Page images
PDF
EPUB

the refugees (though her sentence was commuted to beheading). The scene next shifted to Salisbury, where a few of the rebel Whigs were whipped and imprisoned, but no capital execution took place on political grounds. On the subsequent career of the terrible Judge through the adjoining counties of Dorset, Somerset and Devon, nor on the traces which he left behind him in the spectacle of human heads and limbs, boiled in pitch and elevated on stakes along the high roads, we need not further dilate. Suffice it to say in summary, that the Western folk who so freely fought and so cheerfully fell for their "Glorious Monmouth" did so in the honest belief that they were adopting the only course left open to them by Providence for preserving the Reformed Faith of these Realms; and that it was the simple Protestanism of them, and such as they, which three years afterwards gave to the Revolution its real element of strength.

THE NEW BURGESS LISTS.

The one end towards which all James II.'s efforts were constantly directed was, as is well known, the undermining of the Established Church in favour of Romanism. This he ignorantly sought to effect by conciliating (after trampling upon) the Dissenters; and by proclaiming a general toleration for liberty of conscience which should embrace the Romanists. After the seizure therefore of the charters of the English boroughs, already referred to, not only were the names of Catholic gentry inserted in the new Corporation lists, but many Dissenters also found themselves thrust into places of honour and power to which they had long ceased to aspire. This was a position which the majority of them felt

1 Come mortals come, now set yourselves to weep;
Is not your glorious Monmouth gone to sleep?
Send us some tears ye Indians from your shore,
For it's our grief that we can mourn no more."

Such is the commencement of his elegy in The new Martyrology or The Bloodg Assizes. page 434.

to be one of extreme difficulty; for though they had sufficiently smarted during the previous reign under Protestant Tests and Oaths, they scorned, on the other hand, to flatter the abhorred party with whom they now found themselves placed in such unexpected and undesired alliance. It is true that a local document, to be presently quoted, represents the Quakers and the Baptists as favourable to James's views, and the Presbyterians as opposed to them; but this is merely a general statement pointing to the well-known fact that Presbyterian principles have always to a certain extent recognized the union of Church and State. The others were for fair play and no favour.

But not only were Nonconformists introduced into the Corporations, but the ancient principle that burgess-ship involved residence in the borough, (a doctrine which still maintained a feeble hold on the municipal mind,) was utterly cast aside. Bishop Burnet tells us, that in respect of the Cornish boroughs, the Earl of Bath, with a view to secure the Groom of the Stole's place, actually inserted the names of the Officers of the Guards into almost all the charters of that county. Certainly nothing so flagrant as this was practised at Devizes; nor further, would it be fair to infer that all the aristocratic names which garnished the Burgess List at this period represented a body of gentry around Devizes who were antagonistic to the English Church. If their influence simply operated, here as elsewhere, to neutralize the independence of Borough life, the King's end was so far answered. Their presence at least indicates the important estimation in which boroughs were then held. Again and again are the autographs of the neighbouring gentry inserted in the Corporation books during James's reign; either as Free Burgesses, or as courtiers who deemed the Devizes Ledger a convenient repository for recording their abhorrence of the Solemn League and Covenant. Thus from among the Free Burgesses we may cull such names as Sir Gilbert Talbot, Sir John Talbot, James

Herbert, the Hon. Henry Bertie, Sir Robert Henley, Sir Giles Hungerford, Richard Lewis, Henry Baynton, Robert Baynton, Sharington Talbot, Walter Grubb, Charles Tucker, John Long, Thomas Brewer, Dauntsey Brounker, and George Johnson, Esquires.

[With all this external distinction, a necessity seems to have been felt at this period for some retrenchment in home expenses. In the time of Edward Hope an order is passed, denying any salary in future for Mr. Mayor:-also that the Chamber shall make no payment for the annual dinner, but that the Mayor, Recorder, and Aldermen, shall contribute one shilling and sixpence each, as to an ordinary, and the Capital Burgesses one shilling each:-no salary to be paid to the Chamberlains or sub-bailiffs; and the tolls and pitchingpence heretofore paid to the bailiffs, to be taken into the Corporation's hands. Sir William Pynsent of Erchfont is thanked for his kindness to the poor of the borough.]

That King James was entirely successful in his attempt to render the Devizes vote an expression of his own will in the matter of toleration for all religious creeds, is evidenced by a document preserved in the London Gazette for 1687, entitled "The humble and thankful address of his Majesty's dutiful and loyal subjects the Mayor and Burgesses of the Borough of Devizes, as the same is regulated by his Majesty's royal mandates." It begins thus,-" Most dread Sovereign:-Since we enjoy the benign influence of your Majesty's gracious Declaration of the 4th of April 1687 in the free exercise of our religion and uninterrupted peace in our rights and properties," &c., and then proceeds to express the thankfulness of the subscribers that his Majesty's royal heart should thus have been inclined "to assert the Divine prerogative over conscience,"-language which sounds at first rather ambiguous, but evidently means, not that James assumed any control over other men's consciences, but on the contrary that he disclaimed such a prerogative, on the principle that

conscience was amenable only to a divine and therefore not to an earthly tribunal. The writers then, after acknowledging the happy fruits and effects flowing from a policy in which the King had surpassed his royal ancestors, conclude by "assuring him that when he should think fit to convene his great council in Parliament, they would do their utmost endeavours to choose such representatives as might join with his Majesty in a Magna Charta, whereby the Peace of all his Majesty's subjects in matters of religion should be secured to posterity."

SHERIFF CREY. 1687-8.

In preference to resorting to printed authorities for the oft-told tale of the events premonitory of the Revolution, we may take advantage in the present instance of an interesting journal of events kept at the time by Mr. George Wansey of Warminster, a member of a family which may almost be styled the hereditary assertors in that district of the principles of civil and religious freedom, The account here following begins with the close of 1687.

"In or very near the month of December was Jeremy Crey, the elder, of Horningsham, appointed by the King to be High Sheriff of the County of Wilts, which he by hasting to London thought to evade. But without much money there was little hope of getting off. Besides, the King was resolved he should stand Sheriff, for the King said that he understood Jeremy Crey was an honest man, and of an estate though not one foot of land in Wiltshire, and a Dissenter, which was the main point the King aimed at. So Jeremy Crey had his commission for Sheriff, with a clause Non obstante, which was to excuse him from taking the oaths and the tests by law appointed, and which the King was not willing any of his Sheriff's should take, for this reason, that they might be the more willing and forward to repeal the penal laws and tests, so that every man of what persuasion soever might have free liberty of conscience. But in this Sheriff the King was mistaken; for soon after he was made Sheriff, he, as I was informed, at Longleat took the oaths and tests, and Sacraments so called after the manner of the Church of England so called; and at the Assizes at Sarum which began the 3rd of March 1687-8 being the seventh day of the week, the day after, this Jeremy Crey that the King took for a Dissenter was at the Cathedral, at the time, as far as I could hear, of their . . service though I

believe he had no delight in being there, nor loves them not, nor their service at all: but had been more to be be commended and more pleasing to the King, that, as he took him for a Dissenter, so he [should have] shewed himself, as he is I suppose, one in his heart; and not for fear of the frowns of some great men or man to do contrary to his conscience. But I fear he chose rather to be governed by this great man Viscount Weymouth and his own timorous brother, than by that noble principle that would not have us to fear men, and would that all men should enjoy liberty of conscience.1

.

[ocr errors]

"Great were the endeavours of some men, the latter end of this year 87 and the following year, by printing several pamphlets, to induce the people to choose such men for the ensuing Parliament that might comply with the King in repealing all penal laws and tests; which was strongly opposed by most of the great men and clergy in their meetings designed or accidentally. The Baptists and people called Quakers were generally for it; opposed by the Church of England and Presbyters.

"We had news yesterday, being the 27th of August 1688 that writs will be issued out for a Parliament the 18th of the next month and to sit the 27th of November next. But about the 21st of September when the writs were expected and (it was said) were sent to the Lord-Lieutenants, strange news arrived from the Belgian shore, viz., that the Prince of Orange was coming with a great army of horse and foot, of Sweedes, Switzers, English and Scots; which news greatly alarmed the King, who made haste to increase his army, and about the latter end of September issued out a pardon wherein some were excepted, about nine; and also a Proclamation, wherein we were told that the Prince was coming with an army to invade this Kingdom of England; and also the writs for choosing Parliament men recalled. Ever since have we been alarmed with the coming of the Dutch &c., to this 26th of October 1688, but do not hear they are yet arrived, though expected as 'tis said by the King, whose army is ready to march on first notice of their landing." [Then follows the account of an Aurora Borealis on the 30th Oct. which in the eyes of many bore a portentous resemblance to the conflict of two armies.] "The 5th of November 1688 the Prince of Orange landed or began to land his army near Exeter, viz., at Ipsam, Torbay, and Dartmouth; news whereof was soon carried to the King at Whitehall, the messenger

1 Canon Jackson's List of Wiltshire Sheriff's has the following notice of this gentleman "1688. Sir Jeremy Craye, knt. A person of this name founded a charity at Horningsham in 1698; probably the clothier there who made a large fortune by the invention of an ingenious machine for beating wool. Aubrey's MSS. Craye of Ibsley,

Co. Southampton presented in 1729 and 1737 to the Rectory of Sutton Mandeville." The name occurs in the Etchilhampton parish register in the 17th century. Foxe's Book of Martyrs mentions Cray, a smith of Bishops Stortford, who was prosecuted for denying the sacrament of the altar, but released by the Lord Cromwell.

« PreviousContinue »