tensions and his power. The ancient jealousy of Englishmen towards France, suspended for a century while danger seemed more to threaten on the side of Spain, revived in full strength. The Dutch Republic entertained reasonable apprehensions of the consequences likely to follow from the near neighborhood of its recent ally. Sir William That accomplished statesman, Sir William Temple, was now residing at Brussels, as minister to the Spanish Regent. He sought an interview at the Hague with the Pensionary, De Witt, then at the head of the Dutch administration. As well-wishers to their respective countries, though without authority to treat, they discussed public affairs in a free conversation, and Temple communicated what had passed between them in a letter to his brother, a rising lawyer, who Temple at the had access to the court. Whatever might be Hague. the personal inclinations of the king of England, he was not now in a condition to neglect the urgent wishes of his subjects. That public displeasure against the court which had brought Lord Clarendon to ruin was not yet exhausted. The King, in want of money, was open to the argument that he would do wisely to propitiate the favor of the Commons by a 1 Letter to Sir John Temple, in Works of Sir William Temple, I. 305. The letter is extremely interesting; not least so for De Witt's account, reported in it, of the behavior of our compatriot, George Downing, in bringing on the late war. - Pepys (Diary, IV. 224, 225) writes: "1668; Dec. 27. Met with Sir G. Downing, and walked with him one hour, talking of business, and how the late war was managed, there being nobody to take care of it; and he telling, when he was in Holland, what he offered the King to do if he might have power; and then, upon the least word, perhaps of a woman, to the Oct. 10. King, he was contradicted again, and particularly to the loss of all that we lost in Guinny. He told me that he had so good spies that he hath had the keys taken out of De Witt's pocket when he was a-bed, and his closet opened, and papers brought to him and left in his hands for an hour, and carried back, and laid in the place again, and keys put into De Witt's pocket again. He says he hath always had their most private debates, that have been but between two or three of the chief of them, brought to him in an hour after, and an hour after that hath sent word thereof to the King." quarrel with France. Temple received orders to repeat his visit to De Witt and sound him further, and then to come to London for consultation. From London he was sent back again to the Hague, where he proceeded in his business with such energy and despatch, that in five days from his arrival he had concluded a treaty of alliance. The Triple 1668. Jan. 13. The contracting parties agreed together to put a stop, on the one hand, to the conquests of France, by insisting on her adherence to the terms of a compromise which (not in good faith, as was believed) she had lately proposed to Spain; and, on the other hand, to compel Spain to accept the offer which had been made. Sweden was admitted as another party to the agreement, which accordingly received the name of the Triple Alliance. The measure was esteemed so important as to have restored England to her natural high place in the system of European politics. It made the English negotiator widely famous, and won back to his master not a little of the enthusiasm which the misconduct of past years had dispelled.1 Another undertaking of the time, could it have been carried out, would have conciliated to the King a large and justly irritated portion of his subjects. On the dismissal of Lord Clarendon, Sir Orlando Bridgman, a dull and learned lawyer, without political amAug. 31. bition, was placed at the head of the Chancery Court, as Lord Keeper. His moderate way of thinking in religious matters, as well as his views of what policy required in existing circumstances, inclined 1667. 1 "The league..... the only good public thing that hath been done, since the King come into England." (Pepys, Memoirs, &c., IV. 40; comp. 18.) Sir Orlando was, however, an ambitious rhetorician, as the reader of his Charges when he sat on the Commis- a Religious sion. him to measures of reconciliation with the Presbyterians, and of toleration to the Independents.1 In his scheme for this end he was sustained by the Scheme for Duke of Buckingham, now desirous of extend- Comprehening his popular connections; by Sir Matthew Hale, Chief Justice of the King's Bench, whose upright and generous mind welcomed every liberal project; by Wilkins, Bishop of Chester, whose genial temper and various studies, no less than his lax theology, rendered him incapable of bigotry; and by Stillingfleet and Tillotson, two young divines now rising to the height which they afterwards adorned in the most respectable days of the episcopate of England. These eminent persons set on foot a negotiation with Baxter, Bates, Manton, and other Presbyterian leaders, for carrying into effect by special legislation the purposes which had been announced by the King in his Declaration at Breda.3 The King was not averse to the plan; the less so, because indulgence shown to any class of dissenters from the Church of England would afford a precedent for extending it to Catholics. But the Parliament that had banished Lord Clarendon was not behind that minister himself in stubborn devotion to the Church; and so far was it from favoring the proposed ecclesiastical reform, that the House of Commons by April 8. a very large majority refused to advise the King "to send for such persons as he should think fit, to make proposals to him in order to the uniting of his Prot 1668. 1 Kennett, Complete History of Eng- the King or the Parliament what to land, III. 272. 2 Parliamentary History, IV. 515. 3 "There is great presumption that there will be a toleration granted, so that the Presbyterians do hold up their heads; but they will hardly trust yield them, though most of the sober party be for some kind of allowance to be given them." (Pepys, Memoirs, &c., IV. 18; comp. Reliquiæ Baxterianæ, III. 36-49; Burnet, History of His Own Time, I. 259.) estant subjects."1 Other proceedings of the Commons. showed that discontent was only partially allayed by the welcome treaty with Holland. Inquiries were instituted into the management of different departments of the administration; an address was presented, praying the King to order a strict execution of the against Non- laws against dissenters; and only the meagre Conformists. supply was granted him of three hundred and ten thousand pounds. It was plain that further liberality for the present was not to be looked for, and Parliament was prorogued. Increased severities May 9. At the end of a year and a half another short sesEighth Ses- sion was held. But again the Commons were sion of Par liament. 1669. Oct. 19 - Dec. 11. New Conventicle Act. April 11. obstinate, and the King could make no way. Whatever it was that revived his hopes, he soon repeated the experiment. Probably he expected to obtain favor by yielding to the current of animosity against dissenters. A new Conventicle Act was passed, which imposed fines of 1670. five shillings for the first offence, and ten for the second, on all persons present at a meeting for dissenting worship, and of twenty pounds for the first offence, and forty for the second, on preachers, and on householders harboring the meeting. The Act fur ther provided, that "all clauses therein contained should be construed most largely and beneficially for the sup pressing of Conventicles, and for the justification and encouragement of all persons to be employed in the execution thereof." When the King had given his assent, he found himself ill requited for the complaisance by a penurious grant of the proceeds of the duties on 2 1 Burnet, History of His Own Time, I. 363; Pepys, Memoirs, IV. 34, 35; Vaughan, Memorials of the Stuart Dynasty, II. 359; Neal, IV. 457-462; Parliamentary History, IV. 404-427; Journal of the Commons, IX. 77. 2 Statutes at Large, III. 822-325; comp. Amos on the English Constitution, &c., 116-122. Under the Conventicle Act, Richard Baxter was imprisoned five different times. some imports, and of authority to sell some of the ancient demesnes of the crown. With the help of fanatical informers, the Conventicle Act was sharply enforced, and dissenters were harassed with new zeal.1 Naturally the King was disappointed and vexed. He had come into the measure of the Triple Alliance with no good-will, and now it had proved barren of the expected fruit. Without being ambitious of power for itself, free from all relish for the task of governing, he was impatient of being observed and criticised. The idea of despotic authority was attractive to his mind, because a despot may be self-indulgent without limit as to his means, and without the restraint of any comment that he cares for. No money was to be had from Holland for his private use, and the relations into which he was brought by the alliance with that state assigned a leading part in public affairs to honest Englishmen who would keep a watchful eye upon the public treasury. In a different quarter there was a brighter prospect. In a bargain between the king of England and the king of France, each had a valuable consideration to offer. Louis could afford to pay for withdrawing England from her new engagements, that he might pursue more easily his operations in the Netherlands. Charles had the honor of his crown and the interests of his subjects to sell for money, which would enable him to gratify his minions, and to dispense with the attendance of meddlesome Parliaments. If disturbances should follow, the king of England would need an armed force to put them down; and an armed force the king of France was prepared to furnish, and would find his account in furnishing, for the foreign sovereign who should suppress a popular 1 Comp. Neal, IV. 468–474. 2 De Witt had intelligence of what was going on, in little more than a French par tialities of the King. year after the Triple Alliance was made. (Works of Sir William Temple, II. 40.) |