Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 10.djvu/107

 with the anti-French feeling of his subjects (see, 57-8). Danby, who though aware of the French treaty had not signed it, had meanwhile been working in a contrary direction. To him were due the negotiations for a marriage between the Princess Mary and the Prince of Orange, berun in 1674. When parliament reassembled in February 1677, Charles II souuht to appease the continued anti-French feeling by declaring that he had entered into a close alliance with the United Provinces against France (, i. 199). Shaftesbury, Buckingham, Salisbury, and Wharton, who supported a resolution declaring the long prorogation illegal, were sent to the Tower (cf., 105). Popular excitement ran high against France, and the king prorogued parliament in an angry speech, blaming it for meddling in questions of foreign policy. Yet, notwithstanding a splendid special French embassy sent over in the spring, he gave way to public feeling, and the Orange marriage was celebrated on 4 Nov., the king himself giving away the bride (, 163; cf., ii. 120-4). Louis XIV forthwith took his revenge by beginning a series of intrigues with the opposition leaders; and on 26 Jan. 1678 Charles II retorted by withdrawing the English regiments from France and sending part of them to Flanders. To patch up matters another secret treaty was concluded on 17 May, when, in return for three annual payments of 300,000l., Charles II undertook to disband his troops and dissolve his parliament. But the English troops brought from Flanders to England were maintained there on the pretext of want of money for paying them off (, ii. 146), and to put pressure upon France at Nymwegen an Anglo-Dutch treaty was concluded on 26 July. The treaty with France thus remained unexecuted. On 10 Aug. the peace of Nymwegen was signed (, v. 61-8).

Charles II involved himself as little as possible in the shameful transactions which followed the alleged discovery of a popish plot (August 1678). At first he betook himself to Newmarket, thereby arousing censure of his levity (, ii. l53). He protected the queen (ib. 165-7). But otherwise, though he had shrewdly found out the mendacity of Oates (ib. 152) and the crass ignorance of of Bedloe (ib. 160-1), and believed the former to be acting under Shaftesbury's instructions (ib. 171), he adhered to the plan of, as he phrased it, 'giving them line enough.' On 9 Nov. he thanked parliament for their care of his person, and assured it of his readiness to maintain the protestant religion, and very possibly he has at first some fears for his own safety, in consequence of his failure to effect anything for the catholics. In no case — not even in Stafford's — did he venture to exercise the prerogative of mercy on behalf of the victims of popular frenzy, though he expressed his displeasure at the condemnation of the five Jesuits in June 1679 (, i. 7-8), and is said to have told Essex that he 'dared not' pardon Archbishop Plunket (, x. 15). The parliament, which had passed an act excluding all catholics except the Duke of York from parliament, and all except him and some of the queen's ladies from court, proceeded on 21 Dec 1678 to impeach Danby. This step, contemplated as early as 1675, was now forced on by the revengeful disclosures of Louis XIV. Charles saw no way of saving his minister except by the prorogation of the parliament (30 Dec.), followed by its dissolution (24 Jan. 1679). Thus the 'Long,' or 'Pensioners' parliament' came to an end (, 25 Jan. 1679).

Shaftesbury and his party had fostered the popish plot panic to effect the exclusion of the Duke of York from the succession. Charles saw this, and contrived to excite the advocates of the exclusion to a pitch of violence which gradually brought round the preponderance of opinion to his brother's and his own side. A few days after 28 Feb. 1679, when he had ordered the Duke of York to go abroad so as to avoid the meeting of the new parliament, he sanctioned the attempt of the primate and the Bishop of Winchester to persuade the duke to return to the protestant religion (, ii. 260-4). In view of the agitation in favour of Monmouth, the Duke of York, before leaving the country, induced the king to declare in council, and to have his declaration placed on record, that he had never been married to any person but Queen Catherine. (He appears to have made two such declarations, on 6 Jan. and 3 March 1679; see Somers Tracts, viii. 187-9; cf. Hatton Correspondence, i. 177, and, ii. 198.)

In the new House of Commons the court party was reduced to insignificance, and a bill of attainder was passed against Danby, who in vain pleaded the kings pardon, and was committed to the Tower. Charles now resolved upon the novel experiment recommended by Temple of carrying on the government by means of an understanding with the majority (see, chap, ii., and his Essay on Sir William Temple). The old council was dismissed, and an enlarged and partly representative council named in it place, with Shaftesbury at its head. But he was not one of the four out of the thirty