that persuasion, containing some conditions with the Pope, and some clauses of an oath for themselves, as terms of the proposed indulgence. The first negotiations failed,* and Stanhope's life was too short to carry that design any farther; nor do I think that he or any other man, at that period, would have been able to effect it against the general tide of public feeling; but still the scheme seems not undeserving of attention, as the earliest germ of Roman Catholic Emancipation. Several conferences passed between Stanhope and some of the principal of the Protestant Nonconformists, and they found Sunderland as friendly in his views, though not so sanguine in his hopes. He seems to have estimated more justly than Stanhope the formidable obstacles in the way of the proposed concessions; the resistance not merely of the Tories and High Churchmen, but perhaps of the Whigs in opposition, notwithstanding all their previous pledges. "It would be difficult enough," said Sunderland, "to repeal the Schism and Occasional Conformity Acts, but any attack upon the Test Act also would ruin all." Stanhope, after some opposition, yielded to these views, and joined Sunderland in advising the Dissenters to forego for the present a part of their pretensions. The Ministers promised that the repeal of the Test Act should be proposed at a future and more favourable opportunity; and the King himself, who had taken a much warmer interest in this than in most English questions, spoke in the same sense to Lord Barrington, one of the dissenting body; the Dissenters acquiesced, and it was determined that only some few of the less important clauses of the Test Act should be comprised in the measure of relief. With this compromise, Lord Stanhope brought forward his measure in the Lords on the 13th of December, under the specious name of an Act for strengthening the Protestant interest. He endeavoured to show the reason and advantage of restoring Dissenters to their natural rights, and of easing them from these stigmatising and oppressive laws, which, he said, had been made in turbulent times, and obtained by indirect methods; and he argued, that by the union of all true Protestants, the Church of England would still be the head of all the Protestant churches, and the Archbishop of Canterbury become the patriarch of all the Protestant clergy. Lords Sunderland and Stamford made some observations (of these we have no record) in support of the motion. But a powerful combination immediately appeared against it. The Duke of Craggs writes to Stanbope, June 30, 1719, "Dr. Strickland thought that the paper was digested in the properest form to be shown to the Roman Catholics, and, at his request and persuasion, I carried a copy of that paper, not signed, to a meeting where the Duke of Norfolk, Lord Waldegrave, and Mr. Charles Howard assisted. . . . . I found the two noblemen inclinable to come into the proposal therein made." The negotiation was, however, broken off. Craggs says in another letter, of July 24, "I understand since, that these folks have been misled by the Prince's people, who have given them mighty assurances that they would destroy the present Ministry with the King, and so dis couraged them from engaging themselves in a falling house. There is good reason to believe that this is all owing to Mr. Pulteney." These letters are in the Hardwicke Papers, vol. cxxv.* Devonshire first complained that the House was taken by surprise, and that it was irregular to bring in a bill of so great consequence without previous notice, forgetting, until Stanhope reminded him, that he himself had pursued that very course two years before, in bringing forward a still more important measure, the Septennial Act. The Earl of Nottingham observed, with a sneer, that the Church of England was certainly the happiest church in the world, since even the greatest contradictions-two acts made for her security, and the repeal of those very acts-were all said to contribute to her support. Earl Cowper declared himself favourable to the repeal of the Schism Act, but apprehensive for the security of the Test and Corporation Acts, "because he looked upon those acts as the main bulwark of our excellent constitution in church and state, and therefore would have them inviolably preserved and untouched." The Earl of Isla said that he considered the measure a violation of the Treaty of Union with Scotland. The discussion being postponed till the 18th, was on that day almost entirely confined to the Right Reverend Bench. Both the Archbishops (Doctors Wake and Dawes) declared against the measure; his Grace of Canterbury observing, that "the scandalous practice of occasional conformity was condemned by the soberest part of the Dissenters themselves; and that he could not forbear saying that some amongst them made a wrong use of the favour and indulgence that was shown them upon the Revolution, though they had the least share in that happy event." He also derived an argument against the measure from the lenity of the Government; urging that since the Schism Act had never been enforced, and was, in fact, a dead letter, it seemed needless to make a law to repeal it. Several other prelates took the same course. On the other hand, the bill was strongly defended by Bishops Hoadly, Willis, Gibson, and Kennett.* The latter, however, hurried away by his zeal, was betrayed into some very unseemly remarks on the clergy in Charles the First's reign, who, he said, "had promoted arbitrary measures and persecutions, until they first brought scandal and contempt upon the clergy, and at last ruin both upon church and state"-a reflection, which, as Lord Lansdowne smartly observed in his reply, would have much better become a descendant of Bradshaw than a successor of Laud! The debate was continued on the following day, and was concluded by a division of 86 for the bill and 68 against it-so large a minority that the Ministers felt themselves compelled, in Committee, to comply with Cowper's amendments, and to strike out the clauses. referring to the Test and Corporation Acts. With this mutilation. the bill was sent down to the Commons. A sharp debate ensued on the 7th of January, and in the list of those who spoke, we find the Bishop Kennett was rather less indulgent to Roman Catholics. In his MS. Diary he appears much displeased with Swift, whom he heard "instructing a young nobleman that the best poet in England was Mr. Pope-a papist!" (See Swift's Works, vol. xvi. p. 100.) VOL. I. R name of almost every man of any political note in the House; but even the meagre and scanty records which are usually given of speeches at this period fail us here, the gallery having been on that day closed against strangers. We only know that Walpole and his friends warmly opposed the bill, that some personal altercation arose between him and Lechmere, and that on a division there appeared 243 Ayes to 202 Noes. It was observed that even this small majority was gained chiefly by the Scotch members, for of 37 that were in the House, 34 voted for the bill. It passed, however, without much further debate, and without any change. When we consider the powerful combination by which this bill was opposed, and the narrow majority by which it was carried in both. Houses, we can hardly doubt that Sunderland judged rightly in his wish to exclude the Test Act from its provisions, and that, had Stanhope's vehemence prevailed, the whole measure would have miscarried. But the "more favourable opportunity" promised the Dissenters for the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, never came. Those Acts remained on the Statute book one hundred and nine years more, but remained only like rusty weapons hung in an armoury, trophies of past power, not instruments of further aggression or defence. An Indemnity Bill, passed every year from the first of George the Second (there were some, but very few exceptions*) threw open the gates of all offices to Protestant Dissenters as fully as if the law had been repealed; and if they still wished its repeal, it was because they thought it an insult, not because they felt it an injury. The Parliament was prorogued on the 18th of April. In his Majesty's speech allusion was made to his design of passing the summer in his German dominions, and he accordingly set out for them a few weeks afterwards. Stanhope, though appointed one of the Lords Justices, was the minister who attended the King abroad. The Duchess of Kendal also, as usual, accompanied his Majesty. No mention was made in the Regency of the Prince and Princess of Wales, who thereupon indignantly retired into the country. Nor were they deputed to hold levees during the King's absence, that duty, to the great scandal of the public, and further divulgement of family discord, being assigned to the young Princesses. *See Mr. Hallam's Const. Hist., vol. iii. p. 334. CHAPTER X. In England, as in France, the hopes of Alberoni rested more on internal factions, than on foreign arms. He knew the numbers and influence of the English Jacobites; he heard the clamours of the opposition against the Spanish war, and he trusted that the party which so eagerly echoed his manifestoes in the House of Commons, would be as ready to support him in his schemes against the reigning family. But in this he was certainly quite deceived. Most statesmen bred in despotic monarchies utterly mistake the nature of our Parliamentary warfare, and cannot distinguish between the loyal subject who declaims against a minister, and the traitor who plots against the throne. Flushed with vain hopes, and finding the prospect of the Swedish invasion closed by the death of Charles the Twelfth, Alberoni resolved to assist the Pretender with an expedition of his own. Accordingly, he gave directions for equipping a formidable armament at Cadiz, and offered its command to the Duke of Ormond, the same general who some years before had led an English expedition against Spain, who had attempted Cadiz, and stormed Vigo! But such are only the common vicissitudes of exiles; they are used as tools by those who once felt them as foes. The Pretender himself was also invited to Spain, not indeed to head the vanguard of the invading army, but to be able to join it speedily, in the event of its safe landing and prosperous progress. Since the influence of France had compelled him to cross the Pyrenees, James had resided sometimes at Urbino and sometimes at Rome. He had lately, to the great joy of his party, contracted a marriage with Princess Clementina, the grand-daughter of John Sobieski, late King of Poland, and she was on her way to join her betrothed husband, when she was arrested and detained at Inspruck, in the Imperial territories: a favour of the Emperor to the English Government unworthy of them to solicit, and base in him to grant. The memory of John Sobieski, the heroic deliverer of Vienna, might have claimed more gratitude from the son of the Prince whom he had saved. The Chevalier did not hesitate to accept Alberoni's invitation to Spain; but knowing the great power of the Imperialists in Italy, and seeing by the affair at Inspruck how readily that power would be exerted against him, especially while a British fleet rode victorious in the Mediterranean, he thought stratagem requisite to effect his design. He pretended to set out to the northward with the Earls of Mar and Perth, and in reality despatched those noble men and a part of his suite, who, as he expected, were arrested at Voghera, he being supposed to be amongst them. They were conveyed to the castle of Milan, and some time elapsed before the mistake was discovered and the prisoners were released. The news that the Pretender was taken had meanwhile spread abroad, and Lord Stair had written it in triumph to the Ministers in London. Under the cover of this report, James secretly embarked at the little port of Nettuno; and after touching at Cagliari, landed at Rosas in the beginning of March, 1719. There being then no further object in mystery, he was received at Madrid, not only publicly, but royally; his residence was appointed in the palace of Buen Retiro, and visits were paid to him as to the King of England by Philip and his Queen. The magnificence of his entry and public reception is extolled by Spanish writers. But I may observe in passing, that the ancient splendour of the Court of Madrid had long since faded away, during the melancholy reigns of the last Austrian Princes, and that the subsequent accounts of it which the Spaniards are still inclined to utter and we to receive are often indebted to fancy for their brilliant colouring. Never, for example, was there an occasion when splendour would have been more natural and becoming; when it better accorded with the popular feeling, or had been ushered in by longer preparation, than the first public entry of Philip himself in February, 1701, four months after the death of Charles the Second; yet never was there a pageant more mean and unsightly. For when we discard the national exaggerations, and look to the impartial testimony of an Englishman, who happened to be present, we find that his Majesty entered in a filthy old coach of the late King, without guards; his better sort of attendants, some on horseback and some in coaches, at half an hour's distance from one another; and divers of the inferior sort attending the baggage, in so very ragged clothes as exposed them extremely to the scorn of the Spaniards." At the same time order was so ill preserved, that "no less than forty men, women, and children, were trod under foot and killed outright, and above one hundred are now said to be languishing under their bruises, and dying daily." 66 "* On James's arrival at Madrid, the orders for sailing were despatched to the armament at Cadiz. It consisted of five men of war and about twenty transports, with 5000 soldiers, partly Irish, on board, and arms for 30,000 more. Several of the chief exiles of 1715 took part in this enterprise. Ormond himself was to embark when the fleet touched at Coruña, and to assume its command with the title of Captain-General of the King of Spain. He was provided with a proclamation to be published at his landing, in the name of Philip, declaring that his Majesty had determined to send part of his forces as auxiliaries to King James; that he hoped Providence would favour so just a cause; but that the fear of ill suc * Mr. Jackson to Mr. Pepys, Feb. 24, 1701. Pepys' Correspondence. |