He related the news—for news it was to nearly all present,—of the administration of Romish rites to the late King on his death-bed. This event, he announced, was a date posted up in fiery characters in the history of religion. It was true, no persecution from Catholic James could well be worse than what the people of God were still suffering from the government of Protestant Charles,—so-called: but, as Charles turned out to be no Protestant, it was clear that the time had become ripe for the royal enterprise of overthrowing the Reformation altogether; and if the attempt could not be baffled, the doom of the world was sealed. The most monstrous of worldlings, Louis of France, was sitting quiet, watching for the lapse of Britain to Rome; and now, that monster no doubt thought his game secure, as England, under two successive Romish kings, could be no true ally to Holland; and Holland, with England against her, could no longer defy France.
The question was,—what was to be done? The Lord’s chosen would stand fast. A seed would be left in England,—and also in Scotland,—from which a harvest might arise to the Lord at some future day: but was England going to allow her kings to hand her over to Rome, as a tenant hands over his Michaelmas gift to his landlord? Was such a lapse as this a fitting result of the conflict the last generation had waged, and of the death the father of these two kings had died?
Some murmurings of emotion had been heard at former points of the discourse: and now several voices exclaimed that a Protestant king must be had. It had become difficult to say so, one manly voice declared, because, since the Ryehouse plot, every one who desired a Protestant king was supposed to favour the assassination of the Catholic princes on or near the throne: but the time had come for men who were no zealots, and who abhorred bloodshed, to insist on a Protestant king for a reformed kingdom. Could any brother within the sound of his voice give information of any dealings by which the coming in of a Protestant king could be hoped for?
The preacher repeated the question, which was made more weighty by his authority.
“That can I,” replied some one in a foreign accent. “I have some knowledge. But to disclose it is to put my liberty on a random cast: and I have sacrificed much—my country and my kindred, and my patrimony,—for my liberty.”
The preacher leaned forward, and said, in a solemn voice:
“And what man of God’s elect has, in these evil days, obtained liberty but by sacrifices? And what man is worthy of liberty who would not put it to hazard to secure to Christ’s own the liberty with which he has made them free? It vexes me to speak of myself in such a case: but which of you does not know that I stand here as on the threshold of a prison, or on the ladder of the gallows? If I thus trust the brethren here assembled, another man surely may. If John Hickes is safe in the honour of Christians, so is Emmanuel Florien. I know you, Florien, and the stoutness of your heart. If I adjure you to speak, you will utter what concerns the cause.—I adjure you to speak.”
“I obey,” replied Florien: and of the whole assemblage, none were so amazed by his disclosures as the Battiscombes.
“I have information,” he said, “no matter how, for I will not involve others, and it is for those who hear me to test the truth of my words—I have information that a Protestant king for England has long been in view; and that since the late king’s death, the movement has quickened greatly. The exiles in Holland . . . . .”
“He would be a madman who should trust the exiles in Holland,” observed a grey-headed man who sat under the pulpit. “How many of them have betrayed members of the late plot whom they had first incited to conspiracy, keeping from them the aim against the lives of the Popish princes?”
“Hear me!” Florien continued: “and remember that those exiles are of various quality. John Locke is one of them.”
“Is he one of the movers you tell of?”
“I know not: but I know that he is as malcontent as any. When he learned that, by the King’s order, his name was blotted out of the books of his college, he said that this was equal to a command to take up the work from which Lord Shaftesbury had been released by death; and that he was an Englishman no more till an Englishman’s birthright of liberty was restored. It was not of him, however, that I rose to speak; but of others of whose transactions I will say no further word, if inquiry is made, directly or indirectly, about their names.”
“Speak on,” said the preacher; and his words were echoed by many.
“Certain of those Protestant patriots are now on the shores of the Lake of Geneva, waiting on Edmund Ludlow, to ask him to be their leader in cleansing the throne of England from Popery.”
A murmur of enthusiasm ran through the congregation. A voice here and there said that the Lord’s people would see the face of the Lord Protector’s old friend again before they died; while others feared that Ludlow would not be again brought forth from his retreat.
“He has steadily declared,” said Florien, “that he has fulfilled his part; and that it is for young men, and citizens who cannot be charged with the blood of a king, to save Protestant England, if indeed she may be saved.”
“What next, if he refuses?” asked the preacher.
“There is the choice,” Florien went on, “among the late and present King’s Protestant children. Of these there are three,—yes, three,” he repeated, so loudly that those near him pulled his cloak, to remind him to moderate his voice. He did so; and the more distant hearers stood up and leaned forward, and pressed upon one another, to catch every word.
“Lord Shaftesbury, we know, held information that the late King had gone through a private but legal form of marriage with the mother of the Duke of Monmouth. Some credit this, and some do not. The question is whether to use this uncertainty to press on the demand for the son of Charles being King, or to turn from him to the daughters of James and their husbands. Such was the question; but the King’s death has wrought strongly.”
“Which way?”
“It has brought evidences of the love of the people for the Duke such as might excite and determine a man of another quality of mind; but he has wavered much; and something is said about an oath which is in the way. Nay,—the terms of the oath I know not; nor the circumstances of it. It is rumoured to be in exchange for the countenance of the Prince and Princess of Orange, and for the princely maintenance they have afforded him.”
Here some questions arose, and a few groans, about the unholy fashion of life of the young Duke, as reported by travellers from the Hague, and by Dutch merchants in London,—the masques, the gay skating parties on the ice, the new dances from England, figured forth in painted halls this very winter, and . . . There might have been more of such scandal, but for the peremptory command of silence from the pulpit. The preacher declared that it was not God’s will that England should lapse to Rome, while search was made for a prince who had forsworn courtly vanities and usages; and no one knew but that this young princely soul might be saved by such a task as the redemption of England being appointed to it. The present might be the precious hour for saving prince and kingdom both. But how were the eyes of the Prince and Princess of Orange to be blinded, and their ears to be stopped to these movements at the Hague? The doubt, however, was faithless, and the preacher desired to take back his words. Florien replied that there was no need. The Duke was not now living at the Hague, but at Brussels; and in a retirement which was at present full of grief. One in whom Florien could repose trust had reason to know what the grief had been. Through the long night which had succeeded the arrival of the news of the Duke’s father being dead, and his uncle proclaimed in his place, the groans and sobs of the young man were mournful to hear. Yes, Florien said, his own friend had heard them.
When this point was reached, a common idea seemed to take possession of the preacher and the whole congregation. The discussion was closed by an appointment of three of the elders to meet the preacher to-morrow at a spot beyond five miles from Lyme, to arrange for opening a communication with the exiles,—if not with the highest exile of all. The discourse thus strangely interrupted was resumed for a few minutes,—in order to point out how the Divine blessing had been manifestly bestowed on the opening of this house of prayer,—the congregation having been brought together