Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 3.djvu/562

548 people of England, to use the words of a modern writer, "were now slaves both by act of parliament and the word of God." Their pastoral charges rolled in thunder louder than that of Laud and Mainwaring upon the divine right of kings, the duty of passive obedience in subjects, and the eternal damnation provided for those two should resist "the Lord's anointed, or the ministers of the only true church upon earth." We shall find the convocation and the clergy echoing this in the most vehement style; declaring "that it belongs not to subjects to create or to censure, but to honour and obey their king, whose fundamental law of succession no religion, no law, no fault, no forfeiture could alter or diminish." "We shall find that, on the memorable 21st of July, 1683, the day on which lord Russell perished on the scaffold, the university of Oxford again, l)y "a judgment and decree," publishing and pronouncing this doctrine; nay, both convocations, on the accession of this very James, spite of his notorious popery, hastening to declare "their faith and true obedience to him, without any restrictions or limitations of his power."

Thus, on all occasions, the church had freely and fully surrendered to these arbitrary monarchs, as for as in them Jay, the rights and liberties of all England. They had done all that they could, for their own selfish aggrandisement, to overturn the constitution of their country; to lay it in eternal thraldom—and that in the sacred name of God—at the feet of the church and the king; and it was beautiful that it should come to this at last; it was beautiful that the universities, which had always been the great hotbeds and nurseries of toryism, and had been the most truculently officious in fanning these traitor-kings with the adulation of the non-resistance doctrine, which no religion, no law, no fault, or forfeiture in the monarch himself could alter or diminish—should be the first to be tasted by their divine-right king; and we believe that none would more fully admit the necessity and the salutary effect of the striking punishment of both universities and church than the majority of their ministers and sons at the present day.

Had James, indeed, had any deep insight into human nature, he would have known that, on being put to the test, they would act as Satan suggested to the Almighty in the book of Job:—"Hast thou not made a hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? Thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land. But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face."—i. 10, 11. James had now, by his insane and openly avowed resolve to overthrow both church, state, and protestantism together, completely flashed into the faces of the clergy and universities the suicidal folly of their doctrine, and combined all parties in one league of resistance. Whig and tory, peer and commoner, English, Scotch, and Irish, churchman and dissenter, forgot their differences in the common danger. The old combatants for party powers, the persecutors and the persecuted, coalesced, and showed one bold front to his usurpation. The bishops, who had uniformly hitherto been arrayed on the side of arbitrary power, were row converted into the most honoured of patriots, and elevated in the zeal of the people almost to adoration.

Two days only after the bishops were sent to the Tower, namely, the 10th of June, was announced what, under other circumstances, would have been a most auspicious event for James—the birth of an heir. But the nation was so full of suspicion, both of the monarch and the Jesuits that he had around him, that it would not credit the news that the healthy boy which was born was the actual child of James and his queen. It was certainly of the highest moment that James should have taken every precaution to have the birth verified beyond dispute; but in this respect he had been as singularly maladroit as in all his other affairs. As the protestants were, of course, highly suspicious, he should have had the usual number of protestant witnesses ready. But the queen, who sat playing cards at Whitehall till near midnight, was suddenly taken ill a month before the calculated time, and there was neither the princess Anne present—she was away at Bath—nor the archbishop of Canterbury, nor the Dutch ambassador—whom it was so necessary to satisfy on behalf of the princess and prince of Orange—nor any of the Hyde family, not even the earl of Clarendon, the uncle of Mary and Anne. On the contrary, there were plenty of Jesuits, and the renegade noblemen, Dover, Peterborough, Murray, Sunderland—who directly after avowed himself a catholic—Mulgrave, and others. The consequence was that the whole people declared the child spurious; that it had been introduced into the bed in a warming-pan; and when the public announcement was made, and a day of solemn thanksgiving was appointed, there was no rejoicing. Fireworks were let off by order of government; but the night was black and tempestuous, and flashes of lurid lightning paled the artificial fires, and made the people only the more firm in the belief that heaven testified against the imposture. And yet there was no imposture. There were some protestants present—sufficient to prevent any collusion, and particularly Dr. Chamberlain, the eminent accoucheur; but James, by his folly and tyranny, had deprived himself of the public confidence, and fixed on his innocent offspring a brand of disavowment, which clung to him and his fortunes, and has only been removed by the cooler judgment of recent times.

William of Orange sent over Zulestein to congratulate James on the birth of an heir; but that minister brought back the account that not one person in ten believed the child to be the queen's.

This fortunate event offered a fine opportunity for James retracing his steps, and winning back the good-will of the nation. He had only to liberate the bishops, and declare himself resolved to govern according to his coronation oath, and the heart of the nation would have flowed back to him. Such was the advice that his more prescient ministers gave to him—but in vain; his nature was capable of nothing so reasonable or politic. On the contrary, he took every little opportunity of further incensing his subjects and strengthening their alarms. He sent word to the chaplain of the Tower to read the Declaration of Indulgence during divine service on Sunday, though the day for its reading was long past; and, on the chaplain's refusal, he dismissed him. He boasted of the conversion of Sunderland, and saw with delight this wretched sycophant, to avoid losing his place, go barefooted, and with a taper in his hand, to the royal chapel, to be there received as a humble penitent into the bosom of the church; and when earnestly exhorted to make