Imatges de pàgina
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gun, but

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I AM now to prosecute this work, and to give the 1685. relation of an inglorious and unprosperous reign, A reign that was begun with great advantages: but these happily bewere so poorly managed, and so ill improved, that inglorious bad designs were ill laid, and worse conducted; and all came, in conclusion, under 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 a 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 unex-618 pected revolution deserves to be well opened: I will do it as fully as I can. But, having been beyond

a He fell by the knavery of false and treacherous servants. Cole's MS. Note.

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1685. 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 my self 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 b, and on those who had the manage

b And as much on the arbitrariness of his own nature, with some disposition to cruelty. It has been said, that this temper of his inclined him to popery, as strongly as his convictions, and that the protestant religion was, in this country at least, according to his opinion, the source of faction and rebellion, and what ruined his father. He loved and aimed at absolute power, and believed that nothing could introduce and support it but the catholic religion, as the Romanists call theirs; and this increased his zeal for it, and that zeal increased his disposition to arbitrary power: so that in truth, his religion and his politics were partly the

cause of each other, and indeed they cannot easily be separated. The protestant faith is founded upon inquiry and knowledge, the popish upon submission and ignorance. And nothing leads more to slavery in the state, than blind obedience in matters of religion; as nothing tends more to civil liberty, than that spirit of free inquiry, which is the life of protestantism. So that king James's system was consistent enough in itself; but he either was mistaken in the application of it to this country, or wanted skill to conduct it. This last did, undoubtedly, precipitate his ruin; but how far the other was true or not, (that he was mistaken in his

ment of his conscience, his priests, and his Italian 1685. 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 her self.

first educa

This prince was much neglected in his childhood, The king's during the time he was under his father's care. tion. The parliament, getting him into their hands, put him under the earl of Northumberland'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 writ 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.

general design, is a matter of more difficulty. Happily for these nations, the age produced a prince formed and circumstanced as the prince of Orange was, and that the then state of Europe made his enterprise for us to be critical for them who dreaded the power of France. With this, it was not unhappy too for this country, that the introduction of popery was the chief part of the king's scheme. That engaged the clergy and the body of the church laity against him; but if he had not made it a quarrel of religion, and had designed only to make his power absolute, (which he was much inclined to,) it was as much to be feared, that, considering the state of the

He said to me, he believed

kingdom at that time, he would
have been too well able to have
established that part of his work.
The high principles in govern-
ment which the clergy profess-
ed,would certainly have carried
them so far with him, and they
large numbers of church lay-
men of the same high notions.
He would have had besides all
his courtiers, and the expectants
to be such, and in all probabi-
lity in this he would have had
his army too. By this force he
might, for a time at least, have
suppressed the civil rights of
his people, and subdued the
true protestant spirit of liberty,
(that has always been the best
guard of the other,) and only
suffered the name and shadow
of it to remain. O.

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