The History of England - Vols. 1 to 6 (522 page)

“my own children have forsaken me!” It is indeed singular, that a prince, whose chief blame consisted in imprudences, and misguided principles, should be exposed, from religious antipathy, to such treatment as even Nero, Domitian, or the most enormous tyrants, that have disgraced the records of history, never met with from their friends and family.

So violent were the prejudices, which at this time prevailed, that this unhappy father, who had been deserted by his favourite child, was believed, upon her disappearing, to have put her to death: And it was fortunate, that the truth was timely discovered; otherwise the populace, even the king’s guards themselves, might have been engaged, in revenge, to commence a massacre of the priests and catholics.

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The king’s fortune now exposed him to the contempt of his enemies; and his behavour was not such as could gain him the esteem of his friends and adherents. Unable to resist the torrent, he preserved not presence of mind in yielding to it; but seemed in this emergence as much depressed with adversity, as he had before been vainly elated by prosperity. He called a council of all the peers and prelates who were in London; and followed their advice in issuing writs for a new parliament, and in sending Halifax, Nottingham, and Godolphin as commissioners to treat with the prince of Orange. But these were the last acts of royal authority which he exerted. He even hearkened to imprudent counsel, by which he was prompted to desert the throne, and to gratify his enemies beyond what their fondest hopes could have promised them.

The queen, observing the fury of the people, and knowing how much she was the object of general hatred, was struck with the deepest terror, and began to apprehend a parliamentary impeachment, from which, she was told, the queens of England were not exempted. The popish courtiers, and above all, the priests, were aware, that they should be the first sacrifice, and that their perpetual banishment was the smallest penalty, which they must expect from national resentment. They were, therefore, desirous of carrying the king along with them; whose presence, they knew, would still be some resource and protection to them in foreign countries, and whose restoration, if it ever happened, would again re-instate them in power and authority. The general defection of the protestants made the king regard the catholics, as his only subjects, on whose counsel he could rely; and the fatal catastrophe of his father afforded them a plausible reason for making him apprehend a like fate. The great difference of circumstances was not, during men’s present distractions, sufficiently weighed. Even after the people were inflamed by a long civil war, the execution of Charles I. could not be deemed a national deed: It was perpetrated by a fanatical army, pushed on by a daring and enthusiastical leader; and the whole kingdom had ever entertained, and did still entertain, a violent abhorrence against that enormity. The situation of public affairs, therefore, no more resembled what it was forty years before, than the prince of Orange, either in birth, character, fortune, or connexions, could be supposed a parallel to Cromwel.

The emissaries of France, and among the rest, Barillon, the French ambassador, were busy about the king; and they had entertained a very false notion, which they instilled into him, that nothing would more certainly retard the public settlement, and beget universal confusion, than his deserting the kingdom. The prince of Orange had with good reason embraced a contrary opinion; and he deemed it extremely difficult to find expedients for securing the nation, so long as the king kept possession of the crown.

Actuated, therefore, by this public motive, and no less, we may well presume, by private ambition, he was determined to use every expedient, which might intimidate the king, and make him quit that throne, which he himself was alone enabled to fill.

He declined a personal conference with James’s commissioners, and sent the earls of Clarendon and Oxford to treat with them: The terms, which he proposed, implied almost a present participation of the sovereignty: And he stopped not a moment the march of his army towards London.

The news, which the king received from all quarters, served to continue the panic, into which he was fallen, and which his enemies expected to improve to their PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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advantage. Colonel Copel, deputy governor of Hull, made himself master of that important fortress; and threw into prison lord Langdale, the governor, a catholic; together with lord Montgomery, a nobleman of the same religion. The town of Newcastle received lord Lumley, and declared for the prince of Orange and a free parliament. The duke of Norfolk, lord lieutenant of the county of that name, engaged it in the same measure. The prince’s declaration was read at Oxford by the duke of Ormond, and was received with great applause by that loyal university, who also made an offer of their plate to the prince. Every day, some person of quality or distinction, and among the rest, the duke of Somerset, went over to the enemy. A violent declaration was dispersed in the prince’s name, but without his participation; in which every one was commanded to seize and punish all papists, who, contrary to law, pretended either to carry arms, or exercise any act of authority. It may not be unworthy of notice, that a merry ballad, called Lilliballero, being at this time published in derision of the papists and the Irish, it was greedily received by the people, and was sung by all ranks of men, even by the king’s army, who were strongly seized with the national spirit. This incident both discovered, and served to encrease, the general discontent of the kingdom.

The contagion of mutiny and disobedience had also reached Scotland, whence the regular forces, contrary to the advice of Balcarras, the treasurer, were withdrawn, in order to re-inforce the English army. The marquess of Athole, together with viscount Tarbat, and others, finding the opportunity favourable, began to form intrigues against Perth, the chancellor; and the presbyterians and other malcontents flocked from all quarters to Edinburgh. The chancellor, apprehensive of the consequences, found it expedient to abscond; and the populace, as if that event were a signal for their insurrection, immediately rose in arms, and rifled the popish chapel in the king’s palace. All the catholics, even all the zealous royalists, were obliged to conceal themselves; and the privy council, instead of their former submissive strains of address to the king, and violent edicts against their fellow subjects, now made applications to the prince of Orange, as the restorer of law and liberty.

The king every moment alarmed, more and more, by these proofs of a general disaffection, not daring to repose trust in any but those who were exposed to more danger than himself, agitated by disdain towards ingratitude, by indignation against disloyalty, impelled by his own fears and those of others, precipitately embraced the resolution of escaping into France; and he sent off beforehand the queen and the infant prince, under the conduct of count Lauzun, an old favourite of the French monarch. He himself disappeared in the night-time, attended only by Sir Edward Hales;

and made the best of his way to a ship, which waited for him 12th Dec.

near the mouth of the river. As if this measure had not been the most grateful to his enemies of any that he could adopt, he had carefully concealed his intention from all the world; and nothing could equal the surprize, which seized the city, the court, and the kingdom, upon the discovery of this strange event. Men beheld, all of a sudden, the reins of government thrown up by the hand which held them; and saw none, who had any right or even pretension, to take possession of them.

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The more effectually to involve every thing in confusion, the king appointed not any one, who should, in his absence, exercise any part of the administration; he threw the great seal into the river; and he recalled all those writs, which had been issued for the election of the new parliament. It is often supposed, that the sole motive, which impelled him to this sudden desertion, was his reluctance to meet a free parliament, and his resolution not to submit to those terms, which his subjects would deem requisite for the security of their liberties and their religion. But it must be considered, that his subjects had first deserted him, and entirely lost his confidence; that he might reasonably be supposed to entertain fears for his liberty, if not for his life; and that the conditions would not probably be moderate, which the nation, sensible of his inflexible temper, enraged with the violation of their laws and the danger of their religion, and foreseeing his resentment on account of their past resistance, would, in his present circumstances, exact from him.

By this temporary dissolution of government, the populace were masters; and there was no disorder, which, during their present ferment, might not be dreaded from them. They rose in a tumult and destroyed all the mass-houses. They even attacked and rifled the houses of the Florentine envoy and Spanish ambassador, where many of the catholics had lodged their most valuable effects. Jefferies, the chancellor, who had disguised himself, in order to fly the kingdom, was discovered by them, and so abused, that he died a little after. Even the army, which should have suppressed those tumults, would, it was apprehended, serve rather to encrease the general disorder.

Feversham had no sooner heard of the king’s flight, than he disbanded the troops in the neighbourhood, and without either disarming or paying them, let them loose to prey upon the country.

In this extremity, the bishops and peers, who were in town, being the only remaining authority of the state (for the privy council, composed of the king’s creatures, was totally disregarded) thought proper to assemble, and to interpose for the preservation of the community. They chose the marquess of Halifax speaker: They gave directions to the mayor and aldermen for keeping the peace of the city: They issued orders, which were readily obeyed, to the fleet, the army, and all the garrisons: And they made applications to the prince of Orange, whose enterprize they highly applauded, and whose success they joyfully congratulated.

The prince on his part was not wanting to the tide of success, which flowed in upon him, nor backward in assuming that authority, which the present exigency had put into his hands. Besides the general popularity, attending his cause, a new incident made his approach to London still more grateful. In the present trepidation of the people, a rumour arose, either from chance or design, that the disbanded Irish had taken arms, and had commenced an universal massacre of the protestants. This ridiculous belief was spread all over the kingdom in one day; and begat every where the deepest consternation. The alarum bells were rung; the beacons fired; men fancied that they saw at a distance the smoke of the burning cities, and heard the groans of those who were slaughtered in their neighbourhood. It is surprizing, that the catholics did not all perish, in the rage which naturally succeeds to such popular panics.

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While every one from principle, interest, or animosity, turned his back on the unhappy king, who had abandoned his own cause, the unwelcome news arrived, that he had been seized by the populace at Feversham, as he was King seized at making his escape in disguise; that he had been much abused, till Feversham.

he was known; but that the gentry had then interposed and protected him, though they still refused to consent to his escape. This intelligence threw all parties into confusion. The prince sent Zuylestein with orders, that the king should approach no nearer than Rochester; but the message came too late. He was already arrived in London, where the populace, moved by compassion for his unhappy fate, and actuated by their own levity, had received him with shouts and acclamations.

During the king’s abode at Whitehall, little attention was payed to him by the nobility or any persons of distinction. They had, all of them, been previously disgusted on account of his blind partiality to the catholics; and they knew, that they were now become criminal in his eyes by their late public applications to the prince of Orange.

He himself shewed not any symptom of spirit, nor discovered any intention of resuming the reins of government, which he had once thrown aside. His authority was now plainly expired; and as he had exercised his power, while possessed of it, with very precipitate and haughty counsels, he relinquished it by a despair, equally precipitate and pusillanimous.

Nothing remained for the now ruling powers but to deliberate how they should dispose of his person. Besides, that the prince may justly be supposed to have possessed more generosity than to think of offering violence to an unhappy monarch, so nearly related to him, he knew, that nothing would so effectually promote his own views as the king’s retiring into France, a country at all times obnoxious to the English. It was determined, therefore, to push him into that measure, which, of himself, he seemed sufficiently inclined to embrace. The king having sent lord Feversham on a civil message to the prince, desiring a conference for an accommodation in order to the public settlement, that nobleman was put in arrest, under pretence of his coming without a passport: The Dutch guards were ordered to take possession of Whitehall, where James then resided, and to displace the English: And Halifax, Shrewsbury, and Delamere, brought a message from the prince, which they delivered to the king in bed after midnight, ordering him to leave his palace next morning, and to depart for Ham, a seat of the dutchess of Lauderdale’s. He desired permission, which was easily granted, of retiring to Rochester, a town near the sea-coast. It was perceived, that the artifice had taken effect; and that the king, terrified with this harsh treatment, had renewed his former resolution of leaving the kingdom.