Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 3.djvu/558

544 bigot character which goes headlong on the most perilous issues. He determined to pack a parliament by means which none but a madman would have attempted. Whether from county or borough, he could expect nothing but a most obstinate and universal demonstration in favour of the church and constitution. His brother Charles, for his own purposes, had deprived the towns of their charters, because they were whig, and often nonconformist, and had given them others, which put them into the hands of the tories and churchmen; and these were the very men who now would resist James's plans to the death. The country were equally church and tory, but all this did not daunt James. He determined to remodel the corporations, and to change every magistrate in the counties that were not ready to carry out his views. He appointed a board of regulators at Whitehall, to examine into the state of the corporations, and introduce new rules and new men as they thought fit. These regulators were seven in number, and all catholics and Jesuits, except the king's incarnate devil, Jeffreys. These men appointed deputations of chosen tools to visit the different corporations, and report to them; and James issued a proclamation, announcing his intention to revise the commissions of the peace, and of the lieutenancy of counties. In fact, James proceeded like a man who was satisfied that he could do just as he pleased with the constitution of a country which, through all ages, had shown itself more jealous of its constitution than any other in the world.

He sent for the lords-lieutenants, and delivered to them a paper of instructions, with which they were each to proceed to their several counties. They were to summon all the magistrates, and tell them what his majesty expected from them on the ensuing election of parliament, and to send him up their individual answers, along with the list of all the catholic and dissenting gentlemen who might take the place of those who should dare to object to the king's plans, on the bench or in the militia. The proposal was so audacious, that the greater proportion of the lords-lieutenants peremptorily refused to undertake any such commission; these included the noblest names in the peerage, and they were at once dismissed. The sweeping measure of turning out the duke of Somerset, the viscounts Newport and Falconberg, the earls of Derby, Dorset, Shrewsbury, Oxford, Pembroke, Rutland, Bridgewater, Thanet, Abingdon, Northampton, Scarsdale, Gainsborough, and many others, showed how far James was gone in his madness. As the king could not get any noblemen to take the places of the dismissed, he filled them up as he could, and even made his butcher, Jeffreys, lord-lieutenant of two counties. But all was in vain; he soon received answers from every quarter that the whole nation, town and country, absolutely refused to obey the king's injunctions. Even those who had gone most zealously to work were obliged to return with most disconsolate reports, and to assure the king that, if he turned out every magistrate and militia officer, the next would still vote against popery. Catholics and nonconformists, though glad of indulgence, would not consent to attempt measures which could only end in defeat and confusion. The nonconformists would not move a finger to endanger protestantism. It was the same in the corporations. Some of these James could deprive of their charters, for the new ones frequently contained a power of revocation; but when he had done this he found himself no forwarder, for the new ministers upon the points that he had at heart were as sturdy as the old. Other towns from which he demanded the surrender of their charters, refused. Wherever James could eject the church members of corporations he did, from London to the remotest borough, and put in presbyterians, independents, and baptists. It was perfectly useless; they were as protestant as the church. Even where he obtained a few truckling officials, they found it impossible to make the people vote as they wished; and in the counties the catholic or dissenting sheriffs were equally indisposed to press the government views, or unable to obtain them if they did. He changed the borough magistrates in some cases two or three times, but in vain. Some of the people in the towns did not content themselves with mere passive resistance; they loudly declared their indignation, and the tyrant marched soldiers in upon them; but only to hear them exclaim that James was imitating his dear brother of France, and dragonading the protestants.

Whilst these thing's were going on all over the country, James was putting on the same insane pressure in every public department of government. The heads of departments were called on to pledge themselves to support the wishes of the king, and to demand from their subordinates the same obedience. The refractory were dismissed, even to the highest law officers of the crown; and James demanded from the judges a declaration that even the Petition of Right could not bar the exercise of his prerogative; but the bench consulted in secret, and the result was never known. He even contemplated granting no licenses to inns, beer-houses or coffee-houses, without an engagement to support the king, spite of church or magistrate; but another of his measures now brought things to a crisis. James determined to make his intentions known for fully restoring popery by a new declaration of indulgence, in which he reminded his subjects of his determined character, and of the numbers of public servants that he had already dismissed for opposing his will. This declaration he published on the 27th of April, 1688, and he ordered the clergy to read it from all pulpits in London on the 20th and 27th of May, and in the country on the 3rd and 10th of June. This was calling on the bishops and clergy to practice their doctrine of non-resistance to some purpose; it was tantamount to demanding from them to co-operate in the overthrow of their own church. They were, as may be supposed, in an awful dilemma; and now was the time for the dissenters—whom they had so sharply persecuted and so soundly lectured on the duty of entire submission—to enjoy their embarrassment. But the dissenters were too generous, and had too much in common at stake. They met, and sent deputations to the clergy, and exhorted them to stand manfully for their faith, declaring that they would stand firmly by them. A meeting of the metropolitan clergy was called, at which were present Tillotson, Sherlock, Stillingfleet—great names—and others high in the church. They determined not to read the declaration on the 20th, and sent round a copy of the resolution through the city, where eighty-five incumbents immediately signed it.

The bishops meantime met at. Lambeth, and discussed the same question. Cartwright and Chester, one of the king's