JAMES, the second surviving son of Charles I. and Henrietta Maria, was born at St. James's, Oct. 15, 1633, and was immediately created duke of York. He accompanied his father during the civil war, and was captured by Fairfax on the surrender of Oxford, but contrived to escape, disguised as a girl, to Holland, in the year 1648. He served with reputation in both the French and Spanish armies, and was ready to take the command of a force for the invasion of England if the rising of Sir George Booth and others in 1659 had been successful. The duke returned to England with his brother in 1660, and having a great aptitude for sea affairs, he acted as lord high admiral until, having become a Romanist, he was displaced by the Test Act in 1673. The popular commotion on the Popish plot induced him to retire abroad, but he was soon recalled, and appointed to the government of Scotland, which he administered with harshness. His enemies in England laboured earnestly to exclude him from the throne, but ineffectually, and he became king on the death of his brother, Feb. 6, 1685. James commenced his reign with disclaiming any intention of interfering with the Church, and promising a legal course of government; but his acts were not in accordance with his declarations, and his opponents, who in the last years of his brother's reign had found an asylum in Holland, at once began to concert measures for an invasion. Accordingly the duke of Monmouth landed in England, and the earl of Argyle in Scotland, but both failed, and the attempt of the former especially was punished with extreme severity. James was emboldened by this success to proceed with hasty steps in a design which he had unhappily formed of restoring Romanisma. He had at the commencement of his reign made arrangements with that view in Scotland and Ireland, and he now ventured to extend them to England. He claimed a power of dispensing with the penal laws, dismissed his parliament when it shewed a resolution to oppose him, exhausted every effort to gain converts, called such, as well as Romish ecclesiastics, to his councils, laboured to procure the repeal of the Test Act, and for bade the controversial sermons which the clergy, justly alarmed at his proceedings, felt it their duty to deliver. This injunction was disregarded, and to enforce it (in defiance of a positive enactment to the contrary), a new court of Ecclesiastical Commission was established, which suspended the bishop of London from his office, and afterwards perpetrated the most flagrant injustice on both Universities. The Church, through these harsh and illegal measures of James, was exposed to a severe trial during his reign, but happily the prelates were (with some few exceptions that are easily accounted for d) eminently fitted for their posts, and their passive resistance d Crewe, Sprat, Cartwright, and Parker, all avowed puritans at one period of their lives, are alluded to. The first two sat on the Ecclesiastical Commission; the next laboured to procure addresses of thanks from his clergy for the declaration of indulgence; and the last usurped the presidency of Magdalen, a step which threatened the property of every man in the country, and precipitated the Revolution. He retained for a time in office the marquis of succeed to the archbishopric of Canterbury, when Halifax, Lord Rochester (his brother-in-law), and Sancroft should be deprived; but, if such was his others who were esteemed friends of legal govern- view, he was disappointed. He took little further sment, but it was soon found that his confidence was part in public affairs, and died, after holding the given to men of a very different description. Of see of London thirty-eight years, July 7, 1713. these, the most prominent was Robert Spenser, earl of Sunderland, born in 1641, and son of the peer killed in the first battle of Newbury. He had been employed by Charles II. in various embassies, and first became distinguished in parliament by opposing the Exclusion Bill; he afterwards favoured it, but being of a supple, insinuating nature, he procured a reconciliation with the duke of York, and, most unhappily, was placed by him at the head of affairs when he became king. He professed himself a convert to Romanism, and urged the most destructive measures, being all the while, as is now known, not only a pensioner of France, but in correspondence with the ministers of the prince of Orange; who, when he obtained the crown, after a short interval of apparent disgrace did not scruple to employ him, though the action was most unpopular. Sunderland died in 1702, leaving a character of almost unparalleled baseness. Another adviser of the king, though probably a mere tool of Sunderland, was Edward Petre, a Jesuit; a few Romanist peers were also called to his councils, but it is evident, from the king's own account in his Memoirs, that their advice was more moderate than that of Sunderland or Petre, who were mere political adventurers. See A.D. 1641. Henry Compton, a younger son of Spencer Compton, earl of Northampton, was born in 1632. He was educated at Queen's College, Oxford, then travelled awhile, and on the Restoration became a cornet of horse; but he soon quitted the military life, and resumed his studies. In 1669 he was made a canon of Christ Church, Oxford, and afterwards master of the hospital of St. Cross, Winchester. He, however, did not reside there, but was a constant attendant at court, and was entrusted with the education of the princesses Mary and Anne. In 1674 Dr. Compton was made bishop of Oxford, and in 1675 he was translated to London. He now incurred the king's displeasure by declining to proceed in an extrajudicial way against Dr. Sharp, who had disregarded the royal order against controversial sermons. The bishop was suspended from the exercise of his function, and after a time he joined with the earl of Danby and others in inviting the prince of Orange to England. The bishop conducted the princess Anne to join the prince, and otherwise exerted himself in his cause; he also assisted at the coronation of William and Mary, and favoured William's views for a comprehension of the dissenters, expecting, as his enemies said, to Nathaniel Crewe was born of a noble family in the north of England; he was educated at Lincoln College, Oxford, of which he became rector in 1668, was in 1669 made dean of Chichester, in 1671 bishop of Oxford, and in 1674 translated to Durham. He was excepted by name from the general pardon in 1690, but eventually made his peace with the new rulers, and held his see till his death, Sept. 18, 1722. Thomas Sprat, a Devonshire man, born in 1636, and educated at Wadham College, Oxford, wrote a poem on the death of Oliver Cromwell, likening him to Moses and his son to Joshua. At the Restoration he professed to study science, thus gained favour at court, was made dean of Westminster in 1683, and bishop of Rochester in 1684. He wrote an account of the Rye-house Plot, and was in great favour with James, but at length he became alarmed, and declined to act on the Ecclesiastical Commission; and he readily took the new oaths to William and Mary. In 1692 he was taken into custody on suspicion of intriguing in favour of his old master, but was soon released. Sprat died May 20, 1713, with the character of an elegant writer, but a weak, time-serving man. Thomas Cartwright, the son of an Essex schoolmaster, was born at Northampton, Sept. 1, 1634He was brought up a puritan, was intruded by the parliamentary visitors on Queen's College, Oxford, and became vicar of Walthamstow. Professing great loyalty at the Restoration, he was appointed chaplain to the duke of Gloucester, next prebendary of St. Paul's, chaplain to the king, prebendary of Durham, and dean of Ripon. James II. made him bishop of Chester, in October, 1686; and he so heartily supported all the king's worst measures that he feared to remain behind him, and so joined him in France. Early in 1689 he accompanied James to Ireland; he died there shortly after (April 15), and was buried in Christ Church, Dublin. A professed opponent (Burnet) allows that he was man of good capacity, and had made some progress in learning," but he adds, that he was ambitious 'a eventually procured for the nation re- | lief from his misgovernment, though several of their number became eminent sufferers for conscience' sake. The king induced the judges to give a decision in favour of the dispensing power, and he followed this up by forming a camp on Hounslow heath, the officers in which were chiefly Romanists, and where mass was openly said; he also publicly received an envoy from the pope, and dismissed from office all who ventured to disapprove of his proceedings. He had already published a Declaration for liberty of conscience, and sedulously courted the Protestant nonconformists; but they in general mistrusted him, and declined to forward the restoration of Romanism by joining in his attack on the Church; this did not warn him, and he published the Declaration a second time, adding a command that it should be read in all churches. A humble petition against this order, presented to him in his own closet by the primate and six other prelates, was by his advisers pronounced a libel, and the bishops were sent to the Tower; they were soon after put upon their trial, and were acquitted (June 30, 1688), an event which brought the reign of James virtually to a close. William, prince of Orange, the sonin-law of James, had long taken a lively and servile, cruel and boisterous; and by the great hoerties he allowed himself, he fell under much scandal of the worst sort." He was Samuel Parker, also of a puritan family, was born at Northampton, in 1640. His father was a lawyer, and was one of the barons of the Exchequer in the last days of the Commonwealth. educated at Wadham College, Oxford, where, being committed to the care of a presbyterian tutor, "he did," says Anthony & Wood, according to his former breeding, lead a strict and religious life, fasted, prayed, with other students, weekly together, and for their refection feeding on thin broth, made of oatmeal and water only, they were commonly called Gruellers." At the Restoration he forsook the puritan party, and made himself remarkable for his bitter attacks on them. He became chaplain to Archbishop Sancroft, prebendary and archdeacon of Canterbury, and eventually bishop of Oxford, and a privy councillor; soon after which he was forcibly intruded into the office of president of Magdalen. He died March 20, 1688, leaving the character of a voluminous and acute writer, but a dishonest man. Parker was succeeded in the see of Oxford by Timothy Hall, an obscure Londoner, also bred a presbyterian, whose only claim to the king's favour was that he was one of the very few clergy who read his Declaration. Hall came to Oxford in October, 1688, but no one recognised his authority, and he died poor and despised, at Hackney, April 10, 1690. • John Churchill, son of Sir Winston Churchill, interest in the affairs of England, and had watched the growing discontents, which, indeed, he is by some writers accused of fomenting. He had put himself forward as the champion of Protestantism, and the opponent of the gigantic schemes of conquest planned by Louis XIV. of France; and he easily persuaded the States of Holland to supply him with a force which might enable him to procure for the people of England that protection to their religion and liberties only to be expected from a free parliament, and also to secure the right of his wife to the throne in case the king should die without male issue. A son was born to the king about the very time of the acquittal of the bishops, but doubts were expressed as to his legitimacy, and the prince landed in England, Nov. 5, 1688. The king, who had neglected the warnings given him, now attempted to retrace his steps. He reinstated Bishop Compton, made such reparation as he could to the Universities, and dismissed his most obnoxious counsellors; but he could not regain the confidence of his people. His army melted away, and the prince advanced towards London; his daughter the Princess Anne, her husband Prince George, his nephews the duke of Grafton and Lord Cornbury, and his favourite, Lord Churchill, alike forsook a Dorsetshire gentleman, was born June 24, 1650, and when very young was brought to court, when he became page to the duke of York, and was favoured and preferred by him. He soon received a commission in the Guards, served at Tangier and in France, accompanied the duke to Scotland and the continent, and in 1682 was, at his solicitation, created a Scottish peer (Lord Eyemouth), and made colonel of a regiment of the Guards. When James became king he raised him to the dignity of Lord Churchill, and made him second in command of the force employed against Monmouth. He had in the meantime (1681) married Sarah Jennings, an attendant on the Princess Anne, who possessed unbounded influence over her mistress, and he had begun to accumulate a fortune, an object which he steadily pursued through a long life, little regarding, apparently, any other consideration. Hence he deserted his benefactor at the most critical moment, and applied himself to gain the favour of the new king, but his motives were known, and he was not trusted, though he was created earl of Marlborough, and was for a time employed both in Ireland and in Flanders, on account of his great military talents. His dealings with the exiled king were discovered, and he was thrown into the Tower, but soon released. As duke and duchess of Marlborough, he and his wife were in effect rulers of the state during the greater part of the reign of Queen Anne, under which period some further account of their character and conduct will be found. him; with difficulty he sent his queen | insignia as his father and brother had and infant son to France, and en- done. deavoured to follow them, quitting Whitehall, Dec. 11, 1688, in disguise. He was, however, seized near Faversham, and brought back to London, whence in a few days he was removed under a guard of Dutch soldiers to Rochester, and was then allowed to escape to France, landing at Ambleteuse on Christmas-day. Louis XIV. received him with kindness, and engaged warmly in his quarrel. He mainly supplied the means for an attempt which James made to establish himself in Ireland, and when this failed continued a liberal pension to him to the day of his death, which event occurred Sept. 6, 1701, at St. Germain's; he was buried in the Benedictine monastery at Paris. James, while duke of York, married Anne Hyde, daughter of the chancellor, Clarendon. She died, a convert to Romanism, March 31, 1671, having borne him four sons and two daughters who all died young, and two daughters, MARY and ANNE, who both ascended the throne. In 1673 he married Mary Beatrice d'Este, sister of the duke of Modena; she bore him a son and four daughters who died young, and one son, James Francis Edward, who is known in history as the Old Pretender, or, more courteously, as the Chevalier de St. George. The queen, who was a woman of gentle and pious disposition, lived in comparative poverty, and almost monastic seclusion, in the nunnery of Chaillot after the death of her husband, and expired, May 7, 1718, at St. Germain's. James left also, by Miss Churchill', the sister of the duke of Marlborough, a natural son, James duke of Berwick, who served with much distinction in the French army, and was killed at the siege of Philipsburg in 1734. James employed the same arms and f She also bore him two daughters, of whom one died a nun, and the other, Henrietta, married Sir Henry Waldegrave, afterwards Lord Waldegrave. Katherine Sedley, another of his mistresses, bore him a daughter, who married, first, James Annesley, earl of Anglesey, and secondly, John Sheffield, duke of Buckingham. Many of the Jacobites, as they were afterwards termed, held this opinion, and would willingly have supported a regency; but they would go no further, as they questioned the justice of excluding the son for the fault of the parent. His exertions while lord high admiral, assisted Arms of James II. The conduct of this king has been censured by all parties, and it appears undeniable that he was justly excluded from the rule that he had so abused. He was fond of arbitrary power, and being naturally of a stern and resolute temper, he was too ready to listen to dishonest advisers, and to attempt to compass his ends by violent means; he was in consequence far less successful than his brother, who had relied on address and corruption. Yet he was personally a better man than his predecessor. He had in earlier life displayed courage and activity, and was even laborious in his attention to the duties of the high offices that he filled; but when he became king, it appeared that not only was his temper soured, but even his mind in some degree affected by the vexations and disappointments that he met with. His private life was vicious, though less openly scandalous than that of Charles; but he is allowed, even by his enemies, to have been a kind parent, and hence not to have merited the treatment he met with at the hands of his daughters. His conversion to Romanism is often looked on as the cause of all his difficulties, but this may reasonably be doubted; his very nature seems to have been tyrannical; and he is conceived to have adopted his new creed rather from political than from by the indefatigable Pepys, the secretary of the navy, raised the fleet which afterwards won the battle of La Hogue, and his camp at Hounslow was the nursery for the victorious army of Marlborough. i It has been alleged in their defence that their father had an intention of disinheriting them in favour of a Romanist successor; but there is every reason for believing that this is nothing more than a malignant invention of the Dutch envoys, who were sent by William of Orange to intrigue with James's discontented subjects. religious motives, being persuaded that it was more favourable than any other to the rule of an absolute monarch. A.D. 1685. James succeeds to the throne, Feb. 6, and is crowned April 23. He professes his intention to defend and support the Church of England, and to observe the laws; yet he goes in royal state to mass, forms a secret council of Romanists, opens a negotiation with the pope (Innocent XI.), and levies taxes by his own authority. Many Romanists, and some Protestant nonconformists, are discharged from prison by the king's order'. The duke of Ormond is deprived of the government of Ireland, Feb. 24. After a time the office of lord lieutenant is given to the earl of Clarendon, but the real power is entrusted to Richard Talbot", created earl of Tyrconnel. The Scottish parliament meets April 23. It passes rigid laws against the Covenanters, who are at the same time harassed by the soldiery under Graham of Claverhouse ". The various bodies of exiles in Holland resolve on the invasion of both England and Scotland, April. The triumph of the government in the latter years of the reign of Charles II. had driven men of very different classes to seek refuge abroad; and when they met to concert their measures they found that they agreed in This consisted of Petre, the Jesuit; Richard Talbot and Henry Jermyn, soon after created earls of Tyrconnel and Dover: Lords Arundel and Belasyze, and the earls of Castlemaine and Powis. Romanists and quakers were the only parties who benefited by this, as it was limited to those who were confined for refusing the oaths of allegiance and supremacy; persons imprisoned for offences against the Conventicle Act, or for refusing to pay tithes, were not released. Henry Hyde, the eldest son of the chancellor. His brother Lawrence was earl of Rochester. He was a younger son of an old English family of the Pale, which had been concerned in the Irish rebellion; but he had joined Charles II. while in exile, and had ever since been a dependant on the court. Lord Clarendon gives a very unfavourable character of him, and he appears to have been a man of a violent nature, rough and boisterous in his behaviour, and utterly destitute of honourable principle. According to the statement of Oates, he was concerned in the Popish plot, but he escaped prosecution; one of his brothers (Peter Talbot, a Jesuit,) died a prisoner on a similar charge, in 1680. little beside their hatred to the English government. Unfortunately for themselves, the duke of Monmouth and the earl of Argyle seemed pointed out by their rank for leaders, though neither of them possessed the strength of mind necessary to control the turbulent men by whom they were surrounded; and they suffered themselves, against their better judgment, to become the nominal heads of expeditions, the fate of which was hopeless from the very beginning, as every thing was betrayed by a spy". The followers of Monmouth, though there were several republicans and Rye-house plotters among them, professed a wish to make him king, and therefore treated him with outward deference, which he ill repaid by being one of the first to flee from the field. Argyle, on the other hand, was denied the authority necessary to the commander of any warlike expedition; he was controlled in every step by a council which could never come to a decision; and he was abandoned to his fate, when a few militia-men appeared in arms against him. Titus Oates is convicted of perjury in relation to the Popish plot, May 9. He is fined, degraded, sentenced to be whipped and put in the pillory, and to be imprisoned for life. The parliament meets May 19. It settles tunnage and poundage and other duties on the king for life, [I Jac. II. c. 1]. The earl of Danby, and the Romanist lords committed to the Tower on the P This is believed to have been Robert Ferguson, a fugitive presbyterian minister, who was perpetually urging the most violent measures on his companions, and venturing into the most dangerous situations, but who always escaped without harm, while those who had followed his counsel died in the field or on the scaffold. 9 The whipping was inflicted with such severity, that it seemed the intention to flog him to death. He, however, survived it, and was released at the Revolution; and though the House of Lords, bearing in mind his infamous character, refused to reverse the judgment, he received a pension, which he enjoyed until his death, in 1705. |