[1673-1674 A.D.] him his commission as lord high admiral: his example was followed by Clifford, the lord high treasurer, Lord Bellasis, and others.

It is remarkable that the dissenters actually supported this bill, which excluded themselves as completely as the papists; but they willingly joined to oppose the common enemy; and in return a bill for their relief was passed and sent up to the lords on the 17th. Here however it received amendments to which the commons would not agree; Sheldon and his party too, it is said, exerted themselves to defeat it; a sudden prorogation on the 29th put an end to it, and the patriotic disinterestedness of the dissenters' was thus illrewarded.h

By the retirement of James, duke of York, the command of the combined fleet, amounting to ninety sail of the line, was given to Prince Rupert. With so formidable a force, it was expected that he would sweep the Dutch navy from the face of the ocean; but he performed nothing worthy of his reputation; and, though he fought three actions with De Ruyter, neither received nor inflicted considerable injury. His friends complained that his powers were limited by unusual restrictions, and that his ships wanted stores and provisions; an officer who was present asserts that he was too closely leagued with the country party to obtain a victory, which might render their opponents lords of the ascendant. He was ordered to take under his protection the army commanded by Schomberg, and to land it on the coast of Holland. Schomberg, unacquainted with naval etiquette, affixed the colours of his regiment to the mast of his vessel, as a signal to the officers in the other transports; but Rupert considered his conduct as an act of insubordination or insult; two shots were fired through the rigging; and orders were given to sink the general's vessel unless the flag were immediately struck. Schomberg reluctantly submitted, and the armament proceeded to the Dutch coast (July 23rd), but no landing was effected. Rupert, having alarmed the inhabitants on several points, from the mouth of the Maese to that of the Ems, ordered the military force to return to Yarmouth (August 2nd), where it remained encamped during the rest of the season. Schomberg, attributing both the violence of the prince with respect to the flag, and his refusal to land the army in Holland, to personal dislike, sent him a challenge;_ but Charles interfered to prevent the meeting, and the general quitted the English service.c

A congress for peace was meantime sitting at Cologne, under the mediation of Sweden; but the states, now backed by the house of Austria, spurned at the conditions offered by the allied monarchs.

THE FALL OF THE CABAL (1674 A.D.); NEW OPPOSITION TO THE KING

The first question that engaged the attention of parliament when it reassembled in the latter end of October was the marriage of the duke of York, who had lately (September 30th) espoused, by proxy, Maria D'Este, sister to the duke of Modena, a princess only fifteen years of age, but a Catholic. They addressed the king, praying him not to allow the marriage to be consummated. [Her son would be reared as a Catholic and would be heir to the

[Thus from 1673 to 1828, the Protestant dissenters of England were proscribed by the constitution, as a people not to be trusted with any office that might be betrayed by them to the injury of their country. This stigma was somewhat diminished, but by no means removed, by the annual indemnity bill, which preceded the abolition of the Test Act.- VAUGHAN."] [The first action on May 28 and the second on June 4, though fought in conjunction with the French under D'Estrées were undecisive. The third off the mouth of the Texel on Aug. 11, is called by Gardinerd a defeat as the French would not assist.]

[1674 A.D.]

throne.] Charles pleaded his honour. They forthwith passed votes for refusing supplies, imposing a severer test, etc., when the king came to the house of lords and prorogued the parliament (November 4th). As he considered that Shaftesbury had played him false, he took the great seal from him on the 9th, and committed it to Sir Heneage Finch. Sir Thomas Osborne (now Lord Latimer and later created earl of Danby) had obtained the white staff resigned by Clifford. Shaftesbury now assumed the character of a patriot, and became the secret leader of the opposition.

When the parliament met (January 7th, 1674) the king addressed them with his usual affability; the lord-keeper then followed, in a long speech, the object of which was to obtain an immediate supply. The commons first passed an address, praying the king to enjoin a public fast, that the nation might implore heaven to preserve the church and state against the undermining practices of popish recusants," and to adopt certain measures of precaution against them; they then voted the removal from office of persons "popishly inclined, or otherwise obnoxious or dangerous"; and, following up this vote, they proceeded to assail the individual members of the Cabal.

The first attacked was the duke of Lauderdale. He was charged with having raised an army in Scotland to be employed in setting up arbitrary power in England, and with having said to the king in council, "Your majesty's edicts are equal with the laws, and ought to be observed in the first place." Buckingham, aware that his own turn would come next, asked leave to address the house. His defence was feeble; his chief object was to shift the blame from himself to Arlington; one expression which he used seemed to go higher: "Hunting," he said, "is a good diversion; but if a man will hunt with a brace of lobsters he will have but ill sport.' An address was voted for his removal from the royal presence and councils. Arlington defended himself before the commons with more spirit than was expected; and the motion for an address against him was lost.

All this time the commons were silent on the subject of a supply; and as the states just then made, through the Spanish ambassador, an offer of peace, which Charles, with the advice of both houses, resolved to accept, Sir William Temple was appointed to negotiate, and in three days the affair was brought to a conclusion (February 19th). The honour of the flag was yielded to England; colonial and commercial questions were to be settled by arbitration; and the Dutch agreed to pay 800,000 crowns in four annual instalments. The parliament was then prorogued on the 24th.

Two further attempts at weakening the influence of the duke were made; the one in the commons, by a more comprehensive test; the other in the lords, by an amendment to a bill brought in for restraining popery. This last was lost, and the prorogation stopped the other. The duke took alarm; his first thought was a dissolution, but to that course the king was very adverse, and the result of it was quite uncertain. He then bent his thoughts to delay the meeting of parliament; but for this purpose it was necessary that the king should be supplied with money. Fortunately for him, Louis XIV was as anxious as himself to keep the king and parliament asunder, for he feared that England might now join the confederacy against him. The duke therefore proposed that Louis should give the king £400,000; the usual chaffering_took place, and Charles was obliged to be content with 500,000 The parliament was then prorogued from November till the April of the following year.

crowns.

Of the persons who had been accused by the commons, Buckingham alone was abandoned by the king, and he forthwith, as a matter of course, joined

[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 1; 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