to surrender their charters in hope of conciliating | tinued their imprisonment, Danby and the surviving the favor of the despot. An attempt has been made by certain writers, who treat of the iniquities and atrocities of this disgraceful reign with a coolness astonishing in Englishmen, to excuse, nay, even to justify, these proceedings, upon the ground of defects and abuses in the corporations. It is quite true that those franchises, inherited from the Saxon times, had contracted some rust, and had lost some of their original virtues; and that a corporation reform, which has been reserved for the legislators of our own day, would have been a merit in Charles II.; but it was avowedly not a reform that he wanted, but a total destruction of municipal institutions, which, more than any other single cause, secure men in their liberty, and fit them for the enjoyment of it, and for the self-legislating (in minor points) and business habits of freemen. And whenever that Saxon spirit of municipal government is destroyed, either by an overextension of the French principle of centralization, or by any other whim of rash legislators or embryo tyrants, the parliament of England will be worth less than a village vestry. In the beginning of this year (1684) Sir Samuel Barnadiston, the foreman of the grand jury which had ignored the bill against Lord Shaftesbury, was condemned for a libel, and sentenced to pay a fine of £10,000, and to give security for good behavior during life. Williams, the speaker of the House of Commons, was severely prosecuted for what he had done in parliament, that is, for having signed the votes of the House, which he was bound to do by his office. In defiance of the authority of the parliaments which had committed them, and con Penny Cyclopedia, Article Borough.-Willcock, Law of Municipal Corporations. VOL. III.-47 Catholic peers, lords Arundel, Powis, and Bellasis, were released from their long captivity in the Tower by sentence of the judges, who declared, and correctly, that, "in justice and conscience," they ought to have been admitted to bail long ago. But, as well in what was just as in what was unjust, Charles was now proving to the world that he had no intention of ever again meeting parliament. Halifax ventured to propose such a meeting, but Charles had now resigned himself to the will of his brother. The duplicity of Halifax hardly saved him from the duke's vengeance; and, during the few months that remained of this reign, the duke and minister were alternately engaged in united intrigues against other ministers, and in intriguing the one against the other. The whole business of the admiralty was again placed in the hands of James; and presently after, in defiance of the Test Act, he was readmitted as a member of the council. It was scarcely to be expected that he who never pardoned any one should overlook his archenemy, the Rev. Dr. Titus Oates. That great hero of the popish plot was brought before Jeffreys, upon whom, ir former days, he had adventured his wit,' charged with sundry libels under the statute 1 This was upon the trial of College, the Protestant joiner, when Oates appeared to prove that subornation had been practiced against the Protestants. He appealed to Jeffreys, then sergeant, as to his knowledge of Alderman Wilcox: Jeffreys exclaimed that he did not intend to be an evidence for such as he. "I do not desire," said Titus, "that Sir George Jeffreys should be an evidence for me; I had credit in parliaments, and Sir George had disgrace in one of them." Jeffreys was cowed, and merely said, "Your servant, doctor; you are a witty man and a philosopher." In fact, in November, 1680, the House of Commons had voted that Sir George Jeffreys, the recorder of the city of London, by traducing and obstructing petitioning for the sitting of this parliament, had destroyed the right of the subject. They had, moreover, petitioned the king to remove him out of all public offices, and had brought him upon his knees at the bar of the House. Jeffreys de scandalis magnatum. Witnesses swore that the doctor had said that the Duke of York was a traitor, that "the Duke of York, before the succession should come to him, should be banished or hanged, but hanging was fittest." Damages were awarded to the duke to the amount of £100,000, which was equivalent to a sentence of perpetual imprisonment against the doctor. should live under some disadvantages, and be obnoxious to your majesty's pleasure, who may, if they are turbulent and troublesome, inflict the penalties of the law upon them? And, as to the Roman Catholics, if there be any persons to whom your majesty would extend the favor of a pardon, let it be particular and express, but not universally, to set your enemies as well as friends at ease." The king paid great attention; the lords of the council wondered; but nothing more was said about the indulgence, and they proceeded to other business.1 Jeffreys, who had first been promoted at court by James, who had employed him as his solicitorgeneral, seems to have undertaken the most difficult and dangerous task of stretching the limits of toleration, but with the sole view of benefiting the In his bold intrigues Halifax included a secret Catholics. One morning he brought to the council- correspondence with the Duke of Monmouth, with cable, at which he now sat, an enormous roll of some others of the exiles at the court of the Prince papers and parchments, and, turning to the king, of Orange, and also with William himself; but he said Sir, I have a business to lay before your though the Duke of York knew or suspected this. majesty, which I took notice of in the north, and he was unable to deprive him of the favor of the which will deserve your majesty's royal commiser-king, who liked the minister more for his ready wit ation. It is the case of numbers of your good sub- and talent for satire than for any other quality. jects that are imprisoned for recusancy. I have Lord Rochester, the second son of the late Chanthe list of them here to justify what I say. They cellor Clarendon, after a vain rivalship, was appointare so many that the jails can not hold them with-ed to the presidency of the council, a post of nomiout their lying one upon another." The Lord nal dignity rather than of power or great emolument. Keeper North, who hated Jeffreys worse than This his rival Halifax called kicking a man up stairs. popery, because he knew that Jeffreys was trying Subsequently, Rochester was appointed to the govhard to get the seals, and who, moreover, dreaded ernment of Ireland, in the room of the Duke of Orthe responsibility of passing an indulgence and gen- mond, the old and steady friend of his father, who eral pardon without consent of parliament, per- was abruptly recalled to make room for him and for ceiving that Halifax, Rochester, and the other lords a scheme which it was fancied Ormond would not eminently Protestant," were silent, took courage go into. This was the raising of a Catholic army in to say "I humbly entreat your majesty that my Ireland, to be employed, if necessary, in England.2 lord chief justice may declare whether all the per- Godolphin, that adroit trimmer, who retained place sons named in those rolls are actually in prison." and favor under three successive princes of very opJeffreys retorted that he did not mean that, that all posite characters, after being promoted to one of the the prisons in England could not contain them, but two secretaryships of state, was removed to Rochthat the fate of those not under actual restraint was ester's place. Sunderland, as adroit as Godolphin, little better than that of the captives, seeing that remained in office, and kept up a very friendly unthey were liable to be worried and taken up by derstanding with the French mistress. The foreign every parish justice, and mulcted of fees to the ruin transactions of this cabinet were sufficiently base; of their families." North, though professing the but they were unimportant, being merely a continmost intolerant Protestantism, was not bold enough uation of Charles's old system. Among these transto fall upon the papists; but he assailed with all his actions may be classed the marriage of the Princess fury the Dissenters, who, for the occasion, were to Anne, the Duke of York's second daughter. This be coupled with the Catholics as deserving the roy- young lady, it is said, had been, for prudential reaal commiseration and mercy. Turning to the king, sons, always destined to a Protestant prince; and, he said, "I beg your majesty will consider what it is added, that the court of France, which exerlittle reason there is to grant such a general pardon cised their influence in all things, had consented to as this is at this time; for they are not all Roman that arrangement, with the proviso that they should Catholics that lie under sentence of recusancy, but have the naming of the person. It was on this ersectaries of all kinds and denominations; perhaps rand that George (afterward George I.), the son of as many, or more, who are all professed enemies the Elector of Hanover, came over to England, in to your majesty and your government in church 1 Roger North, Life of the Lord Keeper. Roger continues:-"That and state. They are a turbulent people, and al-night his lordship came home full of melancholy; and it was some time ways stirring up sedition; and if they do so much when they lie obnoxious to the laws, which your majesty may inflict upon them at your pleasure, what will they not do if your majesty gives them all a discharge at once? That would be to quit the greatest advantage you have of securing the peace of the nation. Is it not better that your enemies was also frightened into a surrender of the recordership of London. Charles made a mockery of his terror, and told him he was not parliament-proof! But he would sometimes break out in exclamations, as, What can be the meaning! before any person near him knew the occasion of it. 'Motion, cui solus obstiti.' Motion, which I alone opposed. For he accounted this action of his the most memorable that he had 1682. Burnet intimates that this wooer was recall- | days before the beheading of Lord Russell, and in ed by his father, who had changed his mind, and settled that he should marry the Princess of Zell, his first cousin; but it is insinuated by others that the Hanoverian was fastidious; that the Lady Anne had not the fortune to please him; and that, like other great ladies, she never forgot or forgave the affront to her dying day. On the 19th of July, 1683, two 1 Ralph. the midst of the public excitement about the Rye House plot, George Prince of Denmark, brother to his Danish majesty, arrived to marry the Lady Anne; and, as he was backed by France, and all the preliminaries had been settled, the marriage took place at Whitehall a week after. According to one account, this match was Charles's own act, against the inclination, design, and interest of the duke; and the marriage was highly acceptable to the nation. But Burnet affirms, on the contrary, that it did not at all please the nation, for that it was known that the proposition came from France, and apprehended that the prince would change his religion. Others, again, who believe that the duke fully approved of the match, give this reason for it: James calculated that this Protestant alliance would more and more persuade people that they had nothing to apprehend from a popish successor. Meanwhile, Louis XIV., regardless of the treaty of Nimeguen, and of the rights of nations, was continuing his career of encroachment and aggression. Upon the Rhine, at the foot of the Pyrenees, and across the Alps, the might of his arms or of his gold and intrigues was felt. Genoa, the superb, was bombarded, and her doge compelled, in person, to implore the pardon of the Grand Monarque at Versailles. It seemed that England had resigned the Sovereignty of the seas; France had now a magnificent fleet manned by 60,000 sailors, and the French flag exacted homage in all directions. Across the Mediterranean the corsairs of Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli were severely chastised, and the liberated Christian slaves sang the praises of the great Louis. The Prince of Orange, who again found Holland exposed by Louis's capture of Luxemburg, Courtray, Dixmude, and other places in Flanders, and who had never ceased laboring to form a coalition against the Freach, now united with the courts of Madrid and Vienna in urging Charles to take part in a league for the preservation of the independence of Europe; but Charles knew that he could not figure as a belligerent without calling a parliament for money, and a parliament he was resolved never to call. He therefore continued to receive his pay from France, which became less liberal and regular as Louis perceived his real condition. In the preceding year (1683) Lord Dartmouth was sent with a squadron to Tangier, with a secret commission to blow up the mole, the fortifications, and all the works, which had cost England immense sums, to bring home the garrison, and to leave the ruins to the Moors. No material benefit had been derived from the occupation of that African port; but a wiser government might have rendered it something like what Gibraltar has become in our hands, and made it a nucleus of African commerce and civilization. By its abandonment a very important saving was care of the bishops. Barillon, the French ambasmade to the revenue, and a considerable accession sador, hastened to Whitehall to speak with the to the standing army; and Charles, in his scheme Duke of York. "The doctors," said James, “befor doing without parliaments, wanted both money lieve that the king is in extremity. I beg you to and troops. The French, who had long been jeal-assure the king your master, that he will ever have ous of seeing the English there in a position whence in me a faithful and grateful servant." The amthey might have commanded the Straits, were very bassador went for a moment into the apartment of anxious for the demolition, and it is suspected that his country woman, the Duchess of Portsmouth. Louis furnished the money for Lord Dartmouth's Instead of speaking to me," says Barillon, "of her inglorious expedition. According to Burnet, the grief and of the great loss she was about to sustain, Portuguese ambassador "took fire upon it; and de- she entered into a private cabinet, and said, Monsieur sired that, if the king was weary of keeping Tan- l'Ambassadeur, I am going to tell you the greatest gier, he would restore it to his master, undertaking secret in the world, and my head would be in danger to pay a great sum for the charge the king had been if it were known here. The king, in the bottom of at; but the king believed that, as the money would his heart is a Catholic, and nobody tells him the never be paid, so the King of Portugal would not be state he is in, or speaks to him of God. I can no able to maintain that place against the Moors." longer, with propriety, enter his chamber, where the queen is almost constantly with him. The Duke of York thinks about his own affairs, and has no time to take the care which he ought of the king's conscience. Go and tell him that I have conjured you to warn him to do what he can to save the soul of the king, his brother. He is master in the royal chamber, and can make any one withdraw from it as he lists. Lose no time, for if you delay ever so little it may be too late." Barillon hurried to the duke, who recovered himself as if from a profound lethargy. .. You are right," said James; "there is no time to lose. I will hazard all rather than not do my duty." But as the duke had no intention of proceeding openly, there were several difficulties to overcome. The bishops hardly ever left the bedside of the dying monarch, and they had even pressed him to receive the sacrament according to the rites of their own church; and then, by the law of the land, it was still death for a native Romish priest to present himself, and Charles, it appears, could confess himself in no other language than English. James, however, went to his brother, and, returning an hour after, he told Barillon that he had spoken to the king, and found him resolved not to take the sacrament, which the Protestant bishops had pressed him to receive; that this had surprised the bishops much, but that one or other of them would still remain always in the room, if he (the duke) did not find some pretext to make everybody leave it in order to get the opportunity of speaking to his brother with freedom, and disposing him to make a formal renunciation of heresy, and confess himself to a Catholic priest. Various expedients were thought of by the duke and the ambassador. James proposed that Barillon should ask leave to speak to the king to tell him something in secret from his master, and that everybody should go out of the room. The ambassador represented that this would make a great noise in court, and that there was no likelihood of his being allowed to remain in private with the king of England long enough for what he had to do. The duke then thought of sending for the queen, as if to take her last farewell, and to ask pardon if she had ever in any thing disobeyed the king, who was on his part to go through the same ceremony to her. But at last it was resolved that the duke himself A.D. 1685. In rendering himself absolute, Charles had failed to increase his happiness: his usual gayety forsook him, and he became morose, gloomy, and dejected, unable to find any solace except in sauntering away his time among his women. A variety of causes has been assigned for this change of temper in the constitutionally gay and thoughtless monarch, and there were many causes to account for it; yet, probably, after all, his dejection arose more from his declining health than from any intensity of moral feeling or anxiety. It was, perhaps, nothing more than the heaviness and gloom which generally precedes apoplexy. In the midst of the fiercely renewed conflicting intrigues of Halifax and the Duke of York, who each wished to banish the other, Charles, who had wavered and lied to both, promised to make up his mind to some certain course; but, on Monday, the 2d of February, after passing a restless night, his face was observed to be pale and ghastly, his head drooped, and his hand was fixed on his stomach. Dr. King, an eminent chemist and physician, who was in waiting that day by the particular order of the king, who had a taste for experimental philosophy, ran out of the room, and meeting the Earl of Peterborough, told him that his majesty was in a strange humor, for he did not speak one word of sense. The earl returned with the doctor into the chamber, and they had scarcely entered when Charles fell on the floor as if dead. Dr. King then resolved to bleed him at all hazards; and, after bleeding, the king came to himself. The royal physician afterwards approved of King's promptitude, and the council ordered £1000 for his good service, which was never puid. As soon as the report of this illness got abroad the people were thrown into a great ferment. According to one party, this was simply the effect of their wonderful love to Charles's person; but the other party hinted that the dread of his successor did not a little contribute to swell their sorrow. On the third day of the king's illness the lords of the council inserted a bulletin in the Gazette, stating that his physicians conceived that he was now out of danger, and that in a few days he would be freed from his distemper. But this bulletin was scarcely made public when the king had a second fit, and then the physicians gave him over, and consigned him to the spiritual should speak to the king in whispers, so that no king formally promise to declare himself openly a person in the room might hear what he said. It Catholic, if he recovered his health. After confeswas thought that this course would remove suspi- sion Charles received absolution, the Romish comcion, and that it would be believed that the duke munion, and even extreme unction. During the spoke only of state affairs. "Thus," continues three quarters of an hour that all this lasted the Barillon, "without any further precaution, the Duke courtiers, attendants, Protestant bishops, and others of York stooped down to the king his brother's ear, in the antechamber gazed at one another; none after having ordered that no one should approach. said any thing except with their eyes, or in low I was in the room, and more than twenty persons whispers. According to Barillon, the presence in at the door, which was open. What the Duke of the sick room of lords Bath and Feversham, who York said was not heard; but the King of England were Protestants, satisfied the bishops a little; but said from time to time, very loud, Yes, with all my the queen's women and the other priests saw so heart. He sometimes made the Duke of York much going and coming that it was impossible the repeat what he said, because he did not easily hear secret could be kept long. After Charles had him. This lasted near a quarter of an hour. The received the communion the violence of his disorder Duke of York again went out as if he had gone to seemed to abate, and he spoke more intelligibly than the queen, and said to me, The king has consented he had done for some time. He sent for his natural that I should bring a priest to him: but I dare not children, gave them his dying blessing, and recombring any of the duchess's, they are too well known: mended them to his successor. But of the absent send and find one quickly." Barillon told the duke Duke of Monmouth he made no mention, good or that he would do it with all his heart; but he believed bad. As he was pronouncing his blessing on his that too much time would be lost, and that he had illegitimate sons, the bishops observed that he was just seen all the queen's priests in a closet near the the Lord's anointed, and the father of his country; bedchamber. At that moment James perceived and thereupon all present fell upon their knees, and Castelmelhor, a foreign nobleman, well acquainted Charles raised himself in his bed, and very solemnly with the court, and begged him to find a proper blessed them all. The queen had sent to excuse confessor. The count warmly engaged to do this, her absence, and implore his pardon for any offense and to speak with the queen; but he came back in that she might have given him. Alas! poor woman," an instant, saying, "Should I hazard my head in said Charles, "it is I that should ask her pardon; this, I would do it with pleasure; but I do not know and I do it with all my heart." He spoke repeatedly one of the queen's priests that understands or speaks to the Duke of York in terms of tenderness and English." Upon this, it was resolved to send to the friendship; he twice recommended to him the Venetian resident for an English priest; but as time Duchess of Portsmouth and his son by her, the pressed, the Count of Castelmelhor went into the young Duke of Richmond; he begged kind treatcloset where the queen's priests were assembled, ment for the Duchess of Cleveland; nor was his and unexpectedly found among them one Huddle-stage-mistress forgotten. "Do not," said he, "let: ston, a priest, who had saved the king's life after the battle of Worcester, and who, by special act of parliament, had been exempted from all the laws made against the Catholics. They put a wig and gown upon this man to disguise him. Castelmelhor took him to be instructed by a Portuguese monk of the order of the Barefooted Carmelites in what he had to do on such an occasion; for Huddleston was no practiced confessor, or, in the words of Barillon, "of himself he was no great doctor." Then Castelmelhor conducted him to the door of a room that adjoined the sick chamber; and the Duke of York, being warned by Barillon that all was ready, sent out Chiffinch of the back stairs, who had been accustomed to bring Charles his women, to bring in Huddleston and the Host. The Duke of York exclaimed aloud, "The king wills that everybody should retire except the earls of Bath and Feversham." The physicians went into a closet, the door of which was shut upon them; and Chiffinch came back with the disguised priest. In presenting Huddleston, James said, "Sire, here is a man who once saved your life, and who is now come to save your soul." The king answered, "He is welcome." He then confessed himself with seeming sentiments of devotion and repentance; and the Duke of York assured Barillon that Huddleston had acquitted himself very well as a confessor, and made the poor Nelly starve." At these words the bishops were much scandalized. The king often expressed: his confidence in God's mercy. Ken, the orthodox bishop of Bath and Wells, read some prayers, and spoke to him of God; “but the bishop,” adds Barillon, "was not officious in saying any thing particular to him, or proposing that he should make a profession of his faith; he apprehended a refusal, but feared still more, as I believe, to irritate the Duke of York." Charles was perfectly sensible All this time, and from the king's being in danger to his death, prayers," says Evelyn, "were solemnly made in all the churches, especially in both the court chapels, where the chaplains relieved one another every half quarter of an hour from the time he began to be in danger till he expired, according to the form prescribed in the church offices. Those who assisted his majesty's devotions were, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the bishops of London. Durham, and Ely, but more especially Ken, the bishop of Bath and Wells. It is said they told them he would consider of it, which he was so long about, that it exceedingly urged the receiving the holy sacrament, but his majesty was too late. Others whispered that the bishops and lords, except the earls of Bath and Feversham, being ordered to withdraw the night before, Huddleston, the priest, had presumed to administer the popish offices."-Diary. 2 It is said by James himself, or at least by the writer of his memoirs, compiled from his own papers, that "when the king's life was wholly despaired of, and it was time to prepare for another world, two bishops came to do their function, who, reading the prayers appointed in the Common Prayer Book on that occasion, when they came to the place where usually they exhort a sick person to make a confession of his sins, the Bishop of Bath and Wells, who was one of them, adver tised him, it was not of obligation; and, after a short exhortation, asked him if he were sorry for his sins? Which the king saying he |