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Rh all probability be satisfied by the law. The tract, which has received general and unqualified admiration, must be classed amongst the few known writings which have actually and immediately altered the course of history. Copies to the number of 20,000 were circulated through the kingdom, and a great party was convinced of the wisdom of remaining faithful to the national traditions and liberties. He took the popular side on the occasion of the trial of the bishops in June 1688, visited them in the Tower, and led the cheers with which the verdict of “not guilty” was received in court; but the same month he refrained from signing the invitation to William, and publicly repudiated any share in the prince’s plans. On the contrary he attended the court and refused any credence to the report that the prince born to James was supposititious. After the landing of William he was present at the council called by James on the 27th of November. He urged the king to grant large concessions, but his speech, in contrast to the harsh and overbearing attitude of the Hydes, was “the most tender and obliging. . . that ever was heard.” He accepted the mission with Nottingham and Godolphin to treat with William at Hungerford, and succeeded in obtaining moderate terms from the prince. The negotiations, however, were abortive, for James had from the first resolved on flight. In the crisis which ensued, when the country was left without a government, Halifax took the lead. He presided over the council of Lords which assembled and took immediate measures to maintain public order. On the return of James to London on the 16th of November, after his capture at Faversham, Halifax repaired to William’s camp and henceforth attached himself unremittingly to his cause. On the 17th he carried with Lords Delamere and Shrewsbury a message from William to the king advising his departure from London, and, after the king’s second flight, directed the proceedings of the executive. On the meeting of the convention on the 22nd of January 1689, he was formally elected speaker of the House of Lords. He voted against the motion for a regency (Jan. 20), which was only defeated by two votes. The moderate and comprehensive character of the settlement at the revolution plainly shows his guiding hand, and it was finally through his persuasion that the Lords yielded to the Commons and agreed to the compromise whereby William and Mary were declared joint sovereigns. On the 13th of February in the Banqueting House at Whitehall, he tendered the crown to them in the name of the nation, and conducted the proclamation of their accession in the city.

At the opening of the new reign he had considerable influence, was made lord privy seal, while Danby his rival was obliged to content himself with the presidency of the council, and controlled the appointments to the new cabinet which were made on a “trimming” or comprehensive basis. His views on religious toleration were as wide as those of the new king. He championed the claims of the Nonconformists as against the high or rigid Church party, and he was bitterly disappointed at the miscarriage of the Comprehension Bill. He thoroughly approved also at first of William’s foreign policy; but, having excited the hostility of both the Whig and Tory parties, he now became exposed to a series of attacks in parliament which finally drove him from power. He was severely censured, as it seems quite unjustly, for the disorder in Ireland, and an attempt was made to impeach him for his conduct with regard to the sentences on the Whig leaders. The inquiry resulted in his favour; but notwithstanding, and in spite of the king’s continued support, he determined to retire. He had already resigned the speakership of the House of Lords, and he now (Feb. 8, 1690) quitted his place in the cabinet. He still nominally retained his seat in the privy council, but in parliament he became a bitter critic of the administration; and the rivalry of Halifax (the Black Marquess) with Danby, now marquess of Carmarthen (the White Marquess) threw the former at this time into determined opposition. He disapproved of William’s total absorption in European politics, and his open partiality for his countrymen. In January 1691 Halifax had an interview with Henry Bulkeley, the Jacobite agent, and is said to have promised “to do everything that lay in his power to serve the king.” This was probably merely a measure of precaution, for he had no serious Jacobite leanings. He entered bail for Lord Marlborough, accused wrongfully of complicity in a Jacobite plot in May 1692, and in June, during the absence of the king from England, his name was struck off the privy council.

He spoke in favour of the Triennial Bill (Jan. 12, 1693) which passed the legislature but was vetoed by William, suggested a proviso in the Licensing Act, which restricted its operation to anonymous works, approved the Place Bill (1694), but opposed, probably on account of the large sums he had engaged in the traffic of annuities, the establishment of the bank of England in 1694. Early in 1695 he delivered a strong attack on the administration in the House of Lords, and, after a short illness arising from a neglected complaint, he died on the 5th of April at the age of sixty-one. He was buried in Henry VII.’s chapel in Westminster Abbey.

The influence of Halifax, both as orator and as writer, on the public opinion of his day was probably unrivalled. His intellectual powers, his high character, his urbanity, vivacity and satirical humour made a great impression on his contemporaries, and many of his witty sayings have been recorded. But the superiority of his statesmanship could not be appreciated till later times. Maintaining throughout his career a complete detachment from party, he never acted permanently or continuously with either of the two great factions, and exasperated both in turn by deserting their cause at the moment when their hopes seemed on the point of realization. To them he appeared weak, inconstant, untrustworthy. They could not see what to us now is plain and clear, that Halifax was as consistent in his principles as the most rabid Whig or Tory. But the principle which chiefly influenced his political action, that of compromise, differed essentially from those of both parties, and his attitude with regard to the Whigs or Tories was thus by necessity continually changing. Measures, too, which in certain circumstances appeared to him advisable, when the political scene had changed became unwise or dangerous. Thus the regency scheme, which Halifax had supported while Charles still reigned, was opposed by him with perfect consistency at the revolution. He readily accepted for himself the character of a “trimmer,” desiring, he said, to keep the boat steady, while others attempted to weigh it down perilously on one side or the other; and he concluded his tract with these assertions: “that our climate is a Trimmer between that part of the world where men are roasted and the other where they are frozen; that our Church is a Trimmer between the frenzy of fanatic visions and the lethargic ignorance of Popish dreams; that our laws are Trimmers between the excesses of unbounded power and the extravagance of liberty not enough restrained; that true virtue hath ever been thought a Trimmer, and to have its dwelling in the middle between two extremes; that even God Almighty Himself is divided between His two great attributes, His Mercy and His Justice. In such company, our Trimmer is not ashamed of his name. . . .”

His powerful mind enabled him to regard the various political problems of his time from a height and from a point of view similar to that from which distance from the events enables us to consider them at the present day; and the superiority of his vision appears sufficiently from the fact that his opinions and judgments on the political questions of his time are those which for the most part have ultimately triumphed and found general acceptance. His attitude of mind was curiously modern. Reading, writing and arithmetic, he thinks, should be taught to all and at the expense of the state. His opinions again on the constitutional relations of the colonies to the mother country, already cited, were completely opposed to those of his own period. For that view of his character which while allowing him the merit of a brilliant political theorist denies him the qualities of a man of action and of a practical politician, there is no solid basis. The truth is that while his political ideas are founded upon great moral or philosophical generalizations, often vividly