than I am now." Before the year was out on the 8th of December his head fell before the axe on Tower Hill; and to the last his stoicism never failed. Monmouth made a temporary peace with Charles, chiefly by the aid of Halifax. Soon quarrelling again with his father, he escaped to Holland.

During the last years of the reign, the Duke of York, recovering his influence, found his way once more into the privy council and to the head of the navy board. The rival factions of Whig and Tory had now assumed very distinct shape, and hung out the banners of certain great leaders. York, of course a Tory, had for his right-hand man Lawrence Hyde, Earl of Rochester and his brother-in-law, being the historian's second son. Halifax, who had become a Whig and held the privy seal, led the Opposition, with the feeble aid of Francis North, Lord Guildford. Godolphin, grave and cautious, never in the way, and never out of the way," as Charles cleverly said, stood neutral. Sunderland, the secretary of state, a cold intriguer, spread his restless webs on every side. Halifax struck a heavy blow at Rochester by accusing him of mismanagement in the treasury, where £40,000 had been lost to the nation. It was found to be true. But the discovery, instead of marring the fortunes of the earl, brought him promotion to the chair of the lord president. Godolphin then became first lord of the treasury, which, however, did not then signify the position of prime minister.

Charles was seized with an apoplectic fit on Monday morning, the 2nd of February, and died at the age of fifty-four on the following Friday night.

Leading statesmen-Argyle's invasion-Monmouth lands-Sedgemoor-The policy of James-The dispensing power-The First Declaration-Cam bridge-Magdalene College, Oxford-The Second Declaration-Trial of the prelates -Landing of William--Flight of James-The Convention—” Declaration of Right-The double throne-Siege of Derry-Killiecrankie-The Boyne-Athlone-Limerick.

W1

HEN in 1685 James Duke of York became by his brother's death James the Second of Great Britain, he made on the spur of the moment a speech to his council, full of the fairest promises. He would maintain the established government in both church and state. He would cherish the church, and respect the law. But symptoms soon appeared portending many changes and a troubled reign. Most notable of these was the public and splendid celebration of the Romish mass at Westminster, to which the monarch went in state. He also formed a secret council of Roman Catholics, including in it Petre the Jesuit and Richard Talbot ("lying Dick Talbot "), soon to be created Earl of Tyrconnel and chief ruler of Ireland. Of the statesmen belonging to the late reign, Rochester was the only one who stood really well with James. Sunderland, the Secretary of State, and Godolphin, now made chamberlain to the queen, were deemed indispensable, and were admitted to the royal confidence. Conceited not a little as to his knowledge of naval matters, the king became his own man

Nevertheless

ager in that department. Halifax, Ormond, and Guildford were retained in the cabinet, but retained only to be kept in proper trim. Jeffreys was made Chief-Justice of the King's Bench, and proved himself unscrupulous enough to serve the needs of any despot. John, Lord Churchill, who had risen in the late reign by means of the influence which his sister Arabella had over James, was sent over to Versailles to rivet more closely the base links which bound the Stuarts to the French throne. Barillon, the French minister at the English court, kept his eyes open and his purse ready for any emergency.

Having by the advice of Jeffreys collected the revenues without parliamentary sanction, James proceeded to call the Houses into session. He and his queen had been already crowned at Westminster on St. George's Day by Sancroft, the Archbishop of Canterbury. The punishment of Oates and Dangerfield with pillory and whip, and the trial of the great Puritan old Richard Baxter, clearly displayed the temper of King James as to religious matters. He still hated the Scottish Covenanters, as he had hated them from the first. One sect of Puritans, however, the Society of Friends (or the Quakers), he alternately petted and tolerated, chiefly through the influence which William Penn, the celebrated founder of Pennsylvania, had acquired over his mind.

The first Parliament of James, meeting on the 22nd of May 1685, showed extreme alacrity in the voting of supplies. It gave him, in spite of a daring speech from Sir Edward Seymour, the same revenue as his dead brother had enjoyed£1,200,000 a year for life, and other revenues which brought up the royal income to £1,900,000. Immediately after the death of Charles, Louis of France sent James a present of £37,000, to which £30,000 was soon added. James was not sufficiently confident of his position to be able to decline these compromising gifts.

The proceedings of Parliament were interrupted by startling

news.

From the knot of Whig refugees gathered around the centre of disaffection in Friesland and Brabant, two invasions streamed out, like sudden fire-streaks, scorching Scottish heath and English grass a little, but making no permanent impression on either land.

1685

On the 2nd of May, Argyle sailed from Vlieland* with three small ships for the purpose of invading Scotland. Monmouth was to descend soon afterwards on the English coast. As Argyle passed the Orkneys, he incautiously allowed two men to go ashore. The bishop arrested them, and the fleet was delayed there for three days. It took but a short time for news of the invasion to reach the capital; and the tuck of drum resounded everywhere through the land. Having disembarked at Campbeltown on the Mull of Cantire, Argyle sent the fiery cross over Argyleshire, and awaited the muster of the Campbells at the isthmus of Tarbet. His plan was to seize Inveraray, and to make it the centre of operations; but he was hampered by a committee, and especially by two obstinate and jealous men, Sir Patrick Hume and Sir John Cochrane, who insisted on the invasion of the Lowlands, and sailed away to make an attempt on Ayrshire. They failed, and had to return to the forces of Argyle, who, after losing his stores and his ships, and after wandering aimlessly in Bute and Argyle, found himself in Dumbartonshire in a hopeless condition. A dash on Glasgow was then the only chance left; but before he had reached Kilpatrick, his army had gone to pieces, and the invasion was over. When Argyle found that shelter at Kilpatrick was hopeless, he crossed the Clyde in a peasant's dress, acting as guide to Major Fullarton. At Inchinnan, in Renfrewshire, some soldiers saw a couple of men about to ford the river Cart. The guide, they thought, looked like a gentleman. And when some questions received no definite answer, they seized the seeming peasant.

* Vlieland, an island at the entrance to the Zuider Zee.

Dashing

into the stream, he tried to fire his pistols at them; but the powder was soaked, and would not burn. A broadsword cut him to the ground, and Argyle was a prisoner. He was confined in the Castle of Edinburgh-in what has since been called the Argyle Tower. He spent some of his last hours in the composition of a poetic epitaph on himself, bewailing the cruelty of his friends; and within an hour of eternity he slept a peaceful sleep. The Maiden took his head off; and it was fixed on the spikes of the Tolbooth (June 30th).

Monmouth was then on English soil. Leaving Texel* in a ship of six-and-twenty guns, and accompanied by two smaller ships, he landed eighty-two swords on the rocks of June 11, Lyme. He had, however, equipments for an army. 1685 The people, blazing into enthusiastic welcome, gathered with shouts round a blue flag uplifted in the market-place. The eighty swelled in a day to fifteen hundred. On the 15th, the Duke of Albemarle, George Monk's son, was so frightened at Axminster by the hedges alive with rebel musket-barrels, that he withdrew the train-bands in disorder. Monmouth

reached Taunton on the 18th of June. By that time posts from the west had brought the alarm to London, where the din of hasty arming arose. A Bill of Attainder against the invader passed rapidly through the Houses, and a reward of £5,000 was offered for his apprehension.

Taunton burst into flowers in honour of the duke. Twentysix of the prettiest girls in the town presented him with colours of their own embroidering, and with a Bible, which he took with a show of reverence. His chief advisers were Lord Grey and Robert Ferguson, the Scottish clergyman who was concerned in the Rye House Plot. They pressed Monmouth to assume the regal title, and he was proclaimed king in the market-place of Taunton. Welcome met the invader at Bridge

* Texel, an island at the entrance to the Zuider Zee, next to Vlieland. Lyme, a small sea-port at the extreme west of the shore of Dorsetshire, twenty-five miles west of Dorchester.