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CHAP.
VII.

and able a divine. Neither royal blandishments nor promises
of valuable preferment had been spared. But Burnet, though
infected in early youth by those servile doctrines which were
commonly held by the clergy of that age, had become on con-
viction a Whig; and he firmly adhered through all vicissitudes
to his principles. He had, however, no part in that conspiracy
which brought so much disgrace and calamity on the Whig
party, and not only abhorred the murderous designs of Good-
enough and Ferguson, but was of opinion that even his beloved
and honoured friend Russell had gone to unjustifiable lengths
against the government. A time at length arrived when in-
nocence was not a sufficient protection. Burnet, though not
guilty of any legal offence, was pursued by the vengeance of
the Court. He retired to the Continent, and, after passing
about a year in those wanderings through Switzerland, Italy,
and Germany, of which he has left us an agreeable narrative,
reached the Hague in the summer of 1686, and was received
there with kindness and respect. He had many free conver-
sations with the Princess on politics and religion, and soon
became her spiritual director and confidential adviser. William
proved a much more gracious host than could have been ex-
pected. Of all faults officiousness and indiscretion were the
most offensive to him; and Burnet was allowed even by friends
and admirers to be the most officious and indiscreet of man-
kind. But the sagacious Prince perceived that this pushing
talkative divine, who was always blabbing secrets, putting im-
pertinent questions, obtruding unasked advice, was neverthe-
less an upright, courageous and able man, well acquainted
with the temper and the views of British sects and factions.
The fame of Burnet's eloquence and erudition was also widely
spread. William was not himself a reading man. But he had
now been many years at the head of the Dutch administration,
in an age when the Dutch press was one of the most formidable
engines by which the public mind of Europe was moved, and,
though he had no taste for literary pleasures, was far too wise
and too observant to be ignorant of the value of literary as-
sistance. He was aware that a popular pamphlet might
sometimes be of as much service as a victory in the field.
also felt the importance of having always near him some per-
son well informed as to the civil and ecclesiastical polity of
our island: and Burnet was eminently qualified to be of use
as a living dictionary of British affairs. For his knowledge,
though not always accurate, was of immense extent; and there

He

were in England and Scotland few eminent men of any political or religious party with whom he had not conversed. He was therefore admitted to as large a share of favour and confidence as was granted to any but those who composed the very small inmost knot of the Prince's private friends. When the Doctor took liberties, which was not seldom the case, his patron became more than usually cold and sullen, and sometimes uttered a short dry sarcasm which would have struck dumb any person of ordinary assurance. In spite of such occurrences, however, the amity between this singular pair continued, with some temporary interruptions, till it was dissolved by death. Indeed, it was not easy to wound Burnet's feelings. His selfcomplacency, his animal spirits, and his want of tact, were such that, though he frequently gave offence, he never took it.

CHAP.

VII.

between

Princess.

All the peculiarities of his character fitted him to be the He brings peacemaker between William and Mary. When persons who about a good ought to esteem and love each other are kept asunder, as often underhappens, by some cause which three words of frank explana- standing tion would remove, they are fortunate if they possess an the Prince indiscreet friend who blurts out the whole truth. Burnet and plainly told the Princess what the feeling was which preyed upon her husband's mind. She learned for the first time, with no small astonishment, that, when she became Queen of England, William would not share her throne. She warmly declared that there was no proof of conjugal submission and affection which she was not ready to give. Burnet, with many apologies and with solemn protestations that no human being had put words into his mouth, informed her that the remedy was in her own hands. She might easily, when the crown devolved on her, induce her Parliament not only to give the regal title to her husband, but even to transfer to him by a legislative act the administration of the government. "But," he added, "your Royal Highness ought to consider well before you announce any such resolution. For it is a resolution which, having once been announced, cannot safely or easily be retracted." "I want no time for consideration," answered Mary. "It is enough that I have an opportunity of showing my regard for the Prince. Tell him what I say; and bring him to me that he may hear it from my own lips." Burnet went in quest of William: but William was many miles off after a stag. It was not till the next day that the decisive interview took place. "I did not know till yesterday," said

VII.

CHAP. Mary, "that there was such a difference between the laws of England and the laws of God. But I now promise you that you shall always bear rule; and, in return, I ask only this, that, as I shall observe the precept which enjoins wives to obey their husbands, you will observe that which enjoins husbands to love their wives." Her generous affection completely gained the heart of William. From that time till the sad day when he was carried away in fits from her dying bed, there was entire friendship and confidence between them. Many of her letters to him are extant; and they contain abundant evidence that this man, unamiable as he was in the eyes of the multitude, had succeeded in inspiring a beautiful and virtuous woman, born his superior, with a passion fond even to idolatry. The service which Burnet had rendered to his country was of high moment. A time had arrived at which it was important to the public safety that there should be entire concord between the Prince and Princess.

Relations between William and English parties.

Till after the suppression of the Western insurrection grave causes of dissension had separated William from both Whigs and Tories. He had seen with displeasure the attempts of the Whigs to strip the executive government of some powers which he thought necessary to its efficiency and dignity. He had seen with still deeper displeasure the countenance given by a large section of that party to the pretensions of Monmouth. The opposition, it seemed, wished first to make the crown of England not worth the wearing, and then to place it on the head of a bastard and impostor. At the same time the Prince's religious system differed widely from that which was the badge of the Tories. They were Arminians and Prelatists. They looked down on the Protestant Churches of the Continent, and regarded every line of their own liturgy and rubric as scarcely less sacred than the gospels. His opinions touching the metaphysics of theology were Calvinistic. His opinions touching ecclesiastical polity and modes of worship were latitudinarian. He owned that episcopacy was a lawful and convenient form of church government; but he spoke with sharpness and scorn of the bigotry of those who thought episcopal ordination essential to a Christian society. He had no scruple about the vestments and gestures prescribed by the Book of Common Prayer. But he avowed that he should like the rites of the Church of England better if they reminded him less of the rites of the Church of Rome. He had been heard to utter an ominous growl when first he saw, in his wife's

VII.

private chapel, an altar decked after the Anglican fashion, and CHAP. had not seemed well pleased at finding her with Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity in her hands.*

wards

France.

He therefore long observed the contest between the English His feelings tofactions attentively, but without feeling a strong predilection wards for either side. Nor in truth did he ever, to the end of his England. life, become either a Whig or a Tory. He wanted that which is the common groundwork of both characters; for he never became an Englishman. He saved England, it is true; but he never loved her; and he never obtained her love. To him she was always a land of exile, visited with reluctance and quitted with delight. Even when he rendered to her those services of which, at this day, we feel the happy effects, her welfare was not his chief object. Whatever patriotic feeling he had was for Holland. There was the stately tomb where His feelslept the great politician whose blood, whose name, whose ings totemperament, and whose genius he had inherited. There the Holland very sound of his title was a spell which had, through three and generations, called forth the affectionate enthusiasm of boors and artisans. The Dutch language was the language of his nursery. Among the Dutch gentry he had chosen his early friends. The amusements, the architecture, the landscape of his native country, had taken hold on his heart. To her he turned with constant fondness from a prouder and fairer rival. In the gallery of Whitehall he pined for the familiar House in the Wood at the Hague, and never was so happy as when he could quit the magnificence of Windsor for his far humbler seat at Loo. During his splendid banishment it was his consolation to create round him, by building, planting, and digging, a scene which might remind him of the formal piles of red brick, of the long canals, and of the symmetrical flowerbeds among which his early life had been passed. Yet even his affection for the land of his birth was subordinate to another feeling which early became supreme in his soul, which mixed itself with all his passions, which impelled him to marvellous enterprises, which supported him when sinking under mortification, pain, sickness, and sorrow, which, towards the close of his career, seemed during a short time to languish, but which soon broke forth again fiercer than ever, and continued to animate him even while the prayer for the departing was read at his bedside. That feeling was enmity to

* Dr. Hooper's MS. narrative, published in the Appendix to Lord Dungannon's Life of William.

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CHAP.
VII.

France, and to the magnificent King who, in more than one sense, represented France, and who to virtues and accomplishments eminently French joined in large measure that unquiet, unscrupulous, and vainglorious ambition which has repeatedly drawn on France the resentment of Europe.

It is not difficult to trace the progress of the sentiment which gradually possessed itself of William's whole soul. When he was little more than a boy his country had been attacked by Lewis in ostentatious defiance of justice and public law, had been overrun, had been desolated, had been given up to every excess of rapacity, licentiousness, and cruelty. The Dutch had in dismay humbled themselves before the conqueror, and had implored mercy. They had been told in reply that, if they desired peace, they must resign their independence, and do annual homage to the House of Bourbon. The injured nation, driven to despair, had opened its dykes, and had called in the sea as an ally against the French tyranny. It was in the agony of that conflict, when peasants were flying in terror before the invaders, when hundreds of fair gardens and pleasure houses were buried beneath the waves, when the deliberations of the States were interrupted by the fainting and the loud weeping of ancient senators who could not bear the thought of surviving the freedom and glory of their native land, that William had been called to the head of affairs. For a time it seemed to him that resistance was hopeless. looked in vain.

He looked round him for succour, and Spain was unnerved, Germany distracted, England corrupted. Nothing seemed left to the young Stadtholder but to perish sword in hand, or to be the Æneas of a great emigration, and to create another Holland in countries beyond the reach of the tyranny of France. No obstacle would then remain to check the progress of the House of Bourbon. A few years; and that House might add to its dominions Lorraine and Flanders, Castile and Aragon, Naples and Milan, Mexico and Peru. Lewis might wear the imperial crown, might place a prince of his family on the throne of Poland, might be sole master of Europe from the Scythian deserts to the Atlantic Ocean, and of America from regions north of the Tropic of Cancer to regions south of the Tropic of Capricorn. Such was the prospect which lay before. William when first he entered on public life, and which never ceased to haunt him till his latest day. The French monarchy was to him what the Roman republic was to Hannibal, what

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