Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 21.djvu/756

Rh 730 SHAFTESBURY the worst part of Shaftesbury's career. That so clear- headed a man could have really credited the extravagant lies of Gates and the other perjurers is beyond belief ; and the manner in which by incessant agitation he excited the most baseless alarms, and encouraged the wildest excesses of fanatic cruelty, for nothing but party advantage, is utterly without excuse. On November 2 he opened the great attack by proposing an address declaring the necessity for the king's dismissing James from his council Under his advice the opposition now made an alliance with Louis whereby the French king promised to help them to ruin Danby on condition that they would compel Charles, by stopping the supplies, to make peace with France, doing thus a grave injury to Protestantism abroad for the sake of a temporary party advantage at home. Upon the refusal in November of the Lords to concur in the address of the Commons requesting the removal of the queen from court, he joined in a protest against the refusal, and was foremost in all the violent acts of the session. He urged on the bill by which Catholics were prohibited from sitting in either House of Parliament, and was bitter in his expressions of disappointment when the Commons passed a proviso excepting James, against whom the bill was especially aimed, from its operation. A new parliament met on March 6, 1679. Shaftesbury had meanwhile ineffectually warned the king that unless he followed his advice there would be no peace with the people. On March 25 he made a striking speech upon the state of the nation, especially upon the dangers to Protestantism and the misgovernment of Scotland and Ireland. He was, too, suspected of doing all in his power to bring about a revolt in Scotland. By the advice of Temple, Charles now tried the experiment of forming a new privy council in which the chief members of the opposition were included, and Shaftesbury was made president, with a salary of 4000, being also a member of the committee for foreign affairs. He did not, however, in any way change either his opinions or his action. He vigorously opposed the compelling of Protestant Nonconformists to take the. oath required of Roman Catholics. That indeed, as Ranke says, which makes him memorable in English history is that he opposed the establishment of an Anglican and Royalist organization with decisive success. The question of the succession was now again prominent, and Shaftesbury, in opposition to Halifax, committed the error, which really brought about his fall, of putting forward Monmouth as his nominee, thus alienating a large number of his sup- porters ; he encouraged, too, the belief that this was agree- able to the king. He pressed on the Exclusion Bill with all his power, and, when that and the inquiry into the payments for secret service and the trial of the five peers, for which too he had been eager, were brought to an end by a sudden prorogation, he is reported to have declared aloud that he would have the heads of those who were the king's advisers to this course. Before the prorogation, however, he saw the invaluable Act of Habeas Corpus, which he had carried through parliament, receive the royal assent. In pursuance of his patronage of Mon- mouth, Shaftesbury now secured for him the command of the army sent to suppress the insurrection in Scotland, which he is supposed to have fomented. In October 1679, the 'circumstances which led Charles to desire to conciliate the opposition having ceased, Shaftesbury was dismissed from his presidency and from the privy council ; when applied to by Sunderland to return to office he made as conditions the divorce of the queen and the exclusion of James. With nine other peers he presented a petition to the king in November, praying for the meeting of parliament, of which Charles took no notice. In April, upon the king's declaration that he was resolved to send for James from Scotland, Shaftesbury strongly advised the popular leaders at once to leave the council, and they followed his advice. In March we find him unscrupulously eager in the prosecution of the alleged Irish Catholic plot. Upon the king's illness in May he held frequent meetings of Monmouth's friends at his house to consider how best to act for the security of the Protestant religion. On June 26, accompanied by fourteen others, he presented to the grand jury of Westminster an indictment of the duke of York as a Popish recusant. In the middle of September he was seriously ill. On November 15 the Exclusion Bill, having passed the Commons, was brought up to the Lords, and an historic debate took place, in which Halifax and Shaftesbury were the leaders on opposite sides. The bill was thrown out, and Shaftesbury signed the protest against its rejection. The next day he urged upon the House the divorce of the queen. On December 7, to his lasting dishonour, He voted for the condemnation of Lord Stafford. On the 23d he again spoke vehemently for exclusion, and his speech was immediately printed. All opposition was, however, checked by the dissolution on January 18. A new parliament was called to meet at Oxford, to avoid the influences of the city of London, where Shaftesbury had taken the greatest pains to make himself popular. Shaftesbury, with fifteen other peers, at once petitioned the king that it might as usual be held in the capital He prepared, too, instructions to be handed by constituencies to their members upon election, in which exclusion, disbanding, the limitation of the prerogative in proroguing and dissolving parliament, and security against Popery and arbitrary power were insisted on. At this parliament, which lasted but a few days, he again made a personal appeal to Charles, which was curtly rejected, to permit the legitimizing of Monmouth. The king's advisers now urged him to arrest Shaftesbury ; he was seized on July 2, 1681, and committed to the Tower, the judges refusing his petition to be tried or admitted to bail This refusal was twice repeated in September and October, the court hoping to obtain evidence sufficient to ensure his ruin. In October he wrote offering to retire to Carolina if he were released. On November 24 he was indicted for high treason at the Old Bailey, the chief ground being a paper of association for the defence of the Protestant religion, which, though among his papers, was not in his handwriting; but the grand jury ignored the bill. He was released on bail on December 1. In 1682, how- ever, Charles secured the appointment of Tory sheriffs for London ; and, as the juries were chosen by the sheriffs, Shaftesbury felt that he was no longer safe from the vengeance of the court. Failing health and the dis- appointment of his political plans led him now into violent courses. He appears to have entered into consultation of a treasonable kind with Monmouth and others ; he him- self had, he declared, ten thousand brisk boys in London ready to rise at his bidding. For some weeks he was concealed in the city and in Wapping ; but, finding the schemes for a rising hang fire, he determined to flee. He went to Harwich, disguised as a Presbyterian minister, and after a week's delay, during which he was in imminent risk of discovery, if indeed, as is very probable, his escape was not winked at by the Government, he sailed to Holland on November 28, 1682, and reached Amsterdam in the begin- ning of December. Here he was welcomed with the jest, referring to his famous speech against the Dutch, " non- dum deleta Carthago." He was made a citizen of Amster- dam, but died there of gout in the stomach on January 21, 1683. His body was sent in February to Poole, in Dorset, and was buried at Wimborne St Giles. Few politicians have been the mark of such unsparing abuse as Shaftesbury. Dryden, while compelled to honour him as an