The History of England from the Accession of James II, vol 3 | Page 7

Perhaps it might not be too late for him to retrieve his errors. It was
difficult to believe that he could be so dull and perverse as not to have
profited by the terrible discipline which he had recently undergone; and,
if that discipline had produced the effects which might reasonably be
expected from it, England might still enjoy, under her legitimate ruler,
a larger measure of happiness and tranquillity than she could expect
from the administration of the best and ablest usurper.
We should do great injustice to those who held this language, if we
supposed that they had, as a body, ceased to regard Popery and
despotism with abhorrence. Some zealots might indeed be found who
could not bear the thought of imposing conditions on their King, and
who were ready to recall him without the smallest assurance that the
Declaration of Indulgence should not be instantly republished, that the
High Commission should not be instantly revived, that Petre should not
be again seated at the Council Board, and that the fellows of Magdalene
should not again be ejected. But the number of these men was small.
On the other hand, the number of those Royalists, who, if James would
have acknowledged his mistakes and promised to observe the laws,
were ready to rally round him, was very large. It is a remarkable fact
that two able and experienced statesmen, who had borne a chief part in

the Revolution, frankly acknowledged, a few days after the Revolution
had been accomplished, their apprehension that a Restoration was close
at hand. "If King James were a Protestant," said Halifax to Reresby,
"we could not keep him out four months." "If King James," said Danby
to the same person about the same time, "would but give the country
some satisfaction about religion, which he might easily do, it would be
very hard to make head against him."9 Happily for England, James was,
as usual, his own worst enemy. No word indicating that he took blame
to himself on account of the past, or that he intended to govern
constitutionally for the future, could be extracted from him. Every letter,
every rumour, that found its way from Saint Germains to England made
men of sense fear that, if, in his present temper, he should be restored to
power, the second tyranny would be worse than the first. Thus the
Tories, as a body, were forced to admit, very unwillingly, that there
was, at that moment, no choice but between William and public ruin.
They therefore, without altogether relinquishing the hope that he who
was King by right might at some future time be disposed to listen to
reason, and without feeling any thing like loyalty towards him who was
King in possession, discontentedly endured the new government.
It may be doubted whether that government was not, during the first
months of its existence, in more danger from the affection of the Whigs
than from the disaffection of the Tories. Enmity can hardly be more
annoying than querulous, jealous, exacting fondness; and such was the
fondness which the Whigs felt for the Sovereign of their choice. They
were loud in his praise. They were ready to support him with purse and
sword against foreign and domestic foes. But their attachment to him
was of a peculiar kind. Loyalty such as had animated the gallant
gentlemen who fought for Charles the First, loyalty such as had rescued
Charles the Second from the fearful dangers and difficulties caused by
twenty years of maladministration, was not a sentiment to which the
doctrines of Milton and Sidney were favourable; nor was it a sentiment
which a prince, just raised to power by a rebellion, could hope to
inspire. The Whig theory of government is that kings exist for the
people, and not the people for the kings; that the right of a king is
divine in no other sense than that in which the right of a member of
parliament, of a judge, of a juryman, of a mayor, of a headborough, is

divine; that, while the chief magistrate governs according to law, he
ought to be obeyed and reverenced; that, when he violates the law, he
ought to be withstood; and that, when he violates the law grossly,
systematically and pertinaciously, he ought to be deposed. On the truth
of these principles depended the justice of William's title to the throne.
It is obvious that the relation between subjects who held these
principles, and a ruler whose accession had been the triumph of these
principles, must have been altogether different from the relation which
had subsisted between the Stuarts and the Cavaliers. The Whigs loved
William indeed: but they loved him not as a King, but as a party leader;
and it was not difficult to foresee that