Critical and Historical Essays — Volume 1Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron
History
Critical and Historical Essays — Volume 1
Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron
English literature -- History and criticism; Great Britain -- History
The Catholic was too strong for the
Englishman, the Huguenot for the Frenchman. The Protestant statesmen of
Scotland and France called in the aid of Elizabeth; and the Papists of
the League brought a Spanish army into the very heart of France. The
commotions to which the French Revolution gave rise were followed by the
same consequences. The Republicans in every part of Europe were eager to
see the armies of the National Convention and the Directory appear among
them, and exalted in defeats which distressed and humbled those whom
they considered as their worst enemies, their own rulers. The princes
and nobles of France, on the other hand, did their utmost to bring
foreign invaders to Paris. A very short time has elapsed since the
Apostolical party in Spain invoked, too successfully, the support of
strangers.
The great contest which raged in England during the seventeenth century
extinguished, not indeed in the body of the people, but in those classes
which were most actively engaged in politics, almost all national
feelings. Charles the Second and many of his courtiers had passed a
large part of their lives in banishment, living on the bounty of foreign
treasuries, soliciting foreign aid to re-establish monarchy in their
native country. The King’s own brother had fought in Flanders, under the
banners of Spain, against the English armies. The oppressed Cavaliers in
England constantly looked to the Louvre and the Escurial for deliverance
and revenge. Clarendon censures the continental governments with great
bitterness for not interfering in our internal dissensions. It is not
strange, therefore, that, amidst the furious contests which followed the
Restoration, the violence of party feeling should produce effects which
would probably have attended it even in an age less distinguished by
laxity of principle and indelicacy of sentiment. It was not till a
natural death had terminated the paralytic old age of the Jacobite
party that the evil was completely at an end. The Whigs long looked to
Holland, the High Tories to France. The former concluded the Barrier
Treaty; the latter entreated the Court of Versailles to send an
expedition to England. Many men, who, however erroneous their political
notions might be, were unquestionably honourable in private life,
accepted money without scruple from the foreign powers favourable to the
Pretender.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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