A.D. 1688. THE INTERREGNUM. The flight of King James was no sooner known than riots commenced in London; the Romanist chapels were destroyed, the obnoxious ministers were eagerly sought for, and the hated Jefferies being taken, was placed in the Tower, where he was soon joined by Obadiah Walker. A small body of the peers, with the marquis of Halifax at their head, associated with themselves the mayor and aldermen, got possession of the Tower, and sent a paper to the prince declaring their adhesion to him in his design to procure the calling of a free parliament; the citizens also begged him to march at once to London, and complete the work he had begun. Meantime the king had been seized at Faversham, Dec. 12, and news of this being brought to the peers, he was, on the motion of Lord Mulgrave, honourably escorted back to the capital, where he was received (Dec. 17), strangely enough, with every mark of satisfaction. This did not suit the views of the prince's chief supporters. Halifax at once repaired to him at Henley, and urged him to come to London. He did so, having first sent a message which alarmed King James', and induced him finally (though against the advice of his chief adherents") to quit the kingdom. William arrived at Whitehall Dec. 19, with 6,000 of his Dutch troops; a body of the peers (about seventy in number) repaired to him, and to these he added, • Sunderland and Petre escaped, as did the papal nuncio and Bishop Cartwright. The message was a command to withdraw from Whitehall, which had just been occupied by a party of the Dutch, under Count Solmes. James retired to Rochester, and thence to France. The most urgent in advising the bolder and wiser course of remaining was the noted Graham of Claverhouse, who had recently (Nov. 12, 1688) been created Viscount Dundee, and had just arrived in England with four Scottish regiments. He now offered to raise their mumber at once to 10,000 men, and with them to attack the Dutch, but James could not be induced to consent. Some of the more vehement, though mortal enemies of James, refused to acknowledge William because he had not taken the Covenant; they are in contemporary pamphlets likened to the Fifth Monarchy men, whose cry was "No king but King Jesus." as representatives of the people, such members of former parliaments as were in London, the mayor, aldermen, and fifty citizens. This assembly at first inclined to offer him the crown, but King James had still friends among the peers, and the result of their deliberations was a request that the prince would call a Convention, to meet Jan. 22, 1689, and settle the affairs of the nation, and that he would in the mean time provide for the public security. In Scotland the overthrow of the royal authority was more rapid. James had, on the apprehension of invasion, withdrawn the regiments which had kept the Covenanters in subjection, and the latter at once proclaimed the prince of Orange king, in Glasgow, and other places in the west, and gratified their innate hatred of the clergy by driving them from their homes with every circumstance of insult and cruelty. They soon after repaired in tumultuary bands to Edinburgh, plundered and burnt the houses of parties obnoxious to them, and coerced the Council of State, so that its Romanist members and the bishops found it essential to their safety to withdraw. The remainder of the council entered into the popular views, and many leading men repaired to London, where, on Jan. 10, 1689, they addressed themselves to William, requesting him to summon a meeting of the Scottish estates for March 14, and to administer the government in the interim'. 2 y See Note, p. 493. The chief agents of William in these transactions were the Dalrymples, father and son, both men of eminent abilities, but faithless and cruel. Sir James was born in 1619, and served in the army in his youth, but he soon forsook the sword for the gown, and became a judge under Cromwell. At the Restoration he made his peace, was appointed to the privy council, and for ten years held the high post of president of the Court of Session. In 1682 he declared himself unwilling longer to sanction the strong measures taken against the Covenanters and retired to Holland, and by vehement professions of sorrow for the part he had acted, ingratiated himself with the exiles there. He forwarded the equipment of Argyle's expedition, but he would not embark himself in it. Meanwhile his son Sir John, also a lawyer, by professions of the most ardent loyalty, obtained a grant of the estates that his father had forfeited, and also received the Ireland still remained in the obedi- second resolution unanimously, but ence of King James, for his lieutenant, very many of them opposed the first, the earl of Tyrconnel, was at the head conceiving themselves bound in hoof a force which seemed to render any nour and conscience to maintain the rising against him hopeless. The scat- rights of the prince to whom they tered Protestants of the south and west had sworn allegiance, while they were had been generally disarmed; in the ready to provide against his future north they were too compact a body misgovernment. Conferences followed to be thus dealt with. Tyrconnel, how-between the two Houses, and, as a ever, made a false step, by withdraw-compromise, a regency was proposed; ing the garrison from the walled town but the prince gave it to be understood of Londonderry; when he attempted that he would not accept the office of to re-occupy it, the gates were closed regent. He was in military possession (Dec. 7), and the inhabitants, who of the capital, and nothing apparently were almost exclusively Protestant, re- remained but to offer him the crown, solved to stand on their defence. One in order to prevent his seizing it by rallying point was thus afforded to the forced. Fresh conferences followed, opponents of James, and they soon and at last it was determined to tender found another at Enniskillen, whither the throne to William and his wife the Protestant fugitives from Con- jointly; but, warned by the evils naught and Munster repaired. The that the restoration of Charles II. attempts of James and his generals without any security for a legal course to reduce these towns signally failed, of government had occasioned, a rebut the contest was maintained in other quarters, and it required a sanguinary war of nearly three years' duration to bring Ireland under the rule of William and Mary. The English Convention met on the day named, but there was not found in it the unanimity which its proposers had expected. The majority of the Commons was resolved to bestow the crown on William of Orange, but it was not until January 28 that they succeeded in passing the two fundamental votes,-I. "That the throne was vacant; " and 2, that "The rule of a Romish prince had been seen by experience to be inconsistent with the safety and welfare of the Protestant religion." The peers agreed to the office of advocate-general, which Sir George Mackenzie had been obliged to abandon. Sir James accompanied the prince to England, and Sir John at once came over to the same side. The father soon re-obtained his presidentship, and was created Viscount Stair; he died Nov. 25, 1695. His wife (Margaret Ross) had such an evil reputation, that she was commonly known as the Witch of Endor, and a tragic incident in the history of her family, directly traceable to her pride and cruelty, forms the subject of Scott's novel, "The Bride of Lammermuir. The son, who was known as the Master of Stair, was made lord-justiciar and secretary of state, and he ordinarily bears the whole infamy of having contrived the atrocity known as the massacre of Glencoe. He was some years after deprived of office in consequence, but was not otherwise punished; indeed, in 1703 he was created an earl, and was an influential party in bringing about the Union; but he died suddenly, before that matter was fully arranged, Jan. 8, 1707. Londonderry stands at the head of Lough Foyle, in the extreme north-west of Ireland. Enniskillen occupies a small island between the upper capitulation of grievances endured from King James, and a formal enumeration and demand of the ancient rights and liberties of the nation, was made the condition of the offer, and the monarchy was thus established on a parliamentary basis. The tender was accordingly made, in the name of the Convention, by the marquis of Halifax; it was accepted, and William and Mary became "king and queen of England, France, and Ireland," Feb. 13, 1689. The Scottish estates, which met a month later, also declared the throne vacant, voted Romanists incapable of royalty, abolished episcopacy, made a claim of rights, and bestowed the crown, on certain conditions, on William and Mary, who and the lower Lough Erne; it is about sixty miles south of Londonderry, and not more than half that distance from Sligo, where King James had a strong garrison. The defence of Londonderry, which was abandoned by its governor, Colonel Lundy, was mainly conducted by George Walker, an aged clergyman of the neighbouring town of Donoughmore. When the siege was raised he came to England, was received with high honour, and promised a bishopric. He accompanied William to Ireland, and, mixing imprudently in the fight, was killed at the battle of the Boyne. Foremost among these were the two uncles of Mary, the earls of Clarendon and Rochester (Henry and Lawrence Hyde), and the earl of Nottingham (Daniel Finch), who afterwards became William's secretary of state. The imprudent Burnet afterwards avowed this in a pastoral letter, speaking of William and Mary as conquerors. The parliament affected great indignation, and ordered his letter to be burnt, but there can be no doubt that he merely uttered what many others thought. were proclaimed sovereigns, April 11. oath after the Scottish fashion to obThey in person accepted the trust serve and keep every article of the from commissioners deputed for the compact. purpose, May 11, 1689, and took an NOTE. "RABBLING THE MINISTERS." SUCH is the term by which the treatment of the clergy, more especially in the west of Scotland, is known, the particulars of which have been in many instances narrated under the hands of the sufferers themselves in "The Case of the present Afflicted Clergy in Scotland truly stated," published in London in 1690. Several pamphlets were issued in reply, but as they oppose to the specific statements of the clergy only general denials and sweeping charges of ignorance and scandalous life, they are entitled to little attention, and may be safely classed along with White's "Century. These barbarous proceedings were commenced in almost every parish on the night of Christmas-day, 1688. Where the rioters conducted themselves with least violence, they forbade the clergy any longer to officiate, tore their gowns, and burnt the service-books, and ordered them to quit their houses within a week or ten days. But it was seldom that they were so moderate. In general they were turned out at once, (Robert Finnie, of Cathcart, his wife and family, thought themselves happy to be allowed to remain in their own stable,) their goods plundered or destroyed, and themselves beaten, or wounded, or threatened with death. Some were dragged from their homes by mobs of furious women, and almost torn to pieces; Mr. Brown, of Kells, was dragged from his bed in the middle of a winter's night, carried to the market-cross at Newtown, and left there, tied to a cart; and Robert Bell, the minister of Kilmarnock, relates that he himself was seized by an armed party, carried by force to the market-cross, the Common Prayer-book burnt before him, and his gown cut from him with their swords; they also tried to extort a promise that he would not attempt to preach any more, but on his refusal at last contemptuously dismissed him as 'an ignorant and malignant priest." From "A just and true Account how sadly the regular Ministers within the presbytery of Ayr have been treated since Christmas last," we learn that— forced the minister of Cumnock out of his chamber "Upon Christmas-day about 90 armed men into the church-yard, where they discharged him to preach any more there under the highest peril ; they took upon them to command him to remove and not to uplift his stipend thenceforth; after from his manse, or dwelling-house, and his glebe, which they rent his gown in pieces over his head. They made a preface to their discourse to this purchurchmen, but by violence, and in a military way pose; that this they did not as statesmen, nor as of reformation." "In this manner, in the same place, and at the same time, used they the minister of Authinleck, who dwelleth in Cumnock. "From Cumnock the aforesaid day they marched to Mauchline, and missing the minister, were rude beyond expression to his wife, and finding the English Liturgy burnt it as a superstitious and popish book: thereafter they went to the churchyard, where they publicly discharged the minister from his office and interest there. "Upon the 27th of December the more considerable part of the foresaid number went to Gabston, where they apprehended the minister, and taking him out of his house into the churchyard, they rent his cloak, missing his gown, and thereafter forced Irvine for a considerable time in a severe frost." him to wade up and down through the water of This account is verified by the signatures of Francis Fordyce, the minister of Cumnock, and two others, and it may serve as a fair example of the treatment of the clergy in Scotland at the commencement of the Revolution. After a time the government professed to take all the clergy under its protection who were willing to pray for the new rulers, but its authority in this matter was openly denied, and scarce a single one of them was allowed to retain his living. Episcopacy was formally abolished, the bishops' revenues sequestered (Sept. 19, 1689), and eventually the Church was reduced, in the view of the Scottish law, to the condition of a nonconformist body, to which toleration was but grudgingly extended. WILLIAM of Orange was the nephew, and Mary his wife the daughter, of James II., to whose throne they were called by the vote of the Convention Parliament in 1689. William, the son of Mary daughter of Charles I., was born at the Hague, Nov. 4, 1650, eight days after the death of his father, William II., stadtholder of the United Provinces. This office had been so long held by the Orange family that it seemed almost hereditary, but the republican party, headed by John de Witt, took the advantage offered by the death of William II., resumed the government, and even bound themselves by treaty with Cromwell not to allow the stadtholderate to be exercised by any person connected with the exiled English royal family. They adhered to this engagement for almost twenty years, but at length disastrous wars with both England and Ac France brought their country to the very verge of ruin. The unsuccessful republicans now became unpopular, and the partisans of the house of Orange successfully represented the re-establishment of the stadtholderate as the only means of safety. cordingly the young prince, who was believed to possess vigour and ability, and was now in his 22nd year, was tumultuously placed in the office of Stadtholder of Holland and Zealand, (July, 1672,) the other provinces soon after chose him as their head, and the expectations formed of him were, in part at least, promptly realized. He took his measures so well that the French were at once checked in their career of conquest, and in the following year they were entirely driven out of the country. They were, however, still dangerous foes, and William henceforth devoted every faculty of The De Witts (John and Cornelius) were at once thrown into prison, and they were soon after torn to pieces by the frantic Orange party. body and mind to the task of reducing the overgrown power of Louis XIV. to dimensions compatible with the safety of his neighbours; a task in which he had little success, but the popularity procured by the attempt enabled him to secure a throne for himself. William thus became king of England without bloodshed; Scotland submitted almost as readily, and Ireland was reduced after a desperate struggle; but his concern in his new states ceased as soon as he found his establishment in them secure; henceforth they served merely as aids in his In 1677 William married the prin- grand design of humbling France. He cess Mary, daughter of the duke of passed a large part of each year on York, and as she was the presumptive the continent, sometimes crossing over heir to the throne of England his so early that his life was endangered weight in the affairs of Europe was by the rigour of the weather, and thereby greatly increased. Though only returning to draw vast sums from only the servant of a republic, his ac- the people to support his ambitious tivity and zeal were such that he was views, in which they were but rethe real head of the Augsburg league motely interested. Under these cirof emperors, popes, and kings, and cumstances, it is no wonder that Wilhe managed his proceedings so pru- liam soon became unpopular, and some dently, that he was on friendly terms of the more unscrupulous of his oppowith the Roman Catholic powers, with-nents laid plans of assassination; but out in any manner forfeiting the character ascribed to the earlier princes of his House, of a strenuous champion of Protestantism. Hence, when the misgovernment of his father-in-law, James II., became unbearable, William was invited, by a small party of ardent Whigs, to assist in preserving the civil and religious liberties of the nation. He accordingly came to England with a fleet and army in November, 1688; James fled before him, and the royal power, thus abandoned, was by a Convention bestowed on the prince and princess of Orange, upon certain specified conditions, Feb. 13, 1689. See A.D. 1686. • His voyage from Gravesend to Holland, in January, 1691, was particularly perilous. After being tossed about for five days at sea, when his ship reached the Dutch coast it seemed impossible to land, owing to the ice and the fog. William, however, stepped into an open boat, and reached the shore, but only after eighteen hours' exposure, and at the imminent risk of being frozen to death. He afterwards made his voyages somewhat later in the year, but still so early that he was often detained some days at Margate, which he generally used as his port of embarkation, before he could put to sea. Thus the earl of Nottingham (Daniel Finch) became secretary of state, Danby president of the council, and Halifax lord privy seal; Godolphin was at the head of the treasury, and Rochester eventually received the viceroyship of Ireland. The principal man among them was William Bentinck, who had long been a favoured attendant on the prince, and possessed talent both as a negotiator and a soldier. He was created earl of Portland, and received many large grants, but one extravagant gift of great part of a Welsh county was likened to the grant of Cornwall to Gaveston by Edward II., and provoked so much discontent that William was obliged to revoke it. Portland James acted as unwisely as ever, and by shewing that he was willing to owe his restoration to foreign troops rather than to any amendment in his conduct, he compelled England, from the most obvious principle of self-preservation, to retain William on the throne, though he was distrusted and disliked by the most influential men of all parties. The Whigs had made him king, but when it suited his purpose he employed the Tories, giving no confidence, however, to either; on the contrary, he shewed that he thought some few foreigners whom he had brought over with him his only trusty adherents. was impeached for his share in the Partition Treaties, but escaped punishment; like the rest of his countrymen he withdrew to Holland on the + Arms of Bentinck, earl of Portland. death of William, and he has no further connexion with English history. He died in 1709, and was succeeded by his son Henry, who was in 1716 created duke of Portland. Arnold Joost van Keppel, another page, was created earl of Albemarle in 1696; from his graceful and conciliatory manners he was far less unpopular than Bentinck, who imitated his master's |