The History of England from the Accession of James II/Notes to Volume V

[1] Evelyn saw the Mentz edition of the Offices among Lord Spencer's books in April 1699. Markland in his preface to the Sylvae of Statius acknowledges his obligations to the very rare Parmesan edition in Lord Spencer's collection. As to the Virgil of Zarottus, which his Lordship bought for 46L, see the extracts from Warley's Diary, in Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, i. 90.

[2] The more minutely we examine the history of the decline and fall of Lacedaemon, the more reason we shall find to admire the sagacity of Somers. The first great humiliation which befel the Lacedaemonians was the affair of Sphacteria. It is remarkable that on this occasion they were vanquished by men who made a trade of war. The force which Cleon carried out with him from Athens to the Bay of Pyles, and to which the event of the conflict is to be chiefly ascribed, consisted entirely of mercenaries, archers from Scythia and light infantry from Thrace. The victory gained by the Lacedaemonians over a great confederate army at Tegea retrieved that military reputation which the disaster of Sphacteria had impaired. Yet even at Tegea it was signally proved that the Lacedaemonians, though far superior to occasional soldiers, were not equal to professional soldiers. On every point but one the allies were put to rout; but on one point the Lacedaemonians gave way; and that was the point where they were opposed to a brigade of a thousand Argives, picked men, whom the state to which they belonged had during many years trained to war at the public charge, and who were, in fact a standing army. After the battle of Tegea, many years elapsed before the Lacedaemonians sustained a defeat. At length a calamity befel them which astonished all their neighbours. A division of the army of Agesilaus was cut off and destroyed almost to a man; and this exploit, which seemed almost portentous to the Greeks of that age, was achieved by Iphicrates, at the head of a body of mercenary light infantry. But it was from the day of Leuctra that the fall of Sparta became rapid and violent. Some time before that day the Thebans had resolved to follow the example set many years before by the Argives. Some hundreds of athletic youths, carefully selected, were set apart, under the names of the City Band and the Sacred Band, to form a standing army. Their business was war. They encamped in the citadel; they were supported at the expense of the community; and they became, under assiduous training, the first soldiers in Greece. They were constantly victorious till they were opposed to Philip's admirably disciplined phalanx at Chaeronea; and even at Chaeronea they were not defeated but slain in their ranks, fighting to the last. It was this band, directed by the skill of great captains, which gave the decisive blow to the Lacedaemonian power. It is to be observed that there was no degeneracy among the Lacedaemonians. Even down to the time of Pyrrhus they seem to have been in all military qualities equal to their ancestors who conquered at Plataea. But their ancestors at Plataea had not such enemies to encounter.

[3] L'Hermitage, Dec. 3/13 7/17, 1697.

[4] Commons' Journals, Dec. 3. 1697. L'Hermitage, Dec 7/17.

[5] L'Hermitage, Dec. 15/24., Dec. 14/24., Journals.

[6] The first act of Farquhar's Trip to the Jubilee, the passions which about his time agitated society are exhibited with much spirit. Alderman Smuggler sees Colonel Standard and exclaims, "There's another plague of the nation a red coat and feather." "I'm disbanded," says the Colonel. "This very morning, in Hyde Park, my brave regiment, a thousand men that looked like lions yesterday, were scattered and looked as poor and simple as the herd of deer that grazed beside them." "Fal al deral!" cries the Alderman: "I'll have a bonfire this night, as high as the monument." "A bonfire!" answered the soldier; "then dry, withered, ill nature! had not those brave fellows' swords' defended you, your house had been a bonfire ere this about your ears."

[7] L'Hermitage, January 11/21

[8] That a portion at least of the native population of Ireland looked to the Parliament at Westminster for protection against the tyranny of the Parliament at Dublin appears from a paper entitled The Case of the Roman Catholic Nation of Ireland. This paper, written in 1711 by one of the oppressed race and religion, is in a MS. belonging to Lord Fingall. The Parliament of Ireland is accused of treating the Irish worse than the Turks treat the Christians, worse than the Egyptians treated the Israelites. "Therefore," says the writer, "they (the Irish) apply themselves to the present Parliament of Great Britain as a Parliament of nice honour and stanch justice. . . Their request then is that this great Parliament may make good the Treaty of Limerick in all the Civil Articles." In order to propitiate those to whom he makes this appeal, he accuses the Irish Parliament of encroaching on the supreme authority of the English Parliament, and charges the colonists generally with ingratitude to the mother country to which they owe so much.

[9] London Gazette, Jan 6. 1697/8; Postman of the same date; Van Cleverskirke, Jan. 7/17; L'Hermitage, Jan. 4/14/, 7/17; Evelyn's Diary; Ward's London Spy; William to Heinsius, Jan. 7/17. "The loss," the King writes, "is less to me than it would be to another person, for I cannot live there. Yet it is serious." So late as 1758 Johnson described a furious Jacobite as firmly convinced that William burned down Whitehall in order to steal the furniture. Idler, No. 10. Pope, in Windsor Forest, a poem which has a stronger tinge of Toryism than anything else that he ever wrote, predicts the speedy restoration of the fallen palace.

"I see, I see, where two fair cities bend their ample bow, a new Whitehall ascend."

See Ralph's bitter remarks on the fate of Whitehall.

[10] As to the Czar: London Gazette; Van Citters, 1698; Jan. 11/21. 14/24.; Mar. 11/21; Mar. 22/April 1; Mar. 29/April 8; L'Hermitage Jan. 11/21. 18/28.; Jan 25/Feb 4, Feb 1/11. 8/18. 11/21.; Feb 22/Mar 4; Feb 25/Mar 7; Mar 4/14, Mar 29/April 8, April 22/May 2. See also Evelyn's Diary; Burnet; Postman, Jan. 13. 15., Feb. 10. 12. 24.; Mar. 24. 26. 31. As to Russia, see Hakluyt, Purchas, Voltaire, St. Simon. Estat de Russie par Margeret, Paris, 1607. State of Russia, London, 1671. La Relation des Trois Ambassades de M. Le Comte de Carlisle, Amsterdam, 1672. (There is an English translation from this French original.) North's Life of Dudley North. Seymour's History of London, ii. 426. Pepys and Evelyn on the Russian Embassies; Milton's account of Muscovy. On the personal habits of the Czar see the Memoirs of the Margravine of Bayreuth.

[11] It is worth while to transcribe the words of the engagement which Lewis, a chivalrous and a devout prince, violated without the smallest scruple. "Nous, Louis, par la grace de Dieu, Roi tres Chretien de France et de Navarre, promettons pour notre honneur, en foi et parole de Roi, jurons sue la croix, les saints Evangiles, et les canons de la Messe, que nous avons touches, que nous observerons et accomplirons entierement de bonne foi tous et chacun des points et articles contenus au traite de paix, renonciation, et amitie."

[12] George Psalmanazar's account of the state of the south of France at this tune is curious. On the high road near Lyons he frequently passed corpses fastened to posts. "These," he says, "were the bodies of highwaymen, or rather of soldiers, sailors, mariners and even galley slaves, disbanded after the peace of Reswick, who, having neither home nor occupation, used to infest the roads in troops, plunder towns and villages, and, when taken, were hanged at the county town by dozens, or even scores sometimes, after which their bodies were thus exposed along the highway in terrorem."

[13] "Il est de bonne foi dans tout ce qu'il fait. Son procede est droit et sincere." Tallard to Lewis, July 3. 1698.

[14] "Le Roi d'Angleterre, Sire, va tres sincerement jusqu'a present; et j'ose dire que s'il entre une fois en traite avec Votre Majeste, il le tiendra de bonne foi."--"Si je l'ose dire a V. M., il est tres penetrant, et a l'esprit juste. Il s'apercevra bientôt qu'on barguigne si les choses trainent trop de long." July 8.

[15] I will quote from the despatches of Lewis to Tallard three or four passages which show that the value of the kingdom of the Two Sicilies was quite justly appreciated at Versailles. "A l'egard du royaume de Naples et de Sicile le roi d'Angleterre objectera que les places de ces etats entre mes mains me rendront maitre du commerce de la Mediteranee. Vous pourrez en ce cas laissez entendre, comme de vous meme, qu'il serait si difficile de conserver ces royaumes unis a ma couronne, que les depenses necessaires pour y envoyer des secours seraient si grands, et qu'autrefois il a tant coute a la France pour les maintenir dans son obeissance, que vraisemblablement j'etablirois un roi pour les gouverner, et que peut-etre ce serait le partage d'un de mes petits-fils qui voudroit regner independamment." April 7/17 1698. "Les royaumes de Naples et de Sicile ne peuvent se regarder comme un partage dont mon fils puisse se contenter pour lui tenir lieu de tous ses droits. Les exemples du passe n'ont que trop appris combien ces etats coutent a la France, le peu d'utilite dont ils sont pour elle, et la difficulte de les conserver." May 16. 1698. "Je considere la cession de ces royaumes comme une source continuelle de depenses et d'embarras. Il n'en a que trop coute a la France pour les conserver; et l'experience a fait voir la necessite indispensable d'y entretenir toujours des troupes, et d'y envoyer incessamment des vaisseaux, et combien toutes ces peines ont ete inutiles." May 29. 1698. It would be easy to cite other passages of the same kind. But these are sufficient to vindicate what I have said in the text.

[16] Dec. 20/30 1698.

[17] Commons' Journals, February 24. 27.; March 9. 1698/9. In the Vernon Correspondence a letter about the East India question which belongs to the year 1699/1700 is put under the date of Feb. 10 1698. The truth is that this most valuable correspondence cannot be used to good purpose by any writer who does not do for himself all that the editor ought to have done.

[18] I doubt whether there be extant a sentence of worse English than that on which the House divided. It is not merely inelegant and ungrammatical but is evidently the work of a man of puzzled understanding, probably of Harley. "It is Sir, to your loyal Commons an unspeakable grief, that any thing should be asked by Your Majesty's message to which they cannot consent, without doing violence to that constitution Your Majesty came over to restore and preserve; and did, at that time, in your gracious declaration promise, that all those foreign forces which came over with you should be sent back."

[19] It is curious that all Cowper's biographers with whom I am acquainted, Hayley, Southey, Grimshawe Chalmers, mention the judge, the common ancestor of the poet, of his first love Theodora Cowper, and of Lady Hesketh; but that none of those biographers makes the faintest allusion to the Hertford trial, the most remarkable event in the history of the family; nor do I believe that any allusion to that trial can be found in any of the poet's numerous letters.

[20] I give an example of Trenchard's mode of showing his profound respect for an excellent Sovereign. He speaks thus of the commencement of the reign of Henry the Third. "The kingdom was recently delivered from a bitter tyrant, King John, and had likewise got rid of their perfidious deliverer, the Dauphin of France, who after the English had accepted him for their King, had secretly vowed their extirpation."

[21] Life of James; St. Simon; Dangeau.

[22] Poussin to Torcy April 28/May 8 1701 "Le roi d'Angleterre tousse plus qu'il n'a jamais fait, et ses jambes sont fort enfles. Je le vis hier sortir du preche de Saint James. Je le trouve fort casse, les yeux eteints, et il eut beaucoup de peine a monter en carrosse."

[23] Memoire sur la proposition de reconnoitre au prince des Galles le titre du Roi de la Grande Bretagne, Sept. 9/19, 1701.

[24] By the most trustworthy accounts I mean those of St. Simon and Dangeau. The reader may compare their narratives with the Life of James.

[25] Lettres Historiques Mois de Novembre 1701.

[26] Last letter to Heinsius.