[1675 A.D.] Shaftesbury and the opposition. Arlington, who saw his influence fading before that of the treasurer (the earl of Danby), sold, by the royal command, his place of secretary to Sir Joseph Williamson for £6,000, and was raised to the higher but less influential post of lord chamberlain. To prop his falling power, he proposed to the king to negotiate a match between the prince of Orange and Mary the eldest daughter of the duke of York. As the prince was well known to be a stanch Protestant, this measure, he said, would eminently serve to allay the apprehensions of the nation on the subject of religion, and be in fact advantageous in many respects. The king approved warmly of the project, but the proposition, when made to the prince by Lord Ossory, was coldly received; he said that, as circumstances were at present, he was not in a condition to think of taking a wife.

THE COUNTRY PARTY: THE NON-RESISTANCE BILL FAILS (1675 A.D.)

During the winter, the court and country parties were busily engaged in preparing their plans for the ensuing campaign in parliament. In the house of lords the crown had a decided majority; but the minority, headed by Shaftesbury, Buckingham, Salisbury, and Wharton, was formidable from its talent and union. The country party was strong in the commons, where it possessed Lord William Russell, esteemed for his probity and integrity; Lord Cavendish, less correct in morals, but far superior in parts; Sir William Coventry, deeply skilled in affairs, and free from passion and private resentments; Powle (Powell), learned in precedents and parliamentary usages; Littleton, the ablest in debate; and Birch, rough and bold and powerful above all men of the day to sway a popular assembly; the veteran senators Lee and Garroway, together with Vaughan, Sacheverell, and many other able debaters. Their plan was, to urge the king to join the allies against France; to impeach the earl of Danby; and to refuse the supplies while he remained in office.

The plan of the court was to unite with the church, and thus deprive their opponents of their advantage in appearing as the champions of religion. A council was held at Lambeth, at which several prelates attended; they were assured of the king's attachment to the church, and called upon to give him their support; measures were devised for crushing popery, and a severe proclamation against recusants and non-conformists was forthwith issued. The duke of York remonstrated in vain; in contempt of his parental authority, the princesses Mary and Anne were led to church by their preceptor Compton, bishop of London, and confirmed.

When parliament met (April 13, 1675), the address against Lauderdale, of which the king had taken no notice, was renewed, but to as little effect. Seven articles of impeachment were then exhibited against the earl of Danby. He had however, like his predecessors, made large purchases of votes in the house, but on a more economical plan, we are told; for while they bought leading men at high prices, he looked out for those who had only their votes to sell, and consequently disposed of them more cheaply. The articles were therefore all thrown out. The grand attempt of the ministers was made in

[The country party at this period consisted for the most part, of men who were distinguished by their attachment to the constitution, and to the Church of England. It embraced a considerable number who were decidedly favourable to a toleration of the Protestant dissenters, being themselves Presbyterians or old parliamentarians; but a much greater number, especially if we include the two houses, who were stanch churchmen, or discontented cavaliers, and whose prepossessions in favour of the Church of England were not sufficiently modified by the slowly improving spirit of the times, to prevent their looking on the proposed concessions to dissenters with a degree of sullen distrust. - VAUGHAN."]

[1675-1676 A.D.] the lords, where a bill for a new test [called the Non-Resistance Bill] was introduced. By this, every member of either house, and every person holding any office, was required to swear, that it is unlawful on any pretence whatsoever to take up arms against the king; that it is traitorous to take up arms by the king's authority against his person; and that he will not endeavour the alteration of the government either in church or state. The debate on this bill lasted seventeen days; the king occupied his usual place at the fire-side; but Shaftesbury and the other opponents of the measure, heedless of his presence, employed all their eloquence and all their powers of reason against it. It was carried by a majority of only two; had it come to the commons, it had probably been rejected by a much larger majority; but a question of privilege happening just then to arise between the two houses, the king took advantage of it to prorogue the parliament (June 9th).

CHARLES II ACCEPTS A PENSION FROM LOUIS XIV

When parliament met (October 13th), the king required money for the navy, and also a sum of £800,000 which had been borrowed on the revenue. This last was refused, but a sum of £300,000 was voted for the building of twenty ships of war, to which it was strictly appropriated. The contest with the lords was renewed; and such was the heat with which it was carried on, that it was moved in the lords to address the king to dissolve the parliament. This was opposed by the ministers, but supported by the duke of York and his friends. A prorogation for the long period of fifteen months was the result (November 22nd), for which Charles received 500,000 crowns from the king of France.1

The campaign of 1675 was favourable to the allies [as described in the histories of France and of the Netherlands]. The king of England, when he had concluded peace with the states, made an offer of his mediation to the other powers. The place fixed on for the congress was Nimeguen, whither the lord Berkeley, Sir William Temple, and Sir Leoline Jenkins repaired as the English ministers. After many delays the congress met in the summer of this year; but the ministers were more anxious to raise than to remove difficulties. The great object of the allies was to prevail on Charles to join them against France; but to this course he had many objections, of which not the least was the state of dependence on his parliament to which it would reduce him. Louis took advantage of this feeling; the ambassador Ruvigni received directions to offer the same amount of pension as before for his neutrality. An agreement was made between Charles and Ruvigni for a pension of 100,000l. a year to be paid to the former; in return for which he was to sign a treaty, by which the two monarchs were to bind themselves to enter into no engagements but by mutual consent, and to aid each other in case of any rebellion in their respective dominions. This was communicated to no one but the duke of York, Lauderdale, and Danby. The two former approved of it of course; Danby hesitated and advised to consult the privy council; but the king removed all difficulty, by writing out the treaty with his own hand and setting his private seal to it (February 17th, 1676). He then delivered it to Ruvigni, who forthwith set out for Paris in order to have it signed by Louis.h

By this secret proceeding both princes obtained their objects; Charles the money which had been refused by parliament, Louis security that Charles, for some time at least, would not make common cause with his enemies.

But ['Louis who feared lest parliament should drive Charles into joining the alliance against him was so pleased to see its sittings interrupted for so long a time that he granted Charles a pension of £100,000 a year, to make him independent of his subjects. — GARDINER."]

[1676–1677 A.D.] the English king, if he possessed the spirit of a man, must have keenly felt the degradation. He was become the yearly pensioner of another monarch; he was no longer the arbiter of his own conduct; he had bound himself to consult, with respect to foreign powers, the master whose money he received. Perhaps he might console himself with the notion, that it was less disgraceful to depend on a powerful monarch, from whose alliance he could disengage himself at pleasure, than on the party among his own subjects, which constantly opposed him in parliament: perhaps he felt a malicious pleasure in defeating the machinations of his adversaries, whom he knew to be, in pecuniary transactions, not more immaculate than himself; for it is a fact, that several among those who claimed the praise of patriotism for their opposition to the court, were accustomed to sell their services for money. It seemed as if the votes of the members of parliament were exposed for sale to all the powers of Europe. Some received bribes from the lord treasurer on account of the king; some from the Dutch, Spanish, and imperial ambassadors in favour of the confederates; some even from Louis at the very time when they loudly declaimed against Louis as the great enemy of their religion and liberties; for that prince, notwithstanding the recent treaty, did not implicitly rely on the faith of Charles; he sought in addition to secure the good will of those who, by their influence in parliament, might have it in their power to withdraw the king from his promise of neutrality. Ruvigni was recalled; Courtin succeeded him, and the accounts of Courtin will reveal the names of the patriots who sold themselves to France, and of the price at which their services were valued.

During the long prorogation, and with the aid of his foreign pension, the necessitous monarch enjoyed a seasonable relief from the cares and agitation in which he had lived for several years. Age and satiety had blunted his appetite for pleasure, and the enjoyment of ease was become the chief object of his wishes. He retired to Windsor, where he spent his time in the superintendence of improvements, the amusement of fishing, and the company and conversation of his friends. His neutrality in the great contest which divided the powers of the continent, whatever might be its real motive, found a sufficient justification in the numerous benefits which it conferred on the country.

While almost every other nation in Europe complained of the privations and charges of war, England enjoyed the blessings of peace. She was free from the pressure of additional taxation, and knew nothing of those evils which necessarily accompany the operations of armies. Her mariners monopolised the carrying trade of Europe; new channels of commerce were daily opened by the enterprise of her merchants; and their increasing prosperity gave a fresh stimulus to the industry of her inhabitants. It was, however, the care of the popular leaders to keep alive, as far as they were able, the spirit of discontent. Political clubs were established; pamphlets, renewing the old charges against the government, were published; the ears of men were perpetually assailed with complaints of the growth of popery, and of the progress of arbitrary power; their eyes were directed to the theatre of war on the Continent, as the great arena on which the fate of their liberty and religion was to be decided; and the preservation of these was described as depending on the humiliation of France, though France was aided in the contest by the Protestant state of Sweden, and opposed by the two great Catholic powers, Austria and Spain.i

Charles thus enjoyed the pension, the price of his dishonour; lived on indolently till the time came for the meeting of parliament (February 5, 1677). The opposition had discovered what they regarded as a vantage point against

[1677 A.D.] the court. There were two statutes of Edward III, which ordained that a parliament should be held "once a year or oftener if need be," and as fifteen months had elapsed since the last meeting, the parliament, they asserted, had in fact ceased to exist. This view was maintained with much boldness and ingenuity in the lords by Buckingham, supported by Shaftesbury, Salisbury, and Wharton; but Finch (now lord-chancellor and earl of Nottingham), showed, in opposition to them, that the Triennial Act of the 16th of the late king, and the act, had extended the term to three years. Buckingham's motion was negatived by a large majority; the four lords were required to acknowledge that their conduct was "ill-advised," and to beg pardon of the king and the house, and on their refusal they were committed to the Tower. They remained there till the meeting of parliament in the following year, when the others took their seats, merely asking pardon. Shaftesbury, who had had himself brought before the court of king's bench by habeas corpus, was obliged to ask pardon for it on his knees.

In consequence, it is said, of the bribes which he liberally bestowed, the minister had a majority on finance questions in the commons. Money therefore was granted for the navy; but it was appropriated, and none of it came into the treasury, so that the king had still need of his pension. The parliament now began to urge him to war; for Louis had entered Flanders at the head of a large army, taken Valenciennes, Cambray, and St. Omer, and defeated the prince of Orange at Cassel. The king, in order to do so, demanded an additional £600,000, pledging his royal word 'not to break trust with them, or employ the money for any other purposes but those for which it was granted. But the commons knew him too well to trust him. They voted an address (May 25), praying him to enter into an alliance with the states-general and other powers for the preservation of the Spanish Netherlands. Charles affected great anger at this, as an encroachment on his prerogative, and he commanded both houses to adjourn till July. [When the Dutch ambassador advised Charles to yield, he tossed his handkerchief in the air and sneered, “I care just that for parliament."] The court of France was still uneasy, and its envoy Courtin was urgent for a dissolution, or at least a prorogation till the following April. For this service Charles demanded an addition of £100,000 a year to his pension. The usual chaffering took place, but the French were finally obliged to come to his terms, and also to consent that the increased pension should be reckoned from the commencement of the current year. The parliament was therefore prorogued from July to December, with a promise to Courtin that if the money was regularly paid it should then be further adjourned to April. What Englishman can refrain from blushing at this disgraceful bargain? yet Charles, though the highest, was not the only criminal at this time; Courtin also bribed sundry members of the parliament to engage to forward the views of the two monarchs.

WILLIAM III OF ORANGE VISITS ENGLAND AND MARRIES THE PRINCESS

MARY (1677 A.D.)

The prince of Orange had long looked forward to a union with his cousin the princess Mary; but the opposition party in England, who feared that this match might unite him more closely with his uncles, had endeavoured to divert him from it. Now however, seeing the necessity of an effort to induce

Hume having noticed the secret treaty with Louis which Charles had signed, calls his pledging of his word on the present occasion one of the most dishonourable and most scandalous acts that ever proceeded from a throne."

[1677-1678 A.D.]

the king of England to aid in checking the career of the French monarch, he resolved to seek the hand of the princess.

The prince does not seem to have taken any further steps till the present year, when, having obtained the king's permission, he set out at the end of the campaign, and landing at Harwich proceeded to Newmarket, where his uncles then were (October 9th). He was very kindly received by the king, to whose surprise, however, he seemed disinclined to enter on discourse of business. Charles desired Temple to try to find out the cause, and the prince told him that he was resolved to see the princess before he proceeded any further, and also to settle the affair of his marriage previously to entering on that of the peace. The king, when informed of this, very kindly left Newmarket sooner than usual; the prince, on seeing the lady Mary in London, was so pleased with her, that he made his proposals at once to her father and uncle, by whom they were well received; but they insisted that the terms of the peace must be previously settled. The prince would not give way on this point; he said that "his allies, who were like to have hard terms of the peace as things then stood, would be apt to believe that he had made this match at their cost; and for his part he would never sell his honour for a wife." On the 4th of November this auspicious marriage was solemnised by the bishop of London.

INTRIGUES OF THE FRENCH AND VENALITY OF THE ENGLISH

The king, the duke, the prince, and Danby and Temple, now took into consideration the question of the peace. The prince, convinced that Louis would never abstain from war, insisted on a strong frontier on both sides of Flanders; the king was of opinion that Louis was weary of war, and would devote himself to ease and pleasure; Temple thought with the prince. They were, however, obliged to give way a little, and it was agreed that Louis should be obliged to resign all his conquests from the empire, and restore Lorraine to its duke; that France and Holland should mutually give back the places they had taken, but that Louis should retain all his conquests in Flanders, except Aeth, Charleroi, Oudenarde, Courtrai, Tournai, and Valenciennes, which would form a frontier between the French dominions and the United Provinces. The lord Duras, a Frenchman and attached to the duke (later created earl of Feversham), was sent over to Paris with this treaty. He was to demand a positive answer in two days, but pretexts were made for detaining him, and meantime the prince was obliged to return to the Continent. Louis was in fact highly indignant at the marriage of the princess Mary.

Louis seemed resolved to listen to no terms but such as he should dictate, and though the winter had commenced his army forthwith took the field. Charles then (December 3rd) appointed the parliament to meet on the 15th of January; Louis on the 17th stopped the payment of his pension, offering at the same time, if he would consent to his retention of Condé, Valenciennes, and Tournai, to send him the value of them in bars of gold, concealed in silk; and Danby was promised, if he would give his influence, any reward he should name in diamonds and pearls. Danby, however, was not to be bought; the king and duke were also displeased with Louis, and the duke looked forward to the command of an army and the acquisition of military fame. It is also likely, that the royal brothers thought their schemes of arbitrary power would be more likely to be effected by the force of a native army, than by the insid

ious aid of Louis.

When the parliament met (January 28th, 1678), Charles informed them that he had concluded an alliance offensive and defensive with the states for