way to her husband, who would not consent to act merely as a regent, and though she was joined with William in the government, he was too shrewd a politician to allow of her interference. Mary's constitution, never very strong, was worn out by incessant mental anxiety, occasioned by her husband's lengthened absences from home, and the almost insuperable difficulties in carrying on a government, of which the principal ministers were steeped in treachery. In this enfeebled condition, the small pox fell on her in a virulent form, and in few days she was no more. William's grief was intense. He declared, that, "during the whole course of their marriage, he had never known one single fault in her"; this might well be, for he had trained her down to the most perfect submission. Mary was characterised by fair intelligence, solid judgment, and evenness of temper, and but for the relationship she bore to the dethroned monarch, would have ranked much higher than she does among the Queens of England. The bitterness of some of the Jacobites against her was most intense. One of the nonjuring clergy on the occasion of her death, chose the following text; "Go, see now this cursed woman, and bury her, for she is a king's daughter". Neither William or Mary left children.

ROBERT SPENSER, EARL OF SUNDERLAND. 1641-1702. Robert was the only son of Henry the first Earl, and began public life in diplomatic services at the courts of Spain and France. In the latter part of the reign of Charles II. he became an influential man in the government, through the influence of the Duchess of Portsmouth; yet at this very time he entered into the confidence of the Prince of Orange. Though he had been a party to the intrigues for excluding James from the throne, he was retained in office by that prince, and for a time was secretary of state, and president of the council. In 1687, he professed himself a convert to the Romish faith, which he afterwards excused on the plea of having done it "to gain the more credit, that so he might the more effectually ruin the king." At the Revolution, he retired for a while to Holland, but was subsequently reconciled to William, and possessed, it is said, more influence with the king than any other Englishman did. For a time he was the acknowledged head of the government, and when in 1697 he retired to private life, it was greatly against the wishes of his master. Sunderland was a man altogether void of principle, but of ready apprehension, and great business talent. Burnet says, "He had indeed the superior genius to all the men of business that I have yet known".

CHARLES MONTAGUE, EARL OF HALIFAX. 1661-1715. Charles Montague was the son of a gentleman of Horton, Northamptonshire, and grandson of Henry first Earl of Manchester. He was educated at Westminster School, and Trinity College, Cambridge, and first brought into notice by some verses on the death of Charles II. In the Convention parliament 1689, he sat for Malden. His power in debate early obtained for him distinction, and opened the way to office, first as one of the lords of the Treasury, and in 1695 as chancellor of the Exchequer. In the year following, during the recoinage he supplied a temporary circulating medium by means of Exchequer Bills, a species of paper which has been kept in use ever since. Some changes being made in the ministry in 1699, he was removed to the upper House, and took the title of Halifax which had just become extinct. The Commons in 1701, exhibited articles against him for

obtaining grants for his personal benefit, and for being a party to the Partition Treaties; the peers dismissed the charges. During the reign of Anne, he took an active part in the debates, though he was not in office, and especially distinguished himself in defence of the Union with Scotland. On the accession of the Hanoverians, he became again first Lord of the Treasury, and in the year following died. Halifax was a man of good abilities, and one of the most consistent of the Whig party, but his character was marred by vanity and ambition. To him belongs the credit of being the first and most active, in the project for the purchase of the manuscripts collected by Cotton the antiquary, out of which came eventually the British Museum.

SYDNEY GODOLPHIN, EARL OF GODOLPHIN. 1635-1712. Sydney Godolphin, the son of a Cornish knight, was at the Restoration appointed a groom of the bedchamber, and in 1679, one of the lords of the Treasury, where he acquired so much reputation for ability and business habits, that he, along with Rochester and Sunderland, was entrusted with the chief affairs of the government. In the reign of James, he held a subordinate post at the Treasury board, and was nevertheless in the confidence of William of Orange, who after his accession to the crown of England, employed the Earl as one of the Treasury lords. The accession of Anne was followed by a Tory administration, and Godolphin, held to be one of the leaders of that party, became lord high-treasurer. He took an active part in public affairs till the fall of the Whigs in 1710, to which party he had attached himself for about four years. Godolphin was very instrumental in procuring the grant of first-fruits for the church, and also in bringing about the Union with Scotland"; and Evelyn says, he was the first who gave money towards the building of Greenwich Hospital. According to Burnet, "He was the silentest and modestest man that was perhaps ever bred in a court: he had a clear apprehension, and despatched business with great method, and with so much temper that he had no personal enemies; but his silence begot a jealousy, which has hung long upon him. His notions were for the court, but his incorrupt and sincere way of managing the concerns of the Treasury, created in all people a very high esteem for him."

WILLIAM BENTINCK, EARL OF PORTLAND. William Bentinck descended from an ancient family of Overyssel, and was long the confidential friend and adviser of William, who rewarded him with a peerage and large estates. One extravagant grant to him of the greater part of a Welsh county, produced so strong an expression of feeling by the House, that the king was obliged to give way and revoke it. Portland was the principal agent in negotiating the Partition Treaties, for which he was impeached, though nothing came of it. On the death of his master he withdrew to Holland, where he died in 1709. Bentinck was not without military abilities, but he was more celebrated for his strong attachment to his master, to whose service he was willing to sacrifice his life, if necessary,

GILBERT BURNET, BISHOP OF SALISBURY. 1643-1715. Burnet was the son of a Scotch lawyer. He took his degree at Aberdeen College, and proposed at first to follow the law, but changing his mind, took out a license to preach. In 1663, he travelled in England and on the Continent; returning to Scotland, he was ordained and became the minister of a parish in East Lothian. When only twenty

five years of age, Burnett was appointed professor of divinity at Glasgow, which professorship he resigned in 1674, to avoid the resentment of the Duke of Lauderdale. Coming to London, he was made chaplain to the king and preacher at the Roll's chapel. In 1679, he published the first volume of the "History of the Reformation in England", a work for which he received the thanks of both Houses of Parliament. For attending Lord Russell on the scaffold, he was dismissed from his offices in the church. On the accession of James, he made a tour on the Continent, and being introduced at the court of the Prince of Orange, became a great favorite, and one of the principal advisers in all matters pertaining to the expedition of the Prince in 1688. Burnet attended William as chaplain, and soon after the Revolution became bishop of Salisbury. In his office as bishop, he is honorably mentioned for a zealous discharge of his duties; in the parliament he continued through life to support the Whig party. The bishop is described as being vain and rather deficient in judgment, but with an excellent heart and fair talents of a certain kind. After his death, was published, "Bishop Burnet's History of his Own Time", taken from manuscript notes which he had left behind; a work of considerable merit, though sometimes deficient in accuracy. ARMAND FREDERICK DE SCHOMBERG, DUKE OF SCHOMBERG. 1619-1690. Schomberg was descended from a noble family in the Palatinate; his mother was of the English house of Dudley. Being compelled to leave his country on account of the troubles in which it was involved, he served as a soldier of fortune in the Thirty Years' War, and afterwards in the service of Portugal and France. In the latter country he rose to the rank of marshal, but was forced to wander again, because of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. He accompanied William of Orange in his expedition to Ergland, and being sent to Ireland in command of an army, fell at the battle of the Boyne. Schomberg was in high repute for his military qualities, his courteous deportment, and his truthful character. His son Charles, the second Duke of Schomberg, fell at the battle of Marsaglia, in 1693, being then in command of the English forces serving in Piedmont.

JOHN GRAHAM, VISCOUNT DUNDEE. 1649-1689. John Graham, commonly called Claverhouse, from the name of an estate belonging to his father, was a kinsman of the celebrated James Graham, Marquis of Montrose. After leaving his college at St. Andrew's, he served first as a volunteer in the French army, and next in the horse-guards of the Prince of Orange, who gave him a commission for his valor at the battle of Seneff. On his return to Scotland, we find him winning an unenviable notoriety on account of his treatment of the Covenanters. This procured for him the title of "bloody Claverhouse" from that party, and from the government, rapid promotion in military rank. In 1684, he was admitted a member of the Privy Council, and by James II. raised to the peerage. He fell, defending the Pass of Killiecrankie against General Mackay. Sir Walter Scott, comparing Dundee with Montrose, says of the former, that he boasted the same devoted loyalty, and had a character as enterprising, with a judgment superior to that of his illustrious prototype. By the Jacobites, Dundee's memory was idolised, and even to the present day there are writers who think the high and loyal chivalry of the Viscount, more

than sufficient to balance the charge of unmanly and excessive cruelty, which indeed has been denied.

JOHN SOMERS, LORD SOMERS. 1652-1716. John Somers was born at Worcester, at which place his father was an attorney. In 1674, he was admitted to Trinity College, Oxford, and two years later called to the bar. He early distinguished himself by his skill as a pleader, and in the reign of James was accounted one of the most rising counsel in England. What brought him prominently forward was, his being engaged on the side of the defence in the trial of the bishops, Pollexfen having represented him as "the man who would take most pains, and go deepest into all that depended on precedents and records". Somers now became associated with the leading Whigs, and was chairman of one of the committees which prepared the Declaration of Rights, a document supposed to have been for the most part drawn up by him. Under the new government, he passed through successive appointments to be lord-keeper of the great seal. Burnet says, "He had a great capacity for business, with an extraordinary temper". In 1697, Somers was appointed lord-chancellor and raised to the peerage. Two years after, the Tories charged him with improperly dismissing many persons from the commission of the peace, and granting a commission to, and otherwise assisting, Kidd the pirate. Kidd had been commissioned to take charge of an armed force to destroy the pirates in the Indian seas; to the annoyance of his patrons, he turned pirate himself. The feeling of the House ran so strongly against Somers, that they moved his impeachment, for his share in the Partition Treaties, and other offences. He was removed from office, but the impeachment was not proceeded with. In the reign of Anne, he again came into office, and was for a time president of the council, from which he retired 1710. He had a place in the council after the accession of George I., but a stroke of apoplexy put an end to his career in 1716. Somers had the character of a great constitutional lawyer, and a zealous patron of literature; his integrity however is not without some stain, though he himself denied having obtained any grants, either in deceit of his majesty, or in elusion of any acts of parliament.

MISCELLANEOUS NOTES.

POWER OF THE CROWN SUBSEQUENT TO THE REVOLUTION. "The constitution of England", remarks Smollett, "had now assumed a new aspect. The maxim of hereditary, indefeasible right, was at length renounced by a free parliament. The power of the crown was acknowledged to flow from no other fountain than that of a contract with the people. Allegiance and protection were declared reciprocal ties depending upon each other. The representatives of the nation made a regular claim of rights on behalf of their constituents; and William III. ascended the throne in consequence of an express capitulation with the people. Yet, on this occasion, the zeal of the parliament towards their deliverer seems to have overshot their attachment to their own liberty and privilege: or, at least they neglected the fairest opportunity that ever occurred, to retrench those prerogatives of the crown to which they imputed all the late and former calamities of the kingdom. Their new monarch retained the old

regal power over parliament in its full extent. He was left at liberty to convoke, adjourn, prorogue, and dissolve them at his pleasure. He was enabled to influence elections, and oppress corporations. He possessed the right of choosing his own council; of nominating all the great officers of the state, and of the household, of the army, the navy, and the church. He reserved the absolute command of the militia; so that he remained master of all the instruments and engines of corruption and violence, without any other restraint than his own moderation, and prudent regard to the claim of rights, and principle of resistance, on which the Revolution was founded.

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In a word, the settlement was finished with some precipitation, before the plan was properly digested and matured; and this will be the case in every establishment formed upon a sudden emergency in the face of opposition. It was observed, that the king who was made by the people, had it in his power to rule without terms; to govern jure divino, though he was created jure humano; and that though the change proceeded from a republican spirit, the settlement was built upon Tory maxims; for the execution of his government continued still independent of his commission, while his own person remained sacred and inviolable."

NEW FORM OF CORONATION OATH. 1689. The former oath was framed, this statute says, "in doubtful words and expressions with relation to ancient constitutions now unknown". The new form of the Coronation Oath consisted in the following questions and answers. "Will you solemnly promise and swear to govern the people of this kingdom of England, and the dominions thereto belonging, according to the statutes in parliament agreed on, and the laws and customs of the same? I solemnly promise so to do.

"Will you to your power, cause law and justice in mercy to be executed in all your judgments? I will.

Will you, to the utmost of your power, maintain the laws of God, the true profession of the gospel, and the Protestant reformed religion as by law established? and will you preserve unto the bishops and clergy of this realm, and to the churches committed to their charge, all such rights and privileges as by law do, or shall appertain unto them or any of them? All this I promise to do.

"Then the King or Queen, laying his or her hand upon the gospels, shall say, 'The things which I have here before promised, I will perform and keep. So help me God""

THE NONJURORS-ARGUMENTS FOR AND AGAINST. On this point Smollett writes: "The Nonjurors affirmed that Christianity was a doctrine of the cross; that no pretence whatever could justify an insurrection against the sovereign; that the primitive Christians thought it their indispensible duty to be passive under every invasion of their rights; and that non-resistance was the doctrine of the English church, confirmed by all the sanctions that could be derived from the laws of God and man. The other party not only supported the natural rights of mankind, and explained the use that might be made of the doctrines of non-resistance in exciting fresh commotions, but they also argued, that if passive obedience was right in any instance, it was conclusively so with regard to the present government; for the obedience required by Scripture was indiscriminate, the powers that be, are ordained of God-let every soul be subject to the higher