第168章 ENGLAND UNDER JAMES THE SECOND(6)

He put himself into the hands of the Lord Lieutenant of the county,and his detention was made known to the Prince of Orange at Windsor-who,only wanting to get rid of him,and not caring where he went,so that he went away,was very much disconcerted that they did not let him go.However,there was nothing for it but to have him brought back,with some state in the way of Life Guards,to Whitehall.And as soon as he got there,in his infatuation,he heard mass,and set a Jesuit to say grace at his public dinner.

The people had been thrown into the strangest state of confusion by his flight,and had taken it into their heads that the Irish part of the army were going to murder the Protestants.Therefore,they set the bells a ringing,and lighted watch-fires,and burned Catholic Chapels,and looked about in all directions for Father Petre and the Jesuits,while the Pope's ambassador was running away in the dress of a footman.They found no Jesuits;but a man,who had once been a frightened witness before Jeffreys in court,saw a swollen,drunken face looking through a window down at Wapping,which he well remembered.The face was in a sailor's dress,but he knew it to be the face of that accursed judge,and he seized him.

The people,to their lasting honour,did not tear him to pieces.

After knocking him about a little,they took him,in the basest agonies of terror,to the Lord Mayor,who sent him,at his own shrieking petition,to the Tower for safety.There,he died.

Their bewilderment continuing,the people now lighted bonfires and made rejoicings,as if they had any reason to be glad to have the King back again.But,his stay was very short,for the English guards were removed from Whitehall,Dutch guards were marched up to it,and he was told by one of his late ministers that the Prince would enter London,next day,and he had better go to Ham.He said,Ham was a cold,damp place,and he would rather go to Rochester.He thought himself very cunning in this,as he meant to escape from Rochester to France.The Prince of Orange and his friends knew that,perfectly well,and desired nothing more.So,he went to Gravesend,in his royal barge,attended by certain lords,and watched by Dutch troops,and pitied by the generous people,who were far more forgiving than he had ever been,when they saw him in his humiliation.On the night of the twenty-third of December,not even then understanding that everybody wanted to get rid of him,he went out,absurdly,through his Rochester garden,down to the Medway,and got away to France,where he rejoined the Queen.

There had been a council in his absence,of the lords,and the authorities of London.When the Prince came,on the day after the King's departure,he summoned the Lords to meet him,and soon afterwards,all those who had served in any of the Parliaments of King Charles the Second.It was finally resolved by these authorities that the throne was vacant by the conduct of King James the Second;that it was inconsistent with the safety and welfare of this Protestant kingdom,to be governed by a Popish prince;that the Prince and Princess of Orange should be King and Queen during their lives and the life of the survivor of them;and that their children should succeed them,if they had any.That if they had none,the Princess Anne and her children should succeed;that if she had none,the heirs of the Prince of Orange should succeed.

On the thirteenth of January,one thousand six hundred and eighty-nine,the Prince and Princess,sitting on a throne in Whitehall,bound themselves to these conditions.The Protestant religion was established in England,and England's great and glorious Revolution was complete.