Stirrings of unease

The English, prepossessed against their sovereign, firmly believed, that he had concerted a project with Lewis [Louis XIV] for their entire subjection. Portsmouth, it was said, was to be put into the hands of that ambitious monarch: England was to be filled with French and Irish troops: and every man who refused to embrace the Romish superstition, was by these bigoted princes devoted to certain destruction.

[Footnote:] That there really was no new alliance formed betwixt France and England, appears both, from Sunderland’s Apology, and from D’Avaux’s Negotiations, lately published: see vol. iv. p. 18. Eng translation, 27th of September, 1687; 16th of March, 6th of May, 10th of August, 2d, 23d, and 24th of September, 5th and 7th of October, 11th of November, 1688.

These suggestions were every where spread abroad, and tended to augment the discontents of which both the fleet and army, as well as the people, betrayed every day the most evident symptoms. The fleet had begun to mutiny; because Stricland, the admiral, a Roman Catholic, introduced the mass aboard his ship, and dismissed the Protestant chaplain. It was with some difficulty the seamen could be appeased; and they still persisted in declaring that they would not fight against the Dutch, whom they called friends and brethren; but would willingly give battle to the French, whom they regarded as national enemies. The king had intended to augment his army with Irish recruits; and he resolved to try the experiment on the regiment of the duke of Berwick, his natural son: but Beaumont, the lieutenant-colonel, refused to admit them; and to this opposition five captains steadily adhered. They were all cashiered; and had not the discontents of the army on this occasion become very apparent, it was resolved to have punished those officers for mutiny.

The king made a trial of the dispositions of his army, in a manner still more undisguised. Finding opposition from all the civil and ecclesiastical orders of the kingdom, he resolved to appeal to the military, who, if unanimous, were able alone to serve all his purposes, and to enforce universal obedience. His intention was to engage all the regiments, one after another, to give their consent to the repeal of the test and penal statutes; and accordingly, the major of Litchfield’s drew out the battalion before the king, and told them, that they were required either to enter into his majesty’s views in these particulars, or to lay down their arms. James was surprised to find that, two captains and a few Popish soldiers excepted, the whole battalion immediately embraced the latter part of the alternative. For some time he remained speechless; but having recovered from his astonishment, he commanded them to take up their arms; adding with a sullen, discontented air, 'That for the future, he would not do them the honor to apply for their approbation.'

William's landing

The prince had a prosperous voyage, and landed his army safely in Torbay on the fifth of November, the anniversary of the gunpowder treason.

The Dutch army marched first to Exeter; and the prince’s declaration was there published. That whole county was so terrified with the executions which had ensued upon Monmouth’s rebellion, that no one for several days joined the prince. The bishop of Exeter in a fright fled to London and carried to court intelligence of the invasion. As a reward of his zeal, he received the archbishopric of York, which had long been kept vacant, with an intention, as was universally believed, of bestowing it on some Catholic. The first person who joined the prince, was Major Burrington; and he was quickly followed by the gentry of the counties of Devon and Somerset. Sir Edward Seymour made proposals for an association, which every one signed. By degrees, the earl of Abingdon, Mr. Russel, son of the earl of Bedford, Mr. Wharton, Godfrey, Howe, came to Exeter. All England was in commotion. Lord Delamere took arms in Cheshire, the earl of Danby seized York, the earl of Bath, governor of Plymouth, declared for the prince, the earl of Devonshire made a like declaration in Derby. The nobility and gentry of Nottinghamshire embraced the same cause; and every day there appeared some effect of that universal combination into which the nation had entered against the measures of the king. Even those who took not the field against him, were able to embarrass and confound his counsels. A petition for a free parliament was signed by twenty-four bishops and peers of the greatest distinction, and was presented to the king. No one thought of opposing or resisting the invader.

But the most dangerous symptom was the disaffection which, from the general spirit of the nation, not from any particular reason, had crept into the army. The officers seemed ill disposed to prefer the interests of their country and of their religion, to those principles of honor and fidelity which are commonly esteemed the most sacred ties by men of that profession. Lord Colchester, son of the earl of Rivers, was the first officer that deserted to the prince; and he was attended by a few of his troops. Lord Lovelace made a like effort: but was intercepted by the militia under the duke of Beaufort, and taken prisoner; Lord Cornbury, son of the earl of Clarendon, was more successful. He attempted to carry over three regiments of cavalry; and he actually brought a considerable part of them to the prince’s quarters. Several officers of distinction informed Feversham, the general, that they could not in conscience fight against the prince of Orange.

Louis Aldonce, Earl of Feversham

(FP note) ‘Feversham’ here, the 2nd Earl of Feversham, is Louis Aldonce, who is sometimes styled de Durfort, de Duras or de Blanquefort in recognition of the many feudal appendages he was entitled to add to his name. His father was Guy Aldonce, with a similar number of quaintly named fiefs in France. Aldonce Sr. was Turenne’s nephew, and had been his student in siege warfare fighting the Dutch. Louis Aldonce came across the Channel with his buddy James Stuart and married well, to one of the daughters of George Sondes whose own sons had both died. When tragic old Sondes himself died, Aldonce stood to gain more estates and ennoblements in England – Baron Throwley, Viscount Sondes and Earl of Feversham. Now he was a proper English gent. But having French nobles at the very head of his armies did nothing for James’s popularity as the mood became ever more anti-Catholic.

Feversham after the Monmouth rebellion

Aldonce had been at the forefront of the crushing of the rebellion in the south-west in 1685.

This victory, obtained by the king in the commencement of his reign, would naturally, had it been managed with prudence, have tended much to increase his power and authority. But by reason of the cruelty with which it was prosecuted, and of the temerity with which it afterwards inspired him, it was a principal cause of his sudden ruin and downfall.

Such arbitrary principles had the court instilled into all its servants, that Feversham, immediately after the victory, hanged above twenty prisoners; and was proceeding in his executions, when the bishop of Bath and Wells warned him, that these unhappy men were now by law entitled to a trial, and that their execution would be deemed a real murder. This remonstrance, however, did not stop the savage nature of Colonel Kirke, a soldier of fortune, who had long served at Tangiers, and had contracted, from his intercourse with the Moors, an inhumanity less known in European and in free countries. At his first entry into Bridge water, he hanged nineteen prisoners without the least inquiry into the merits of their cause. As if to make sport with death, he ordered a certain number to be executed, while he and his company should drink the king’s health, or the queen’s, or that of Chief Justice Jefferies. Observing their feet to quiver in the agonies of death, he cried that he would give them music to their dancing; and he immediately commanded the drums to beat and the trumpets to sound. By way of experiment, he ordered one man to be hung up three times, questioning him at each interval, whether he repented of his crime: but the man obstinately asserting, that notwithstanding the past, he still would willingly engage in the same cause, Kirke ordered him to be hung in chains. One story, commonly told of him, is memorable for the treachery, as well as barbarity, which attended it. A young maid pleaded for the life of her brother, and flung herself at Kirke’s feet, armed with all the charms which beauty and innocence, bathed in tears, could bestow upon her. The tyrant was inflamed with desire, not softened into love or clemency. He promised to grant her request, provided that she, in her turn, would be equally compliant to him. The maid yielded to the conditions: but after she had passed the night with him, the wanton savage next morning showed her from the window her brother, the darling object for whom she had sacrificed her virtue, hanging on a gibbet, which he had secretly ordered to be there erected for the execution. Rage, and despair, and indignation took possession of her mind, and deprived her forever of her senses. All the inhabitants of that country, innocent as well as guilty, were exposed to the ravages of this barbarian. The soldiery were let loose to live at free quarters; and his own regiment, instructed by his example, and encouraged by his exhortations, distinguished themselves in a particular manner by their outrages. By way of pleasantry, he used to call them his lambs; an appellation which was long remembered with horror in the west of England. The violent Jefferies succeeded after some interval; and showed the people, that the rigors of law might equal, if not exceed, the ravages of military tyranny. This man, who wantoned in cruelty, had already given a specimen of his character in many trials where he presided; and he now set out with a savage joy, as to a full harvest of death and destruction. He began at Dorchester; and thirty rebels being arraigned, he exhorted them, but in vain, to save him, by their free confession, the trouble of trying them: and when twenty-nine were found guilty, he ordered them, as an additional punishment of their disobedience, to be led to immediate execution. Most of the other prisoners, terrified with this example, pleaded guilty; and no less than two hundred and ninety-two received sentence at Dorchester. Of these, eighty were executed. Exeter was the next stage of his cruelty: two hundred and forty-three were there tried, of whom a great number were condemned and executed. He also opened his commission at Taunton and Wells; and every where carried consternation along with him. The juries were so struck with his menaces, that they gave their verdict with precipitation; and many innocent persons, it is said, were involved with the guilty. And on the whole, besides those who were butchered by the military commanders, two hundred and fifty-one are computed to have fallen by the hand of justice. The whole country was strowed with the heads and limbs of traitors. Every village almost beheld the dead carcass of a wretched inhabitant. And all the rigors of justice, unabated by any appearance of clemency, were fully displayed to the people by the inhuman Jefferies.

Confusion as to whether James would flee

The emissaries of France, and among the rest Barillon, the French ambassador, were busy about the king, and they had entertained a very false notion, which they instilled into him, that nothing would more certainly retard the public settlement, and beget universal confusion, than his deserting the kingdom.

The prince of Orange had with good reason embraced a contrary opinion; and he deemed it extremely difficult to find expedients for securing the nation, so long as the king kept possession of the crown. Actuated, therefore, by this public motive, and no less, we may well presume, by private ambition, he was determined to use every expedient which might intimidate the king, and make him quit that throne which he himself was alone enabled to fill. He declined a personal conference with James’s commissioners, and sent the earls of Clarendon and Oxford to treat with them: the terms which he proposed implied almost a present participation of the sovereignty: and he stopped not a moment the march of his army towards London.

The news which the king received from all quarters, served to continue the panic into which he was fallen, and which his enemies expected to improve to their advantage. Colonel Copel, deputy governor of Hull, made himself master of that important fortress; and threw into prison Lord Langdale, the governor, a Catholic; together with Lord Montgomery, a nobleman of the same religion. The town of Newcastle received Lord Lumley, and declared for the prince of Orange and a free parliament. The duke of Norfolk, lord lieutenant of the county of that name, engaged it in the same measure. The prince’s declaration was read at Oxford by the duke of Ormond, and was received with great applause by that loyal university, who also made an offer of their plate to the prince. Every day some person of quality or distinction, and among the rest the duke of Somerset, went over to the enemy. A violent declaration was dispersed in the prince’s name, but without his participation; in which every one was commanded to seize and punish all Papists, who, contrary to law, pretended either to carry arms or exercise any act of authority. It may not be unworthy of notice that a merry ballad, called Lillibullero, being at this time published in derision of the Papists and the Irish, it was greedily received by the people, and was sung by all ranks of men, even by the king’s army, who were strongly seized with the national spirit. This incident both discovered and served to increase the general discontent of the kingdom.

First attempt to escape

The king, every moment alarmed more and more by these proofs of a general disaffection, not daring to repose trust in any but those who were exposed to more danger than himself, agitated by disdain towards ingratitude, by indignation against disloyalty, impelled by his own fears and those of others, precipitately embraced the resolution of escaping into France; and he sent off beforehand the queen and the infant prince, under the conduct of Count Lauzun, an old favorite of the French monarch. He himself disappeared in the night-time, attended only by Sir Edward Hales; and made the best of his way to a ship which waited for him near the mouth of the river. As if this measure had not been the most grateful to his enemies of any that he could adopt, he had carefully concealed his intention from all the world; and nothing could equal the surprise which seized the city, the court, and the kingdom, upon the discovery of this strange event. Men beheld, all of a sudden, the reins of government thrown up by the hand which held them; and saw none who had any right, or even pretension, to take possession of them.

The more effectually to involve every thing in confusion, the king appointed not any one who should, in his absence, exercise any part of the administration; he threw the great seal into the river; and he recalled all those writs which had been issued for the election of the new parliament. It is often supposed, that the sole motive which impelled him to this sudden desertion, was his reluctance to meet a free parliament and his resolution not to submit to those terms which his subjects would deem requisite for the security of their liberties and their religion. But it must be considered, that his subjects had first deserted him, and entirely lost his confidence; that he might reasonably be supposed to entertain fears for his liberty, if not for his life; and that the conditions would not probably be moderate, which the nation, sensible of his inflexible temper, enraged with the violation of their laws and the danger of their religion, and foreseeing his resentment on account of their past resistance, would, in his present circumstances exact from him.

By this temporary dissolution of government, the populace were masters; and there was no disorder which, during their present ferment, might not be dreaded from them. They rose in a tumult and destroyed all the mass-houses. They even attacked and rifled the houses of the Florentine envoy and Spanish ambassador, where many of the Catholics had lodged their most valuable effects. Jefferies, the chancellor, who had disguised himself in order to fly the kingdom, was discovered by them, and so abused, that he died a little after. Even the army, which should have suppressed those tumults, would, it was apprehended, serve rather to increase the general disorder. Feversham had no sooner heard of the king’s flight, than he disbanded the troops in the neighborhood, and without either disarming or paying them, let them loose to prey upon the country.

In this extremity, the bishops and peers who were in town, being the only remaining authority of the state, (for the privy council, composed of the king’s creatures, was totally disregarded,) thought proper to assemble, and to interpose for the preservation of the community. They chose the marquis of Halifax speaker: they gave directions to the mayor and aldermen for keeping the peace of the city: they issued orders, which were readily obeyed, to the fleet, the army, and all the garrisons: and they made applications to the prince of Orange, whose enterprise they highly applauded, and whose success they joyfully congratulated.

James was found out at (funnily enough) Feversham, the place, and prevented from leaving the country. He returned to London until he could arrange to escape to France.

The end of James II's reign

During the king’s abode at Whitehall, little attention was paid to him by the nobility or any persons of distinction. They had all of them been previously disgusted on account of his blind partiality to the Catholics; and they knew that they were now become criminal in his eyes by their late public applications to the prince of Orange. He himself showed not any symptom of spirit, nor discovered any intention of resuming the reins of government which he had once thrown aside. His authority was now plainly expired; and as he had exercised his power, while possessed of it, with very precipitate and haughty counsels, he relinquished it by a despair equally precipitate and pusillanimous.

Nothing remained for the now ruling powers but to deliberate how they should dispose of his person. Besides that the prince may justly be supposed to have possessed more generosity than to think of offering violence to an unhappy monarch, so nearly related to him, he knew that nothing would so effectually promote his own views as the king’s retiring into France, a country at all times obnoxious to the English. It was determined, therefore, to push him into that measure, which of himself he seemed sufficiently inclined to embrace. The king having sent Lord Feversham on a civil message to the prince, desiring a conference for an accommodation in order to the public settlement, that nobleman was put in arrest, under pretence of his coming without a passport: the Dutch guards were ordered to take possession of Whitehall, where James then resided, and to displace the English: and Halifax, Shrewsbury, and Delamere, brought a message from the prince, which they delivered to the king in bed after midnight, ordering him to leave his palace next morning, and to depart for Ham, a seat of the duchess of Lauderdale’s. He desired permission, which was easily granted, of retiring to Rochester, a town near the sea-coast. It was perceived, that the artifice had taken effect; and that the king, terrified with this harsh treatment, had renewed his former resolution of leaving the kingdom.

He lingered, however, some days at Rochester, under the protection of a Dutch guard, and seemed desirous of an invitation still to keep possession of the throne. He was undoubtedly sensible, that as he had at first trusted too much to his people’s loyalty, and, in confidence of their submission, had offered the greatest violence to their principles and prejudices, so had he, at last, on finding his disappointment, gone too far in the other extreme, and had hastily supposed them destitute of all sense of duty or allegiance. But observing that the church, the nobility, the city, the country, all concurred in neglecting him, and leaving him to his own counsels, he submitted to his melancholy fate; and being urged by earnest letters from the queen, he privately embarked on board a frigate which waited for him; and he arrived safety at Ambleteuse, in Picardy, whence he hastened to St. Germains. Lewis received him with the highest generosity, sympathy, and regard: a conduct which, more than his most signal victories, contributes to the honor of that great monarch.

Thus ended the reign of a prince, whom if we consider his personal character rather than his public conduct, we may safely pronounce more unfortunate than criminal. He had many of those qualities which form a good citizen: even some of those which, had they not been swallowed up in bigotry and arbitrary principles, serve to compose a good sovereign. In domestic life, his conduct was irreproachable, and is entitled to our approbation. Severe, but open in his enmities, steady in his counsels, diligent in his schemes, brave in his enterprises, faithful, sincere, and honorable in his dealings with all men; such was the character with which the duke of York mounted the throne of England. In that high station, his frugality of public money was remarkable, his industry exemplary, his application to naval affairs successful, his encouragement of trade judicious, his jealousy of national honor laudable: what then was wanting to make him an excellent sovereign? A due regard and affection to the religion and constitution of his country. Had he been possessed of this essential quality, even his middling talents, aided by so many virtues, would have rendered his reign honorable and happy. When it was wanting, every excellency which he possessed became dangerous and pernicious to his kingdoms.

Source

David Hume, History of England Volume I Part F of the Gutenberg online edition.