Page images
PDF
EPUB

BISHOP BURNET'S

HISTORY OF HIS OWN TIME:

FROM

THE RESTORATION OF CHARLES II. TO THE TREATY OF PEACE AT
UTRECHT, IN THE REIGN OF QUEEN ANNE.

A New Edition,

WITH HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES,

AND

FIFTY-ONE PORTRAITS.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. II.

LONDON:

WILLIAM SMITH, 113, FLEET STREET.

MDCCCXL.

1871

LONDON:

BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS,

WHITEFRIARS.

THE

HISTORY OF MY OWN TIMES.

BOOK IV.

OF THE REIGN OF KING JAMES THE SECOND.

*

But,

AM now to prosecute this work, and to give the relation of an inglorious and unprosperous reign, that was begun with great advantages; but these were so poorly managed, and so ill improved, that bad designs were ill laid, and worse conducted; and all came in conclusion to one of the strangest catastrophes that is in any history. A great king with strong armies, and mighty fleets, a vast treasure, and powerful allies, fell all at once: and his whole strength, like a spider's web, was so irrecoverably broken with a touch, that he was never able to retrieve what, for want both of judgment and heart, he threw up in a day. Such an unexpected revolution deserves to be well opened; I will do it as fully as I can. having been beyond sea almost all this reign, many small particulars, that may well deserve to be remembered, may have escaped me; yet as I had good opportunities to be well informed, I will pass over nothing that seems of any importance to the opening such great and unusual transactions. I will endeavour to watch over my pen with more than ordinary caution, that I may let no sharpness, from any ill usage I myself met with, any way possess my thoughts, or bias my mind: on the contrary, the sad fate of this unfortunate prince will make me the more tender in not aggravating the errors of his reign. As to my own particular, I will remember how much I was once in his favour, and how highly I was obliged to him. And as I must let his designs and miscarriages be seen, so I will open things as fully as I can, that it may appear on whom we ought to lay the chief load of them: which indeed ought to be chiefly charged on his religion, and on those who had the management of his conscience, his priests, and his Italian queen: which last had hitherto acted a popular part with great artifice and skill, but came now to take off the mask and to discover herself. This prince was much neglected in his childhood, during the time he was under his father's The parliament, getting him into their hands, put him under the earl of Northumber

[graphic]

care.

*The rei, of James II. presents one of those remarkable eras which occur in all histories, and this in ours marks the time when first the nature of the constitution was fully understood. For this enlightenment, we are indebted to the mad ambition of the king, who, with that infatuation, that blindness to present advantages whilst in pursuit of an ulterior object, which characterised the Stuarts, rushed forward totally regardless, and probably ignorant, of the genius of the English people.

Few kings, perhaps none, ever mounted the throne under more favourable auspices. A man of business, of

tried abilities, succeeded one who had been altogether neglectful of public affairs. His zealous professions and prudent conduct had of late reconciled the people, who began to forget their suspicions; the Dissenters especially, deceived by his specious professions of liberal feelings, or willing to risk much for emancipation from the pressure of the dominant establishment, were inclined to trust him. But when, in his inaugural speech, he declared "that he would defend and maintain the Church, and would preserve the government in Church and State as established by law," all fear of the introduction of Popery

398

OF THE REIGN OF KING JAMES THE SECOND.

land's government, who, as the duke himself told me, treated him with great respect, and a very tender regard. When he escaped out of their hands, by the means of colonel Bamfield, his father wrote to him a letter in cipher, concluding in these plain words, "Do this as you expect the blessing of your loving father." This was sent to William, duke of Hamilton, but came after he had made his escape: and so I found it among his papers; and I gave it to the duke of York in the year 1674. He said to me, he believed he had his father's cipher among his papers, and that he would try to decipher the letter; but I believe he never did it. I told him I was confident, that as the letter was written when his escape was under consideration, so it contained an order to go to the queen, and to be obedient to her in all things, except in matters of religion. The king appointed sir John Berkeley, afterwards lord Berkeley, to be his governor. It was a strange choice, if it was not because, in such a want of men who stuck then to the king, there were few capable in any sort of such a trust. Berkeley was bold and insolent, and seemed to lean to popery: he was certainly very arbitrary, both in his temper and notions. The queen took such a particular care of this prince, that he was soon observed to have more of her favour than either of his two brothers; and she was so set on making proselytes, hoping that "to save a soul" would cover a "multitude of sins," that it is not to be doubted but she used more than ordinary arts to draw him over to her religion. Yet, as he himself told me, he stood out against her practices. vanished, and the people congratulated themselves on possessing "the word of a king, and a word never yet broken.'

If James had made a wise use of the power he really possessed, a power far greater than it is good for a king to have, he might have succeeded in his aims; it needed but ordinary skill and caution to make both court and country alike subservient. But James snatched too hastily at the prize he imagined to be within his grasp; urged forward by his eager priests, he too easily gave the alarm, and incurred the distrust of his people. The rash exercise of the dispensing power, in matters touching his peculiar faith, at once aroused the dormant jealousy of the nation. A new light appeared to have broken in upon men's minds; and they suddenly discovered that the absolute power (which had often been resisted in practice, but had hitherto been more strongly supported than opposed in argument) was a chimera. The king's dispensing power, which had been exercised unchallenged for so long a time, as to be considered even by Sir Edward Coke, the best legal authority of his time, as an undoubted prerogative of the Crown, was now questioned and examined, and found to be a baseless phantasm, inconsistent with the whole fabric of the constitution; an absurdity which could have no existence, whilst the other component parts of the frame of government were in being. The visions of the supporters of divine right and passive obedience faded before the light of truth, and the liberties of England were at length established on an unalterable basis.

De Lolme, in his admirable work on the constitution of England, has some remarks" on the manner in which revolutions and public commotions have always been terminated in England," which are well worth our attention. "If," says he, "we read the history of other free states, we shall see that the public dissensions that have taken place in them have constantly been terminated by settlements in which the interests only of a few were really provided for, while the grievances of the many were hardly, if at all, attended to. In England, the very reverse has happened; and we find revolutions always to have been terminated by extensive and accurate provisions for securing the general liberty."

After tracing the same results through all the intermediate reigns till the termination of the civil wars, he goes on "At the accession of James 1st, which, as it placed a new family on the throne of England, may be

considered as a kind of revolution, no demands were made by the men who were at the head of the nation, but in favour of general liberty.

"After the accession of Charles the 1st, discontents of a very serious nature began to take place; and they were terminated, in the first instance, by the act called the Petition of Right, which is still looked upon as a most precise and accurate delineation of the rights of the people.

"At the restoration of Charles the 2nd, the constitution being re-established upon its former principles, the former consequences produced by it began again to take place; and we see at that era, and indeed during the whole course of that reign, a continued series of precautions taken for securing the general liberty.

"Lastly, the great event which took place in the year 1689 affords a striking confirmation of the truth of the observation heretofore made. At this era the political wonder again appeared-of a revolution terminated by a series of public acts, in which no interests but those of the people at large were considered and provided for; no clause, even the most indirect, was inserted either to gratify the present ambition, or favour the future views, of those who were personally concerned in bringing those acts to a conclusion. Indeed, if anything is capable of conveying to us an adequate idea of the soundness, as well as peculiarity, of the principles on which the English government is founded, it is the attentive perusal of the system of public compacts to which the revolution of the year 1689 gave rise of the Bill of Rights with all its different clauses, and of the several acts which, till the accession of the House of Hanover, were made in order to strengthen it.”

When we consider that, but for the unwise haste, the unguarded precipitancy of King James, the liberties then more firmly established and clearly defined than at any earlier period would have been altogether, and probably for ever, subverted; and then regard the increasing prosperity and glory of the nation, consequent upon their establishment, every Briton must look upon those true patriots, by whose agency the memorable revolution of 1689 was effected, with increasing veneration. The history of this period is one which deserves to be deeply studied, and the value of such an historian as Burnet, whose minute detail, although sometimes tedious, increases the difficulty of misrepresentation by the author, cannot be too highly appreciated.

« PreviousContinue »