Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/372

Rh The To leration Act. The Test Act re tained. Liberty of the Begin ning of cabinet govern ment. 352 was to surrender somewhat of the belief which those for mularies signified, while the dissenting clergy were equally reluctant to adopt the common prayer book even in a modified form. Hence the Toleration Act, which guaran teed the right of separate assemblies for worship outside the pale of the church, though it embodied the principles of Cromwell and Milton, and not those of Chillingworth and Hales, was carried without difficulty, whilst the pro posed scheme of comprehension never had a chance of success (1689). The choice was one which posterity can heartily approve. However wide the limits of toleration be drawn, there will always be those who will be left outside. By religious liberty those inside gain as much as those who are without. From the moment of the passing of the Toleration Act, no Protestant in England performed any act of worship except by his own free and deliberate choice. The literary spokes man of the new system was Locke. His Letters concerning Toleration laid down the principle which had been main tained by Cromwell, with a wider application than was possible in days when the state was in the hands of a mere minority only able to maintain itself in power by con stant and suspicious vigilance. One measure remained to place the dissenters in the position of full membership of the state. The Test Act excluded them from office. But the memory of the high handed proceedings of Puritan rulers was still too recent to allow Englishmen to ruu the risk of a reimposition of their yoke, and this feeling, fanciful as it was, was sufficient to keep the Test Act in force for years to come. The complement of the Toleration Act was the abolition of the censorship of the press (1695). The ideas of the author of the Areopagitica had at last prevailed. The attempt to fix certain opinions on the nation which were pleasing to those in power was abandoned by king and parliament alike. The nation, or at least so much of it as cared to read books or pamphlets on political subjects, was acknowledged to be the supreme judge, which must there fore be allowed to listen to what councillors it pleased. This new position of the nation made itself felt in various ways. It was William s merit that, fond as he was of power, he recognized the fact that he could not rule except so far as he carried the good-will of the nation with him. No doubt he was helped to an intelligent perception of the new situation by the fact that, as a foreigner, he cared far more for carryiug on war successfully against France than for influencing the domestic legislation of a country which was not his own, and by the knowledge that the conduct of the struggle which lasted till he was able to treat with France on equal terms at llyswick (1697) was fairly trusted to his hands. Nevertheless these years of war called for the united action of a national government, and in seeking to gain this support for him self, he hit upon an expedient which opened a new era in constitutional politics. The supremacy of the House of Commons would have been an evil of no common magnitude, if it had made government impossible. Yet this was precisely what it threatened to do. Sometimes the dominant party in the House pressed with unscrupulous rancour upon its opponents. Sometimes the majority shifted from side to side as the House was influenced by passing gusts of passion or sympathy, so that, as it was said at the time, no man could foretell one day what the House would be pleased to do on the next. Against the first of these dangers William was to a great extent able to guard, by the exercise of his right of dissolution, so as to appeal to the constituencies, which did not always share in the pas sions of their representatives. But the second danger could not be met in this way. The only cure for waywardness [HISTORY. is responsibility, and not only was this precisely w&quot;hat the Commons had not learned to feel, but it was that which it was impossible to make them feel directly. A body composed of several hundred members cannot carry on government with the requisite steadiness of action and clearness of insight. Such work can only fitly be intrusted to a few, and whenever difficult circumstances arise, it is necessary that the action of those few be kept in harmony by the predominance of one. The scheme on which William hit, by the advice of the earl of Sunderland, was that which has since been known as Cabinet government. He selected as his ministers the leading members of the two Houses who had the confidence of the majority of the House of Commons. In this way, the majority felt an interest in supporting the men who embodied their own opinions, and fell in turn under the influence of those who held them with greater prudence or ability than fell to the lot of the average members of the House. All that William doubtless intended was to acquire a ready instru ment to enable him to carry on the war with success. In reality he had re-founded, on a new basis, the government of England. His own personal qualities were such that he was able to dominate over any set of ministers ; but the time would come when there would be a sovereign of inferior powers. Then the body of ministers would step into his place. The old rude arrangements of the Middle Ages had provided by frequent depositions that an inefficient sovereign should cease to rule, and those arrangements had been imitated in the case of Charles I. and James II. Still the claim to rule had, at least from the time of Henry III., l&amp;gt; :en derived from hereditary de scent, and the interruption, however frequently it might occur, had been regarded as something abnormal, only to be applied where there was an absolute necessity to prevent the wielder of executive authority from setting at defiance the determined purpose of the nation. After the Revolu tion, not only had the king s title been so changed as to make him more directly than ever dependent on the nation, but he now called into existence a body which derived its own strength from its conformity with the wishes of the representatives of the nation. For the moment it seemed to be but a temporary Unr expedient. When the war came to an end the Whig party liess which had sustained William in his struggle with France split up. The dominant feeling of the House of Commons was no longer the desire to support the crown against a foreign enemy, but to make government as cheap as possible, leaving future dangers to the chances of the future. William had not so understood the new invention of a united ministry as binding him to take into his service a united ministry of men whom he regarded as fools and knaves. He allowed the Commons to reduce the army to a skeleton, to question his actions, and to treat him as if he were a cipher. But it was only by slow degrees that he was brought to acknowledge the necessity of choosing his members from amongst the men who had done these things. The time came when he needed again the support of the The nation. The death of Charles II., the heirless king of the Spas huge Spanish monarchy, had long been expected. Since s !* the peace of llyswick, William and Lewis Xiy. had come to terms by two successive partition treaties for a division of those vast territories in such a way that the whole of them should not fall into the hands of a near relation either of the king of France or of the emperor, the head of the house of Austria. When the death actually took place in 1700, William seemed to have no authority in England whatever ; and Lewis was therefore encouraged to break his engagements, and to accept the whole of the Spanish inheritance for his grandson, who became Philip