CHAP. I. This Act was limited to a period of six months; but it was necessarily renewed year by year throughout the reign of William, and has so continued to be enacted to the present day. Thus, under the two constitutional principles of an Appropriation of the Supplies and the passing of an annual Mutiny Bill, an English sovereign can neither raise an army nor pay one, without consent of Parliament, which he is therefore bound to assemble annually, to enable him to carry on the government.* the Habeas The dangers which rendered the enactment of the Mutiny Bill necessary to the safety of the realm also justified the Suspension of suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, to facilitate the Corpus Act. apprehension of those persons who were suspected of fomenting the troubles in Ireland and Scotland. The suspension was to terminate on the 17th of April; but it was twice renewed during the session. 7. The Whigs resist the King's Desire for a General Amnesty. -While the King thus strengthened his hands against existing dangers, he was at the same time desirous that there should be oblivion for past political offences. The Commons, of whom the majority were Whigs, were very unwilling to concur in this, because they desired to retaliate upon the Tories the sufferings they themselves had endured, on account of their support of the Exclusion Bill in the reign of Charles II. When a Bill of Indemnity was accordingly introduced, the debates upon it were long and bitter, and the exceptions proposed were so numerous that the Introduction bill virtually became converted into a sweeping proclamaIndemnity. tion of treason and misdemeanour against the Tory chiefs. The Lords, indeed, went so far as to appoint what was called at the time a Murder Committee (December, 1689), to inquire who were answerable for the deaths of Russell, Sidney and other eminent Whigs. Nothing in the shape of an amnesty was, therefore, concluded by the Convention Parliament; but in that which followed, William took the matter into his own hands by sending down an Act of Grace.t of a Bill of The vindictive spirit which the Whigs thus displayed lost them a great part of their popularity, while it still further estranged them from the King. In order to retain their superiority they introduced a Bill for restoring Corporations to the state in which they were in 1675, and for excluding from municipal offices of trust, for the space of seven years, every Bill for depriving the Tories of municipal power. * Knight's Pop. Hist., V., 75, 76; Macaulay, IV., 39-49; Hallam's Const. Hist., II., 313. + Macaulay, V., 1; Hallam's Const. Hist., II., 276. 1689 mayor or other officer, who had acted, or even concurred in surrendering the charters under the writs of Quo Warranto issued in the two last reigns. The bill fell to the ground (10th January, 1690), so that the Tories, who had come into the Corporations by the above surrenders, retained their influence therein, the effect of which was soon made apparent by the elections for the next Parliament.* 8. Passing of the Toleration Act.-Another of the King's desires was the establishment of full toleration for religious belief. At this time the Church of England was distinctly broken up into those two great parties which still exist within its pale-the High Church party and the Low Church party. To the former belonged Sancroft and the Nonjurors; to the latter, Tillotson and Burnet. The real head of the Low Church party was the King, who was a Presbyterian by education, and a Latitudinarian by conviction. Ambitious of acting as the mediator among the Protestant sects, he sought the accomplishment of three great reforms in the laws touching ecclesiastical matters. First, the security of religious toleration for Three great Dissenters; Second, such an alteration in the ritual and desired by discipline of the Church as would satisfy the scruples of William. Nonconformists; and Third, the admission of Protestants without distinction of sect, to all civil offices. reforms The first of these objects was effected by the Toleration Act which was passed without much difficulty (May 24, 1689). 1. This Act provided that none of the existing penalties against separate conventicles, or absence from the established worship, should be enforced against those who took the oaths of allegiance, and The subscribed the declaration against Popery. Toleration 2. Ministers of separate congregations were also to subscribe Act. the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England, except three, viz., the 34th, 35th and 36th, and those words of the 20th which declare that the Church hath power to decree rites and ceremonies and hath authority in controversies of faith. 3. Quakers were granted indulgence by simply making a declaration, and those who entertained scruples concerning Infant Baptism were relieved from subscribing that part of the 26th Article relating thereto. 4. All Meeting-houses were to be registered, and to be protected from insult by a penalty, but no congregations were to assemble within locked or closed doors. 5. Papists and Unitarians or Socinians were excluded from the provisions of the Act, and it was expressly laid down that none of its provisions excused the payment of tithes.† * Macaulay, V., 145; Hallam's Const. Hist., II., 278. Hallam's Const. Hist., II., 335, 336; Knight's Pop. Hist. V., 74; read also Macaulay's remarks (IV. 87-91) on the Act as an illustration of the peculiar vices and excellences of English legislation. CHAP. I. Judged by modern opinions this Act conferred but a scanty measure of religious liberty, but it afforded real relief at the time, because its cumbrous and impracticable conditions gradually fell into disuse, and the praises bestowed upon it by Defoe show that it gave satisfaction to the Dissenters. 8. William's Desire for Religious Unity not gratified.-The Act of Toleration was not approved of by a large proportion of the clergy, who, with the Tories, expected that because the Revolution had been brought about by Church of England hands, a stop would be put to the encroachments of Dissenters equally with those of Papists. There stood, therefore, in the way of William's second object, the prejudices and disappointed hopes of this great party, and when the Earl of Nottingham, himself a zealous Churchman, introduced the Comprehension Bill, it met with a very cold reception. Comprehension Bill. This Bill proposed that ministers should be released from the necessity of subscribing the Thirty-nine Articles, but that they should be Nottingham's required to declare generally their approval of the doctrine, worship and practice of the Church. Presbyterian Ordination was not to disqualify any minister from holding a Church living; and the wearing of the surplice, the use of the cross in baptism, and some other minor observances which had offended the Puritans, were not to be insisted upon. Commons refer it to This Bill passed the Peers in a mutilated shape; but when it went down to the Commons they referred it to Convocation. That ecclesiastical parliament had transacted no real business since 1665, when the clergy gave up the right of taxing themselves.* They had been summoned, as usual, but, unfortunately, Convocation, this important measure was now submitted to the members, a time when they were distracted by violent divisions, and although a commission was appointed which drew up a report, nothing further was done. The Comprehension Bill, together with the proposed Reform of the Liturgy, thus fell to the ground, and no attempt has since been made to reunite the Puritans with the Establishment. which rejects it. at William's third object met with no better success. The admission of all Protestants to civil employments could only be effected by the abolition of the Test Act. This would have emancipated the Roman Catholics also, a measure of toleration for which the age was not prepared. The Test Act therefore remained in force against Nonconformists.t The Test Act remains in force. • See "England under the Stuarts," p. 303. Knight's Pop. Hist. V., 73; Hallain's Const. Hist., II., 336-341. 1689 10. The Non-jurors.-The strongest reason which probably prevented any alteration in the public liturgy and service was the risk of nourishing the schism of the Non-jurors. When the 1st of August arrived these men, comprehending an influential but very small section of the clergy (about 400 in number), refused to take the new oaths of fealty and allegiance, and they were accordingly deprived of their benefices. They left the Church on purely political grounds. Holding strictly the doctrine of passive obedience, they maintained that obedience was due only to the rightful "powers that be," and not to "the powers that be" in possession irrespective of any title. It was, therefore, thought that any change in the established worship would offend their prejudices, and give them occasion to represent themselves as the only orthodox teachers. They had in fact already begun to stigmatisethe Low Some of them Churchmen and those who took the oaths as schismatics. set up a But it so happened that they fell into the snare of schism worship. themselves, and some of them set up a system approach separate ing somewhat to that of Rome, and maintained it in feeble existence till the reign of George II. The foremost men among the Non-jurors were Sancroft the primate, Turner bishop of Ely, Lloyd bishop of Norwich, Frampton bishop of Gloucester, Lake bishop of Chichester, White bishop of Peterborough, and Ken bishop of Bath and Wells. Among the priesthood, Sherlock, Leslie, Hickes, Jeremy Collier, Kettlewell and Fitzwilliam were the most conspicuous. 11. Declaration of War against France. Whilst these great questions of the domestic settlement of the country were under debate, William was actively engaged in completing the coalition which had been projected at Augsburg in 1686.* Hitherto the devastation House of Austria had felt some scruples in coalescing with Protestant allies against a Catholic sovereign; but the French terrible devastation of the Palatinate under Marshal Duras of the Palatiin May, 1689, completely removed these scruples, and the nate. confederate powers at once cried out for vengeance.† The House of Commons presented an address to the King, assuring him of their warm support, whenever he should resort to arms. On the 13th of May war was formally declared against France; the German Empire, the States General and the Duchy of Brandenburg had already done so, and Spain presently followed. The greater part of Europe was thus confederated against France, and the England under the Stuarts, p. 385; Coxe's House of Austria, II., 416, 417. + See Dyer's Modern Europe, III., 153. CHAP. I. treaty which bound the allies together was therefore called the Grand Alliance. The chief ground of quarrel stated in the English manifesto was, the interference of Louis in the affairs of Ireland, and the assistance he had given to James for the invasion of that country. 2. THE REVOLUTION IN IRELAND AND SCOTLAND. The Eng. lish ejected from their estates. Arming of the Irish. 12. State of Ireland at the Revolution.-The policy of James in Ireland, had completely subjected the English in that country, and inverted the relation between the natives and their conquerors. The highest offices in the State were filled by Papists, while the English were ejected from their estates, and their titles thereto set aside, without any hope of redress. Many towns lost their charters, and municipal corporations were remodelled in such a manner that Protestant communities were in every instance placed under the government of Irish Roman Catholic officials. The transfer of military power was not less complete. Whole regiments were dissolved and reconstructed; and the natives, burning to revenge themselves for past injuries and oppressions, were enlisted into the new battalions and entrusted with arms. A panic, accordingly spread among the English; large numbers of them left The English the country, and those who could not escape drew closer together and prepared for a resolute defence. At Kenmare, in the south-western part of Kerry, the colonists, after submitting to repeated outrages from Tyrconnel's soldiery, stood on their defence, provisioned their little town as if for a siege, and then began to make vigorous reprisals on their Irish neighbours. Similar preparations were made at Sligo, Bandon, Mallow, and other towns, but the principal strongholds of the Englishry in this evil time were Enniskillen and Londonderry. leave the country. Enniskillen The inhabitants of Enniskillen were, with scarcely an exception, Protestants. Tyrconnel accordingly sent orders for them The men of to provide accommodation for some Popish infantry; they resolutely refused to do so, and when the soldiers arrived, the inhabitants presented such a bold front against them, that the soldiers made a precipitate retreat. The Enniskilleners then elected Gustavus Hamilton their governor, and actively prepared for war. t prepare for war. * See "England under the Stuarts," pp. 380-381. + Macaulay, IV., 131-146; also Froude's "English in Ireland," I., 176, et seq. |