Wheatley, Dennis - Novel 20

by Old Rowley (v1. 1)

  Unfortunately the King’s subjects were by no means as level-headed as himself. With amazing rapidity the wildest rumours gained complete credence. The good people of London expected any night to be murdered in their beds, and took to carrying arms whenever they went abroad. The invasion scare heightened the terror of the population, and, although we may regard it now as childish panic, it should be remembered that there were people living then whose fathers had helped to resist the Spanish Armada, which was a very real threat of invasion indeed.

  Fuel was added to the fire by the discovery and publication of Coleman’s correspondence with the Jesuit Confesssor of Louis XIV. Actually his letters were nothing but the irresponsible outpourings of an indiscreet fanatic, but, since he held the position of secretary to the Duchess of York, they gave a terrible semblance of truth to the wild inventions of Oates’ fertile brain, and the whole country was wrought to a fever pitch of fear and anger.

  The only episode in modern history which can give some idea of the fanatical excitement caused by the antiCatholic agitation is the anti-Jewish mania which sent the whole French nation mad during the years of the Dreyfus case. Sound, moderate men no longer dared to utter a word of doubt regarding the wildest statements of Oates and his brother informers; to do so was to lay themselves open to an immediate charge of being Papists themselves. People began to distrust even their oldest friends, and soon a reign of terror held the country in its grip. Even the honest Pepys was arraigned through the machinations of his personal enemies, accused of being a Papist and, on the flimsy evidence of having purchased an old painting of the Crucifixion from an antique dealer some years before, flung into the Tower.

  Coleman and a number of Jesuit Priests were tried for Sir Edmund’s murder, and although the King examined them in person before his Council and tore their evidence to shreds, it made no difference to the madness of the nation, or the verdict of the Courts, which straightway condemned them. Charles protested at this manifest injustice, but Shaftesbury’s mob howled for their execution. To have interfered with the decision of the English Courts of Justice would have given Shaftesbury the very excuse he wanted to start a civil war, so for the sake of the nation Charles had to let the law take its course, saying, as he appended his signature to the warrants, ‘Let the blood lie on those that condemn them, for God knows I sign with tears in my eyes.’

  Oates, now the idol of the mob and Parliament alike, even had the temerity to accuse the Queen of complicity in a plot to poison her husband. Catherine was distraught with grief at this dastardly attack, but she had a true protector in the King. With sudden fury he rounded on his tormentors, threw Oates into prison and cried angrily, ‘They think that I have a mind to a new wife, but for all that I will not see an innocent woman abused.’

  Montagu, the ex-ambassador to France, now turned traitor and made public Danby’s correspondence. The Secret Treaty of Dover, by which the King had promised to become a Catholic, and all the subsequent negotiation, came to light. Shaftesbury made tremendous capital out of these disclosures, people began to believe that Charles himself was in the Catholic plot, and the Whigs proceeded to the immediate impeachment of the Minister Danby.

  It was in these dark days that Charles said to his old intimate Sir John Reresby, ‘Fear not. I will stick by you and my old friends, for if I do not, I shall have nobody to stick by me.’ Danby he had never liked, but he had proved a loyal servant and so, true to his word, the King stood by him in his need. Parliament, although embittered, was still the old Cavalier Parliament which had been elected eighteen years before, and in it there still lingered at bottom some elements of its first fine loyalty. A general election at such a time of unrest and hostility meant for a certainty that the old King-haters would top the polls. After that, with Shaftesbury urging them on to revolution, all was darkness. Yet, to save his minister, Charles determined to face whatever fate might bring, and took the most perilous step in all his reign by dissolving Parliament.

  His fears were only too soon realized—when the new Parliament met in 1679 the Republicans were in an overwhelming majority. Immediately they opened the battle on the question of the Succession, which had been smouldering for some time. York was a hated Papist, so they demanded that, if he succeeded, his children should be taken from him and his power hedged about with every possible restriction, or, better, that James should be excluded altogether and Monmouth, the King’s eldest son, a Protestant, legitimized.

  Charles made an effort to convert his brother, but, as usual, James proved stubborn, so it was thought best that he should leave the country for a time while the King continued to grapple with the anti-Catholic madness.

  Monmouth was a fine figure of a man—handsome, graceful, affable—the idol of his father and the populace alike. With diabolical skill, Shaftesbury had set the son against the father, filling the young man’s head with wild ambitions, but Charles would not suffer him to oust his uncle from his rights. That summer Monmouth had been sent against the rebellious Scots and defeated them at the battle of Bothwell Bridge, but his semi-royal progress through the country had annoyed the King, who knew that for all his beauty he was an empty-headed lad ignorant of the dangerous game that he was being made to play for the furtherance of Whig intrigue. In consequence, Charles deprived him of his Generalship and publicly declared his illegitimacy, exploding once for all the story that his own marriage contract with Lucy Walter lay hidden in some mysterious black box.

  Parliament was furious, for they had taken Monmouth to their hearts, and retaliated by criticizing Charles for the expenditure necessary to the upkeep of his other illegitimate children, of which he now had quite a number.

  By Castlemaine there had been Charles, Henry, and George Fitzroy—now made Dukes of Southampton, Grafton and Northumberland—besides three daughters. As Duchess of Cleveland, their mother remained at Court, an expensive pensioner, but Charles had long since ceased to visit her. The break had come when he had arrived one day unexpectedly at her apartments and a young man had been forced to jump out of the window. It was John Churchill, then a cornet in the guards but later to become the famous Duke of Marlborough.

  Portsmouth had borne him Charles Lennox, Duke of Richmond; Moll Davies a daughter, Mary Tudor; Catherine Peg, Charles FitzCharles, Earl of Plymouth; and Lady Shannon another daughter, Charlotte, Countess of Yarmouth. .

  There still remained Nell Gwynn who had done her duty by presenting him with two sons, and on one occasion when he was at her house she called them to her, ‘Come here you little bastards.’ ‘Nell! Nell! ’ the King protested, ‘can’st thou not modify thy language?’ to which she gave the promptly reply, ‘Well! and what other names have I to call them by?’ Charles took the hint and created the eldest Duke of St. Albans.

  In criticizing his expenditure upon his children, the Commons forgot that he lacked a legitimate family, which might have cost them more without their having any pretext for complaint. Actually, his progeny cost the nation very little, for when they reached their teens he married them off, one after the other, to the richest heiresses in England.

  The year 1679 aged the King considerably. Only his marvellous power of foreseeing every move made in the game by his enemies enabled him to avert civil war—and that he was determined to prevent at any cost. Throughout the Catholic persecution the so-called ‘Merry Monarch’ stood alone and friendless, middle-aged now, and saturnine—troubled and anxious yet never in the most trying circumstances giving way to those fits of irritable temper to which crowned heads have shown themselves so prone when affairs of state go contrary to their will. The mongrel pack might snap and snarl about his knees, but he was the master still and they could not pull him down.

  Shaftesbury, with devilish cunning, now set himself to subvert the justice of the land. The Sheriffs of London were responsible for the selection of all juries, and the Earl secured the election of two of his most trusted adherents as the Sheriffs—henceforth the decisions of the Courts became a mockery. How
ever upright the judge might be, he was compelled to accept the verdict of these juries, packed exclusively with Shaftesbury’s fanatic followers. Charles could do nothing unless he broke from his principle ‘To govern by the known laws of the land' . Bitterly he ratified the unjust decisions of the Courts, rather than give his enemies a legitimate excuse for rebellion, yet he adhered to his formula with dogged courage and would not suffer them to infringe the constitution by one particle.

  To quiet the country he agreed to govern without a Cabinet and reduce his Privy Council; then once again he employed his old policy of ‘kicking people upstairs’. Shaftesbury and his crew were admitted to the Council. One loyalist protested at the exclusion of his father in this reshuffle, and, taking him by the arm, Charles patiently explained, ‘Doth he imagine that I left him out because I did not love him? He was left out because I do love him. But keep this to thyself.’

  In July, to Shaftesbury’s fury, the King dissolved his second Parliament, and a little gleam of light showed in the darkness of the persecution. Chief Justice Scroggs, not to be bribed or brow-beaten—and in the face of terrible hostility—acquitted Wakeman, the Queen’s physician, then rounded on the informers for the perjurers they were, which set sounder men athinking. Yet the new Parliament which met in August pressed more strongly than ever for James’ exclusion, and the ‘Popish Terror’ showed little sign of any real abatement.

  In October the King dismissed Shaftesbury from his Council, and the embittered Earl took up his quarters in the City once more, busying himself with another Popish scare, ‘The Meal Tub Plot’, which brought about a renewed frenzy of anti-Catholic feeling.

  All through 1680 the grim struggle went on, Shaftesbury beating up his paid informers to bring yet more false accusations, and deluging the country with libellous pamphlets against the King; while his lieutenants stirred up trouble in Ireland, disclosing another fake conspiracy there with the object of discrediting the loyal Ormonde and forcing him to resign. But here at least he met his match. The great Duke was not the man to be intimidated by such scum, and wrote to his master, ‘It maketh me only the more resolved to serve thee, with all the vigour that time hath left me, and all the loyalty that no time can take away.’

  That magnificent testimony remains for Charles against all the libels of the Whig historians. Ormonde stands above reproach. Anglican, upright, courageous, sane, one of the finest figures in English history. When he wrote it he had known the King intimately as boy and man for fifty years, and unprincipled, despotic kings do not beget such splendid loyalty in their greatest servants.

  Charles, through the Whig opposition, was now almost reduced to beggary. In December, Parliament passed a resolution that whosoever should advance him money was a national enemy, and Shaftesbury prepared a measure for securing to his party all the strong places in the land. Once more the country was on the verge of civil war.

  In the New Year the only course was for the King to dissolve this, his third, Parliament, and that the next might at least be freed from intimidation by Shaftesbury’s ‘brisk boys’ and the hooligan mob, Charles summoned it to Oxford.

  On March 21st, 1681, the fourth Parliament of the reign assembled, no less truculent than the last, with armed retainers, and ‘No Popery’ badges in their hats. Once more they fiercely demanded James’ exclusion, but they had quarrelled with France, so with speed and secrecy Charles acted. Playing upon Louis’ renewed fears of war, he juggled him into renewing his own subsidies as the price of peace.

  On March 27th the Exclusion Bill was laid upon the table. In his ordinary clothes Charles walked to the Chamber. ‘Better one master than five hundred,’ he remarked thoughtfully to a young member in the robing- room, then he entered the Assembly. He had prorogued one Parliament to save Lauderdale, dissolved another to save Danby, now he was about to finish with Parliament for good to save his brother.

  With a dark, stern face he addressed these would-be Kommissars from the throne. ‘I will never use arbitrary government myself, and I am resolved not to suffer it in others.’ c

  Thus, after a session of only six days, he dismissed them. It was the one step which in the state of the country they had thought he would not dare to take—but they lacked the courage to defy him. Angry, silent, bewildered, they slunk away—never again to be allowed to meet during his kingship.

  Seven

  The Verdict of the People

  For twenty years Charles had prorogued and dissolved his Parliaments at every serious crisis. Now he had done with them for good, and henceforth he was to reign alone. It is this period which enables the historians of the last century to hurl the epithet ‘Despot’ at him with so much gusto.

  From the beginning of his reign, Parliament had consistently refused to grant Charles adequate funds to maintain the services of State unless he was prepared to sanction laws which he knew would entail great hardship to a large section of the community.

  His attitude has been paralleled by that of our greatest statesman in later times for the governance of the coloured people of the Empire. He and they equally maintained that religious minorities must be protected from the hatred and persecution of fanatical majorities holding a different faith. Unfortunately his Parliaments were incapable of appreciating this high conception, so he elected to ignore them and keep the services going as well as he was able on subsidies from France.

  Once again it should be borne in mind that England gave nothing in return for these subsidies. Louis only paid for protection from a war which Charles in any case had no intention of waging.

  It has been said that our prestige abroad suffered during his reign, but those who say it can have little knowledge of the facts. Much capital has been made out of his sale of Dunkirk shortly after the Restoration. If his income had been the £2,200,000 which Cromwell drew from a groaning land there would have been no necessity. As it was, his revenue at that time was only a little over £700,000, and Dunkirk cost £130,000 a year to keep up; moreover, it could only have proved a focus for continual trouble, and in the circumstances its sale was a wise piece at statesmanship. Another reason urged was his abandonment, late in the reign, of Tangier. It had been his hope to make it into a base for British trading in the Mediterranean, and he spent over £2,000,000 on it. Unfortunately little was known at home of the geography and conditions in this then far distant port, and only when proper surveys had been carried out was it realized to be impossible of defence. Hills ringed the town and from them hostile tribesmen dominated the defences of the garrison. Wisely, therefore, Charles decided to squander no more treasure upon its upkeep, and sent Dartmouth with the faithful Pepys to demolish the fortifications and evacuate the town.

  Contrast these two minor episodes in a reign lasting for nearly a quarter of a century, with the power and prestige of Britain advancing by leaps and bounds across the Seven Seas to millions of acres of rich territory. Bombay established as the Gate to India, the coast of Guinea opened up and already shipping home the gold and ivory out of Africa. The whole of the North American seaboard from Maine to Carolina in our possession, and thence, by 2,000 miles of islands, our power stretching to the northern coast-line of the southern continent. The Mediterranean made free to English ships by skilful treaties with the Turk and Moor. The Hudson’s Bay Company already at work which was to gain Canada for the Crown, while nearer home the most powerful King in Europe, Louis of France, was paying us a yearly subsidy rather than face us in a war, and the Dutch, our only serious rivals, lay humbled and broken, so that our merchant navy became the carriers of the world, and Britain —from Charles’ time onward—the undisputed Mistress of the Seas.

  All these endeavours which later were to bear such wondrous fruit were, unlike the early ventures such as the Mayflower in the previous reign, things near the King’s own heart He loved the sea himself and every seaman knew him for a friend, ever ready to pore with them over maps and charts, and plan new expeditions into distant seas. It was his reward that he should live to see t
he first-fruits of his labours, and it was largely these which saved him from the fury of the rebellious Whigs.

  In the middle of the battle with Shaftesbury, Charles fell ill, and so seriously that for a few days his life was despaired off. An amazing revulsion of feeling swept through the country—What if he should die? For years the Whigs had been trying to force a civil war upon him, and suddenly all moderate men realized whither they were being driven by the politicians. King-baiting had become a game, for, badger him as they would, Charles always managed somehow to keep the peace—but if he died? James, the Catholic bigot, would succeed. Protestant Monmouth would go out against him, and civil war would become an actual fact. With sudden horror they recalled the terrible years when the country had been rent with strife; the executions, the fines, the savage tyranny of Ireton, Lambert, Harrison, the gruelling taxation of the Lord Protector. They looked at their fields of smiling corn and saw them seized for the Army that they hated, looked at their bank balances growing year by year, while Europe fought and England lived at peace—and saw them taken; looked to every port in Britain filled with the argosies that brought home the riches of the world—and "aw them sunken, captured, commandeered. In sudden terror they crowded to the churches to pray that Charles, preserver of England’s peace and begetter of her splendid new prosperity—might live.

  The King recovered—his marvellous constitution saved him both from his illness and the doctor’s remedies—and he knew that at last the tide had begun to turn against his enemies. In the last months of 1680 the old Catholic peer Lord Stafford was tried for treason and condemned. Charles could do nothing to aid him without flouting the laws of the land, except commute his sentence to beheading. Shaftesbury, Russell, Sidney and the rest of the pack howled for the full sentence—hanging, disembowelling, and quartering—but this the King would not permit. The old man died for his faith with exemplary fortitude, but his death. Catholic though he was, returned like a boomerang upon his false accusers. The people knew him to be blameless, except for his religion, and that the evidence given at his trial was one long tissue of lies by Shaftesbury’s paid informers. Slowly their sanity was returning, and their sense of indignation aroused against the Terrorists. Gradually, at last, they began to turn towards the King in the realization that through all these years of panic and persecution he alone had kept a level head, standing firm and unbowed in the darkest hours for toleration, justice, fair-dealing.