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Home Domestic Affairs, 1660-88, in England and Scotland England; Part 6 |
England; Part 6In the autumn of 1678 a man called Titus Gates made a statement to a London magistrate declaring the existence of a Popish plot, the objects of which were to murder the king, to put the Duke of York in his place and to bring a French army into England. Shortly afterwards the magistrate was found dead, having been obviously murdered. At once the nation, always in dread of Popish plots, took alarm, and a panic began. Every word of Titus Gates was believed, though he was really a thorough scoundrel (He had been expelled successively from his school, the Navy, and two Jesuit Colleges, besides having had writs issued against him on two occasions for perjury). Other informers sprang up in every direction; and Roman Catholics were tried and executed on the flimsiest evidence. Protestants carried flails to protect themselves from imaginary Roman Catholic assaults, whilst the Houses of Parliament without one dissentient declared a " damnable and hellish plot" to be in existence. Of course there was in a sense a plot—in which Charles himself was implicated by the Treaty of Dover—to restore Catholicism in England, but the details of this particular plot were a pure fabrication. Shaftesbury and the Opposition, however, made unscrupulous use of the plot. For they were anxious to divert the succession from Charles II’s brother James to an illegitimate son of the king's, known as the Duke of Monmouth; and they hoped that this proposal would, in consequence of the alleged plot, meet with much popular support.In the same autumn (1678) some negotiations which Danby had, by Charles's command, undertaken for the supply of money from the French king were discovered, and Danby was impeached. Charles, to save him, dissolved the Cavalier Parliament, which had sat since 1661 (January, 1679). There followed in a space of two years three short Parliaments (1679-81). The first of these insisted upon committing Danby to the Tower despite the king's pardon, thereby developing the principle of the responsibility of ministers. It also passed, through Shaftesbury's influence, a very important Habeas Corpus Act, the object of which was to ensure that a man who was imprisoned should be brought up for trial as soon as possible. In all three of these short Parliaments, however, the chief topic was the Bill for excluding James from the succession. Shaftesbury and the Opposition pressed for the succession of the Duke of Monmouth, who, they held, was a legitimate son of Charles, the marriage certificate of his mother with Charles being secreted (so it was alleged) in a certain " black box ". Charles, however, said he would rather see his son hanged than legitimize him. It was during this time that Political Parties were first organized. At first they were known under the names of Petitioners and Abhorrers, from the fact that one party petitioned for the calling of Parliament, whilst the other expressed their abhorrence of any encroachment on the king's Prerogative; later they came to be called by their respective opponents Whigs after the name of certain fanatical Whig Covenanters, and Tories after some wild Irish Roman Catholic rebels; and the names are still in use to our own day. The last of the three Parliaments was summoned by the king to meet not in London, where the mob was fiercely hostile to the Court, but at Oxford in Christ Church Hall; and men came armed—so great was the excitement. But k had only lasted a week when Charles dissolved it, and the Exclusion Bill was still unpassed (1681). |
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