Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 4.djvu/19

] Whilst in the midst of the money debates, a circumstance occurred which materially hastened the decision, and no doubt increased the liberality of the commons. William announced to them that James had sailed from Brest, with an armament, for Ireland. At the same time a regiment of Scotch soldiers, whom William had ordered to be embarked at Harwich for the Netherlands, refused to go. They declared that William was king of England, but not yet of Scotland; that they had taken an oath to James as their own monarch, James VII. of Scotland, and were not to be ordered out by a foreign king to fight his wars abroad. Officers and men broke into open mutiny at Ipswich, and resolved to march off into their own country. At this alarming news several regiments of horse and foot were dispatched, under the command of Ginckell, to intercept and, if necessary, to attack and destroy the mutineers. Before he could come up with them they had reached the fens of Lincolnshire near Sleaford, and had drawn up in a posture of defence; but the sight of the overwhelming force brought them to an unconditional surrender, and they were shipped off to the continent without further hesitation.

But the alarm of James's descent on Ireland, and the disaffection in the army, roused the commons from their tone of caution. They passed resolutions of patriotic devotion to the crown, and in an address assured William that their lives and fortunes were at his service in its defence. They went further, and rushed into an extreme which brought additional unpopularity on William's government, and furnished a facile handle to subsequent ones to infringe the liberties of the subject. As there were great numbers of political persons in custody—persons openly disaffected to the present dynasty having been prudently secured during the progress of the revolution—now that the revolution was completed, and authorised judges were once more on the bench, it was feared that these prisoners would demand their habeas corpus, and come forth at the very moment when all the adherents of James were on the alert to watch the effect of his reception in Ireland. The commons, therefore, passed an act to suspend the habeas corpus act for the present. This was the first time that such a suspension had taken place, and it called forth the more violent remark. Was this the act, it was asked, of a government which pretended to have freed us from tyrants who disregarded the safeguards of personal liberty? What had James done worse? He had not suspended this palladium of freedom for a single day; his brother Charles had passed the act itself.

But simultaneously the commons were passing another act of scarcely less significance. Hitherto there had been no military power of controlling and punishing soldiers or officers who offended against discipline or their oath. They were subject only to the civil tribunals, and must be brought there, and tried and punished as any other subjects. James had obtained from his servile judges a decision that he might punish any deserter from his standard summarily; but this was not law, and the commons, now alarmed at the affair of Ipswich, passed an act called the Mutiny Bill, by which any military offenders might be arrested by military authority, and tried and condemned by court-martial in perfect independence of the civil authority. This bill, which passed without a single dissentient vote, was in itself perhaps the greatest stretch of parliamentary authority which had ever been made except in the very contest with Charles I. It at once converted the soldiers into a separate class, and in effect founded what all parties disclaimed and affected to dread—a standing army. Like the act for the suspension of the habeas corpus, it was only for a limited period; but the unsettled state of the kingdom at the moment of its expiration caused it to be renewed, and it became a permanent institution, though to this day we annually go through the ceremony of formally renewing the mutiny bill.

The passing these extraordinary measures excited the alarm of many even well disposed to the revolution; but to the adherents of the Stuart dynasty they afforded the opportunity for the most vehement declamations against the new monarch. "What!" they said, "have we denounced king James as a tyrant only to bring in a man under the guise of a deliverer, who, within ten weeks of his accession, has destroyed bulwarks of personal freedom which the discarded family, in their most arbitrary moments, never once dared to touch?" The person, the manners, the spirit and intentions of William were severely criticised. He was undeniably of a still, close, and gloomy temperament, and found it impossible to assume that gaiety and affability of demeanour which to Charles II. were natural. He had the manners and the accent of a foreigner, and chilled all those who approached him at court by his cold and laconic manners. In fact, he knew that he was surrounded by traitors, and could unbend only in the company of his Dutch favourites. He became extremely unpopular, and not all the endeavours and the agreeable and cordial manners of the queen could prevent the serious effect of his own reserved temper. At the same time more was truly to be attributed to the force of circumstances than to any bias of William towards tyranny. In one direction William was anxious to extend the liberties of the nation. He was for establishing the utmost freedom of religions opinion. He would have abolished the test act, and granted free enjoyment of all Christian creeds, and of office to members of all denominations; but though there was no fear of a leaning to popery in him, he found himself stoutly opposed in these intentions by his subjects. The church was split into high church and low church, jurors and non-jurors; but every party in the church, and almost every body of dissenters, were averse to conceding any liberty of creed or capability of office to the catholics. Again, the church was bent against admission of any one to office who refused to subscribe to the thirty-nine articles, and to take the oaths, not only of allegiance but of supremacy. Under these circumstances William found it impossible to set aside the test act or the corporation act; but he brought in and passed the celebrated toleration act. Yet even this act, from which we still date our enjoyment of religious liberty, was far more circumscribed than what it is now, owing to successive improvements. It did not repeal the obnoxious act of uniformity, the five-mile act, the conventicle act, and those other statutes which so harassed and oppressed the dissenters; but it exempted them from their operation on certain conditions. They must subscribe thirty-four out of the thirty-nine articles, which most of them could do; the baptists were excused from professing