Reign of Charles II. (Continued) page 12

Oh the 23rd Danby replied to the charges by pleading that he had written the letter from the dictation of the king, who had certified the fact by his own hand in the postscript. That it was well known that he was neither a papist nor a friend to French alliance, but that he had reason to believe that his accuser, a man who, from his perfidy and breach of the most sacred trust, all men- must abhor, had been assisted by French counsel in getting up this impeachment. He denied any guilty practices, and demanded only a fair trial. There was a motion made to commit him to the Tower, but this was overruled, and a day was fixed on which the lord treasurer should make his defence. But to defeat this, Danby now advised the king to do that which he had repeatedly dissuaded him from - namely, to dissolve the parliament. Accordingly, on the 30th of December, it was prorogued for five weeks, and before it could meet again, namely, on the 24th of January, he dissolved it by proclamation, summoning another to meet in forty days.

This pension parliament had now lasted nearly eighteen years. A wonderful change had come over the spirits of this parliament since its first meeting. Soon after Charles's return no parliament could be more slavishly submissive. It had restored to him almost everything that the Long Parliament had taken from his father - the power of the army, the customs, and excise; it had passed the most severe and arbitrary acts for the supremacy of the church, and the plunder and persecution of catholics and dissenters. The' act of uniformity, the corporation act, the test act, the conventicle act, the five mile act, the act which excluded catholic peers from their house, by which the church and crown had been exalted, and the liberties of the people abridged, were all the work of this parliament. But in time, a different temper displayed itself in this very pliant house. It stiffened and became uncompliant. But this was not at all by a growth of virtue in it. Various circumstances had produced this change. Buckingham, Shaftesbury, and others of the cabal ministry and their adherents, had lost place and favour, and had organised a stout opposition. Their chief objects were to mortify and thwart the king, to destroy the prospect of the popish duke of York's succession, and to overthrow their rival, Danby. In the prosecution of these selfish ends, they had, as usual, assumed the easy mask of patriotism, and had been joined by the republican and patriot party. They had got up the cry of popery, and driven the nation frantic by alarm of popish plots, and into much bloodshed, of which the end was not yet. Their present attack on Danby was to thrust down a much better man than themselves, though by no means a perfect one. But Danby had always detested the French alliance, and the use made of it to ruin the protestant nations on the continent, and destroy the balance of power in favour of France. He had consented, it is true, but most reluctantly, to write some of the king's begging letters to Louis, and now the opposition, whose hands were filthy with handling Louis's bribery money, had contrived to make him appear not the enemy, but actually the ally and tool of France. Montague, the great broker of these corruptions, and who had taken good care of himself, was become the chastiser of a man who was not a tenth part so guilty as himself. But the darkest part of this story is the share which the patriotic party had in this receipt of French money, and amongst them such names as Algernon Sidney and Hampden, the grandson of the great patriot.

We have seen Sydney so long ago as 1666 soliciting Louis for one hundred thousand crowns, to enable his party to attempt the re-establishment of a republic. Louis was as ready to pension, or at least to fee, the opposition, as he was to pension Charles, because, when he could not keep Charles to his plans, he could embarrass him by these so-called patriots, the greater part of whom were in parliament, and who now, by these outcries of popish plots, rendered parliament hostile to the king, and still more to his successor. We have been told that Charles received the French money to enslave his country, the patriots to preserve its freedom; but the discovery of patriots being in the pay of the French king, whose very position and ambition rendered it impossible that he could be anything but an enemy to England, is too revolting to be dwelt upon. If they were honest patriots, they must have been very shallow ones; but shallow they were not, and their acuteness of intellect can only be admitted at the expense of their principles. "When," says Sir John Dalrymple, "I found in the French despatches Lord Russell intriguing with the court of Versailles, and Algernon Sidney taking money from it, I felt very nearly the same shock as if I had seen a son turn his back in the day of battle." What must have been the astonishment of an Englishman in discovering such a list as the following of his countrymen bribed by Louis to serve his purposes in England? These were Barillon's reports of his payments in 1678-9 in Guineas:

To the Duke of Buckingham	1000
Algernon Sidney	500
Bulstrode, ambassador at Brussels	400
Sir John Baber	500
Sir Thomas Littleton (Members of the house of commons)	500
Mr Powle (Members of the house of commons)	500
Mr. Harbord (Members of the house of commons)	500
Subsequent payments, according to Barillon:
Harbord	500
Hampden	500
Colonel Titus	500
Sir Thomas Armstrong	500
Bennet Hotham	300
Hicdal	300
Garroway	300
Frankland	300
Compton	300
Harley	300
Sacheverel	300
Foley Bide	300
Algernon Sidney	500
Herbert	500
Sir John Baber	500
Hill	500
Boscawen	500

This is a frightful list, and many ingenious theories have been started to get rid of it. It has been suggested that such men as Hampden, Littleton, Foley, and others, stanch opposition members of the house of commons, were men of large property, and could have no motive in receiving Louis's money, but did perhaps receive it so as not to offend him. But why should real patriots fear offending the French king, whose sole and notorious object was to aggrandise himself at the expense of every people in Europe? Such men needed no stimulus to patriotism if it genuinely existed in them, and had no cause to fear the resentment of Louis at the refusal of his money. Such a plea is simply ridiculous. A more plausible one is, that Barillon and his agents, Baber, Coleman, and others, probably poketed the money, and returned the names of the patriots as having received what was never offered, or, if so, refused by them. In favour of this theory is the fact that Coleman, on his trial in Titus Oates's plot, confessed that he had received two thousand five hundred pounds from Barillon, to distribute amongst members of parliament, which he converted to his own use. We should be glad, indeed, to be able to think that such was the case altogether, but it is admitted that we cannot apply this theory to Algernon Sidney; that it is perfectly dear that he did receive Louis's money; that in 1666 he was personally in Paris soliciting money, and had it offered by Louis himself. It is, however, of little consequence pursuing this theory farther. We know that lord William Russell, when Ruvigny offered him money, sternly refused it, and declared that he would have nothing to do with those that he knew did receive it; and that Denzell Höllis refused a diamond snuff-box unless he could have the permission of his sovereign to receive it; but here the process of refusal ends; and as there was a very loose morality afloat amongst all classes of courtiers and politicians of that day, as there has been of too many in other times, as tp money getting, we fear no good case of clearance can be made out ior the so- called patriots of the above black list. As to the French money poured into the English court and its environs in this infamous reign, it was almost limitless. Lord St. Albans received the diamond snuff-box which Hollis declined, plainly claiming something for his services to Louis in England. Buckingham and the earl of Sunderland were greedy applicants for such money. The duchess of Portsmouth, Louis's prime spy at Charles's court, was not only a regular pensioner, but had a title and estate conferred on her and her descendants for her services at the English court; and it says little for the popular party at that day, that they could condescend to receive the same common brand as that vile herd.

When the new parliament met it was found to be more violently anti-popish than the old one. The duke's known, the king's suspected, popery was a sentiment in the nation that nothing could remove, and which the recent excitements about a popish plot had roused into a universal flame. This flame the popular party took every means to fan; and though the government exerted all its power, its candidates were everywhere received with execrations, and assertions of the bloody machinations of the papists. The new parliament, therefore, came up with vehement zeal against the plotters, and with unabated determination to punish Danby. But the warning which the progress of the election gave was not lost on Danby. He considered that it would be one of the most powerful means of abating the public jealousy of popery, if the king could be induced to send the duke out of the kingdom. Charles recoiled at so harsh a measure, and tried the vain expedient of inducing James to pretend at least conversion, by sending the primate and other bishops to persuade him to return to the established church. It was of course useless, and then Charles was obliged to advise James to withdraw for awhile, and reside at Brussels. James complied on two conditions - that the king should give him a formal order to leave the kingdom, so that he might not seem to steal away out of fear; and to pledge himself publicly that he would never acknowledge the legitimacy of Monmouth, who had given out that he had four witnesses, in case of Charles's death, to prove his marriage with his mother. This was done in presence of the council, the members adding their signatures, and Charles ordered the instrument to be enrolled in chancery. James quitted London with the duchess on the 4th of March, leaving his daughter Anne with her uncle, that the people might not suppose that he sought to seduce her to popery at Brussels.

On the 6th of March the parliament met, and the commons were immediately engaged in a dispute with the crown regarding the election of a speaker. They elected their old one, Mr. Seymour; the lord treasurer appointed Sir Thomas Mears, one of his most active opponents in the last parliament. But during the interval since the dissolution, Danby had been hard at work to convert, by some means or other, some of his most formidable enemies. After some altercation the commons gave way, and Mears was appointed.

But this exercise of royal prerogative only embittered the house to punish Danby and screen Montague. The lords passed a resolution that the dissolution of parliament did not affect an impeachment - a doctrine which has become constitutional. Montague had absconded, but reappeared when his election to parliament gave him personal protection. Everything, therefore, portending the conviction of Danby, Charles ordered him to resign his staff, and then announced this fact to parliament, at the same time informing them that as he had ordered him to write the letters in question, he had granted him a pardon, and that he would renew the pardon a dozen times if there were a continued attempt to prosecute him for an act simply of obedience to his sovereign.

But this attempt to take their victim out of their bands was resented by the commons as a direct breach of their privileges, and having looked for a copy, of this pardon in chancery, and not finding it, they learned from the lord, chancellor that the pardon had been brought ready drawn by Danby to the king, who signed it; and that the seal had not been affixed by himself, but by the person who carried the bag, at Charles's own order. This irregularity the more- inflamed the parliament. Powle, one of the members whose name figures in the above list of French pensioners, with that air of injured virtue which politicians so easily assume, inveighed indignantly against Danby, who, he said, had brought the country to the brink of ruin, by pandering to the mercenary policy of Louis - the very thing he had opposed - had raised a standing army and paid it with French money. That he had concealed the popish plot, and then spoken of Oates with great contempt. The commons forthwith passed a bill of attainder, and the lords sent to take Danby into custody; but he had absconded. On the 10th of April, however, he surrendered himself to the lords, and was sent to the Tower. Lord Essex was appointed lord treasurer in his stead, and lord Sunderland, secretary of state, took the station of prime minister. Essex was popular, solid, and grave in his temperament, but not of brilliant talent. Sunderland was a very different man. He was clever, intriguing, insinuating in his manners, but as thoroughly corrupt and unprincipled as the worst part of the generation in which he lived. He had long been ambassador at the court of France, and the very fact of his holding that post betwixt two such monarchs as Louis and Charles, was proof enough that he was supple, and not restrained by any nice service of morals or honesty. He was perfidious to all parties - a cavalier by profession, and at the same time that he was serving arbitrary monarchs most slavishly, he was republican in heart. He was especially attentive to the mother of Monmouth and the duchess of Portland, because he knew that they had great influence with his master.

At this crisis Sir William Temple proposed to Charles a measure which he thought most likely to abate the virulence of parliament, and at the same time prevent ministers pursuing any clandestine purposes likely to excite the suspicion of the parliament and nation. Temple had always shown himself above and apart from the mere interested ambitious and selfish purposes of the king's ministers. Whenever he was wanted, he was called from his philosophic retreat of Moor Park, in Surrey, to 'do some work of essential benefit to the nation, which required a man of character and ability to accomplish. He had effected the triple alliance, the marriage of the princess Mary with William of Orange; he had refused to have any concern with the intrigues of the cabal and now, when the parliament was fast hastening to press on the prerogative, he came forward, and proposed that the privy council should be increased to thirty members, half consisting of his ministers, and half of leading and independent members of the lords and commons. All these were to be intrusted with every secret movement and proposition of government; and the king was to pledge himself to be guided by their advice. Temple augured that nothing pernicious could be broached by designing ministers in a body where half were independent members of parliament, holding no office from the crown; and that, on the other hand, parliament could not so vehemently suspect the tendency of measures which had first the approbation of their own popular leaders. The house of commons had now driven three successive ministries from office - Clarendon, the Cabal, and Danby - and was still bent on a career violently opposed to the crown. If Temple had calculated that the effect would be to neutralise or convert the democratic members, he would have been right; but that such a council could ever work any other way was impossible. The king would never long submit measures, intended to maintain his prerogative, to a council which was not likely to carry his views at once to both houses; but he might, and undoubtedly would, in many cases, succeed in bringing over the opposition orators to his interest. This was the immediate effect on most of them. Shaftesbury, lord Russell, Säville, viscount Halifax, Powle, and Seymour, the late speaker, were included 'in it. But Temple soon found that men of such contrary views and parties could not draw well together, and was compelled to break his chief condition, and compose a sort of inner council, of himself, Capel, Halifax, Essex, and Sunderland, who prepared and really managed everything. Halifax was a man of the most brilliant talents, ambitious, yet not thinking himself so, but so little swayed by mere party, that he was called a trimmer, and gloried in the title. For the rest - Capel, Cavendish, and Powle lost the confidence of the commons, which looked on the institution with natural distrust; Russell and Shaftesbury alone spoke out as boldly as ever, and retained more influence in the two houses than they gained in the council. In fact, the opposition members soon found that they might propose, but the king would not be outvoted in his own council. The very first measure proposed, was that all persons of popish tendencies should be weeded out of office, out of the posts of lord-lieutenants, the magistracy, and the courts of law; but Charles, perceiving that the object was to remove all the stanchest supporters of the crown, quickly put an end to it. He called for the rolls, and wherever he saw a name marked for removal, gave some such ludicrous and absurd reason for his retention, that there was no gravely answering it. One objected to, he said, was a good cocker, another an expert huntsman, kept good foxhounds, or a good house, had always excellent chimes of beef, and the like. Arguments were thrown away on the king, and the matter came to nothing.