Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 4.djvu/97

A.D. 1694] delivered to the king as soon as she was dead. The public, as it had just cause, testified the most genuine grief for her loss, and the same sentiment was everywhere expressed abroad, especially amongst the persecuted Huguenots, to assist whom she had deprived herself even of the usual indulgences of her station. At St. Germains only was there no sign of respect to her memory; the court was forbade to put on the slightest tinge of mourning.

The funeral of the queen might be said to be attended by all London. During the whole time that she lay in state the whole of the neighbourhood of Whitehall remained from day to day one dense crowd, and on the day of the funeral the whole population appeared to have drawn towards the palace. The procession was not only attended by the lord mayor and all officers of the city, but by both houses of parliament—a circumstance never attending a royal funeral before, because with every other sovereign the parliament itself had expired. Mary was only in her thirty-third year, and the sixth of her reign.

Mary's remains were deposited in the south aisle of Henry VII.'s chapel, but her real monument is at Greenwich. When the battle of La Hogue was fought, she had begged of William, who was in Holland, that the palace of Greenwich, begun by Charles II., should be completed on an ampler and more magnificent plan as the home of the veteran seamen of England. William now ordered Wren to produce a plan worthy of the queen and the object; and the present splendid palace, or hospital as it is called, rose to her memory, a most noble and befitting trophy of a true woman's sympathy with the defenders of her country.

We must now step back a little to notice the business of the session which this mournful event interrupted and terminated. In the matter of supply the commons voted the same sums as in the former session for the army and navy, settled the act for the customs for another term of five years, and fixed the land-tax again at four shillings in the pound. They then entertained some vehement complaints against Sir John Trenchard for having imprisoned and brought to trial certain innocent men, as the complainants termed them, as conspirators, at the instigation of the notorious Hugh Spoke, Aaron Smith, and one Taafe, an Irish papist. Trenchard was, in fact, very severe against plotting malcontents, and had arrested a number of men in Lancashire on the evidence of Taafe and one Lunt, and brought them to trial at Manchester. The men were guilty enough, for they had been found with concealed arms and accoutrements, and Taafe and Lunt had been in communication with them; but Taafe not having boon rewarded as he expected by Trenchard, turned round, sold himself to the Jacobites, and on the day of trial suddenly appeared in the witness-box, and declared the whole thing a hoax. The triumph of the Jacobite party was immense, and, not satisfied with having won it, they determined to pursue their success in parliament; but there the scene was changed. Howe, who was one of the firmest of the opposition, denounced the ministers for their treatment of innocent men, and their employment of knaves against them; but the whigs eagerly caught at the matter, demanded an inquiry, and then the whole truth came out. Both lords and commons voted that there had been a dangerous conspiracy, declared the conduct of government not only just but meritorious, and sent Taafe to prison.

The bills for the regulation of trials in cases of treason, the place bill, and the triennial bill, were again brought forward. The two former were again rejected, but the triennial bill was passed by both houses by large majorities, and William no longer ventured to refuse his signature. The precarious state of the queen's health probably hastened his acquiescence, as, in case of her death, he would need all his popularity. He ratified it, to the great joy of all parties; and by this bill the present parliament would end before the 25th of March, 1696.

The death of queen Mary raised marvellously the hopes of the Jacobites and the court of St. Germains. Though the Jacobites had charged Mary with ascending the throne contrary to the order of succession, they now assorted that William had no right thereto, and that Mary's claim, however weak, had been his only colourable plea for his usurpation. Mary it was whose amiability and courtesy had reconciled the public to the government of her husband. His gloomy and morose character and manners, and his attachment to nothing but Holland and Dutchmen, they said, had thoroughly disgusted the whole nation, and would now speedily bring his reign to an end. He spent a great part of the year on the continent; Mary had managed affairs admirably in his absence, but who was to manage them now? They must soon go into confusion, and the people be glad to bring back their old monarch.

And truly the wholesale corruption of his parliament and ministers served to give some force to their anticipations. Never was there a time when dishonesty and peculation, hideous as they have been in most periods of our government, were more gross, general, and unblushing than amongst the boasted whigs who had brought about the revolution. From the highest to the lowest they were insatiably greedy, unprincipled, and unpatriotic—if want of patriotism is evidenced by abusing the institutions and betraying the honour of the nation. One of the best of them died just now, namely, George Seville, marquis of Halifax. He bore the name of "the Trimmer," but rather because parties had changed than that he himself had changed. He had discouraged extreme measures, especially such as were bloody and vindictive. He had endeavoured to save the heads of both Stafford and Russell; he had opposed the virulence of the whigs in the days of the popish plot, and of the tories in that of the Rye House plot. But even be had not kept himself clean from intriguing with St. Germains.