276 William's political action in England [1689-1702 But just when a new and vaster struggle than he had yet waged was opening at the moment of all others when he wished to liveit was ordained that he should die. He had fractured his collar-bone, and a chill, which followed on the accident, was too much for his enfeebled frame. He died at Kensington on March 8, 1702. On a survey of the whole period of the Revolution and reign, the imagination is struck by the comparatively small part played by William upon the English stage, and the immense figure which he made upon the European. By a tragic irony, he spent his life in opposing in England the very tendencies which he was promoting abroad. On the Continent William stood for the principle that the too great predomi nance of one Power, being dangerous to all the others, must be checked by their union. Yet it was right that there should be a balance of power in the Constitution as well as in diplomacy, in England as well as in Europe. By apportioning the balance of power between King and Parliament, by separating the judicial from the executive powers, the Act of Settlement did much to further the theory of checks and balances. According to this theory no power is absolute and uncontrolled in the State, and where there are limitations on power the rights of minorities are secured. The checks upon uncontrolled executive power imposed by the existence of a quasi-independent legislature and judicature were strengthened by the growth of party government, the development of political, and the beginning of religious, toleration, and the establishment of a free press. Such theoretical views and such practical checks had not been unknown in Holland even before their adoption in England. But, speaking generally, nothing was more opposed to contemporary political thought than Locke's view that different powers in the State should move in independent spheres, and that none should be uncontrolled or supreme. Nothing has therefore exercised more influence upon the future than this view, and its effect is revealed in the framing of the constitution of the United States, and in any other constitution which has taken the English polity for its model. In England William was too anxious to retain the great privileges of the Crown, unable to see that, by this policy, he invited all other powers in the State in resistance to the predominance of one-the Executive. Hence he sometimes had to face in England a coalition of both parties or even of Parliament and people. Judgment or his fortune always enabled him to avert a crisis which would have been disastrous, but many of the great reforms of the age were undertaken in his despite or without his decided approval. In the constitutional and legislative problems, whose settlement so profoundly affected the destiny of political institutions, William exercised an influence which was actually small and not always beneficial. The immense development of the national power and resources, the foundation of what were to be the most renowned system of national credit and the most famous Results of the Revolution Settlement 277 financial institution in the world-all these he viewed with indifference or even hostility. In commercial and colonial policy he had no active interest, though he was careful to secure England's rights in the diplomatic treaties of the time. On the other hand, it is only fair to say that in urging forward the need of political amnesty in the Act of Grace, and the cause of religious liberty in the Toleration Act, he was at once more enlightened and more disinterested than any Englishman of the time. James or Halifax desired religious liberty, Nottingham and Somers political toleration, perhaps more earnestly than William. But no single Englishman so sincerely desired and so simultaneously and consistently forwarded both causes. The constitutional principles introduced by the Revolution can hardly be said to be new, and the curiously concrete method of their application only rendered probable, and did not finally determine, their development and triumph. The Bill of Rights expressed the idea that resistance to tyranny was justifiable, and the Act of Settlement did much to forward the imperfectly apprehended view that government finally rested on consent of the majority, and that the gift of the crown lay ultimately with the people. Thus were foreshadowed for a particular end the principles, which eventually became general and absolute, which enabled Jefferson to overthrow the sway of England's constitutional Parliament over America, and Rousseau to assail the rule of absolute kings in Europe. While veneration is paid to Locke, to Halifax, and to Somers, for devising the theory and creating the practice of a constitution which has been the model to so many others in the world, something must be allowed to the great man who defended it from external assault, and who accomplished as great a work for the good of Europe as any of these achieved for the institutions of England. William did for the continental polity what Locke and Halifax did for the English. He asserted and maintained, in the name of the allied States of Europe, the right of confining within due bounds the aggressive and predominating spirit of one nation or element which endangered the liberty of all others. It is possible to suppose that, if Locke and Halifax had never lived, England might have still preserved her freedom; but it is impossible to hold that, if William had never lived, the States of Western Europe might not have lost theirs. And, in securing the one object, William really secured the other, for by arresting the progress of despotic France he assured the triumph of constitutional England. was in this final sense that the interests of England and of Europe, the policies of Halifax and of William, were inseparable. And though Englishmen persist in regarding William as a ruler often unsympathetic or indifferent to their special interests, Europe cannot fail to see in him one who laboriously and triumphantly toiled, amid infinite difficulties, for the general interests of a continent. It 278 The Restoration in Scotland [1660 (2) SCOTLAND FROM THE RESTORATION TO THE UNION OF (1660-1707) The political situation in Scotland at the Restoration of Charles II in 1660 would have taxed the vigour and prudence of the most experienced statesmen. At no previous period had the nation been more distracted in its aims or torn with conflicting passions. The great revolt against the ecclesiastical policy of James VI and Charles I, which had issued in the overthrow of the royal authority and the re-establishment of Presbyterianism, had eventually resulted in a national catastrophe. Triumphant Presbyterianism had been cleft in twain by its own internal divisions, and had lost the support of the nobility by whose aid alone it had successfully waged war with Charles I. Then came the domination of the Commonwealth and Protectorate, when for ten years the nation had to accept such institutions and methods of government as an alien power deemed to be in the interest of both countries. The domina tion had on the whole been beneficent, but it had been the result of conquest, and no considerable section of the Scottish people were in sympathy with the political or religious ideas either of Commonwealth or Protectorate. It was, therefore, with an enthusiasm almost as general and spontaneous as the feeling displayed in England that Scotland hailed the restoration of her ancient line of kings. The burst of loyalty was at once the expression of hope for the future and joy at the deliverance from a rule under which the national ideals could never be realised. But the momentary exaltation of feeling could not conceal the fact that no possible policy of the new government could satisfy all parties in the State or harmonise their divisions. The paramount public concern remained what it had been since the Reformation a century before the question of the national religion in doctrine and polity. At the Reformation there had been two clearly-defined parties -Protestants on the one side and Roman Catholics on the other-and the issue between them could not be misunderstood. At the Restoration Protestantism was the religion of the nation, with the exception of a remnant that still clung to the old faith; but it was a Protestantism so divided in doctrine, spirit, and aspirations as virtually to create a number of distinct religious bodies 1649-60] Charles II and Scottish Presbyterianism 279 or incapable of harmonious action towards a common end. There was that section of the Presbyterians, known as the "Protesters" "Remonstrants," who in 1650 had rejected Charles as their King, till he should have furnished satisfactory evidence that in his heart as well as with his lips he had given his sanction to the National Covenant of 1638 and the Solemn League and Covenant of 1643. But, as Charles was never likely to afford this satisfaction, the Protesters from the beginning stood in irreconcilable opposition to his government. On the other hand, the main body of the Presbyterians, known as the "Resolutioners," who had sanctioned the coronation of Charles after his father's death in 1649, were disposed to accept him as their King on easier terms: if he would guarantee Presbyterianism as the polity of the national Church, they would not rigorously insist on his acceptance of the Covenants. But in this main body itself there were degrees of strictness, alike regarding doctrine and forms of Church government. It was now more than twenty years since the signing of the National Covenant; and a new generation had arisen for whom the Covenants were only a memory and not a palladium won by blood and tears. During the reign that had begun it was to be seen with what different degrees of rigour or steadfastness the new generation held to the faith of Andrew Melville and Henderson. At the restoration of Charles, however, the salient fact was that in numbers and strength of conviction the Presbyterians were the dominant religious party in the country; and it was with this fact that Charles and his advisers had to reckon in whatever policy they chose to adopt. As to what that policy should be Charles had no hesitation from the first. Presbyterianism had dethroned his father, and, once more in the ascendant, it might take the same measures with himself. But, if Presbyterianism had been found incompatible with the Stewart conception of the royal prerogative, it had also been found alien to the spirit and traditions of the feudal nobility. It had been only by the support of the nobles that the revolt against Charles I had succeeded; but in the course of the struggle the nobles had discovered that the interests of their order were vitally bound up with the interests of the Crown. Thus, at the date when Charles ascended the throne, the Scottish nobles as a body were hostile to Presbyterianism and were prepared to support the royal authority in supplanting it. Had they been of the same mind as in the period preceding the National Covenant, Charles could not have carried out that ecclesiastical policy which was to be the absorbing object of himself and his successor, and which was eventually to end in the national rejection of the House of Stewart. In approving or abetting that policy, therefore, the nobility as an order must share the responsibility of the Crown. The first measures of the new reign implied a direct return to the methods of government which James VI had bequeathed to Charles I. 280 Appointment of Privy Council [1660-1 The Parliament, which met in 1641, had, in the presence and with the sanction of Charles, enacted that all officers of State, Privy Councillors, and Lords of Session should be chosen by the King "with the advice and approbation" of the Estates. Without waiting for the meeting of Parliament Charles II appointed his own Privy Council, and, following further the precedent of James VI, he arranged that a section of it should sit in London and that a part of this section should consist of Englishmen, of whom the most notable was Edward Hyde, afterwards Earl of Clarendon. Of the Scotsmen who were chosen, some had once been Covenanters, but all had since given satisfactory proofs of their attachment to the Crown. The man who was to be the dominating spirit of the Council and Charles' chief instrument in the government of Scotland was John, second Earl of Lauderdale, once an ardent Covenanter, but who by his nine years' imprisonment after his capture at the battle of Worcester had done full expiation for his backsliding from loyalty. To Lauderdale was given the office of Secretary, which involved residence in London, and thus placed him at an advantage over every other member of the Council. The "King of Scotland"-such was the current designation for the holder of the office; and no Secretary of the Council was more of a King than Lauderdale, who swayed, while he only seemed to approve, the mind of his master. Lauderdale's ideal for the administration of Scottish affairs was "the good old form of government by his Majesty's Privy Council"; and, in point of fact, it was through his Privy Council that Charles mainly governed Scotland from the beginning to the end of his reign. It was on January 1, 1660, that Monck had crossed the Tweed, and on May 25 that Charles had landed at Dover, but it was not till August that an ostensible executive body was established in Scotland. As the Privy Council was still in England and the meeting of Parliament was postponed till the beginning of the next year, a temporary executive body was found in the Committee of the Estates which had been captured by Monck in 1651. The proceedings of this Committee left little doubt as to the future policy of the Government. A body of "Protesters" which met in Edinburgh to draft a petition to Charles was broken up, and all but one of them were imprisoned in the Castle -an action which was followed the next day by a prohibition against all assemblies "without his Majesty's official authority." Protesters and Resolutioners were alike disquieted by these proceedings; but some comfort was found in a letter from Charles (August, 1660), in which it was ambiguously stated that the Church of Scotland, as it was settled by law, would be maintained "without violation." When the Parliament at length met (January, 1661), it was brought home to the whole body of the Presbyterians that they had little to hope from a King to whom, with good reason, the Covenants and everything connected with them were a hideous remembrance. Carefully packed by the methods which |