1688. upon it did the great war begin, which lasted till Reflections the peace of Ryswick. And, upon the grounds laid made upon down in this manifesto, it will evidently appear, it. whether the war was a just one, or not. This declaration was much censured, both for the matter and for the style. It had not the air of greatness, which became crowned heads. The duchess of Orleans's pretensions to old furniture was a strange rise to a war; especially when it was not alleged, that these had been demanded in the forms of law, and that justice had been denied, which was a course necessarily to be observed in things of that nature. The judging of the secret intentions of the elector palatine, with relation to the house of Bavaria, was absurd. And the complaints of designs to bring the emperor to a peace with the Turks, that so he might make war on France, and of the emperor's design to force an election of a king of the Romans, was the entering into the secrets of those thoughts which were only known to God. Such conjectures, so remote and uncertain, and that could not be proved, were a strange ground of war. If this was once admitted, all treaties of peace were vain things, and were no more to be reckoned or relied on. The reason given of the intention to take Philipsbourg, because it was the properest place by which France could be invaded, was a throwing off all regards to the common decencies observed by princes. All fortified places on frontiers are intended both for resistance and for magazines; and are of both sides conveniencies for entering into the neighbouring territory, as there is occasion for it. So here was a pre772 tence set up, of beginning a war, that puts an end to all the securities of peace. The business of Colen was judged by the pope, 1688, according to the laws of the empire: and his sentence was final: nor could the postulation of the majority of the chapter be valid, unless two-thirds joined in it. The cardinal was commended in the manifesto, for his care in preserving the peace of Europe. This was ridiculous to all, who knew that he had been for many years the great incendiary, who had betrayed the empire, chiefly in the year 1672. The charge that the emperor's agent had laid on him before the chapter was also complained of, as an infraction of the amnesty stipulated by the peace of Nimeguen. He was not indeed to be called to an account, in order to be punished for any thing done before that peace. But that did not bind up the emperor from endeavouring to exclude him from so great a dignity, which was like to prove fatal to the empire. These were some of the censures that passed on this manifesto; which was indeed looked on, by all who had considered the rights of peace and the laws of war, as one of the most avowed and solemn declarations, that ever was made, of the perfidiousness of that court. And it was thought to be some degrees beyond that in the year 1672, in which that king's glory was pretended as the chief motive of that war. For, in that, particulars were not reckoned up so it might be supposed, he had met with affronts, which he did not think consistent with his greatness to be mentioned. But here all that could be thought on, even the hangings of Heidelberg, were enumerated: and all together amounted to this, that the king of France thought himself tied by no peace; but that, when he suspected his neighbours were intending to make war upon him, he 1688. might upon such a suspicion begin a war on his part 9. Another against the pope. This manifesto against the emperor was followed by another against the pope, writ in the form of a letter to cardinal D'Estrées, to be given by him to the pope. In it, he reckoned all the partiality that the pope had shewed during his whole pontificate, both against France and in favour of the house of Austria. He mentioned the business of the regale; his refusing the bulls to the bishops nominated by him; the dispute about the franchises, of which his ambassadors had been long in possession; the denying audience, not only to his ambassador, but to a gentleman whom he had sent to Rome without a character, and with a letter writ in his own hand: in conclusion, he complained of the pope's breaking the canons of the church, in granting bulls in favour of prince Clement, and in denying justice to cardinal Furstemberg: for all these reasons the king was re773 solved to separate the character of the most holy father from that of a temporal prince: and therefore he intended to seize on Avignon, as likewise on Castro, until the pope should satisfy the pretensions of the duke of Parma. He complained of the pope's not concurring with him in the concerns of the church, for the extirpation of heresy: in which the pope's behaviour gave great scandal both to the old catholics and to the new converts. It also gave the prince of Orange the boldness to go and invade the king of England, under the pretence of supporting the protestant religion, but indeed to destroy the catholic religion, and to overturn the government'. The common maxim of princes. S. (It appears from cardinal D'Estrées's two letters, pub Upon which his emissaries and the writers in Hol- 1688. land gave out, that the birth of the prince of Wales was an imposture. This was the first public mention that was made of the imposture of that birth: for the author of a book writ to that purpose was punished for it in Holland. It was strange to see the disputes about the franchises made a pretence for a war: for certainly all sovereign princes can make such regula tions as they think fit in those matters. If they cut ambassadors short in any privilege, their ambassadors are to expect the same treatment from other princes: and as long as the sacredness of an ambassador's person and of his family was still preserved, which was all that was a part of the law of nations, princes may certainly limit the extent of their other privileges, and may refuse any ambassadors who will not submit to their regulation. The number of an ambassador's retinue is not a thing that can be well defined: but if an ambassador comes with an army about him, instead of a retinue, he may be denied admittance. And if he forces it, as Lavardin had done, it was certainly an act of hostility: and, instead of having a right to the character of an ambassador, he might well be considered and treated as an enemy. The pope had observed the canons in rejecting cardinal Furstemburg's defective postulation. And, whatever might be brought from ancient canons, the practice of that church for many ages allowed of the lished by Dalrymple in the Appendix to his Memoirs, p. 240 -253, that the pope highly approved of the league against France; and that the intended Censures that passed upon it. 1688. dispensations that the pope granted to prince Clement. It was looked on by all people as a strange reverse of things, to see the king of France, after all his cruelty to the protestants, now go to make war on the pope; and on the other hand to see the whole protestant body concurring to support the authority of the pope's bulls in the business of Colen; and to defend the two houses of Austria and Bavaria, by whom they were laid so low but threescore years before this. The French, by the war that they had now begun, had sent their troops towards Germany and the upper Rhine; and so had 774 rendered their sending an army over to England im Schomberg sent to Cleve. practicable: nor could they send such a force into the bishopric of Colen as could any ways alarm the States. So that the invasion of Germany made the designs that the prince of Orange was engaged in both practicable and safe. Marshal Marshal Schomberg came at this time into the country of Cleve. He was a German by birth: so when the persecution was begun in France, he desired leave to return into his own country. That was denied him. All the favour he could obtain was leave to go to Portugal. And so cruel is the spirit of popery, that, though he had preserved that kingdom from falling under the yoke of Castille, yet now that he came thither for refuge, the inquisition represented that matter of giving harbour to a heretic so odiously to the king, that he was forced to send him away. He came from thence, first to England; and then he passed through Holland, where he entered into a particular confidence with the prince of Orange. And being invited by the old elector of Brandenburgh, he went to Berlin: where |
