war, the undue pressure which they seemed to be applying New Parliament 1681, |