be fairly justified in adopting the milder alternative, and in imputing to the greater part of those concerned in it rather an extraordinary degree of blind credulity, than the deliberate wickedness of planning and assisting in the perpetration of legal murders; yet the proceedings in the popish plot must always be considered as an indelible disgrace upon the English nation, in which king, parliament, judges, juries, witnesses, prosecutors, have all their respective, though certainly not equal, shares.

When the frenzy of the nation was sufficiently roused by the details of the plot in the parliament and the press, the Duke of York was removed from the council, deprived of all his offices, and ultimately compelled to quit the kingdom. In 1679 he was permitted to exchange his place of exile from Brussells to Edinburgh. A few months previously, the Lord Russell had taken a leading part in an attempt to implicate the absent Duke of York in a treasonable correspondence with the French king, with a view to the invasion of England. A resolution of the commons was sent to the lords by the Lord Russell for their concurrence, to the effect: "That the Duke of York being a papist, and the hope of his coming to the crown, had given the greatest encouragement to the conspiracies of papists."

"In 1680, the commons were preparing an act which would have operated severely against the Catholics, and even to re-introduce the obnoxious bill of exclusion, when the king came to the sudden resolution of dissolving the parliament. Of this intention it appears they had intelligence about a quarter of an hour previous to their being summoned to attend his majesty in the house of peers. Some violent resolutions were therefore passed in a manner little less tumultuary than those of the parliament which had been as unexpectedly dissolved by the late king. By one of these they resolved, That it is the opinion of this house, that the city of London was burnt in the year 1666 by the papists, designing thereby to introduce arbitrary power and popery into the kingdom.'* In fact, they were rapidly treading in the steps of their predecessors, in ascribing every evil of every description to the damnable and hellish plots of the papists. Nor could the compliance of

6

*Journals of the House of Commons, Lunædie 10 Januarii 1680, Vol. ix. p. 703.

the king with their bigoted prejudices, in causing several Catholics to be executed for the simple offence of being in priest's orders,* remove from him the imputation of a more than ordinary partiality to the proscribed faith.

"With the exception of the short session at Oxford, this was the last parliament that Charles ever assembled."+

In 1681, the Duke of York was presented by the justices of the Old Bailey as a popish recusant, on the affidavit of Dr. Oates, in which it was sworn that the duke had been seen by the deponent at mass. The proceedings were removed by certiorari to the King's Bench, where they were adjourned the 28th of March, 1681, and were no more heard of. This was the last appearance in public, in his official capacity, of Dr. Oates.

The patrons of the plot derived no benefit from the death of Viscount Stafford. The general persuasion of his innocence gave the king courage to make a stand against Shaftesbury and the patriot lord, both of whom, in every stage of this infamous conspiracy against the Catholics, pushed on the subordinate agents to further excesses, supported their credit, and clamoured for the blood of their victims. The latter whig lord particularly distinguished himself in pressing for the execution of the convicted priests; the former in sustaining the credit of the perjured witnesses.

The parliament being prorogued, a check was given to the machinations of the plotters. Shaftesbury and his followers proceeded to Oxford, when the next parliament assembled there, with many armed attendants, wearing round their hats a ribbon with the inscription, "No popery, no slavery."

Shaftesbury's reign, however, was over in October, 1681. He was indicted for subornation of perjury, and making warlike preparations, with the view of cocrcing the king at Oxford. The bill was ignored, and the carl was for a few days all triumphant. Two treasonable papers, however, wore discovered, which deeply involved him. He skulked like a coward in various places, while he was urging Monmouth, Essex, and their friends to rise in arms; and like a poltroon, terrified by fears for his own safety, he still endan

Hume, c. 68, § 14.
Brown's Penal Laws.

McPherson's State Papers, Vol. i. p. 141.

gered the lives of his associates by his counsels after he had effected his escape. He fled to Holland, and died there

two months after his flight.

The

The whigs of 1682 sunk under the opprobrium of their leader and the machinations of their party. Their power and their places passed into the hands of the tories. Duke of York returned in triumph to the capital. The clergy, however, were charged still by their prelates to present all recusant Catholics and others. But the king was now at liberty to follow his own inclinations. He remitted the sentence of death in the case of several priests convicted of taking orders in the Church of Rome, and sent them out of the kingdom.

The new government, however, plunged at once into the old excesses of intolerance. All nonconformists were anew warred against. Their tenets, opinions, and prejudices were outraged and insulted. The old spirit of persecution passed over to the side of power with its wonted instincts. The covenant, which the puritans believed dictated by the Holy Spirit, was burned by the hands of the common hangman, amidst the loud and continuous shouts of the same populace which had shouted for Cromwell and the other saints of "the Lord's army.'

His majesty, moreover, did not forget the insulting terms he was compelled to subscribe to in Scotland, in respect to his father and his grandmother. He and his government, in opposition to the will of the whole Scotch people, proceeded to the re-establishment of episcopal Church govern

ment.

The 5th of February, 1685, Charles II. died. Having declined to receive the Sacrament from the Bishop of Bath and Wells, his brother, the Duke of York, knelt down, and asked him if he might send for a Catholic priest. "For God's sake, do," was the king's reply; "but will it not expose you to danger?" James minded not the danger. The priest Huddleston was brought to the king, and Charles died in the communion of the Catholic Church,* of the truth of which Ilume states he had been previously convinced, as appeared from two papers left by him, and published after his death by James.

* Lingard, Vol. xii. p. 353.

CHAPTER XV.

STATE OF THE CATHOLICS IN ENGLAND, IN THE REIGN OF JAMES II., FROM 1685 TO THE END OF 1688.

JAMES II., succeeded to the throne in 1685, not only tranquilly, but "without a murmur." The second Sunday after his brother's death, he publicly attended the queen's chapel, and soon after on festivals went there in state, and on such occasions received the sacrament, some of his Protestant ministers usually accompanying him to the door. Within two months of his accession, he charged the judges to discourage prosecutions on account of religion, and ordered by proclamation the discharge of persons confined for non-conformity. The Presbyterians who were persecuted under the conventicle act were liberated, Catholics to the amount of some thousands, and Quakers of about twelve hundred.*

Though James had continued to conform to the Church of England till the year 1669, it is evident from a letter to him from his brother Charles in 1654, (at that time in exile,) that apprehensions were then entertained of his orthodoxy. The letter, taken from the Thurloe State Papers, is dated Cologne, Nov. 16, 1654.

"Dear Brother,

"I have received yours without a date, in which you mention, that Mr. Montague has endeavoured to pervert you in your religion. I do not doubt but you remember very well the commands I left with you at my going away, concerning that point, and am confident you will observe them. Yet the letters that come from Paris say, that it is the queen's purpose to do all she can to change your religion, which, if you hearken to her, or any body else in that matter, you must never think to see England or me

* Lingard, Vol. xiii. p. 9,

again; and whatsoever mischief shall fall on me, or my affairs, from this time, I must lay all upon you, as being the only cause of it. Therefore, consider well what it is, not only to be the cause of ruining a brother that loves you so well, but also of your king and country. Do not let them persuade you, either by force or fair promises; for the first, they neither dare nor will use; and for the second, as soon as they have perverted you, they will have their end, and will care no more for you.

"I am also informed, that there is a purpose to put you in a Jesuit's college, which I command you, upon the same grounds, never to consent unto. And whenever any body shall go to dispute with you on religion, do not answer them at all; for though you have the reason on your side, yet they being prepared, will have the advantage of any body, that is not upon the same security that they are. If you do not consider what I say to you, remember the last words of your dead father, which were, to be constant to your religion, and never to be shaken in it; which, if you do not observe, this shall be the last time you will ever hear from your most affectionate brother,

CHARLES R.*

During his brother's reign, James had resolutely encountered the malevolence of open hostility and secret intrigue on account of his religion, and now in power, he determined to set his face against persecution. The new king openly avowed the two great objects he had in view, were, to grant liberty of conscience and freedom of worship— the removal of religious tests, and the abolition of sanguinary and oppressive penal laws.†

The Bishop of London and the clergy became alarmed for the established Church; toleration to them meant danger to Protestantism, the pulpits of the capital began to resound with declamations against popery. James remonstrated with the bishop, and his clergy were restrained within becoming limits. The king and queen

*Thurloe's State Papers, Vol. i. p. 661.

In a dispatch of Barillon, the French ambassador, to his master, (Feb. 19th, 1685, 2 Dalrymple's Memoirs, Appendix to Part 1. p. 104.) the latter states, James had told him "that he knew well enough he should never be in safety, till a liberty of conscience was established firmly in their (the Catholic's) favour in England: and that it was to this he was wholly to apply himself, as soon as he saw a possibility.”