ily of James's younger daughter, the Princess of Denmark. Lord Churchill was now sent as embassador extraordi nary to Versailles. He had it in charge to express the warm gratitude of the English government for the money which had been so generously bestowed. It had been originally intended that he should, at the same time, ask Louis for a much larger sum; but, on full consideration, it was apprehended that such indelicate greediness might disgust the benefactor whose spontaneous liberality had been so signally displayed. Churchill was therefore directed to confine himself to thanks for what was past, and to say nothing about the future.* But James and his ministers, even while protesting that they did not mean to be importunate, contrived to hint, very intelligibly, what they wished and expected. In the French embassador they had a dexterous, a zealous, and, perhaps, not a disinterested intercessor. Louis made some difficulties, probably with the design of enhancing the value of his gifts. In a very few weeks, however, Barillon received from Versailles fifteen hundred thousand livres more. This sum, equivalent to about a hundred and twelve thousand pounds sterling, he was instructed to dole out cautiously. He was authorized to furnish the English government with thirty thousand pounds, for the purpose of corrupting members of the new House of Commons. The rest he was directed to keep in reserve for some extraordinary emergency, such as a dissolution or an insurrection.† The turpitude of these transactions is universally ac stance of absurd partiality. One lampoon of that time, which I do not remember to have seen in print, but of which a manuscript copy is at the British Museum, contains these lines: "Let's cut our meat with spoons: The sense is as good As that Churchill should Be put to command the dragoons." * Barillon, Feb., 1685. Barillon, April; Louis to Barillon, April. knowledged, but their real nature seems to be often misunderstood; for, though the foreign policy of the last two kings of the house of Stuart has never, since the corre spondence of Barillon was exposed to the public eye, found an apologist among us, there is still a party which labors to excuse their domestic policy; yet it is certain that between their domestic policy and their foreign policy there was a necessary and indissoluble connection. If they had upheld, during but a few months, the honor of the country abroad, they would have been compelled to change the whole system of their administration at home. To praise them for refusing to govern in conformity with the sense of Parliament, and yet to blame them for submitting to the dictation of Louis, is inconsistent; for they had only one choice, to be dependent on Louis, or to be dependent on Parliament. James, to do him justice, would gladly have found out a third way, but there was none. He became the slave of France, but it would be incorrect to represent him as a contented slave. He had spirit enough to be at times angry with himself for submitting to such thraldom, and impatient to break loose from it; and this disposition was studiously encouraged by the agents of many foreign powers. His accession had excited hopes and fears in every continental court, and the commencement of his administration was watched by strangers with interest scarcely less deep than that which was felt by his own subjects. One government alone wished that the troubles which had, during three generations, distracted England, might be eternal. All other governments, whether republican or monarchical, whether Protestant or Roman Catholic, wished to see those troubles happily terminated. The nature of the long contest between the Stuarts and their Parliaments was indeed very imperfectly apprehended by foreign statesmen; but no statesman could fail to perceive the effect which that contest had produced on the balance of power in Europe. In ordinary circumstances, the sympathies of the courts of Vienna and Madrid would doubtless have been with a prince struggling against subjects, and especially with a Roman Catholic prince struggling against heretical subjects; but all such sympathies were now overpowered by a stronger feeling. The fear and hatred inspired by the greatness, the injustice, and the arrogance of the French king were at the height. His neighbors might well doubt whether it were more dangerous to be at war or at peace with him; for in peace he continued to plunder and to outrage them; and they had tried the chances of war against him in vain. In this perplexity, they looked with intense anxiety toward England. Would she act on the principles of the Triple Alliance or on the principles of the treaty of Dover? On that issue depended the fate of all her neighbors. With her help Louis might yet be withstood; but no help could be expected from her till she was at unity with herself. Before the strife between the throne and the Parliament began, she had been a power of the first rank; on the day on which that strife terminated, she became a power of the first rank again; but while the dispute remained undecided, she was condemned to inaction and to vassalage. She had been great under the Plantagenets and Tudors; she was again great under the princes who reigned after the Revolution; but under the kings of the house of Stuart she was a blank in the map of Europe. She had lost one class of energies, and had not yet acquired another. That species of force which, in the fourteenth century, had enabled her to humble France and Spain, had ceased to exist. That species of force which, in the eighteenth century, humbled France and Spain once more, had not yet been called into action. The government was no longer a limited monarchy after the fashion of the Middle Ages. It had not yet become a limited monarchy after the modern fashion. With the vices of two different systems, it had the strength of neither. The elements of our polity; instead of combining in harmony, counteracted and neutralized each other. All was transition, conflict, and disorder. The chief business of the sovereign was to infringe the privileges of the Legislature. The chief business of the Legislature was to encroach on the prerogatives of the sovereign. The king readily accepted foreign aid, which relieved him from the misery of being dependent on a mutinous Parliament. The Parliament refused to the king the means of supporting the national honor abroad, from an apprehension, too well founded, that those means might be employed in order to establish despotism at home. The effect of these jealousies was, that our country, with all her vast resources, was of as little account in Christendom as the Duchy of Savoy or the Duchy of Lorraine, and certainly of far less account than the small province of Holland. France was deeply interested in prolonging this state of things. All other powers were deeply interested in bringing it to a close. The general wish of Europe was, that James would govern in conformity with law and with public opinion. From the Escurial itself came letters, expressing an earnest hope that the new king of England would be on good terms with his Parliament and his people. From the Vatican itself came cautions against im * I might transcribe half of Barillon's correspondence in proof of this proposition; but I will only quote one passage, in which the views which guided the policy of the French government toward England are exhibited concisely and with perfect clearness. Feb. 28 "On peut tenir pour un maxime indubitable que l'accord du Roy d'Angleterre avec son Parlement, en quelque manière qu'il se fasse, n'est pas conforme aux intérêts de V. M. Je me contente de penser cela sans m'en ouvrir à personne, et je cache avec soin mes sentimens a cet égard."-Barillon to Louis, 1687. That this was the real secret of the whole policy of Louis toward our country was perfectly understood at Vienna. The Emperor Leopold wrote thus to James, 1689: "Galli id unum agebant, ut, perpetuas inter Serenitatem vestram et ejusdem populos fovendo simultates, reliquæ Christianæ Europæ tanto securius insultarent." March 30 "Que sea unido con su reyno, y en todo buena intelligencia con el parlamento."-Dispatch from the King of Spain to Don Pedro Ronquillo, March 18, 1685. This dispatch is in the archives of Simancas, which contain a great mass of papers relating to English affairs. Copies of the most interest moderate zeal for the Roman Catholic faith. Benedict Odescalchi, who filled the papal chair under the name of Innocent the Eleventh, felt, in his character of temporal sovereign, all those apprehensions with which other princes watched the progress of the French power. He had also grounds of uneasiness which were peculiar to himself. It was a happy circumstance for the Protestant religion that, at the moment when the last Roman Catholic King of England mounted the throne, the Roman Catholic Church was torn by dissension, and threatened with a new schism. A quarrel similar to that which raged in the eleventh century between the emperors and the supreme pontiffs had arisen between Louis and Innocent. Louis, zealous even to bigotry for the doctrines of the Church of Rome, but tenacious of his regal authority, accused the pope of encroaching on the secular rights of the French crown, and was in turn accused by the pope of encroaching on the spiritual power of the keys. The king, haughty as he was, encountered a spirit even more determined than his Innocent was, in all private relations, the meekest and gentlest of men; but, when he spoke officially from the chair of St. Peter, he spoke in the tones of Gregory the Seventh and of Sixtus the Fifth. The dispute became serious. Agents of the king were excommunicated; adherents of the pope were banished. The king made the champions of his authority bishops; the pope refused them institution. They took possession of the episcopal palaces and revenues, but they were incompetent to perform the episcopal functions. Before the struggle terminated, there were in France thirty prelates who could not confirm or ordain.* own. Had any prince then living, except Louis, been engag ing of those papers are in the possession of M. Guizot, and were by him leut to me. It is with peculiar pleasure that, at this time, I acknowledge this mark of the friendship of so great a man. * Few English readers will be desirous to go deep into the history of this quarrel. Summaries will be found in Cardinal Bausset's Life of Bossuet, and in Voltaire's Age of Louis XIV. E E |