The History of England, from the Accession of James II Volume I Part 29

[Footnote 190: Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting, London Gazette, May 31, 1683; North's Life of Guildford.]

[Footnote 191: The great prices paid to Varelst and Verrio are mentioned in Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting.]

[Footnote 192: Petty's Political Arithmetic.]

[Footnote 193: Stat 5 Eliz. c. 4; Archaeologia, vol. xi.]

[Footnote 194: Plain and easy Method showing how the office of Overseer of the Poor may be managed, by Richard Dunning; 1st edition, 1685; 2d edition, 1686.]

[Footnote 195: Cullum's History of Hawsted.]

[Footnote 196: Ruggles on the Poor.]

[Footnote 197: See, in Thurloe's State Papers, the memorandum of the Dutch Deputies dated August 2-12, 1653.]

[Footnote 198: The orator was Mr. John Ba.s.set, member for Barnstaple.

See Smith's Memoirs of Wool, chapter lxviii.]

[Footnote 199: This ballad is in the British Museum. The precise year is not given; but the Imprimatur of Roger Lestrange fixes the date sufficiently for my purpose. I will quote some of the lines. The master clothier is introduced speaking as follows:

"In former ages we used to give, So that our workfolks like farmers did live; But the times are changed, we will make them know.

"We will make them to work hard for sixpence a day, Though a s.h.i.+lling they deserve if they kind their just pay; If at all they murmur and say 'tis too small, We bid them choose whether they'll work at all.

And thus we forgain all our wealth and estate, By many poor men that work early and late.

Then hey for the clothing trade! It goes on brave; We scorn for to toyl and moyl, nor yet to slave.

Our workmen do work hard, but we live at ease, We go when we will, and we come when we please."]

[Footnote 200: Chamberlayne's State of England; Petty's Political Arithmetic, chapter viii.; Dunning's Plain and Easy Method; Firmin's Proposition for the Employing of the Poor. It ought to be observed that Firmin was an eminent philanthropist.]

[Footnote 201: King in his Natural and Political Conclusions roughly estimated the common people of England at 880,000 families. Of these families 440,000, according to him ate animal food twice a week. The remaining 440,000, ate it not at all, or at most not oftener than once a week.]

[Footnote 202: Fourteenth Report of the Poor Law Commissioners, Appendix B. No. 2, Appendix C. No 1, 1848. Of the two estimates of the poor rate mentioned in the text one was formed by Arthur Moore, the other, some years later, by Richard Dunning. Moore's estimate will be found in Davenant's Essay on Ways and Means; Dunning's in Sir Frederic Eden's valuable work on the poor. King and Davenant estimate the paupers and beggars in 1696, at the incredible number of 1,330,000 out of a population of 5,500,000. In 1846 the number of persons who received relief appears from the official returns to have been only 1,332,089 out of a population of about 17,000,000. It ought also to be observed that, in those returns, a pauper must very often be reckoned more than once.

I would advise the reader to consult De Foe's pamphlet ent.i.tled "Giving Alms no Charity," and the Greenwich tables which will be found in Mr.

M'Culloch's Commercial Dictionary under the head Prices.]

[Footnote 203: The deaths were 23,222. Petty's Political Arithmetic.]

[Footnote 204: Burnet, i. 560.]

[Footnote 205: Muggleton's Acts of the Witnesses of the Spirit.]

[Footnote 206: Tom Brown describes such a scene in lines which I do not venture to quote.]

[Footnote 207: Ward's London Spy.]

[Footnote 208: Pepys's Diary, Dec. 28, 1663, Sept. 2, 1667.]

[Footnote 209: Burnet, i, 606; Spectator, No. 462; Lords' Journals, October 28, 1678; Cibber's Apology.]

[Footnote 210: Burnet, i. 605, 606, Welwood, North's Life of Guildford, 251.]

[Footnote 211: I may take this opportunity of mentioning that whenever I give only one date, I follow the old style, which was, in the seventeenth century, the style of England; but I reckon the year from the first of January.]

[Footnote 212: Saint Everemond, pa.s.sim; Saint Real, Memoires de la d.u.c.h.esse de Mazarin; Rochester's Farewell; Evelyn's Diary, Sept. 6, 1676, June 11, 1699.]

[Footnote 213: Evelyn's Diary, Jan. 28, 1684-5, Saint Evremond's Letter to Dery.]

[Footnote 214: Id., February 4, 1684-5.]

[Footnote 215: Roger North's Life of Sir Dudley North, 170; The true Patriot vindicated, or a Justification of his Excellency the E-of R-; Burnet, i. 605. The Treasury Books prove that Burnet had good intelligence.]

[Footnote 216: Evelyn's Diary, Jan. 24, 1681-2, Oct. 4, 1683.]

[Footnote 217: Dugdale's Correspondence.]

[Footnote 218: Hawkins's Life of Ken, 1713.]

[Footnote 219: See the London Gazette of Nov. 21, 1678. Barillon and Burnet say that Huddleston was excepted out of all the Acts of Parliament made against priests; but this is a mistake.]

[Footnote 220: Clark's Life of James the Second, i, 746. Orig. Mem.; Barillon's Despatch of Feb. 1-18, 1685; Van Citters's Despatches of Feb.

3-13 and Feb. 1-16. Huddleston's Narrative; Letters of Philip, second Earl of Chesterfield, 277; Sir H. Ellis's Original Letters, First Series. iii. 333: Second Series, iv 74; Chaillot MS.; Burnet, i. 606: Evelyn's Diary, Feb. 4. 1684-5: Welwood's Memoires 140; North's Life of Guildford. 252; Examen, 648; Hawkins's Life of Ken; Dryden's Threnodia Augustalis; Sir H. Halford's Essay on Deaths of Eminent Persons. See also a fragment of a letter written by the Earl of Ailesbury, which is printed in the European Magazine for April, 1795. Ailesbury calls Burnet an impostor. Yet his own narrative and Burnet's will not, to any candid and sensible reader, appear to contradict each other. I have seen in the British Museum, and also in the Library of the Royal Inst.i.tution, a curious broadside containing an account of the death of Charles. It will be found in the Somers Collections. The author was evidently a zealous Roman Catholic, and must have had access to good sources of information.

I strongly suspect that he had been in communication, directly or indirectly, with James himself. No name is given at length; but the initials are perfectly intelligible, except in one place. It is said that the D. of Y. was reminded of the duty which he owed to his brother by P.M.A.C.F. I must own myself quite unable to decipher the last five letters. It is some consolation that Sir Walter Scott was equally unsuccessful. (1848.) Since the first edition of this work was published, several ingenious conjectures touching these mysterious letters have been communicated to me, but I am convinced that the true solution has not yet been suggested. (1850.) I still greatly doubt whether the riddle has been solved. But the most plausible interpretation is one which, with some variations, occurred, almost at the same time, to myself and to several other persons; I am inclined to read "Pere Mansuete A Cordelier Friar." Mansuete, a Cordelier, was then James's confessor. To Mansuete therefore it peculiarly belonged to remind James of a sacred duty which had been culpably neglected. The writer of the broadside must have been unwilling to inform the world that a soul which many devout Roman Catholics had left to perish had been s.n.a.t.c.hed from destruction by the courageous charity of a woman of loose character. It is therefore not unlikely that he would prefer a fiction, at once probable and edifying, to a truth which could not fail to give scandal. (1856.)----It should seem that no transactions in history ought to be more accurately known to us than those which took place round the deathbed of Charles the Second. We have several relations written by persons who were actually in his room. We have several relations written by persons who, though not themselves eyewitnesses, had the best opportunity of obtaining information from eyewitnesses. Yet whoever attempts to digest this vast ma.s.s of materials into a consistent narrative will find the task a difficult one. Indeed James and his wife, when they told the story to the nuns of Chaillot, could not agree as to some circ.u.mstances. The Queen said that, after Charles had received the last sacraments the Protestant Bishops renewed their exhortations. The King said that nothing of the kind took place.

"Surely," said the Queen, "you told me so yourself." "It is impossible that I have told you so," said the King, "for nothing of the sort happened."----It is much to be regretted that Sir Henry Halford should have taken so little trouble ascertain the facts on which he p.r.o.nounced judgment. He does not seem to have been aware of the existence of the narrative of James, Barillon, and Huddleston.----As this is the first occasion on which I cite the correspondence of the Dutch ministers at the English court, I ought here to mention that a series of their despatches, from the accession of James the Second to his flight, forms one of the most valuable parts of the Mackintosh collection.

The subsequent despatches, down to the settlement of the government in February, 1689, I procured from the Hague. The Dutch archives have been far too little explored. They abound with information interesting in the highest degree to every Englishman. They are admirably arranged and they are in the charge of gentlemen whose courtesy, liberality and zeal for the interests of literature, cannot be too highly praised. I wish to acknowledge, in the strongest manner, my own obligations to Mr. De Jonge and to Mr. Van Zwanne.]

[Footnote 221: Clarendon mentions this calumny with just scorn.

"According to the charity of the time towards Cromwell, very many would have it believed to be by poison, of which there was no appearance, nor any proof ever after made."--Book xiv.]

[Footnote 222: Welwood, 139 Burnet, i. 609; Sheffield's Character of Charles the Second; North's Life of Guildford, 252; Examen, 648; Revolution Politics; Higgons on Burnet. What North says of the embarra.s.sment and vacillation of the physicians is confirmed by the despatches of Van Citters. I have been much perplexed by the strange story about Short's suspicions. I was, at one time, inclined to adopt North's solution. But, though I attach little weight to the authority of Welwood and Burnet in such a case, I cannot reject the testimony of so well informed and so unwilling a witness as Sheffield.]

[Footnote 223: London Gazette, Feb. 9. 1684-5; Clarke's Life of James the Second, ii. 3; Barillon, Feb. 9-19: Evelyn's Diary, Feb. 6.]

[Footnote 224: See the authorities cited in the last note. See also the Examen, 647; Burnet, i. 620; Higgons on Burnet.]

[Footnote 225: London Gazette, Feb. 14, 1684-5; Evelyn's Diary of the same day; Burnet, i. 610: The Hind let loose.]

[Footnote 226: Burnet, i. 628; Lestrange, Observator, Feb. 11, 1684.]

[Footnote 227: The letters which pa.s.sed between Rochester and Ormond on this subject will be found in the Clarendon Correspondence.]

[Footnote 228: The ministerial changes are announced in the London Gazette, Feb. 19, 1684-5. See Burnet, i. 621; Barillon, Feb. 9-19, 16-26; and Feb. 19,/Mar. 1.]

[Footnote 229: Carte's Life of Ormond; Secret Consults of the Romish Party in Ireland, 1690; Memoirs of Ireland, 1716.]

[Footnote 230: Christmas Sessions Paper of 1678.]

[Footnote 231: The Acts of the Witnesses of the Spirit, part v chapter v. In this work Lodowick, after his fas.h.i.+on, revenges himself on the "bawling devil," as he calls Jeffreys, by a string of curses which Ernulphus, or Jeffreys himself, might have envied. The trial was in January, 1677.]

[Footnote 232: This saying is to be found in many contemporary pamphlets. t.i.tus Oates was never tired of quoting it. See his Eikwg Basilikh.]