- - liament. Its Character. -Trial of Coleman of Ire- land. -New Elections.- Duke of Monmouth. - Duke of York retires to Brussels. New Parliament, Danby's Impeachment. - Popish Plot.- New Council, -Limitations on a Popish Successor.- Bill of Exclu- and against the Exclusion. Exclusion Bill rejected, -Trial of Stafford-His Execution. Violence of State of Affairs in Ireland. Shaftesbury acquitted. Argyle's Trial. State of Affairs in Scotland. - State of the Ministry in England. -New Nomination of Sheriffs. Quo Warranto's. Great Power of the - King's first Transactions. A Parliament.- Arguments Defeat and Execution. A Parliament. Persecution. The dispensing Power. -State of Ire- land. Breach betwixt the King and the Church. - Court of Ecclesiastical Commission.-Sentence against the Bishop of London. - Suspension of the Penal Laws, -State of Ireland. - Embassy to Rome. Attempt upon Magdalen College. Imprisonment - Trial- - against France - refuses to concur with the King- resolves to oppose the King - is applied to by the English. Coalition of Parties. - Prince's Preparations, -Offers of France to the King-rejected.-Supposed THE HISTORY OF GREAT BRITAIN. CHAP. LXVI. Schemes of the Cabal. Remonstrances of Sir William Temple. Campaign of 1674. - A Parliament.— Passive Obedience. A Parliament. -- Campaign of 1675.- Congress of Nimeguen, Campaign of 1676. -Uncertain Conduct of the King. - A Parliament. - Campaign of 1677.- Parliament's Distrust of the King. Marriage of the Prince of Orange with the Lady Mary. - Plan of Peace. Negotiations. Campaign of 1678.- Negotiations. Peace of Nimeguen.State of Affairs in Scotland. IF 1674. F we consider the projects of the famous Cabal, it CHAP. will appear hard to determine, whether the end LXVI. which those ministers pursued was more blameable and pernicious, or the means by which they were Schemes to effect it more impolitic and imprudent. Though of the they might talk only of recovering or fixing the Cabal. King's authority; their intention could be no other than that of making him absolute: Since it was not possible to regain or maintain, in opposition to the people, 1674. CHAP. people, any of those powers of the crown abolished LXVI. by late law or custom, without subduing the people, and rendering the royal prerogative entirely uncontrollable. Against such a scheme, they might foresee, that every part of the nation would declare themselves, not only the old parliamentary faction, which, though they kept not in a body, were still numerous; but even the greatest royalists, who were indeed attached to monarchy, but desired to see it limited and restrained by law. It had appeared that the present parliament, though elected during the greatest prevalence of the royal party, was yet tenacious of popular privileges, and retained a considerable jealousy of the crown, even before they had received any just ground of suspicion. The guards, therefore, together with a small army, new levied and undisciplined, and composed too of Englishmen, were almost the only domestic resources which the King could depend on in the prosecution of these dangerous counsels. THE assistance of the French King was, no doubt, deemed, by the Cabal, a considerable support in the schemes which they were forming; but it is not easily conceived, that they could imagine themselves capable of directing and employing an associate of so domineering a character. They ought justly to have suspected that it would be the sole intention of Lewis, as it evidently was his interest, to raise incurable jealousies between the King and his people; and that he saw how much a steady uniform government in this island, whether free or absolute, would form invincible barriers to his ambition. Should his assistance be demanded; if he sent a small supply, it would serve only to enrage the people, and render the breach altogether irreparable; if he furnished a great force, sufficient to subdue the nation, there was little reason to trust his generosity, with regard to the use which he would make of this advantage. |