A History of England, Period III. Constitutional MonarchyBright, J. Franck (James Franck)
History
A History of England, Period III. Constitutional Monarchy
Bright, J. Franck (James Franck)
Great Britain -- History
[Sidenote: Discontent of the clergy]
[Sidenote: and the army.]
The unanimity of parties which had secured the triumph of William was of
short duration, nor was his personal popularity long-lived. The apparent
coldness of his demeanour, his carelessness of the pomps of the Court,
his wretched health, which obliged him to withdraw from London and
establish his Court at Kensington, speedily rendered him personally
unpopular; while, as soon as the general danger which had caused their
union was removed, the fundamental differences which divided political
parties at once made themselves obvious. Moreover, the tendency to
reaction, visible after all political excitements, began to show itself.
Two classes were by no means ready to accept kindly the revolution which
had been wrought. These were the clergy and the army. The greater part
of the clergy had spent their lives in inculcating the duty of passive
obedience. Although that theory had broken down in practice when the
attacks of the Crown were directed against themselves, they could not
bring themselves to submit without difficulty to a complete reversal of
their political creed, nor could they help seeing that the success of
William implied nothing short of the substitution of the Whig doctrine
for that of monarchy by divine right. A very large portion of them were
therefore disaffected. The army, though it had disliked the introduction
of Catholics and of Irish among its ranks, and was not prejudiced in
favour of any theory of monarchy, felt its professional honour injured
by the sorry part it had played in the late events. So deep was the
disaffection that one regiment quartered at Ipswich broke out into open
mutiny, marched northward in arms, and was only brought to obedience
after a skirmish with some Dutch troops under Ginkel, which had been
rapidly sent in pursuit. The signs of general disaffection at the same
time were so obvious that it was thought necessary to suspend the Habeas
Corpus Act.
[Sidenote: The Convention changed into a Parliament.]
Before this happened, William had had to form a ministry and to furnish
himself with a Parliament. For this latter purpose, in spite of the
opposition of many of the old Tories, who regarded a Parliament not
summoned by the King's writ as no Parliament at all, the Convention was
changed into a Parliament, and proceeded to act in that capacity. It was
not indeed reasonable that a freely elected body, whose choice of a king
both sides were willing to allow, should still be regarded upon
technical grounds as incapable of settling matters of much less
importance. The choice of ministers was a matter of more difficulty.
[Sidenote: William's difficulties in forming a ministry.]
[Sidenote: Ignorance of the constitutional change.]
[Sidenote: The Whigs' desire for vengeance.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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