The History of England, from the Accession of James II — Volume 4Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron
History
The History of England, from the Accession of James II — Volume 4
Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron
Great Britain -- History -- James II, 1685-1688; Great Britain -- History -- William and Mary, 1689-1702
The truth is that the faults of James's head and heart were incurable.
In his view there could be between him and his subjects no reciprocity
of obligation. Their duty was to risk property, liberty, life, in order
to replace him on the throne, and then to bear patiently whatever he
chose to inflict upon them. They could no more pretend to merit
before him than before God. When they had done all, they were still
unprofitable servants. The highest praise due to the royalist who shed
his blood on the field of battle or on the scaffold for hereditary
monarchy was simply that he was not a traitor. After all the severe
discipline which the deposed King had undergone, he was still as much
bent on plundering and abasing the Church of England as on the day when
he told the kneeling fellows of Magdalene to get out of his sight, or
on the day when he sent the Bishops to the Tower. He was in the habit
of declaring that he would rather die without seeing England again than
stoop to capitulate with those whom he ought to command. [427] In the
Declaration of April 1692 the whole man appears without disguise, full
of his own imaginary rights, unable to understand how any body but
himself can have any rights, dull, obstinate and cruel. Another paper
which he drew up about the same time shows, if possible, still more
clearly, how little he had profited by a sharp experience. In that paper
he set forth the plan according to which he intended to govern when he
should be restored. He laid it down as a rule that one Commissioner of
the Treasury, one of the two Secretaries of State, the Secretary at War,
the majority of the Great Officers of the Household, the majority of
the Lords of the Bedchamber, the majority of the officers of the army,
should always be Roman Catholics. [428]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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