Whig's Progress: Tom Wharton Between Revolutions

Whig’s Progress: Tom Wharton between Revolutions

J. Kent Clark

Fairleigh Dickinson University Press

Whig’s Progress

The Right Honorable Thomas Wharton, ca. 1685. Miniature by Thomas Flatman. Courtesy of the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, San Marino, California.

Whig’s Progress Tom Wharton between Revolutions

J. Kent Clark

Madison • Teaneck Fairleigh Dickinson University Press London: Associated University Presses

 2004 by Rosemont Publishing & Printing Corp.

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The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1984.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Clark, J. Kent. Whig’s progress : Tom Wharton between revolutions / J. Kent Clark. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8386-3997-6 (alk. paper) 1. Wharton, Thomas Wharton, Marquess of, 1648?–1715. 2. Great Britain—Politics and government—1660–1688. 3. Politicians—Great Britain—Biography. 4. Whig Party (Great Britain)—History. I. Title. DA437.W45C58 2004 2003005215 941.06⬘6⬘092—dc21

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Contents Preface 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20.

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The Heir The Battle of Normandy Innocents Abroad Marriage a` la Mode The Third Whig The First Tory The Master at Winchendon Subplots The Plot The Exclusionist Misadventures Protestants in Masquerade Anne Wharton Outrages Seizures Exits Dropping the Mask Galloping Gift Horses and Bridles Checkmate

Abbreviations Notes Bibliography Index

11 17 30 38 52 61 69 74 84 99 115 128 144 156 166 176 190 198 208 220 232 234 282 293

Carol B. Pearson

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Preface

WHIG’S PROGRESS TRACES THE CAREER OF THE RIGHT HONORABLE

Thomas Wharton, eventually fifth baron, first earl, and first marquess of Wharton, from his birth during Cromwell’s campaigns through the Revolution of 1688—through the rise, the fall, and the resurgence of the Whig party, which he would ultimately lead. The narrative also follows Wharton through his education in France and his later adventures in duels, horse races, elections, parliamentary warfare, romance, and conspiracy. Considered simply as a story, the narrative has intrinsic drama, with a complex protagonist, a vivid cast of historical characters, and enough conflict for several novels. I have tried to write the story of Wharton’s career so that it can be followed and understood by any adult reader. I have used primary sources as much as possible, allowing the actors to speak for themselves; and I have normalized and Americanized the spelling in the text. On another level, as a contribution to English political history, the biography demands extensive documentation—not merely to prove to scholars that I am telling the truth and allow them to follow me through the historical underbrush, but also to correct errors in secondary sources, including some of my own. For historians and literary scholars, I have retained original spelling in the notes. Obviously, a biography of Wharton (Tom to his family, his friends, and by 1680 to political England) involves an account of the tortuous Popish Plot, the Exclusion Crisis, the formation of the Whig and Tory parties, and the prologue to the Glorious Revolution. Without oversimplifying a very complex set of events, I have tried to make my treatment both accurate and readily comprehensible to twenty-first-century readers. This book has been made possible by the work of many contemporary scholars, who have dramatically increased our knowledge of the Restoration period. Their names will be found in my notes, and I hope they will take citations and quotations as acknowledgments of gratitude. In some special category, I must acknowledge the help of the renowned Cambridge scholar Elsie Elizabeth Duncan-Jones, 7

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expert on Andrew Marvell and seventeenth-century literature. She has kept me from making several egregious errors. I must also thank my Huntington Library colleagues David Elliot, Paul Hardacre, and Robert Smith for reading my chapters and giving useful suggestions; and I am indebted to William A. Speck of the University of Northumberland for his helpful comments. Absolutely essential has been the help of many librarians and archivists. I particularly want to thank the staffs of the Huntington Library, the British Library, the Bodleian Library, the Welsh National Library, the House of Lords Library, the Public Records Office, and the county libraries at Aylesbury, Carlisle, Reading, and Kingston-on-Thames. I am grateful to Dr. Richard Luckett for allowing me to use the Pepys Library at Magdalene College, Cambridge, and to the late Sir Ralph Verney for allowing me to see the original Verney letters and papers at Claydon House, Buckinghamshire, and for providing the invaluable microfilms at Aylesbury and the British Library. I am deeply grateful also to Sir Edmund Verney for his permission to quote extensively from his precious documents. I particularly treasure the help of my great British friends, who over the past twenty years have made me an expert in Wharton geography and virtually a citizen of Wooburn and Bourne End. The late Walter and Irene Garner, their sons Graham and Michael, and their daughters-in-law Ina and Nina essentially co-opted my wife and me into the Garner family while they educated us in English history and folkways. Brian Wheals, historian of the Marlow and Wooburn area, and his wife Ann have guided us through the sites of Wharton estates, horse races, and elections in northern Bucks and southern Northamptonshire. Guy Norman and his wife Betty have shown us southeast England, including Tunbridge Wells, the scene of a notorious Wharton scandal. All our friends have entertained us handsomely and left us hopelessly in their debt. Finally, I must thank my wife Carol B. Pearson—editor, indexer, cataloguer of rare books, and expert in transcribing seventeenthcentury handwriting. She has helped me chase Tom Wharton through libraries, documents, and English counties, and she has made the process even more enjoyable than it would otherwise have been.

Whig’s Progress

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1 The Heir ON 2 SEPTEMBER 1648 OLIVER CROMWELL TOOK TIME OUT FROM MOPping up the Scots army he had crushed at Preston to write a letter of congratulation to Philip, Lord Wharton, and Jane, Lady Wharton. Lady Wharton had just given birth to a male heir—a son named Thomas—and Cromwell wished to send his love to ‘‘the dear little lady.’’ He also wished to be sure that Lord Wharton interpreted the events correctly. The birth of ‘‘the young baron,’’ Cromwell wrote, should be seen as a divine mercy like the outcome of the battle. It should draw the fortunate father closer to his Puritan friends, the despised but victorious Saints. It should not, Cromwell cautioned, tempt the Whartons to traffic with Royalists, worshipers of hereditary privilege.1 Cromwell need not have worried. Philip, the ‘‘good’’ Lord Wharton, was a sturdy Calvinist peer who knew a divine mercy when he saw one. He had detected mercies in events a great deal more ambiguous than the birth of an heir or the battle at Preston; and he was not apt to traffic with Royalists. He had commanded a regiment for the Parliament when the Civil War first broke out, and he had consistently supported the Puritan cause against the Cavaliers and their abettors. But Lord Wharton also knew that mercies and providences are only too likely to be fragile. He had already lost two young heirs—a son named Philip, who had died at birth, and a son named Arthur, who had survived only nine months;2 he had also lost his first wife, Elizabeth Wandesford, and their daughter Philadelphia,3 as well as an infant daughter named Jane.4 On the political and military side, he had seen the mercies of Marston Moor and Naseby largely frittered away in quarrels between Puritan factions, in Royalist machinations, and in the feuds and follies of the incorrigible Scots. Lord Wharton would be cautious, therefore, in guarding his young heir. As for young Thomas, he was much too young to know that he had been born into revolution or that the course of his life would be 11

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determined by the gyrations of English politics. He could not even know that his immediate future would be dictated by the views of his father, of Oliver Cromwell, and of the redoubtable New Model Army. For the present, he had only one duty—to survive the perils of seventeenth-century infancy. This he managed to do successfully, as he later survived an attack of smallpox. In retrospect it appeared that he had inherited a legendary supply of vitality and some of Lord Wharton’s remarkable resilience. To his family, however, his survival was simply a continuing providence. Inadvertently, Cromwell may have contributed to the baby’s well being. Before young Thomas was six months old, Cromwell had purged the House of Commons and executed Charles I. In the process he lost the support of Lord Wharton, who refused to participate in a government that coerced Parliament and beheaded monarchs.5 On theoretical grounds, Lord Wharton might have agreed with Cromwell and John Milton that the execution could be legally justified, but he could never agree on practical and emotional grounds. With Pride’s Purge, Cromwell had denatured what remained of the Long Parliament; and with the execution, he had turned a royal incompetent into a royal martyr. While, therefore, Cromwell and his supporters were abolishing the monarchy and turning England into a Puritan republic, Lord Wharton left his London house in Clerkenwell and retired to his Buckinghamshire estates at Winchendon and Wooburn. Thus his heir was removed from the perilous city into the somewhat less perilous countryside. That Lord Wharton decided to live principally at Winchendon was at least in part a political decision. The Whartons had originally come from Westmorland, where the first Lord Wharton was a doughty border captain for Henry VIII—ennobled for defeating the Scots at Solway Moss and rewarded generously with abbey lands. Over the years the family had profited mightily from further gifts and purchases of lands, from rich marriages, and from coal and lead mines. To their manors in Westmorland and Cumberland they had added estates in the North Riding of Yorkshire, including much of Swaledale, and in the area southwest of the city of York.6 Lord Wharton himself, who was the fourth baron, had acquired further property by his first marriage. If he had wanted to remove himself completely from the infection of London and the regicide regime, he might have established himself at Aske or Hartforth near Richmond, at Sinningthwaite or Catterton near York, at Cockermouth in Cumberland, or at Wharton in Westmorland, where in the 1550s the first Lord Wharton had rebuilt and extended the medieval Wharton manor house.7

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But Lord Wharton wished to remain on the fringes of political action. At Winchendon, five miles beyond Aylesbury and about forty-five miles from Westminster, he was within a very long day’s carriage ride from Whitehall, where in case of need he could use his personal friendship with the new governors to get favors for himself and his friends, but where he was far enough removed to parry, gracefully, Cromwell’s attempts to recruit him for service.8 Winchendon, in fact, may be viewed as a symbol for Lord Wharton’s policy—later to be revived in the days of James II: One may be friendly with unpopular rulers and even accept favors from them. To serve them, however, and to earn those favors may prove dangerous or even fatal. Lord Wharton had acquired Winchendon through his marriage to Jane Goodwin, young Thomas’s mother. Jane was the daughter and sole heir of Colonel Arthur Goodwin, who was himself the heir to the rich Goodwin estates in Buckinghamshire—including, besides Winchendon and Wooburn, Waddesdon, Weston, and scattered properties in the southern part of the county.9 When Arthur Goodwin died in 1643, the Whartons, who had been merely wealthy before, became very wealthy; and Lord Wharton, whose inherited property was all in the North, became a magnate in the South as well. To young Thomas, the eventual heir to these properties, Lord Wharton’s decision to put a proper distance between himself and Cromwell meant that Winchendon became home. There he lived for most of the first ten years of his life, there he would return after his first marriage, and there he would maintain his principal base of operations even after he had inherited Wooburn and about thirty other manors. To the boy, Upper Winchendon meant first of all his mother and father and the rapidly growing Wharton family. These included, when the Whartons first retired to Winchendon, the boy’s half-sister Elizabeth and his two older sisters Anne and Margaret (the survivors from the attrition of the 1640s),10 but there soon followed a sister Mary,11 a brother Goodwin,12 a sister Philadelphia,13 and a brother Henry.14 All of these, in the Wharton style, were suitably provided with nicknames.15 Thomas himself became Tom, of course—a name that would last him for life and replace his formal name everywhere except on official documents. Anne became Nan, Margaret became Peg, Mary became Mall, Goodwin became Gooding, Philadelphia became Philly, and Henry became Harry—a name that was to become well known in the English army and the English taverns. Winchendon also meant a staff of servants, adjunct members of

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the Wharton clan. They ranged from lowly kitchen maids to lofty housekeepers, from humble stable boys to enviable grooms and coachmen. On another level there was a waiting gentlewoman for Lady Wharton, a chaplain-secretary for Lord Wharton, and a trusted group of nursemaids, tutors, or personal servants for the children. And Winchendon meant visitors. As the nerve center of the widely scattered Wharton estates, it served as an inn for the stewards, agents, and servant-messengers who made the punishing journeys from York, Westmorland, or Cumberland. More socially, the Whartons received visits from Lord Wharton’s brother Sir Thomas, from Lady Wharton’s mother Jane Goodwin (remarried since Arthur Goodwin’s death to Colonel Francis Martin),16 and from friends, including Cromwell’s daughter Mary.17 Finally, since Lord Wharton was an ally and patron of Independent and Presbyterian ministers and since he had the right to nominate rectors or vicars for several parishes,18 Winchendon often harbored clerical guests. They too were welcome to stay for extended periods and to preach in St. Mary Magdalene Church, some two or three hundred yards from the manor house. Young Tom, then, who was the heir to two generations of Puritans on both sides of the family and who was provided with a family chaplain as well as a parish vicar, grew up practically surrounded, in Macaulay’s phrase, with Geneva bands—with men who took life, the Bible, and God’s will very seriously indeed. And Lord Wharton found his authority firmly supported by divine prescription. Well steeped himself in biblical texts (once a lay member of the Westminster Assembly of Divines), he knew beyond doubt that his first duty to his children was to save their souls, not to please them. And if prayers, sermons, scriptural study, and precise observance of the Commandments could lead the children toward grace, he would provide all possible instruction and set a formidable example. To his children, naturally, he often appeared inflexible, demanding, and impossible to please; but they seldom doubted his concern, and they sometimes managed to love him in spite of his devotion to their welfare. But if Lord Wharton was a thoroughgoing precisian who had scruples against plays and Sunday travel and who feared that kissing the Bible in taking oaths might constitute idolatry, he was also an English aristocrat with a keen eye for beauty and a feeling for the social graces. And if to his children, Winchendon often seemed like a tightly run seminary, it was nevertheless a beautiful seminary. Lord Wharton, like his Puritan friend Andrew Marvell, loved

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gardens, and he also loved art. He had himself sat for a famous portrait by Sir Anthony Vandyke,19 and his collection of Vandykes rivaled that of Charles I. This collection had been supplemented with the painting of other masters, including Sir Peter Lely. Young Tom, then, who would eventually inherit and improve the gardens and who would add Knellers to the art collection, grew up among portraits, trees, and flowers. And if in one of its aspects, Winchendon threatened to grind him into pious powder, it also called him (in the words of a poet much later than Marvell) to the things of this world. Upper Winchendon had other attractions besides its plants and pictures. With its setting atop a ridge of low hills, it commanded a view of the valleys of northern Bucks, with Waddesdon and Quainton nearby and, in another direction, Aylesbury in the middle distance. If young Tom had been prescient, he could have previewed from his hilltop much drama. Although Oxford itself was occulted by hills, he could see a great deal of Oxfordshire, where he would one day become lord lieutenant; he could see Claydon, where the Verneys, his early political allies, sometimes entertained young Anne Lee, who was to become his first wife; he could see Aylesbury, where he would win five countywide elections for himself and many more for his Whig friends. Even in the present, while Cromwell was battering the Scots, the Irish, and Royalists in general and turning the new republic into a badly disguised military dictatorship, young Tom could see and admire horses. At Winchendon horses were not only status symbols and family friends but also hard necessities. As the only way of getting anywhere fast, they were the link between Winchendon and the big world. They were also the patient animals that drew heavy loads and worked the fields of the surrounding tenant farmers. Inevitably, then, Tom grew up among stables and horses, and he probably acquired his renowned affinity for the animals not much after he learned to walk. In any case, since horses were a necessity, they were the one indulgence Lord Wharton could allow his heir. As a matter of course, he had Tom taught horsemanship as soon as the boy could sit safely on a horse; and he would one day ship Northampton and several other Wharton horses to Paris so that his adolescent heir could tour northern France and Flanders in style. Meantime, the Wharton horses sometimes took the family to Wooburn for extended stays, and about once a year they took Lord Wharton to attend the assizes at Appleby and to visit his mother Lady Philadelphia Wharton at Aske.20 On these journeys he usually took his wife and older children. To Lord Wharton, who had been born in the North and had lived there until he was twenty-four, the

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North was home. Manors like Muker, Ravenstonedale, Shap, Croglin, and Caldbeck, which had been in the family for years, were part of the natural order; and friends and relatives like the Lowthers, the Musgraves, and the Cliffords were friends indeed, even though the Musgraves were malignant Royalists. To young Tom, however, the North meant long journeys and strange places: small towns and hamlets like Grinton, Kirkby Stephen, and Appleby; exotic valleys like Swaledale and Arkengarthdale; and rivers like Eden, Derwent, and Cocker. In later years, the north country and the ancestral estates would become familiar and provide Tom with some of his political power; but they would never be home. And the Musgraves, who would make the natural transition from malignant Royalist to hopeless Tory, would seldom be anything but a pain. The boy Tom, like the adult who succeeded him, was firmly anchored in Bucks amid places like Wendover, Marlow, and Hedsor, and among families with names like Hampden, Verney, and Borlase. He spent his first ten years in what seemed like an immutable order ruled by an infallible father. He could not know that the immutable order would last only until the year 1658.

2 The Battle of Normandy THE YEAR 1658 BROUGHT THE DEATH OF OLIVER CROMWELL AND THE death of Jane, Lady Wharton. Both events transformed the Wharton world. The death of the lord protector, on 3 September, meant that the traditional order would be restored and that Lord Wharton could re-enter the formal political life of England; but it also meant that the Puritan cause, which Cromwell and his friends had made odious, was forever lost. In the Royalist and Anglican reaction which followed the Restoration, Presbyterians and Independents were redefined as ‘‘fanatics’’; their ministers were removed from church livings and from the universities; and Lord Wharton, their advocate in the House of Peers, was doomed to many years of frustration. Under the new order, Winchendon and Wooburn became havens for unemployed ministers, while Cambridge and Oxford (Lord Wharton’s own university) became foreign territory. No son of Lord Wharton’s, and certainly not his heir, would subscribe to the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Anglican faith, as the new requirements demanded, or would be sent, in any case, to live in a college of Prelatists. The death of Lady Wharton, which occurred on 21 April 1658,1 brought a revolution of its own. Besides the immediate emotional devastation suffered by Lord Wharton’s ‘‘small motherless children’’2 —ranging from Henry, who was a year old, to Anne, who was about fourteen—there was a continuing void in the life of the family. Though the children were still surrounded by trustworthy servants and tutors like John Perkins, Philip Romerill, ‘‘Nurse’’ Mecham, and Frances Gunter,3 the emotional center of the household had been removed. The children were compelled to huddle together for warmth. Young Tom, who was nine and a half when his mother died, turned especially to his oldest sister, Anne, and to Mary, the sister immediately younger than himself. For a few months he may have derived some comfort from his half-sister Eliz17

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abeth, a young lady of about twenty-three when her stepmother died; but in 1659 she married Robert Bertie (later third earl of Lindsey)4 and left the Wharton household. The deaths of Lady Wharton and the protector also brought about a revolution in the Wharton living arrangements. Soon after the death of Lady Wharton, Lord Wharton moved from Winchendon to Wooburn. There he made extensive alterations and additions to the manor house and grounds, including ‘‘fine gardens’’ and an elaborate gallery for his art collection.5 By the time he went to Greenwich, on 29 May 1660, to greet the newly restored Charles II,6 his family was firmly settled at Wooburn, in the Thames Valley about twenty-five miles from London and less than a dozen miles from Windsor. Besides moving from Upper Winchendon to Wooburn, Lord Wharton also acquired a town house at St. Giles-in-the-Fields in London. This property, which he leased from the Merchant Taylors, stood within a stone’s throw of the parish church, occupying most of the area between what is now Denmark and Flitcroft streets.7 The late summer of 1661 brought another drastic change to the Wharton household. On 26 August, after three years of trying to manage a motherless family, Lord Wharton remarried. The new Lady Wharton was Anne Carr Popham, daughter of William Carr, a Scots courtier,8 and widow of Edward Popham, a renowned admiral and colonel in the parliamentary service. Although Anne had been widowed for ten years and although statues of her and Colonel Popham had been placed in Westminster Abbey by a grateful republic,9 she was still a comparatively young woman, about thirty-eight, and she was still strikingly handsome.10 She brought with her to Wooburn two children of her own—a thirteen-year-old daughter named Letitia and a twelve-year-old son named Alexander. In becoming mistress of Wooburn and St. Giles and stepmother to seven Wharton children, Lady Wharton faced difficulties. Except for the eight-year-old Goodwin, who seems to have been dazzled from the first by the handsome lady,11 the young Whartons were not anxious to share their father or their lives with any newcomers, however attractive. There was a problem too with Lady Wharton’s son Alexander, who was a deaf mute requiring special attention. The following year she would take him to Oxford and put him in the care of Dr. John Wallis, who would eventually teach him to read and to speak intelligibly;12 but for the present he could not participate with the Wharton children in the elaborate system of studies and activities prescribed by their father and their tutors.13 Letitia

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fared much better. She was nicknamed Lizzie and was gradually worked into the children’s routine. To further complicate Lady Wharton’s relationship with her new family, she became pregnant very soon after marriage. Due for delivery in late June 1662, she chose to stay at St. Giles, away from her stepchildren, until after the event. This absence removed her again from the children’s world, and the birth of her son, William,14 generated little enthusiasm among the Wharton children. The infant half-brother threatened to monopolize the attention of Lord and Lady Wharton for months and years to come. Meanwhile, at Wooburn, young Tom, almost fourteen, was going through his prescribed paces. These began early in the morning with catechisms and personal prayers, supervised by the faithful Wharton servant John Perkins. Then came breakfast, about seven, and a period devoted mostly to the arts and exercises—lessons in music and dancing on some days and lessons in riding and fencing on others.15 At about eight thirty, Tom had a session of geography or arithmetic; and at nine, he began his principal academic studies, Latin and Greek. These he worked on in two-hour periods, before and after dinner (which was served in the middle of the day), and he ended his studies with French lessons and a session on the harpsichord. By the summer of 1662, he had taken Latin under Philip Romerill and Thomas Elford for several years and memorized large chunks of Cicero, Terence, Ovid, and Erasmus; he had also mastered his basic Greek grammar.16 His French had advanced to the point where he would soon be assigned to teach it to John Perkins and Governess Eleanor (‘‘Nell’’) French. He was not yet allowed, however, to play or exercise without surveillance. During the noon recess and after his last lesson at five, he and his brother Goodwin were attended by Perkins and one Mr. Hutton ‘‘to keep them from unfitting places and ill turns.’’17 In that summer of 1662, Tom was taken in hand by Theophilus Gale, a more philosophical, scholarly, and rigorous tutor than Romerill or Elford. Gale was a Puritan, of course—an Independent— and he had been a fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, and a preacher in Winchester Cathedral until he was displaced by the Restoration. On 16 December 1661, he had been recommended to Lord Wharton by the deprived minister Thomas Gilbert, who described his spirit as ‘‘grave, mild, and sweet, as well as holy.’’18 In the spring of 1662, he had agreed to supervise Tom and Goodwin during a sojourn in France and a tour of Europe; and in early June, while Lord and Lady Wharton were at St. Giles, he arrived at Wooburn to get acquainted with his charges.19

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Gale’s first impressions were favorable. He observed at once, what all England would eventually learn, that Tom had a ‘‘quick and apprehensive’’ mind. Intellectually, the boy was obviously ‘‘fit to take in the more noble parts of humane literature.’’ Gale also observed that Tom had a promising temperament. Though perhaps ‘‘a little intent’’ upon sports, as ‘‘all youthful active spirits are,’’ he seemed very tractable and willing to take directions. Gale had no doubt that he would show great academic progress. Goodwin too, though naturally talkative and unsettled, was bright, amiable, and cooperative—fit for spiritual improvement and ‘‘humane accomplishments.’’20 Unfortunately, the thirty-four-year-old Gale did not make an equally favorable impression upon Tom and Goodwin, who found him grave and pious indeed, but not sweet or easy to like—a view shared by their older sister Anne.21 And in mid-July, before the relationship could be improved, the education of the young Whartons was interrupted by an illness—perhaps what a later age would call flu. Tom’s case was comparatively light, though it kept him for some time from ‘‘any serious studies.’’ Goodwin, on the other hand, had recurrent bouts (or ‘‘fits’’) of fever that worried his tutor, cost him four ounces of blood, and evoked anxious correspondence between Gale and Lord Wharton.22 By the time Goodwin recovered, Gale was preparing to leave for France to select a place for the boys to begin their European education. Originally Lord Wharton seems to have intended to send Tom and Goodwin to France in the autumn of 1662, and he certainly intended to send Mary, Philadelphia, and Henry along with them. On August 8, he went so far, in fact, as to get a passport for all five of his younger children and a suitable entourage: Gale, John Perkins, James Le Fevre (Huguenot tutor in French), and two maidservants.23 But there were problems. Nothing in Gale’s ten years as a tutor at Magdalen College had prepared him to deal with a thirteenyear-old girl, a seven-year-old girl, and a five-year-old boy. Nervous about the prospect, Gale was also doubtful about the usefulness of the venture. To censorious people, as he delicately hinted, it might appear that Lord Wharton and his new lady were simply trying to get five young Whartons out from under foot.24 In any case, it was necessary that Gale should proceed to France in advance of his charges and select a place suitable to the education and moral welfare of the children. The place that Gale selected was Caen in Normandy, for reasons that he carefully explained to Lord Wharton. The city was first of all a center of French Protestantism. The Huguenots were ‘‘numer-

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ous,’’ and their ministers were ‘‘learned and able.’’ In Caen, Protestants could attend the public university, and there were in addition private academies. Caen also offered well-qualified, and inexpensive, masters in the special disciplines—fencing, dancing, music, mathematics, and ‘‘riding the great horse.’’ Considerably cheaper than Paris, Caen seemed an excellent staging area, where the young Whartons could accustom themselves to idiomatic French, as well as ‘‘the French humour and spirit,’’ before they proceeded to take up residence in Paris.25 Lord Wharton agreed with Gale’s assessment, and he even allowed himself to be persuaded not to send Mary, Philadelphia, and Henry to France. All the ‘‘public schools for young ladies in France,’’ Gale pointed out, were ‘‘in the convents,’’ where Lord Wharton would not wish to send his daughters. Educating English girls in France was practically unheard of, and the arrival of the young female Whartons would astonish the French.26 In preparing to receive Tom and Goodwin, Gale had a stroke of good fortune. Upon his arrival, he had himself taken up residence with a Huguenot family named de la Chausse´ e, who lived on the Grande rue (now the rue St. Jean) in the middle of Caen. M. de la Chausse´ e, Gale soon learned, was not only an elder in the Reformed Church but also an educated gentleman, who spoke excellent French and good Latin. Mme. de la Chausse´ e too, Gale found, was well educated and well bred—a woman of discretion. By 5 February 1663, Gale was so well pleased with the couple that he recommended their pension as a good place for the two boys.27 Gale’s judgment, which Lord Wharton accepted, proved to be sound. The de la Chausse´ e house became the residence of Tom and Goodwin for almost two years. It also became the site of Tom’s first recorded battle against authority. Tom and Goodwin, along with John Perkins and James Le Fevre, arrived in Caen, after a voyage from Rye to Ouistraham, on 15 June 1663.28 The city that Tom saw had outgrown its medieval walls, some of which had been leveled, and now lay ‘‘open’’ (as Gale said) to the Norman countryside. The city’s chief architectural feature was abbeys and churches, one of which, St. Jean, dominated the Grande rue. On an eminence at the north end of the Grande rue stood the citadel, once a stronghold of William the Conqueror and still completely walled. If the almost fifteen-year-old Tom had been left to himself, Caen would have been an exciting place to explore; but he was seeing Caen from the end of a very short leash. He was being held, as Le Fevre later wrote to Lord Wharton, ‘‘assez court.’’29 The regimen

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that Gale had prepared for his two charges was even more rigorous than the routine Lord Wharton had prescribed at Wooburn. In principle Gale believed that Tom should soak up French manners and customs; in practice he tried to keep Tom well insulated from unsuitable French companions and from the clear and present danger of meeting girls. Under the scholarly Gale, Tom’s day began (at 5 a.m.) not merely with catechisms and prayer but also with studies in the Bible and in ‘‘practical divinity’’—on which he was examined every night. His lessons in Latin and Greek, which now included history and poetry, were supplemented by studies in natural philosophy—including biblical accounts of creation. He also studied the classical philosophers, whose tenets, Gale taught him, owed their origin to ‘‘the Jewish nation and Scriptures.’’30 As at Wooburn, he was drilled in French, geography, and mathematics, and he was supposed to get lessons in dancing and fencing; but in the summer of 1663 these activities were largely replaced by additional Latin and Greek. After supper, from eight to nine, Tom reviewed the day’s study with Gale, particularly matters of scripture and doctrine. Then after Gale had heard him read a chapter of the Bible and had listened to his prayers, he was sent to bed. On Saturday, the afternoon was to be spent in religious studies; while Sunday was ‘‘to be wholly spent in public and private duties of expounding of scripture, reading practical books, meditation, prayer and . . . repetition of sermons.’’31 In confecting a schedule that might have staggered an adult divinity student, Gale had no wish to be tyrannical, and he did not dream that he was helping to produce a famous rake. He was simply putting first things first. Knowing the cosmic importance of the true faith, he made certain that his students were thoroughly grounded in its precepts. He also put second things second. Since scholarship was next to godliness, Gale concentrated upon academic subjects along with religious instruction and upon preparing Tom and Goodwin for entry into regular school classes. To bring the boys up to the mark he reduced the usual Wharton allotment of arts and exercises and filled the time he saved with regular studies—including, for two or three months, lessons from a French master in writing the new and fashionable ‘‘Italian hand.’’32 Dancing and music were cut down drastically, and violent exercise was cut out entirely.33 Gale’s decision to put secular academic studies right after religion and, for the time being, to put arts and exercises nowhere had at least one good result. Tom and Goodwin were well prepared for formal classes—Tom in Latin oratory and Goodwin in Latin grammar. Both performed admirably for their French masters.34 But the

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decision was nevertheless ill advised, since it further lowered Gale in Tom’s opinion. At Wooburn, Gale had seemed merely rigid and unlovable. Now, by forbidding or postponing anything that might be exciting, or even interesting, he seemed to be an enemy to freedom—the warden of an academic Newgate. Tom’s judgment was unfair but perfectly understandable. Gale, unfortunately, had something of the manner of a prison warden. His natural temperament, as he himself described it, was ‘‘morose,’’35 and he was humorless as a stone. The sweetness that the learned Thomas Gilbert had discerned in his character was detectable only by scholars, as was his genuine passion for knowledge and religion. These showed themselves chiefly on paper. In person he appeared to be a killjoy and a pedant. Gale’s regimen and manner might have evoked a protest from Griselda. Even Lord Wharton felt impelled to explain to Gale that he did not want his sons ‘‘disheartened’’ or their ‘‘spirits broken.’’36 Inevitably, then, young Tom stumbled into opposition; and more or less inadvertently, he received his first lessons in resisting authority. At Winchendon or Wooburn, willful disobedience was unthinkable, and even minor infractions of rules were punished promptly.37 But at Caen, the ultimate authority was across the Channel, the instructions given the deputy were ambiguous, and there were friends close at hand. In his campaign to lengthen his leash, Tom found two allies. The first was James (or Jacques) Le Fevre, who was as lively as Gale was stolid. He had his own method of teaching French and Latin—by songs, games, and conversation—and he found Gale’s formal methods stodgy and slow. Outgoing and social himself, he could see no harm in allowing Tom to mix with French company and participate in games and festivals. Gale, on the other hand, feared that Le Fevre was inclined to read romances, which at Oxford, at least, corrupted the ‘‘minds and affections of young gentlemen.’’ He feared moreover that Tom had the same inclination.38 And he knew for a fact that in disputes about interpreting Lord Wharton’s instructions or allowing liberties, Le Fevre customarily sided with the boys. Tom’s other ally was John Perkins. In principle, Perkins was a Puritan’s Puritan—a precisionist so scrupulous and anti-popish that he made Gale seem worldly. But he was also a de facto Wharton, who had known the boys from their infancy. He loved Tom and Goodwin, and he could not love Gale. He found it easy, therefore, to make ‘‘some grains of allowance’’ for the boys’ lapses from Gale’s rigid schedule.39 As instructed by Lord Wharton, he duti-

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fully tried to reconcile differences and to support Gale’s authority, but his sympathies were always on the side of his young masters. In the end, it was the simple and unscholarly Perkins whose help proved decisive. The undeclared war, which began with passive resistance and ‘‘short fits of passion,’’ arrived at something like a truce in October when Tom and Goodwin began attending regular classes. For large chunks of the morning and afternoon Tom found himself out of Gale’s sight, meeting French lads of his own age, sopping up idiomatic French, and showing off his own proficiency in Latin. He was learning too, perhaps for the first time, that he had a remarkable gift for making friends. Gale also profited from the daily respite, which gave him five or six hours a day for his own writing. He was obliged, of course, to increase his vigilance in the matter of companions and recreation. He sent his charges to school in the care of Perkins or Le Fevre, and he screened rigorously the companions the boys wished to bring home. He realized that his practice was ‘‘a little more strict’’ and ‘‘narrow’’ than ‘‘the French discipline and liberty of conversation,’’ but he believed that Tom and Goodwin were given ‘‘as much liberty herein as needed,’’ and that he could assert his authority without any further problems.40 As of early December, he believed, in fact, that the war was over. He turned out to be wrong. On 5 January 1664, however, before the next series of skirmishes, Goodwin came down with smallpox, and the little expedition found itself engaged in a much more serious struggle. Dreaded only slightly less than the plague, smallpox was a major seventeenth-century killer. Happily, Goodwin’s case proved mild. Although the initial fever put John Perkins ‘‘into agitate fears,’’41 the French physician (a man named Diqueman) who was called in next morning assured the household that the fever was light. After some routine ministrations, he left the boy to be nursed by Perkins and a ‘‘skillful honest’’ French woman hired for the occasion. Goodwin’s smallpox, of course, put Tom in great danger. It also put Gale into an agony of indecision. That Tom must be removed from the large bedroom he shared with Goodwin was obvious, but whether he should be removed from the de la Chausse´ e house was unclear. Since Tom had obviously been exposed already, since Goodwin’s case was light, since Dr. Diqueman did not think further removal necessary, and since Gale did not know where to go, he left Tom in the pension, dosed him with treacle, and wrote to Lord Wharton for instructions. Lord Wharton was frightened and incensed. To him it seemed

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mad that Tom should be left in the same house with Goodwin for a moment or that Gale would wait for instructions that were unlikely to arrive within a week—and that did not actually arrive for three weeks. He fired off orders that Gale should get Tom out of the house immediately and then waited in frustration as successive reports from Gale showed that the orders had not arrived. He was only a little mollified to learn that when his orders did arrive, they were obsolete. Goodwin was ambulatory, the danger was past, and Gale’s poor judgment had been vindicated.42 Lord Wharton’s fears for Tom and Goodwin were allayed in early February when he received a letter from Tom himself: There is nothing wherein I take a greater satisfaction whilst I am at so great a distance from yourself [Tom wrote] than to think and consider how great a care you take of us. My Brother Gooding is as well again and as strong as ever he was, he goes to the Classis every day, and nobody that did not know that he hath had the small pox would not know that he had it [from] his face, for he hath not the least red nor the least spot that can be perceived, he was ill but two days, and that as gentle as can be. I am extreme sorry that you were so troubled for my not removing, but I believe you will be as glad, as you were before troubled, at the news of my Brother’s recovery which, as I think, the happiest and quickest that ever was. We have none of us the least indispo[si]tion, for which I desire to thank God continually. I remain Dear Father Your most dutiful son till Death My Brother presents his duty to you and to every body I also desire the same T. Wharton43

But the rejoicing over Goodwin’s recovery—another obvious mercy—did not last long; and the Battle of Caen went into its second phase. Again Gale found difficulty in getting Tom and Goodwin up in the morning, and even more difficulty in getting them to go to bed at night. More alarmingly, he noted that although they learned their catechisms and biblical chapters admirably, their observance of religious duties, especially upon the Lord’s day, needed ‘‘more cheerfulness and constancy and intention.’’ The boys were even inclined, if they were not watched closely, ‘‘to recreate themselves on that day with music.’’44 Most alarming of all, however, was the fact that Tom was moving from passive to active resistance.

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Judging himself ‘‘fit and capable to choose his company,’’ he began to dispute Gale’s authority to choose companions for him and began to bring home lads whom Gale could not approve. Such flouting of authority and lack of religious fervor, Gale knew, might ‘‘at last end in open wickedness,’’ and stern measures were obviously required. Since Lord Wharton had disapproved of the severity of Gale’s discipline at Wooburn, Gale could not employ ‘‘force and violence’’ (though the rod, he reminded his employer, was ‘‘an ordinance of God’’).45 He could, however, ask Lord Wharton to reinforce his authority, and he could threaten Tom with his father’s awe-inspiring displeasure. And Gale had barely sent off his third letter of complaint when Tom furnished him an example of open defiance. The revolt is perhaps best described in Gale’s report to Lord Wharton: Last Monday night [Gale wrote] there was a masque to be given in the streets [of Caen], which by reason of the lateness of the hour (with other reasons) I conceived it could not be safe for your sons to be present at and having declared my judgment against it, Mr. Wharton [Tom] replied that he intended to have acquainted me with his going, but was resolved to go whether I approved of it or no, and that your Lordship had given them order to see all that was to be seen of such kind. I replied that I presumed your Lordship intended they should have my approbation in such cases. Mr. Wharton replied [that] I would approve of nothing. After supper your sons went to see it notwithstanding my dissuasion, and continued out till half hour past 9 of the clock.46

At another time, Tom’s defiance and his attendance at a street masque might have earned him a blast of his father’s sternest disapproval, for Lord Wharton’s love of the arts stopped short at theater. It was perfectly true that he had not forbidden Tom to see street masques, but the possibility of such things had probably never crossed his mind. Certainly, he had never issued a favorable ‘‘order’’ on the subject. Now when the heat of combat had subsided, Tom had reason to fear that he had gone too far. But this time Lord Wharton did not even bother to answer Gale’s letter. By coincidence, on Monday, 15 February, the day of the masque, he had written a long set of orders to all members of the expedition. Tom was ordered to obey Gale in the matter of companions and in the interpretation of instructions; Perkins was reinstructed to support Gale;47 and Gale was advised to spend more time with the young gentlemen and to show them more ‘‘indulgence and complaisance.’’ In form, the orders were a victory for Gale, whose authority was

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reconfirmed. In fact, however, the tide had turned. Gale had won a battle but lost the war. Lord Wharton had come to suspect merely from the volume of the crossfire that Gale could never win the respect and love of his sons, and his suspicions had been confirmed by a devastating letter from John Perkins to the boys’ sister, Anne Wharton.48 The young gentlemen, Perkins said, had never really liked Gale, and now they slighted his advice and avoided him all they could. Gale, moreover, with his pedantic ways, had become a figure of fun among the adults in Caen; the ‘‘ancient’’ would now ‘‘balk and jest’’ at him. He was so settled in his habits that nothing could make him stay up after nine and so intent upon his own studies that he barely took time to examine Tom on biblical assignments. The matter of company was indeed a problem, since Tom and Goodwin were ‘‘exceedingly beloved by all’’; but Gale, in protecting the young gentlemen from low companions, was apt to deny the personable and accept only those who were ‘‘not so well liked.’’ Convinced by Tom and his allies in Caen, as well as by Anne at St. Giles, that Gale might be the source of the trouble, Lord Wharton asked his trusted friend Robert Bennett, deprived rector of Winchendon, to investigate the situation. Meantime, before Tom learned that help was on the way, there was a ‘‘falling out’’ between Tom and Gale and a threat by Gale to send another complaint to Lord Wharton. This threat, which was not carried out, evoked a memorable letter from Tom to his sister Anne: You could not have sent me better news [Tom wrote on 23 March/3 April] than that Mr. Gale had not complained of me to my father and that my father is not angry with me, for I assure you that there is nothing that I fear more than my father’s anger, nor nothing that I dread more then to displease him; and although I know my father will never be angry with me without some very just ground, and that in my conscience I find myself not guilty of the crimes that are imputed to me, and especially of that of religion, yet I cannot but tremble sometimes to think that my father may be brought (though falsely) to have an ill opinion of me. . . . Yet methinks I cannot fear anything whilst I do my duty, and that I endeavor to obey my father’s commands, which I am resolved to do as long as I live. I thank you, Dear Sister, for the care you take of me, and for the pains that you have always taken to make everything go well with us; I acknowledge myself freely unworthy of all the obligations I have received from you. . . . I remain, Dear Sister, Your most affectionate Brother and Servant T. Wharton49

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Robert Bennett arrived in Caen in May and soon confirmed what Gale himself suspected and everyone else in Caen knew, that Tom and Goodwin needed a change of tutors. Though Bennett conceded that the boys had made fine academic progress and though he approved the attempt to protect their morals, it was clear that Tom and Gale were hopelessly incompatible and that Gale was a good man in the wrong place. These conclusions, in different words, Bennett frankly communicated to Gale and told him that Lord Wharton would probably recall him when a suitable replacement could be found.50 Gale accepted defeat with good grace—aware, as he said, of his ‘‘unsufficiency’’—and he stoically did his duty throughout the summer while he waited to be replaced. He comforted himself with the knowledge that his charges were still uncorrupted, that they now spoke French like native Normans, and that they had a formidable command of many biblical texts. Gale could also congratulate himself upon having learned a great deal personally. By mid-September, when he received definite word that a replacement had been found,51 he had been in France two years and become expert in the theological and philosophical controversy that swirled through learned circles. This knowledge he would later use in his book on Jansenism and in other works.52 He had also learned a good deal about Tom. He had learned that although Tom was indeed ‘‘sweet and flexible,’’ as he had earlier written Lord Wharton, there was a touch of spring steel in the flexibility. Tom would learn any number of biblical passages, but bristled with defiance when companions he had chosen by his own private rating system were excluded as low. The only way to break up Tom’s friendships, Gale had learned, was to move; but moving was out of the question while the matter of tutors was in suspense. And so while Gale waited for his replacement, he essentially gave up the struggle to save Tom from the French. What Tom learned from Gale and the minor victory at Caen, beyond the fact that misrule should be resisted, is more difficult to say. Subconsciously, he may have learned that the Elect should be happier and that the ‘‘morose and melancholy’’ may damage faith and morals by advocating them. On another level, Tom probably owed to Gale at least some of the ready knowledge of scriptures which enabled him to discomfit High-Church bishops in the House of Lords and which produced one of the finest one-line witticisms in the reign of Queen Anne.53 And perhaps when Gale was no longer a threat, Tom learned a certain retroactive admiration for his old tutor. True, Gale was always a pedant and sometimes a trial, but

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he was never a hypocrite; he was the genuine Puritan article. It is even possible that in 1714 while Tom was defending dissenting schoolmasters and tutors against the Tory plan to abolish their academies,54 he had the unlovable Theophilus Gale in the back of his mind.

3 Innocents Abroad THE MAN LORD WHARTON SENT TO REPLACE THEOPHILUS GALE AND establish harmony at Caen was Abraham Clifford. Like Gale, Clifford was a Puritan displaced by the Restoration, and like Gale his aim was to produce replicas of Lord Wharton. Clifford was also the same age as Gale—thirty-six in the autumn of 1664. Unlike Gale, however, he was flexible and personable. Clifford had been a fellow at Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he had received his B.A., M.A., and B.D. degrees; and he had served there as junior proctor and dean1—positions that had added to his knowledge about dealing with young men. In the summer of 1664 he was recommended to Lord Wharton as ‘‘every way fit’’ to be tutor to the young Whartons.2 In July when he presented himself at Wooburn, he made a favorable impression not only upon Lord Wharton but also upon Tom’s sister Anne, the guardian of Tom’s interests at home. The fact that Clifford was related, though distantly, to Lady Anne Clifford, Lord Wharton’s friend and relative in the North, was also a point in his favor.3 Clifford arrived in Caen and met Tom and Goodwin for the first time on 6/16 October 1664. Like Gale before him, he was at once struck by the obvious intelligence of his charges (their ‘‘quick, lively, and pregnant parts’’) and by their ‘‘loving and ingenuous’’ temperaments. Clifford observed that Tom, who had just turned sixteen, was ‘‘more ductile and persuadable’’ than his brother and that Goodwin, now eleven, was ‘‘more knotty and reserved.’’4 The young gentlemen, in turn, greeted Clifford with enthusiasm. Tom assured his father that Clifford was ‘‘a man of very great parts’’ and that ‘‘in the providing of Mr. Clifford’’ Lord Wharton had shown the highest concern not only for the ‘‘edification and breeding’’ of his sons but also for their ‘‘satisfaction and contentment.’’5 Gale himself, with commendable self-effacement, praised his successor. ‘‘I am much satisfied,’’ he wrote Lord Wharton, ‘‘that the conduct of your sons is in so good a hand as Mr. Clifford’s, 30

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whose wisdom, authority, and sweetness of disposition . . . I must confess renders him much fitter for it than myself.’’6 As it happened, Clifford arrived at a time of more than usual confusion. In late September, without consulting Lord Wharton in advance, James Le Fevre had taken a bride—a young woman, as he explained, ‘‘well bred, well spoken, very handsome, and of a noble carriage.’’7 He had further risked Lord Wharton’s displeasure by holding the wedding on a Sunday and then ‘‘profaning the day’’ with festivities, including dancing, in the de la Chausse´ e household. Worse yet, the celebration had spilled over into the boys’ chamber, and Tom and Goodwin had participated in spite of Gale’s efforts to stop them.8 Not surprisingly, Lord Wharton recalled Le Fevre and his new wife to Wooburn. He might have forgiven the Sunday dancing, which even Gale seemed to find comparatively venial, but he could not be enthusiastic about allowing his sons to dwell with a beautiful young woman and warm young love. The departure of Le Fevre followed shortly after the arrival of Clifford, as did the departure of Gale. After three or four weeks, therefore, Clifford was essentially left alone to face the problems of education and the question of whether or not to leave Caen. He perceived at once what Gale had learned by long and costly experience that the task of sorting out Tom’s acquaintances and preventing the pension from becoming a young gentlemen’s club instead of a Puritan academy would be difficult. He did not yet concede, however, that the task was impossible; and although, like Gale, he believed that the simplest solution to the problems was to leave town, he thought he should wait until the boys had absorbed the changes in their entourage.9 By mid-December, Clifford realized that he had made a mistake—that he should have insisted from the first upon getting Tom out of Caen. He found himself as helpless as Gale in such matters as removing Tom from a class in philosophy or turning away the boys who sought Tom’s company.10 Tom, who had shone in Latin oratory and rhetoric, found logic and metaphysics dull. He agreed with Clifford that the philosophy taught in the class was ‘‘obsolete, nugatory, and intricate.’’ But the class, as a collection of his French peers, was a delight. He would not hear of leaving it. Similarly, as a general proposition, he would concede that there was such a thing as low and unworthy company; but nothing less than a direct order from Lord Wharton would make him agree to exclude any particular boy. Clifford was much too wise to engage in a contest of wills. Nor did he try to follow Lord Wharton’s hopeless suggestion that he

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should limit Tom’s acquaintance to boys under fourteen, who were less apt to bring up such hazardous subjects as ‘‘drink and women.’’11 He was also too wise to incur the odium of tearing Tom and Goodwin away from their friends. He would not order a removal from Caen without a positive command from Lord Wharton. Mere permission, which Lord Wharton gave in early November, would not suffice. The basic difficulty, as Clifford explained to Lord Wharton (who had not seen his sons for a year and a half ), was that Tom had ‘‘grown a man’’ since he left Wooburn. It was now too late to reject the companions he insisted upon having; and it seemed better to receive his choices at the pension, where they could be supervised, than to try keeping them under surveillance elsewhere.12 Clifford, unfortunately for biographers, did not explain to Lord Wharton what Tom looked like now that he had become a man. It remained for John Macky, a spy for King William III, to observe many years later that Tom was ‘‘of a middle stature’’ and ‘‘fair complexion.’’13 It remained for Thomas Flatman to reproduce Tom’s features on a miniature when Tom was about thirty14 and for Sir Godfrey Kneller to picture him at about fifty in the famous Kit-Cat Club portrait.15 By the time Clifford and Lord Wharton decided who was to order the removal from Caen and where the boys were to go, it was wet and wintry and too late to go anywhere. Tom and Goodwin, therefore, remained among their friends until April of 1665; and what Gale had intended as a few months of preparation for Paris had turned into almost two years. Tom had become a virtual citizen of Caen and so fluent in French that he could have posed in Paris as a Frenchman (as his father suggested he should, in order to avoid dissolute Englishmen).16 The Whartons left Caen for Paris on the morning of 3/13 April 1665. After stopping a few days in Rouen and exploring ‘‘the most considerable things,’’ Clifford and the young Whartons reached Paris on 14/24 April. There they took up residence on the Left Bank in the Ville de Brisac, a pension operated by one Monsieur Panton in the rue des Boucheries. This street, which was obliterated in the 1860s by the boulevard St. Germain, ran east from the Abbey of St. Germain-des-Pre´ s to the Porte St. Germain in the old wall which guarded the university area.17 Thus the young men found themselves strategically located for seeing the Paris of Louis XIV. They were not well located, however, to remain incognito, as Lord Wharton had hoped they might. Other Englishmen also preferred the neighborhood ‘‘in regard of the openness of the air’’;18

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and Clifford saw that it would be futile to try to hide the boys’ identity. He was virtually forced to exchange visits with Englishmen. He could only hope to make the visits profitable to the young Whartons. Very prudently, Clifford began at the top. He first introduced Tom and Goodwin to Denzell, Lord Holles of Ifield, now the English ambassador extraordinary to Louis XIV, but once upon a time as plain Denzell Holles, a leader of the opposition to Charles I in the Long Parliament and an ally of the young Lord Wharton. Lord Holles received the two lads and Clifford very warmly and asked them to convey a greeting to his old friend. He was, he said, ‘‘very much’’ Lord Wharton’s servant.19 Clifford also took the young gentlemen to visit Arthur Capel, earl of Essex, and Elizabeth, ‘‘his lady.’’20 The thirty-five-year-old Essex, unlike Holles, came from the Royalist side of the revolutionary fence. His father, in fact, had been executed by Parliament for his part in the civil wars. When he received Tom, he was in the good graces of Charles II. There was as yet no evidence that the son of a Royalist martyr would eventually become a Whig martyr. What the two noblemen thought of the sixteen-year-old Tom is not recorded,21 nor did Tom write his first impressions of his future friends and allies. He was not yet concerned with English politics. He had been away from England for almost two years, and his political studies had been confined to the Greeks and the Romans. According to Clifford, he was so ‘‘unskilled’’ in contemporary affairs and the higher social graces that he could not appear in the courts of German princes with any sort of credit.22 Since the Paris of Louis XIV was infinitely fascinating to young Englishmen and since, as another Englishman of the period remarked, a traveler could spend six months simply looking at the sights,23 Clifford did not suppose that Tom and Goodwin would accomplish much academically. His strategy, in fact, was to show the young gentlemen as much as he could as fast as he could and then get them on to some sober place like Montpelier or Geneva, where they could make some solid academic progress before completing the grand (counterclockwise) tour of Rome, Venice, Vienna, Heidelberg, and Brussels. For this reason he asked Lord Wharton to send horses. These, he supposed, would allow the party to travel through southern France in ease and style, and the horses could probably be sold in Montpelier or Geneva at a profit. Lord Wharton sent horses, but he also sent a new set of orders. There would be no stays in Montpelier or Geneva, and the grand tour would go clockwise—from Paris to Brussels and from there to

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Heidelberg. In vain Clifford protested that no English aristocrat went to Germany before going to Italy, that the party would need a German-speaking interpreter, and that the chances of selling the horses profitably in the German hinterlands were remote. Lord Wharton was unimpressed by Clifford’s arguments or by the fact that war was breaking out between England and the Dutch Republic—a war which might spread to the Spanish Netherlands. He insisted upon the Brussels-Heidelberg route, and he instructed Clifford to sell the horses in Paris if they would not bring a profit elsewhere. Abraham Clifford, who would one day become physician and private secretary to the prince of Orange,24 was a man of many talents; but selling horses was not one of them. For two frustrating months he tried vainly to find buyers for the Wharton horses. Meanwhile, he used the horses to tour the environs of Paris with Tom and Goodwin. The young men were taken to St. Denis, Vincennes, St. Germain-en-Laye, and Versailles (where Louis was only beginning to construct his famous palace).25 Toward the end of July, Clifford took Tom to see a review of the king’s army—an event more memorable and symbolic than the meetings with Holles and Essex. Considered simply as a spectacle, the army of Louis XIV was a splendid affair—certainly worth the sunburn and blisters that Tom got from watching it. Considered abstractly, as a force within France and Europe, it was more impressive still. Though it was not yet the central anxiety of the late seventeenth century, it was already, under leaders like Turenne and Conde´ , the best army in Europe; and it was the sure foundation of a royal dictatorship. With the loyalty and backing of a disciplined fighting force, Louis had already learned how to make aristocrats run on time. And when he made statements like ‘‘L’e´ tat c’est moi,’’ no one cared to contradict him. As for Tom, standing with Clifford broiling in the Paris sun, the thought could hardly have crossed his mind that he was previewing his life’s work—that the last twenty-five years of his political career would be largely devoted to stopping Louis and his formidable regiments. Nor could it have occurred to him that the time not spent on Louis would often be devoted to protecting men like Clifford against Anglican zealots who wished to silence them. In early August, Clifford gave up trying to sell the Wharton horses. He decided to use them instead for the first part of the journey, as far as Heidelberg; and on the morning of 2/12 August, he finally led his troop out of Paris and began what was intended to be a grand tour. But the tour never reached Heidelberg—or even Aix-

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la-Chapelle. When Clifford halted his party at the Spa (about fifteen miles east of Lie`ge) and went forth to reconnoiter, he learned that the Black Death, which was then desolating London and the seaport towns of the Low Countries, had already appeared in Aix.26 He also learned that smoldering hostilities between the electors of Heidelberg and Mainz had broken out into actual warfare. His intended route, therefore, was infested with soldiers as well as the plague, and there remained nothing to do but retreat to the uninfected cities of Flanders and wait for instructions.27 When Lord Wharton could think of no way out of the impasse, the grand tour dwindled to a few weeks of sightseeing in Hainault, Brabant, and Flanders.28 On 1/11 October the young men were back in Paris at their old lodgings in the rue des Boucheries.29 The return to Paris meant a return to a by-now classical problem. Paris, as Clifford explained once again to Lord Wharton, was a glorious distraction. In early June, Tom and Goodwin had been able to see the queen, the dauphin, ‘‘Monsieur’’ (Philippe, duc d’Orle´ ans, the king’s brother) and ‘‘Madame’’ (the wife of Monsieur and the sister of Charles II) during the absence of the king;30 and on 10/20 November, they accompanied Lord Holles to the Royal Court and saw the Grand Monarch himself.31 But the city was fatal to books. Clifford, of course, wanted to leave Paris, but while he waited for directions from Lord Wharton, the decisions were once more made by disease and politics. On Saturday, 11/21 November, Tom came down with smallpox. Tom’s attack, unlike his brother’s, was virulent and perilous. Though it started gently with a slight fever, it developed by Sunday night into nausea and by Monday morning into ‘‘a terrible burning fit’’ that brought delirium and made Perkins ‘‘very much doubt of him.’’32 The fever could not be reduced, and by Tuesday evening, Tom had sunk into a torpor.33 Then, at about midnight, the crisis passed. The pox began to break out ‘‘well and kindly,’’ and the fever began to abate. But on Thursday afternoon, Tom relapsed into delirium, and that night he became ‘‘by fits violent’’—‘‘wild’’ and ‘‘raving.’’ When these symptoms continued on Friday, Clifford brought in several physicians for consultation—being unwilling, as he said, to trust the advice of only one.34 And when they agreed that Tom should be ‘‘let blood,’’ he did not dare overrule them. Somewhat to Clifford’s surprise, the treatment seemed to work. On Saturday morning, Tom seemed once more out of danger.35 After his close brush with death, Tom recovered slowly; and being much too weak to refuse any treatments, he was subjected

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to another bloodletting, several enemas, and a heroic blistering.36 Nothing, unfortunately, could improve Tom’s appearance, which for the time being had become grotesque. Besides the pox and blisters on his body, he had a face full of large pox and a shaven head. He looked so woebegone and comical that the normally sober Clifford was provoked into something very like wit: The truth is [Clifford wrote to Anne], he is so hideous a spectacle, as ’tis to be feared you would scarcely have an affection for him should you see him as now he is. At present he is almost out of love with himself. If you would now have a picture of him, you must imagine to yourself either Naaman the Leper, or Job sitting on the dunghill and scraping of his sores, or Lazarus lying at the rich man’s gate.37

Clifford could afford to be jocular because the danger had passed and because he was reasonably sure Tom’s face would recover its ‘‘former hue and complexion’’ and would not be pitted with scars. While Tom was recovering, King Louis was determining the future of the expedition. By early December, it was clear that he intended to enter the Anglo-Dutch War on the side of the Dutch and that the Wharton party would soon find themselves enemy aliens. For this reason it was necessary to leave France—either to return home or to find sanctuary in Italy, Geneva, or Germany. Tom voted for further travel. He would agree, nevertheless, to come home, he said, if his father would let him go abroad again when the war was over.38 But Lord Wharton vetoed the suggestion of more travel and ordered his sons to return to England. And since the Channel was full of Dutch privateers and would soon be full of French privateers as well, he instructed them to return with Lord Holles, the ambassador, who would have a naval escort and diplomatic passes for his ships. As it happened, these eminently sensible orders entailed a delay of five months. For reasons of state, health, and romance,39 Holles remained in Paris many weeks after the official declaration of war (on 6 January 1666 N.S.), and the young Whartons remained there too. It was mid-April before Clifford took the young men down the river to Rouen to wait for Holles and the convoy,40 and it was 22 May/1 June when they actually sailed from Dieppe.41 Meantime, the extra months in Paris meant that Tom had spent a year there. He had become as familiar with the French capital as he was with the London of Charles II—the London that was about to be destroyed by fire. When Clifford returned Tom to Wooburn, about three years after the young man had left it, he had reason to be pleased with his own

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performance as governor—which was to be continued for some months longer. As far as faith and morals were concerned, he was returning Tom virtually in mint condition. While it was true that Tom might have picked up a ‘‘slight soil’’ from young Frenchmen at Caen and young Englishmen in Paris, these blemishes were entirely superficial. They could be removed, Clifford thought, by a little fatherly admonition and a few weeks under Lord Wharton’s discerning eye. Academically, of course, Clifford had not accomplished all he had hoped, but this too could be remedied at Wooburn, which was free from loose Frenchmen and English tourists. Nor had Tom’s scholarly accomplishments been negligible, despite the distractions. Most important, however, for his future career, was his saturation in French. The fact that Tom could handle French, both idiomatic and formal,42 would make him more effective as comptroller of King William’s polyglot household and as lord privy seal for King George I (who was at home in French and sometimes at sea in English).43 His fluency in the language of diplomacy (and sometimes of treason) would enable him to serve on a commission for concluding a treaty of alliance between England and Holland and on several parliamentary investigating committees. But all this was in the future. At the present he was back at Wooburn with the family—including his father and stepmother, his new half-brother William (later Will), his stepsister Lizzie, his stepbrother Alexander, his four sisters, and his two brothers. If the transition from Paris to Wooburn and from Mr. Wharton to plain Tom seemed anticlimactic, and if the monarchy at Wooburn seemed more absolute than the one at the Palais Royal, Wooburn with its vivid characters and its lovely setting was a splendid place to be.

4 Marriage a` la Mode EVEN BEFORE TOM SET OUT FROM WOOBURN FOR CAEN IN 1663, HIS father had begun worrying about a marriage for him. Although Tom was then not yet fifteen, Lord Wharton knew that one could not begin too early to look for rich and virtuous young ladies. Since the first duty of an aristocrat was to preserve and augment the family property and since Lord Wharton himself had acquired several large and lovely manors by marriage, he set about as a matter of course to find an heiress for his heir. In entering the intricate, competitive, and stylized business of negotiating marriages, Lord Wharton had two or three solid advantages. First, of course, he was immensely wealthy. His wealth, moreover, consisted largely in landed estates, the most prestigious of all assets. Along with his wealth went a peerage—a permanent seat in the House of Lords and a cluster of special privileges. This combination of powers and honors would descend to his heir, who would become the fifth Baron Wharton. From the point of view of strategy and tactics, Lord Wharton had another enviable resource. As the patron of Nonconformist ministers, he had a ready-made network of agents scattered throughout England—bright, educated, and underemployed clergymen who were skilled both in locating heiresses and ferreting out the actual (as opposed to the reputed) size of their fortunes and who were often influential with parents and trustees. It was two of these men, Dr. John Owen and Thomas Gilbert, who opened the first campaign on Tom’s behalf.1 In April 1663, they discovered that at Culham, near Abingdon, there was a thirteen-year-old heiress named Sarah Berry—an only child left in the care of her mother after the death of her father. The first reports were inconclusive. Although the girl herself— young Mistress Berry—seemed ‘‘advantageously amiable’’ as far as disposition, beauty, and brains were concerned, preliminary inquiries seemed to show that her estate was below the expectations 38

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of a rich young nobleman like Tom.2 The case, however, warranted further investigation. Naturally, no one suggested that the fourteenyear-old Tom should go see the young lady himself. The business of marriage was much too serious to be entrusted to adolescents. As matters turned out, the negotiations fell apart while Tom was in Caen. The early appraisal of Mistress Berry’s fortune had been right.3 In 1667 and 1668, after Tom had returned from France, Lord Wharton’s agents, who now included Samuel Clarke and John Dodd,4 investigated five young heiresses-apparent. Again they found financial problems—estates too small or too entangled in litigation. In early 1669, therefore, Lord Wharton temporarily abandoned the pursuit of Tom’s happiness and turned to other urgent matters. The first of these was the revolt of Tom’s oldest sister Anne. While Lord Wharton had been trying in a desultory way to arrange a match for her, Anne was falling in love. By early 1669, she had ‘‘fixed her affections,’’ without her father’s ‘‘privity,’’ upon a thirtyfive-year-old barrister named William Carr and had resolved to marry him—or no one. When she informed her father of her resolution and asked for his approval, she touched off a violent and longlasting war. Lord Wharton was outraged. Truly loving, pious, and elect daughters would not fall in love without their fathers’ prior consent. And if by mischance they had thoughtlessly indulged their affections against their fathers’ wishes, they would repent their sin against the Fifth Commandment and beg forgiveness. But when Lord Wharton proclaimed ‘‘his utter dislike of her actings’’ and ordered her to retract her promise, Anne did not repent. She had made a vow to marry no one except William Carr, and she refused to break it.5 It was not merely Anne’s disobedience that infuriated Lord Wharton; it was also her choice of husbands. William Carr was not a random lawyer from the Temple or Gray’s Inn; he was Lady Wharton’s younger brother. A marriage that would make Lord Wharton his daughter’s brother-in-law seemed faintly ridiculous. Even more unacceptable was the fact that William Carr had no money. Instead of bringing a rich estate into the Wharton orbit, the young barrister did well to support himself. Besides his own potent anger, Lord Wharton possessed some extremely heavy weapons. He could have Anne declared a disobedient child and refused Communion—placed, that is, under a kind of personal interdict. He could take away the three thousand pounds that

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had been allotted for her portion. And by way of reinforcements, he could call upon a number of somber, eloquent, and persuasive ministers—experts on the Commandments. For a time, it seemed that Lord Wharton’s anger and threats might be enough in themselves to bring Anne to heel. Under the first storm of his rage, she made several concessions: She would not marry without her father’s consent, she would sign away her rights to a marriage portion, and she would not see or communicate with William Carr. On one vital point she was adamant, however; she would marry no one except Carr. After delivering herself of these sentiments and refusing once more to repent, she fell ill.6 Ignoring her illness, Lord Wharton called up his reinforcements. But the support Lord Wharton got from his minister friends was less than overwhelming. Technically, he was correct, of course; Anne had indeed indulged her affections, and her persistence in defying his will was indeed a sin. To the ministers, however, the sin did not seem unforgivable. The young lady had no carnal knowledge of her fiance´ ; she had aimed at honorable marriage (a cause of ‘‘joy in heaven’’); and she could not be charged with ‘‘criminal intent.’’7 After what amounted to a hearing at Wooburn on 5 April, the minister who reviewed the matter felt obliged to rule in favor of law and order.8 He declared that Anne should ‘‘insist no longer upon her engagement but confess the sinfulness of it both against God and her father.’’ He added, nevertheless, that when Anne returned to ‘‘her dutiful state,’’ Lord Wharton should return her sequestrated marriage portion and at least listen to William Carr’s proposals if they were presented in the regular way.9 Naturally, Anne refused to listen to such nonsense. Any ruling that denied the sanctity of her engagement was a waste of breath. She would not repent or return to duty, and a whole synod of ministers would not browbeat her into breaking her vow. While Anne was resisting pressures that might have bent iron bars, Lord Wharton was undergoing trials of his own. Even loyal ministers like Robert Bennett, who defended the orthodoxy and righteousness of his actions, regretted the necessity; and other people were much less generous. Anne’s maternal grandmother Jane Goodwin Martin (wife now of Colonel Francis Martin) was ‘‘passionately concerned’’ when she heard of Anne’s illness; and she was strongly seconded by the Nonconformist preacher Thomas Cole, who told Lord Wharton, respectfully but firmly, that he had carried discipline beyond the bounds of Christian love.10 But argument was wasted on Lord Wharton, who remained steadfast in dis-

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illusion and rectitude. It would be two years before there was even a slight change in the rigid posture of the antagonists. Meanwhile, the Whartons were suffering a loss that overshadowed thwarted love and fatherly outrage. In late March 1669, Tom’s half-sister Elizabeth, countess of Lindsey, the surviving daughter of Lord Wharton’s first marriage, made what turned out to be her last visit to Wooburn.11 Shortly afterward, she fell ill. At first it was supposed that her illness could be cured by a change of climate. It soon became evident, however, that she was too ill to travel. After a brief rally and a flutter of false hopes, she died, leaving her husband and the five sons she had borne during her ten years of wedlock.12 In early October 1670 Lord Wharton resumed his efforts to find a wife for Tom, then twenty-two. He dispatched John Dodd into Essex to investigate the charms, piety, and fortune of Lady Mary Rich, second daughter of the ‘‘lately deceased’’ Robert Rich, third earl of Warwick. Dodd sent a glowing account and recommended further inquiries.13 Meanwhile Tom was being investigated as a marriage prospect by Matthew Mead, a prominent Nonconformist minister in London.14 Mead, who was acting for an unnamed family, very logically began his inquiries with Robert Bennett. Bennett had known the Wharton children since their birth and had worshiped that ‘‘elect and precious lady’’ Jane, Lady Wharton, their mother. He had also exercised a general surveillance over the education of the young men. He was well prepared, therefore, to provide ‘‘a just account of the eldest son’’ of Lord Wharton. And he could assure Mead that if his account seemed too favorable to be true, it would nevertheless withstand the ‘‘strictest scrutiny.’’15 Tom, Bennett explained, was a credit to his strict upbringing and the ‘‘domestical examples’’ set by his father and mother. The young man had a remarkable mind and ‘‘a very sweet disposition,’’ and he was naturally active and vivacious. Over the years he had added maturity of judgment to his quick apprehension and had demonstrated a talent for the business affairs entrusted to him by his father. With maturity he had also acquired the virtues of the ideal English gentleman—a generous spirit and an obliging behavior, ‘‘without meanness, height, or affectation.’’ More impressively, Bennett explained, Tom had attained the gentlemanly virtues without the gentlemanly vices; he had resisted the twin corruptions of ‘‘intemperance and incontinence.’’ But if Tom was a Christian gentleman with a thorough grounding in the ways of religion and with the ability to tell the difference between the ‘‘strict’’ and ‘‘loose’’ professors of it (the difference,

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that is, between Dissenters and Anglicans) and if like his brothers and sisters he was handsome, he could not be called perfect. In the interests of truth and candor, Bennett was compelled to inform Mead that Tom had twice been heard to swear. This information, which Bennett otherwise would not have believed, came from Lord Wharton himself and hence could not be doubted. In spite of this blot, Bennett was able to conclude his sketch with a ringing endorsement: ‘‘Upon the whole,’’ he wrote, ‘‘I do judge Mr. Wharton to be a person that hath few equals in this age of his quality—a gentleman propense to virtuous things and worthy of nobility if he were not born to it.’’ Perhaps unfortunately, neither Robert Bennett’s praise of Tom nor John Dodd’s recommendations of Lady Mary Rich led to marriage negotiations. The tentative probes came to nothing. Again there was a lull in the maneuvers on Tom’s behalf; and in the interval before the next complex series of operations, the second act in the drama of Anne Wharton was played out. In early 1671, after about two years in limbo, Anne found a reason to break her promise not to marry without her father’s consent. In the heat of battle, before clerical witnesses, including Benjamin Perkins, Lord Wharton had once exclaimed in exasperation, ‘‘Why doth she not get married? Who hinders her?’’16 At the time, the questions had seemed rhetorical. Now, however, recollected in tranquility, they could be construed as passive consent—not ‘‘positive consent,’’ of course, and certainly not consent with a father’s blessing, but enough consent to allow a daughter ‘‘liberty in point of conscience to proceed.’’ Accordingly, Anne married William Carr and ended two years of romantic agonies. Predictably, Lord Wharton did not accept the fait accompli or Anne’s version of passive consent. Nor would he accept the advice of ministers Benjamin Perkins and George Griffiths to give ex-postfacto consent and enjoy the spiritual rewards of reconciliation. If he could not prevent the marriage or convict Anne of moral perjury, he could at least cut off her marriage portion. It would be several more years before he could forgive his daughter, and he would never give her any money.17 Anne’s marriage, however distasteful to her father, simplified the Wharton matrimonial problems. By removing an ambiguity in the status list and by leaving an unused dowry, it helped to clear the way for Anne’s younger sisters and for Tom. Earlier, Lord and Lady Wharton had found a suitable husband for Lady Wharton’s daughter Letitia. On 2 March 1670, at the age of twenty-two, Letitia was married to a thirty-six-year-old London merchant named John Baw-

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don.18 Originally from Bridgwater, Bawdon would eventually become a London alderman and a knight.19 He was also the uncle of John Oldmixon, the Whig propagandist and historian who probably wrote Tom’s memoirs.20 In late 1671, after all the heiresses investigated by Lord Wharton and his agents on Tom’s behalf, there was at last a probe that moved beyond exploration into serious negotiation. This adventure, which lasted more than a year and sent Tom on four journeys into Devon, was initiated by Dr. Benjamin Worsley21 and forwarded by Lord Wharton’s long-time friend Andrew Marvell. Worsley, whose wife came from Devon, had learned of an heiress at Brooke, an estate near Buckfastleigh, and he wrote the information in a letter to Marvell (then staying at Winchendon). Marvell passed the letter on to Lord Wharton, who authorized Worsley to make further enquiries. Worsley wrote to an Exeter correspondent Francis Hart,22 and when Hart returned a highly favorable report, Worsley relayed it to Marvell and Lord Wharton.23 The heiress was Elizabeth Cabell, daughter of the late Richard Cabell, one-time sheriff of the county, and granddaughter on her mother’s side of Sir Edmund Fowell of Fowelscombe in south Devon. The young lady, now about fifteen, had been left in the care of her mother (also named Elizabeth); and her extensive inheritance had been left in the charge of trustees, headed by John Fowell, her mother’s brother.24 Obviously a rich prize in the marriage market, Mistress Cabell had already attracted a number of suitors, including John Arundell, son of Richard, first Baron Arundell of Trerice. But the Whartons had the upper hand. Lord Wharton was richer than the Arundells, and Tom was much more personable than young Arundell. Lord Wharton also discovered another advantage. Although Richard Cabell himself had been a ‘‘moderate Cavalier,’’25 his wife and the rest of the Fowells were Puritans. Sir Edmund had been one of the Presbyterian M.P.s excluded in Pride’s Purge, and as such he was a natural ally of Lord Wharton, who could justly praise him for ‘‘worth, godliness, and religion.’’26 To further consolidate these advantages, Lord Wharton was able to enlist other allies in Devonshire: a former Commonwealth militia officer named Servington Savery, an Exeter lawyer named Hesket who handled the affairs of the Cabell estate, and two Dissenting clergymen, Samuel Hieron of Honiton and Lewis Stucley of Exeter. These agents enabled Lord Wharton to mount something very like a siege. Almost lost behind the array of relatives, operatives, and other interested parties was young Mistress Cabell herself.27 Enquiries

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had been in train for almost a month before anyone got around to describing her to Lord Wharton, and even then the description furnished by Francis Hart might have fit many carefully raised English girls. Her disposition, Hart wrote, was ‘‘of a sweet, lovely nature’’; her natural talents were ‘‘very good and managed with great sobriety’’; and she was commended by family and friends for ‘‘grace and humility.’’ Apparently no one had ever called her pretty. ‘‘As for her person,’’ Hart said, ‘‘she is not in the least deformable nor yet beautiful but of a brownish complexion.’’28 For her age young Elizabeth was remarkably mature. Already competent to manage a household, she had sometimes cared for her father during her mother’s absence. In sum, Hart concluded, she was ‘‘a very womanly maid’’ who would make ‘‘a very choice wife.’’29 In early June 1672 after much diplomacy, the Whartons advanced to the second level of negotiation. In a letter from Savery, Tom was invited to south Devon, where he was to meet the young lady herself, her mother, and her grandparents. To make his appearance as impressive as possible, he was to bring three or four servants.30 It might be prudent, Francis Hart suggested, to include a chaplain in the entourage, since the Fowells were noted for their piety.31 As for Lord Wharton, he was to wait nearby in Dorset pending the outcome of the meeting between Tom and the Cabells. Meantime, he assigned John Gunter, his chief steward, to accompany Tom, keep an eye on proceedings, and answer any questions about the Wharton estates.32 Tom and his cavalcade arrived at Totnes on the evening of Friday, 14 June 1672; and on the following Monday, they were received with ‘‘freedom and kindness’’ by the Cabells and the Fowells at Fowelscombe. The meeting was a notable success. Mistress Cabell, her mother, her maiden aunt, and her grandmother found Tom at least as attractive as his agents had said; her grandfather approved; and at the end of the session, Mrs. Cabell instructed Tom and John Gunter to send for Lord Wharton so that a marriage settlement could be set in motion. Tom too found the merchandise to be essentially as advertised. ‘‘As to her person,’’ he wrote his father, she is ‘‘neither a beauty nor otherwise, but that which together with her fortune and virtuous breeding I shall like very well of.’’33 The endorsement was much less than lyrical, of course; and if Mistress Cabell had been a race horse, it is unlikely that Tom would have bought her. The judgment constituted, nevertheless, a formal approval of the proposed match. Invited back to Fowelscombe the next day, Tom and his party stayed with the Cabells for about two weeks—until Mrs. Cabell

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could assemble her daughter’s trustees to meet Tom and to discuss terms with Lord Wharton. For this meeting, the scene shifted to Brooke, the home manor of the Cabells; and once again the affair rolled forward without a hitch. Tom made a favorable impression on John Fowell and the rest of the trustees, as did Lord Wharton and the property he promised to settle upon his heir. Similarly, young Elizabeth and her fortune passed Lord Wharton’s inspection. When the Whartons set out on their three-day journey back to London, it appeared that nothing remained but to reduce the voluminous details of a property settlement to legal writing and to set a date for a wedding in Devon. At most, they supposed, another visit from Tom to the Cabells would suffice to clear up any remaining problems. But one visit was not enough. When in mid-August Tom made his next trip to Brooke, he found two vaguely worrisome complications. The first was financial. In drawing up the tentative settlement, Lord Wharton had placed what the Cabell trustees considered an unduly high value upon the feudal fees (the ‘‘fines’’) that Tom would collect upon inheriting the estates, and he had charged the estates with more obligations than the trustees thought proper. Considered in themselves, these objections were simply negotiating points to be resolved by compromise; but at the very best they entailed delay and at the worst they might infuriate Lord Wharton. Somewhat more worrisome was the unaccountable reluctance of the young lady’s mother to set a marriage date. That Mrs. Cabell liked Tom was evident. Even a bystander like Samuel Hieron could observe that she seemed ‘‘fond’’ of the ‘‘young nobleman.’’ It was also evident that Tom played the role of gentleman fiance´ with great credit. He brought down jewels for the young lady and paid her proper attentions. As yet, he was not expected to display an overwhelming passion; a growing interest would suffice. This he could manage without feigning. But when he urged Mrs. Cabell to set a wedding date as soon as possible, he could get no promise and no very convincing explanation. She would only assure him that she was committed to the marriage—that ‘‘if a prince did offer himself, he should not be entertained.’’34 In spite of such worrisome details, Tom made good use of his visit to Devon. He continued to charm the Cabell household. He impressed John Fowell and a number of the Devonshire gentry by performing with skill and social grace at a shooting match in Exeter. And he endeared himself to Samuel Hieron by promising to subsidize a Dissenting congregation at Buckfastleigh if he settled there after his marriage. By all accounts his performance in Devon,

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where he spent his twenty-fourth birthday, was ‘‘much to his honor.’’35 But when he returned from the provinces to the excitement of politics, horse races, royal courts, and London ladies, he made a simple and ultimately irretrievable error. He let a month go by without writing to his fiance´ e at Brooke. His father, meanwhile, made the opposite error. Lord Wharton did write a letter to Brooke—an angry letter to Mr. Hesket, Mrs. Cabell’s legal advisor. Seething with indignation at the trustees’ objections to his proposals,36 he hotly defended his own version of the agreement and threatened, not obscurely, to break off the match if the trustees continued to cavil. Between his own neglect and his father’s bluster, Tom began his next visit in Devon under a formidable handicap. Mrs. Cabell suspected from the tone of Lord Wharton’s letter that Lord Wharton was seizing a pretext to break off the match. Not understanding that he was seldom crossed with impunity, she supposed he wished to ‘‘mend his match’’ with a richer heiress. As for Tom, she knew very well that young men in love (or anywhere near love) do not go four or five weeks between letters. The uneasy feeling that Tom was too good to be true—that he would never have a deep affection for her plain daughter—was growing towards a conviction. But when Tom actually arrived at Brooke, on 19 November, the clouds began to disperse. His very presence showed that he and his father had no intention of breaking the match; and he soon quieted the fears of the Cabell ladies with diplomacy and charm. He made ‘‘protestations’’ of affection to the young lady, and he approved of a proposal by the Cabell trustees for a compromise in the property dispute.37 Similarly, Tom could see for himself that Mrs. Cabell was not meditating treachery. When she repeated that she intended to go through with the match, it was impossible to doubt her. Lord Wharton contributed to the de´ tente by adding property to his proposed settlement—including Wooburn (once intended for Goodwin)38 and some lead mines in Swaledale. By early December, harmony had been restored. Samuel Hieron had predicted that Tom’s appearance in Devon would ‘‘do much.’’ And so it proved. When Hieron visited the Cabells two weeks after Tom’s arrival, he could report with satisfaction that everything was going very well. ‘‘Mrs. Cabell’’ (he wrote to Lord Wharton) ‘‘is as kind to Mr. Wharton as possibly can be; the young lady too as familiar as one would wish; neither can I note one circumstance of any ill signification.’’39 All that remained was for Lord Wharton to reduce by four thousand pounds the charges against Tom’s inheri-

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tance and for Mrs. Cabell to set a firm date for the wedding. Then what Lord Wharton called ‘‘the devils obstructing marriage’’ would be exorcised.40 But this time the devils were aided by Tom himself and by the twists of English politics. Having quieted Mrs. Cabell’s fears by his presence in Devon, Tom proceeded to arouse them again by leaving too soon. Against the wishes of the Cabell ladies and the advice of John Gunter, who had been sent to help with the final negotiations, Tom found a plausible reason to go back to London and Bucks. And when he got home, he found an even better reason to stay. On 4 February 1673, Charles II’s famous ‘‘Long Parliament’’ opened a crucial session after a prorogation of almost two years. In the interval more than thirty members of the Commons (originally elected in 1661) had died—among them Robert Croke, a member for Wendover, Buckinghamshire. Wendover was traditionally a stronghold of the Hampdens, who since an even more famous Long Parliament had been friends and allies of Lord Wharton. It was natural, therefore, that when the Speaker authorized an election writ, Richard Hampden (son of the renowned John Hampden) and Lord Wharton should select the personable twenty-four-year-old Tom to stand for the borough. It was also natural that the borough should be hotly contested. Since there had been no general election for twelve years, seats had become more precious than usual; and since at Wendover there were fewer than 150 eligible voters41 to persuade, influence, or bribe, the borough offered a tempting prize. In the election of mid-February 1673, Tom was opposed by Edward Backwell, a London banker and alderman and a prominent moneylender to Cromwell and Charles II. If Tom had won or lost the election outright, he might have married the plain, virtuous, and rich Elizabeth Cabell. He had promised the young lady’s mother to return on 1 March—a promise he could easily have kept if he had lost the election or had been assured of a seat at that time. As it was, however, the election involved flagrant bribery; and the polling at Wendover, where Tom lost 63–75, was only a preliminary to the contests before the elections committee of the Commons, where Tom and his backers challenged 23 of Backwell’s votes,42 and before the whole House, which by a vote of 181 to 101 agreed with its committee ‘‘that Thomas Wharton Esquire should be elected for Wendover.’’ These contests began on 22 February and did not end until 19 March.43 Meanwhile, Tom’s cause in Devonshire was hopelessly lost. To Mrs. Cabell, Tom’s failure to appear at Brooke on l March was final proof that Tom had ‘‘no true affection for her daughter’’;44

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and the fact that he had been detained by election to Parliament merely aggravated the offense. To Tom and Lord Wharton— political animals by nature—a seat in the Commons was a prize that justified any delay in romance. To Mrs. Cabell, on the other hand, a seat in the Commons merely provided Tom with one more excuse to stay away from a wife in Devon.45 She had tried to believe Tom’s protestations, and as late as 22 February she had spoken of a wedding before midsummer.46 In the end, however, she believed Tom’s actions and her own sharp perceptions. Since Tom had clearly chosen politics over love, she was determined to break the match. No consideration of money or prestige would tempt her to condemn her daughter to a marriage of mere convenience. It was a ‘‘shameful thing,’’ she told Servington Savery, ‘‘to go asunder after such an observable proceeding,’’ but it was ‘‘better to have the shame now than to feel the sorrow hereafter.’’47 And when Samuel Hieron, defending Tom, cited instances of what appeared to be affection, Mrs. Cabell cut him off short. His arguments, she said, did not prove love; they proved only that Tom was willing to marry the young lady. This she had never doubted. But loveless marriages inevitably entailed paramours; and she would not ‘‘have her daughter pass for the wife’’ if there should be ‘‘a mistress besides, according to the mode.’’48 Tom’s agents in Exeter did not believe the case was hopeless. They supposed that if Tom hurried to Devon the affair might yet be retrieved. Accordingly, Tom left his newly won seat in the Commons and set out for Devon. But this time the trip was disastrous. Tom and his party were robbed on the way to Exeter in a ‘‘villainous assault’’;49 and when they arrived, Tom soon learned that he might as well have stayed home. Although he had the support of Mrs. Cabell’s entourage, he found the ladies themselves irretrievably lost. To the dismay of his agents and a significant number of Devon gentry, Tom was obliged to leave Exeter in defeat. After the repulse in the West, the Whartons began negotiations with a guardian nearer home. This was the dowager countess of Rochester, grandmother and guardian of young Anne Lee. The countess, born Anne St. John, had been the wife of Sir Francis Henry Lee of Ditchley, Oxfordshire, and then of Henry Wilmot, first earl of Rochester. By her second marriage she was the mother of John Wilmot, the talented and notorious second earl of Rochester; and by her first marriage she was the mother of Sir Henry Lee and the grandmother of his two daughters, Eleanora and Anne. Sir Henry died in March 1659 before his second daughter was born, and his wife Anne Danvers Lee died in July, shortly after she

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gave birth to the little girl (also named Anne for her mother and grandmother).50 Sir Henry and his wife made the countess the executrix of their wills and the guardian of Eleanora and Anne, who by their parents’ deaths became coheiresses to a great estate.51 In February 1672, the countess was relieved of half her responsibility when she married Eleanora to James Bertie, then Lord Norreys and later earl of Abingdon. Rycote, the home estate of Lord Norreys, was near Thame in northeastern Oxfordshire, about twenty-five miles from the Wilmot country house at Adderbury. When the countess turned her attention to a match for Anne, she found one even closer to home. Sir Ralph Verney, a trustee of the young lady’s estate and a longtime friend of the Lee family, lived at Claydon, Bucks, about eighteen miles from Adderbury and about four miles from the Wharton estates at Waddesdon and Winchendon. Sir Ralph had known Tom from the lad’s birth and thought highly of him.52 The countess also knew Tom, who was only a year younger than her son Rochester, and when it became clear that the Cabell affair was finished, she began considering him as a prospect. Unfortunately, it was too early to be considering anyone as a prospect. In May 1673, Anne was not yet fourteen years old. In another age in another country, a grandmother-guardian who was negotiating to marry off a girl Anne’s age might have found herself explaining to a judge in a juvenile court what she thought she was doing. Similarly Tom, then twenty-four, and his perennial rival John Arundell, then twenty-three, might have been warned by a policeman to move along and leave children alone if they had approached Anne’s carriage and vied for her attention, as they did in May 1673. As it was, the incident drew censure, not because the town felt that the two men should have been locked up but because some (including Rachel Russell) felt that Tom should have challenged Arundell to a duel.53 But to Lady Rochester, who had married off Eleanora when the young lady was thirteen, Anne seemed old enough, and the matrimonial picture at Wooburn and St. Giles seemed clear and attractive. On 19 February 1673, between election crises, Lord Wharton had succeeded in marrying his daughter Mary to a wealthy young Welshman named William Thomas,54 and by May he had virtually completed arrangements for the marriage of Margaret to Major Dunch, heir of a rich Puritan family in Oxfordshire.55 Tom himself, after Exeter, had been freed from all formal entanglements, and his father had been taught a valuable lesson about marriage contracts. The war at Brooke had essentially defined Tom’s patrimony, and

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Lord Wharton would not again jeopardize a huge marriage settlement in skirmishes over trifles. This time too there was no need of intermediaries. Lord Wharton knew Lady Rochester, Sir Ralph Verney, and the other trustees of Anne’s estate. The negotiations could be carried on in face-to-face meetings. As for young Anne herself, it was clear that, unlike Mistress Cabell, she could be called pretty, as a portrait by Lely shows.56 And a few years later when her latent poetic talent had developed, she would be called witty as well. Meantime, her inheritance was very attractive indeed. It included a cash marriage settlement of eight thousand pounds and an annual income of about £2,500.57 Later, when Anne came of age and the Lee-Danvers property was divided between her and her sister Eleanora, Anne’s share would include forty-five acres of Chelsea (including Danvers House, then occupied by the earl of Radnor), two manors at Malmesbury, five other manors and miscellaneous properties in Wiltshire, and four manors in Northamptonshire.58 In view of these circumstances, Lord Wharton and the dowager countess had every reason, except perhaps good sense, to expect that the match would be a good one. In fact, however, Tom and Anne were (in the jargon of a later age) maddeningly out of phase. Lord Wharton had stayed too long at the fair, and Lady Rochester had not stayed there long enough. Tom had not yet acquired the reputation of a rake, but he had acquired the compulsions and the aptitude. He had also, according to his memorialist, acquired a mistress to whom he had ‘‘disposed of his heart.’’59 From the first, young Anne Lee found herself in a contest she could not win, and when Tom woke up a few years later to find that his teenaged wife had become a fascinating woman, the marriage had been gravely damaged. In spite of his other preoccupations, Tom pursued the Lee affair with energy. On the morning that the marriage agreements were to be signed, he set something of a speed record by driving a coach and six horses the twenty-five miles from St. Giles-in-the-Fields to Wooburn in less than two hours and a quarter. The documents also probably set something of a record. The marriage settlement covers thirty-nine folio pages and contains something over 25,000 words. Before Tom and Anne were married—at Adderbury on 16 September 1673—and established at Winchendon and Chelsea, Tom had one final crisis to meet. He was challenged to a duel by John Arundell. Though he was ill of a fever at the time and in danger enough ‘‘if he had gone only to meet the cold air,’’ as one of his friends said, he showed ‘‘a clear and brisk courage’’ by accepting

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the challenge and meeting Arundell in the field ‘‘with his sword in his hand.’’60 On this occasion, however, clear and brisk courage was not enough, and there would be no storybook outcome. For the first and last time in his life, Tom lost a duel. Arundell, with ‘‘Cornish dexterity,’’ disarmed him and then in view of his courage granted him his life.61 Losing a duel and suffering from fever were not the most auspicious ways to begin a marriage—especially a marriage ‘‘according to the mode.’’ There was, however, one marvelous compensation for all the romantic disadvantages. To Tom, marriage meant freedom. With money and property legally settled upon him, a country house at Winchendon, a town house at Chelsea, and stables at both places, Tom could essentially construct his own life. No longer under the eye of Lord Wharton, he could explore, with his now fourteen-year-old wife, the rich and exciting world of London, Newmarket, and Windsor. He could start planting gardens, buying race horses, and learning his trade as a politician.

5 The Third Whig WHEN SAMUEL JOHNSON TOLD JAMES BOSWELL THAT THE FIRST Whig was the devil, he tacitly relegated Anthony Ashley Cooper, earl of Shaftesbury, to the position of second Whig and demoted Tom Wharton, Shaftesbury’s young disciple, to the rank of third Whig. In March 1673, however, when the twenty-four-year-old Tom Wharton made his first brief appearance in Parliament, there were no Whigs at all, except perhaps for the devil; and the earl of Shaftesbury, far from opposing Charles II, was the king’s lord chancellor.1 It was Shaftesbury, in fact, who in a formal address to Parliament, on 5 February, explained the government’s position and who defended, in a speech memorable for its brilliance and duplicity, a gross error in foreign policy.2 He defended, ironically enough, one of the fundamental mistakes that would make the Whig party possible—the alliance between Charles II and Louis XIV to crush the Dutch Republic. This alliance had been forged on 22 May 1670 with the then secret and now famous Treaty of Dover.3 By the avowable terms of the pact, later embedded in a sham treaty,4 Charles agreed, for an annual subsidy of three million livres, to join Louis in dismembering the Republic and removing it as a threat to English commercial and naval supremacy. And by the supersecret terms (unknown to Charles’s Protestant Councillors, including Shaftesbury), Charles agreed that at an appropriate time, for an additional one-time subsidy of two million livres and with the help if necessary of six thousand French soldiers, he would announce his own conversion to Catholicism.5 There were great reasons for secrecy, of course. If the loyal subjects of Charles II had learned of the Catholic clauses in his treaty, they might have removed his head before French troops could arrive. And if the Dutch, with whom England was then allied, had learned of the intended treachery, they would have been better prepared to hold off the French armies that came boiling across their 52

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frontiers and to cope with the combined navies of France and England. As it was, they discovered the plot too late to organize effective countermeasures before the French and English attacks were launched in early 1672. Fortunately for the Dutch Republic, the English part of the assault was bungled. Charles had hoped to help finance his war and to weaken his enemies by capturing the Dutch Smyrna Fleet in a sneak attack before the declaration of war. But the fleet managed to escape the English task force; and when Charles declared war, on 17 March, he was compelled to rely upon French subsidies and the money he had sequestered by stopping the Exchequer (that is to say, defaulting on the payments owed to the bankers who had lent the government money). These resources, in turn, were essentially wasted by an indecisive naval campaign in the summer of 1672. In late May, Michiel de Ruyter, the famous Dutch admiral, launched a surprise attack upon the combined English and French fleets at Southwold Bay; and though he was ultimately driven off, the allied navies were so heavily damaged that part of the summer was spent in refitting. Far from being driven from the seas, the Dutch were still able to defend their shores from amphibious attack. The next summer, they would sail forth again to batter the combined fleets at Schooneveld and the Texel and to prevent an English landing. The French assault by land, on the other hand, was alarmingly successful. With an efficiency which showed that Charles and his Cabal had unchained a monster, the French armies swept irresistibly across the southeastern frontiers of the Republic, capturing fortresses and scattering the meager forces that tried to oppose them. They might not have been stopped at all had they not paused to accept the surrender of the Dutch, which did not come, and to consolidate their positions. As it was, they were not effectively halted until they had penetrated the province of Holland itself, and then only because the Dutch opened the dikes. Almost literally at the last ditch, William, prince of Orange (called to command the Dutch armies), was able to hold off the attackers until flooded lands, bad weather, and long supply lines stalled the blitzkrieg and gave him time to hire mercenary soldiers and find allies. By the thinnest of margins, William, de Ruyter, and their men had saved the Republic for the winter of 1672–73. Louis and Charles would need at least one more campaign. For Charles another campaign entailed convoking a session of Parliament—the only possible source of supplies adequate for an expensive war. Charles had managed to avoid calling a parliament for almost two years, and he was reluctant to call one now. His

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faithful Lords and Commons were apt to ask embarrassing questions about his questionable war, and they were sure to attack the Declaration of Indulgence that he had issued on 15 March 1672. But Charles had no choice. He could not finance a costly war on his ordinary revenues plus French subsidies; and he had ruined the government’s credit by his stop of the Exchequer. He was obliged, therefore, to meet his Parliament or give up the war. Accordingly, he convoked the memorable session that first met on 4 February 1673—the session that Tom Wharton would join in late March. This session, which cost Tom a rich marriage in Devon, was a great deal more costly to Charles II and his lord chancellor. It marked a turning point in the relationship between Charles and his Royalist House of Commons. About the war the gentlemen of the House were only marginally wiser than the king and his advisors. They too were used to fighting commercial wars with the Dutch, and under the spell of Shaftesbury’s oratory, they could almost forget their queasiness over the sobering demonstration of French power. But if they were confused about the war, they were not confused at all about the king’s Declaration of Indulgence. This they were bound to oppose tooth and nail. The Declaration of Indulgence was a royal edict which suspended the penal laws against nonconformists, both Catholic and Protestant. It had been issued, Charles told his Parliament, by virtue of the king’s undoubted right, as head of the Anglican Church, to dispense with the penal clauses in ecclesiastical laws; and it was designed to produce peace at home while he dealt with Dutch evildoers abroad. Toleration, he explained virtuously, would quiet the enemies of the Established Church. And the Anglican Church, Shaftesbury reminded the Lords and Commons, was the sacred institution for which Charles’s father had died and which Charles himself had sworn to maintain.6 Unfortunately for toleration, the king’s declaration contained two lethal flaws—one constitutional and the other political. On constitutional grounds, the Commons could not allow the king to cancel any parliamentary laws by edict. To permit such encroachment would be a perilous first step in making the king absolute after the manner of Louis XIV. On political grounds, the Commons could not accept any increase in Catholic power. They did not know the secret terms of the Treaty of Dover, but they suspected that something ominous lay behind the Declaration of Indulgence. The king’s Court swarmed with papists; there were popish officers in the army and navy; and it was rumored that at least two of the king’s ministers, Arlington and Clifford, were crypto-Catholics.7 Worst of all,

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the members suspected, rightly, that James, duke of York, heir-apparent to the throne, was an undeclared Catholic. They sensed, therefore, that the king’s declaration was a design to strengthen popery and that the toleration offered Protestant Dissenters was camouflage. Under these circumstances, the House of Commons, during a melodramatic two-month session, busied itself with forcing the king to rescind his declaration and with removing Catholics from civil and military offices. While Tom Wharton was trying to get himself elected at Wendover and then trying to get his election petition acted upon by the Commons, his future colleagues were handing Charles II a resounding defeat and revising the rules of English political warfare. The Commons simply refused to pass a supply bill for the king until he had cancelled the Declaration of Indulgence, agreed that ‘‘penal statutes cannot be suspended but by Act of Parliament,’’8 and promised to approve a bill for suppressing the growth of popery—a bill that would become famous as the Test Act.9 In effect, the Commons agreed to finance one more campaign against the Dutch in return for ironclad guarantees against Catholic political power. They would defuse the domestic bomb first and deal with the foreign menace later. By 19 March, when Tom Wharton gained his seat in the Commons, the king had already withdrawn his Declaration of Indulgence, an event that took place on 8 March, but Tom arrived in time to hear the debate on the Lords’ amendments to the Test Act and to see the process by which the two Houses finally reached an agreement. He saw the long-delayed passage of the Supply Bill,10 after the Commons were assured that no one could hold a government office, civil or military, without renouncing the doctrine of transubstantiation and without taking Communion in accordance with Anglican ritual. While the new member for Wendover was getting his first lessons in parliamentary tactics and absorbing the strange and exciting atmosphere of St. Stephen’s Chapel, some of his veteran colleagues were getting their first experience in opposing the king and his ministers. The king’s declaration and his ominous alliance with Louis XIV had begun the process of turning loyal Cavaliers into cautious Englishmen. They would always love Charles, to be sure, and they desperately wanted to believe that his alarming policies were the work of evil counselors; but they would never be wholeheartedly trusting again. Charles was becoming (in Rochester’s witty phrase) ‘‘our sovereign lord the king whose word no man relies on’’; and he was laying a sure foundation for the Whig party and for anti-popish

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hysteria. Meanwhile, loyal M.P.s, in opposition for the first time, found it necessary to save him from his ministers or from himself. Shaftesbury too was acquiring some formidable disabilities. Still unaware of the secret Treaty of Dover with its Catholic clauses, he supported the king’s Declaration of Indulgence to the end. He also remained strongly committed to the Dutch War and the French alliance. Naturally these positions became embarrassing as events rendered them odious or ridiculous. Very soon his resounding phrase Delenda est Carthago would sound like a three-word formula for handing the Low Countries over to Louis XIV; and when he later pretended that he had meant only to destroy the government of the De Witts, he was laughed at.11 Again, his inability to smell a popish rat in the king’s declaration seemed strange and compromising to true blue Protestants. Most fatefully, he had earned himself the lasting hostility of the Dutch, whose obliteration he had urged with such eloquence. In effect, he had conceded the prince of Orange to Charles, who was the prince’s uncle, and paved the way for the Monmouth fiasco. It was an error that with a certain poetic justice would ultimately send him to seek refuge in Holland. Meanwhile, in the summer of 1673, the king’s navy was foiled in two bloody engagements, and the troops collected for a descent on Zeeland never set foot on Dutch soil. The prince of Orange stitched together a coalition that was eventually strong enough to remove the French from his doorstep (though not strong enough to beat them back over their borders). Charles had the frustration of watching the money for which he had sold his declaration disappear down a rat hole. In addition, Charles and Shaftesbury had to deal with the new problems raised by James, duke of York. James was an early casualty of the Test Act. Unable to renounce transubstantiation under oath, he was obliged in June of 1673 to resign his position as lord high admiral. His resignation, though not a formal announcement that he had turned Catholic, seemed conclusive enough to most of his countrymen. Since he was heir to the throne of his brother, who had no legitimate children, a popish succession had suddenly become a possibility. This shock was soon followed by another. During the summer, while Parliament was prorogued (and while Lord Wharton was arranging Tom’s marriage to Anne Lee), Charles and James, with the mediation of Louis XIV and the assistance of their envoy Henry Mordaunt, Catholic earl of Peterborough, negotiated a marriage for James with the Italian princess Maria Beatrice Anne Margaret Isabel d’Este.12 The ceremony was performed by proxy on 30 September, N.S., at Modena, with Peterborough standing in for James.

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To his countrymen the fact that James was within a few days of forty and his young bride was not quite fifteen did not seem significant. What did seem significant was that young Maria (or Mary Beatrice or Mary of Modena, as some Englishmen called her) was a Catholic and that she was probably fertile. If she produced a son, the boy would precede his Protestant half-sisters Mary and Anne in the line of succession; and if he was raised as a Catholic, England would be threatened with a line of popish monarchs. Charles and James strove mightily to have the proxy marriage completed and the young princess safely rewedded and bedded in England before Parliament met on 20 October; but by 20 October Maria had only reached Paris and was too ill for the time being to complete her journey. Technically and officially, she was the duchess of York, but the marriage had not been consummated. The king had hoped to finesse the duke’s marriage and to persuade the Commons to finance still another military campaign. These hopes, however, vanished almost overnight. The House had barely sat down when it passed a resolution for an address to the king asking ‘‘that the intended marriage of his Royal Highness with the Duchess [Princess] of Modena be not consummated and that he may not be married to any person but of the Protestant religion’’;13 and when the king explained, after a prorogation of a week, that the proxy marriage was completely valid and that his royal honor was involved in supporting it, the House overwhelmed his beleaguered spokesmen by a vote of 184–88 and prepared a second address longer and stronger than the first.14 On the subject of supply, Tom and his new friends were equally unyielding. The king explained to the assembled Lords and Commons that he was striving to negotiate a peace but that he needed another naval campaign, or at least the threat of one, to force the slippery Dutch to accept reasonable terms; but after a lively debate,15 the Commons refused to consider the subject of supply until the eighteen months of their former grant had expired and until the kingdom was ‘‘effectually secured from the dangers of popery and popish councils.’’16 They resolved, in effect, to force Charles out of the war before the next campaign. If the Dutch proved ‘‘obstinate’’—if, that is, they refused to come to satisfactory terms in the ensuing months—the Commons agreed to reconsider the question of supply. The fact that the Commons attacked the popish marriage, declared a standing army a grievance,17 and seemed ready to begin impeaching ministers meant that Tom Wharton’s second lesson in statecraft was a short one. The session, which Charles prorogued on

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4 November, lasted only seven scattered days. It was long enough, nevertheless, for the newly married M.P. for Wendover (based now at Dove Court in Chelsea) to observe something like a dress rehearsal for the famous Exclusion Parliaments of 1679–81. Suddenly, the threat of a popish succession had become a major political issue and a crippling embarrassment to the king’s friends in the House of Commons. Along with the increasingly odious French alliance, it rendered loyalists helpless and allowed critics of the government to carry motions almost at will. Neither Crown pressure and patronage nor French money could bend the relentless opposition. Meanwhile, the earl of Shaftesbury was being forced into virtue. His opposition to the duke of York’s marriage and his growing perception that James had now become a menace cooled his zeal for the French connection and set him to thinking about ways of insuring the succession. There were only two of these—not counting the possibility that James would have the good grace to die and remove himself from the scene. One was that Charles would divorce his barren queen, marry a fertile princess, and produce an heir to supplant his brother; the other was that Charles would legitimize his oldest bastard son, whom he had made duke of Monmouth. Neither of these alternatives pleased Charles, and the fact that his lord chancellor had begun to worry aloud about such expedients18 made him suspect that Shaftesbury was intriguing with royal enemies at home and abroad.19 On 9 November 1673, therefore, Charles asked Shaftesbury to hand over the lord chancellor’s seals; and Shaftesbury, no longer trammeled by government duties, pay, and perquisites, could take up the work of opposition in earnest. Although Shaftesbury’s dismissal could not expiate all his political sins, it helped immensely. It allowed him to pass as the sole patriot of the Cabal—a true, or at least half-true, Englishman in a nest of papists and greedy dupes. Even the timing of the dismissal worked in Shaftesbury’s favor. When Parliament reconvened, the Commons were certain to demand the removal, if not the impeachment, of the king’s ministers. Now, safely out of the line of fire, Shaftesbury would not have to account for his part in the foreign policy disasters. When Parliament opened on 7 January 1674, Charles made his final effort to finance the war and save the French alliance, and Tom Wharton received his third lesson in parliamentary tactics. This time the king’s position seemed more hopeful. James was safely married to young Maria, and the king’s parliamentary business was now in the hands of Thomas, Lord Latimer, who had replaced Clif-

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ford as lord treasurer. Latimer, once Sir Thomas Osborne and soon to be earl of Danby,20 was an authentic political genius who understood persuasion, organization, and bribery, as well as government finance. He was assisted by Sir Heneage Finch, the new lord keeper. Finch told the assembled Lords and Commons that the Dutch were dangerously ‘‘obstinate’’ and that the Commons must support the king and vote money for the navy or risk losing control of the oceans. The king himself made a powerful appeal for help. The way ‘‘to a good peace,’’ he said, ‘‘is to set out a good fleet.’’ He could not, he explained, force the Dutch to negotiate seriously unless he was prepared for another campaign. Then, bracing himself and lying eloquently, he told his Parliament what most of the Lords and Commons were almost pathetically eager to hear, that there were no secret and sinister provisions in his treaties of alliance with Louis XIV: I know [he said] you have heard much of my alliance with France; and I believe it hath been strangely misrepresented to you, as if there were certain secret articles of dangerous consequence; but I will make no difficulty of letting the treaties and all the articles of them, without the least reserve, to be seen by a small committee of both Houses, who may report to you the true scope of them; and I assure you there is no other treaty with France either before or since, not printed, which will not be made known. And having freely trusted you, I do not doubt but you will have a care of my honour and the good of the kingdom.21

As events turned out, Charles might have saved himself the trouble of lying or of producing an avowable treaty for the inspection of a parliamentary committee.22 Though the gentlemen of the Commons hummed with approval at his speech, they remained determined to take him out of the war. They would vote him no money, and they insisted upon calling the remnant of the Cabal to account.23 By the end of two weeks it was clear that the king had lost. As Sir Robert Southwell observed, there was not even talk of money in the Commons.24 The members were only interested in more antipopish legislation. There would be no ‘‘good fleet’’ for another campaign. When, therefore, Charles received, through the Spanish ambassador, a firm Dutch offer for a separate peace, he was practically forced to take it. On 24 January he submitted the offer to the Lords and Commons25 in the hope that they would find the proposed settlement inadequate and vote to continue the war; but this

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hope too was disappointed. The Houses decided that what the Dutch offered—an indemnity of about £180,000, the return to England of the recaptured New Netherlands, and a little extra courtesy by Dutch ships to English ships—was enough for the king’s honor and the good of England. On 11 February, Charles announced to the Lords and Commons that he had signed a treaty for what he hoped would be a lasting peace.26 He also announced that he had ordered the land forces reduced below the level asked for by the Commons. In return, he requested that the Commons should vote him enough money for a strong navy. The Commons, however, showed no sign of passing a money bill. On 24 February, therefore, when Charles could announce that the Dutch had ratified the peace treaty and before the Houses had completed their anti-popish legislation, he prorogued his Parliament. In doing so, he put an end to the third consecutive session in which he and his ministers had been mauled by the opposition; and he secretly conceded that the Treaty of Dover was dead. For Tom Wharton, of course, these three sessions were the first of his long parliamentary career, and he spent them essentially as an observer and supernumerary—a student spear bearer in a threeact drama. He was appointed to no committees, and if he made a speech in the Commons, no one recorded it. His experience, however, was by no means negligible. By sheer good fortune, he happened to arrive in the Commons while Charles II was arousing the phobias out of which a powerful opposition party could be built; and he saw how even a loosely organized coalition could defeat the Court when it held the balance of anxiety. With made-to-order opponents like Louis XIV and James, duke of York, the embodiments of popery and arbitrary power, any English party was apt to thrive. It was an excellent time for an apprentice Whig to learn his trade. Although the term Whig had not yet been applied, by some unsung genius, to the party Shaftesbury would soon organize, the lines of resistance had been defined for many years to come. The way had been prepared for the second and third Whigs. And the third Whig would have a great advantage over his party chief. He had never said anything so melodramatically stupid as Delenda est Carthago, and he had never supposed that a military alliance with Louis XIV was a good idea.

6 The First Tory WHEN THE EARL OF DANBY SET OUT TO RESCUE CHARLES II FROM the consequences of a French alliance and a popish brother, he readily perceived that if Charles II was to govern England without continual crises, he must have a reliable working majority in both houses of Parliament. Charles must adopt, in short, a publicly defensible policy—at least ostensibly anti-French and anti-Catholic— and create a political party that would support him. Danby would not call the king’s supporters a party, of course, since officially everyone deplored parties. In theory M.P.s and Lords were simply two assemblies of honest gentlemen and magnates advising the monarch. But Danby’s opponents had no trouble recognizing Danby’s forces as a ‘‘Court’’ party—and a menace to be combated. In organizing a reliable party, Danby counted first upon zealous Anglicans. These gentlemen hated Dissenters at least as heartily as they did Catholics. Some had been temporarily estranged by Charles’s lapse into toleration, but they would forgive, Danby reasoned, if Charles agreed to enforce the penal laws. After the debacle caused by the Declaration of Indulgence, Charles saw the wisdom of this advice. Royal proclamations revived the laws against recusants of all kinds.1 Royal officers and local J.P.s began once more to break up conventicles and look for Catholic priests.2 By the time Charles convoked Parliament on 13 April 1675, he could say that he had shown his zeal for the Established Church and done everything possible to ‘‘extinguish the fear and jealousies of popery.’’3 Starting with a band of loyalists, Danby could strengthen his parliamentary forces with a small army of mercenaries. The Crown had offices, pensions, and army commissions at its disposal, and these could be distributed to biddable M.P.s or Lords.4 In addition, there was secret service money to be doled out. Danby was not the first to discover the influence of money upon votes. Clarendon had used the method from time to time, and Clifford had been known to his enemies as ‘‘Bribe-Master-General.’’5 Danby, however, was 61

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more systematic and orderly than his predecessors, and the problems he faced were more acute. The government had aroused an opposition that on certain emotional issues could roll over the king’s party, mercenaries and all. Danby also had to deal with foreign competition in bribery. Parliament’s success in forcing the king out of the Dutch War had raised the value of parliamentary votes. Bribes that had once been reserved for the king’s ministers and mistresses were now apt to be distributed among M.P.s.6 Danby’s fledgling party, assembled through the power of love and money, got its first trial by combat in the spring of 1675; and in general the results were disappointing to both Danby and the king. Charles had refused a subsidy from Louis in the confident belief that he could get more money from the Commons, and in the end he got nothing. Danby hoped to remodel the House of Commons on High-Church lines. He too was frustrated. His bill for excluding dissidents by requiring M.P.s to abjure all resistance to monarchs was passed by the Lords7 but lost in the House of Commons, along with any chance of supply, when the two Houses became involved in a violent dispute over powers and privileges.8 Danby’s forces, nevertheless, achieved some victories in the Commons. They easily defeated an opposition effort to delay a vote of thanks for the king’s speech;9 they beat back the first of many attempts to remove all officeholders from the House of Commons;10 and they crushed impeachment proceedings against Danby himself.11 Although Danby’s offensive had failed, he had ended the series of humiliating government retreats. Danby prepared for the next session, scheduled for 13 October, by adding new pensioners to his list and by taking measures to increase the attendance and discipline of his troops in the Commons.12 The secretaries wrote letters to more than a hundred M.P.s whose attendance in the spring session had been unsatisfactory. Members holding government offices were reminded of their obligations.13 Finally, Danby made sure that his own relatives and dependents were properly instructed. One ‘‘cousin’’ whose name did not appear on Danby’s lists of possible allies was Tom Wharton. At a later date, when Tories and Whigs were conspiring to remove King James from power, Danby would be glad to remember that his wife Lady Bridget Bertie was the sister of Robert Bertie, third earl of Lindsey, who had married Tom’s half-sister Elizabeth. For the present, however, Tom was merely one more vote for the opposition—a man (as Danby’s lieutenant Sir Richard Wiseman noted on a slightly later list) from whom there was little to hope.14

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Danby’s improvements in the arts of political organization and government pressure brought a quick response from his enemies. The opposition loudly accused him of exerting undue influence on M.P.s and corrupting Parliament and then went on to imitate as far as possible his methods.15 They could not compete with Danby in distributing places, cash, and pensions, but they too could canvass their friends and their friends’ friends. They could also cast themselves as honest Englishmen, a ‘‘Country’’ party opposing a venal and popishly inclined Court party. Meanwhile King Charles was making Danby’s life difficult. In the summer of 1675, Charles once more slipped out of his role. Knowing that it was easier to get money from Louis XIV than from the Commons and that Louis would pay him to keep England neutral in France’s war against William’s coalition, Charles made another secret agreement. He would allow his anti-French Parliament to meet, but he promised Louis to dissolve it if it failed to vote him money or if it tried to make a subsidy contingent upon anti-French measures. Louis promised in return to pay Charles £100,000 per year during the cessation of Parliament.16 Although the king’s secret remained secret for the time being, his subjects remained uneasy. Nothing could disguise the fact that English regiments remained in the French service. Danby and his new party, therefore, entered the October session of Parliament under a handicap. They could not defeat the opposition on the allimportant divisions on supply.17 The House refused to pay off the ‘‘anticipations’’ on the king’s revenue, and it likewise declined to provide money for new warships.18 By 11 November, it was obvious that Danby’s second offensive had failed as decisively as the first.19 On 22 November, Charles ended the session, negotiated a formal, secret nonaggression pact with Louis,20 and went back to receiving French subsidies. The political battles of 1675, though inconclusive, marked an important stage in the development of parliamentary politics and in the education of the twenty-seven-year-old member for Wendover. Danby’s attempt to organize a Court party strong enough to control Parliament showed that counter-organization was necessary. Opposition could not be left to chance groupings of alarmed M.P.s. Danby’s program also showed the necessity for countermeasures and dictated lines of defense.21 The danger that the king might become financially independent meant that Charles must be kept on a short financial leash. The debts that he had contracted without prior parliamentary approval must not be paid off. Above all, no money must be appropriated for

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additional troops. The king must not be provided with a ‘‘standing army’’ in the manner of Cromwell or Louis XIV. The danger that the Commons might be corrupted and dominated by the Crown naturally brought forth attempts to exclude from the Commons the holders of government offices (‘‘placemen’’ in the language of the time). Such measures, of course, involved inherent difficulties. Besides the tactical problem of getting a ‘‘place bill’’ through a House of Commons where roughly one-fifth of the members would be excluded by its passage, there was the additional difficulty of getting it through a conservative House of Lords. Another drastic method of decontaminating Parliament was to persuade the king to dissolve it. Danby’s opponents believed in 1675 that a general election would purge the Commons of many officeholders and pensioners and return a decisive majority of opposition members. Unhappily for the Country party, King Charles agreed with their assessment. He too believed that a free election would oust his friends and return his opponents. During the last days of the fall session, his forces in the House of Peers defeated a proposal for an address urging dissolution.22 Instead of dissolving his long-lived Cavalier Parliament, Charles simply prorogued it for fifteen months. This delay enabled him to collect £100,000 from Louis and, as matters turned out, it also provoked his opponents into a damaging tactical gaffe. During the long interval subsidized by Louis, Danby exploited his central position in the government to strengthen his party. By the middle of June 1676, he could report to Charles that he had added 150 members to his list of supporters. He also launched a campaign to intimidate his enemies, and he tried to worry Shaftesbury into leaving London. For this tactic he had good reason. During the sessions of 1675, Shaftesbury had established himself as the most effective spokesman for the Country party. He had delivered a powerful attack upon the doctrine of nonresistance to monarchs;23 and in a speech upon the judicial powers of the House of Lords, he articulated what was to become a fundamental Whig tenet—that kings (like parliaments) derive their powers from law, not from supernatural sources.24 These arguments Shaftesbury published anonymously in a clandestine pamphlet called A Letter from a Person of Quality to his Friend in the Country.25 With some help from his learned secretary John Locke, he had begun to provide his party with a philosophic framework for opposition.26 Danby did not succeed in chasing Shaftesbury out of London. During the long prorogation Shaftesbury remained in town much of the time, consulting with his political allies. One of the men he

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conferred with most often was Lord Wharton, who had fought alongside him in the House of Peers during the hot campaigns of 1675.27 As a patron of Dissenters, Wharton was a natural enemy of Danby and the Anglican political monopoly. Shaftesbury praised him in the Letter from a Person of Quality as ‘‘an old and expert Parliament man, of eminent piety and ability, besides a great friend of the Protestant religion and interest of England.’’28 Lord Wharton’s visits to Exeter House, Shaftesbury’s residence on the Strand, and to Thanet House in Aldersgate Street, where Shaftesbury moved in late 1676, made the government uneasy. Besides prodding Shaftesbury to leave town, therefore, they kept a wary eye on Lord Wharton.29 For the long-range history of the Whig party, the consultations at Exeter House would have a special significance. They marked the first recorded meetings between Tom Wharton and Shaftesbury—between the founder of the party and the young man who would eventually succeed him as a leader.30 What information Tom contributed to the conferences and what duties (or errands) he was assigned do not appear in the brief notes. In any case, he did not prevent Shaftesbury from making a gross tactical blunder at the opening of the next session of Parliament. Before the end of the long prorogation, Shaftesbury found what he thought was a good legal pretext for getting Parliament dissolved.31 Two statutes from the reign of Edward III declared that parliaments should be convoked annually. This meant, Shaftesbury reasoned, that a parliament was automatically dissolved at the end of a year’s recess and that Charles’s fifteen-month prorogation had made another session of the Cavalier Parliament illegal. The honor of introducing this proposition to the House of Lords was assigned to the duke of Buckingham; and on 15 February 1677, when the new session opened, Buckingham tried to convince the Lords that the Peers and gentlemen now assembled in Westminster did not constitute a legal parliament.32 He was supported ‘‘briskly’’ by Shaftesbury, Lord Wharton, and the earl of Salisbury. With great erudition and eloquence, Buckingham and his friends managed to talk themselves into the Tower of London. The Peers were unimpressed by medieval statutes, and many of them were incensed at the implied criticism of the king. Danby and his friends, who had been warned of Shaftesbury’s intentions, had a battery of arguments of their own. They held that the statutes of Edward III had never been interpreted in the Shaftesbury manner and that they had been superseded in any case by two recent triennial acts which set three years as the limit of prorogation.33 They demanded, finally, by a large majority, that the four orators should

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be called to the bar to apologize for insulting the king and the House. In the previous session Shaftesbury had come within two votes of getting the Lords to petition the king for a new parliament, and he hoped for strong support in his current stratagem. He found, however, that there was a vast difference between proposing a petition for dissolution and questioning the king’s use of his powers. He also hoped for strong support from the Country party in the Commons, but he found the leaders there much too wise to launch a full-scale attack that was certain to fail. Few members were anxious to declare their meeting illegal and put themselves to the hazards and expense of reelection. The long recess was ill advised, the House seemed to agree, but not unconstitutional.34 After failing to sway the House of Lords, the four dissident Peers were called before the bar one by one to repent and beg pardon of the House and the king.35 All four refused. Much more given to argument than repentance, they protested that their censure was a violation of the parliamentary privilege of free speech.36 Still unimpressed, the Lords declared them guilty of contempt and committed them to the Tower. There they were sentenced to remain at the pleasure of the king and the Lords;37 and by a further order, on 17 February, they were placed under close confinement— forbidden, that is, without the express permission of the Lords or the king, to communicate with each other or to have any company except their ‘‘necessary attendants and servants.’’38 Shaftesbury did his best to salvage some propaganda advantage out of the wreckage. When his strategy miscarried, he recast himself as a victim of a vile Court plot. Before he left the bar of the Lords, he asked permission to have his own cook accompany him to the Tower, as if he were in danger of being poisoned. Buckingham too asked for his own cook and comported himself in a witty and defiant style. Salisbury made an elegant exit from the House. He did not dare apologize for his opinions, he said, ‘‘lest he [should] infringe the privileges of the Peers,’’ and ‘‘he begged pardon that he could not beg pardon.’’39 Lord Wharton, litigious to the end, left in a cloud of quibbles. Less flippant than his friends, he did not ask for his own cook. It was in extracting political value from Shaftesbury’s blunder that Tom Wharton made his first recorded speech in the Commons and attempted his first parliamentary maneuver. After the close of Parliament on Saturday, 17 February, Tom and some of his fellow M.P.s—William Russell, Richard Newport, Charles Boyle, and William Cavendish40 —went to the Tower and asked to see the four

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prisoners. Sir John Robinson, lieutenant of the Tower, recognized the young gentlemen as members of the Commons, but he was not deflected from his duty. Showing them the order which forbade visitors except by permission of the Lords or the king, he explained that he ‘‘could not suffer them’’ to see the prisoners. Tom and his friends did not challenge the order; they simply went away.41 Tom wanted to see Lord Wharton and Shaftesbury, of course, but he also wanted to create problems for the government. On Monday morning, therefore, instead of applying to King Charles or the Lords in the prescribed manner, he took his case to the Commons. He asked his colleagues for official permission to seek leave from the Lords to visit his father in the Tower.42 This request, innocent and natural enough on the surface, was an implied criticism of the Lords’ tactics in separating fathers and sons. Less directly, but not too subtly, it was also an invitation to another fight between the Houses. It raised again the question of the Lords’ jurisdiction. The Commons, who had just fought a bruising battle over the Peers’ judicial powers, were now being asked to decide whether the Lords had a right to forbid M.P.s to see prisoners in the Tower. To deny Tom’s request was to concede the Peers’ right—a concession that few M.P.s wished to make. To grant the request was to risk a jurisdictional battle—a contest that the House was not eager to enter. If Tom seriously hoped to start a fight and abort what promised to be a sad session for the Country party, he was disappointed. His request was supported strongly by Cavendish, who declared that for M.P.s ‘‘to be debarred access to those lords’’ was a breach of their privileges.43 It was supported faintly by Sir Thomas Clarges, who wondered whether it was legally possible to prevent a son from seeing his father. The request was vigorously opposed, however, by Speaker Edward Seymour, who observed that in merely debating the matter the Commons were risking ‘‘a new breach with the Lords’’; and the fate of Tom’s request was sealed when even his friend Sir Thomas Lee declined to back it. Lee suggested, instead, a way out of the dilemma that Tom’s request had posed. The House, he said, should settle the issue by evading it—by taking no official action and removing all traces of Tom’s request from the records.44 Lee’s suggestion was followed. Tom was neither granted nor denied the approval of the House in attempting to see Lord Wharton, and the brief debate on the subject does not appear in the Commons’ Journal.45 Whatever long-range propaganda value Shaftesbury may have salvaged from his tactical error, the immediate effect was a solid victory for Danby and his party. In the new session of Parliament,

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the combination of Danby’s patient organization and Shaftesbury’s folly had given the government a working majority. After four consecutive sessions in which the Commons had refused to vote money for the king, Danby was able to carry two major supply bills: an act for the construction of thirty warships and an act for continuing for three more years the additional excise upon ‘‘beer, ale, and other liquors.’’46 With his principal opponents locked safely in the Tower and their adherents in disarray, Danby had a few weeks of triumph and the prospect of a long ascendancy. He had shown what party organization and clever tactics could do. As matters turned out, Danby’s happiness was doomed to be brief. Party organization could not stop French armies, and it could not prevent Charles II from taking money from Louis. By a coincidence unfortunate for the government, Danby’s successes in Parliament were accompanied by French victories in Flanders. There the armies of Louis captured three fortress towns, inflicted a severe defeat upon the prince of Orange,47 and proved once more that they could not be stopped by any coalition that did not include England. Thoroughly alarmed, the Commons addressed the king to intervene on the side of William and his confederates.48 They trusted Charles so little, however, that they refused to vote him additional funds for possible military operations until he had made a firm alliance with the Dutch. Charles, for his part, argued plausibly that he could not negotiate alliances that might provoke a war until he had £600,000 in hand;49 and when the Commons insisted upon their terms, he accused them of invading the prerogative—of trying to dictate foreign policy.50 Then he adjourned Parliament. The session that had begun so swimmingly for the government ended in what amounted to a vote of no confidence. The Country party, which had been overwhelmed at the opening of the session, had been rescued by their old enemies Louis and Charles. Danby had learned the limits of loyalty and the difficulty of constructing a reliable Court party around a king who kept behaving like a French vassal. As for Tom Wharton, who had already found that to provoke a contest between the Houses requires something more than a weekend of preparation, he received at the end of the session a sobering demonstration of royal power. As he stood with his colleagues in the Banqueting House on 28 May listening to the king’s lecture on the prerogative, he could see that the battles ahead would be grim.

7 The Master at Winchendon WHILE WHARTON WAS ABSORBING HIS LESSONS IN POLITICAL WAR-

fare, his private life was undergoing a significant transformation. This process, already evident by 1674, is well illustrated by the alarm of his old friend Robert Bennett. In late May, Bennett stopped at Winchendon after a visit to Tom’s sister Margaret, now Margaret Dunch, at Pusey. He did not find Tom and Anne at home. The young couple and all their company had gone ‘‘to riot’’; they had gone, that is, to a party. Bennett, who had once praised Tom as a model of decorum and Christian virtue, was dismayed. He was even more dismayed when he enquired among his friends in the area. After he returned home to Aylesbury and brooded over the weekend, he wrote a sad letter to Lord Wharton: I hear to my grief in the neighborhood [he said] that religion is gone from Winchendon already, and if you have any interest I beseech your Lordship to interpose vigorously and seriously that sobriety do not follow after it, which is feared. ’Tis said they have brought the Court into the country, which these parts have not been acquainted with.1

Some of Bennett’s fears were excessive. In form, at least, religion remained solidly entrenched at Winchendon. There was still a family chaplain in the manor house; there was still a (Low-Church) vicar and regular services at St. Mary Magdalene nearby; and church attendance was still essentially compulsory throughout England. Individual clergymen (including Bennett himself) were still graciously received and sometimes invited to preach. And when Sir Thomas Wharton, Tom’s uncle, paid an extended visit to Winchendon, he found nothing to criticize.2 Yet the changes in the Winchendon atmosphere were obvious. In the days when Lord Wharton had ruled the manor, Winchendon had been the Calvinist capital of Buckinghamshire. Now the religious temperature had been lowered several degrees and the interest had shifted. Winchendon was in the first stages of its evolution into the 69

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political and horse-racing capital of the county. Stylish London company and hard-riding gentlemen were replacing ministers and scholars as Winchendon guests. And the manor house itself was renovated and extended to suit its new occupants.3 The key to the changes, of course, lay in the young lord of the manor. During the interval from 1671 to 1674, Tom had gone through something like a deconversion. Whether the process was rapid—a sudden perception that pious and admirable ministers can be wrong—or whether it was a cumulative overdose of sermons is not clear from surviving documents.4 It is clear, however, that by the summer of 1674, Tom had distanced himself from his Puritan background. Christianity remained, to be sure, the highly explosive stuff of politics, and how to defuse, or exploit, religious passions remained the central political problem of the age. But for Tom, as for some of his contemporaries, the only serious religion had become politics. As for the ‘‘Court’’ that worried Robert Bennett, Tom’s unsophisticated neighbors had used the term to refer to gentry and nobles of the sort that might be received by King Charles. The actual Court remained safely at Whitehall or Windsor; and few of the courtiers, who were mostly traditional Royalists, found their way to Winchendon. Tom’s visitors were apt to be young gentlemen with names like Jephson, Hampden, Lovelace, Russell, and Cavendish, and they were more likely to be a headache to the king’s Court than members of it. Tom and his friends, nevertheless, admired King Charles personally, and they were still welcome at Whitehall. In Goodwin’s phrase, they were ‘‘well in favor though not in party’’ with the king.5 However strongly young aristocrats disagreed with royal policies, they could not help liking the king himself. Perhaps the most engaging man in his own kingdom, Charles served as the model of social finesse. And in later years when John Macky described Tom Wharton as ‘‘one of the finest gentlemen in England,’’6 he meant, essentially, that Tom bore a not-too-distant resemblance to King Charles. Whether Lord Wharton, in response to Bennett’s appeal, tried to ‘‘interpose’’ at Winchendon in the summer of 1674 does not appear from surviving letters. Given his convictions and his temper, he probably gave his son a stern lecture or two while he and Tom and Goodwin were inspecting the Wharton properties in the North.7 In general, however, Lord Wharton was surprisingly tolerant with his heir after Tom became adult. Perhaps like other strict parents, he tacitly conceded that young men of twenty-five are beyond parental

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redemption—that reconversions must be left to time and grace. In any case, Lord Wharton was immensely fond of Tom, whom he continued to address in letters as ‘‘My Dear Child,’’8 and he found it possible to overlook behavior that he might have found unforgivable in others. In that year of 1674, it was Henry, not Tom, who caused Lord Wharton’s deepest concern. The seventeen-year-old Henry baffled two experienced and noted Nonconformist schoolmasters—Samuel Birch and Samuel Cradock. Both tried, in Cradock’s words, ‘‘to instill into him the principles of real piety’’ and to impart the learning that would make him ‘‘useful and serviceable to God in his generation.’’9 And both were forced to admit failure. By March of 1674, although Birch had succeeded in making Henry a competent Latinist, he had failed to interest the lad in Greek, geography, or history. More distressingly, he had failed to make Henry perceive the ‘‘excellency and beauty of true religion.’’ The lad’s theoretical knowledge of doctrine and conduct, Birch reported, seemed to be smothered by the vanities and lusts of youth. With a disposition ‘‘somewhat forward and inconsiderate,’’ as well as ‘‘tenacious,’’ Henry had become a serious problem in discipline. It was certain, Birch cautioned, that if he was sent abroad, ‘‘no ordinary hand’’ could manage him.10 Though Birch was discouraged, he did not yet concede that the task of educating and redeeming Henry was hopeless. It remained for Samuel Cradock to find out that it was. In late May when Henry arrived at Wickhambrook, Suffolk, where Cradock kept his school, Cradock was cautiously optimistic.11 By December, however, he was pleading with Lord Wharton to send someone to come get Henry before the young man demoralized the whole school. He should be removed from Wickhambrook at once, Cradock warned; even a week’s delay might prove too much.12 Cradock’s despair about Henry was echoed a month later (on Henry’s eighteenth birthday) by Robert Bennett. Lord Wharton had suggested that Henry might be sent to Pusey, where the sober company of the Dunches might settle the young man down. Bennett disagreed strongly. It was unfair, he said, to inflict Henry on the Dunches. Inevitably, the young man would seek the company of neighborhood sportsmen, and there would be horses, hawking, and irregular hours. Unhappily, Bennett concluded, Henry had completely rejected education and pious discipline. All people, he told Lord Wharton, who ‘‘have reason to understand Mr. Henry are of opinion, that whatsoever Your Lordship may design or endeavor, he

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will not settle anywhere but in a life at large, and only will at last center with his older brother.’’13 Bennett’s analysis was correct. Young Harry, who adored Tom, would indeed center his life with his older brother; and he was happiest at Winchendon, where enthusiasm for horses, hunting, and irregular hours was a cardinal virtue. More than eight years younger than Tom, he became Tom’s boon companion and faithful squire in a series of escapades that ranged from comical to disgraceful. Meanwhile, Lord Wharton had wangled a prestigious army commission for his incorrigible son. On 15 January 1674, Henry was made an ensign in the Coldstream Guards (officially the earl of Craven’s Regiment of Foot Guards) and assigned to the company commanded by Captain Thomas Mansfield. In the following year, on 26 April, he was transferred to the company of Captain John Huitson.14 Earlier, when there was still hope that Harry might be educable, Lord Wharton had entered him at Gray’s Inn.15 Now, he found Harry an occupation where discipline was rigorous and where a man who was somewhat forward, inconsiderate, and tenacious could become a colonel. While Tom was establishing himself at Winchendon and Chelsea, Goodwin was attempting to move out of his older brother’s shadow. During the negotiations for Tom’s marriage, Goodwin had been compelled to give up his right to inherit Wooburn. He had been compensated, more or less, with properties in the North,16 and he had been given what was for the time a reasonable allowance for the unmarried second son of an aristocrat. But the loss of Wooburn was a public humiliation; and his annual income, two hundred pounds, was less than one-tenth of his brother’s. Always bookish and fond of abstruse lore, Goodwin sought to establish himself as a mechanical engineer, a chemist, and an inventor. He became, in the language of the age, a ‘‘projector.’’ In 1675 he received a patent for some deep-sea diving apparatus,17 and in the following year, he patented a fire engine with an improved pumping system. For various complicated reasons, Goodwin’s projects failed to thrive,18 and they led, a few years later, to more complicated projects and more complex failures. Immediately, however, his career as a projector moved him out of Tom’s orbit. He was replaced at Winchendon and Chelsea by Henry, and he would not reappear as a significant actor until he became a bizarre romantic problem. Meanwhile, the rhythm of Tom’s life at Winchendon depended upon two sets of dates: the schedule of horse races and the schedule of sessions of Parliament. The most important race meetings, of

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course, were those at Newmarket—held every spring and fall, usually in April and October. They lasted from ten days to three weeks, and they attracted the sportsmen of England, headed by the king and the duke of York. Courtiers, foreign diplomats, and wise politicians likewise found it expedient to attend, since at Newmarket, between races, cockfights, hunting forays, and romantic adventures, Charles sometimes conducted important state business and decided upon political appointments. The Newmarket crowd, which also included the professionals of racing, became a regular part of Tom’s life, and Newmarket became a base of operations, an adjunct to Winchendon and Chelsea. Also important were two racetracks nearer home—Brackley in nearby Northamptonshire and Quainton Meadows some two or three miles from Winchendon. It was at the ‘‘Brackley Race’’ in May 1675 that Tom scored his first recorded victory in a ‘‘horse match.’’19 And it was there the next March that the horse Dr. William Denton called ‘‘the best gelding in England’’ won the plate before going on to win the hundred pound plate at Newmarket.20 Later in the decade, Tom and his friends in the Aylesbury region would establish the Quainton races, usually scheduled in late August, as an annual event on the racing calendar. In the 1670s, the sessions at Newmarket were a great deal more regular than the sessions of Parliament—the other major determinant of Tom’s schedule. After the session that ended on 24 February 1674, Charles did not convoke another until 13 April 1675. As we have seen, the next three years brought three oddly scheduled sessions of Parliament and some memorable political battles. On the personal level, however, nothing illustrated the royal prerogative more dramatically than the king’s power to schedule the lives of Peers and M.P.s. Whether Tom lived the life of a country squire at Winchendon or the life of a rich suburbanite at Chelsea, whether he was concerned with stone fencing21 and farm labor or with hackney coaches and boatmen, and whether he was seated in St. Stephen’s Chapel or in an Aylesbury tavern was sometimes determined by the king’s estimate of political realities. For nine months during 1675, all of 1676, and nine months again in 1677, the king found sessions of Parliament inadvisable. During those years, therefore, Tom was left to his own devices most of the time. His political activities were informal, carried on at racetracks, in coffee houses, or in the private residences of men like Shaftesbury; and his principal occupation was that of landowner cum sportsman. He was still, primarily, the master at Winchendon.

8 Subplots IN 1677 TOM WHARTON INHABITED A WORLD OF STANDARD ANXIETIES. Although his father was in the Tower for a time, although the French were advancing in the Spanish Netherlands, and although Charles II continued to take money from Louis XIV, these were the unremarkable hazards of late seventeenth-century political existence. And on the personal side, the fact that Anne Wharton, Tom’s wife, now eighteen, had produced no children after four years of marriage was a normal concern and not yet a misfortune. In 1677, with its routine problems, no one could have predicted that by November of the next year the political atmosphere of England would be transformed—that hysteria would replace anxiety and that Tom and his friends would find themselves acting in a badly scripted melodrama. For the Whartons, the standard world of 1677 was trying enough. The first part of the year was spent attempting to get Lord Wharton out of the Tower without apologizing to the Lords and the king. Although his sentence was hardly a matter of life and death (except, perhaps, death by pneumonia), Lord Wharton feared it might turn into something almost as serious, a matter of money. It was possible that Charles and the Lords might decide to impose a heavy fine. As Lord Wharton later explained to the king, he had ‘‘some £1500 a year to lose’’ and hence a very good reason to love ‘‘quietness.’’1 On the other hand, it did not become a leader of the Country party to eat his own words in public and come out of the Tower on his knees. Lord Wharton squirmed mightily. First he sought help from lawyers. He collected expert opinions upon whether his commitment was legal.2 The preliminary answers seemed hopeful, but further enquiry showed what his friend Shaftesbury found in actual trial3 — that no inferior court would challenge an order of the Lords and that he could be kept in the Tower indefinitely. Lord Wharton also appealed to the sympathy of the Lords. On 16 74

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April (three days after his sixty-fourth birthday), he presented a formal petition to the House.4 Without apologizing for his opinions but describing himself as ‘‘deeply sensible’’ of the Lords’ displeasure, he declared that two months of ‘‘strict imprisonment’’ had weakened his already infirm health. Surely, he pleaded, the Lords did not intend to kill him. If his friends could not pardon him outright, they might grant him a furlough while he recuperated and attended to urgent family business. The Lords neither pardoned Lord Wharton nor granted a respite; they simply allowed him to refer the matter to the king, who was leaving next day for Newmarket.5 Charles had adjourned Parliament from 17 April until 21 May, and he now agreed that Lord Wharton might go home to Wooburn or St. Giles until the Houses reconvened. During the interval, Lord Wharton tried political influence. He asked his friend Sir Ralph Verney to intervene with the lord chancellor.6 Once again he was frustrated. As Sir Ralph correctly predicted, no ordinary influence could be effective in a case of such political magnitude. On 21 May, then, Lord Wharton found himself back in the Tower. In late July, Lord Wharton surrendered. Like the earl of Salisbury, who finally acknowledged ‘‘his unadvised discourse concerning the prorogation,’’ Lord Wharton apologized in writing for what he had said, begged the king’s pardon, and declared himself ready to apologize to the House of Lords. Buckingham too surrendered a few days later, and the following February, to the delight of his enemies, even the wily and stubborn Shaftesbury was obliged to recant. When Lord Wharton apologized in person to the king, he received some royal teasing.7 Charles offered to teach him ‘‘a text of Scripture.’’ Lord Wharton, who could hardly refuse to hear a biblical passage, agreed that the king’s text would be ‘‘very acceptable.’’ Charles said, ‘‘Sin no more.’’ This text Lord Wharton himself had quoted to the earl of Arlington after the earl had undergone a grueling examination before the Commons. He now reminded Charles of that fact. ‘‘Well, my Lord,’’ Charles said, ‘‘you and I are both old men and we should love quietness.’’ Lord Wharton did not dispute the description of himself and the king (who was then forty-seven) as ‘‘old men,’’ and he professed to desire a quiet life. ‘‘Aye, my Lord,’’ Charles said, ‘‘but you have an aching tooth still.’’ ‘‘No indeed,’’ Lord Wharton said, ignoring the metaphor, ‘‘mine are all fallen out.’’ When Lord Wharton complained about his decrepitude, he was merely indulging in conventional rhetoric. He still had nineteen active years before him. But when he pleaded that he had ‘‘near con-

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cerns’’ about his family, he was telling the strict truth. The most immediate concern was William Thomas, Mary’s husband, who lay (as his physician informed Lord Wharton) ‘‘under an incurable disease.’’8 William, son of Edmund Thomas and scion of a staunch Puritan family in Glamorganshire,9 was the heir to Wenvoe and Ruperra, two rich manors near Cardiff. He had been married to Mary Wharton for four years, and the couple had produced a boy named Edmund and a daughter named Anne.10 Edmund and Anne would later become important to Tom Wharton, their uncle, for complex personal and political reasons. For the present, they were simply the small children of a favorite sister, about to become fatherless. The physician who diagnosed William Thomas as incurable was right. William died at St. Giles and was buried at Wooburn on 28 April 1677.11 If the Whartons had been even slightly prophetic, they would have been concerned too about Tom’s sister Margaret and her husband Major Dunch. Only marginally luckier than Mary, Margaret would lose her husband two years later, after six years of marriage and four children (two boys and two girls).12 In 1677, Tom’s wife Anne had not yet fulfilled the first duty of an aristocratic wife—to produce an heir. Until the family was perpetuated and the family property safeguarded, there was always some cause for worry. In their four years of marriage Tom had made at least a routine effort, both in and out of bed, to provide remedies. He took Anne to Bath to see whether the spa waters would enhance fertility, but Anne received no discernible benefits.13 If Tom had reason to be concerned about his wife, Anne had reason to be concerned about her husband. By 1677 it was clear (in the language of the time) that Anne had not ‘‘fixed’’ Tom’s affections. She could hardly help seeing that she had not displaced her feminine rivals and that in the struggle for his attention she faced stern competition from his horses, his political cronies, and his brother Harry. As yet Anne did not find the prospects hopeless. Like her barrenness, the problem of Tom’s love seemed surmountable. Meanwhile, it was exciting to be young and rich in the London of 1677, to move among the famous and talented, and to associate with poets and dramatists like Buckingham, Waller, Marvell, and Dryden. Under the tutelage of her uncle John Wilmot, the earl of Rochester, she was beginning to develop poetic talents of her own.14 To all the Whartons except Tom, the greatest family problem continued to be young Harry. The fact that he could ride like a professional jockey, that he had been born without fear, and that he was irrepressibly witty meant that he could get into trouble all over En-

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gland and that he could parry wholesome admonitions with wisecracks. He was becoming noted for ‘‘drunken rencontres’’ and outlandish practical jokes. ‘‘I am really glad Harry is gone out of town,’’ his sister Mary would one day write her second husband, ‘‘for I fear he will never be better, and therefore I don’t love to have him with you.’’15 But even as the Whartons wondered whether Henry would survive what Goodwin called ‘‘his wild way of living,’’16 they found it difficult to stay properly outraged at his behavior. It was hard to disapprove totally of a young man who in a letter to his sister could sign himself, ‘‘Your very loving and wholly good brother, H. Wharton.’’17 While Tom and his family occupied themselves with routine Wharton concerns, the earl of Danby, with a great deal of aid from Sir William Temple, was reshaping the history of England. He was negotiating a marriage between William, prince of Orange, and Mary, daughter of James, duke of York. He helped bring together, that is to say, William and Mary, the future king and queen of England.18 From one point of view, Danby’s feat resembles legerdemain. He helped persuade Charles, who had been consistently pro-French and who was then taking subsidies from Louis XIV, to match his niece with Louis’s most dangerous enemy, the leader of the antiFrench alliance. Charles, in turn, commanded the fervently Catholic James to give his daughter (and probable heir) to the Calvinist champion of European Protestantism. From another point of view, the match seems inevitable. Charles badly needed an alliance with William to rebuild his damaged credibility. His pose as neutral mediator in the European war had worn desperately thin, and the voices of outrage had grown increasingly strident. He had to counter the festering suspicion that he was conspiring with James and Louis to deliver England over to popery and slavery. James, of course, needed rehabilitation even more than Charles. He faced the task of convincing Englishmen that his religion was his own private affair and that he was not a threat to the constitution—a political bomb waiting to explode. Danby too needed William. For four years he had been trying to break the king’s secret entente with Louis and cure the disease that would prove fatal to early Tory parties—the charge that they were partial to France, popery, and arbitrary power. In William, Danby saw the perfect antidote. With his stern Protestantism and his battles against Louis, William had accumulated enough virtue to disinfect his uncles, at least temporarily, and to make most Englishmen breathe more easily.19 As one wag pointed out, William’s marriage

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to Mary meant that there would be one genuine Protestant at Whitehall. It also meant that Danby could face the next session of Parliament without shivering. As for Tom Wharton, who probably saw the prince of Orange at Newmarket,20 where the final negotiations for the marriage began, he could not predict that he would one day help William to gain the English throne or that William would eventually become a Whig icon. What he could tell without much difficulty was that in many respects William was his antitype. In physical makeup, personality, and political background, he and the prince were a study in contrasts. William became twenty-seven on his wedding day, 4 November 1677. Two years younger than Tom, he had already served more than five years as commander of the Dutch armies, chief magistrate of the Dutch Republic, and leader of the coalition against the French. Tom, on the other hand, had served for six sessions as a backbench M.P. He had learned a great deal about parliamentary behavior, but he had never held an office or commanded so much as a platoon. In personality too the difference between the two men was striking. As an only child raised in a world of adults, William with his reserve and self-dependence seemed to have been born old. He listened a great deal more than he talked, and his talk consisted ‘‘in plain good sense.’’21 Tom, by contrast, was outgoing and easy. Raised in the Wharton clan, he hardly knew the meaning of the word isolation. At home in practically any crowd or in any level of company from shoemakers to peers, he was as approachable as William was distant. The contrasts between the two men in physical appearance and energy were equally great. Tom was blond, straight, healthy, and handsome; William was dark, hunched, asthmatic, and ugly. Always a challenge to court painters, William was about five feet five, crookbacked, and eagle beaked. Few young ladies were imaginative enough to picture William as a romantic lover, but almost any young lady could imagine Tom in the role. When the statuesque and beautiful Princess Mary, then fifteen, first saw the man she was ordered to marry, she wept for a day and a half. If she had been assigned to Tom, she would not have wept. In spite of the differences between the two young men, they shared a passion for outdoor sports, particularly hunting and horse racing. Undeterred by his frail constitution, the prince had taken up hunting at an early age. The chase, a total relief from political intrigue, allowed him to dispense with his habitual self-control.22

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Tom, only slightly less addicted, owned two deer parks in the North and a hunting lodge in Gloucestershire.23 One day, William, then King William, would appoint Tom warden and chief justice in Eyre ‘‘of all the royal forests, chases, parks and warrens’’ south of the Trent.24 Meanwhile, in more ordinary circumstances, Tom often risked his neck coursing hares, foxes, and deer. In 1677 Tom was more devoted to racing than William, who had spent his last six summers commanding armies against the French. It was fitting, nevertheless, that William should appear at Newmarket. Like his royal uncles, he had a feeling for the sport, and he would eventually acquire an excellent racing stable, including a horse that could compete with Tom’s renowned Careless.25 When Charles agreed to the marriage between Mary and William, he hoped to influence William’s policies. He hoped, as he explained to Louis, to reduce William’s terms for making peace. William, in turn, hoped to bring Charles to the aid of his coalition and force Louis to disgorge some of his conquests. Both men were disappointed. William became more stubborn than ever, not merely because he could hope for English aid but also because the marriage made his friends suspicious. He was now obliged to convince his allies and compatriots, as well as the Country party in Parliament, that he was not conspiring with Charles to deliver a large chunk of the Spanish Netherlands to Louis or to establish arbitrary government in England and the Republic.26 Charles, for his part, had no wish to fight the French. He had made the marriage, he told Louis, to quiet his people and save his throne; and he still expected to receive French subsidies. On the other hand, he saw clearly that an alliance with the Dutch and the threat of war against France would be immensely popular with his Parliament. With good luck and reasonable finesse, he could get money for an army, raise the price to Louis of his neutrality, and perhaps dictate peace terms to the combatants. He might be able to finish the negotiations that had been going on at Nijmegen for many months.27 On 31 December 1677, the king’s emissary Laurence Hyde signed a defensive treaty with the Dutch, and on 28 January 1678, Charles met Parliament. In his opening speech, he declared that he was ready to stop by force the French conquest of Flanders. He had already recalled his troops from the French service and negotiated a treaty with the Dutch. He now called upon Parliament to finance ninety warships and an army of at least thirty thousand men. Declaring that his good faith had been guaranteed by the marriage between his niece Mary and the prince of Orange,28 he asked for ‘‘a

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plentiful supply suitable to such great occasions, whereon depends not only the honor but (for aught I know) the being of an English nation.’’29 As Charles had anticipated, the Commons agreed to finance a war against France. They would provide the ninety warships the king requested and add thirty-two regiments to the army.30 For this purpose, they agreed to raise a million pounds. They were not so bemused, however, by the king’s transformation into an anti-French patriot that they failed to register suspicions. Their supply bill specified that the money was appropriated for ‘‘an actual war.’’31 It was not enough, they said in an address of 31 January, to have a treaty with the Dutch; Charles should have treaties with the whole confederacy, and the allies should engage to force Louis back to his old frontiers.32 When Charles replied that only God could guarantee to beat Louis back to his old frontiers and that the Commons were once again trying to usurp his powers over foreign policy,33 the members were not placated. They asked the king, in another address, to recall his ambassador from Versailles, dismiss the French ambassador at Whitehall, and declare an immediate war against France.34 Louis was more than a little disgusted that his client Charles threatened to slip his leash, but not unduly worried. In the jargon of the time, he had Charles’s head in a bag. He could always publish the original Treaty of Dover, which would send Charles to the block or to the first ship out of England.35 But this he was reluctant to do. As he had explained to Barrillon, Charles and James were his only real friends in the British Isles. They had supported him faithfully and kept their country out of war with France.36 Any English regime that replaced Charles’s was certain to be worse. Instead of threatening Charles, therefore, Louis raised the level of bribery. In case Charles should be telling the truth when he told Barrillon that he was merely dancing with his Parliament to save his throne and that the troops he was raising were not a threat, Louis offered from time to time to resume the subsidies he had cut off when Charles had summoned Parliament early.37 And in case Charles should be lying to Barrillon and telling the truth to his Parliament, Louis undertook to bribe opposition leaders. He sent the young Huguenot Henri de Massue, sieur de Ruvigny,38 to persuade Lord Russell (whose wife was Ruvigny’s cousin) and Russell’s friends in Parliament to oppose the Dutch alliance and the finance bill.39 After Charles had trod a measure or two with Parliament and received an augmentation to his army and navy, he turned once again

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to Louis. On 20 March, he officially accepted the money Parliament had voted, and on 25 March he offered Louis another secret treaty. For six million livres per year over the next three years, which would enable him to dispense with parliaments,40 he would support Louis in demanding terms somewhat better than those currently offered by the confederates. Charles assigned Danby to put his new proposals in a letter and send them to Ralph Montagu, the English minister at Versailles, who was to sound out Louis on the proposal.41 Louis found the offer unsatisfactory, and Danby later found it fatal to his career as lord treasurer. The letter would ultimately consign him to the Tower.42 While Charles and Louis were raising the levels of duplicity, their agents were raising the level of parliamentary corruption. With the gold handed out by Ruvigny and Barrillon, the opposition leaders could compete with the government in offering inducements for support. Their new resources impelled Danby to borrow money43 for distribution among the king’s friends.44 Fortunately, no biographer of Tom Wharton is called upon to define precisely the balance of bribery or the degrees of moral depravity involved in taking money from Danby or Barrillon. Since Tom was not yet high enough in party counsels to serve as a dispenser of bribe money and since he was anything but needy, he was spared the necessity of resisting temptation. His name never appears in Barrillon’s frequent dispatches on the distribution of bribes. Lord Wharton too remained outside the French network.45 Whatever the balance of bribery, support for Charles in the Commons eroded steadily. On 7 May the House voted 154–139 that the king should be addressed to remove from his counsels the ministers who had advised his replies to their demands for war; and by a vote of 137–92 the Commons decided to ask Charles to remove Lauderdale from the government.46 These votes, which Charles ignored, were immensely important. They showed that a majority of the Commons had no confidence in Danby or, really, in Charles himself. The debates and votes of 7 May marked the beginning of the end for Danby and the proto-Tory party. After all the pensions, places, and bribes the Court party could not prevent a decisive vote of censure. And a few days later, when Lord Chancellor Finch berated the Commons for their lack of trust in the king, the opposition remained unmoved.47 On 17 May Charles made still another secret treaty with Louis. For the sum of six million livres he would support the terms Louis had offered in April for settling the peace at Nijmegen and if these were refused by the Dutch and Spaniards, he would remain neutral

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in any ensuing conflict. After two months he would recall all his troops from Flanders and prorogue Parliament for four months.48 Since no English minister would dare sign such a document, Charles signed the treaty himself. While Charles and Louis carried on their intricate dance, the war on the Continent wound down. By offering favorable terms to the Dutch, including the return of Maastricht and an attractive tariff arrangement, Louis inclined the States General of the Republic to make a separate peace. And when it became obvious that Charles would not intervene effectively on the Continent, the Spanish too were inclined to conclude the best peace they could get. On 22 May, the Dutch and the French concluded a six-week truce; and on 31 July, the two countries made a formal peace treaty at Nijmegen. On 7 September, Spain conceded the loss of Franche-Comte´ and several Flemish cities and made peace also.49 Meanwhile, in the interval between the French-Dutch truce in May and the end of the parliamentary session on 15 July, the Country majority in the Commons faced one more critical question: how to get rid of the army they had financed for the king. Charles, naturally, wanted to keep his army until Louis had evacuated the cities he promised to return to the allies. The Commons, on the other hand, wanted the army disbanded immediately. They quickly agreed to raise £200,000 to pay off the troops, and they agreed in addition to pay Princess Mary’s dowry, repay the money they had authorized the king to borrow, and appropriate the balance of the sum they had promised for the army and navy.50 The Commons were doomed to frustration. Louis made difficulties about withdrawing his troops until the claims of his Swedish allies were settled, and the House of Lords agreed with the king that the disbanding should be deferred until 27 July. In the end, the army was not disbanded at all.51 After receiving the parliamentary grants and ending the session on 15 July, Charles kept his newly raised troops and used the disbanding money to pay them. The problem of demobilization was left to a later and still more explosive session. Tom Wharton had been absent from Parliament during the last dramatic acts of the 1678 session. In early May he had been obliged to take Anne to Wiltshire for her health, and he had remained with her there through mid-July.52 He had been kept informed, however, by Lord Wharton and by newsletters of the crucial political events.53 When the session ended, he could see, like his fellow M.P.s, that in spite of the tactical successes his party had achieved, there was still good reason for anxiety. Charles now had an army

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almost as large as Cromwell’s. There was no sign that the king would dismiss his unpopular ministers or call a general election. Though battered by the Commons, Danby and Lauderdale still held their offices. Tom and his allies had learned once more the difference between passing bills in Parliament and controlling government actions. Parliament had voted money for ‘‘an actual war,’’ and the army they financed had not fired a shot; they had voted money to demobilize the troops, and the army remained in being. The session had ended in an uneasy truce between the Opposition and the Crown. This state of affairs had become almost normal over the preceding five years, and no one could predict that the mood was about to shift wildly. As it happened, England was on the brink of hysteria, and help was on the way for the Country party. Tom and the soon-to-be Whigs were about to be rescued—not by their leaders or by legislative tactics but by an archetypal crackpot named Israel Tonge and a wily psychopath named Titus Oates.

9 The Plot TO UNDERSTAND THE POLITICAL WORLD OF TOM WHARTON, WE MUST understand in some detail the episodes that transformed the atmosphere of Restoration England—the events that produced the renowned Popish Plot.1 This chapter is intended to provide the essential detail—basic information for the general reader, as well as a documented review that professionals may find useful. We can begin the narrative, too outrageous for fiction, on 13 August 1678. It was in the morning of that day that one Christopher Kirkby, acting on behalf of Dr. Israel Tonge, warned Charles II that his life was in danger,2 and it was in the evening of that day that Charles gave Kirkby and Tonge a private interview at Whitehall and heard from Tonge the outline of a Jesuit assassination plot. Israel Tonge, an Anglican clergyman who held a doctorate in divinity from Oxford, had long been obsessed with the danger from Jesuits.3 Recently he had become reacquainted with a young man, Titus Oates, who actually knew Jesuits. The twenty-nine-year-old Oates, once an Anglican cleric,4 had spent more than a year as a recruit in the Jesuit organization in France, Spain, and England. He reported to a thrilled and horrified Tonge that the Jesuits were even more dangerous than Tonge had supposed. Besides burning London, as Tonge had suspected, they had devised a series of plans to assassinate Charles II and to ‘‘take off’’ a few other prominent antiCatholics, including Tonge himself. They also planned to stir up insurrections in all parts of the British Isles. For Tonge’s benefit, Oates had put his discoveries in writing—in a detailed narrative of forty-three numbered paragraphs.5 It was this long account (recopied in Tonge’s own handwriting to conceal Oates’s identity) that Tonge brought to Whitehall and his interview with Charles. Oates’s story had been made plausible by its shower of details and its matter-of-fact tone. Anything but a carefully crafted account of a conspiracy, it was a series, roughly chronological, of what purported to be first-hand observations involving Jesuits; it included 84

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episodes both trivial and important, and the author seemed to have no clear idea of which was which. When Tonge brought the story to Charles, the king did not try to study the handwritten pages in detail. He had Tonge summarize the charges and read a few crucial passages. Then, after asking some questions about the alleged plot and the writer (whose identity Tonge concealed), Charles ended the interview. The next morning, before leaving for Windsor, he ordered the papers to be passed on to Danby for evaluation. There were several reasons why Charles could not dismiss the conspiracy story out of hand. The account was liberally sprinkled with verifiable facts, with names and aliases of real people. There was enough accurate information to enable a government that was so inclined to roll up the Jesuit apparatus in England. The odd tale warranted further examination, therefore, if only to compare its allegations with the facts in the possession of the authorities. In another way, too, the story had political significance. Oates had cast Charles as a Protestant hero—somewhat besmirched, to be sure, but a hero nevertheless. Charles appeared as the prime enemy of the Jesuits and England’s bulwark against a flood of popery. Whereas Andrew Marvell had pictured Charles as a passive coconspirator in the movement toward popery and absolute monarchy, Oates filled his pages with virulent Jesuit denunciations of the king—the ‘‘Black Bastard’’6 who stood between the Jesuit order and power. Oates was also careful to exculpate the duke of York. Far from being a plotter against his brother, James in the Oates version was another problem for the conspirators. He would inherit the Crown, naturally, but if he showed the slightest reluctance to force popery upon England, he would be assassinated too. This whitewashing of the king and the duke would soon become an embarrassment to Whig propagandists and to Oates himself. In the beginning, however, it was something like a guarantee of good faith. Shaftesbury and his friends were highly unlikely to write such stuff. Beyond these considerations, Charles had one more reason for sending along the document for further analysis. Monarchs were always well advised to take assassination plots seriously, even when they were revealed by dotty old clergymen. Charles could not really afford to overlook the possibility that some Catholic zealots might try to hurry the popish succession along. Though he could be perfectly sure of James’s innocence, he could not be perfectly sure of James’s Jesuit friends. It seemed only sensible, then, to run a preliminary check before dismissing the matter and before warning James that his friends were under investigation.

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If Charles had taken time to study Oates’s account in detail, he might have concluded that the Jesuits, though tireless plotters, were hopelessly inept as murderers. The first two assassins assigned to the task had failed—one because he became too ‘‘faint hearted’’7 to kill the king and the other because the flint in his pistol came loose when he was ready to shoot Charles in St. James’s Park. Neither attempt had been detected, and both men (John Grove and Thomas Pickering) had been reassigned to complete their task. Their superiors, meanwhile, had raised large sums to have the king stabbed or poisoned. Most recently they had sought to bribe Sir George Wakeman, the queen’s Catholic physician, to do the poisoning. After more than a year of plots, nevertheless, and after a full-scale Jesuit conference on the subject, Charles had remained healthy and unaware that he was threatened. The Jesuits were similarly inept, in Oates’s original account, in providing suitable military backup for their plot. Oates did not seem to understand that if he was right about James’s patriotism and if James was left in command of the army (and if he took reasonable care to protect himself), the assassination of Charles would succeed only in getting Jesuits hanged from trees. Oates’s vague accounts of projected risings in Scotland and Ireland, perhaps with French help, did not provide an adequate threat.8 To make the plot credible he needed to supply the names of the military and political leaders, and to produce foreign invasion forces capable of seizing and holding power.9 About one feature of Oates’s narrative, Charles knew more than Oates himself, and what he knew was a dangerous embarrassment to the government. Though wrong about the precise date and place, Oates had been right about a Jesuit ‘‘consult’’ in England. Oates had placed it at the Whitehorse Tavern in the Strand and given the date as early May 1678.10 After the general session attended by about fifty men, he alleged, the members had formed a number of small groups and taken up quarters in the area. In carrying messages between such groups, he said, he had picked up information about the plot to murder the king. Actually, the Jesuit meeting had been held on 24 April. It consisted of forty members of the order, and it had not taken place at the Whitehorse Tavern but in St. James’s Palace, the residence of the duke of York.11 This last fact Charles and James felt obliged to conceal at all costs (much as a president of the United States might wish to conceal a meeting of Russian agents held in the White House), and their need for secrecy12 would later prove a severe handicap to Jesuit defendants, who could not divulge the truth or

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call James to witness that Oates was lying about the place and purpose of the ‘‘consult,’’ which was actually a regular triennial meeting of the Jesuit order. The second crucial date in the developing drama of the plot was 6 September 1678. On that day Titus Oates took an expanded version of his narrative to Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey, a noted London justice of the peace, and swore to the truth of his story. In the interval between 12 August and the interview with Godfrey, the fuse lit by Oates and Tonge had threatened to go out. Danby had launched an investigation of Oates’s charges, detailing men to find and shadow some of the suspects and setting up a watch at post offices. Danby found no independent corroboration. He found instead something that made him suspect the whole story to be a malicious fabrication. While he was in Rycault, Oxfordshire, he received a letter from Tonge, forwarded from Windsor, advising him ‘‘that there would come letters directed to Mr. [Francis] Bedingfield at Windsor which if intercepted might give further evidence of the matter.’’13 At Windsor, meanwhile, where the king and duke of York had gone after the king’s interview with Tonge, Bedingfield (whose name, misspelled Bennifield, had appeared in the Oates narrative) received through the mail five letters filled with ‘‘mysterious expressions,’’ as if he were privy to an important and unlawful affair.14 Four of the letters bore the signatures of clerical plotters named in the Oates document, and one purported to be from an Irish physician named Fogarty,15 but it seemed obvious to Bedingfield, the duke’s confessor, that both the letters and the signatures were crude forgeries. Though neither he nor James, to whom he went with the letters, had heard anything about the Oates story, both suspected some kind of trap; and when Danby and Charles saw the letters, they could readily guess what the trap was. The letters had been written, they reasoned, to corroborate Tonge’s story and to further incriminate Bedingfield and his alleged correspondents. The forgers, thrown off stride by Danby’s trip to Rycault, had expected the letters to be intercepted at the Windsor post house.16 The conspiracy story was temporarily damaged by the suspected forgeries. Charles was ready to dismiss the whole plot as a hoax, and Danby suspected, in addition, that Tonge had invented the tale himself. Both men suspected that Tonge was more than a little mad. But the episode evoked its own train of consequences. For one thing, it showed Tonge that he was alone and dangerously exposed. If Oates was ‘‘made away’’ by the Jesuits or if he simply disappeared, Tonge was in serious trouble. It was essential, then, that he should get a sworn statement from Oates about the authorship and

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truth of the narrative. He must persuade Oates to appear before a magistrate. Meanwhile, the Danby investigation brought its own dangerous consequences. In questioning Tonge about possible plotters, Danby inadvertently provided him (and therefore Oates) with names for Oates’s rapidly expanding narrative. Most fatally, Danby dropped the name of Edward Coleman, a Catholic convert of about thirty, who had once served as secretary to the duke of York and later as secretary to the duchess.17 Beyond that, the process of investigation itself necessarily spread the story. Soon rumors began to float about London.18 By early September, Oates had reached the point of no return. The elaborate lies he had constructed to impress a credulous minister had been taken with deadly seriousness and turned over to the government. They were now being investigated, and if they were proven false, his future was apt to be nasty and brutish, and conceivably short. On the other hand, he had not yet sworn to the truth of his story, thus adding perjury to malicious mischief. Since he had disguised his handwriting in the document he had given Tonge, he could still deny authorship of the narrative. He still had a chance to turn back before he was committed forever to his deadly tale. But if lying was dangerous, it was also addictive. Perhaps for the first time in a drab and sometimes sordid life, Titus Oates found himself taken seriously. A castoff from the clergy, both Anglican and Catholic, he now had a chance if he wrote his script plausibly to become the central character in a sweeping national drama. And he was finding, like a lucky novelist, that his story grew easily. As Tonge raised questions, including those relayed from Danby, and suggested possible suspects, Oates was able to dredge up more names and construct more episodes. In the end, he simply could not abandon his absorbing new vocation. On 4 September when he agreed to appear before a J.P., he irrevocably chose notoriety over caution. He would stick with his story. When Oates took his narrative to Godfrey, he and Tonge made sure that the story could not be stifled, but they did not convince the government that it was true. In receiving the document, Godfrey did not vouch for its contents; he merely recorded the fact that Oates had sworn to its truthfulness. Charles and Danby could still hope that the tale would gutter out. Charles, at Windsor, cut off communications with Tonge and Kirkby, and Danby maintained ‘‘a prudent reservedness’’ on the few occasions he allowed Tonge an audience. Meanwhile, Oates continued to expand his narrative, which by 27

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September had grown from forty-three to eighty-one paragraphs. In the extended version, Sir George Wakeman had finally agreed to poison the king,19 and as insurance, the Jesuits had assigned John Keynes, George Conyers, and four anonymous Irishmen (in addition to Grove and Pickering) to stab or shoot Charles as opportunity offered. The Jesuits also planned to kill the duke of Ormonde in Ireland as a prelude to a great insurrection there, and they were assembling a force of twenty thousand papists for a rising in London when Charles was dispatched. As matters turned out, Oates’s descriptions of deadly plots proved less important than some incidental information he offered about communications and finance. The Jesuits, he said, did a certain amount of spying for the French government; they collected secret information about English affairs and passed it on, via St. Omers, to Franc¸ ois d’Aix de la Chaise, the Jesuit confessor of Louis XIV.20 La Chaise (spelled Leshee by Oates) in turn sometimes provided the English Jesuits with money; he furnished, for example, most of the fifteen thousand pounds that was to be given Wakeman when he had poisoned the king. The Jesuits’ chief intelligence agent in England, Oates said, was a man named John Smith, and Smith was sometimes assisted by ‘‘one Coleman,’’ who provided him with ‘‘private intelligence.’’21 Oates did not go on to say that ‘‘one Coleman’’ was Edward Coleman, ex-secretary to the duke of York, and he clearly did not realize that in naming Coleman and La Chaise in the same paragraph he had said the magic words that would soon validate the Popish Plot to his countrymen. He did add, however, in a later paragraph, that Coleman had been present at a ‘‘consult’’ when Sir George Wakeman had agreed to poison the king. While Oates was copying and recopying his revelations, Charles finally decided that the plot story must be officially recognized and squelched. He decided to bring Tonge, the letters to Bedingfield, and the Oates narrative before his Privy Council. This he did on 28 September, the third decisive date in the history of the plot. In the morning session, the king’s strategy seemed to work perfectly. After hearing Charles outline briefly his dealings with Tonge and after seeing the crudely constructed Bedingfield letters, the Council was disposed to regard the assassination plot as a ‘‘counterfeit matter’’;22 and when Tonge appeared for questioning, he did little to change minds. His reputation as a hysterical anti-Catholic had preceded him,23 and of course he had no firsthand information. Beyond providing an unconvincing one-page summary of Oates’s story, he could only complain about the obstruction he had encoun-

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tered in attempting to warn the nation of its mortal danger. But while Tonge was being ‘‘altogether smiled at’’ by an indulgent Council,24 he gained one vital concession. He asked permission to bring Oates himself to testify at the afternoon session. The Council agreed, and Charles saw no threat in the arrangement. He assigned Prince Rupert to conduct the afternoon session and then left for the races at Newmarket. Charles left too soon; he would never again come so close to stifling the plot. He had reckoned without the fact that his Council had not actually read Oates’s narrative and that the members were unprepared for the deluge of information it contained. More significantly, he had not suspected that Titus Oates might be a remarkable and intrepid actor. The fact that the Council had not done its homework was not the fault of the members. The day before the meeting, Tonge had provided Danby with a copy of Oates’s complete narrative, with its eighty-one handwritten paragraphs, and Danby had given the papers, ‘‘rolled up,’’ to Secretary of State Sir Joseph Williamson. Williamson seems not to have read the expanded version himself,25 and he did not attempt to have the documents copied for his colleagues. He simply brought the papers to the Council meeting and handed them over to the clerk, Sir Robert Southwell. This meant that the Council members could only glance through the ‘‘bundle of papers’’; no one could devote the hours that a close study of the Oates narrative requires.26 When Oates appeared that afternoon, he gave the performance of his life. Razor sharp from having worked for two months on his story and having just recopied the final version for Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey, he had every date and name at instant command, and without reference to his papers he could walk the Council through his narrative with cool assurance. After swearing to the truth of his revelations, he proceeded to bombard his audience with facts about the Jesuit organization in England and about its connections in France and Spain. He took the Council, in effect, from England to Burgos and Valladolid, back to England, over to St. Omers, and back once more to England. As he went from one Jesuit stronghold to another, he named verifiable names of men who, he said, were conspiring to get rid of Charles. He described assassination plots and projected insurrections in crisp detail, pausing now and then to answer questions or drop another name. The Council could not help being impressed. The sheer intricacy of the testimony was numbing. As Burnet later remarked, the story ‘‘consisted of so many particulars, it was thought to be above invention.’’27 The climax came when Oates correctly identified the handwriting

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on the five letters which the Council had taken to be forgeries. Shown only a line or two from each letter and never allowed to see the signatures, ‘‘he immediately named whose hands they were,’’28 whether Blundell’s, Fenwick’s, Whitbread’s, Ireland’s, or Fogarty’s.29 And he had a simple explanation for why the letters appeared to be forged. The Council had been misled, he said, by a standard Jesuit trick. In dangerous correspondence, Jesuits disguised their handwriting and wrote crudely to make their letters deniable if they were intercepted.30 The five letters, he concluded, were genuine. The imperturbable ease with which Oates explained away what had seemed a fatal error in his case finished what the barrage of facts had started; it crumbled what remained of the Council’s resistance. The balance of belief swung finally and firmly in Oates’s favor. Oates had shown beyond doubt that the country was crawling with popish agents; he had given the names and aliases of the most important, along with some addresses. He had not proven beyond all doubt that the agents were conspiring to kill Charles, but he had made the possibility too chilling to be ignored by a Protestant privy council charged with the king’s safety. The Council took no chances. It issued warrants for the arrest of six alleged assassins, invited Tonge and Oates to stay in the safety of Whitehall, and sent a messenger to the king, asking him to return for a Council meeting the next day. When Charles returned the following afternoon, 29 September, and convoked his Council, the trend of belief was irreversible. Called in for further questioning, Oates stumbled on a few details that in retrospect seemed to cast doubt on his stories. He misdescribed Don John of Austria, he misspelled La Chaise,31 to whom he said he had delivered letters, and he did not know the geography of Paris. At the time, however, such incidental missteps were buried under the avalanche of information about popish agents, finance, and plots that Oates poured forth.32 In his testimony, he again exculpated the duke of York, and he agreed that his evidence against Sir George Wakeman was hearsay, relayed to him by Dr. Fogarty. On the other hand, he further incriminated Edward Coleman, whom he suddenly promoted from bit player to principal actor. The day before, Oates had told the Council that Coleman corresponded with La Chaise, Louis’s confessor, and that he had received (or was soon to receive) from La Chaise the first five thousand pounds of the fifteen thousand pounds required by Wakeman. Now Oates repeated the charges against Coleman and boldly predicted that ‘‘if his papers were well looked into there would appear that which might cost him his neck.’’33

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This assertion, apparently extemporized, seems uncanny in retrospect,34 since it proved true and changed the history of England. At the time, it was only one assertion among many. Sir Joseph Williamson, who was taking notes, did not even bother to write it down.35 The Council had many other worries. Besides ordering the arrest of Coleman and the seizure of his papers, the Council ordered Wakeman to appear the next day for questioning, and it issued warrants for the arrest of eight Jesuits. More generally, the Council decided to banish priests and disarm the papists.36 The Council would secure the king and kingdom first and settle degrees of guilt or innocence later. On the next day (Monday, 30 September) the Council began examining the suspects that government agents, aided by Oates, had managed to arrest.37 They also questioned Coleman, who had escaped capture and now appeared voluntarily, and Sir George Wakeman, who had obeyed the Council’s summons. The sessions resembled a counterattack on Oates, as suspect after suspect denied the charges against himself. But of course lying is the trade of foreign agents. Sir Robert Southwell, clerk of the Council, was inclined to think that the accused men protested too much—denying ‘‘even that which was trivial and apparently otherwise.’’38 In any case, beyond firm denials, the Council extracted only a few snippets of information from John Smith, William Ireland, John Fenwick, Dr. William Fogarty, and Thomas Jennison. After the examinations, the unruffled Oates was left in possession of the field, while the suspects were bundled off to Newgate. Sir George Wakeman and Edward Coleman presented special, but not insuperable, problems to Oates. The fact that Oates recognized neither man was trivial at the time, since he had not yet alleged that he had met either personally; his narrative said that he had learned about them, or dealt with them, through his Jesuit superiors. Nor was the fact that Wakeman boasted a long record of conspicuous service to the royal family particularly damaging. The most dangerous conspirators, after all, are men above suspicion. The outraged and aggressive Wakeman finally set the Council’s teeth on edge by dwelling upon his own merits rather than stressing his innocence of the charges.39 For the time being, however, he was allowed to remain free, since Oates did not ‘‘improve’’ upon the hearsay evidence he had offered the day before. Coleman was also aggressive and scornful. Where his fellow suspects had denied too much, Coleman denied too little. Proud of his acquaintance with ‘‘the great,’’ he freely admitted having met La Chaise, though he denied any correspondence with him; proud too

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of having handled important confidential documents, he admitted possessing a cipher for encoding and decoding letters. He further admitted that he had recently made an unauthorized journey to Paris. Such borderline admissions, along with Oates’s testimony that he himself had carried to La Chaise letters written by Coleman, meant that the young man could not be set free. Coleman’s indignant denials and high ‘‘protestations,’’ however, won a small concession from the king.40 Coleman was placed in the hands of a messenger rather than being consigned to Newgate. By the end of the session, Oates had survived three days of examination and the first wave of counterattacks. His progress had been astonishing. In less than a month he had moved from a cheap tavern to a palace, defeated the attempt of the king to squelch his story, jailed several Jesuits, and prompted the disarming of Catholics all over England. He had also put forward an excuse for appearing as a double-defector. He had joined the Jesuits, he alleged, as a selfappointed secret agent—to ferret out and expose their diabolical schemes.41 For the moment, of course, Oates’s reasons for leaving the Jesuits were virtually irrelevant. Then as now, defectors were valuable for the accuracy of their information, not for the purity of their motives. The problem for the government, besides catching suspects before they escaped, was to corroborate (or disprove) Oates’s allegations, and this process required time and luck. Charles, who had done all he could for the present, left further investigation to a small committee of the Privy Council and set off once more for Newmarket— this time for sixteen days. When Charles left for the races, there was still a chance that the whole uproar might end in nothing more lethal than shipping a few Jesuits out of the kingdom. Though not convinced that the Jesuits intended to kill him, he had learned, in Southwell’s phrase, that they were ‘‘not the quiet men he thought,’’ and he was unpleasantly surprised at the number of them in England.42 That they were a hopeless political liability was beyond doubt. Any sign of favor for Jesuits or any attempt to stifle a thorough investigation would be dangerous. It was essential, in fact, that before Parliament met, on 21 October, the government should show great zeal in seeking evidence. Meanwhile, Charles could hope that no corroborative witnesses would appear and that any papist stupid enough to plot against the government would be bright enough to burn his papers before they were seized. The king’s hopes of calming his subjects lasted only seventeen days. On 4 October, the Privy Council’s committee on the plot got

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around to reading the letters its agents had seized from Edward Coleman; on 12 October, Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey disappeared from his home; and on 17 October Godfrey’s dead body was discovered on Primrose Hill. These events produced a national frenzy and shattered any chance the Crown may have had of managing the consequences of the Oates ‘‘revelations.’’ That any Coleman letters remained to be discovered was an accident. Named in Oates’s testimony of 28 September, a day before the warrant for his arrest was issued, Coleman had been given time to remove dangerous papers, and he had destroyed all his most recent correspondence. Disastrously for himself, he had somehow missed a sizeable batch of letters dealing with the previous period.43 These were seized by agents of the Council on the night of 29 September, and on 4 October the most incriminating were read by the Council’s special investigating committee. The committee members, all good Royalists, were horrified by what they found. They ordered that Coleman should be removed at once from the custody of the messenger and committed to Newgate.44 Coleman had lied to the Council when he denied having corresponded with La Chaise. Two of his letters to La Chaise—the first dated 29 September 1675—remained undestroyed, and both were devastating.45 In the first Coleman reviewed his dealings with La Chaise’s Jesuit predecessor Jean Ferrier. He explained that in 1674 he had attempted, with the help of Ferrier, to get £300,000 from Louis XIV for the purpose of bribing Charles II to dissolve his antiFrench and anti-Catholic Parliament. He had solicited the money, of course, on behalf of the duke of York, and he had declared that the interests of James and Louis were ‘‘inseparably united.’’46 The project, which at first had Louis’s approval, was halted by the death of Ferrier and the intervention of Ruvigny, Louis’s envoy, who thought that Charles should be approached directly and that if bribery was necessary, the price should be much less than £300,000. Having failed to get the Parliament dissolved, Coleman took comfort in the fact that it had been prorogued until the following April (1675) and that Ruvigny had given him twenty thousand pounds to counter anti-French and anti-Catholic measures in the April-June session. He had been reasonably successful in this campaign, and in late September 1675 he asked La Chaise for another twenty thousand pounds. Such a sum, skillfully applied, he argued, might turn the balance between James and his opponents; it might establish James as the center of power, the ‘‘rising sun’’ before whom all must bow. Such a triumph, Coleman assured La Chaise,

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would constitute ‘‘the greatest blow to the Protestant religion here [in England] that ever it received since its birth.’’ Coleman closed his first letter with a peroration on James’s ‘‘zeal and piety’’ and his devotion to the cause of reconverting England. In his second letter he returned to his theme. In memorable words that would indeed cost him his neck, he declared: We have here a mighty work upon our hands, no less than the conversion of three kingdoms, and by that perhaps the utter subduing of a pestilent heresy which has domineered over great part of this northern world a long time. There were never such hopes of success since the death of our Queen Mary as now in our days when God has given us a prince who is become (I may say by miracle) zealous of being the author and instrument of so glorious a work.47

Legally, Coleman’s correspondence presented few problems. Lord Chief Justice Sir Francis North, who attended the Privy Council meeting on 18 October and heard the crucial letters read, pronounced them treasonous ‘‘on the spot.’’48 And when the three chief justices and eight other judges were formally requested by the king to decide ‘‘whether it be not treason to endeavour to extirpate the religion established in this kingdom and to introduce the pope’s authority by combination and assistance of foreign powers,’’ they unanimously answered that ‘‘the same is high treason.’’49 But if Coleman’s offense was legally simple, the political problems it raised were complex and virulent. If he had been hired by Marvell50 or Shaftesbury to blast the duke of York and defame the king, he could hardly have succeeded better. Throughout his letters Coleman pictured Charles as weak and venal—personally sympathetic to the Catholic cause and to his brother’s aspirations but unwilling to venture anything and hopelessly addicted to money. The king’s need and love for money, Coleman wrote to the papal nuncio, was greater than his fears of Parliament, and if the duke had money, he could readily buy the king’s support for himself and the Catholic cause; ‘‘for there is nothing it [money] cannot make him [Charles] do.’’51 The king’s Council was furious that a lowly secretary had dared to cast such reflections upon the king, but the members and the king himself were even more furious at the picture he had given of James.52 With something akin to panic, they realized that Coleman had shown James to be exactly what his opponents had asserted for years—a popish bigot intent upon overturning the Protestant establishment. James, Coleman told La Chaise, had been

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converted to such a degree of zeal and piety as not to regard anything in the world in comparison of God Almighty’s glory, the salvation of his own soul, and the conversion of our poor kingdom, which has a long time been oppressed and miserably harassed by heresy and schism.53

To complete the picture, Coleman had shown James conniving with Louis, Protestant Europe’s most dangerous enemy, and agreeing that their interests were identical. As Sir Robert Southwell contemplated the effect the Coleman letters would have upon his colleagues in the House of Commons, he predicted sadly: it will appear that nothing has for these many years been spoken within those walls that sounded like malice and mutiny that Mr. Coleman, by the letters he wrote and the correspondence he maintained, does not give the utmost provocation for, and this, I fear, to the irreparable damage of his master.54

Fortunately for James, while Coleman had been picturing him as zealous and dedicated, he had also pictured him as not remarkably intelligent. As Coleman’s Jesuit friend St. Germain had explained to La Chaise, the success of the duke in promoting Catholic interests had proceeded ‘‘by the inspiration of Mr. Coleman.’’55 The fact that Coleman took credit for initiating the duke’s suicidal negotiations with Louis and that he obviously considered himself several degrees brighter than his master enabled James to disavow, more or less plausibly, some of the sentiments and actions attributed to him. The further fact that Coleman was what a more refined generation would call an egotistical snot and that he had been formally, if not actually, dismissed from the service of the duke and duchess helped to soften the blows he had delivered. And the character references that Titus Oates had provided for James and Charles reduced the injuries further. The damage, nevertheless, was severe. In effect, Coleman had helped Shaftesbury found the Whig party and had originated three bills for excluding James from the throne. He had also given the Crown a vexing problem—how to convict and hang him without incriminating the duke of York. For parliamentary battles to come, he had placed the government on the defensive and delivered the initiative to its opponents. More dangerously for the immediate future, the Coleman letters seemed to verify Oates’s testimony on the plot. Oates had been right when he accused Coleman of corresponding with La Chaise—of soliciting money from Jesuits for the subversion of the English government. He had been right about a popish plot. The

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fact that no letters dealing with the murder of Charles were found among Coleman’s papers scarcely mattered at the time. Coleman had destroyed all his papers from the period covered by Oates’s testimony, and it was easy for Englishmen to suppose that the missing letters were more damning than those that remained. It was also easy for pestilent heretics to consider the plot against Protestantism more deadly than the assassination plot (which was, after all, only a component of the general plan). In these circumstances, the Coleman letters and the confused accounts of them that spread through London swelled the reputation of Titus Oates and contributed heavily to the rising tide of hysteria. On 17 October, the day after the king’s return from Newmarket, came the last ingredient necessary for true panic—the dead body of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey. Last seen alive on Saturday afternoon, 12 October, Godfrey was found dead on Thursday evening in a ditch at the foot of Primrose Hill. The body was transfixed with Godfrey’s sword, but as the coroner explained to the Privy Council, ‘‘No blood [was] near the place [of the stab wound] nor where the body was, [and] none under the hilt of the sword.’’ It seemed clear, therefore, that Godfrey had died some time before being stabbed. There was a ‘‘bruise on the top of the breast just under the collar,’’ the coroner said, as well as a ‘‘circle round his neck like those that are strangled.’’ The fact that the ‘‘body did stink’’ showed that Godfrey had been dead several days, and the fact that on Tuesday evening a witness had gone ‘‘by that place’’ to water his horse and wash his hands in a nearby pond and had seen nothing showed that the body had not been there at that time. Again, the fact that Godfrey’s shoes were ‘‘extreme clean’’ seemed to prove that he had not walked into the dirty field where he was found.56 The coroner did not conclude in so many words that Godfrey had been beaten and strangled, kept somewhere for three or four days, then taken out (perhaps by coach) to the ditch where he was found, and at last run through with his own sword, though these were the inferences that seemed to follow. But the coroner’s evidence, however incomplete, spelled murder (and multiple murderers) to the members of the Privy Council, as it would later to a coroner’s jury. The same evening, 20 October, the Council issued a proclamation offering a reward of five hundred pounds ‘‘for a discovery of the murderers of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey, with a pardon to any of the murderers that shall discover the rest.’’57 When news of Godfrey’s strange death swept through London, the citizens had no difficulty in deciding who the murderers were. Here was a textbook case of Jesuit revenge and terror, ‘‘a pattern of

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their way of proceeding,’’ after the manner explained by Oates and anti-papist literature. Godfrey had accepted Oates’s narrative and guaranteed that its explosive contents could not be suppressed; hence he had been marked for death. And he had been assassinated in a way designed to make other enemies of the Jesuits think twice before they lent themselves to anti-Jesuit investigations. Godfrey’s ‘‘impudent murder,’’ Londoners concluded, had been done ‘‘in terror to any that should be active in these inquiries.’’58 Later there would be time to worry about such niceties as which papists had perpetrated the killing and why they had been mad enough to commit a murder so sure to bring bloody reprisals.59 For the moment the problem was to prevent further assassinations and protect England against the insurrections the Jesuits had planned. It was a time to guard against knives, fires, and gunpowder—a time to call out the militia. Meanwhile, the body of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey, now a Protestant martyr, was placed on view where Londoners could see for themselves the horrors of popish treachery. In the violent wave of panic that followed the murder, the peaceful London of Charles II had suddenly become a city under popish siege, and the words of Titus Oates had become gospel.

10 The Exclusionist WHEN COUNTRY M.P.S STRAGGLED INTO TOWN TO ATTEND PARLIA-

ment, which began its session on 21 October 1678, they did not clearly realize their political good fortune. When the first rumors about the plot had been whispered abroad, Opposition leaders suspected a ruse on the part of Danby. A fake plot and a well-managed invasion scare, they knew, would provide Danby and Charles with an excuse to raise money from Parliament and a defensible reason for having diverted the funds the Commons had provided for paying off the army.1 Even after the government ordered the disarming of papists and sent Coleman to Newgate, its opponents remained wary. Insiders like Sir Robert Southwell might realize how badly the Court party had been injured by James and Coleman. Outsiders, like Tom Wharton, returning to London in an atmosphere of rising hysteria, could only be certain that they faced a crisis. The first sign that the government would lose the initiative in handling the plot came with the speech from the throne when Charles opened Parliament. Godfrey’s body had been discovered four days earlier, and the only topic that truly interested Parliament was who had killed Godfrey and what was being done to protect the nation and the king from popish assassins. Charles chose to speak first about his need for money. He explained how wise the government had been in retaining the army the Commons had voted to disband and what additional funds were needed. About the plot Charles was restrained. I now intend to acquaint you [he said] that I have been informed of a design against my person by the Jesuits, of which I shall forbear any opinion, lest I may seem to say too much or too little; but I will leave the matter to the law, and in the meantime will take as much care as I can to prevent all manner of practices by that sort of men.2

The lord chancellor was similarly unemphatic. Like the king, he made no mention of the Godfrey murder; and he essentially re99

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peated what Charles had said about the plot—that the government would keep an eye on papists and that criminal investigations would proceed with judicial caution.3 To a Parliament anxious to hear of arrests, searches, fire wardens, trained bands, and other countermeasures against popish subversion, the speeches sounded curiously detached. Instead of a plan of battle, the Lords and Commons had been given a prescription for legal restraint. The king’s allies in the House of Commons were equally unimpressive. ‘‘Many of the country gentlemen,’’ Sir Robert Southwell wrote the day after the opening session, ‘‘were much scandalized to see none of the other side [the Court M.P.s] speak a word, but all the agitation of this matter [the plot] left to them, though it concerned the king’s security.’’4 If Charles and his chancellor with their talk of leaving the plot to the law hoped to avoid a full-scale parliamentary investigation, they were soon undeceived. In the opening session, the Commons did not bother to thank the king for his speech or discuss his plea for money. After dispatching the organizational business of the House, they appointed two committees on the plot. The first, charged with ‘‘providing remedies for the better preservation and safety of the King,’’ was a committee for removing papists from the royal palaces, the army, the environs of London, and the House of Lords. The second, assigned to deal with the plot and the murder of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey, was a committee to insure a full investigation of the Oates story.5 The Lords spent more time with the amenities; they asked that the speeches of the king and the chancellor be printed,6 and they agreed to take the king’s speech under consideration. Like the Commons, however, the Lords intended to investigate the plot for themselves. They had not yet appointed a committee for the purpose, but they immediately presented an address to the king asking him to send them any relevant papers.7 Though no one said so aloud, the plot was clearly too important to be left to the king and his ministers. In theory the king could refuse to share secret documents with the Lords and Commons; in fact, he could not. Charles was far too wise to appear to obstruct a full and free inquiry. Having been cast by Titus Oates in the role of Defender of the Faith, he would play the part as if he had earned it. He would turn over to the Lords, and later to the Commons, the bales of letters that had been seized from Jesuit suspects; he would let parliamentary committees see for themselves how little evidence of an assassination plot the correspondence actually contained.8 And since it could not be helped,

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Charles would hand over Coleman’s letters as well and trust his friends in Parliament to protect him and the duke against what he would interpret as the machinations of a popish fanatic. Charles and his government were as little able to control Titus Oates as they were to control documents. Transformed from a renegade cleric to England’s oracle, Oates was summoned on 23 October to appear before the House of Commons. In the three weeks since his performances before the Privy Council, Oates had learned or ‘‘remembered’’ a great deal. In testimony before the Commons, and later before the Lords, he repaired some of the defects in his narrative. Providing a command structure for his twenty thousand papists in buckram, as well as a post-assassination government for England, he now alleged that he had seen, or delivered himself, patents and military commissions from the pope’s agent to five Catholic Lords—Belasyse, Stafford, Petre, Powys, and Arundell of Wardour. He named leaders for the projected rising in Ireland and provided an army of twenty-five thousand French soldiers to assure its success.9 Taking advantage of the furor over the Coleman letters, Oates named Edward Coleman secretary of state in the shadow government. Coleman, he now remembered, had paid four Irishmen to murder the king at Windsor. To Sir George Wakeman (assigned to poison the king) Oates gave the post of ‘‘physician to the army.’’10 Coleman was already in Newgate, and after Oates’s amended testimony, Wakeman was sent to join him.11 The new charges brought the arrest and imprisonment of the five Catholic Lords—and a cruel problem for the king. Charles himself thought the charges absurd. Most of the accused Lords seemed hopelessly miscast as military leaders, and none had fled the country.12 But Charles’s Parliament, his judges, and his subjects thought passionately otherwise, and the king would have been mad to pardon the suspects and dismiss the charges.13 It was not a time to question publicly the reality of the plot; it was a time to wall up gates leading into St. James’s Park, to look for explosives in the cellars under Parliament, and to search Catholic hearses for concealed arms. It was a time to make arrests. But when the king’s government, acting upon Oates’s charges, made arrests, it found itself frustrated by lack of evidence. Crown officers could fill the jails on the sworn testimony of one informer, but the courts could not try a conspirator, much less hang one, without corroboration. As the days went by and not one of the men accused by Oates came to trial, the public became impatient, and the Opposition in Parliament, always suspicious, became nasty. The government was further handicapped by the sheer weight of

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rumors and accusations. While it struggled to find evidence against the suspects denounced by Oates, it found itself deluged with reports of suspicious persons. The government was harassed too by Oates’s imaginary armies. Since Oates had given the papists an easily raised force of twenty thousand Englishmen, along with Irish and French allies, it was only natural that strange bands of night riders should be reported from various parts of the country. On 12 November Secretary of State Coventry instructed the lord lieutenant of Wiltshire to assign militia to guard bridges in his area against small parties of ‘‘armed horse and foot’’ that had been seen there ‘‘almost every night between twelve and two.’’14 And on the night of 9–10 December, a whole army of invaders was descried on the Isle of Purbeck—a host which vanished before the hastily assembled ‘‘men of Dorset’’ could deal with it.15 If the Parliament and the people had trusted the royal government, they might have taken comfort in the king’s army. As it was, the undisbanded regiments increased the anxieties of their countrymen. The king’s men, the Opposition feared, were more likely to suppress Parliament than to guard the country against popish invaders. The ultimate problem was to get the regiments disbanded; the immediate problem was to keep them as far away from London as possible—to make sure that Parliament was guarded by the trained bands of London and Westminster.16 The final and most serious handicap suffered by the king’s government was simply James, duke of York. The elaborate lies of Titus Oates and the shocking revelations of Edward Coleman produced, on 1 November 1678, a joint and unanimous declaration of the Lords and Commons ‘‘that there hath been, and still is, a damnable and hellish plot contrived and carried on by the popish recusants for the assassinating and murdering the king and for subverting the government and rooting out and destroying the Protestant religion.’’17 This conclusion inevitably made the Parliament, and the nation, ask a question they had been resolutely avoiding for the past five years: Could they really trust James—or any other Catholic—with the vast powers of the English Crown? Could England risk a popish succession? The threat of assassination awoke Englishmen to the obvious fact that James was only a pistol shot from the throne. The popish succession, once a dim theoretical possibility, now seemed a lively danger. And even if James himself was innocent of the conspiracy, as Titus Oates reiterated before the House of Lords on 30 October,18 his coreligionists had a great deal to gain by the assassination of Charles. The plot, in fact, only made sense because there

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was a popish heir to the throne. Parliament was now obliged to ask itself whether James should be removed from the Court and government counsels, and perhaps even excluded from the succession. By early November 1678 the weakness in the government’s position had become obvious to two very astute politicians: Charles II and the earl of Shaftesbury. Both clearly perceived that Danby could neither control the plot nor protect the duke of York from anti-Catholic hysteria. Acting upon this perception, Charles set about devising expedients for reducing the danger to his brother. Shaftesbury, on the other hand, threw himself into the congenial task of exploiting the government’s liabilities. In doing so, he helped to transform his Country associates, including the now thirty-year-old Tom Wharton, into genuine Whigs; that is to say, Exclusionists. The question of what to do about the duke of York, which would preoccupy the three succeeding Parliaments, received its preliminary treatment in the Commons on Monday, 4 November 1678. On the preceding Saturday evening, Shaftesbury had introduced in the House of Lords a motion that James should be removed from the king’s presence and councils. The motion did not come to a vote, but the support it received in the debate convinced Charles that a similar motion might pass in the Commons. On Sunday, therefore, he asked James to withdraw ‘‘voluntarily’’ from all government councils and committees, including the Privy Council and the Admiralty;19 and on Monday morning it was announced that James had agreed to do so. The king’s halfway measures did not prevent a motion and a debate in the Commons. William Russell (who now bore the courtesy title of Lord Russell) proposed that Charles should be asked to remove the duke from his ‘‘person’’ as well as his ‘‘council’’;20 and the House launched itself into what Sir Thomas Clarges called ‘‘the greatest debate that ever was in Parliament.’’21 Strictly speaking, the arguments were not about excluding James from the throne; in fact, the word exclusion was not uttered. Ostensibly, the question was whether or not to remove James temporarily from Westminster, Whitehall, and St. James’s until all three were thoroughly decontaminated. It was difficult to advocate removal, however, without implying arguments for exclusion; and before the day was over, many of the positions that would be taken during the next two and a half years had been staked out. For Tom Wharton and his friends, represented in the debates by Russell, Thomas Bennett, Lord Cavendish, Sir Thomas Clarges, Sir Nicholas Carew, Henry Powle, Sir Thomas Meres, and William Sa-

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cheverell, the issues were relatively simple.22 The duke was obviously the cause of popish conspiracies; and whatever his personal virtues, he was also a chronic obstruction to wholesome legislation. If the Commons seriously wanted to remove the centers of popish infection, they should start by removing the duke and his entourage from St. James’s and Whitehall. The principal speakers for the Court party—Sir Henry Coventry, Sir Joseph Williamson, Sir Francis Winnington, Laurence Hyde, Daniel Finch, Sir John Ernle, Sir George Downing, and Sir Philip Warwick—professed themselves as anxious as their opponents to reduce the dangers of popery. But they could not agree to the proposed remedy. They were outraged at the mere suggestion of separating the royal brothers. To remove the duke from the king’s official counsels was reasonable, they reluctantly agreed; to banish him from his brother’s presence was both unnatural and dangerous. An insulted and angered duke at the head of a foreign army, Sir John Ernle argued,23 was much more formidable than a placid duke living quietly under his brother’s eye. The remedy for the crisis was not to separate the two sons of the martyred Charles I; it was to construct laws that would make Catholics powerless. In the arguments of 4 November the word limitations was not used. When secretaries Coventry and Williamson spoke of making effective laws against popery, they did not suggest reducing the powers of the Crown. But to many M.P.s, with phrases from Coleman’s letters still ringing in their ears, the problem was not merely to disinfect London and the government but to prevent the duke from overturning the Protestant establishment. We must make ‘‘such laws,’’ Sir Henry Capel said, ‘‘that should the Duke be King, it might not be in his power to prejudice the Protestant religion.’’24 Although it was obvious enough that to render the laws against popery king-proof would require some restrictions on the powers of the Crown—some ‘‘limitations’’—no one specifically said so. Nor did anyone argue in so many words that the surest way of making James powerless against Protestantism was to bar him from the succession. This argument, nevertheless, was unmistakably implied in a question by William Sacheverell: ‘‘I would have the gentlemen of the long robe tell me . . . whether the King and the Parliament may not dispose of the succession to the Crown and whether it be not praemunire to say the contrary.’’25 None of the legal experts of the House attempted to answer Sacheverell’s question. Neither the Court party nor the Opposition was ready to launch an all-out war on the issue of exclusion. The debate, nevertheless, convinced Charles that he must act quickly to

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forestall an exclusion bill, backed perhaps by London mobs.26 Forced to choose between evils, he opted for limitations. He decided, in his own language, to ‘‘pare the nails’’ of any popish successor. On 9 November he announced his decision to the assembled Lords and Commons: I am come to assure you [he said] that whatsoever reasonable bills you shall present to be passed into laws to make you safe in the reign of my successor, so as they tend not to impeach the right of succession nor the descent of the Crown in the true line and so as they restrain not my power nor the just rights of any Protestant successor, shall find from me a ready concurrence.27

This speech did not cheer Opposition M.P.s. They perceived at once that Charles was trying to interdict any movement towards exclusion. His offer implied that a papist could succeed to the Crown. They also saw that the concept of restraints on a popish king was full of legal complications. Sacheverell called it ‘‘a rattle to keep us quiet.’’28 Among other things, it involved a legal definition of Catholicism and Protestantism, and it obviously raised the questions of whether a monarch who failed to observe his limitations could be resisted by his subjects. The brief debate of 9 November, like the encounter of 4 November, was inconclusive. The two indecisive skirmishes, however, marked what might be called the second stage in the political career of Tom Wharton. These debates began defining the issue— exclusion versus limitations—that would produce the next series of constitutional battles. They served as a prelude to the famous Exclusion Crisis, which would label Tom forever as an Exclusionist. On 10 November, the Commons heard testimony from an informer almost as inventive as Titus Oates. This was one William Bedloe, who alleged that he had information about the murder of Godfrey, as well as direct evidence concerning the plot. Unlike Oates, Bedloe did not pretend to virtue. Now twenty-eight, he had spent much of his adult life as a confidence man. It was his great talent as a ‘‘rogue,’’ he explained to the Commons, which had enabled him to learn the secrets of the plotters. The Jesuits, who had converted him to popery two years before, had entrusted him with information about their deadly schemes. Most recently, two Jesuits had offered him four thousand pounds to help with the murder of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey—an act which they then performed themselves at Somerset House (a residence of the queen of England). The Jesuits had allowed Bedloe to see Godfrey’s corpse and

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asked him to help remove it from Somerset House—only to change their minds once more and remove it themselves. Godfrey had been seized and murdered on the orders of Lord Belasyse, the Jesuits told Bedloe, in what turned out to be the vain hope of extorting from him Oates’s original depositions. Bedloe had reduced his information to writing, and he read his intricate delations to the Commons.29 In addition to the Jesuit plotters, Edward Coleman, and the five Lords named by Oates, Bedloe said, there was a band of popish conspirators in Worcester and Wales; there was an indigenous army of forty thousand Catholics (not the mere twenty thousand that Oates had been told about); and besides the French and Irish troops of the Oates version, there was a force of some twenty to thirty thousand Spaniards who intended to land at Milford Haven.30 The appearance of Bedloe was almost as welcome to the government as it was to the Opposition, whose beliefs he confirmed. To the government, paralyzed by lack of evidence, suspected of collusion with the papists, and anxious to get Coleman safely hanged, Bedloe brought a significant measure of relief. As well as providing what seemed to be the first information in the Godfrey case, Bedloe became the all-important second witness demanded by the laws of England for the conviction of conspirators. Now, Attorney General Sir William Jones and the redoubtable Chief Justice Scroggs could proceed against Coleman and some of the clerical suspects denounced by Oates. The season of trials and executions could begin. The government was also aided by the king’s concessions. Understanding perfectly well that he must not oppose the ‘‘torrent,’’ Charles acceded at once to the joint address of the Houses for banishing papists ten miles from London, including the papists in Whitehall, St. James’s, and Somerset House.31 These concessions and the eagerness of the royal judges to prosecute popish suspects enabled Charles to retain his popularity. At the heart of the Commons’ attempt to end popish political influence was the bill to exclude Catholics from both houses of Parliament.32 By making the Lords and Commons take the oaths of allegiance and (royal) supremacy and renounce, under oath, the doctrine of transubstantiation, the Opposition intended not only to remove from Parliament all papists and crypto-papists but also to give the duke of York the option of taking the oaths or accepting dismissal from the Lords, while defining himself even more unmistakably as a Catholic—something that had not been officially admitted.33 The bill for ‘‘disabling Papists’’ evoked little enthusiasm in the

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Lords, who were suspicious of any measure that abrogated hereditary privileges. The Peers delayed acting on the bill until repeated reminders by the Commons, along with the fear that further stalling might bring out a London mob, induced them to pass it—with a proviso. On 20 November at the tearful insistence of the duke of York, who said that his conscience would not allow him to take the oaths but denied that he could ever be a threat to the Church of England, the Lords added a clause exempting the duke from the provisions of the bill and returned the amended bill to the Commons.34 In the debates over the proviso, the arguments were less impressive than the emotional tone; the words were less compelling than the music. Underlying the proto-Tory speeches lay a stunned refusal to believe that James could truly threaten the establishment. The duke’s friends saw him as an English gentleman who had contracted (probably from his French mother) an unfortunate, but virtually noncommunicable, foreign disease. His religion was a private malady which he would not dream of inflicting upon anyone else— much less the nation.35 Meantime, there was always hope that he might be cured. With the fervency of Tory faith, the speakers intoned their belief that James, in spite of his aberration, should be treated with reverence. From the Opposition, several of whom shouted ‘‘the Coleman letters,’’ the music was harsh and grating. The stubborn refusal of the Court party to recognize the picture painted by the Coleman letters (the portrait of a dull zealot in the hands of bright zealots) frustrated Country spokesmen. The snappish tone of their speeches suggested that they were explaining obvious truths to idiots. Tom and his friends were considerably more frustrated by the voting. Danby’s forces, probably aided by extensive bribery, won a narrow victory, 158–156.36 The defeat was especially bitter because it was unexpected and because it showed the strength of basic Tory sentiment. Good Royalists could not really vote against James; they could always put off the evil day of decision a little longer. The defeat also showed that Danby, whom the Opposition had hoped to detach from the duke, had at last decided to support him. Danby could attack popery in general and Jesuits in particular, but he could not alienate the king and provoke instant dismissal by countenancing attacks upon the duke. The passage of the parliamentary Test Act had an unexpected side effect where the Whartons were concerned. For a day or two, the act threatened to exclude Lord Wharton along with the Catholic Peers. On 2 December when he took the oaths, Lord Wharton did

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not kiss the Bible as the ceremony prescribed. Kissing, as he later explained to his colleagues (citing several biblical texts), was a sign of worship; and he did not worship the Bible. He worshiped ‘‘nothing but God.’’37 When his fellow Lords noted his failure to complete the ceremony ‘‘in due form,’’ they removed him from the list of qualified Peers;38 they gave him his choice of kissing the Bible or leaving Parliament. Typically Lord Wharton, after consulting several judges, discovered a saving distinction. It was possible to consider the ceremony ‘‘a civil attestation to the taking of an oath’’ rather than a religious ritual. If he made it clear to his colleagues, and especially to the bishops, by ‘‘a solemn declaration,’’ that he did not worship the book, he could kiss the Bible with a clear conscience. After meditating on the subject, he appeared before the Lords, explained his views, made his solemn declaration, kissed the Bible, and received permission to resume his seat in the House.39 The episode brought a witty comment from Shaftesbury, who said he hoped kissing was not idolatry, ‘‘for if ’t were then they must forbear kissing their wives.’’40 Meanwhile, on 24 November the plot’s star witness Titus Oates made his first serious error. Under the mistaken impression that Charles wished to rid himself of his barren queen, Oates accused Catherine of complicity in the plot. In testimony before the king and Council, he remembered overhearing a conversation at Somerset House in which a lady whom he took to be Catherine agreed to ‘‘assist in poisoning of the King and propagating of the Catholic faith.’’41 Oates later repeated his accusations before the Commons and the Lords; and he was supported by Bedloe, who remembered another consultation at Somerset House—this one attended by Belasyse, Coleman, and two French abbots. Bedloe did not allege that he had been present at the consultation or had actually heard the queen consent to her husband’s murder. He had waited, he said, in a chapel below the gallery where the conversations took place, and he had been told of her consent by Coleman a few moments after it was wrung from her by ‘‘two French Fathers.’’42 When Oates learned that he had misjudged the king’s feelings— that Charles was outraged rather than pleased with the accusations—he could not retreat. He had not become England’s number one informer by retracting stories. He and Bedloe stuck resolutely to their testimony. In the Commons, where few men knew the queen personally, the two men were so persuasive that a motion for an address to remove the queen from Whitehall was readily carried.

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It remained for the Lords, many of whom knew Catherine, to defend the queen against what seemed impossible charges and to defeat the motion by a large majority.43 As now-practiced informers who had learned the value of escape routes, both men had left themselves a margin for error. In the jargon of the time, neither man had sworn ‘‘home’’ against the queen. It was possible that the crafty papists at Somerset House had lied to Oates about the identity of the lady there (just as the Spanish Jesuits had deceived him by misdescribing Don Juan) and that Bedloe’s informants had been equally misleading. It was possible, therefore, for the Lords to find the testimony of the two men ‘‘short and defective’’ without charging them with perjury. The contretemps was nevertheless disquieting. And the performance of the two informers at the trial of Edward Coleman, on 27 November, did nothing to enhance their reputations.44 Oates was obliged to explain the fact that he had not recognized Coleman at their confrontation before the Council on 30 September. His excuses were not entirely convincing, especially since he now alleged that he had carried a letter from Coleman to La Chaise and that in August he had seen Coleman hand over money to the Irish thugs who were to kill the king at Windsor. (His explanation of why he had not warned the king about Coleman’s hirelings was also less than brilliant.)45 Bedloe was equally unimpressive. Like Oates, he swore ‘‘home’’ against Coleman, but the story of his encounter with Coleman seemed melodramatic, even to Chief Justice Scroggs. Both witnesses needed the help of the Crown prosecutors, and both obviously profited from the fact that defendants in treason trials were not allowed defense counsel. The stumbling of Oates and Bedloe did not prevent the Crown from obtaining an easy conviction. The prosecution produced the letters seized from Coleman, including the fateful letters to La Chaise, which (in the words of Attorney General Sir William Jones) were ‘‘as good as a hundred witnesses to convict him.’’ The fact that Coleman had solicited money from the French king to dissolve an English parliament with the ultimate aim of rooting out Protestantism could not be explained away. The jury brought in a guilty verdict in less than fifteen minutes. In one respect, the conviction of Coleman was too easy to suit the Opposition. Scroggs, Jones, and their associates obtained it with a minimum of damage to the duke of York. Working from the basic Court position that Coleman was a popish fanatic in business for himself, Crown prosecutors soft-pedaled the official connections

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between Coleman and James; and they emphasized James’s denial that he had authorized any correspondence with La Chaise.46 Coleman seemed as anxious as Scroggs to protect his former master. Instead of pleading that he was a secretary following orders, Coleman admitted that he might sometimes have exceeded his authority and that he had sometimes received French money to bribe M.P.s.47 He only denied that what he had written was treasonous. He believed, he said, that if James came to power, Catholicism could be established peacefully—a position that Scroggs dismissed with contempt. Only moral or mental defectives, he thundered, could leave the Anglican Church and embrace bloody popish superstition. Six days later, on 3 December 1678, Coleman was hanged, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn. He had done the cause of Catholic toleration in England deadly harm; but he had not done everything the Opposition had hoped. He had sturdily denied any knowledge of an assassination plot, and he had not implicated anyone else. For the moment the government could take a deep breath.48 The cumulative frustrations of the Commons resulted, on 2 December, in what amounted to a general censure of Danby’s administration and of royal policy. The House resolved without serious opposition to address the king on ‘‘the present state and dangers of the nation’’; and it agreed, with little debate and only one division, that the dangers arose from bad counsels and maladministration.49 This barrage of criticism was followed on 5 December by another demonstration of mistrust. The government had already obtained grand jury indictments against the five Lords accused by Oates and Bedloe; and Crown prosecutors expected to bring the cases to trial before the House of Lords within a week or two. But the Opposition, aware of the king’s skepticism, feared that the government would present a defective case. The Commons decided, therefore, to proceed by impeachment—a process in which criminal charges are brought by the Commons and argued before the Lords by M.P.s. They ordered articles of impeachment against Arundell, Powys, Petre, Stafford, and Belasyse to be drawn up and carried to the House of Lords.50 The Commons’ decision to impeach the five Lords probably saved the lives of Belasyse, Arundell, and Powys. The change of procedures involved delays—delays which stretched into years as other crises, including dissolutions of parliaments, intervened to postpone the trials. Had the Lords been tried during the anti-popish fury of early December 1678, even brave Peers might have hesitated to acquit their ex-colleagues, whatever the state of the evidence. As matters worked out, only Stafford was brought to trial. In

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December 1680, he was convicted of treason and executed. Petre died in the Tower three years later. The other Lords were finally released during the Tory reaction.51 After the Commons agreed to impeach the popish Lords, there was a brief lull in hostilities. The king had agreed to disband his troops as soon as Parliament raised the money to pay them off; and after the alarms of early December, the House began working on a bill for that purpose. The prospect of being rid of the army cheered the Opposition immensely, and some Opposition members were further cheered by bribes from Barrillon, who had been working throughout the session to see that the king’s regiments were finally dispersed.52 On 11 December the ‘‘Bill for granting a supply to His Majesty for disbanding the forces’’ received its first reading. Meantime, many members had taken advantage of the undeclared truce to give themselves an unofficial vacation. The Commons, anxious to secure a large attendance for possible skirmishes with the Lords, warned the delinquents that the House would be called over on 18 December and that any absentees would be sent for in the custody of the sergeant at arms. Immediately (on 11 December), the House ordered that fourteen of its absent members, beginning with ‘‘Thomas Wharton,’’ should be brought back at once.53 If Tom had been asked, he might have declined the honor of being the first man summoned out of perhaps three hundred absentees and the first man named among such prominent members as Henry Booth, Sir Eliab Harvey, Sergeant Edward Rigby, and Sir William Coventry;54 but the House nevertheless did him a great favor when it ordered him back to the service of the Commons. The summons meant that he would be on hand for the most momentous episode in a session full of vital episodes. He would see Lord Treasurer Danby blown out of the political waters. Danby had taken the first step towards the Tower when he had lent himself to one of the king’s secret schemes for prying money out of Louis XIV.55 On 25 March 1678, less than a week after Parliament had voted money for an ‘‘actual war’’ with France, he had written a letter in the king’s name to Ralph Montagu, the English ambassador, offering to support some of the French peace proposals at Nijmegen in return for eighteen million livres (about one and half million pounds)—three yearly payments at the rate of six million livres per year. With Louis’s money, Charles could live without his anti-French Commons for ‘‘two or three years.’’ Naturally, Danby concluded, this offer must be kept secret from everyone, including Secretary of State Sir Henry Coventry. Having placed himself and the king’s secrets in the hands of

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Ralph Montagu, Danby took his second step towards the Tower when he refused to make Montagu a secretary of state and removed him from the king’s service. The aggrieved Montagu joined Danby’s other enemies. Secretly aided by Barrillon, who provided him with fifteen hundred pounds,56 he secured a seat in the Commons and thus acquired parliamentary immunity from arrest. By midDecember (about the time Tom Wharton was returning to duty) Montagu was ready to hand over Danby’s inflammatory letters to the House.57 When the House committee assigned to bring the papers from their hiding place returned with the crucial letters and the Speaker read them to the House, Danby’s career as lord treasurer was ended. The Commons might ultimately have forgiven the offer to sell peace terms to the French; but no freely elected House could forgive the offer to sell parliaments. The king, Danby had written (and the Speaker now read), ‘‘expects to have six millions of livres yearly for three years from the time that this agreement shall be signed betwixt his Majesty and the King of France; because it will be two or three years before he can hope to find his Parliament in humour to give him supplies after the having made any peace with France.’’58 Even Solicitor-General Sir Francis Winnington supported a motion for impeachment. ‘‘If you have the power of declaratory treason,’’ he said, ‘‘and do not declare this to be treason, you will declare nothing.’’ Before the House adjourned, it resolved by a vote of 179–116 that there ‘‘was matter of impeachment against the Lord Treasurer’’ and it appointed a committee to draw up the articles. The fiction that the king can do no wrong and the fact that Danby was actually following orders from Charles in soliciting French money gave an odd structure to the articles of impeachment and to the debates in the crucial session of 21 December 1678.59 The majority in the House pretended to believe that Charles could not have been depraved enough to solicit massive bribes from Louis; and the first article of impeachment charged that Danby had ‘‘traitorously usurped regal powers’’ in giving secret instructions to Montagu and hiding them from the secretaries of state. Danby’s supporters were not a little graveled in having tacitly to concede that Charles was indeed depraved enough to become a ‘‘pensioner’’ of Louis, but they tried valiantly to maintain that Charles could extort eighteen million livres from Louis without compromising English or confederate interests. It was no use. The remnants of the Court party were beaten so soundly on motions dealing with the first article that they did not

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call for a vote on the articles which charged Danby, in effect, with attempting to make the king absolute—able to dispense with Parliament. They did venture to challenge the charge that Danby was ‘‘popishly affected’’ and had tried to smother the plot, but here again they were decisively outvoted. In the end, the House voted six articles of impeachment against Danby and asked that he should be ‘‘sequestered from Parliament and committed to safe custody.’’ It is not clear whether Tom Wharton played any significant part in the momentous proceedings beyond voting with the majority. A ‘‘Mr. Wharton,’’ along with ‘‘Lord Ashley’’ (Shaftesbury’s son Anthony), was a teller for the Yeas on the charge that Danby had tried to stifle the plot, and there would have been a certain symmetry in appointing the sons of the two most pertinacious Opposition Lords to count votes on the only false and obviously partisan charge against Danby; but the Wharton in question may well have been Michael [Warton], who had earlier carried the impeachment against Arundell of Wardour to the Lords.60 The impeachment proceedings, however, marked a turning point in the career of Tom Wharton and in the political development of the nation. They brought about the end of the king’s Long Parliament and set the stage for three famous Exclusion Parliaments. They also showed the power of a determined House of Commons in a context of anti-popish hysteria. The House of Lords, anxious to protect the king, might have acquitted Danby if the impeachment case had actually come to trial. But the sympathy of the Upper House could not disguise the fact that Danby had become a political liability. The government could never again raise money from the Commons if Danby remained as lord treasurer. In their bill to pay off the troops, the Commons insisted that the money must be handled by the City of London—not the king’s Exchequer.61 It was now perfectly obvious that however the king might strive to protect his favorite minister, Danby could no longer lead a government. It was also true that Charles could not allow Danby to be tried by the Lords. Danby’s negotiation with Louis had been unsuccessful, but Charles himself had actually signed secret treaties (most recently the treaty of 17/27 May 1678) and sold prorogations. An impeachment trial would bring some of these embarrassments to light.62 Barrillon, in fact, had already leaked the details of the king’s last treaty to Montagu and Algernon Sidney;63 and he could have revealed that as recently as early December Charles had pleaded with Louis to finance still another prorogation.64 Under these circumstances, Charles bought himself and his lord treasurer a few weeks’ time by proroguing Parliament. In an atmo-

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sphere of continuing alarms and revelations, including a confession by one Miles Prance to the murder of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey and the appearance of another witness, Stephen Dugdale, to the treason of Lord Stafford, the two leaders at length decided to play their last card. They would dissolve their irrevocably lost House of Commons and see whether new elections—the first general election in eighteen years—would produce a manageable body.65 This decision, announced on 24 January 1679, soon proved to be a mistake. England was now living in the world of the Popish Plot, not the world of the Restoration. The new world belonged, at least for a time, to Shaftesbury and allies like the Whartons. To Tom the elections meant that he would be returning to Parliament as an ‘‘old worthy’’ member of an Exclusionist majority and as knight of the shire for Bucks. He was about to advance a few rungs on the political ladder.

11 Misadventures THE DATE 15 MAY 1679 WAS A MEMORABLE ONE IN ENGLISH POLITICS and in the life of Tom Wharton. At Westminster, a ‘‘thin’’ House of Commons, with a solid Country majority, heard the first reading of the first Exclusion Bill (‘‘a Bill to disable the duke of York to inherit the Imperial Crown of this Realm’’) and ordered the bill to be read a second time.1 And at Banstead Downs, where twelve young horsemen, including Tom Wharton and the duke of Monmouth, were contending for three plates (‘‘a plate a heat’’), Tom was thrown from his horse, knocked unconscious, and ‘‘taken up for dead.’’2 Both events were unusually dramatic, of course, and Tom’s fall, which left him ‘‘much battered,’’ very nearly made the day his last one. In some respects, nevertheless, 15 May epitomizes Tom’s life. More and more Tom was defining himself as a competitor; and as a contender both in politics and racing, he experienced what in long retrospect might be called an average day. He lost one contest and won another. The fact that Tom and a clutch of young M.P.s could absent themselves during the first reading of perhaps the most momentous bill of the Restoration era is also significant. It shows the strength and confidence of the Opposition, who had attained such a commanding majority in the Commons that some of their young bloods could go blithely off to the races. Four days earlier, after the House had debated the proposal to bring in a bill of Exclusion, the duke of York’s adherents changed their minds about calling for a vote when they saw how badly outnumbered they were—when they saw the Yeas streaming out into the lobby. Nor did Court M.P.s call for a vote after the first reading on 15 May. Six days later, when they finally ventured a division after the second reading of the Exclusion Bill, they were overwhelmed by a vote of 207–128. Again, the episode at Banstead Downs is significant because it associates Tom Wharton with the duke of Monmouth, who himself ‘‘escaped narrowly’’ from serious injury on the crowded track. 115

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Monmouth, a year younger than Tom, shared Tom’s enthusiasm for horses, and he would one day enter Wharton’s Gelding in a race that would make Tom’s horse internationally famous. Now, on 15 May 1679, the young duke was already becoming a political force—a fatal diversion, as matters turned out, for the Exclusionist cause. The movement to remove his Uncle James from the succession gave him and some of his friends extravagant hopes that he could be the next heir, in spite of the fact that on 3 March King Charles, his father, had made a solemn, sworn declaration that he was never married to any woman except Queen Catherine—a declaration which branded the young man as illegitimate.3 More subtly, the events of 15 May furnish a textbook case of miscalculation and misadventure. Tom’s spill at Banstead Downs was more spectacular, of course, than the mistakes by Charles, James, and Danby that led up to the Exclusion Bill, but it was not more decisive in the contest involved. These errors had begun with the decision to call a new parliament. Even astute politicians like Charles and Danby badly misread the mood of the electorate. They supposed that if the government hanged a few ‘‘plotters’’ (including the alleged murderers of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey), disbanded the few regiments they could afford to pay off, and shuffled a few offices, they could regain public confidence. And if, in addition, Danby offered quietly to resign in return for immunity from prosecution, the nation would rally round the king, who was, after all, the intended victim of the plot. The duke of York agreed with this assessment. Having been taken over the hurdles during the last session, he naturally but wrongly supposed that any House of Commons would be better than the last one.4 The king’s misjudgment was pardonable. There had been no general election since 1661; the more than three hundred special elections to replace deceased or retired M.P.s had been contested, generally, on a local ad hoc basis, and there had been no systematic attempt to remodel corporations. There was little reliable political information and practically no time to acquire any. The dissolution was announced on 24 January, and elections were begun less than two weeks later. Only when the results poured in did it become obvious that Danby’s partisans had been routed. Tom Wharton’s own nomination for the office of knight of the shire for Bucks was virtually accidental. It owed much to what Lord Wharton called ‘‘providences’’ and nothing at all to ‘‘premeditation.’’5 Taken by surprise by the dissolution, Tom and Lord Wharton had not concerted their election strategy with the Hampdens (Tom’s allies at Wendover) or even with each other. Tom was at

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Winchendon and Lord Wharton in London, and on 27 January when Lord Wharton began bustling about town, he had not heard Tom’s plans. One thing was clear enough without consultation. Tom’s political position had materially improved since his election at Wendover in March of 1673. With his marriage to Anne Lee the following September he had acquired, besides a great deal of money and many properties, a half-interest in two manors at Malmesbury. These manors, whose ownership he and his wife now shared with Anne’s sister Eleanora and her husband Lord Norreys (and which Tom and Anne would soon own outright), gave him a considerable influence with the thirteen-man corporation that comprised the borough’s eligible voters.6 This influence did not guarantee a safe seat, but it made the odds favorable. With Malmesbury to fall back upon in case of need, he could leave the Wendover seat (and a second dubious battle with Alderman Edward Blackwell) and venture forth to contest another constituency. While Lord Wharton was waiting to hear from Tom, he busied himself with the elections for Bucks. Here one hopeful strategy was to persuade John Egerton (styled Viscount Brackley) to stand for knight of the shire and thus to enlist the support of his father (also John Egerton), the earl of Bridgwater. Lord Brackley, two years older than Tom, was an attractive candidate, and with the powerful influence of his father, who was lord lieutenant of Bucks, he might not only win a seat for himself but gain a seat for a friend. Although Brackley was not himself a strong partisan, he had popular sympathies, and he might prevent the election of possible Court candidates. Lord Wharton was on his way to Bridgwater’s house at the Barbican to offer his support for young Brackley when he met the marquess of Winchester and heard some surprising news. Lord Brackley had told Winchester that he did not wish to stand for Parliament himself but that his father ‘‘was willing’’ that Tom and Hampden ‘‘might serve for the County.’’ Actually, as Lord Wharton learned when he reached the Barbican, Lord Brackley had overstated or mistaken his father’s support for Tom and Hampden. What the earl of Bridgwater had said, and what he now told Lord Wharton, was that he was willing to see the two men elected if three of his friends did not stand. Lord Wharton had not consulted Tom about standing for Bucks, and he was not sure that he wanted Tom to enter the contest, even if the earl’s friends—Sir Ralph Verney, Sir Anthony Chester, and Charles Cheyne—declined to stand. Vying for election in a rich,

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populous county like Bucks was an arduous and expensive business. There were about four thousand qualified voters in the county, and on election day a large number of these, along with a host of coachmen, grooms, relatives, friends, and miscellaneous hangerson, were sure to appear at Aylesbury. Candidates were expected to furnish food and drink for their supporters, and the prospect of providing meals and drinks for ten to fifteen thousand men was not to be taken lightly even by men as rich as the Whartons. As Lord Wharton left the Barbican, he was inclined to think that Tom should stand for Westmorland, which had only one thousand eligible voters. He hoped, as he told Bridgwater, that he could persuade Lord Brackley to change his mind about standing and that Hampden might stand with him. Naturally, Lord Wharton went immediately to discuss the new state of affairs with Shaftesbury at nearby Thanet House (in Aldersgate Street), and there, by another providence, he found Lord Brackley and Richard Hampden. Young Brackley remained determined not to stand, and he remained enthusiastic over his nominations. Having raised ‘‘by mistake’’ the suggestion that Tom and Hampden should represent the county, ‘‘he was very solicitous to bring it to effect’’; he was also convinced that neither Cheyne nor Chester intended to enter the contest.7 Since his father’s good will, or benevolent neutrality, was essential to success in a Bucks election, Brackley accompanied Lord Wharton back to see Lord Bridgwater once more. With no difficulty and without any mention of political issues, he obtained Bridgwater’s promise to do Tom and Hampden ‘‘no hurt.’’ After Lord Wharton and Brackley discussed their progress with Shaftesbury and Hampden, the four men were cautiously optimistic. The sudden prospect of having Bucks represented by a Wharton and a Hampden, two relentless opponents of the Court, was attractive indeed, and Lord Wharton could not honorably object to any expenses involved. Accordingly, he wrote to his ‘‘Dear Child,’’ explaining the providential turn of events and offering his advice that Tom should stand with Richard Hampden. He asked only that Tom should consult with Sir Thomas Lee, veteran M.P. for Aylesbury, and with the Hampdens before making an irrevocable choice.8 Meanwhile, at Winchendon, Tom had decided to stand for Westmorland and Cockermouth (the latter by way of backup), and he had already sent orders to put the wheels in motion when he received his father’s letter. These orders he countermanded after he had discussed prospects with Sir Thomas Lee and the Hampdens. The omens looked decidedly favorable. Brackley had been right

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about his father’s friends. Chester and Cheyne did not wish to stand; and Sir Ralph Verney likewise declined. Sir Ralph, as he told his son Edmund, much preferred to save his money and support his neighbor Tom Wharton. ‘‘I much desire he [Tom] should be in,’’ Sir Ralph explained, ‘‘for he carried himself very well in the House.’’9 Tom and the Hampdens, Sir Ralph added in another letter, were ‘‘good men that will be faithful to the Country.’’10 With Sir Ralph’s support, the endorsement of Lord Brackley, and the friends that the Whartons, Lees, Hampdens, and Verneys could mobilize, it appeared that there might not be any serious competitors. At the end of the strategy session between Tom and his allies, Tom committed himself to stand for the county, and Richard Hampden agreed that either he or his son John would stand with Tom, while the other would stand at Wendover. Having made his decision, Tom set about soliciting the help of influential freeholders. The Wharton servants were soon riding about the countryside with letters. On 30 January, Edmund Verney received one of Tom’s notes. Sir [Tom wrote], The obligations which I have already received from you and your family are so far from putting me out of countenance that they encourage me making this application to you. Though I think myself of many the most unfit for that service, yet the gentlemen hereabouts have done me the favor to pitch upon me to stand for one of the Knights of the Shire for the County, and I have great reason to hope that you will afford me your assistance in it; which I am sure cannot but be extremely considerable, and as coming from you forever obliging to Your most faithful humble servant T. Wharton11

While Tom’s messenger waited, Edmund penned a reply: Sir, Since you are pleased to undertake the service of our Country, (next to my own father) you may depend upon that little power I have to serve you, which I wish were greater for your sake, knowing you to be perfectly accomplished for such noble employment, and do not doubt but all our Country will have reason to thank you for standing for them in these unquiet times, and I shall for my part be no less than ever Your most faithful and most humble servant Edmund Verney12

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In his reply, Edmund was as much too modest about his ‘‘little power’’ to serve as Tom had been about his own fitness to stand. Wielding the Verney influence, Edmund cut a wide swath in northern Bucks. Within two days he reported that he had ‘‘engaged’’ three prominent gentlemen in the Claydon-Hillesden area; he had talked with ‘‘divers burgesses and others the best men’’ in the town of Buckingham, who had promised their support, and he had sent to other towns in the region, where he also found ready agreement. The lone dissentient was Parson Egerton of Adstock, who objected at first that Tom was ‘‘a Presbyterian.’’ This charge Edmund easily rebutted by pointing out that Tom could ‘‘drink and drab’’ as well as the parson himself.13 Meanwhile, in London, the prospect of an easy election was being marred by two complications, both attributed to the Court. The first was a rumor that the king would rescind the dissolution and recall the Cavalier Parliament. This rumor, Lord Wharton assured Tom, was designed to lull the Opposition into ‘‘slackness’’ in the upcoming elections. Tom was to instruct the Wharton forces in the country to disregard the rumor and ‘‘not to slack in the least.’’14 The second complication—a threat that the election might be moved from Aylesbury to Buckingham—was more serious. The geographical distance from Aylesbury, the county seat, to Buckingham was about sixteen miles, but the political distance was much longer. Aylesbury, the home grounds of the Lees, Whartons, and Hampdens, had a record of opposition to the Court, while Buckingham was more amenable to Court influence.15 The prospect of holding an election in unfriendly territory was sobering in itself, and the implication that the Court intended to fight for the county seats was unsettling. The Whartons did not waver.16 There was a chance, Lord Wharton wrote to Tom, that the transfer could be prevented. The undersheriff, Thomas Barnewell, was then in Aylesbury; and if the matter was ‘‘rightly managed,’’ he might be prevailed upon for twenty guineas, ‘‘or less,’’ to see that the election remained in Aylesbury.17 But whether or not Tom could bribe the under-sheriff, Lord Wharton believed the battle for the county should be continued. With ‘‘very little more charge’’ the Whartons and Hampdens could deploy their forces at Buckingham, which could be reached in a day from most parts of the county; and with the support already promised, the victory should be ‘‘pretty easy.’’18 Tom had anticipated his father’s analysis. He had written from Aylesbury ‘‘to show the necessity’’ of continuing the campaign, and when he conferred with his allies, they agreed with him. The

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Hampdens too remained firm. They decided that young John Hampden should stand for the county and that his father would again represent Wendover. The first problem, of course, was to keep the election at Aylesbury. In this endeavor, the Hampden-Wharton combination had two advantages and one handicap. The Hampdens had gained possession of the official writ which authorized the election. They could choose their own time to deliver the writ to the under-sheriff and thus control to some extent the time of the election. They had the further advantage that Under-Sheriff Thomas Barnewell was an Aylesbury man, who might agree to oblige his powerful and popular neighbors, even without the bribes suggested by Lord Wharton. The obvious hazard was that the high-sheriff, Thomas Edgerley, a partisan of Buckingham, had the power to overrule his subordinate and move the election if he learned about the schedule soon enough. It behooved Tom and the Hampdens, therefore, to delay the official announcement as long as possible. By Saturday, 1 February, Tom and his friends had secured the cooperation of Barnewell; and that afternoon, ‘‘at three or four o’clock, after most people had gone home,’’ it was proclaimed in Aylesbury that the election would be held there on 5 February—the following Wednesday.19 The election was not ‘‘cried’’ in the other market towns until Monday, 3 February, two days before the event. Meantime, the Wharton forces were busy alerting their friends and trying to keep them from giving information to the enemy.20 Apparently they succeeded in keeping the news from the sheriff long enough to prevent him from thwarting their plans. Edgerley appeared at Aylesbury on 5 February, but there, faced by hundreds of freeholders, he did not try to move the election.21 Whether or not a shift from Aylesbury to Buckingham would have seriously threatened a Wharton-Hampden victory, the momentary alarm over the prospect impelled the Whartons to extend their alliances in the county. They and the Hampdens marshaled all their forces for the election. They even secured the attendance of the duke of Buckingham, who wrote to Tom from Cliveden the day before the election: Sir, I thank you with all my heart for giving me this occasion of shewing my kindness both to you and young Mr. Hampden, for whom (though I have not the honor to be acquainted with him) I have a very great esteem, upon the report I hear of his ingenuity and worth. . . . I shall not

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fail to be at Aylesbury tonight, and therefore I hope you will do me the favor to provide a lodging for Your most affectionate and humble servant Buckingham.22

On election day, the Wharton-Hampden supporters turned out in droves—‘‘a vast appearance of gentry and commonality.’’23 The weight of numbers smothered any possible opposition and made a poll unnecessary; Tom and John Hampden were returned without an official contest. What had threatened to become a hot political battle had been transformed into a one-day carnival at the expense of the candidates and a financial windfall for the innkeepers of Aylesbury. One small inn alone dispensed eight hundred bottles of sack, and when the totals for dinners, suppers, and drinks were added up, the owners of the Red Lion and their colleagues reckoned that Tom and his partner had ‘‘entertained’’ fifteen thousand men.24 Tom’s victory, it soon appeared, was only one of many for his party. When the earl of Shaftesbury sat down to calculate the results of the election, preparing his now famous list of ‘‘worthy’’ and ‘‘honorable’’ men as opposed to ‘‘base’’ and ‘‘vile’’ men, he estimated that his worthy friends had roughly a two-to-one advantage over his vile opponents;25 and events were to prove his analysis substantially accurate.26 Shaftesbury had no trouble in classifying ‘‘Thomas Wharton Esq.,’’ now in his sixth year in the Commons, as ow (‘‘old and worthy’’) or in classifying John Hampden, elected for the first time, as nH (‘‘new and honorable’’). The Parliament convened on 6 March, and the House of Commons immediately found itself embroiled in a passionate week-long dispute with the king. Prompted by Danby, Charles refused to accept Sir Edward Seymour as Speaker. Though a lifelong Royalist, Seymour, as Speaker in the Cavalier Parliament, had joined in the general ‘‘heat against popery’’ and quarreled violently with Danby.27 Danby insisted, therefore, that he should not lead the new House, and Charles reluctantly agreed. The king assigned Sir John Ernle to nominate Sir Thomas Meres, a House favorite, as a replacement for Seymour.28 The House rejected the nomination, and the new M.P.s spent their first days listening to speeches on the right of the Commons to choose Speakers. By the time Charles and the Commons, after a short prorogation, agreed upon a Speaker, Sergeant William Gregory, the king had alienated some of his own supporters and increased the number and venom of Danby’s enemies.

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The king’s ‘‘unlucky stumble on the threshold’’ of the new session also helped dissipate the benefits of an important stratagem.29 On 3 March Charles had sent the duke of York abroad. This action, he explained in his opening speech, along with Crown prosecutions for the plot, demonstrated his devotion to the Protestant religion at home and on the Continent.30 At another time, the exile of the duke might have won Charles a fervent vote of thanks. As it was, the king’s gesture disappeared with scarcely a trace in the argument over the Speaker. Concerned with Danby, the enemy at home, the new majority in the Commons could ignore for the moment the enemy who had been sent to Brussels.31 On 18 March Tom Wharton and his colleagues finally met in an official session and proceeded to organize the House. Tom was placed on the huge Committee of Privileges and Elections.32 This body, which examined election petitions and made recommendations on disputed elections, was dominated, like the House itself, by the Opposition. Inevitably, the effect of its deliberations and subsequent House votes was to make the large Opposition majority even larger.33 Meanwhile, Opposition leaders in the Commons moved quickly to consolidate their advantages further. On 20 March they appointed a select Committee of Secrecy to revive the charges against Danby and the five Lords in the Tower and to draw up articles of impeachment;34 and on 21 March they gave new members a briefing on the Popish Plot. They brought Israel Tonge, Titus Oates, and William Bedloe to repeat their now famous stories before the Commons.35 In the new House of Commons there was little chance that Danby could be forgiven for his political errors. And whatever chance there may have been was erased by two royal gaffes. Instead of removing Danby from the royal service as quietly and quickly as possible, Charles tried to load his lord treasurer with wealth and honors—with a patent for a marquessate and a lifetime pension of five thousand pounds per year.36 And as if this were not enough to infuriate the Commons, who thought he deserved to be hanged, Charles granted Danby a pardon for any treasons or crimes he might have committed. This pardon, which no minister dared to approve and which the lord chancellor declined to seal, Charles announced to the assembled Lords and Commons on 22 March. A pardon was really unnecessary, Charles explained, since Danby had merely followed royal orders in his actions and letters, but he had been granted a pardon

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and dismissed from the Royal Court and councils so that Parliament could get on with the problems of government.37 Besides outraging the Opposition, Danby’s pardon raised a constitutional question which the Commons could not ignore. Could the king legally pardon a minister impeached for treason before the man was tried? If he could, parliaments could never bring a clever traitor to justice, since the guile that enabled a minister to set the king on treasonous courses would also enable him to secure a pardon. In the present case, the king’s defense of an indefensible offer to sell parliaments to Louis XIV showed how badly he had been misled and how necessary it was to establish once for all the principle that no royal pardon could ‘‘pass in bar of an impeachment.’’38 On 15 April, after many legal maneuvers, Danby surrendered and was sent to the Tower—and at once precipitated another series of disputes. Though declaring himself anxious to vindicate his innocence in an actual trial for treason, he elected, upon advice of counsel (and upon the secret orders of the king), to plead the king’s pardon. He demanded, in other words, a trial on the legality of his pardon before standing trial on his alleged offenses. The House of Lords, the supreme judicial authority, would decide both cases—the legality of the pardon and the validity of the treason charges; but there was a significant difference in the composition of the court in the two cases. In a trial for treason, which potentially involved ‘‘blood,’’ the twenty-four bishops could not vote. They could vote, however, in non-capital cases and in matters of legal jurisdiction; and in the present case, they claimed the right to vote on the legality of Danby’s pardon. Since no one seriously doubted that the great majority of bishops would stand by the king and Danby, the claim touched off furious arguments in both houses. The Opposition Lords and a huge majority in the Commons contended that the pardon, irregularly produced, was transparently illegal and that Danby’s plea should be dismissed out of hand. They argued further that if the legality of the pardon was to be adjudicated seriously, the Lords should consider the matter as preliminary to the issue of impeachment—a part, that is, of a capital case—and that historically the bishops had been excluded from voting on such issues. Danby’s counsel and partisans asserted, on the contrary, that in treason trials bishops had been prevented from voting only on final verdicts, not on preliminary issues; and they held, in any event, that the pardon issue was a separate legal matter—a question of the king’s prerogative powers. In spite of the arguments of Shaftesbury and Lord Wharton, the Lords resolved on 13 May that ‘‘the Lords Spiritual have a right to

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stay in court in capital cases till such time as judgment of death comes to be pronounced.’’39 This resolution, passed by a combination of bishops and temporal Peers, obviously boded ill for the Commons’ case against Danby (and ultimately for any Exclusion Bill that reached the House of Lords). It hardened the Commons in their determination to force their views upon the Peers. There would be no appropriation for the king’s navy or the king’s government until Danby was brought to book. The Commons’ stony insistence that the bishops should be removed before the pardon was tried and their refusal to proceed against the five popish Lords until Danby had faced a trial for treason once more postponed the trial of the Lords.40 Also, of course, it kept Danby in the Tower. There, to the grudging satisfaction of his opponents and the secret relief of the king, Danby would remain for the next five years awaiting a trial that never came—or a release on bail that the king could not grant without raising a storm. For Tom Wharton, a determined member of the Opposition, the intricate maneuvers in the Danby case furnished valuable lessons in law and parliamentary tactics. These were part of a thorough political education that many years later would enable Richard Steele to praise Tom, then earl of Wharton, for his versatility. ‘‘It is Your Lordship’s particular distinction,’’ Steele wrote, ‘‘that you are master of the whole compass of business and have signalized yourself in all the different scenes of it.’’41 More specifically the fiery legal contest helped prepare Tom for a famous battle in 1701 which found him in the House of Lords opposing an outraged Tory House of Commons that sent his Aylesbury clients to Newgate and threatened to send his lawyers along with them.42 King Charles had injured his cause by his maladroit attempts to protect his lord treasurer, but during a session which he found generally unpleasant, he countered with two important measures. On 21 April he remodeled his Privy Council, reducing the number of members to about thirty, removing some of Danby’s adherents,43 and adding a number of Opposition members, including Halifax and Shaftesbury (who served as lord president); and on 30 April he offered a scheme of limitations, designed, as he and his lord chancellor said, to protect the nation against a popish successor. The much discussed attempt, sponsored by Sir William Temple,44 to create a small, efficient, and non-partisan Council had little permanent effect upon government administration. As a temporary political expedient, however, the remodeling had considerable success. By co-opting Opposition critics like Halifax and Shaftesbury into his official coterie of advisors, Charles gave the appear-

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ance of conciliation and flexibility; he also created nervousness among rank-and-file members of the Country party, who feared that their leaders might have been bought by the Court. The king’s proposals for limitations also achieved a measure of success as a diversion. They spelled out in some detail what was only generally suggested in the previous session. They would make it impossible, the lord chancellor declared, for a popish successor ‘‘to make any change in church or state.’’45 In theory, at least, the royal plan placed a popish king under the supervision of parliament. He could make no appointments at all in the Church, and he could make no appointments in the military, the administration, or the judiciary without the approval of parliament. The limitations proposal caused some division in the Country ranks. Though strongly opposed by Shaftesbury and most of his friends, it was supported by Halifax, Essex, Powle, Cavendish, and Sir Henry Capel (all members of the new Privy Council); and for a few days it appeared to have a chance to sway the Commons. In the end, however, distrust prevailed. The perception remained that the king’s offer was another royal gambit—a ruse to get the Commons to acknowledge James’s right to the Crown.46 After some heated debates, the Commons rejected the king’s proposals. The majority remained committed to exclusion. In a sense, it was the success of the Exclusionists that led to their ultimate frustration. After their convincing victory in the Commons at the second reading of the Exclusion Bill on 21 May, the king could not doubt that the bill would pass its third and final reading or that pressure for approval of the measure would be brought upon the House of Lords by the citizens of London. Nor could the king doubt that his friends would be further attacked. The House of Commons had begun an investigation of Crown payments to M.P.s in the Cavalier Parliament. On 23 May, a preliminary report was pried out of Sir Stephen Fox, who had once managed the ‘‘Secret Service’’ accounts. ‘‘Menaced with ruin,’’ Fox revealed (from memory) that some twenty-seven members had received large sums from that fund; and a report next day from the Commons’ Committee of Secrecy added another half dozen names.47 Part of the Secret Service account, now managed by Charles Bertie, Danby’s brother-in-law, derived immediately from funds supplied by William Chiffinch, the king’s factotum, and ultimately from France.48 The other, more avowable funds were drawn from the Excise and other Treasury sources.49 For the present, Bertie had refused to testify,50 and the lord chamberlain had refused to turn over Crown records. The Commons had

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been forced to rely on fragmentary information; but they had picked up the scent of French money, as well as strong evidence of corruption. Under these conditions, the king was happy to exploit the divisions between the two Houses and to seize the escape route that the Exclusionists had handed him. The determination of the Commons to prevent the bishops from voting on the Danby pardon virtually assured a deadlock; the Lords could not retreat without grievously damaging their claims to final legal authority. On 27 May when the Lords refused, by a vote of 65–36, to alter their decision of 13 May ‘‘conc[erning] the Lords Spiritual,’’51 the Houses had reached an impasse; and the king had been given a plausible excuse for proroguing Parliament. Ignoring the vociferous dissent of most of his new privy councillors,52 Charles called the Houses together and put an end to the session. At last, therefore, Tom Wharton and his friends were frustrated. Danby, to be sure, was locked in the Tower, and the duke of York was exiled in Flanders; but the great goals remained unachieved. The duke had not been excluded by law; Danby had not been convicted of treason; and the Lords remained untried. The king, in spite of his missteps, had bought some valuable time. And when Charles actually dissolved the Parliament on 12 July, the Exclusionists were compelled to begin the whole process over again. Before they could proceed further against their enemies, they had to win another general election. Tom himself, with his colleague John Hampden, was obliged to conduct another expensive campaign in Buckinghamshire.

12 Protestants in Masquerade IN AUGUST 1679 WHEN TOM WHARTON AND YOUNG JOHN HAMPDEN stood for reelection as knights of the shire for Bucks, political positions had hardened significantly, and the level of vituperation had risen several decibels. For Tom Wharton and his party the failure of their first offensive was not only frustrating in itself but ominous for the future. The king’s dismissal of the first Exclusion Parliament had demonstrated once again the power of the Crown. Almost equally ominous was the fact that Charles was gradually reacquiring a party. Though it was easy enough to denounce the voters against exclusion as ‘‘pensioners’’ or ‘‘Protestants in masquerade,’’1 it was hard to dismiss the nagging possibility that some of them might be honest Englishmen fearful that a break in the succession might lead to another revolution. The additional fact that such former Country stalwarts as Essex and Halifax had declared themselves in favor of limitations was especially maddening; and when Essex and Halifax as privy councilors actually advised Charles to dissolve the prorogued Parliament,2 Shaftesbury threatened to have their heads. It was in this political context that Tom Wharton, John Hampden, several other Exclusionist M.P.s, the duke of Buckingham, Lord Paget, about four thousand horsemen, and an unnumbered crowd of other supporters assembled in Aylesbury on 20 August for the county election—only to find that High-Sheriff Edgerley had rescheduled the election for eight o’clock the next morning at Buckingham. By this maneuver, which had been circumvented in the February election, the sheriff and his allies hoped to disperse some of the Wharton-Hampden army and give themselves a chance to elect candidates less hostile to the Court. They intended to propose Sir Anthony Chester and Sir Ralph Verney, although Sir Ralph himself was actively supporting Tom and young Hampden.3 The stratagem failed. After a council of war, Tom and his prominent associates ‘‘agreed unanimously’’ to keep their forces together, 128

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to provide wagons for horseless freeholders unable to walk the sixteen miles between towns, and to entertain all their followers at the inns of Aylesbury before setting out. They decided further that since, on 9 August, the borough of Buckingham had demonstrated execrable judgment by electing the ‘‘pensioner’’ Sir Richard (‘‘Timber’’) Temple and Danby’s son Lord Latimer to the Commons, they would neither stay in the town nor spend money there. They would quarter their followers for the night at Winslow, a village five or six miles from Buckingham, and if the small town could not provide shelter, they would camp out, ‘‘one and all,’’ in the fields. These decisions, announced to the assembled throng by the duke, were received with ‘‘great shouts’’ of enthusiasm. The freeholders vowed to follow Tom Wharton and John Hampden anywhere in the shire—or to York, if necessary. Accordingly, after refreshing themselves (at the expense of the candidates) at Aylesbury, the multitude set out for Winslow in military style—first the ‘‘foot and wagons,’’ then the four thousand ‘‘horse.’’ The cavalry, led by the duke, rode out of town ‘‘with drums beating and trumpets sounding.’’4 At Winslow, the freeholders again demonstrated their devotion to the cause by paying for their own entertainment and by rising at five the next morning to finish the march on Buckingham. En route they were joined by two thousand more horsemen, all shouting (according to a friendly pamphleteer): ‘‘A Wharton and a Hampden.’’ The combined forces then paraded through Buckingham to chants of ‘‘No Timber Temple, No Traitor’s Son, No Pensioner, No Papist, No Betrayers of their Country.’’ Finally they drew up ‘‘in a great field’’ while Tom, Hampden, and Under-Sheriff Barnewell waited in town for the sheriff. When Edgerley failed to appear by eight o’clock, the officially scheduled time, Barnewell returned to the field and proceeded with the election. Again, as in February, there was no contest. Tom and John Hampden (as Sir Ralph Verney observed) were ‘‘unanimously chosen without opposition.’’5 This time, however, the election was followed by some unscheduled low comedy. When Sheriff Edgerley arrived in Buckingham, with Sir Richard Temple and a small band of followers, he was thrown from his horse. Then, although the results of the election had already been proclaimed and although the size of the Wharton-Hampden host made any contest ridiculous, the sheriff sent his son to ask about a poll.6 When that young man was asked for whom he wanted the poll, he answered ‘‘for whom I please.’’ This insolent response brought another ‘‘great shout’’ from the Wharton forces and triggered a chase scene. When

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young Edgerley turned to ride away, he was pursued by Sir Richard Ingoldsby and several freeholders, who ‘‘whipped him out of the field.’’7 After the formal indentures were completed, the Exclusionist army paraded back through Buckingham crying, ‘‘No Timber Temple, No Pensioners.’’ True to their earlier agreement, they did not stop to enrich the Buckingham tavern keepers. Though (in the estimation of Sir Ralph Verney) there could not have been fewer than five thousand marchers, ‘‘scarce twopence was spent in the town.’’ The Wharton-Hampden triumph was so complete that an exultant Exclusionist pamphleteer professed to believe that the sheriff had shifted the site of the election merely to saddle the two young candidates with additional expense.8 Opposition writers had good reason to exult. Tom’s spectacular victory at Buckingham was only one of many Exclusionist triumphs. These included the election, at East Grinstead, of Tom’s brother Goodwin and of William Jephson, Tom’s long-time friend;9 and they presaged a clear Exclusionist majority for the next Parliament. One man who did not rejoice at the outcome of the Bucks election was Charles II. When the duke of Buckingham, fresh from his adventures with Tom and Hampden, appeared at Windsor, the king refused to see him. The duke, he explained, ‘‘had stood for two men in Buckinghamshire who would cut his throat.’’ Charles would not elaborate when the earl of Rochester asked why he held such an opinion of the young men; he only ‘‘pouted and nodded his head at him.’’10 Besides political frustration, Charles had physical reasons for ill temper. He was coming down with the heavy cold which turned next day, 22 August, into a violent intermittent fever and ‘‘put the whole nation into a fright.’’11 The king’s sudden and severe ‘‘ague,’’ judged by his physicians to be dangerous, caused a crisis bordering upon panic. All Englishmen faced the imminent possibility of a popish succession or a civil war over the Crown.12 And for Halifax and Essex, now the king’s counselors, the crisis seemed especially grave. They had opposed exclusion, approved the dissolution of Parliament, and enraged their old friends.13 Now they saw a horrifying possibility. If the king suddenly died, his death (whatever his physicians might say) would be attributed by most of his subjects to poison and the plot. The duke of Monmouth, who was in London, commanded the king’s forces. Earlier in the summer he had put down a rebellion of Scots Covenanters and markedly increased his popularity. Now with his Uncle James in Brussels, he would have an opportunity to seize control without immediate opposition. If

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Monmouth came to power, Essex and Halifax feared, his friend Shaftesbury (still lord president of the king’s Council) might very well carry out his threat to have their heads.14 The two men urged the king to recall his brother as quickly and secretly as possible, and Charles agreed.15 Fortunately, the king’s ‘‘fits of ague’’ decreased rapidly. By 25 August Goodwin could report to Tom that Charles was ‘‘well recovered,’’16 and by 2 September when the duke suddenly arrived in England all serious danger had vanished. The consequences of the panic, however, did not disappear. Although Monmouth had made no move to seize power, the sudden perception that he had been in a position to do so alarmed the king and his party; it helped convince Charles that the young man must be dismissed from his army command and removed from the London scene. On the other side, the reappearance of James and the crowd of well-wishers who flocked to greet him at Windsor dismayed the Exclusionists. It was clear that the duke, as the ‘‘natural’’ heir to the throne, had a strong nucleus of supporters; it was also evident that many politicians were eager to hedge their bets on the succession. The king’s illness took some of the gloss from Tom’s victory in Bucks, and the king’s subsequent policies took still more. Tom and his allies had won a solid parliamentary majority in the elections, but they could not compel Charles to convoke a session. Once again, as in 1674, the disbanding of several regiments (with money voted by the Parliament in May) and the economies that the Treasury could effect enabled the king to subsist for a time on his income. More than a year would elapse before the Parliament elected in the autumn of 1679 actually met. In December 1679 the Exclusionists launched a massive campaign to petition Charles for a meeting of Parliament. Shaftesbury and his allies collected thousands of signatures throughout the country. But Charles brushed off the petitions, explaining testily to his subjects that he was the sole judge of when sessions were necessary,17 and on 12 December he issued a proclamation ‘‘forbidding the joining in tumultuous petitions to the King.’’18 His partisans then organized what amounted to a countercampaign of loyal addresses, ‘‘abhorring’’ the attempt to sway the royal judgment. The famous controversy had one effect that became permanent. Among the names that the combatants called each other were two that stuck: Whig and Tory (Whig originally denoting a Scots-Presbyterian Covenanter and Tory denoting an Irish-Catholic bandit). Within a year or two they would displace other opprobrious names,

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and eventually they would be adopted by the parties they were designed to slander. Tom Wharton, naturally, shared the irritations of his party. These were increased on 24 September 1679 when Monmouth, relieved of his army commands, was sent abroad and on 15 October when Shaftesbury was removed as lord president of the Council. In late September, James had been sent back to Brussels, but he was allowed to return in early October and then sent by Charles to reside in Scotland. Meanwhile, the latter part of 1679 was bringing significant changes to Tom Wharton’s private world. On 2 September his youngest sister, Philadelphia, married the distinguished Scots jurist Sir George Lockhart.19 The marriage removed ‘‘Philly’’ from the households at St. Giles and Wooburn and took her to Scotland. There, next year, after Tom had tried to find her a suitable midwife from northern England, she produced a young George Lockhart,20 who would eventually become very important to his uncle and to historians.21 Shortly after Tom gained one brother-in-law, he lost another. On 27 September, as noted earlier, Major Dunch, husband of Tom’s sister Margaret, died at Pusey. Margaret was named executrix of her husband’s will, and Tom was named a co-trustee of the extensive properties that Dunch left for his children. Unlike her sister Mary, who had already found a husband, Sir Charles Kemeys,22 to replace the one she had lost in 1677, Margaret would remain a widow for eight years. While Tom’s family was undergoing major alterations, Tom himself was experiencing a streak of bad luck and bad judgment. On 28 August, the race he sponsored ‘‘in Quainton Field Meadow’’ was washed out by ‘‘so violent a rain’’ that had the horses run they would have been up to their knees in water.23 On 15 September his black gelding lost the plate at Campfield, Oxfordshire, in a race with a bay gelding owned by Nicholas Baynton.24 On 22 November he involved himself in an episode that may be charitably described as adolescent. On that evening Tom and two raucous companions, probably drunk, broke down the white balls on the gateposts of the bawdy house operated by the well-known madam Susan Willis ‘‘and called her all to nought.’’25 Mrs. Willis summoned the constable, but when the three young gentlemen identified themselves, the constable was reluctant to arrest them. Tom, of course, was an M.P. and the heir to a peerage; Jack Howe,26 the second malefactor, was the son of an M.P.; and young George Porter, the third member of the trio, was the son of

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George Porter (a gentleman of the bedchamber) and of Lady Diana Porter, a daughter of the earl of Norwich. Under these circumstances, the constable was ‘‘so civil as not to secure’’ the disturbers of the peace; he simply went next day to Lady Diana and asked her to guarantee the appearance of her son before the justices in case he should be summoned. This precaution proved unnecessary. The episode went unpunished. Tom’s escapade occurred between two public emotional orgies in the City of London—between a spectacular procession and popeburning on 17 November and the return of Monmouth on 27 November. The pope-burning had been sponsored by the Green Ribbon Club,27 an organization born (or reborn) the previous November to counter popish plots. This year on the anniversary of Queen Elizabeth’s accession, the club produced a spectacle that overshadowed the activities of Guy Fawkes Day, as it would in 1680 and 1681. In the atmosphere of the plot, the deliverance of Protestantism from Queen Mary seemed more significant to Londoners than the frustration of the attempt to shatter it with gunpowder. The ‘‘birthday’’ of Queen Bess provided the club and its ‘‘public-spirited’’ friends28 with a perfect occasion for dramatizing popish villainy, both historic and current, and for contrasting by unsubtle implication the accession of a Protestant heroine with the possible accession of a Catholic menace. The ‘‘extraordinary representation’’ began with an elaborate torchlight parade—a parody on Catholic religious processions. Leading the pageant were six ‘‘whifflers’’ to clear the way,29 a bellman crying ‘‘Remember Justice Godfrey,’’ and a Jesuit on horseback supporting Godfrey’s dead body (in its supposed journey from Somerset House to Primrose Hill). After this prologue came a parade of popish clerics, including a priest selling pardons for killing Protestants, six Jesuits with bloody knives, and an impressive array of friars, bishops, archbishops, patriarchs, and cardinals. At the end of the procession came the pope in a ‘‘gorgeous chair of state,’’ preceded by a poisoner (clearly Sir George Wakeman) dispensing ‘‘Jesuit’s powder.’’ Accompanying the pope and whispering in his ear was his ‘‘privy counsellor’’ the devil.30 The ‘‘magnificent procession,’’ accompanied by 150 hired torchbearers and ‘‘some thousands’’ of volunteers, began at Moorgate and made its way to Aldgate and then via Leadenhall, Cheapside, and Fleet Street to the statue of Queen Elizabeth at Temple Bar. There, a few feet from the headquarters of the Green Ribbon Club at the King’s Head Tavern, a great bonfire had been prepared for the pope’s effigy. The crowd was treated to free drinks and to a

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spectacular display of fireworks. Finally, after the pope had been taunted in formal verse and deserted by his false friend the devil, his effigy was pitched into the flames. Though obviously staged to make a political statement, the elaborate event was carried off in orderly fashion—more like a celebration than a protest, much less a riot.31 On 17 November 1679, the Whigs still hoped that Charles might be influenced to summon a parliament; they did not yet feel obliged to use the parade to attack Tories. For the present, the great pageant simply demonstrated to the king (who viewed it from a window of a goldsmith named Townes) and to the world in general the depth of anti-Catholic feeling in London. If Tom Wharton contributed any money to the celebration, he did not do so as a member of the Green Ribbon Club. Neither his name nor that of his brother Henry appears on the official list of members, nor among the names of those proposed and rejected for membership during the three years covered by the club’s ‘‘Journall.’’32 Goodwin, on the other hand, managed to get himself formally excluded. On 28 February 1679, the secretary noted: A complaint being made against Mr. Goodwin Wharton, who frequently intrudes himself into this society, for bringing in one Mr. Chetwin contrary to order, it is declared that the said Mr. Wharton is no member of this society and further ordered that he shall not be admitted a member of the same without the consent of this society.33

Why Tom did not become a member of the Green Ribbon Club, which included a number of his friends, is a matter for speculation.34 It is clear that he agreed with the club’s aim of excluding the duke of York and that he approved of pope-burning ceremonies. Many years later, in November 1711, he and his friends of the famous Whig Kit-Cat Club planned to stage an exclusion-style pageant on Elizabeth’s birthday; they intended to burn the pope, the devil, and the Catholic Pretender—friends, by implication, of the Harley ministry. The government, however, interdicted the ceremonies and seized the effigies.35 In 1679, perhaps Tom felt that the Green Ribbon Club was too raucous—that it tended to replace fear of popery with fear of another revolution; perhaps he was influenced by the fact that the club was composed primarily of City magnates and second-echelon Country Whigs, not grandees like his father, Shaftesbury, Buckingham, Russell, and Monmouth. Perhaps, again, he had too many relatives and friends among his political enemies—an offense which could get one excluded or banished

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from the club.36 In any case, he did not join the Green Ribbon Club or any of the other Whig clubs that made the government nervous.37 Tom worried the king’s party on other scores. About ten o’clock on the night of 27 November, the duke of Monmouth arrived secretly at the house of Tom’s friend Charles Godfrey. There he stayed for three hours before going on to his own apartments at the Cockpit.38 Monmouth had not received the king’s permission to return from Holland; and when Charles, belatedly, learned of Monmouth’s sudden arrival, he was unimpressed by Monmouth’s excuse—that he had returned to defend himself against the false charges leveled against him by Elizabeth Cellier, Elizabeth, Lady Powis, and their accomplices in the so-called ‘‘Meal Tub Plot.’’ Monmouth had indeed been named in the elaborate scheme to prove the existence of a ‘‘Presbyterian’’ plot against the king, but the falsehoods and forgeries had been detected by 1 November,39 and by late November there was no need for any further clearing of Monmouth’s name. Nor was there any need for secrecy. If Monmouth had really intended to exonerate himself, he could have asked his father for permission to return. The fact that he had gone first to the house of one of his Whig cronies, not to Whitehall, showed that he had come home to consult with the Exclusionists, not with the king. As troubling to the king as Monmouth’s disobedience was the tremendous enthusiasm with which the duke was welcomed by Londoners.40 The report of Monmouth’s arrival spread rapidly. Before morning, church bells were ringing ‘‘incessantly,’’ and bonfires were kindled in many places. When darkness fell on Friday evening, 28 November, the illuminations began once more. Charles Hatton estimated that there were more than sixty bonfires between Temple Bar and Charing Cross—more bonfires than on any occasion since King Charles had been welcomed home at the Restoration. Understandably, Charles refused to see Monmouth or accept his explanations; he forbade Monmouth the Court and ordered him to leave England at once. Monmouth retreated to his house at the Blue Mews in Hedge Lane, but he refused to leave England. He would not accept banishment without a trial. This defiance brought a quick response from Charles, who stripped him of the lucrative offices he had retained when he had been removed as general of the king’s forces. Instead of arresting his disobedient son, Charles made the defiance exorbitantly expensive. The notoriously extravagant Monmouth was reduced to living on his wife’s income. When Monmouth was ordered from the Court, the stream of

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courtiers who had come to see him at the Cockpit thinned significantly. The only ‘‘noblemen’’ who appeared at the Mews the next day were Shaftesbury and Lord Wharton.41 The visit of the two Whig notables helped to confirm what everyone suspected, that Monmouth’s return and his refusal to leave had been orchestrated by Shaftesbury. It was another indication that Monmouth had gone over to his father’s opponents. Unfortunately for the Whigs, the return of Monmouth proved to be a strategic and tactical blunder.42 Immediately, the blaze of bonfires for the duke, like the illuminations for Queen Elizabeth, convinced Charles that he would be foolish to convoke Parliament until London passions had cooled several degrees.43 It also helped to convince him that he must continue to keep a firm hold on the militia (especially the London militia)44 and that he must replace Exclusionist J.P.s with more tractable men. On 12 January 1680 he removed Tom Wharton and seven other Bucks J.P.s, including Lord Lovelace and the duke of Buckingham, from the list of Justices;45 and he made similar changes in other counties. The blazing welcome for the duke also did more permanent damage. It helped to lure Monmouth and some of his followers into a gross strategic error—a divisive and basically silly attempt to convince themselves and the nation that the duke was legitimate. This campaign, which began shortly after Monmouth arrived and continued sporadically thereafter, did the Whig cause much hurt. There was no serious chance that the nation in general could be persuaded by stories of a black box46 to believe that Monmouth was the true heir—or that Charles could be bullied into legitimatizing him. The crowning of a bastard king of England was not a project with overwhelming appeal, even if it could be accomplished; and the prospect of a Whig republic with Monmouth (and Shaftesbury) at the head was less than dazzling. For these reasons it was easier for many Englishmen, even those not wedded to hereditary right, to cling to the hope that James would die before Charles and save three kingdoms from a vast amount of trouble than it was to back any Whig contrivance. But for good Whigs, monarchists as well as republicans, the immediate necessity was to remove the threat of popery—to secure the religion, liberty, and property of England. They could worry about Protestant settlements later.47 Accordingly, they continued their offensive against the duke of York. In the unrelenting attack Tom Wharton took a prominent part. On 26 June 1680, he met with Shaftesbury, Huntingdon, Cavendish, Russell, and a dozen other Whig leaders at the Court of Requests in Westminster Hall. The

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group had prepared and signed an ‘‘information’’ which listed reasons for believing—what had never been officially admitted—that the duke was a Catholic;48 and they intended to submit the information to the Middlesex Grand Jury. Taking advantage of an ‘‘old statute’’ which made it criminal to be ‘‘reconciled to the church of Rome,’’ they hoped the jury would bring an indictment against James before the judges of the King’s Bench. But the ‘‘information’’ never officially reached the King’s Bench. The royal judges had received ‘‘private notice’’ of the plan, and when they became aware of the gathering of Whig notables, they dismissed the jury for the term. Four days later, on 30 June, after another Grand Jury had been impaneled, Tom and his friends assembled once more to present their ‘‘information.’’ Again the judges received advance warning, and again they discharged the jury.49 The Whig leaders made political capital from the ‘‘haste and fear’’ with which the government evaded the charges. They published a broadside entitled Reasons for the Indictment of the D. of York,50 and they later got the judges’ actions condemned by the House of Commons in a formal address to the king.51 Still later, the dismissal was made an article in impeachment proceedings against Chief Justice Scroggs.52 But for the present the duke of York remained unindicted. At last, on 21 October 1680, Charles convoked the Parliament originally scheduled for October 1679. The Whigs had reason to be confident. In the Commons they still had the decisive majority they had elected in 1679, and some of the waverers who had voted for limitations in the spring of 1679 had returned to the Exclusionist fold. They elected William Williams as their Speaker and proceeded to organize the House. The standing Committee of Privileges and Elections, which included Tom Wharton and both Hampdens, was practically a Whig body, and the select committees later appointed to bring in crucial bills and resolutions were composed largely of veteran Whigs, with a heavy infusion of Whig lawyers.53 Busy with their own program, the House virtually ignored the king’s opening remarks on the succession. Charles had repeated his now familiar offer of drastic limitations on the powers of a popish successor and his equally familiar refusal to alter the succession. He had gone on to recommend a ‘‘further examination’’ of the plot, and he had suggested that the Catholic Lords in the Tower should be ‘‘brought to their speedy trial.’’54 In effect he had offered to allow Parliament to proceed, finally, against the accused Peers if

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the Lords and Commons would quit harassing his brother55 and vote money to augment the English army trying to defend Tangiers against the Moslems. The Whigs in the House were not to be diverted by any offers of limitations. They had come to exclude the duke of York, not to trifle with expedients. On 28 October they paused long enough to assure Charles, in a formal address, that they would support him against all enemies. Then they went methodically back to work on James and his supporters. Two days earlier the House had declared its intention ‘‘to prevent a popish succession.’’56 It had continued on 27 October with resolutions declaring that to petition the king for the calling of a parliament was an ‘‘undoubted right’’ of English subjects and that ‘‘to traduce such petitioning as a violation of duty and to represent it to His Majesty as tumultuous and seditious is to betray the liberty of the subject.’’ These resolutions condemned abhorrers in general and they particularly attacked lawyers like Sir George Jeffreys who had advised the king on the matter of petitions. Both declarations were adopted by the Commons nemine contradicente, since the Tory minority could not hope to challenge the Whigs in an actual vote.57 On 4 November the Exclusion Bill had its first reading; on 6 November (after the House had adjourned on 5 November to St. Margaret’s Church for a sermon on the Gunpowder Plot) the bill was read a second time and committed; and on 11 November came the third reading and the final debates. The arguments over the bill offered practically nothing new in the way of theory. What was new in the November debates was the tone of Whig attacks and the accretion of miscellaneous charges against the duke. In 1678 Exclusionists had more or less conceded the duke’s personal virtues: his devotion to his brother, his services to England as admiral in the Dutch wars, and his conspicuous bravery during the Fire of London. They had simply argued that his Catholic zeal and his connections with France and Rome made him hopelessly unfit to head the English government and the Anglican Church. James, they said at much length, was a chance that England could not afford to take. During the intervening propaganda campaigns James’s character deteriorated steadily in Exclusionist opinion. By November 1680, many Whigs were reluctant to concede the man any virtues, and his services to England had been hotly questioned. Perhaps the most intemperate speech in the final debates on 11 November was delivered by Tom Wharton’s brother Goodwin—a speech that was wild even by Whig standards.

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Replying to speeches by Sir Leoline Jenkins and Sir Robert Markham, Goodwin accused James of protecting the popish arsonists who had burned London, of sacrificing English ships to save French ships during the Dutch wars, of betraying a Huguenot to the French ambassador, of thirsting for the blood of the defeated Scots Covenanters, of lying to shield one of the suspects in the plot, and of doing ‘‘his utmost endeavor to ruin this nation.’’ Finally, after being interrupted by Lord Castleton, who could not ‘‘endure’’ such reflections upon a prince, Goodwin added a sneer at the duke’s brains and at the notion that James would ever return to the Anglican fold. ‘‘I do not think it possible,’’ he declared, ‘‘that any person . . . that hath been weak enough . . . to turn papist should ever after . . . be wise enough to turn Protestant.’’58 After Goodwin’s ‘‘unmannerly’’ speech (as Tory George Legge called it),59 prominent Whig speakers summed up the case for exclusion, and Legge, Laurence Hyde, and Daniel Finch responded with the familiar Tory arguments.60 Then the Whigs called for a vote on the bill. Once again, the outnumbered Tories declined a contest; the Exclusion Bill passed without a division. Lord Russell and ‘‘others’’ were assigned the duty of carrying it to the House of Lords. Russell and his companions were in no hurry to risk their precious bill in the Lords, where the Tories had a ‘‘very strong natural majority’’61 and where the omens had recently become unfavorable. The Whigs had hoped that a smashing victory in the Commons, together with enthusiastic support of the City of London, would convince the Tory Peers that resistance was hopeless. On 8 November, however, their one-time friend and recent nemesis Halifax had announced that he would continue to support the king’s ‘‘limitations’’ policy; and on 9 November the king himself reiterated his determination to keep the succession in the ‘‘right line of descent.’’62 On the same day, the earl of Conway predicted to the duke of Ormonde that the Lords would reject any Exclusion Bill by a margin of fifty to thirty, without counting the bishops, who would certainly support the king.63 In view of such developments, the Whigs held up their bill until the City officially asked the king to agree with the Commons and until the House had made it clear that there would be no money for Tangiers until after the Lords had acted on exclusion. By 15 November the Whigs had stalled as long as they decently could. Obliged at last to present their bill to the Lords, the Commons sent a ‘‘great crowd’’ of members along with Lord Russell.64 Virtually the entire membership of the House, along with a large

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deputation from the City, was on hand for what turned out to be a very famous debate. It is an ironic fact that there is no verbatim record of the arguments that Tom and his colleagues heard. The manuscript minutes of the Lords merely note that the Peers resolved themselves into a Committee of the Whole House ‘‘for more freedom of debate’’;65 and contemporary reports, mostly from secondary sources, give general impressions of the debate rather than the actual substance of the speeches. All accounts agree that Shaftesbury and Halifax were the chief debaters for the opposing sides; most accounts agree that Halifax had the better of the argument. On the other hand, the absence of a transcript of the debates is probably no great loss. By 15 November 1680, the major arguments for and against exclusion and limitations were as well known as the streets of London. It is unlikely that the debates changed a significant number of minds. What Halifax’s eloquence did was to reassure conservative Peers that they could support limitations without being papists in masquerade. Halifax’s continued presence in the king’s camp was probably more important than his oratory.66 By refusing to be swept along by the Whig tide, Halifax set an example of courage for any waverers among the Tory Peers. At the end of the day, the ‘‘natural majority’’ of Tory Lords and all fourteen bishops in attendance remained in line. By a vote of 61 to 32 they carried a motion to put the question (thus ending further debate); and by a vote of 63 to 30 they carried the motion that the bill should be rejected.67 Tom Wharton and his M.P. friends were compelled to stand helplessly by while their bill, which had passed the Commons nemine contradicente, was thrown out by the Lords without so much as a second reading or a conference between the Houses. The defeat, though not entirely unexpected, was shattering to the Whigs. Their elaborately constructed machine had hit a stone wall. When the Commons reassembled the next day to survey the wreckage, they were still too numb to take action. It was not until 17 November that they began to pick up the pieces. Then, ‘‘in a flame,’’ the Whigs resumed their attacks upon the fools and knaves who were subjecting England to the hazards of a popish succession. The Commons began on 17 November by agreeing to address the king to remove Halifax from his service; and that evening their friends in the City conducted another pope-burning as ornate and impressive as the spectacle of 1679. This time the Whig clubs added abhorrers, papists in masquerade, and Tory propagandist Roger L’Estrange (as the pope’s dog Towser) to the popish procession. Towser’s effigy went to the bonfire, along with the pope’s. The

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event had become completely partisan—a Whig demonstration rather than England’s defiance to Rome. Among the classes of enemies who had foiled exclusion, none was more conspicuous than the bishops. Their unanimous opposition in the Lords had turned a Whig defeat into a rout; their continued presence in the Upper House virtually guaranteed the defeat of any future exclusion measure or of any bill condemning the king’s friends. The impression that the bishops had single handedly defeated the Exclusion Bill, though not true in fact, was true enough in spirit to provoke a blast from a witty Whig satirist.68 His ballad against the ‘‘jolt-heads’’ who had made James ‘‘as safe as a thief in a mill’’ suggested not obscurely that the bishops had sold both church and state to Rome when they had ‘‘thrown out the bill.’’69 One stanza of the ballad was devoted to the frustrations of ‘‘Tom’’ Wharton: Tom Wharton, who stood behind Sir Nicholas Carew To confront, as he thought, the plenipotentiary Little thought that when rudely he had rail’d out his fill The bishops, the bishops would have thrown out the bill.

The author had named the wrong Wharton. It was Goodwin who had replied to Sir Leoline Jenkins (once the king’s envoy at Nijmegen) and who had rudely ‘‘rail’d out his fill’’ at the duke. The satirist was not wrong, however, in stating that Tom supported Sir Nicholas Carew, one of the leading Exclusionists, nor in the implication that Tom would be outraged when the bishops gave the coup de graˆ ce to the all-important bill. Two years later, Tom’s disgust with the bishops for what he regarded as their suicidal devotion to divine right would lead him and his scapegrace brother Henry to perpetrate an outrage of their own. During the Whig vendetta against abhorrers and Tory judges, Tom spoke in support of the attack on Jeffreys. Believing that the committee’s report censuring Jeffreys for the attempt to stifle petitions had not been strong enough, Tom suggested recommitting the report to make it ‘‘perfect.’’70 The House believed, however, that its charges against Jeffreys were adequate. Without recommitting the report, the members agreed to address the king to remove Jeffreys from all public offices. The Whigs wasted a great deal of breath in their attempts to remove Jeffreys, Halifax, Laurence Hyde, Clarendon, Feversham, and Worcester from office. With a two-to-one majority in the Lords,

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Charles could not be coerced into dismissing his Tory supporters. The Commons were similarly frustrated in impeachment proceedings. There was little chance that the House of Lords (the judges in impeachment trials) would convict the king’s officers of high crimes and misdemeanors. While the Whigs in the Commons were banging their heads against a political wall, King Charles was enduring frustrations of his own. In the hope of getting money from the Commons he had expedited the trial of Lord Stafford, whom he had earlier suspected of complicity in the plot but now believed to be innocent. As events worked out, he lost both Lord Stafford and the money.71 At the trial, held in Westminster Hall and attended by the entire House of Commons, the managers for the Commons, who conducted the prosecution, had little trouble in proving to an already convinced House of Lords that there was indeed a Popish Plot. And with three wellpracticed witnesses, Stephen Dugdale, Titus Oates, and Edward Turberville, they had little additional difficulty in proving that Lord Stafford was involved in the plot—a task made easier by the fact that Stafford was obliged to serve as his own defense attorney. After Sir William Jones, leading for the managers, had given a masterful summary of the case,72 dissecting the testimony of Stafford’s witnesses and explaining away the difficulties in the evidence for the prosecution, a substantial majority of Lords agreed with the Commons. Polled one by one, beginning with the most junior baron and ending with Prince Rupert, the Peers declared by a vote of 55 to 31 that Stafford was guilty of treason.73 The ‘‘natural majority’’ of conservative Lords melted away in the face of the sworn testimony, the forensic skills of the managers, and the ingrained antiCatholic prejudice of the Peers.74 The overwhelming majority for conviction meant that Charles could not possibly pardon Stafford. Nor could he gain credit for having accelerated the legal processes. The perception remained that he had delayed justice as long as possible. The Commons, still smarting from the rejection of the Exclusion Bill, were not mollified. Certainly the House was in no mood to trust Charles with money and men to relieve Tangiers. There would be no money, they informed the king in an address of 20 December, until James was removed from the succession.75 In view of this impasse, the session was doomed. The Lords busied themselves with schemes for limitations, which the Commons regarded as futile; and the Commons continued to make useless attempts to impeach their enemies. On 7 January 1681, the Commons repeated their refusal to vote money unless James was excluded

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from the throne, and they declared further that anyone lending money to the government would be considered an enemy of Parliament.76 Completely frustrated, Charles prorogued the session on 10 January and dissolved the Parliament on 20 January. Before the next Parliament, which would meet at Oxford on 21 March, Tom Wharton would be obliged to win another election— this time in partnership with the elder Hampden. He would also experience a crisis in his marriage. Anne, his wife, would become ill, and he would take her to Paris, where it was hoped that a change of weather and physicians might restore her health. Charles II, meanwhile, was making secret arrangements to receive subsidies from his cousin Louis XIV and rid himself of parliaments for the rest of his life.

13 Anne Wharton THE YEAR 1680 HAD BEEN UNKIND TO ANNE WHARTON. IT MARKED A further stage in her recurrent illnesses, and it prompted another journey in search of health—this time to Paris. Her previous journey had occurred in the late spring and early summer of 1678. Then she and Tom had left Winchendon and London for an extended stay in the area of Lavington, Wiltshire, and in Salisbury.1 This sojourn caused Tom to miss the last two months of the 1678 parliamentary session2 and brought anxious inquiries from Lord Wharton. ‘‘I heartily wish to hear well concerning your wife’s eyes,’’ he wrote to Tom on 14 May at Lavington. ‘‘I hope the Lord will so restore her that she will not be against your coming up in this important session.’’3 Anne’s health was not sufficiently restored to permit Tom’s speedy return to the political wars. In early July, Tom and Anne were staying ‘‘at Mrs. Sambrooke’s in the Close in Salisbury.’’ There Lord Wharton wrote Tom to convey news about the expiring session and to ask about Anne. ‘‘I pray God,’’ he wrote, ‘‘I may have good news of your wife’s being well.’’4 Nothing in the scattered documents of the period explains the nature of the illness or tells why Anne and Tom chose Wiltshire as a place for Anne’s recuperation.5 Possibly the couple combined a rest cure for Anne with an inspection of the Wiltshire estates, which were to be divided three years later between the Whartons and the Berties. In any case, the medical crisis seems to have passed by the end of summer—in time for the melodramatics of the Popish Plot. In the late spring of 1680 a new and serious complication was added to Anne’s problems. On 11 May John Cary, the chief trustee of Anne’s estate, reported ‘‘ill news’’ to his fellow trustee Sir Ralph Verney: ‘‘Mrs Wharton is very much troubled with convulsive fits. I saw her in a great one last night, which troubled me very much, and I fear will much weaken her.’’6 Three weeks later, Tom told Cary that Anne’s condition had improved and that ‘‘her fits had 144

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much left her.’’ Cary expressed the hope that Anne might ‘‘outgrow’’ her new affliction.7 Unfortunately, Anne, who was then approaching her twenty-first birthday, never outgrew her ‘‘convulsive fits.’’ The intervals between seizures were sometimes long—weeks or months—but the ‘‘fits’’ eventually returned.8 And in late November of 1680, she had a severe sore throat ‘‘of which she like to have died’’ (as she told John Cary).9 Although she described herself in early December as ‘‘much better’’ and her fits as ‘‘lessened,’’ it seemed logical that she should try a change of climate and physicians. She would try Paris when she felt well enough to travel and when Tom could find the time to take her. Since Tom was obliged to win another Bucks election, in early February, before he could accompany Anne to France, and since he was honor bound to return by 21 March when the new Parliament was to meet at Oxford, there was no question of his remaining long abroad. He took Anne to Paris in late February or early March and returned to London on 19 March. The voyage from England to France, recollected in depression, produced one of Anne’s finest and most melancholy poems: ‘‘On the Storm between Gravesend and Dieppe.’’ At the time, however, the passage seems to have been reasonably cheerful, whatever the state of the weather. When Tom returned to England, he reported to his father’s chaplain that Anne ‘‘bore her voyage very well’’ and that she had ‘‘not had a fit since she went.’’10 Once settled in Paris, Anne tried to avoid company. On Easter Sunday she attended the Huguenot church at Charenton rather than the church at the English embassy—preferring, as she wrote Tom, to be with forty thousand strangers than with five hundred people she knew.11 She could not avoid a visit from Henry Savile, the English ambassador, or from Tom’s former colleague John Hampden.12 The ‘‘fat’’ Savile and the ‘‘lean’’ Hampden met each other for the first time at Anne’s lodgings, and Hampden had begun ‘‘extremely to complain of the king’s ambassador’’ before Savile identified himself and thus deprived the amused Anne of hearing ‘‘an argument between famine and plenty.’’13 Anne was ‘‘threatened mightily’’ with visits from other English aristocrats, but she let it be known that she would happily decline the honor. Without rudeness, which (as she explained) would not become Tom’s ‘‘obedient wife and humble servant,’’ she managed to keep most of her compatriots away.14 Anne had much to think about besides her health. The previous summer, on 26 July, she had lost her famous uncle John Wilmot,

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earl of Rochester. To habitue´ s of the Court, Rochester was the wittiest of the witty, the most dissolute of the dissolute, and the most charming of the charming. A Hobbesian materialist with a genius for satire, he poetically preached what he practiced—a defiance of traditional faith and morals, especially sexual morals. Rochester, who thrived on notoriety, seemed to embody the revolt against Puritanism. In his poses as more cynical, experienced, comical, and damned than thou, he delighted his Court friends, including the king, and scandalized the faithful. To the orthodox, his death at the age of thirty-three, probably from syphilis, was a sermon on the wages of sin—on the evils of wine, women, and boys. And his celebrated repentance during the last few weeks of his life was an example of how amazing grace could be.15 Anne, however, adored her charming and gifted uncle, who was only a year older than Tom. To her his untimely death was tragedy beyond tears. She poured forth her grief in a passionate elegy, designed to convince an ‘‘insensible nation’’ that Rochester was good as well as great—a ‘‘lovely soul’’ who had earned immortality both earthly and heavenly. His flaming genius, Anne explained, had produced both wit and instruction for the age; he had ‘‘civilized the rude,’’ taught the young, and ‘‘made fools grow wise.’’ He had led Anne herself up the steep and sacred ascent to poetry. True he had wandered from Christian precepts, proving that even a ‘‘matchless pattern’’ of humanity can err; but God had rescued him at last with the ‘‘mournful gift’’ of dying pains. These had evoked a penitence worthy of any saint and assured him of a place in the heavenly choir. Rochester’s salvation, Anne said finally, consoled her for the loss of her earthly hopes, which had died with him. The thought of his immortality made her soar in spirit, anticipating the ecstasy of meeting him in heaven.16 Ironically, it was the death of Rochester which established Anne’s reputation as a serious poet. Her elegy, circulated widely in manuscript, drew verses of praise from the venerable Edmund Waller, the most famous lyricist of the age. Waller may have remained unconvinced of Rochester’s wisdom, but he could not doubt the depth of Anne’s grief or the intensity of the expression. She had bestowed ‘‘lasting verse’’ upon her uncle in lines like his own and proved herself ‘‘allied in genius as in blood.’’17 If any of Anne’s contemporaries thought it strange that she should mourn her uncle in terms usually reserved for a lover, no one said so. When she declared that Rochester was the ‘‘pride’’ of her heart and the ‘‘cause of all [its] hopes and fears,’’ the sentiments could be readily ascribed to hero worship and poetic hyperbole.

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And if Tom was annoyed, or even slightly concerned, at having been removed by implication from Anne’s pride, hopes, and fears, there is no record of his complaints. Several years later, after Anne’s death, her brother-in-law Goodwin gave a less spiritual explanation for her grief. Impelled by a revelation to confide to his journal-autobiography some details of his own odd and tortured love affair with Anne (who had appeared vividly in his dreams), Goodwin also felt obliged to reveal Anne’s other lapses from sexual grace. There were three of these, he wrote—two brief and one protracted. She had been seduced ‘‘whilst mighty young’’ by the earl of Peterborough, and for a short time in the early 1680s she did not ‘‘resist the addresses of Jack Howe.’’ Meanwhile, she was ‘‘lain with long by her own uncle, my Lord Rochester.’’18 In general Goodwin is a remarkably trustworthy witness. As he records the details of his secret life, he is remorselessly truthful, and he is equally frank in describing the actions of others. There can be no doubt that he believed what he wrote about Anne or that he had opportunity to learn the facts from Anne herself during the months of their intimacy. Nor is there any doubt that Anne spent many hours with her uncle, both before and after her marriage to Tom. She had grown up at the Wilmot house in Adderbury, where her grandmother, the dowager countess, continued to live with Rochester, and she made extended visits there without Tom. It would not be surprising if Rochester, who was famous for not resisting temptation, should have seduced his bright and attractive niece. In spite of Goodwin’s credibility as a witness and the antecedent possibilities of a sexual liaison between Anne and Rochester, there is at least a chance that in this case Goodwin was wrong. At the time he wrote the crucial passage in his journal, in late 1687, he had begun to receive divine revelations from an ‘‘inner voice’’;19 and his revelations, though infallible in principle, often proved questionable in practice. Goodwin does not say where he got his knowledge of Anne’s affair with Rochester. It is possible that he received it from revelation—that his voice, which had commanded him to describe his own affair with Anne, misinformed him about her earlier romance.20 Whether or not Rochester had been Anne’s lover as well as her tutor and idol, his death helped to complete Anne’s transformation from the adolescent girl who had married Tom Wharton to the charming, mature woman who would write him letters from Paris. Some of the void left by Rochester’s death, Anne filled with poetry. By the time she arrived in Paris, she had made poetry her occupa-

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tion.21 She had also established the somber tone that informed her serious poems and worried her orthodox readers. She was on her way to acquiring what Goodwin would call a ‘‘desperateness and greatness’’ of spirit.22 Meanwhile, between the death of Rochester and her journey to Paris, Anne carried on an increasingly serious flirtation with Goodwin. Goodwin, who had admired her for years, felt himself drawn towards a monstrous deed for which he would have hated himself for the rest of his life. He tried during his meetings with Anne to keep all his actions ‘‘abstracted from a lustful intention,’’ and he prayed for divine help in resisting Anne’s charms. He also took the precaution of leaving her ‘‘in the open street’’ after they met ‘‘at night.’’23 He could not, however, resist the temptation to go on meeting her. In retrospect, at least, he was sure that her journey to Paris had helped to save their souls. In Paris, distanced by time from Rochester’s death and by space from the complications of London, Anne took the occasion to simplify her life and clarify her feelings. From Paris the political crisis that obsessed Tom and his Whig friends seemed remote. In three letters written to Tom before she heard the results of the famous Oxford Parliament, she devoted only one sentence to politics. And when she finally learned, about ten days after the event, that Charles had dissolved the Parliament on 28 March before the Commons could pass another Exclusion Bill, she found it easy to be philosophical: I hear your poor House of Commons were very roughly dealt with. They have no virtue left (that I know of) but patience to make use of, and they say that is the coward’s virtue, but yet I hope they will practice it in their affliction—which I cannot be very sorry for, because I am the more likely to see you here. You see how political misfortunes bring private satisfactions.24

Anne was much less philosophical about her feelings for Tom. If illness and isolation made politics an inconvenience that kept her husband in England, they also made her more conscious of her affection. She had grown ‘‘so fond a fool,’’ she explained on 22 March, that she could not help sending Tom a letter every post whether she heard from him or not.25 And on 10 April, after she had suffered a serious relapse, the fear that she might die without saying a last word to Tom made her write three days before the post left Paris for London; she resolved to write to him, she said, ‘‘lest [she] should never do it more.’’ ‘‘Goodbye, my Dear, Best Dear,’’ she

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concluded in her tentative farewell. ‘‘Pardon me that I say no more, for I am so very ill I can hardly hold the pen or know what I write.’’26 Fortunately, Anne recovered. By the end of April she was allowed by her French physician to visit St. Germain, and by the middle of May she was permitted to go to Versailles on condition that she would stay home to be medicated a long time afterwards. Her physician kept her ‘‘long within doors’’ and ‘‘tried many practices,’’ which included letting blood and substituting barley water and licorice for wine. She was not sure the medicines improved anything but her patience, but she continued to retain some confidence in her physician. When he advised that she should go ‘‘farther south,’’ she agreed. She asked Tom if he could arrange his business so that his ‘‘obedient faithful humble servant’’ could go to Montpelier by the first of July.27 In her early letters, Anne complained that Tom did not write. His silence, she said, with a touch of seriousness in her witty exaggeration, made her want to beat her brains out on the sidewalk, thus relieving him of the inconvenience of a wife. Had Anne shared Tom’s political anxieties, she might have found excuses for him. Tom’s silence coincided with the climax—or anti-climax—of the Exclusionist drama. When Tom arrived back in London on Saturday, 19 March, he had missed some of the preamble to the Oxford Parliament, which was due to convene the following Monday. He had also missed several numbers of two new periodicals, one Whig and one Tory, designed to influence the elections. The Whig paper, published by Francis Smith, was Smith’s Protestant Intelligence: Domestick and Foreign. It specialized in reporting Whig victories at the polls and printing ‘‘addresses’’ from Whig voters to their candidates.28 It particularly rejoiced in the reelection of faithful members of the Exclusion Parliaments—most of whom were duly returned.29 Among these, of course, were Tom Wharton and his new colleague, the veteran Richard Hampden, who had stood for election at Aylesbury on 2 February. This time the election had been undramatic—literally rather than technically uncontested.30 Apparently, after the Tory fiascos of 1679, no Tory wanted to throw away his money in opposing a Wharton and a Hampden.31 The new Tory periodical, Heraclitus Ridens, was written by the versatile Thomas Flatman.32 Flatman, an order of magnitude wittier than his heavy-breathing Whig opponents, was expert in baiting them. He doubted, for instance, whether most Whig voters had heard or seen the addresses issued in their names. More generally,

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he rang the changes on the Tory theme that exclusion and the plot had become an attack upon the Church and the monarchy—a fanatic conspiracy to ‘‘pull the lawn sleeves down’’33 and bring back a Cromwellian-style republic. While Tom was in France, he had also missed the first waves of the political migration to Oxford. The king, preceded by a contingent of the royal guards, had left Windsor early on 14 March. He had been joined at High Wycombe by the queen, who had left from Westminster. The royal party had included (as a Whig pamphleteer pointed out) both Nell Gwynn and the duchess of Portsmouth, the king’s English and French mistresses.34 It was met ‘‘on the green at Wheatley,’’ Oxfordshire, by the lord lieutenant, the county militia, and a party of lords and gentlemen—all of whom accompanied the king to Oxford. There after a splendid and tumultuous welcome, Charles and his entourage were settled in the colleges of Christ Church, Merton, and Corpus Christi.35 The Whigs countered three days later with processions of their own. A thousand Londoners accompanied their four Whig M.P.s through St. James’s to Hounslow Heath, and two hundred horsemen, wearing blue satin ribbons inscribed with the legend ‘‘No Popery, No Slavery,’’ finished the journey to Oxford. The next day the earl of Shaftesbury was accompanied from London to Oxford by ‘‘a very great troop of persons of quality.’’36 In Oxford Shaftesbury established his headquarters at the house of Dr. John Wallis, ‘‘directly over against’’ Hart Hall.37 In attempting to neutralize the Royalist atmosphere at Oxford, the Whigs had one advantage of their own. The town, as opposed to the university, was solidly Whig. The year before, the town council had voted Monmouth, Tom Wharton, and several of their friends the freedom of the city and made them bailiffs.38 This year the city had elected two Exclusionists, Brome Whorwood and Alderman William Wright, to the new Parliament. If the citizens did not receive Whig notables as ecstatically as Oxford dons and students received the king, their election victories served as a reminder that the university was not England.39 One of the Whig stratagems for countering the king’s measures turned out to be a monumental blunder. In their propaganda, the Whigs had attempted to convince the nation and themselves that the royal guards were a threat—heavily laced with papists, Protestants in masquerade, and mercenaries loyal to the duke of York. They professed to be fearful that the Parliament at Oxford might be purged or dissolved by the duke’s henchmen.40 This politic fear they dramatized by arming the parties of Whig M.P.s and Peers that

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journeyed to Oxford. Shaftesbury’s company of ‘‘well-mounted’’ gentlemen, for example, was accompanied by servants armed with carbines. Some individual members armed their coaches ‘‘with carbines and musquetoons.’’41 This propaganda gesture turned out to be transparently futile and needlessly provocative. Miscellaneous parties of armed retainers could not seriously oppose the troops at the disposal of the king if Charles really intended to remove his opponents by force.42 What they could and did do was to heighten the mounting fears that the Whigs might resort to insurrection. With their armed guards the Whigs handed their enemies an advantage which Tory writers were happy to exploit. When Tom set off for Oxford on 21 March, he did not know that except for purposes of propaganda the new Parliament had become irrelevant. He was riding towards an early dissolution. There were two reasons for this state of affairs, one public and one secret. The public reason was the completeness of the Whig triumph in the elections. The king’s efforts to get a majority or a competitive minority in the Commons had failed. The Opposition veterans who had already passed two Exclusion Bills were strong beyond compromise. They might be polite enough to listen to one more expedient—a proposal that Princess Mary should be made regent and her father left with an empty title—but they could not be persuaded to vote for it. Nor would they vote any supplies until the Lords and the king had agreed, finally, to pass an Exclusion Bill. The secret reason was a subsidy from Louis XIV. Between the time of Tom’s election and his return to England, Louis had decided that Charles had suffered enough for his duplicity and that he was desperate enough to abide by a secret treaty which obliged him not to aid the enemies of France.43 The time had come once more, Louis perceived, to neutralize England by bribing the king instead of the Opposition. In the process, he might also save the monarchy. Although the sums involved were less than princely—roughly £160,000 for the first year and £40,000 per year thereafter—they were sufficient to rescue Charles from his subjects. He could survive without a parliament. Charles began his propaganda battle at Oxford by appropriating Whig rhetoric. He had dismissed the last House of Commons, he said in his opening speech, for its resort to ‘‘arbitrary government’’—its attempt to wrest power away from the Lords and the Crown. He was convinced that neither ‘‘liberty nor properties can subsist long when the just rights and prerogatives of the Crown are invaded.’’ After giving a Tory twist to Whig shibboleths, he recom-

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mended ‘‘the further prosecution of the plot, the trial of the Lords in the Tower . . . and the ridding ourselves quite of all that party that have any considerable authority and interest among them.’’ He warned, however, that fears of popery must not be used as ‘‘a pretence for changing the foundations of the government.’’ Having pictured himself as the true protector of liberty and property and at least as anti-popish as his Whig opponents, he then went on to imply that he was at once more flexible and more devoted to fundamental English law than the single-minded Exclusionists. Although he could never agree to altering the succession, he was willing to consider an expedient for keeping the administration of government in Protestant hands in case a papist came to the throne. (He was willing, in other words, to consider a regency.)44 Finally, he admonished his Lords and Commons to guide themselves by ‘‘the established laws of the land,’’ which he was resolved to follow himself.45 If Charles had intended to sway the Commons, his neatly constructed speech would have been wasted. The Whigs, with their unassailable majority, considered all expedients, including a regency, as popish subterfuges or woolly-headed evasions of a life-or-death issue. But Charles and his advisors aimed at a much wider audience; they were taking up positions from which they could launch a counterattack. The king’s speech of 21 March, along with a declaration of 8 April by which Charles justified dissolution, marks the effective beginning of the Tory reaction. It was easy for nervous Englishmen to rally round the royal defender of ‘‘the established laws of the land,’’ and ‘‘the Church by law established.’’ The Whig offensive was necessarily brief. It was Thursday, 24 March, before the Commons had dispatched the preliminaries and settled down in the Convocation House to conduct business. They began by passing a resolution that their debates should be printed. They would not allow the arguments by which they answered the king and attacked their Tory rivals to go unreported, or misreported. The people, the Whigs argued, could be trusted with parliamentary debates.46 The Whigs had time to deliver an effective attack upon the regency scheme in a debate that foreshadowed the regency debates in the Convention Parliament in 1689.47 They also had time to begin the exclusion process. On Saturday afternoon, 26 March, they carried a resolution for bringing in an Exclusion Bill, and Tom Wharton was appointed to the prestigious committee charged with drawing up the bill. This assignment, his most important up to that time, marked him as a future leader of the party.48

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On Monday morning, 28 March, all arguments, Whig and Tory, came to an abrupt halt. Whig M.P.s had brought in their Exclusion Bill, given it its first reading, and scheduled its second reading for the next day, when the Commons were summoned to the House of Lords. The king explained curtly to the Lords and Commons that their ‘‘divisions’’ had removed any chance of a productive session; and the lord chancellor, following the king’s orders, informed them that the Parliament was dissolved.49 As Barrillon wrote in triumph to Louis XIV the same day, the Parliament had been broken up (‘‘casse´ ’’ ).50 Parliament was indeed casse´ . Charles would heatedly deny in his declaration of 8 April that he intended to rule without parliaments. The charge that he intended to ‘‘lay aside the use of parliaments,’’ he said, was malicious poison spread by ‘‘ill men,’’ enemies of the Established Church and the monarchy.51 But the ill men proved to be perfectly right. For the balance of his reign, almost four years, Charles would quietly collect his subsidies from Louis and avoid the risk of assembling men who might attack his brother and try to dictate royal policy. All this lay in the future, of course. When Whig M.P.s rode away from Oxford, they knew, in Anne Wharton’s phrase, that they had been ‘‘very roughly dealt with,’’ but they did not yet know the extent of their injuries. By dispensing with parliaments, Charles had deprived his opponents of a national forum and had fragmented English politics. Hereafter, the decisive battles would be fought piecemeal in law courts, cities, and boroughs, with the government on the attack and its opponents on the defensive. Unaware that the political tide was turning and that he was being reduced from a rising power in the House of Commons to a wealthy gentleman with a racing stable, Tom Wharton had many things besides politics to think about when he returned to London and Winchendon. One of these was the division of property between the Whartons and the Berties—the final settlement of Anne’s and Eleanora’s extensive inheritance. An important step had been taken on 23 and 24 June 1680. At that time, about a month before Anne came of age, the trustees of the sisters’ estates had met with Tom, Anne, Eleanora, and Lord Norreys at the Bertie home at Rycote.52 There the trustees ‘‘released’’ to Anne the properties they had been administering on her behalf, and the Whartons, in turn, upon receiving the £2,281 then owing to Anne, released the trustees from all further responsibilities.53 Since the Berties had already exchanged releases with the trustees, the way was clear to negotiate a permanent division.

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But the business of dividing a great number of properties, reassigning leases, and drawing up the necessary legal documents was intricate. It was not until almost a year later, on 24 and 25 May 1681, that the work was completed and the division ready to be registered in the Court of Common Pleas during Trinity Term.54 Since Anne’s signature was required on some of the documents and since Anne was still in France, where she intended to remain until the following spring, Tom set off for Paris in early June bearing the ‘‘writings.’’55 He had previously resumed his crisis-interrupted correspondence, and he had been careful to supply Anne with money for her sojourn.56 He had also ordered his business, as Anne had requested, so that she could leave for Montpelier by 1 July though he hoped from what seemed to be the improved state of her health that she could be persuaded to return home. The brief reunion between Tom and Anne at ‘‘L’Hostel de Savoye dans la grande rue Tarane’’ brought an odd crisis of its own. The legal matters were easily dispatched, except for one ‘‘business’’ which Anne promised to complete and send Tom by the next post. The emotional tangle was much more stubborn. In April when Anne thought she might be dying and Tom was in distant England, she had found it easy to express love in a letter. But in June with Tom near, Anne, conscious of a distance between them, found it difficult to express anything. Tom, who had hoped that he could take Anne back with him and that he could rekindle old affections, found himself baffled. In the language of a later age, the timing was hopelessly wrong. Much of this Anne tried to explain to herself and Tom in a letter of 22 June/2 July, the day after Tom left for England:57 I was yesterday (at parting with you) in more trouble then I either did, or was willing to show, but methinks it looks less like hypocrisy to tell it at this distance, & therefore I would have you now believe it. I knew not what I thought for a quarter of an hour & could not answer to anything you said; give me leave therefore to do it now. When I said I had a mind to go to Montpelier, you said you loved nothing so well as me. If I thought that, I should be in England (if possible) tomorrow; but though I should, you can’t upon consideration desire it. You may plainly find what good this moderate degree of heat has done me & may reasonably believe from thence that since I am not yet perfectly recovered, the cold of the winter will force me to relapse in any place less warm than that to which I design to go, & for these reasons I do not think you will be against it; for I am not yet melancholy enough to believe you would be pleased with my eternal sickness, much less with the death of Your obedient humble servant Anne Wharton

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Tom returned to England from the domestic drama in France in time to witness several stages of the political drama at home— developments, that is, in the king’s counterattack against the Whigs. Among the most significant of these were the continuing spate of loyal addresses triggered by the king’s declaration of 8 April,58 the arrest of Shaftesbury on a charge of treason, and the executions of the would-be plot informer Edward Fitzharris and the incendiary ‘‘Protestant Joiner’’ Stephen College. Tom also returned home in time to make a splashy contribution to the Whig cause. In late August he entertained the duke of Monmouth, Lord Lovelace, and a ‘‘great deal of company’’ at a three-day race meeting at Quainton. There, appropriately, he won the feature race himself.59 It was one of his few victories in a year of frustrations. In the end, most of Tom’s political defeats proved to be retrievable. Many of them would be reversed by the Revolution of 1688 and many more by the Protestant Succession in 1714. His personal defeats were apt to be more permanent—including the impasse at Paris in 1681. No document remains to explain his response to the experience or to Anne’s letter. Even the fact that he kept the letter is ambiguous. Perhaps it was too poignant to throw away—a keepsake from his first marriage. Perhaps it was merely filed and forgotten. Whatever Tom’s original response, he could not have dreamed that the letter would survive for centuries and that it would immortalize the not quite bridgeable gulf between him and his talented wife.

14 Outrages ON 17 NOVEMBER 1681 JOHN DRYDEN PUBLISHED HIS FAMOUS POEM ‘‘Absalom and Achitophel.’’ A memorable attack upon Shaftesbury and Monmouth, it would presently become the voice of the Tory reaction. Immediately, however, Dryden’s brilliance earned him the nickname of Towser the Second1 and a sharp reminder that he had begun his writing career with a poem in praise of Oliver Cromwell.2 And if one of Dryden’s objectives was to help the government behead Shaftesbury, the poem was at least a partial failure. Also on 17 November came another pope-burning pageant. The elaborate ritual, ‘‘celebrated with more than usual solemnity,’’ was ‘‘attended with many thousands of people.’’3 Unfortunately for the Whigs, the intervening years had diminished the freshness of the event. The pageant had become a thrice-told tale—a horror story that had lost its horror. Even without government interference, the parade was on its way off the political stage. The Whig pageant, nevertheless, proved to be a more accurate prologue to the Shaftesbury trial, set for 24 November, than the Tory poem. Among the marchers who followed the effigies of Sir Edmond Berry Godfrey and the Observator (alias Towser, i.e., Roger L’Estrange) was a knot of ‘‘suborned persons’’—the effigies, that is, of the witnesses allegedly hired by the government to swear away the life of the Whig earl. Their presence in the parade indicated clearly what London Whigs thought of the king’s evidence and reminded knowledgeable viewers that as long as Whig sheriffs appointed London grand juries, there was little danger that the present jury would indict Shaftesbury. And so it proved. On 24 November at the Old Bailey, the London Grand Jury, which included Michael Godfrey (brother of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey), simply refused to believe that the wily earl of Shaftesbury had communicated his treasonous plans to a motley collection of Irish papists or that he had attempted to raise fifty men in London to kidnap the king at Oxford.4 At the end of the trial, to 156

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the delight of the spectators, the jurors found the evidence insufficient and returned their famous verdict: Ignoramus.5 The unsuccessful attempt to remove Shaftesbury’s head proved to be only a momentary check in the king’s attack on his Whig opponents. Elsewhere most of the country was rallying behind the king and adopting the Tory position that Exclusion was at bottom a fanatic conspiracy. Good Tories worked up a genuine enthusiasm for the duke of York, who had resolutely opposed Exclusion from the first. The exclusion of a legitimate heir, James had written, ‘‘destroys the very being of monarchy, which, I thank God, yet has had no dependency upon parliaments nor on nothing but God alone.’’6 On 8 April 1682, when James, who had been in Scotland, returned with Charles from Newmarket to Whitehall, the celebration in Westminster rivaled that which had once greeted the return of Monmouth. Church bells rang, and bonfires were lighted from the borders of the City to Chelsea. In the new political climate, some men talked (to Burnet’s disgust) as if a Catholic king might be a ‘‘special blessing’’ to a Protestant nation.7 Less high flying Anglicans simply trusted that God, who loved legitimate monarchies, would reconvert James, take him away before he succeeded to the throne, or impel him after he succeeded to protect the Established Church against its Nonconforming enemies. Meanwhile the Tories supported Charles in his Quo Warranto proceedings—his campaign to recall and revise the charters of dissident towns and boroughs, including the charter of the City of London.8 It did not worry Tory gentlemen that they were strengthening the Crown immensely by conceding it the right to remodel corporations and remove its opponents. To Whigs like Tom Wharton, of course, the Tory attitude was something less than half-witted. With their absurd loyalty the Tories were not only promoting a popish succession but endowing the successor with a frightening increase of power. In the face of a clear and present danger, they were resolutely burying their heads in the sand. The Anglican clergy seemed even more determined to commit institutional suicide. In their eagerness to crush Dissenters, they were willing to make a papist head of church and state and trust him to leave their power intact. It was in this political context that Tom and Henry Wharton, along with a covey of drunken companions, perpetrated what one of their friends called ‘‘a foolish rude frolic’’9 and one of their enemies euphemistically termed an ‘‘outrage.’’10 One night in June 1682, Tom and Henry and two or three friends were entertained by a gentleman named Bray in the village of Great Barrington, Gloucester-

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shire.11 After several hours of drinking, the ‘‘frolicsome’’ group broke into St. Mary, the parish church. There they rang the bells backward (or at least ‘‘confusedly’’), after which they cut the bell ropes, broke the cover of the baptismal font and the ‘‘desk of the pulpit,’’ and ripped the church Bible.12 As one thing led to another, as the actions (to paraphrase Tom’s later apology) grew worse ‘‘in the execution’’ than they had been in the ‘‘designs,’’13 the revelers—so the famous story goes—were inspired to relieve themselves in the church.14 They might have contrived other ‘‘grievous pranks’’ if the clangor of the bells had not alarmed the village and brought out an unamused crowd, who chased them back to the Bray house. While Tom was drunk, the trashing of the church may have struck him as a brilliant political statement—a graphic rendering of his contempt for the clerical idiots who were handing England over to France and Rome. He may have considered his message rather understated than overstated. When he sobered up, however, his dimly remembered offense looked not only rank but stupid. In the unforgiving daylight, he could hardly help seeing that besides committing sacrilege he had perpetrated an indelible political error. If Tom and Henry hoped to stifle scandal or avoid official action, they were disappointed. Though their servants had remained sober and removed the most damning evidence and though the vicar seemed willing to forgive and forget rather than antagonize his ‘‘great neighbor’’ at Barrington Park,15 it was simply impossible to suppress reports of an event at once so public and so disgraceful. Within days, letters on the subject were flying about—usually wrong about the place of the outrage and often embroidered with erroneous details but essentially right on the gravity of the offense.16 By mid-August it was clear to Tom that official action could not be delayed much longer—that the bishop of Gloucester, Robert Frampton, could not ignore the widespread scandal. It behooved him, therefore, to write an apology and to throw himself upon the bishop’s mercy before he was summoned to appear before a court. This he did in a still extant letter of 15 August. He was not quite sure, he said in effect, what ‘‘follies’’ he and his friends were guilty of, since they were not very ‘‘sensible’’ at the time; but he was confident that the ‘‘real faults’’ could not have been as gross as they appeared in ‘‘the prodigious story’’ that had grown up since the event. Nevertheless, he said, he would not ‘‘deny the truth of any particular’’ allegation, nor would he try to extenuate faults for which he would always be sorry. His present concern was to confess to the bishop how sensible he was of his errors and to submit

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himself entirely to the bishop’s judgment. He hoped, he concluded, to prove the sincerity of his repentance by the improvement in his conduct.17 Tom’s letter was carried to the bishop by the eminently respectable John Cary, who was well qualified to serve as a general character reference for Tom and to vouch for Tom’s shame and embarrassment. Cary went on to remind Frampton that Tom was the son of the pious Lord Wharton, whom Frampton knew, and to explain that Tom himself was ‘‘a man of very considerable parts [abilities] as well as estates’’—a report that Frampton had received from other sources.18 Tom’s letter and Cary’s deputation arrived in time to prevent Frampton from initiating drastic action. He would have died, as he explained to Archbishop Sancroft, rather than allow church discipline to be shamed and ‘‘religion itself exposed to dishonor’’; and he would have taken the matter to the king if the offenders had not offered their submission. With Tom’s apology, however, the situation changed. It seemed to Frampton, both on Christian and prudential grounds, that the rich and prominent Tom Wharton should not be turned into ‘‘a downright enemy’’ but allowed to redeem himself with a suitable penance.19 Accordingly, he wrote a letter to Tom and Henry pointing out ‘‘the horrid guilt’’ of their offense, its folly, and its ‘‘little consistency with their birth, parts, and relations, much less with their religion’’;20 and he summoned the brothers to appear before him. Frampton first intended to have Tom and Henry return to Barrington to confess their sins and make reparations, but fearing ‘‘that by meeting their old company there they might harden one another and turn all to ridicule,’’ he changed the place of penance to Stow-onthe-Wold. From the sinners Frampton demanded a formal letter of apology, a public confession, a fine of fifty guineas in commutation of penance, and payment for the damages at Barrington. Tom and Henry made no difficulty. Tom wrote the required letter, and the brothers duly appeared at Stow, where they begged pardon for their crime before three clergymen and three laymen. They said nothing about Anglican politics. Their malefactions, they declared, had not stemmed from atheism, popery, or fanaticism,21 but from mere drunkenness—of which they were heartily ashamed. They would try, they promised, to mend their ways. Pleased with the cooperation of the brothers, Bishop Frampton returned to them ten guineas of the fifty they laid down by way of penance. The other forty he gave, ‘‘in their presence,’’ toward the renovation of Stow church, which he was rescuing from decay.22

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Frampton was also pleased at the promptness with which they advanced money for the repairs at Barrington.23 At the end of the session at Stow-on-the-Wold, then, he dismissed Tom and Henry ‘‘with many wholesome admonitions’’ and assured them that he would remind them of their promises. This he did not fail to do. On 7 November 1682 Frampton wrote Tom, admonishing him to ask God’s pardon frequently for his ‘‘great offence’’ and to remember his promise to reform.24 In reply, Tom thanked the bishop for his kindness and his wholesome advice. The ‘‘particular respect and veneration’’ that Frampton had inspired, he said, would help to make the good counsel unforgettable. He hoped ‘‘always to be the better for it.’’25 Before Bishop Frampton could wind up the Barrington affair, he was obliged to send follow-up reports for review by Archbishop Sancroft. In these he was concerned to show that he had not been too lenient with the Whartons. ‘‘They that censure me for what I have done,’’ he wrote, ‘‘would certainly retract it if they considered either my poverty or Mr. Wharton’s riches, or his living out of my diocese and command, or the sourness of the time when it happened.’’ He had despaired at first, Frampton said, of doing as much as he actually did.26 Along with his report of 27 January 1683, Frampton sent the three letters he had received from Tom—the one Tom had written on 15 August; the one in which the Wharton brothers had agreed to appear at Stow, acknowledge their faults, and pay a fine; and the one Tom had written on 25 November in reply to the bishop’s admonitions. These had helped to convince Frampton that Tom was ‘‘a true penitent for his great wickedness,’’ and he hoped that Sancroft would receive ‘‘the same apprehension’’:27 If Your Grace distrusts the sincerity of what he writes [Frampton said], I dare say, and will undertake for him, that he shall wait upon Your Grace and personally avow what he hath written to me.28

Whether or not the archbishop was convinced of Tom’s sincerity, he was willing to back Frampton’s handling of the case. Frampton reassured him after another ‘‘diligent inquiry’’ in February 1683 that the physical damage at Barrington had consisted only of cut bell ropes, a torn Bible, a broken font cover, and a broken pulpit ‘‘desk.’’ The Whartons were paying for the repairs, as they had agreed to do at Stow. Part of the work, Frampton said, ‘‘is done already, nor is it their fault that the rest is not done also.’’29 Officially, with Frampton’s reports and Sancroft’s acceptance,

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the Barrington case was closed. Actually, however, Tom’s punishment had only begun. Over the years he would be reminded of his grotesque offense. The story, outrageous without embroidery, grew more outrageous still with retelling. The next year in a satirical poem it was alleged that Tom and Henry had forced their servants to help with the desecration.30 In January 1711 Jonathan Swift, writing for the Tory Examiner, moved the episode from St. Mary, Barrington, to Gloucester Cathedral and raised the fine from fifty guineas to one thousand pounds.31 Perhaps the unkindest of the cuts Tom received was delivered in the House of Lords by the duke of Leeds (formerly earl of Danby). In 1705 after Queen Anne had dismissed her high-Tory ministers and the bill against Occasional Conformity had been defeated, the Tories contended mightily that the Anglican Church could not be safe in the hands of a Low-Church government. During a formal debate on the subject, Tom (then Lord Wharton) began baiting the Tories about their obviously synthetic fears. As recalled later by the Tory Lord Dartmouth, he asked ‘‘what their real apprehensions were from.’’ Did they fear the queen? The duke of Leeds answered tartly, ‘‘No, but if deer-stealers were got into his park, he should think his deer in danger though he had no suspicion of his keeper.’’ Tom then asked, unwisely, if Leeds would name the rogues ‘‘that had got within the pale of the Church.’’ Leeds replied with devastating bluntness: ‘‘If there were any that had pissed against a communion table or done his other occasions in a pulpit, he should not think the Church safe in such hands.’’ After this answer, Dartmouth remembered, Tom ‘‘was very silent for the rest of the day, and desired no more explanations.’’32 Paradoxically, Tom might have suffered more for his sins if they had been less outrageous. The Barrington episode, even when recounted without embellishment, sounded like a Tory libel. It was hard to imagine anything so stupid proceeding from someone as bright and politically astute as Tom Wharton. Then too, the reputation of the brothers for outlandish escapades helped to make this event another prank to be pardoned rather than an act of gross sacrilege—a prank more serious, to be sure, than breaking Madam Willis’s gate ornaments, but certainly less bloody than running a sword through Nell Gwynn’s horse.33 For these reasons, and because many Whigs would have agreed that the Anglican stance on the succession and Dissenters deserved an obscene comment, Tom’s friends were inclined to ignore the scabrous episode altogether or dismiss it as an unfortunate ‘‘fit of drunkenness.’’ Sir Ralph Verney, for example, found Tom readily

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forgivable. Explaining to his steward William Coleman why he supported Tom in the 1685 election for knight of the shire, Sir Ralph declared: ‘‘I am confident that he will serve the king and the country faithfully, though he is wild enough in drink and I am troubled at it, but who lives without great faults?’’34 And so it happened that an episode that would have driven most men out of public life and perhaps out of society altogether hardly dented Tom Wharton’s political career. It earned him some satirical barbs (perhaps half as many as he deserved), but it seems never to have cost him an election. Nor did it affect his right as lay patron of several parish churches to present Anglican clergymen to church livings. About the time Tom was creating a public scandal, Anne, his wife, was engaged in a private intrigue with her brother-in-law Goodwin. As explained by Goodwin, the affair was a resumption of the romance that had begun before Anne went to France, and it became much more torrid. Twice the pair reached the brink of adultery, only to be saved in spite of their intentions by what Goodwin later called ‘‘providences’’—once by a premature ejaculation and once by a menstrual period.35 After Goodwin fumbled an excellent opportunity to arrange a tryst at Wooburn, the affair began to cool down. One reason for this change was Anne’s health. In July 1682 she suffered from a recurrence of convulsive fits; in December she had headaches and another severe attack of sore throat. She gave Gilbert Burnet ‘‘dismal apprehensions’’ that she might be dying.36 By this time Anne was much more anxious to conceal her affair with Goodwin than to continue it. She persuaded Goodwin, who was an inveterate note taker and diarist, to burn all his previous journals—an action which did grievous hurt to biographers of the Whartons. Goodwin suggests that he helped to reduce the temperature of the affair by changing his principles once more, this time for the better. At any rate, he found a diversion. In March 1683 he took up with the remarkable Mary Parish, the alchemist, astrologer, spiritualist, and confidence woman who was to rule the rest of his life. He was soon too busy with projects for wealth and fame to pursue his illicit passion for Anne. He could only remember it with a sense of guilt and loss. What Tom knew or suspected about the intrigue is not clear. Goodwin, who was haunted by it, thought that Tom suspected the worst, and he knew that Tom would not look upon narrow escapes from incest and adultery as faith-promoting incidents. For years, both in dreams and daydreams, Goodwin tried to justify himself to

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Tom. Meanwhile, he could hardly bear the sight of a brother who did not spontaneously exonerate him or apologize for unjust suspicions. The rift between Tom and Anne reached the gossip stage by late November 1682, and in early December Gilbert Burnet took it upon himself to intervene. Burnet, a friend and political ally of Tom Wharton, had begun corresponding with Anne in July.37 He prided himself upon having helped with the deathbed conversion of her beloved uncle the earl of Rochester. He hoped to make a similar penitent of Anne. Anne had deviated into orthodox piety in her poem on Rochester; but her usual verse contained worrisome traces of Hobbist philosophy. Burnet wrote Anne long disquisitions on the methods of achieving religious conviction, interspersing his sermons with expressions of admiration, both for Anne’s poetry and for Anne herself. He had ‘‘formed such a picture’’ of her, he once wrote, as he was sure ‘‘no pencil can equal.’’38 In spite of Burnet’s fervor, which made his often expressed admiration seem more romantic than platonic, Anne kept him at arm’s length. She showed no disposition to believe that God had hung ‘‘weights’’ of illness upon her to prevent her ‘‘vivacity of thought’’ from leading her into damnable errors.39 She refused, moreover, to tell him her marital troubles. Her letters were brief and, except for passages about illness, impersonal. ‘‘I talk freely of all my concerns to you,’’ he complained, ‘‘but hear nothing from you of yours, not so much as in those things which you know I so earnestly desire to be informed in.’’40 At last, bursting with curiosity and theological advice, Burnet could restrain himself no longer. On 8 December he treated Anne to a stern diatribe. He had heard, he said, that she was ‘‘upon parting from Mr. Wharton,’’ and although he could hardly believe such a tale, he would nevertheless issue a preventive warning: I look on all such things as both the wickedest and maddest things possible; it is a downright rejecting the yoke of God, and rebelling against his Providence. It is a throwing off the cross he lays on us, and a preferring our foolish inclinations to his wise appointments, after which we have no reason to expect the shelter of his protection. . . . In a word, one must lay down both religion, virtue, and prudence, in the moment that one takes up such a resolution, unless they are really in danger of their lives, which I am sure not your case.

If Anne yielded to such ‘‘impatient resolutions,’’ Burnet concluded, he would never see her again—except perhaps to admonish her once more.41

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Anne gave Burnet’s meddling and browbeating the treatment they deserved. Though the letter of 10 December in which she replied is no longer extant, what it contained is clearly deducible from Burnet’s description of it and from his profuse apologies.42 In a highly ‘‘unusual’’ style and with a pen ‘‘sharpened’’ by anger, Anne delivered a cold rebuke. She had no intention of parting with Tom, she said, and the fact that Burnet could credit such gossip enough to repeat it showed how little he knew her. Beyond that, she said in effect, he should save his sermons for someone else and mind his own business. Ordinarily, telling Gilbert Burnet—perhaps the most renowned busybody of the age—to mind his own business was a waste of energy. But Anne Wharton succeeded where others failed. After making a flurry of excuses, Burnet quit trying to intervene in Anne’s marital problems. In subsequent letters to Anne, he did not mention the subject again.43 The troubles between Tom and Anne, along with Tom’s sins at Barrington, made 1682 the most forgettable year of Tom’s personal life. It was also a bleak time in the history of his party. In the summer and autumn of 1682, the Whigs lost London, the traditional base of their power. In October 1681 the government had been able to secure the election of a pliable lord mayor, and in 1682 by a combination of legal maneuver, coercion, and chicane, the Court succeeded in replacing the two Whig sheriffs with two loyal Tories and in electing an avowed Tory for lord mayor.44 This meant, of course, that there would be no more Ignoramus juries to protect Whigs against Crown accusers. When the king’s triumph became certain, Shaftesbury fled to Holland. Even London had grown unsafe for once-powerful Exclusionists. In a year of personal and political misadventures, Tom salvaged some triumphs on the racetrack. One of the victories, scored in Tom’s absence, occurred while the duke of Monmouth was making a progress in Cheshire.45 As a centerpiece to the receptions, the Whigs scheduled horse races at Wallasey for 12 September. Not to be outdone, the Tories arranged for races at nearby Delamere Forest on the same day. They failed, however, to prevent clever Whigs from entering one of Tom’s horses in the feature race. Before a crowd of ‘‘at least fourscore baronets, knights, esquires and gentlemen of good quality,’’ as well as about ‘‘two thousand of the vulgar,’’ Tom’s horse easily won the race and the Tory plate.46 Less publicized but very satisfactory was a victory at Burford in early November where Tom and Monmouth won the feature races.47 And on 15 February 1683, Wharton’s Gelding scored the most re-

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sounding victory in the history of the Wharton stables. On a race course near St. Germain en Laye in an event sponsored by Louis XIV and witnessed by the king, the queen, and many members of the French Court, Tom’s horse defeated a select field of horses from ‘‘diverse nations’’ and won the king’s plate, valued at one thousand pistoles.48 ‘‘Very much pleased’’ with the English horse, which had been entered by the duke of Monmouth,49 Louis offered to buy it for another thousand pistoles. Tom, however, declined the offer. He would give Louis the horse as a present, but he would not sell it. Louis, in turn, refused to accept the priceless gift. ‘‘And thus’’ (in the words of Tom’s memorialist) ‘‘through the gallantry of the French king and Mr. Wharton, the horse came back again’’ to England.50 For Tom Wharton personally, the victory in France marked the beginning of a better year. There would be no more outrages, public or private. His relationship with Anne would improve, and he would emerge unscathed from the perils of the Tory reaction. For Tom’s party and several of his friends, on the other hand, the year 1683 would bring bloody disaster.

15 Seizures IN THE EARLY HOURS OF 10 JULY 1683, SIR FRANCIS COMPTON, COMmander of a cavalry patrol, intercepted a note written the previous midnight and intended for John, Lord Lovelace. ‘‘It is the common report,’’ the message began, ‘‘that a party of horse is sent today to fetch up your lordship, Sir Henry Capel, Mr. Wharton and others. Sir John Borlase desires to know the contents of your warrant and to speak with you, if possible, before your commitment.’’1 Lovelace, the note implied, would have no thought of fleeing; he would delay the king’s officers only long enough to see Sir John Borlase, who wished to do him ‘‘all the service’’ he could. The warning note had been written by one Mr. Pennington, who had heard of the rumored arrests at Garroway’s coffee house. The ‘‘common report’’ sounded very plausible. The Rye House Plot—an alleged conspiracy to assassinate the king and the duke of York—had burst upon the public consciousness seventeen days earlier. On 23 June the king had published a proclamation for the chief suspects, and other proclamations had followed. Several Whig leaders had already been jailed. Lord William Russell was about to be tried. It seemed entirely reasonable that well-known Whigs like Lovelace, Sir Henry Capel, and Tom Wharton should be pursued by warrants and contingents of cavalry. But the common report was wrong. There were no warrants for the three men, and there might not have been any if the intercepted note had not made the government suspect that Lovelace and Borlase had been plotting something unsavory. Lovelace was brought before the Privy Council on 12 July, where he denied knowledge of any ‘‘design’’ and convinced the Council that Borlase’s offer of service had merely signified a willingness to give bail for a friend. After the hearing, Lovelace was released on condition that he would provide two thousand pounds himself and find two sureties for one thousand pounds each.2 Tom Wharton was luckier. His name had not appeared on any list 166

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of alleged conspirators, and no warrant had been issued for his arrest. The only warrants that concerned him were two that authorized a renegade Whig named Samuel Starkey and his companion Nathaniel Hartshorne to search for fugitives and arms in Buckinghamshire. Issued by Secretary of State Sunderland on 4 and 5 July, the warrants required Crown officials, including the earl of Bridgwater, lord lieutenant for Bucks and Hertfordshire, to cooperate in the search.3 The earl, who had already conducted a search of his counties,4 was less than enthusiastic about complying; but he furnished the two agents with parties of horse from the Bucks militia. The zealous pair scoured Buckinghamshire for twenty days. In their sweep they turned up two caches of arms which they considered dangerous. One of these belonged to John Hampden at Wendover and the other to Tom Wharton at Winchendon. Tom was not at home when his house was searched. As he later explained to Lord Bridgwater, he was at Tunbridge for his health. Thus he could not even try to prevent Starkey and Hartshorne from carrying off his weapons and depositing them at the White Hart Inn in Aylesbury, and he could not prevent Starkey from making off with some saddles and holsters. By early September the government investigation of plots and plotters had settled into a routine, and there was a general lessening of hysteria. The first wave of executions for the Rye House Plot was over: Lord Russell had been beheaded, and three less prominent conspirators—William Hone, Thomas Walcot, and John Rouse— had been hanged, drawn, and quartered. The earl of Essex had committed suicide in the Tower. John Hampden, Algernon Sidney, John Wildman, and Lord Brandon were in prison awaiting trial; and several wanted Whigs, including Sir Thomas Armstrong, Lord Grey, and Robert Ferguson, had escaped abroad. Monmouth had gone into hiding at the home of his mistress Henrietta Wentworth. As the pressures eased, it was clear that Tom Wharton had survived the first crisis. He had not been named in any of the ‘‘informations’’ that had occupied the government for many weeks or in the confessions pried out of the accused. The list of his confiscated arms had been forwarded to Secretary of State Leoline Jenkins on 20 August, but the earl of Bridgwater, who had sent the list, had not thought the Wharton collection ‘‘anything considerable.’’5 A few days earlier, Samuel Starkey, the confiscator of the arms, had been arrested for thievery.6 On the day Tom arrived in London from Tunbridge (too late to attend the races at Datchet), one of his horses, as if to signal that the Wharton world was returning to normal, won three consecutive

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heats and the king’s plate.7 On the same day (Friday, 24 August) Anne Wharton, who had not accompanied Tom to Tunbridge, and her friend Mrs. Mason dined with Sir Ralph Verney at Claydon House. The company, Sir Ralph reported, was extremely merry.8 In northern Bucks, at least, the tensions caused by searches and seizures were relaxing. On 3 September, then, with a proper mixture of confidence and deference, Tom wrote Bridgwater about the confiscated arms. My Lord, Having been for some time absent from my own house (for my health at Tunbridge), I have not so soon made my application to your Lordship about the arms that were lately taken from me as otherwise I should have done. Your Lordship I suppose hath an account of what they were, so that I need not trouble you with a particular of them. I must leave it to your Lordship whether such a proportion of arms be not convenient for me and necessary for the security of my family, which when your Lordship hath considered I desire only to know your pleasure in it, to which I shall submit with that duty that becomes me.9

Bridgwater replied on 6 September from his estate at Ashridge. He was glad, he said, to hear of Tom’s health and his return from Tunbridge, but he could not yet give a definitive answer about the weapons. Secretary Jenkins had not yet told him how seized arms were to be disposed of. All I can say [Bridgwater added] is that it was not by my direction that yours were seized, but they were seized by a particular person [Starkey] that came into this County authorized to make searches. I herein send you inclosed a true copy of the account I gave to Mr. Secretary about what was seized at your house.10

To a country magnate like Bridgwater, Tom’s armament, as listed in the still extant account,11 might well seem unremarkable—about what a rich landed gentleman would need to guard his coaches against highwaymen and his property against thieves and poachers. To a jittery government, the weaponry may have looked less commonplace. The list showed that Tom had more than enough weapons to arm the squad of outriders that sometimes accompanied his coach12 and that, except for a slight deficiency in swords and a more serious deficiency in body armor, he could have equipped ten cavalrymen.13 Suspicious or not, Tom’s weaponry remained for the time being at the White Hart Inn, locked in a room to which Starkey had

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carried away the key. No surviving document tells whether it was ever returned to Winchendon.14 If Tom himself had escaped unbruised from the deadly aftermath of the Rye House affair, the political world he inhabited had been transformed. The party founded by Shaftesbury, who had recently died in Holland, had been shattered as if by an explosion. The revelations and pseudo-revelations concerning an assassination plot and the ‘‘consults’’ of grandees about a possible rising had severely battered the reputation of the party. From an alliance of patriots dedicated to saving England from popery and slavery—the majority party at the time of the Oxford Parliament—the Whigs had been recast as a band of conspirators against the monarchy. The popularity of the king and the duke of York rose to new heights. In dozens of unsolicited loyal addresses James—once a popish recusant and a lively danger to a Protestant nation—had become the best of brothers and a pillar of traditional government.15 On 9 September 1683, England officially celebrated the escape of Charles and James from their enemies. Five years earlier, after the first delations of Titus Oates, Anglican ministers had preached on the evils and machinations of the papists; now they preached upon the sanctity of monarchs and upon divine hereditary right. On that day of rejoicing, the triumph of the king and his Royalist party seemed complete, both in theory and in fact. On 21 July, the day of Russell’s execution, the University of Oxford had enshrined the principles of hereditary right and nonresistance as official doctrine, condemned the principles of government by consent, and staged a spectacular burning of heretical books.16 John Locke, the great exponent of consent theories, had fled to Holland;17 and Algernon Sidney, a formidable republican theorist, was in prison and soon to be convicted of treason—in part because he had written an attack upon Sir Robert Filmer’s monarchial theory.18 On the practical side, the government had jailed, scattered, or executed the king’s most troublesome Whig opponents. The king had also won the right on 12 June, after a protracted trial, to recall the London Charter;19 and on 18 June he had accepted the City’s abject submission and prescribed new rules of government. Significantly, the Green Ribbon Club, which only two years before had staged a great and solemn pope-burning, was dissolved.20 The Whigs, now on the defensive, tried to convince themselves and the nation that the alleged conspiracy, which had not produced any overt act, was at worst a set of discussions (‘‘consults’’) among worried Exclusionists about a possible rising to prevent a popish succession, and that if a few hot-headed old Cromwellians had pro-

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posed assassinating Charles and James at the Rye House in Hoddesdon as they returned from Newmarket, the proposal had been dismissed or ignored by responsible Whig grandees. Monmouth, as he and his friends insisted, would never dream of assassinating his father, nor would high-minded aristocrats like Essex and Sidney dabble in murder of any sort, much less regicide. Lord Russell eloquently denied the allegation that he had conspired to kill the king. In a paper he left with the sheriff at the time of his execution, he said that he had never heard anyone suggest such an enormity.21 But Russell’s denial, though widely circulated, could not undo the damage wrought by the testimonies of Lord Howard of Escrick, John Rumsey, Thomas Shepherd, and Robert West—the government witnesses at his trial. Nor could the allegation by radical propagandists that Essex had been murdered in the Tower—that his ‘‘suicide’’ had been staged by the government— find much credence among serious Englishmen. The evidence that Shaftesbury and the self-appointed Council of Six—Monmouth, Russell, Sidney, Howard, Essex, and John Hampden—had contemplated some sort of rising, though they were almost comically divided on basic strategies, was simply too strong to confute—even before Lord Grey made his confessions after the bloody Monmouth fiasco two years later.22 The Whigs were on firmer ground when they criticized the obviously partisan trials of Russell and Sidney, and the Whig Parliament of 1689 had little trouble getting Russell’s conviction annulled.23 Eventually, the excesses of Jeffreys, like the earlier excesses of Scroggs, brought a revulsion against what many perceived as legal murder. In 1683, however, the revulsion was against assassins and insurrectionists. The country had already suffered through one long, bloody revolution period, and it was in no mood to begin another. Englishmen in general opted for peace now. They would trust God and legal succession; they would give James a chance to rule if God allowed him to survive his brother. On Thursday, 29 November 1683, Tom Wharton, who had returned to London from Winchendon two days previously, surveyed the political scene and reported it in a letter to his father at Wooburn.24 On 21 November, Algernon Sidney had been convicted of treason. On 26 November he had been sentenced to death, and his execution was scheduled for 7 December. Tom had attended Sidney’s trial and testified briefly. Sidney’s handwriting, he had said, was easy to imitate; the government, he implied, might readily have forged Sidney’s refutation of Filmer’s Patriarcha—the document the Crown was using to convict Sidney of treason.25 This argument

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had not impressed Attorney General Sir Robert Sawyer nor the jury. Now, after Sidney had been sentenced, Tom explained the current situation to Lord Wharton. ‘‘There are great endeavors’’ being made for him, Tom wrote, ‘‘and some think that there are hopes he may be saved.’’ Tom’s informants were right about the endeavors but wrong about the hopes. Tom himself, to judge from the tone of his report, was not among those who thought Sidney might be saved. Having viewed at first hand the determination of the king’s prosecutors to have Sidney’s head, he could not easily believe that they would leave it on Sidney’s shoulders. More positively, Tom could report that on 28 November some imprisoned Whigs—John Hampden, Lord Brandon, Henry Booth, John Trenchard, and Francis Charlton—had been released from the Tower on writs of habeas corpus and admitted to bail. Brandon and Booth, Tom wrote, were obliged to provide six thousand pounds, while Hampden and Charlton were to provide thirty thousand pounds. John Hampden, who had been indicted for ‘‘great and high misdemeanors,’’ was to stand trial on 6 February. If Tom knew that Major John Wildman was also admitted to bail on the same day, he did not mention that important fact. Tom could not guess that Wildman would soon join Goodwin and Goodwin’s mentor Mary Parish in some extraordinary alchemical and treasure hunting projects, or that he would one day try to dissuade Monmouth, then in Holland, from coming to England to lead a rebellion. Meanwhile, on 24 November, the king had scored a solid propaganda victory. After delicate negotiations by Halifax, the duke of Monmouth had thrown himself upon his father’s mercy. As reported by the London Gazette, Monmouth had made a full declaration ‘‘of his crime in the late conspiracy’’ and had shown ‘‘extraordinary penitence’’ for it. He had made deep apologies (‘‘a particular submission’’) to the duke of York, upon whose ‘‘desire and entreaty’’ Charles had granted a pardon.26 Monmouth’s surrender had not been quite unconditional. He had been allowed to deny any knowledge of an assassination plot, and he had been promised that he would not be called as a witness in court against any of his co-conspirators. But for propaganda purposes, the concessions were relatively trivial. Monmouth’s confession seemed to prove beyond Whig cavil that there had been a conspiracy against the king’s government, and it allowed Charles to declare later that if he could have produced Monmouth as a witness, he could have hanged the men who were released on bail.27 If the Gazette announcement was a serious wound to Whig ver-

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sions of the plot, the further allegation that Monmouth had been pardoned through the intercession of the duke of York was a large addition of salt; and the fact that Charles, after forgiving his son, had readmitted him to Court and installed him at Whitehall also suggested a vile submission, as if Monmouth had abandoned his old friends for a pardon, a return to royal favor, and a rich cash present.28 For these highly embarrassing reasons, Monmouth had hardly made his confessions and read the Gazette’s version of his surrender when he began trying to deny or at least obfuscate his revelations. One part of the published Court story was deniable. Monmouth’s negotiations had been with his father, not with the duke of York; and although he had asked forgiveness of the duke, the initiative for the official pardon came from Charles, not James. In giving an account to the prince of Orange of Monmouth’s surrender, James did not credit himself with any intervention on Monmouth’s behalf, much less any ‘‘entreaty.’’29 The story of his magnanimity had been highly embellished by the Tory editor of the Gazette. Apparently Monmouth began by denying the accuracy of the published account of his surrender and then went on to intimate that the story of his confession was false as well—a stance that became much safer to maintain after he received his official, irrevocable pardon. By 29 November he had created enough confusion to make his surrender seem less damaging to the Whig cause—a confusion reflected in Tom Wharton’s report to Lord Wharton on that date: The D[uke] of Monmouth’s pardon will I believe be quite passed this day. The Gazette will tell you how he came in and hath carried himself since, and some people tell long stories of his submissions and confessions. I can’t yet be sure how much of it is to be believed, but to those that he hath seen and those he pretends to put confidence in he denies all, or most, of what is reported about it, and seems very desirous that those of his friends that have a good opinion of him would not be apt too suddenly to believe any ill of him.30

As matters turned out, Tom’s report of Monmouth’s efforts to disavow his confessions presaged the end of the king’s enthusiasm for his too-talkative son.31 Monmouth’s denials, circulated by his friends and ‘‘dependers,’’ were beginning to raise the spirits of the ‘‘mobile’’ and undo the propaganda advantages the government had gained from his surrender.32 As the accounts of his duplicity flowed in to the government, Charles drew the line. Monmouth could not

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eat his confessions and have them too. In particular, he could not impugn the testimony of his coconspirator Lord Howard, as he was reported to have done.33 Howard had been the star witness against Russell and the only witness against Sidney; he was scheduled to testify against John Hampden when Hampden was tried in February. Under these conditions, Charles required Monmouth to put his confessions in writing. Hereafter there would be no weaseling. Monmouth, in his own handwriting, was to give the lie to Whig denials of a conspiracy against the king. Monmouth first produced a letter that was too vague and general to satisfy his father. The king ordered another, more accurate letter drawn up and ordered Monmouth to copy it over and sign it. I have heard of some reports [the letter began] as if I should have lessened the late Plot and gone about to discredit the evidence given against those that died by justice. Your Majesty and the Duke know how ingenuously I have owned the late conspiracy, and though I was not conscious of any design against Your Majesty’s life, yet I lament the having so great a share in the other part of the said conspiracy.34

Monmouth copied and signed the letter, only to discover that he had run into a hidden danger. Though he could not be summoned as a witness in a plot trial, there was nothing, except perhaps honor, to prevent the Crown from using his written confession as corroborative evidence against his friends. To John Hampden, awaiting trial, Monmouth’s letter seemed a death warrant. The fact that the Crown could produce only one witness against him, Lord Howard, had caused the judges to reduce the charge from treason to high misdemeanors. But if Crown prosecutors could produce a letter of confession written and signed by Monmouth, Hampden feared, they might reinstate the treason charge and hang him.35 When Monmouth, who had sent a copy of his confession to Hampden, learned of Hampden’s agitation, he became highly agitated himself. He had talked his way into what now appeared to be a trap, and it was possible that he had signed away Hampden’s life. He rushed to his father, therefore, and ‘‘pressed very earnestly’’ to have his confession back. Neither Charles nor Monmouth seems to have raised the question of whether the signed letter could be withheld from the courts. To Charles, who hoped that his son after his submissions and repentance would abandon ‘‘the factious party’’ and satisfy the world of his return to loyalty, Monmouth’s demand for the letter meant that he intended to keep up his old connections—

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that having received his father’s pardon he would continue to deny in public what he had confessed in private. It meant that Charles could never believe him again.36 To Monmouth the letter was at best a grave embarrassment and at worst a disaster. It was painful enough to retract in writing the reports he had spread around; it was simply impossible to risk hanging his friend. The execution of Hampden would be a dishonor he could never live down. Charles let Monmouth ponder his decision over night, but Monmouth’s answer the next morning was unchanged. He could not rest until he had the letter back. This decision was crucial. Charles gave Monmouth the letter (‘‘threw him’’ the letter, according to one account)37 and demanded that he should return the original draft from which he had copied it. Then he dismissed Monmouth—for what turned out to be the last time. Later he sent Vice-Chamberlain Henry Savile with a formal order. Monmouth was ‘‘to depart the court’’ and not come again into the king’s presence.38 He had exchanged Whitehall and the king’s favor for the long, tortuous road to Sedgemoor and Tower Hill. Balked of its intention to use the signed confession to crush Whig propagandists, the Court did the next best thing. Charles described the duke’s behavior to his Privy Council, showed them the original of the paper Monmouth had copied and signed, and explained his final decision to banish Monmouth from his presence.39 This account was another blow to Whig pretensions, to be sure, but diehard Whigs could still persuade themselves that the king had lied about Monmouth’s original confessions and that the heroic duke, after wavering momentarily, had refused to own the plot and incriminate his friends. In December 1683, Whigs needed all the comfort they could get. The year had been disastrous, and 7 December had brought the execution of Algernon Sidney. It was some consolation that Sidney had died stoically, as became a Roman-style republican, and that the paper he left behind, like Russell’s, had been an eloquent statement of principle.40 But there was no consolation at all in the political prospects. Since the first reports about a Rye House Plot, the chances of preventing a popish succession had gone from slim to none. The issue of Exclusion was as dead as Essex or Russell. As the year ended, Tom Wharton remained untouched by accusations. Except for the contretemps over arms, his name had not appeared in any official documents; it had not been mentioned in the myriad reports, examinations, and confessions that littered the government’s files. He had not taken part in the famous consults that

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had doomed Russell and Sidney, and if he had ever discussed insurrection with his friends, he had been wise enough or lucky enough to keep the conversations unrecorded. In December 1683, untroubled by accusations himself, Tom could survey the wreckage of his party with a certain amount of detachment. He could hope that something could be salvaged—that John Hampden could be saved from the gallows and that Monmouth would not do anything irretrievably damaging. Meanwhile there were family affairs. Tom was trying, unsuccessfully, to negotiate a marriage for his young half-brother William.41 Anne, as usual, was occupied with writing and charitable works. The private Wharton world which had begun to return to normal in September had further righted itself by December. In retrospect, however, there was a gulf between the times before and after Rye House. On 12 April, two months before the Tory deluge, Tom and Lord Colchester rode merrily to the Harleston races in Tom’s calash ‘‘drawn by six horses.’’42 In early May Anne, who drank ass’s milk for her health, had lent one of her she-asses to Sir Ralph Verney to provide milk for his cough.43 And on 21 May Anne and Tom had dined with Sir Ralph at Middle Claydon.44 Now, in December, these typical events, viewed across the intervening anxieties, were part of another life. After the shambles of the summer and fall, the world had grown more somber. Unfortunately for the Whartons, during the next two years it would grow darker still.

16 Exits AT NOON ON 2 FEBRUARY 1685, PAUL DE BARRILLON, THE FRENCH

ambassador, sent a special courier with a dispatch to Louis XIV. At about eight-thirty that morning, he reported, King Charles had been stricken with an ‘‘apoplexie’’ which had deprived him of speech and consciousness. He had fallen while speaking. It seemed to Barrillon, who had been allowed into the king’s chamber, that Charles’s face was entirely distorted and that he was not distinctly conscious of anything. There was much more to fear, Barrillon said, than to hope.1 Barrillon’s assessment was right. Charles regained consciousness and survived four more days, more or less in spite of his doctors, whose bleeding and blistering might have killed a healthy man.2 Then on the morning of Friday, 6 February, between eleven and twelve o’clock he died. In the afternoon his brother James, duke of York, was proclaimed king. That evening, in a brief note to his sister Mary, Henry Wharton expressed his reaction to the news. He was so overcome by conflicting emotions, he explained with mock seriousness, that he could write only a word or two. For the sorrow that I have for the loss of our dear King [Charles] and the joy that we have so good a King in his place [James] puts me into such a transportation that between my sorrow and my joy I have only power to tell you that I am Yours faithfully H. Wharton3

Henry’s attitude was shared, of course, by Tom. To the Whartons the death of Charles meant that the English government had gone from bad to worse. Tom and Henry were not apt to shed tears for the man who had spent the last four years of his reign battering the Whig party, and they were even less likely to celebrate the accession of the man whom Whigs had been vilifying since the heyday 176

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of Titus Oates. The Wharton brothers did not yet know that Charles on his deathbed had received extreme unction from a Catholic priest.4 Nor did they know that James had asked Barrillon to assure King Louis that he would always be Louis’s faithful and understanding servant.5 They did know that a personable and clever politician was being succeeded by a rigid authoritarian. If not a nightmare, the succession of James was at least a bad dream. Most of the nation thought otherwise. Good Tories had praised James for years. Now their golden opinions seemed to be confirmed by his first pronouncement as king. Speaking to the Privy Council, James denied that he was ‘‘a man for arbitrary power.’’ He would endeavor, he said, to follow his brother’s example in showing ‘‘clemency and tenderness’’ to his people; he would also try to preserve the government ‘‘both in church and state’’ as it was established by law. I know [James continued] the principles of the Church of England are for monarchy, and the members of it have showed themselves good and loyal subjects; therefore I shall always take care to defend and support it. I know too that the laws of England are sufficient to make the king as great a monarch as I can wish; and as I shall never depart from the just rights and prerogative of the Crown, so I shall never invade any man’s property.6

The king’s promise to maintain the status quo and rule by law (an echo of Charles’s promises of 1681) was immediately published by the grateful Privy Council.7 It reassured many people who were not doctrinaire Tories. There was a formidable hedge of laws around the Anglican establishment, and if James truly intended to abide by existing law, the Church of England was in no danger. There would be no Catholic assault upon Protestantism. And if James with his praise of Anglicans seemed to promise the Tories a monopoly of political power, this did not appear an inordinate price to pay for political stability in the traditional forms. Naturally, Whigs like Tom and Henry Wharton were a great deal less enthusiastic than James about Charles’s ‘‘clemency and tenderness.’’ They were also less than pleased about Charles’s devotion to English law. Ignoring the provisions of the parliamentary act which required that the intervals between sessions of parliament should not exceed three years, Charles had preferred to go on collecting subsidies from Louis and avoiding political contests. From the Wharton point of view, Charles’s choice of laws to enforce was at least as bad as his choice of laws to forget. The last

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three years of Charles’s reign had seen a marked increase in the harrying of Dissenters. In other matters of law, the shift from Whig to Tory in popular sentiment had emboldened Charles in early 1684 to release Danby from the Tower on bail, as well as the three popish Lords who had survived there since 1678. Meanwhile, the post-Rye House campaign to destroy or pauperize obnoxious Exclusionists had continued. In February 1684, John Hampden was convicted of high misdemeanors, fined the staggering sum of forty thousand pounds, and sentenced to remain in prison until the fine was paid.8 In April, Sir Samuel Barnardiston, who had been convicted earlier of spreading Whig lies about the king’s evidence in treason trials, had been fined ten thousand pounds.9 In June, the outlawed Sir Thomas Armstrong had been seized in Holland, brought back to England, and hanged without a trial.10 Under these circumstances, James’s promise to imitate his brother in defending the Church and laws of England failed to cheer the Whartons. There was, however, one encouraging prospect. King James found himself obliged to summon a parliament. The funds that had been voted King Charles for life ended, officially, with his death. For a time, James could continue to collect customs and excise taxes by executive order.11 He could also, like Charles, solicit money from Louis XIV.12 But these strategies, both of which James adopted, were temporary expedients. It would be dangerous to continue non-parliamentary taxation. The only permanent solution to the king’s problems lay in a friendly parliament. Meanwhile, the act of convoking a parliament would further reassure his subjects that he intended to rule by law.13 For these reasons, ‘‘upon mature consideration,’’ James announced in a proclamation of 9 February that he had decided ‘‘to call a parliament speedily to be assembled.’’14 The king’s announcement put the Whartons into immediate action. This time the family offered three candidates. Tom stood for knight of the shire in Buckinghamshire; Henry stood at Malmesbury and William at Cockermouth. Goodwin had been removed from the family political roster. His virulent attack upon James in 1680 had been too strong even for his father. He had further distanced himself from his father and brothers by taking up with Mary Parish, a spiritualist old enough to be his mother and canny enough to deceive John Wildman—who was currently searching for buried treasure under Mary’s direction.15 Any hopes the Whartons may have nursed that their party could achieve a majority in the House of Commons vanished in the elections of March, April, and May. The Tories scored a smashing victory. Taking advantage of remodeled charters, loyalist enthusiasm,

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and the reaction against disturbers of the peace, the king’s friends defeated most of the Exclusionist candidates who sought reelection.16 The Whigs in the Commons were reduced from a strong majority to an ineffectual minority. In this debacle the Whartons managed to win one of three elections. Henry and Tom’s friend William Jephson were defeated at Malmesbury,17 and William lost at Cockermouth.18 Tom, however, not only won the Bucks election but also foiled the best efforts of Chief Justice Sir George Jeffreys to defeat him. The Bucks campaign, one of the most dramatic in Tom’s long political career, would have been complicated enough without the attempt of the Court to intervene. Since the 1681 election, when Tom and Richard Hampden had carried the county without a contest, many things had happened, none of them good. Besides the general wave of Tory fervor and the political debris from the Rye House Plot, there were personal liabilities. Tom’s malfeasance at Barrington, though excused or ignored by his friends and fading from current gossip, had not increased his popularity. The fact that Richard Hampden’s son John had been convicted of high misdemeanors and lodged permanently in prison, as it then appeared, might appeal to unrelenting Whigs, but it would not help Richard win a countywide election. Because Tom had acquired enough handicaps without appearing to be the new king’s irreconcilable enemy, he had taken an opportunity to kiss James’s hand.19 This precaution, which irritated Jeffreys, did not stop the king’s agents from trying to defeat him, but it allowed his friends to portray him as a man who would ‘‘serve the King and country very faithfully.’’20 It also enabled Tories disgusted by Court browbeating to give Tom covert support without wounding their political consciences. The most important of Tom’s secret abettors was the earl of Danby. Now out of the Tower and seeking to reestablish himself, he remembered, as he sometimes did, that he was Tom Wharton’s ‘‘cousin.’’21 He recalled too that Tom was a power in northern Bucks and a long-time foe of Sir Richard ‘‘Timber’’ Temple. Since Danby’s son Edward, Viscount Latimer, intended to stand against Temple in the election for the town of Buckingham, it occurred to Danby that a cousinly gesture might prove useful. Early in the campaign he promised to ask his M.P. son-in-law James Herbert and his friend Charles Dormer, earl of Carnarvon, to support Tom in the county election. Both men were large landholders in Bucks. Tom was immensely pleased with the unexpected favor. ‘‘I can’t but tell your Lordship,’’ he wrote, ‘‘I am the most sensible of it in

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the world.’’22 Chief Justice Jeffreys was much less pleased when rumors of Danby’s ‘‘good word’’ for Tom reached him and when it appeared that Herbert’s tenants were committed to the Wharton cause. It was no time for trimmers, much less Whigs, Jeffreys told Danby; the king’s friends must unequivocally support Tory candidates. In making excuses, Danby began with an evasion: Neither he nor Herbert, he said, could control Herbert’s tenants. He ended with a bland lie: ‘‘I hope my Lord Chief Justice knows me too well to believe I shall promote any Whig’s interest.’’23 Meanwhile John Egerton, Viscount Brackley, entered the contest for knight of the shire and gave the campaign a new dimension. As a moderate Tory and the son of the earl of Bridgwater, Brackley was popular across the political spectrum. His present candidacy (undertaken at his father’s insistence) was enthusiastically supported by Tom’s friend Sir Ralph Verney. ‘‘Pray tell Mr. Butterfield24 my Lord Brackley stands to be knight of the shire,’’ Sir Ralph wrote his steward William Coleman on 18 February, ‘‘and so doth Mr. Wharton, and I hope he will be for them.’’ Coleman, Sir Ralph added, was to ask the principal freeholders of the surrounding area to support Brackley and Wharton, as he himself would do.25 Originally, Tom intended to stand again with Richard Hampden, and he had actually begun soliciting on Hampden’s behalf when the entry of Brackley changed the odds.26 Early enquiries showed that, for the present at least, Brackley was even more popular with the freeholders of northern Bucks than Tom. Coleman’s report to Sir Ralph made this point clear. ‘‘Most about will be for the Lord Brackley,’’ Coleman wrote on 26 February, ‘‘but not so many for Mr. Wharton.’’27 Brackley was virtually certain to win one of the seats, and if Wharton and Hampden divided the votes of their friends, one Thomas Hackett, a Tory gentleman whose candidacy was being promoted by Jeffreys, might win the other. It was important, then, that one of them should withdraw and leave the field open for his fellow Whig. The fact that Hampden had a safe seat at Wendover and that his political liabilities were greater than Tom’s suggested that he should be the one to leave the county race.28 While Hampden was deciding what to do, Jeffreys was trying to bully Tom’s supporters into deserting him. One of these was Sir Ralph Verney, who had been very active in Tom’s cause. Sir Ralph had decided to stand once more with Sir Richard Temple for the town of Buckingham, as he had done in 1681, and this decision made him vulnerable to political pressure. Jeffreys threatened to oppose him if he supported Wharton.29

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In response to this threat, Sir Ralph employed a variant of Danby’s evasion. He agreed not to vote for Tom, but the agreement (as he interpreted it) applied only to his personal vote.30 He expected his friends to continue their support of Wharton and Brackley. Upon learning that Sir Ralph would not vote for Wharton, Jeffreys withdrew his opposition, but he became enraged again after his candidate lost the county election.31 On 15 May, nevertheless, after much anxiety, Sir Ralph and Sir Richard Temple were elected at Buckingham. In the latter part of March, an accident brought an unexpected complication to Tom’s campaign. Attending a race at Newport Pagnell—this time as a bystander, not a participant—Tom was struck in the eye when a horse reared. His injury, which at first appeared dangerous, was serious enough to make writing difficult.32 Temporarily, then, Anne became his scribe, and on 22 March she wrote Sir Ralph Verney to give him some important political information. Tom, she said, had ‘‘at last prevailed with Mr. Hampden to desist’’ from contesting the county election, and he had sent Lord Brackley word of Hampden’s decision. In bringing about Hampden’s withdrawal, Anne wrote, Tom had designed Brackley’s service ‘‘as much as his own.’’ He now wanted Sir Ralph’s advice ‘‘on how to manage himself’’ in the new situation and on how to make the election as ‘‘easy’’ as possible for both candidates.33 Tom obviously hoped that he and Lord Brackley could reach a gentleman’s agreement about the election. If, as the two most powerful candidates, they could promise mutual support, they might avoid a contest. This, in turn, would make the election ‘‘easy’’— that is to say, relatively cheap. It would save some hundreds, if not thousands, of pounds. Tom also hoped that Sir Ralph, as a friend of both men, could offer advice and perhaps help negotiate an agreement. Unfortunately for Tom’s plan and his purse, no effective alliance with Brackley was possible. Sir Ralph’s advice, if he ever gave it, could not prevent a contest. Tom might very well promise to deliver the second votes of his supporters to Brackley, but Brackley could not deliver the votes of the rabid Tories among his flock to a Whig like Tom, especially when Jeffreys and the Court were determined to defeat him. Nor did Brackley need to fear that Tom’s supporters would cast their second votes for Thomas Hackett. Most of Tom’s allies would have been almost as likely to vote for the pope as for the handpicked Tory candidate of Sir George Jeffreys. It behooved Brackley, then, to maintain a certain distance between himself and Tom and to stay as politically neutral as possible.34

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In contesting the election, Tom Wharton had three great advantages besides the normally Whig complexion of Bucks. He was rich, he was a native of the county, and he was personable. Tom’s wealth meant that he could bring freeholders from all over the county and entertain them handsomely.35 In this election, standing alone against two opponents, his expenses were on the order of three thousand pounds. Of this sum about fifteen hundred pounds was spent in a single day at the inns, taverns, and livery stables of Aylesbury.36 The fact that Tom had lived in Buckinghamshire all his life was particularly important. Jeffreys, the strident voice of the opposition, now owned Bulstrode, a Bucks estate; but he was a Welshman by origin, and he represented a domineering Court. His heavy-handed attempts to coerce the local gentry made it easy for them to forget that Tom had once tried to get a London grand jury to present James as a popish recusant and that he was rumored to have done something unsavory in some church or other. The additional fact that Tom was naturally outgoing, personable, and witty was another political asset. He genuinely liked people, and he inevitably expanded his acquaintance throughout the county. By 1685, he knew practically everyone in Bucks, from blacksmiths to Peers. He had acquired more of the intimate knowledge that would make Tories despair.37 Sir George Jeffreys’ hope of defeating Tom received a shock on 8 April, when the voters assembled at Aylesbury. Attending the election in person, Jeffreys could see before the polling was well started that Wharton ‘‘had many more voices than Mr. Hackett.’’ Acting on his authority as lord chief justice, Jeffreys halted the poll and rescheduled the election for Newport Pagnell. He would try again in a town where Tom was not ‘‘in the middle of his friends.’’38 This strategy, which had been tried against Wharton and Hampden in 1679, worked as badly now as it had worked the first time. Tom’s supporters followed him to Newport as they had once followed him to Buckingham. Since the Tories had taken up all the accommodations in town, Tom’s troops were compelled ‘‘to lie on banks’’ and tie their horses to ‘‘trees, gates, and hedges.’’ They even went without good ale.39 The election, ‘‘to the great grief of my Lord Chief Justice,’’ was hardly a contest. After all Jeffreys’ efforts, Thomas Hackett could muster only 1,207 votes. Lord Brackley received 2,430 votes, and when Tom’s total had reached 1,806, ‘‘with many hundreds more to poll,’’ Wharton and Brackley were declared knights of the shire.40

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Forced to concede defeat, Jeffreys, ‘‘in his passion,’’ could only fume and denounce the Bucks gentry as trimmers. The new Parliament, with its overwhelming majority of Tories, met for the first time on 19 May. The Tories now controlled all the major committees; and when the House was organized, Tom was not even appointed to the vast Committee of Privileges and Elections.41 For the Whigs there was no use in dividing on such questions as supply and very little use in debating them. As the Tory earl of Ailesbury later explained, Wharton, Hampden, and the ‘‘handful’’ of other Exclusionists who ‘‘could not be kept out’’ of the Commons ‘‘were too wise for to endeavor to stop the torrent’’ of loyal measures.42 They did not try to prevent enthusiastic Tories from making what turned out to be an irretrievable error. On 22 May, the king repeated to the Lords and Commons his now familiar speech, explaining his devotion to English law and the Anglican Church. He would support both, he promised, and he expected in turn that Parliament would vote him adequate revenues for life. It would be a mistake, he warned, to feed him a little at a time in the hope of obliging him to call frequent sessions. If the Lords and Commons wanted to meet him often, they should use him well.43 Almost before the echoes of the king’s speech had died away, the Commons resolved without dissent to continue for James’s life the revenues that had been granted to Charles.44 The bill drawn up to that effect received its third reading only four days later; and on 30 May, after being approved without alteration by the Lords, it was ready for the royal assent. As Speaker Sir John Trevor explained to the king and the assembled Lords and Commons, the bill had been passed with all possible speed and without conditions. There was no accompanying bill for the ‘‘preservation and security’’ of the Protestant religion. In that [Trevor intoned], we acquiesce, entirely rely, and rest wholly satisfied in Your Majesty’s Gracious and Sacred Word, repeated Declaration and Assurance, to support and defend the Religion of the Church of England, as it is now by Law established.45

It would be several months before Speaker Trevor and his Tory friends learned that in voting the king revenues for life and trusting him to protect the Anglican Church they had made an irretrievable mistake. Meanwhile, they essentially completed the task of making themselves expendable by voting James additional long-term subsidies to pay off Charles’s debts, strengthen the navy, and deal with

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troublesome insurrections. When they finally woke up to discover what the ‘‘sacred word’’ of the king was worth, they were too late to apply financial pressures. They had made an error that no English parliament would ever make again.46 In fairness to the Tories, it should be pointed out that they were helped to their mistakes by two tragic and bloody errors on the part of radical Whigs—the earl of Argyll’s descent upon western Scotland and Monmouth’s descent upon western England. On 22 May James announced to the assembled Lords and Commons that Argyll had landed in Scotland. The king’s announcement, which followed his first request for supply, not only brought forth loyal addresses but also stifled any serious arguments on finance. Gentlemen who had just declared, nemine contradicente, that they would stand by the king ‘‘with their lives and fortunes’’ could hardly quibble about the supplies James said he needed. Similarly, on 13 June when Lord Middleton announced that Monmouth had landed ‘‘in a hostile manner’’ at Lyme, the Commons, who immediately voted another lives-and-fortunes address, could not decently refuse to appropriate an additional long-term subsidy. Tom Wharton, as Ailesbury noted, was too wise to oppose the flood of Tory measures in Parliament. He was also too wise to be lured into the Monmouth disaster. Sentiment, of course, was on Monmouth’s side. Tom and the duke had been friends for at least six years. They both loved wine, women, and horses. They had shared bottles and racing stables, and they shared the belief that Monmouth’s Uncle James, now King James, was a bigoted threat to the English constitution. What they did not share was the delusion that Monmouth might be legitimate or that the time was ripe for another revolution. Whig exiles in the Low Countries might believe that the nation was panting for their return, and Whig radicals in London might persuade themselves that the City would explode in the king’s face if a rebel force landed in the kingdom. But to Tom Wharton, who had stayed in England and viewed the political scene with a colder eye, the odds against a successful uprising looked prohibitive. Tom remembered, of course, London’s reception of the duke in 1679 and the provincial progresses in the early eighties; but he also remembered that more than two years and a Rye House Plot had intervened between the cheers and the present exile. After the long furor of plots and counterplots, the nation was much readier for a breathing space than for a civil war. The Tory portion of the country was solidly behind the king. The king’s army, though small compared to what it later became, was loyal and uncorrupted, and it would be reinforced by three Scottish and three English regiments

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in the Dutch service. An insurrection would be opposed too by the prince of Orange, whose wife Mary was the heiress apparent to the English throne. As Tom calculated the odds against success, his estimates coincided with those of John Wildman, who sounded out Whig gentlemen on the subject of insurrection. Wildman found a ‘‘coldness and backwardness’’ among the people he approached—an unwillingness even to talk about revolution, much less risk their heads. He warned Monmouth, via William Disney and Robert Cragg, that he ‘‘should not think of coming for England.’’47 Tom Wharton, who was very probably one of the ‘‘friends’’ consulted by Wildman, agreed with this prudent advice. As his memorialist observed, ‘‘he looked upon the duke of Monmouth’s attempt as chimerical, and he never had any thoughts of joining in it on the foot of his rash invasion.’’48 When it became clear that the invasions could not be stopped by good advice, Tom simply waited for bad news. This was not long in coming. Argyll landed at Lorne in Scotland on 13 May, but his arrival evoked little enthusiasm beyond the borders of his clan. When he attempted to invade the lowlands, his little army was dispersed and he was captured. Argyll’s rising, which ended on 18 June, lasted little more than a month. Its collapse freed the king’s forces to concentrate on the English rebels, who had landed at Lyme a week earlier. Monmouth’s rising, his famous rebellion, lasted only twenty-five days. For a few of those days it appeared that Tom had miscalculated the odds. Monmouth achieved tactical surprise with the landing at Lyme, and although the gentry and nobility remained aloof, he recruited a sizeable force of country folk and townsmen— mostly Dissenters. Virtually unopposed by the regional militias, he took over Taunton, where he drilled his recruits and prepared for an attack on Bristol. Meanwhile, the king’s regular troops, under Feversham and John Churchill (later the renowned duke of Marlborough) were hurrying westward. Contingents reached Bristol before Monmouth. There on 25 June a planned rebel attack was halted by a heavy rainstorm, and before it could be renewed the arrival of more regulars forced a withdrawal. As Monmouth retreated from Bristol, it became clear that the rebellion had lost its momentum. The government had preempted a possible rising in Cheshire, and in London most of the leading conspirators were arrested or chased into hiding. A further blow to the rebels was the growing certainty that the regulars, including troops once commanded by Monmouth, would not desert the king. Mon-

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mouth’s friends had flattered themselves that there would be largescale defections. Some had also hoped that if Monmouth proclaimed himself king, as he did on 20 June,49 he might attract support from the gentry, but this maneuver provoked more jeers than aid. As it daily grew more evident that the rising had been contained, the fainthearted began to desert. By the time the diminished army reached Bridgwater with the royal forces in pursuit, the revolt looked as hopeless as Tom Wharton and John Wildman had calculated. But Monmouth almost proved them wrong. He launched a night attack upon the royal army, which was camped behind some drainage ditches on Sedgemoor, and his attempt to surprise and shatter the sleeping battalions came very close to succeeding.50 In the end, however, bad luck and indiscipline doomed the operation. The rebel army broke at last and fled across the moor. Monmouth, unfortunately for himself, survived the battle. Captured a few days later, he would plead ignominiously and futilely for his life and end up on Tower Hill, beheaded by a clumsy executioner.51 About the time Monmouth landed at Lyme, Anne Wharton became ill again. At first the malady did not seem dangerous—merely another episode in what Sir Ralph Verney termed ‘‘the colic.’’ Attended by Dr. Richard Lower and ‘‘two or three doctors from Oxford,’’ she seemed, to Sir Ralph at least, to be in more peril from the medicine than from the disease. Her physicians, he judged, ‘‘were able to kill a hundred patients if they would take physic enough to do it.’’52 But the illness lingered through the summer, and about 12 August she went from Winchendon to Adderbury to stay with her grandmother Lady Rochester. Tom, meanwhile, agreeing perhaps with the optimistic assessment of Anne’s condition, had betaken himself to Tunbridge Wells sometime in July. There he was joined by his mistress Jane Dering and by his brother Henry. Henry had been made a captain in the duke of Norfolk’s newly raised regiment of foot (a regiment Henry would one day command).53 With the collapse of the rebellion, he accompanied Norfolk to the Wells. Jane Dering, whose father had died the previous year, was now twentythree and more or less free to do as she pleased.54 She did not choose to live openly as Tom’s mistress, but the liaison between the pair was well known—at least to John Verney, who happened to be in Tunbridge while Jane and Tom were there. Tom interrupted his sojourn in Tunbridge twice—once for about a week in early August, probably to see Anne at Winchendon, and once more on 12 and 13 August to see Lord Wharton in Dover.

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Lord Wharton, to the alarm of his servants and children, had decided to make an extended visit to the Continent for his health.55 At seventy-two, then a great age, he preferred the risks of travel, he said, to those of an English winter. On 7 August he had gone to Windsor, explained his health problems to the earl of Sunderland, and asked for a formal passport. Sunderland could see no reason for refusing. The old nobleman was indeed ‘‘lame,’’ and he had not been named in the spate of confessions pouring out of English jails after the Monmouth affair. Careful to avoid any imputation that he was fleeing, he made it clear that he was setting out for France, not for Holland, the favorite haven for escaping rebels. In this situation, Sunderland not only issued a passport for Lord Wharton56 but also presented him to King James, who allowed him to kiss his hand and wished him a pleasant journey. After a farewell to his family at Wooburn, Lord Wharton traveled to Dover on 12 August. He was accompanied by Goodwin, who stayed with him until his ship, delayed by contrary winds, sailed for Calais on 18 August.57 He had not felt called upon to explain to Sunderland what he later explained to Alexander, baron von Spaen, governor of Cleves, that the health of prominent Dissenters was likely to be better on the Continent than in England.58 Tom had seen Lord Wharton at Dover on the evening of 12 August and returned to Tunbridge the next morning. He had barely resettled himself when Henry engaged in another of his brawls. Riding before the duke of Norfolk’s carriage en route to the spa, Henry ordered a coachman whose coach was blocking the road to make way for the duke. The coachman answered somewhat pertly that he had broken some harness and that the duke must wait. Whereupon Henry knocked him down, and when the occupant of the coach asked what was going on, Henry ‘‘bade him come out of the coach and he would serve him so too.’’ Unfortunately for Henry, the passenger turned out to be Dr. James Jeffreys, brother to the lord chief justice, who was understandably ‘‘angered.’’ It required the influence of Norfolk to prevent serious consequences.59 The incident brought Tom some unwanted publicity. It impelled John Verney, then in Tunbridge, to report Harry’s latest outrage to Sir Ralph, and while he was about it—while his mind was on the Whartons—he also reported the most recent scandal about Tom. ‘‘Tom Wharton is here,’’ he wrote, ‘‘and so is Mrs. Dering, though I hear Mrs. Wharton is not yet well.’’ That Tom should be in Tunbridge with his mistress, John implied, was perhaps to be expected, but that he should be disporting himself while Anne continued to be ill was at best shabby.60

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In reply to John’s letter, Sir Ralph did not comment upon Tom’s misdeeds. He concentrated instead upon the ‘‘rashness’’ which led Henry ‘‘into more disputes and troubles than can be expressed.’’ The sojourn of the Wharton brothers at Tunbridge would soon be over in any case, Sir Ralph said. The Quainton races were scheduled to begin Wednesday, 26 August, and neither Tom nor Henry was likely to miss them. Meanwhile, Anne, who had been at Adderbury for about ten days, would probably stay ‘‘a little longer.’’61 Sir Ralph was right about the Quainton races. Harry won the feature event there on the first day. Sadly, he was only half right about Anne. In late August, about the time Tom returned from Tunbridge, Anne took a sudden turn for the worse. Instead of staying ‘‘a little longer’’ at Wilmot House, she stayed there the rest of her short life. The new state of affairs was described by John Cary: Mrs. Wharton lies very weak and ill, and it’s much feared what the issue will be. All care imaginable is taken for her, and Doctor Radcliffe doth most diligently attend her, and we hope the best. All is in the hands of the Almighty.62

On 6 September, Sir Ralph Verney sent his son John a further report. ‘‘Mrs. Wharton is extremely ill; I am much afraid of [for] her. The poor will miss her dearly. Yesterday she lay in great pains and convulsions.’’63 Anne continued ‘‘very ill’’ through September, ‘‘without any great hopes of recovery’’—attended much of the time by her sister Eleanora, countess of Abingdon,64 constantly by her grandmother, and sometimes by her husband. Meanwhile, in London, her brother-in-law Goodwin was making plans to restore her to health. During the past year under the tutelage of Mary Parish, he had greatly expanded his spiritual powers—from communicating, via Mary, with familiar spirits to receiving messages from angels. It was now possible, he believed, to go to Adderbury and effect a miraculous cure. All he needed was the permission of the angels and the assurance that he would not find Tom at Anne’s bedside. In early October the angels gave their permission, provided him with some holy oil, and fixed the date of his journey for 7 October. At the last minute, however, the expedition was cancelled. A short revelation informed Goodwin that God had done his ‘‘business.’’ In other words, as Mary Parish explained, Anne would be cured without any help from Goodwin.65 But the miraculous cure was cancelled as well. Anne died on 29 October. As Mary Parish (quoting the angel Ahab) explained to the

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horrified Goodwin when he learned of Anne’s death, the Lord had changed his mind about curing Anne when, after a sincere repentance for her sins, she showed signs of relapsing into ‘‘an ill temper.’’ In his mercy, He ‘‘thought best to take her off whilst penitent.’’ Anne had spent some of her last moments, Mary explained further, reconciling herself with Tom and removing his suspicion that she had actually committed adultery with Goodwin. Tom, thoroughly convinced of her innocence, repented in tears ‘‘like a child’’ for his own misconduct.66 Unhappily, the stories recounted by Mary Parish on the authority of the angels are seldom trustworthy; and there seems to be no independent confirmation of this one. It is possible that during the twomonth crisis, Tom offered some of the apologies he owed his dying wife, and it is conceivable that Anne might have confessed some of her own lapses from grace; but if so, no mere mortal seems to have recorded the event in a document that has survived. In particular there is nothing from Anne or Tom, whose feelings are the ones that truly matter. The last hours of the poet were kept from her poems and also from her correspondence. She may have been too ill to write, and she did not make a will.67 What Tom thought at the time remains unknown. What he did, however, is recorded in the Verney family letters and in the Winchendon Parish Register. He brought Anne home to Winchendon for burial, and three days before the funeral, which he set for 10 November, he sent servants around to invite the neighboring gentry to the services. Held in the evening rather than the daytime, the funeral was as heavily attended as Anne could have wished. As befitted a Wharton, Anne was buried in the church, and Tom made one final gesture. Defying the law that required English men and women to be buried in woolen, Tom caused Anne be buried in silk. For this defiance, he paid a fine of fifty shillings. The money was distributed among the poor of Winchendon.68

17 Dropping the Mask ON THE DAY BEFORE ANNE WHARTON’S FUNERAL, KING JAMES BEGAN

the process of committing political suicide. In his speech at the opening of the new session of Parliament, he asked the assembled Lords and Commons to finance a sizeable standing army, and he told them (in euphemisms) that he intended to retain in the service the officers he had employed (illegally) to help put down the summer rebellions. Although strong rumors of the king’s intentions had preceded the session,1 the key paragraph of his speech sent a shock wave through his audience:

Let no man take exception that there are some officers in the army not qualified, according to the late Tests, for their employments. The gentlemen, I must tell you, are most of them well known to me; and, having served with me in several occasions and always approved the loyalty of their principles by their practice, I think fit now to be employed under me. And I will deal plainly with you, that after having had the benefit of their service in such time of need and danger, I will neither expose them to disgrace nor myself to want of them if there should be another rebellion to make them necessary for me.2

Rephrased in blunt prose, the passage meant that James had employed Catholic army officers in defiance of the Test Act passed by the king and Parliament in 1673 and that he intended to go on ignoring the law. He expected that Parliament would acquiesce in this deviation and that the Lords and Commons would vote him the money to maintain a standing army roughly three times the size of the prerebellion force. James closed his speech with a volley of rhetoric designed to forestall opposition and to suggest that no loyal Tory could possibly object to his actions: I am afraid some men may be so wicked as to hope and expect that a difference may happen between you and me on this occasion; but when

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you consider what advantages have arisen to us in a few months by the good understanding we have hitherto had, what wonderful effects it has already produced in . . . affairs abroad . . . and that nothing can hinder a further progress in this way . . . but fears and jealousies amongst ourselves, I will not apprehend that such a misfortune can befall us as a division or a coldness between me and you, nor that anything can shake you in your steadiness and loyalty to me.3

With this speech James began the political education of the Tory party. Though he did not transmute High-Church Royalists into instant Whigs, he gave his faithful partisans a chill. The prospect of a powerful regular army in the hands of a Catholic ruler was enough in itself to worry them. They remembered too well the military dictatorship under Cromwell, and more immediately they could look across the Channel and see a royal dictatorship, French style, supported by the most formidable army in Europe. Good Tories had often declared their implicit trust and confidence in James, but could they really trust him with a regular army of twenty thousand men? It was not a question they wanted to face. The fateful paragraph about the Catholic officers added an ominous complication. A standing army commanded by bona fide Anglicans was bad enough; an army with a significant number of Catholic officers was a great deal worse. With a remodeled army and some help from his fellow enthusiast Louis XIV, who had just revoked the Edict of Nantes and was now converting Huguenots to Catholicism with dragoons, James could reinstall popery—or turn England into a shambles in the attempt. Almost worse than the long-range peril was the immediate realization that James had broken a law made for the security of the Anglican Church. His devotion to English law, it now appeared, had lasted only until he had crushed his opponents and felt himself strong enough to dispense with the restrictions on his power. And along with this sobering thought came another that Tories had sometimes chosen to forget. The king appointed, and removed, the judges of the royal courts. There was nothing to prevent him from revising the King’s Bench to his own tastes—a process already begun with the appointment of the compliant Sir Edward Herbert as lord chief justice. Having recently ennobled Sir George Jeffreys and made him lord chancellor, James was unlikely to encounter serious legal challenges to his authority. It is doubtful that Tom Wharton was among the crowd of M.P.s who heard James make his memorable pronouncement. Even if he had not been scheduled to attend Anne’s funeral the following eve-

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ning at Winchendon, he would have felt little compulsion, as one of a small knot of Whig members, to appear at what was essentially a reunion of Tory notables. But after the dazed M.P.s returned to their chamber and agreed to a three-day recess before taking the king’s ‘‘gracious speech’’ into formal consideration, Tom’s position was drastically altered. On Thursday, 12 November, when the Commons reconvened, he had been transformed from a dissident who ‘‘could not be kept out’’ to a veteran member who understood Opposition tactics and whose help and vote were needed if the House was not to be stampeded into a political enormity.4 Significantly, one of the leaders of the new Opposition was the eminent Tory Sir Edward Seymour. Having opposed Exclusion at every turn and done his best to seat James on the throne, Seymour had been one of the first of his party to face the consequent dangers. In the earlier session, virtually alone, he had opposed granting James revenues for life, and he had warned that the Crown’s power to recall charters and manage elections might be used to bring in ‘‘papist religion and unconstitutional government.’’5 Now he attacked the proposal for a standing army and the retention of popish officers. Employing officers in defiance of the Test Act, he said, ‘‘is dispensing with all the laws at once.’’ Government speakers had argued that the county militias had proven useless against Monmouth and that a large regular force was needed to insure peace at home and the balance of power abroad. In riposte, Seymour pointed out that the rebellions were already crushed and that the militia could easily quiet any disturbance that might arise. A regular army, he admitted, was more efficient than a militia, but the militia could be ‘‘new modeled’’ and made more useful. The ‘‘safety of the kingdom,’’ he argued, ‘‘does not consist with a standing force.’’6 Sheltered by such impeccable anti-Exclusionists as Seymour and Sir Thomas Clarges, who frankly pointed out the contradiction between the king’s repeated promises to uphold the law and his present determination to circumvent it,7 Tom Wharton could oppose the Court without antagonizing his Tory colleagues. ‘‘I am for a bill for making the militia useful,’’ he said, ‘‘and would know if we give our money thus [without restriction], whether it be not for setting up a standing army.’’8 The Opposition could not prevent the government from carrying, by a small margin, a resolution to grant the king ‘‘a supply,’’ but it easily carried a resolution of its own: that a bill should be brought in ‘‘to render the Militia more useful.’’9 As Barrillon explained to Louis XIV, the supply resolution passed only because it did not specify what the money was to be used for, while the militia resolu-

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tion plainly declared that the Commons feared a regular standing army.10 At the time, the militia resolution seemed more like a bleat of protest than a warning shot fired across the king’s bows. It could be shrugged off by James if the Commons went on to make substantial additions to the money they had voted so promptly in the previous session. And even if Parliament refused further aid, the sums already authorized would enable the king, with prudent management, to maintain a strong military force. Another danger signal that James and his advisors felt free to ignore, if they noticed it at all, was the fact that Tom Wharton and Sir Edward Seymour argued and voted on the same side. A chief of the Whigs had been joined by a chief of the Tories. Tom had become a chief of the Whigs by attrition. Shaftesbury had died in exile two years earlier. Russell and Sidney had been executed for complicity in the Rye House Plot. Monmouth had paid with his life for his abortive rebellion, and suspected collaborators like Brandon and Delamere were in prison awaiting trial. Lord Wharton, after a gesture towards the spas of Aix-la-Chapelle, had prudently made his way to Emmerich in the Duchy of Cleves. There in territory belonging to the elector of Brandenburg, a Protestant ruler, he could wait in relative safety for the political dust to settle at home.11 The destruction of Whig grandees, along with Whig losses in the spring elections, meant that the ‘‘Honorable Thomas Wharton,’’ at thirty-seven, had become a major spokesman for his party. As yet he was a cautious spokesman. It was not a time to say ‘‘I told you so’’ or to ask the Tories what they had expected when they placed a popish zealot on the throne. In the face of a mutual problem, it was a time for cooperation—to hold supply to a minimum and to ask the king to obey the law. By agreeing in advance to indemnify the officers who were serving illegally, Opposition leaders hoped to take some of the sting out of the formal protest they intended to deliver. Wharton spoke twice in the debate on the amount of supply to be granted James. Crown spokesmen proposed the sum of £1,200,000. Sir Edmund Jennings countered with a proposal for £400,000— £200,000 in new money added to £200,000 already in hand. Tom agreed with Jennings that £400,000 was enough. He then proceeded in a second speech to blast once more the establishment of a standing army. He wanted to pay off the troops, he said, and get rid of them as quickly as possible. The country, he added, is ‘‘weary of the oppression of the soldiers, weary of free quarters, plunder, and

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some felons.’’ No doubt, as Secretary of War William Blathwayte had explained, the soldiers had been given strict rules by the king. But this fact, Tom argued, was more alarming than reassuring. It seemed to show that the king himself could not govern his army.12 In the end, the Commons agreed to a rather generous compromise. They would give James £700,000, and they would not attach any hard-and-fast conditions. They had already agreed, however, to address the king; and the address, though tactfully worded, told James that in appointing Catholic officers he was ‘‘dispensing with’’ an act of Parliament and setting a dangerous precedent. It asked him, in the jargon of humility, to remove all ‘‘apprehensions or jealousies’’ from the hearts of his ‘‘good and faithful subjects.’’13 King James missed a glorious opportunity to return a soft answer. His Tory partisans were almost pathetically eager to believe that they had not misjudged him—that his illegal appointments, as he had implied in his opening speech, had been made to meet an emergency and continued from simple gratitude. Loyal M.P.s could readily persuade themselves that the apparent breach of promise was a momentary aberration and that the sacred word of a king, though undoubtedly bent, was not actually broken. If James could temporize now, if he could explain that he fully appreciated their fears, however groundless, all might yet be well. If he could thank them for their address and promise that their acquiescence now would not be drawn into precedent, they might not renew the attack upon his officers. With a few soothing words, he might even shame them out of their distrust of the soldiers who had fought for them. At the very least he might get the money bill safely through the House of Lords. But James was James, not Charles. His attempt to slide an unchallenged breach of the Test Act past a Tory House of Commons had failed. Instead of meek acquiescence he had received a lecture and a reprimand. Worst of all, he had been suspected of doing what he was actually doing: trying to establish Catholicism by evading the law. On 6 July, he had explained his policy to Barrillon, who in turn explained it to Louis XIV. The king of England told me [Barrillon wrote] that I knew the principles of his designs, and could witness that his greatest object was the establishment of the Catholic religion, which he would lose no opportunity to accomplish; that he had put arms into the hands of the Catholics in Ireland; that he had given the command of his army in Scotland to the Earl of Dumbarton; that the Duke of Gordon had been put at the head of the militia; that he now placed, as far as he could, the military

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employments in the hands of English Catholics; that this was in some degree dropping the mask, but he did not wish to miss the opportunity . . . ; that he knew how many persons were offended at it, but that he would pursue the course he had begun, from which nothing should divert him, provided that Your Majesty [Louis] would assist him in so great and glorious a design.14

Not surprisingly, the address of the Commons, presented on the afternoon of Tuesday, 17 November, enraged James beyond soft answers. It showed that the mask had dropped farther than he had intended and that his maneuvers would be strongly opposed. Thwarted in his strategy, he sent the Commons a stinging rebuke for their lack of faith. His message was read next morning by Speaker Trevor. I did not expect such an address from this House of Commons [James wrote], having so lately recommended to your consideration the great advantages a good understanding between us had produced in a very short time and given you warning of fears and jealousies amongst ourselves. I had reason to hope that the reputation God hath blessed me with in the world would have created and confirmed a greater confidence in you of me, and of all I say to you. But however you proceed on your part, I will be steady in all my promises I have made to you and be very just to my word in every one of my speeches.15

The king’s reply stunned the Commons. When Trevor finished reading, there was ‘‘a profound silence for some time.’’ Tom Wharton was the first to speak. He coolly ‘‘moved that a day might be appointed to consider of His Majesty’s answer to the late address of this House, and named Friday next.’’16 The royal tirade, Tom’s motion implied, could not go unanswered. The Commons must attempt to determine whether James was stupid or lying when he implied that he had kept his promises, or (more ominously) whether he intended to allege that his word was law. The House must separate the king’s bluster from the unstated conclusion that he would continue to defy the Test Act. Then it must reiterate its opposition. But an excitable Tory named John Coke went too far. In seconding Tom’s motion, he could not resist a sneer at the king’s tactics. ‘‘We are all Englishmen,’’ he said, ‘‘and we ought not to be frighted out of our duty by a few high words.’’17 Coke’s implication that the king was trying to bully the House into acquiescence, though perfectly true, was highly impolitic. Having spent years praising James for his upright, angular character and protesting their own unswerv-

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ing loyalty, most Tories were not yet ready to face the hideous possibility that they might have to choose between church and king. Thus, when Richard Graham, Viscount Preston, accused Coke of insulting James, he created a perfect diversion. Loyal Tories might respectfully disagree with their king, but they never called him a blustering bully. Preston had no trouble in getting Coke committed to the Tower and deflecting the debate on Tom’s motion. After several Court Tories declared their faith in James’s promises, action upon the motion was postponed indefinitely. But the political damage to the king’s cause had been done. The king’s reply to the Commons finally brought action in the House of Lords. At the opening of Parliament on 9 November, the Lords had resolved without opposition to thank James for his ‘‘most gracious speech’’;18 and there had been no challenge to its contents for the first few days of the session. The debates had taken place in the Commons. The arguments, of course, had become common knowledge as Opposition M.P.s hammered away at the royal policies. Now, with James’s angry rejection of the Commons’ formal address, the Lords could hardly ignore any longer the constitutional questions raised by the circumvention of the law. On 19 November, after a ‘‘very warm’’ round of debates, the Lords appointed the following Monday for ‘‘reading and considering His Majesty’s speech,’’ and they ordered all Peers to attend under threat of penalties.19 King James did not wait for a second round of debates. He had been present at the first one, and one round had been enough. The fact that his partisans could not defeat the motion to examine his speech told him that he would not win a return engagement; and the plainness with which Opposition speakers, including the bishop of London, denounced his breach of the Test Act warned him that his support in the House was evaporating. It was now doubtful whether the Lords would pass the money bill without attaching a stern proviso. The next morning, therefore, before he could sustain any further damage, he prorogued Parliament. He would never meet another one. While Tom was distinguishing himself in the Commons, his friends and family were speculating about his domestic plans. His sister Mary, in Wales, had heard about his stay in Tunbridge with Jane Dering. Shortly after Anne’s death, she wrote to their brother Henry for news.20 Was it true, Mary asked, that Tom intended to marry again. Next to Tom himself, Harry was the best source of information. He was Tom’s closest confidant, and he had observed Tom and Jane at Tunbridge. In this case, however, the best Harry

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could do was to guess and to provide his sister with a brief status report on the four Wharton brothers and their mistresses— including his own mistress, Mary (‘‘Moll’’ or ‘‘Molly’’) Howard, duchess of Norfolk, then in France:21 Our well beloved friend and Duchess [he wrote] is not as yet come over, but I know so much that I shall not be surprised when I see her here. As to the death of the wife [Anne] it is most true, but as to the second espousal I am as yet in the dark, though some talk [as if] there is some reason to smell a rat. However, to make the business yet more accomplished, when he [Tom] brings home this lady, then shall Goodwin appear with his old woman [Mary Parish], and Harry with his dear Molly, Will with Mrs [Henrietta] Yarborough, and we will all meet in a day of thanksgiving for the great advancement of the family.22

Mary did not ask Tom what he and Jane Dering were planning. Perhaps she felt it indelicate to ask a man who had barely finished burying his wife whether he intended to marry his mistress. If she asked later, both her query and Tom’s answer have disappeared. There seem to be no surviving documents that explain why an affair which would last at least four more years—and outlast Henry Wharton—did not end in marriage. Nor does any document tell when Jane disappeared from Tom’s life. Very probably in late November 1685, Tom Wharton himself could not have told Mary what he intended to do. Both his personal and political worlds had been transformed by the events of the summer and autumn. Anne was now gone from Winchendon and from their new town house at Number 22, Soho Square.23 Besides many memories and properties, she had left him with the duty of paying bequests, providing for her personal servants, and continuing her charities. Monmouth too was gone forever, and his unfinished mansion on the south side of Soho Square served as an elaborate reminder of his truncated career. Lord Wharton, whose town house at St. Giles-in-the-Fields was a short walk from the Square, was also absent. Still in Emmerich, he was being carefully watched by government spies, who noted the visits he received from dissidents like Sir John Thompson and Sir Patience Ward and fugitives like John Wildman.24 Probably unaware that he was the subject of reports to the English government, Lord Wharton waited on the border of Holland and Cleves, ostensibly for the spas to open at Aix but actually for clear signs that the danger had subsided at home. Tom, meanwhile, like the rest of political England, was left with the problem of trying to guess what the king would do next. Now that James had dropped the mask, it was obvious that he would go on trying to circumvent the law. The only question was how he would go about it.

18 Galloping ON 10 MARCH 1686, THERE WAS A PERCEPTIBLE SHIFT IN THE POLITIcal wind and a silent recalculation of odds all over England. On that date King James proclaimed a general amnesty for the crimes committed against him and his brother Charles.1 There were exceptions, of course, but most dissidents could breathe freely. Even men who had fled overseas could avoid prosecution if they returned by 29 September and appeared before a justice of the peace. Besides its announced purpose of quieting the nation, the proclamation had an unstated but easily discernible aim. It was a significant move by the king towards conciliating the Dissenters. A clause in the decree which pardoned attendance at ‘‘unlawful meetings and conventicles,’’ as well as treasons and misprisions, made this purpose clear. Having been thwarted by his old friends, the Anglicans, James was beginning to explore a possible alliance with his old enemies—the people whom his party had dubbed ‘‘the fanatics.’’ The king’s proclamation marked another turn in Wharton fortunes. Immediately it meant that Lord Wharton could relax. In no danger from the government as long as he returned to England by late September, he felt free to visit Aix and make a leisurely tour of the German states, including Brandenburg.2 Eventually, the king’s developing stance as a friend of Dissenters would mean that Lord Wharton, as an influential patron of Nonconformist ministers, would be wooed by the government and that Tom and Henry would be welcome at Whitehall. Meanwhile, on 12 March came the counterpoint to the king’s overtures toward fanatics. James instructed Attorney General Sir Robert Sawyer to prepare ‘‘a bill’’ authorizing about ninety Catholic lords and gentleman to visit London. This order implicitly nullified for its beneficiaries the joint resolution of the Houses and the royal proclamations of 1678 which forbade Catholics to come within ten miles of the town. The edict further authorized the lords and gentlemen to appear before the king, the queen, and the queen 198

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dowager ‘‘without taking the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy.’’ Finally, the designated men were to be ‘‘dispensed’’ from ‘‘taking the said Oaths . . . and from all penalties, notwithstanding former statutes.’’3 In short, they were to be pardoned in advance for violating the penal laws against Catholics. On the day James issued orders to his attorney general, he also instructed his archbishops to stop proceedings against some two hundred recusants in the county of Lincoln.4 Though perhaps not as dramatic as the indulgences bestowed upon Catholic grandees, the instruction to the churchmen was a reminder of a vital fact. According to the law, James was head of the Church of England, with the right to oversee Church discipline. On 5 March he had instructed archbishops Sancroft and Dolben to keep their clergy from preaching on controversial doctrines and political matters. Ministers were to concentrate instead upon ‘‘the duty of subjection and obedience’’ and upon the ‘‘moral duties’’ of Christians.5 The instructions did not say in so many words that Anglican preachers were not to criticize the king or his religion, but the intent was clear enough. Politically King James’s decisions on Church matters were often unwise. Certainly his failure to abide by the Tory version of ‘‘original contract’’—the promise to observe the laws protecting the Church of England—would help to drive him from the throne. Legally, however, his orders were often impeccable. And the fact that his ecclesiastical subordinates admitted his supremacy and had preached loyalty and obedience at the top of their lungs made their positions excruciating as he hacked away at their establishment. In the early spring of 1686, then, the outlines of the political future were essentially clear. The King’s Bench had not yet declared, in the case of Sir Edward Hales, that James could legally employ Catholic officers; James had not yet appointed an ecclesiastical commission to discipline clergymen who insisted upon preaching against his religion; and the royal regiments were not yet drawn up on Hounslow Heath to remind Londoners in particular and the country in general that resistance was out of the question. The strategies, however, by which James would attempt to strengthen his authority and establish his coreligionists in positions of power were obvious enough. There was only one uncertainty: How fast would he move? Several years later, John Oldmixon attributed James’s ultimate defeat to haste. If the king had used ‘‘cool methods,’’ Oldmixon explained, ‘‘he might easily have worked the English out of their laws and liberties.’’ But fortunately for England, ‘‘he was for galloping’’ and thus ‘‘saved this nation at the expense of his crown and dignity.’’6

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Though James had not hit full stride in the spring of 1686, by early May he was already moving too fast for his friend John Evelyn, who observed sadly: ‘‘All engines [are] now at work to bring in popery amain, which God in mercy prevent.’’7 James was also worrying his faithful friend Sir John Reresby. ‘‘The King,’’ Reresby wrote, ‘‘having got a Jesuist for his confessor went on faster than formerly in promoting the Roman Catholic religion.’’8 Reresby and Evelyn would soon have stronger reasons for anxiety. On 16 June the Hales case was tried, and five days later eleven of the king’s twelve judges agreed that James could grant dispensations for breaches of the Test Act. On 27 June there was a ‘‘general rendezvous’’ of the royal forces encamped on Hounslow Heath. First assembled in late May, the troops had been reinforced on 19 June by a train of thirty cannons, ostentatiously drawn through London from the Tower.9 And on 15 July came the appointment of the famous ‘‘Commission for Ecclesiastical Affairs’’ (Commissarii ad Causas Ecclesiasticas)—the king’s instrument for muzzling strident preachers.10 Headed by Lord Chancellor Jeffreys, the commission first met on 3 August and on 9 August began the process of suspending Henry Compton, bishop of London. Compton had made an enemy of James by leading the attack in the House of Lords upon the appointment of Catholic army officers. For this offense he had been removed from the Privy Council (‘‘struck out by order of his Majesty’’) on 23 December 1685;11 and in June 1686 he had made himself vulnerable to ecclesiastical discipline by disobeying the king’s order to suspend Dr. John Sharp, rector of St. Giles-in-theFields. Sharp had ignored James’s ‘‘directions concerning preachers.’’ In a sermon on 9 May, he had made (according to the royal warrant) ‘‘unbecoming reflections’’ on the king’s religion, thereby disposing St. Giles parishioners to ‘‘disobedience, schism, and rebellion.’’12 On 14 June, James ordered Bishop Compton to suspend Sharp out of hand. Compton refused on the ground that he could not do so without a formal hearing on the charges.13 Thus on 9 August Compton found himself before the king’s commission in proceedings which riveted the attention of the nation. The commissioners held two sessions on the Compton case—the first demonstration of their power over Anglican officialdom. Finally, on 6 September, after dismissing the contention that they were an illegal body and the plea that a bishop could not suspend a rector without a trial, Jeffreys and his colleagues removed the bishop from all episcopal functions.14 Both the verdict and the ‘‘extraordinary way of proceeding,’’ as Evelyn noted sadly, were ‘‘uni-

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versally resented.’’15 They were also disquieting. If the king was not yet galloping, he had at least reached a brisk trot. For Tom Wharton personally the king’s maneuvers of 1686 would have important long-range effects. The ecclesiastical commission furnished him with a rogues’ gallery of political targets. Two of these were Lord Treasurer Laurence Hyde, earl of Rochester, and John Sheffield, later duke of Buckingham.16 Both men found it difficult to remove the stigma of having abetted James’s attack upon the Anglican establishment. Years later, after Buckingham, Rochester, and their ally the earl of Nottingham had been removed from office by Queen Anne, and while the House of Lords was debating the Tory contention that the Church was in danger, Tom (then Lord Wharton) reminded his old opponents of their malefactions. To find out what the dangers to the Church might be, he said, he had looked into The Memorial of the Church of England,17 the literary oracle of the Tory party. I find there [he reported with elaborate irony] the only danger is that the D. of B., the E. of R. and E. of N. are out of place. What these letters are, God knows. They may be charms and spells. But there was a time when the D. of B. and E. of R. were in Ecclesiastical Commission to suspend and deprive the bishops and clergy, and then the Church was very safe.18

The commission included two other embarrassments to the Church party: Thomas Sprat, bishop of Rochester, and Nathaniel Crew, bishop of Durham. Archbishop Sancroft, pleading age and infirmity, had wisely declined James’s appointment to serve on the coercive body.19 Sprat and Crew made no difficulties. Over the next two years they would distinguish themselves as timeservers. A further embarrassment to the party—and to England—was their fellow commissioner Robert Spencer, earl of Sunderland, the king’s secretary of state, who would reach new heights and depths as an opportunist. In the autumn of 1686, of course, these developments lay in an opaque future. In the immediate present, Tom Wharton could not know that besides furnishing him with a convenient set of villains the king’s commission would provide an invaluable ally. This was Henry Compton, bishop of London, who two years later would be one of the ‘‘Immortal Seven’’ who invited the prince of Orange to come with an army and stop James from galloping.20 What Tom did know that autumn was that the action against John Sharp was both literally and figuratively close to home. St. Giles,

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where Sharp gave his provocative sermon, was about a hundred yards from Lord Wharton’s town house—so close, in fact, that Lord Wharton complained about the noisy bells and caused the apertures of the bell tower to be louvered.21 It was at St. Giles that Tom’s half-brother William had been baptized in 1662, that his sister Philadelphia had been married in 1679, and that Andrew Marvell, a great friend of the Whartons, had been buried in 1678.22 St. Giles was also near Tom’s own town house on the east side of Soho Square, and the fact that the attack was led by Tom’s personal enemy Lord Chancellor Jeffreys made the psychological distance even closer. For the moment, St. Giles-in-the-Fields and its rector John Sharp (later archbishop of York) had become symbols of the king’s determination to silence his critics.23 Tom Wharton also knew, as the king increased his pace, that James had good reason to hurry. He was almost fifty-three years old—a considerable age for the time—and the successor to the throne was his daughter Mary. Mary was a faithful Anglican, and her husband, the redoubtable prince of Orange, was leader of the ‘‘Protestant Interest’’ on the Continent. Mary and William might favor a wide spectrum of toleration, including toleration for Catholics, but they would undoubtedly remove all Catholics from the government. If James was to ‘‘establish’’ his coreligionists so solidly that they could not be dislodged and if he was to retain the faintest hope of recapturing England for Rome, he was compelled to move quickly. Naturally the motives that impelled James to gallop impelled most of his subjects to sit quietly. The fact that there was no popish heir was one of the silent considerations that had allowed Anglicans to support James with enthusiasm. Queen Mary Beatrice, James’s wife, had produced five short-lived children (one boy and four girls); she had suffered two miscarriages since the last live birth, and there was no reason to suppose that she would produce a healthy son to threaten the succession.24 Providence, it seemed, had placed an Anglican scepter in James’s hands, and Providence could be trusted to remove him before he fatally damaged the Church and kingdom or found some way to change the succession.25 This state of affairs also urged caution upon wise politicians. James’s judges might proclaim to their hearts’ content that the law was the king’s and that he could suspend it or dispense with legal penalties at his pleasure; but future judges and parliaments were apt to disagree, and officials who obeyed ‘‘illegal’’ orders might ultimately find themselves in deep trouble.26 Calculating men were also impelled to insure themselves with William and Mary. Once Mon-

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mouth had been removed from the political scene, the future appeared to lie at The Hague. Meanwhile, in mid-September 1686, a few days before the deadline for claiming amnesty, Lord Wharton returned to his house at St. Giles. He found a political scene dramatically different from the one he had left, hastily, the previous September. Prosecution of Dissenters and harassment of conventicles had not entirely ceased, but the process was slowing. King James had been granting dispensations to individual congregations, and there were rumors that he intended to suspend all penal laws.27 Lord Wharton’s friend Dr. William Denton heard a report, in fact, that Lord Wharton had come home ‘‘to do a job toward toleration.’’28 Denton could not believe the rumor, but its existence reflected the new state of affairs. In the altered political climate Lord Wharton found himself secure enough to make repairs and additions to his buildings at St. Giles.29 One thing that had not altered during Lord Wharton’s absence was the behavior of his sons Henry and Goodwin. On 2 February Henry had killed Lieutenant Robert Moxam, a fellow officer in the duke of Norfolk’s regiment, in what was generally called a duel but perhaps more accurately described as a tavern brawl—‘‘a drunken rencontre at the Blue Posts.’’30 King James was reported ‘‘incensed’’ by the episode, but the coroner’s jury ruled that Henry had acted in self-defense.31 Goodwin had spent the summer searching, unsuccessfully, for hidden treasures in the London area. His material failures, however, were partially balanced by his psychic achievements. He had learned to remember dreams in great detail, and he had been told by Mary Parish that many of these were genuine visions. Some of these dreams concerned Tom, who had never apologized to Goodwin for having suspected him of committing adultery with Anne. Twice, Goodwin learned in visions, Tom had actually planned to kill him. Fortunately, as Mary explained after consulting the angels, Tom was undergoing a complete change of heart; and a later vision informed Goodwin that Tom would help him become knight of the shire for Bucks.32 Outside Goodwin’s dreams, in the prosaic world ruled by King James, Tom’s behavior had been a good deal less dramatic. In April, more or less as usual, Tom had won the twelve-stone race at Brackley and a plate worth eighty pounds.33 Also in April, Tom arranged to lease Danvers House in Chelsea to Christopher, Viscount Hatton. The house had been occupied for several years by John Robartes, earl of Radnor.34 Radnor had died the previous July, and now at the request of Daniel Finch, earl of Nottingham, who

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had recently married Lord Hatton’s daughter, Tom agreed that Hatton might rent the property. Both Nottingham and Hatton were unwavering Tories, and it was perhaps a sign of the times that Tom should write Nottingham with a warmth beyond the demands of business and gentility. He may have remembered that Tories sometimes behaved like Englishmen and that he might need allies presently. My Lord [Tom wrote], I am very glad anything I have can be of service to your lordship or to any of your friends and have . . . sent an order to Mr. East (who looks after my little concerns at Chelsea) that my lord Hatton have possession given him there, as your Lordship hath commanded me, and I beg of you to believe that I am in all things within my power your lordship’s most faithful humble servant.35

For a time at least, Tom was less friendly with another Tory nobleman. This was Charles Dormer, earl of Carnarvon, who lived at Eythrope House, a mile or so southeast of Winchendon, and owned a good deal of property in the area.36 In early October, Tom and Henry, along with Robert Leke, earl of Scarsdale, and Robert Spencer, Lord Spencer, staged some sort of raid at Eythrope. According to ‘‘country talk,’’ they ‘‘whipped’’ the earl, ‘‘did some other peccadillos of that kind in his castle,’’ and then rode off before Captain Henry Bertie arrived with help.37 What actually happened at Eythrope is not clear. The fact that there were no legal repercussions seems to indicate that the country talk of whipping was exaggerated and that the ‘‘bravos’’ were perpetrating some crude, tasteless, and probably drunken prank. And the fact that Scarsdale was a moderate Tory and that Spencer, the son of the Tory-cum-Opportunist earl of Sunderland, was about to turn Catholic seems to show that the peccadillos, however stupid and adolescent, were nonpolitical. Whatever happened at Eythrope, the neighborhood shrugged off the affair. By 29 October, when Tom was once again in the country, dining at Middle Claydon with his friends Sir Ralph Verney, Alexander Denton, Francis Knollys, and the Edmund Verneys, Senior and Junior,38 the escapade at Eythrope had passed from country talk. There were public events a great deal more pressing. One of these, the appointment on 8 October of Richard Talbot, earl of Tyrconnel, to the king’s Privy Council, was particularly significant.39 It marked a stage in the process by which the Catholic Tyrconnel would replace the Anglican Clarendon as head of the king’s government in Ireland.

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The process had begun in March with the appointment of Tyrconnel as lieutenant general of the Irish forces. Instructed to remodel the Irish army and introduce Catholic officers, he set about dismissing Protestants and enrolling Catholics.40 Concurrently, the king began remodeling corporations and appointing Catholic judges and magistrates.41 As the summer wore on, it became clear that Clarendon was being reduced to a figurehead and that the real power in Ireland would be exercised by Sunderland and Tyrconnel. This perception was reinforced on 9 June, when Tyrconnel was appointed to the Irish Privy Council, and it became more obvious still when he was made a privy councillor in England. Naturally, Tyrconnel’s growing power worried Englishmen in England and dismayed Englishmen in Ireland. The king’s insistence upon keeping his Catholic officers in defiance of the Test Act had cost him the support of his English Parliament. His subjects could console themselves, however, with the knowledge that despite its infusion of popish officers, the army consisted principally of Englishmen. But Tyrconnel’s remodeled Irish army added an extra level of concern.42 An army of Irish Catholics, Englishmen feared, would be happy to help the king coerce his English subjects and happier still to drive Protestant landholders out of Ireland. The king might promise to confirm the property settlements established by the English Parliament after the Restoration, but Englishmen had much more confidence in an army of Irish Protestants than in the word of King James. The sight of Tyrconnel, a zealous and outspoken enemy of Protestant supremacy, at the head of a predominantly popish army was sobering. The lively possibility that the king would make him lord lieutenant or lord deputy was frightening. Nervous Anglo-Irishmen began leaving for England. The Whartons had a special reason to keep a sharp watch on Tyrconnel. During the Interregnum, Lord Wharton had acquired considerable property in Westmeath and Carlow; and in the jostling for possession after the Restoration he had been able to keep most of it.43 Now after twenty years of security, he felt his properties threatened once more. At last on 1 January 1687 King James fulfilled the gloomy expectations of his Protestant subjects. He decided to appoint Tyrconnel lord deputy. This decision Clarendon learned in a curt note from Sunderland: The King intends you should forthwith come into England and constitute the Earl of Tyrconnel Lord Deputy. He will be in Ireland before

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the end of this month and his Majesty’s intention is you should give up the government to him a week after his arrival.44

On 7 January, James explained to his Privy Council that he was removing Clarendon’s brother Rochester from the office of lord treasurer.45 He did not need to explain that Rochester, who had reached the limits of his elasticity, had refused to turn Catholic. Now a clog to the king’s policy of establishing Catholics in government, Rochester had been outmaneuvered by Sunderland, whose elasticity had no limits. Nor did James need to explain that the appointment of Tyrconnel was another blow to the Protestant establishment. The king had begun to gallop in earnest. He had also provoked what eventually turned out to be a devastating reaction from Tom Wharton. The appointment of Tyrconnel inspired Tom to some stanzas of doggerel verse that encapsulated the fears of the Anglo-Irish and the growing dismay of the king’s Tory friends. Composed from the point of view of an Irish peasant who would exult in the expulsion of the English, the song began: Ho, brother Teague, dost hear the decree Lilliburlero, bullen a-la That we shall have a new Debitie Lilliburlero, bullen a-la

After several verses of comment upon Tyrconnel and the new order, which would bring the Irish ‘‘commissions gillore’’46 and hang the English and their ‘‘Magno Carto,’’ the song ended triumphantly, Now, now de heretics all go down Lilliburlero bullen a-la By Chreish and St. Patrick the nation’s our own Lilliburlero bullen a-la Lero, lero, lero, lero, Lilliburlero bullen a-la Lero, lero, lero, lero, Lilliburlero bullen-a-la.47

What the mocking pseudo-Irish refrain lacked in sense it made up in rhythm. English armies, both real and fictional, would march to it for years to come. And one phrase of the song, ‘‘Protestant wind,’’ which had once described the wind that frustrated the Spanish Armada, would take on new meanings. It was this wind, one verse said, that was keeping Tyrconnel in England, away from his

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Irish admirers.48 A few months later it would become the wind that brought the Dutch fleet and army to Torbay. For the time being, Tom’s verses merely smoldered, as if the song had a sputtering fuse. It was not until the autumn of 1688, after the king had made another batch of crucial blunders (and perhaps after the verses had been set to a catchier tune), that ‘‘Lilliburlero’’ swept the country. Perhaps the first song hit in recorded history, it would help, as Tom later boasted, to drive James II out of three kingdoms.

19 Gift Horses and Bridles ON 19 MARCH 1687, MARY WHARTON KEMEYS HAD HER FIRST SITTING at the studio of portrait artist William Wissing. Her brother Tom, she reported to her husband, had already sat several times; his portrait, she supposed, would be finished after one more session. The popular Wissing was also making a portrait of Tom’s mistress Jane Dering, whom Mary had met at the studio. Since Wissing was working on several other portraits, Mary told her husband, it was unlikely that her own picture would be completed before she was obliged to return home to Wales.1 As for Wharton family news, Mary said, the only recent event worth mentioning was Tom’s victory at Newport Pagnell, where that week his horse had won a plate worth thirty pounds. Apparently, an earlier and considerably more important victory had already receded beyond comment. In late February, Tom had fought a duel with John Holles, Lord Haughton.2 This affair had ended without serious injury when Tom disarmed his opponent—the future duke of Newcastle. It was a duel perhaps better forgotten, since both men were eminent Whigs and long-time allies. Tom’s memorialist, also a sturdy Whig, could not be bothered to find out what occasioned a quarrel that was obviously nonpolitical.3 He used the episode only to illustrate Tom’s skill as a duelist and saved his detailed commentary for the duel at Chesham in 1699 when Tom disarmed his Tory rival Lord Cheyne4 and the duel at Bath in 1703 when the then fifty-five-year-old Lord Wharton discomfited a Tory challenger more than thirty years his junior.5 Mary Kemeys was too optimistic about her brother’s picture. As of 2 April, it was ‘‘not near done.’’6 Tom remained in town long enough to help provide bail for his friend the earl of Devonshire on 27 April,7 but thereafter he spent most of the spring and summer out of London. When he visited the studio in late August, he learned that Wissing had gone to Lincolnshire with the earl of Exeter.8 Wissing never returned. He died at the earl’s mansion, Bur208

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ghley House, in September, leaving many portraits, including Tom’s and Mary’s, unfinished.9 Meanwhile, during the spring and summer of 1687 the king was giving the Whartons and the rest of the nation some concerns more urgent than portraits. The new crisis began on 4 April when James issued what he called ‘‘Our Declaration of Indulgence’’ and what the Gazette entitled ‘‘His Majesty’s Gracious Declaration to all His Loving Subjects for Liberty of Conscience.’’10 With this announcement James essentially finished the process he had begun a year earlier. He abandoned his Anglican friends and made what amounted to a formal bid for the support of the Dissenters. Heretofore, invoking his powers of pardon, James had granted dispensations on a case-by-case basis. Now ‘‘by virtue of . . . [his] Royal Prerogative,’’ he claimed the right to suspend the laws themselves, including the Test Act and the Act of Uniformity. Hereafter, he would grant dispensations wholesale. He had ‘‘no doubt,’’ he said, that the ‘‘two houses of Parliament’’ would approve his actions when he found it ‘‘convenient for them to meet.’’ The king’s declaration was a remarkable document. Adopting Whig shibboleths to meet the new state of affairs, James now declared that he had always opposed any attempt to coerce conscience and that he would always protect ‘‘liberty and property.’’ This specifically included the property now held by the Established Church, as well as the medieval abbey lands now held by individuals. Religious liberty, the declaration asserted with a glance toward the City of London, was good for business. Repression, on the other hand, weakened government by ‘‘spoiling trade, depopulating countries, and discouraging strangers.’’ It also limited the king’s power to make appointments. Henceforth the king would choose officers, both civil and military, from all denominations of his subjects. The Declaration of Indulgence evoked little enthusiasm. Anglicans had no trouble discerning that it was an attack upon the powers and privileges of the Church of England. Significantly, Archbishop Sancroft had stayed away from the meeting of the Privy Council that approved the declaration; and although a few sycophants like bishops Crew, Sprat, and Cartwright, under strong pressure from the government, pretended to find comfort in James’s promise to protect Establishment property,11 most churchmen saw James’s proclamation as both sinister and illegal—a necessary move in a real Popish Plot. Anglicans regarded the king’s claim of a right to suspend laws as not merely doubtful, like his alleged power to ‘‘dispense’’ with penalties, but clearly false—‘‘founded upon such a dispensing

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power as hath been often declared illegal in Parliament.’’12 The claim itself, which implied a right to set aside all laws at pleasure, was a breach of the king’s promise to abide by the laws of England and another proof that the king’s promises were worthless. Most ominous, of course, was the erasure of the distinction between toleration and employment—between allowing the free exercise of religion and loading the military, as well as central and local governments, with dissidents. The king’s talk of convoking a parliament when it was ‘‘convenient’’ did not comfort his old friends. James had been rebuffed by the existing Parliament for employing popish officers, and his subsequent ‘‘threats and persuasions’’ (his ‘‘closeting’’ campaign) had failed to change a significant number of minds.13 Now there was no serious chance that the solid Tory majorities would repeal the Test Act. If the king really had ‘‘no doubt’’ of the approval of his ‘‘two houses,’’ his statement could only mean that he intended to dissolve the present Parliament and get a new one—that he would attempt to ‘‘pack’’ a parliament. This, of course, would entail re-remodeling corporations and making wholesale changes in county governments—a complex operation which, his opponents hoped, might fail.14 Naturally the Dissenters were a good deal happier with the royal declaration than the Anglicans. Many of them, however, were inclined to look the king’s gift horse in the mouth. Only the most trusting were convinced that the king had suddenly learned to love Nonconformists. Many Dissenters would have agreed with Halifax’s witty observation that they were to be hugged now so that they might be ‘‘the better squeezed at another time.’’15 They were inclined, nevertheless, to take the present benefits and face the consequences later. If the king would pretend to love them, they would pretend to trust him. If James authorized them to build chapels and worship publicly and if he not only cancelled all fines for nonattendance at Anglican worship but returned the fines collected in the past few years,16 they would not dispute his right to do so. And no one insisted upon going to jail or staying there simply because the king could not legally annul the penal laws. For the moment, most Nonconformists were willing to take the cash, both literal and figurative, and ignore the rumble of the king’s drums. The declaration did not say that Dissenting congregations were to present addresses of thanks to the king or that they were expected to help James elect a cooperative parliament. These points were made by the king’s agents—the first point immediately after the declaration and the second when the Tory Parliament was finally

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dissolved on 2 July. As Anglican opinion hardened into opposition,17 the central political question became the response of the Dissenters to the king’s overtures. Would they thank James for his favors? And would they actually help him legitimatize his Catholic appointments? This new state of affairs, in turn, meant that the Whartons had moved from the wings to the center of the political stage. If the king was to have any hope of succeeding, he needed help from Lord Wharton and his friends. To a Catholic king, the approval of sects like the Quakers and the Anabaptists was more likely to be a political liability than an asset. To most of the nation, for example, the well-known friendship between William Penn and the king merely signified (in the language of another time) that a radical crackpot was joined with a reactionary zealot. And the fact that Penn truly believed that James was sincere in espousing freedom of worship meant that Penn was either a fool or a Jesuit.18 Similarly, the first address of thanks, from the Anabaptists ‘‘in and about the City of London,’’19 probably made more enemies for the king’s cause than allies. What James needed was the support of the Presbyterians and Independents—especially the approval of rich and respectable grandees like Lord Wharton. Wharton was particularly important, not only because he was a renowned benefactor of Puritan clergymen and the lay patron of several Anglican churches, but also because he was a veteran Peer of the realm. James’s chances of getting the existing House of Lords to repeal the Test Act were microscopic. A huge majority of Tory Peers and Anglican bishops was sure to vote against the royal proposals. James needed the support of Whig Lords like Wharton to make his cause at least faintly respectable, and even then he would be compelled to create many new Peers.20 The king also needed help from the Whartons in elections for a new House of Commons. Tom’s influence and electioneering skills would be useful in several boroughs. In early May, about a month after the declaration, the Wharton family assembled at Wooburn. Politically their situation had become enviable. The king needed them more than they needed the king. They could expect favors without having to earn them.21 These were not long in coming. On 19 May the king took up residence at Windsor, a few miles from Wooburn. One of the Court’s first official acts was to grant Lord Wharton and his heirs permission to hold markets and fairs at Shap, Healaugh, and Wooburn;22 and Lord Wharton himself was among those invited to Court. For these favors he was expected to present an address of thanks for the

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king’s declaration. His friend Dr. William Denton reported, in fact, that he had done so. ‘‘Lord Wharton,’’ Denton wrote to Sir Ralph Verney, ‘‘addressed on Friday last but what or how, or how accompanied, I know not.’’23 Denton’s information turned out to be wrong. Lord Wharton had long since learned the art of survival in troubled times. It was allowable to be personally friendly with unpopular rulers, as he had been with Oliver Cromwell, but to forward their schemes might sometime prove fatal. It was even permissible to receive favors, but it might be ruinous to deserve them. To thank James for what was probably an illegal proclamation might prove to be a very foolish gesture. Nothing could be lost by remaining silent. And so Dr. Denton, with obvious relief, corrected his report. ‘‘I am now better informed,’’ he wrote Sir Ralph on 12 June. ‘‘My Lord Wharton did not address. He told me so himself, and yesterday my Lord Fauconberg assured me the same; for he was [near]by, and [Lord Wharton] spoke to His Majesty in his hearing.’’24 During the summer of 1687, while the king’s agents were soliciting loyal addresses, the Tory Parliament was dissolved, and the process of remodeling corporations got underway. As the king later explained, no one was to be employed in government or the military who opposed his plan for repealing the Test Act and the Act of Uniformity.25 In the language of the king’s opponents, jolly gentlemen were to be replaced by sneaking fanatics and papists. Meanwhile, the king’s measures were causing a silent and permanent shift in the political center of gravity. Faced with a threat from Catholic power, the Church of England tacitly abandoned the attempt to crush Dissent. Anglicans were discovering that Presbyterians and Independents, however misguided, were after all Protestants. If, after their sorry performance during the Civil Wars, Dissenters could not yet be trusted to share political offices, they could safely be allowed to worship publicly. And if they would resist King James’s illegal offers, they could achieve a legal toleration. This new shift was implied in Halifax’s brilliant Letter to a Dissenter. Composed after the dissolution of the Tory Parliament and contributing powerfully to what might be called the Anglican counterattack, the pamphlet concentrated on the historic intolerance of the Catholic Church and the unreliability of the king’s promises. It warned Dissenters against helping their hereditary enemy establish Catholic domination. As a work of Anglican propaganda the letter skimmed lightly over the official intolerance of the Established

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Church.26 It contained, nevertheless, a very important subtheme. The Church of England, Halifax said, had repented of its former harshness. It would agree, he implied, to a legal toleration when the expected Protestant succession put church and state out of danger. Halifax had no authority to speak for the Anglican Church, and the Church had not announced a shift in its position. Halifax’s stance, nevertheless, represented the new political reality. James had promised the Dissenters both freedom of worship and political opportunity. Anglicans felt themselves obliged to offer at least freedom of worship. The next year when the seven bishops refused to distribute the king’s second declaration, they professed a ‘‘due tenderness to Dissenters’’ and promised a favorable ‘‘temper’’ when the matter [toleration] should be settled in Convocation and Parliament.27 On 20 August 1687, when Tom Wharton returned to London from the country, Halifax had not yet published his famous Letter; but the processes that evoked it were in full swing. The king’s agents had procured some fifty-four addresses from Dissenting congregations28 and a number of addresses from Anglican groups, military enclaves, and government-appointed grand juries. The Crown was beginning to replace Tory justices, sheriffs, and aldermen with more biddable men. In July, nine London aldermen had been removed ‘‘for opposing the address for liberty of conscience,’’ and three Dissenters (the first three of many) had been appointed, including John Bawdon, the wealthy husband of Tom’s stepsister Letitia.29 ‘‘I suppose you know,’’ Tom commented in a letter to his sister Mary, ‘‘that amongst the general preferment of the fanatics my brother Bawdon is made an alderman of London and is to be knighted. At which her Ladyship at Wooburn [Lady Wharton, Letitia’s mother] draws up her mouth notably.’’30 Tom intended to follow up his letter with a visit to Mary in Wales. She was about to deliver a child, and Tom was concerned about her health. Before he was ready to set out, however, he received word from Sir Charles Kemeys that Mary had produced a daughter. Then he heard nothing. On 16 September he wrote an anxious note to Sir Charles: You must forgive me for begging the favor of you that you will let me know how my sister doth. I have never heard from her, nor of her, since the first account you gave me of her being brought to bed, which makes me a little fearful. I had been with you now if Harry had not

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stopped me a little, but you will shortly, I believe, be troubled with your humble servant T. Wharton31

While Tom was worrying about his sister—needlessly, as matters turned out—King James was making a royal progress through the western and midland counties. The tour, from 16 August to 17 September, was part of what a later generation would call a public relations campaign. It was becoming clear that the process of packing a parliament would be a long one. The Crown’s attempt to extract pledges of support from prospective M.P.s was drawing evasive responses and demonstrating the strength of the Opposition.32 James hoped to quiet the rising murmurs and remind his subjects that he was king of England—the divinely appointed monarch whom his Tory critics had promised to obey. On the present tour James gave his subjects a demonstration of his extraordinary spiritual powers. In several provincial towns, he touched dozens of his subjects to cure them of the scrofula—the ‘‘King’s Evil.’’ By the time he returned to Windsor, he had touched more than five thousand people.33 He had also demonstrated once more that he was head of the Church by Law Established. For the healing ceremony, he had used several provincial cathedrals and churches. Besides its political purposes, the king’s tour had in addition what seemed at the time a pious hope. Queen Mary Beatrice was left at Bath on 18 August to try the restorative powers of the mineral springs—to see whether she could enhance her fertility and produce a healthy male heir to the throne. James, meantime, was visiting Holywell in Flintshire and invoking the aid of Saint Winifred, the patroness of the medieval shrine. With a combination of medicine and prayer, there was at least a chance that the royal couple could avert a Protestant succession. Before James rejoined the queen at Bath, he visited Oxford, where he gave himself another grave political wound. The death of Dr. Henry Clarke, president of Magdalen College, on 17 March, had given him an opportunity, he thought, to install a Catholic replacement—a convert named Anthony Farmer. When he sent down his order, however, the Magdalen fellows refused to elect the man on the grounds that he was both technically unqualified and morally delinquent. Then, before there was a hearing on the matter and before the statutory time for election expired, they elected Dr. John Hough as their president. This action was approved by Peter Mews,

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bishop of Winchester, their official Visitor. The election, the fellows insisted, was both legal and irrevocable.34 The king’s Ecclesiastical Commission, meeting in June, declared Hough’s election void. The royal mandate, the commission said, had implicitly precluded any election until the king’s further pleasure was known. The Commissioners did not insist upon Farmer, however. A hearing in July convinced them that the man’s conduct was indeed scandalous, and his name was quietly withdrawn. Balked temporarily of his plan to install a Catholic, James selected a compliant Anglican, Samuel Parker, bishop of Oxford; and in August he ordered the Magdalen fellows to elect Parker to the presidency. The fellows refused. They could not remove Hough, they said, without violating their statutes, their oaths, and their consciences. They could only petition the king to rescind what they considered an illegal order. When James came to Oxford on 3 September, the matter was still unresolved. The day after his enthusiastic reception at the university, he called the fellows of Magdalen before him and asked whether they were ready to obey his order. They were not. They were ready to hand him a petition stating their case once more. But James was in no mood for petitions. He gave the fellows a memorable tongue lashing. They had not dealt with him ‘‘like gentlemen,’’ he said. They had been ‘‘a stubborn, turbulent college’’ for the past twenty-six years. Was this their ‘‘Church of England loyalty’’? ‘‘Get you gone,’’ he concluded after refusing to receive their petition, ‘‘and immediately repair to your chapel and elect the Bishop of Oxford, or you must expect to feel the weight of my hand.’’35 The king’s speech reverberated throughout Oxford and then the country. Like the angry speech to the Commons in 1685, it showed James’s rage when his legal powers were questioned. Also like the speech to the Commons, it failed to achieve its immediate purpose. The fellows repaired to their chapel, but they did not elect the bishop of Oxford. Instead, they reaffirmed their decision to support John Hough. James had only succeeded in alarming Oxford and warning its many friends of the invasions to come. These would follow inexorably. On 21 October a royal commission, accompanied by three troops of cavalry, formally deposed and dispossessed Hough and installed Bishop Parker. On 16 November twenty-five fellows who refused to apologize for their opposition were expelled from Magdalen.36 Shortly thereafter the appointment of Catholic fellows began; and in March, after the death of Bishop Parker, Bonaventure Gifford, the Catholic bishop-elect of Madura,

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was appointed president. Magdalen became a Catholic college and a flaming national grievance.37 At the time James left Oxford for Bath, Tom Wharton was waiting for one more horse race before journeying to Wales. Although he could easily deduce from the early reports that the king had made a grievous blunder with the attack upon Magdalen, he did not know that James was handing him another powerful ally. This was his brother-in-law James Bertie, earl of Abingdon. The events of 1687 were forcing Abingdon to choose between his devotion to Oxford and the Church and his loyalty to King James. The king was losing. In September, Abingdon was still lord lieutenant of the shire and lord high steward of the City,38 but his Tory enthusiasm had been waning since the king’s declaration, and with the attack on Magdalen it died. His strong sympathy with the fellows removed the very faint possibility that he might be brought to support the king’s measures.39 On 21 November he was dismissed as lord lieutenant of Oxfordshire. Tom Wharton, unlike his brother-in-law, could shed few tears for the Magdalen fellows, whose political doctrines had returned to expel them. Under other circumstances he might have thought that they had earned a lesson in adversity. Now, however, the attack on the college was threatening. As a sharp reminder of the king’s ambitions, it signaled danger. It meant that Tom must soon seek help from the Berties in countering the king’s most powerful argument—his standing army. Since James had thrown off his Tory bridle, another must be found for him. Tom and Abingdon might have become allies immediately if they had known what happened in Bath after the king left Oxford. There, on Tuesday, 6 September 1687, James and his queen achieved the answer to their prayers. Mary Beatrice became pregnant.40 This momentous fact, which would revise all political calculation, could not be known, of course, or disputed, for several weeks, and the further fact that the child was male could not be known for many months. When James left Bath for Winchester on 14 September, his Protestant subjects remained comfortably assured that they were protected by God and by the king’s sexual misadventures from any danger of a popish heir. When rumors of the queen’s pregnancy began to circulate, about 31 October, there was a tremor of concern. The story emanated from Court circles, and whether true or false, it spelled trouble. Paradoxically, the rumor was less threatening if it was true. Judged by past performances, the odds were against a successful pregnancy and a healthy boy. Though a real pregnancy meant a real worry, it

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was not yet a cause for alarm. If the story was false, on the other hand, it implied a royal plot to change the succession, and the threat was unmistakable. The queen’s fictitious pregnancy would surely produce a male heir to the throne. While the early rumors were circulating, James was stepping up his campaign to remodel county governments. On 6 November he dismissed the earl of Bridgwater, lord lieutenant of Buckinghamshire, and replaced him with Lord Chancellor Jeffreys. Bridgwater, as Lord Brackley, had been knight of the shire with Tom Wharton after the 1685 election. Now he was replaced by the man who had tried desperately to keep Tom out of Parliament. In nearby Oxfordshire, Abingdon was replaced by the earl of Lichfield. Other casualties of the purge during November and December included the earls of Winchilsea, Scarsdale, and Gainsborough. Meanwhile, on 9 November, as if determined to alienate the kingdom, James appointed his Jesuit confessor Edward Petre to the Privy Council.41 Shortly thereafter, he formed a committee of Privy Councillors to ‘‘regulate’’ the corporations—to remove, that is, men who opposed repeal of the Test Act. Of the seven ‘‘regulators,’’ who included Petre and five other Catholics, only one, Jeffreys, was a Protestant.42 While the king was blundering his way towards exile—making the mistakes that he would try desperately to undo a few months later—Tom Wharton was committing blunders of his own. Involved in still another sex scandal, he found himself featured, along with King James and a gallery of other offenders, in a satirical poem called ‘‘A Faithful Catalogue of our Most Eminent Ninnies.’’ The poem, circulated in manuscript, linked Tom with Sophia Stuart Bulkeley, whose ‘‘nauseous bait,’’ the author said, had been ‘‘mumbled and spit out by half the town.’’ This liaison showed that Wharton’s brains had been addled by his ‘‘rammish spendthrift buttocks,’’ and it clearly earned Tom a place in the galaxy of Ninnies. There he ranked only slightly lower than James himself, whose bad taste in women was notorious and who had lately been scorned as a ‘‘dwindle’’ by the duchess of Grafton. ‘‘O sacred James,’’ the poet intoned in mock veneration, ‘‘may thy dread noddle be as free from danger as from wit ’tis free.’’43 In early December the Whartons suffered a loss that made mere gossip trivial. Tom’s half-brother William died of infection from a wound received in a duel. The episodes that provoked the duel had begun the previous summer when William, who had poetic ambitions, reflected in writing upon the literary pretensions of a minor poet named Robert Wolseley. Wolseley replied with a satirical

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sketch of William in a poem entitled ‘‘A Familiar Epistle.’’ He sneered at William’s small stature, his foppishness, and his Puritan family, and ended by calling him ‘‘a merry blockhead, treacherous and vain.’’ William countered with ‘‘A Familiar Answer,’’ which made fun of Wolseley’s bulk, dullness, lechery, and want of talent. Thereafter in several more poems, the two men exchanged insults of increasing venom.44 Naturally, the town wits found the verbal battle highly amusing, and they found it more amusing still when a much better poet (almost certainly Dorset) intervened with a poem called ‘‘The Duel,’’ which dubbed the pair ‘‘Bavius’’ and ‘‘Mavius’’ and gave a mock-heroic account of their ‘‘bloodless rhyming strife.’’45 Soon after the poetic ‘‘Duel’’ came an actual duel. William and Wolseley met on 9 December 1687 to settle their differences with rapiers. And for a time the encounter on the field seemed another episode in the comedy. The diminutive Wharton ‘‘had the better in the action’’ against his hulking opponent;46 he also sustained the only injury, a slight, undignified rapier jab in the left buttock.47 Convalescing at his father’s house at St. Giles, he seemed in no danger.48 Four days later, however, the wound showed itself to be dangerously infected; and on 14 December, to the grief of his family, William died.49 William had followed his older half-brothers at a distance. Like them, he had been raised in the strict Wharton pattern—in the hope that he would emulate his Puritan father. Also like his brothers, he found Lord Wharton easy to honor and impossible to follow. In late 1683 Tom attempted unsuccessfully to arrange a marriage for him and in 1685 tried to get him elected to Parliament, again unsuccessfully. By November of 1685, William had acquired a mistress, Henrietta Yarborough; and by the time of his death, he seemed likely to become as notorious as his brothers. Tom’s memorialist recalled that the young men always remained standing when they talked with their father. ‘‘There could not be a more affecting sight,’’ the biographer wrote, ‘‘than that old Lord attended by four sons, the most comely, the most brave, and the most gallant men of their time, who were at the same time the most obedient and dutiful in their demeanor before him, though a little too apt to give way to their pleasures when they were not in his presence.’’50 On Saturday, 21 December 1687, William was buried at St. Paul’s, Wooburn. The four sons had been reduced to three, and an era was ending. For the Wharton family, William’s death was a di-

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saster in itself and a prologue to the tragedies of 1689. For the nation, stumbling towards revolution, late December marked a point of no return. On 23 December, a royal proclamation declared that the queen was pregnant and appointed ‘‘a time of thanksgiving and prayers throughout the kingdom.’’51

20 Checkmate ON SATURDAY, 30 JUNE 1688, ENGLISH HISTORY TOOK A DECISIVE TURN.

Between ten and eleven o’clock in the morning, a London jury acquitted seven English bishops, including the archbishop of Canterbury, who had been charged with publishing a seditious libel. The bishops had refused to read or circulate the king’s second Declaration of Indulgence, and they had signed a petition which questioned the king’s right to suspend penal laws. Later in the day, seven prominent Englishmen completed and affixed their code numbers to a secret document which invited the prince of Orange to bring an army to England. The time had come, they said in effect, to put a halter on King James before he could pack a parliament and finish remodeling the military. It was also time to investigate the alleged birth of a male heir to the throne—the momentous event announced by the king on 10 June. The acquittal of the bishops touched off a wild celebration. Even the king’s troops on Hounslow Heath joined in the shouting. The signing of the invitation, on the other hand, was very secret indeed. The letter, in Henry Sidney’s handwriting, was clearly treasonous. The signatories—Shrewsbury (25), Devonshire (24), Danby (27), Lumley (29), Compton (31), Russell (35), and Sidney (33)—were entrusting their lives to the prince, to a rudimentary numerical code, and to Admiral Arthur Herbert, who carried the message from England to Holland.1 On the same day, Mary Wharton Kemeys, writing from London to her husband in Wales, had concerns much closer to home than state trials; and if she heard any cheering for the bishops, she did not bother to mention the fact. My two brothers [Tom and Henry] have been so kind as to come see me every day since you went away [Mary told Sir Charles]; but Harry has certainly done the maddest thing that ever was done, which I fear will prove much to his disadvantage whenever my father dies. But I will not tell you what it is till I see you, because it is too long a story.2

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Unfortunately, Mary seems never to have committed her long story to paper, and for once, at least, London gossip about Henry has failed to survive. What enormity he perpetrated and how it could be more insane than his performance at Barrington church, for example, may never be known. Whatever the offense, it could not have been as dangerous as the treason Henry and Tom were then committing at the Rose Tavern in Covent Garden. There, with a group of their friends, including Lord Colchester, Charles Godfrey, and Thomas Langston, they were plotting to demoralize the king’s army.3 The royal army, greatly augmented since the defeat of Monmouth,4 was roughly twice as large as any army William of Orange could bring against it. Trained for three years and at least partly professionalized (that is to say, immunized against politics), James’s troops were a powerful force if they chose to fight. The mission of Tom Wharton and his friends, known collectively as the Treason Club, was to keep them from fighting. How long the club, which historian John Childs calls the ‘‘principal institution in the army conspiracy against James II,’’5 had been actively subverting the king’s officers is difficult to say. A reasonable guess might be since the previous April, when Edward Russell returned from Holland with the information that the prince of Orange would be willing to bring an army to England ‘‘if he was invited by some men of the best interest.’’6 Until then—until there was a lively prospect of help from abroad—conspirators were much more likely to get themselves hanged than to induce significant defections from the king’s army.7 Until then, it should be added, the Wharton brothers and their friends at the Rose devoted themselves chiefly to wine and women—interests they never lost in the hurlyburly of politics.8 Before 30 June, several things had happened to make the work of the Treason Club easier. On 27 April, James reissued his Declaration of Indulgence—this time with an important addition. He explained that he was compelled to dismiss all officers, civil or military, who would not help him remove the Test Act and the penal laws.9 In effect, he notified Anglican officers who had not been cashiered already that they could expect more pressure to fall in line with his wishes. Then on 4 May, as if he had not antagonized enough Anglicans, James ordered his declaration read in all English churches and chapels and ‘‘further ordered’’ the bishops to ‘‘cause the said declaration to be sent and distributed throughout their respective diocese.’’10 This attempt to make the bishops accomplices in

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destroying Anglican supremacy made further problems for Anglican officers. Were they really accomplices too? Did their ‘‘loyalty’’ really mean that they were taking the king’s money to browbeat churchmen and help bring in popery? Doubts like these became even more insistent when the king actually arrested the bishops and charged them with seditious libel. If Tom Wharton and his fellow conspirators had been dictating the king’s policies, they could hardly have devised anything more effective for alienating a nation.11 On 1 June the king gave further aid and comfort to the conspirators. On that date he completed the long process of antagonizing the Berties. He had already removed the earl of Abingdon from the post of lord lieutenant of Oxfordshire. And now, having revised the charter of the City of Oxford, he removed him from the office of lord high steward; and he removed Abingdon’s son James from the city council. He also removed from the council Robert Bertie (styled Lord Willoughby), son of another Wharton brother-in-law, the earl of Lindsey. To this casualty list of traditional Tories, the king added a number of prominent Whigs, most of whom had been appointed during the days of Exclusionist enthusiasm. Among the most notable were ‘‘Thomas Wharton Esqr.,’’ Lord Lovelace, John Grubham Howe, and James Annesley, earl of Anglesey.12 These removals strengthened the new alliance between Whig and Tory, between Whartons and Berties. But the king’s political blunders may have been less fatal to his cause than the birth, on 10 June, of a male heir to the throne—a popish successor. For months, Protestant Englishmen had been persuading themselves that the queen’s pregnancy was a fraud—a royal conspiracy to perpetuate Catholic rule. In late December when the king had issued a proclamation announcing the pregnancy and ordering a ‘‘public thanksgiving,’’ many of his subjects were already skeptical. One of these, Goodwin Wharton, writing in his journal on Christmas Day, gave an estimate of the public mood: There is a spirit of incredulity gone out among men in this matter, and very few but take the liberty to say, where they dare, they do not believe it to be true; and some have said that as long as there is a beggar boy in London, there is no doubt but there will be found a prince of Wales (as this is already foretold to be by them [the Catholics]).13

As the months wore on and no providential miscarriage was announced, the level of anxiety among Protestants—and the level of rumor—increased markedly. And by June when it was obvious that

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the pregnancy (whether real or pretended) would result in a live birth, the hope that the child would be another girl had grown dim. As the nation steeled itself for the announcement of a male heir, the question for many Englishmen was not whether the birth would be a fraud, but how the fraud would be staged. A warming pan was about to become famous. By 30 June, twenty days after the birth was announced, the signers of the invitation to William (the ‘‘Immortal Seven’’ of Whig legend) reproved William for having congratulated James on the new heir and informed him that ‘‘not one in a thousand here [in England] believes it [the child] to be the Queen’s.’’ A similar estimate was given by Princess Anne in a letter to her sister Mary, princess of Orange (heiress apparent until the birth of a prince). ‘‘Where one believes it,’’ Anne wrote on 18 June, ‘‘a thousand do not. For my part, unless they do give very plain demonstrations, which is almost impossible now, I shall ever be of the number of unbelievers.’’14 The princess and the Immortal Seven exaggerated the extent of the disbelief, but the number of skeptics was indeed great. It justified, the conspirators advised William, a demand for a full parliamentary investigation. And in late October, as invasion threatened, the king felt compelled to assemble witnesses and hold a formal hearing on the subject—too late to change many minds.15 Meantime, the spate of rumors, both foreign and domestic, furnished the Treason Club with additional propaganda. Langston, for example, could assure the officers of his regiment that the prince of Orange ‘‘had in his custody the true mother of the P[rince] of Wales,’’ whose claim would shortly be proved in England as it had been in Holland.16 Tom Wharton and his friends could argue that it was disgraceful enough for English officers to defend the right of a real prince of Wales and to help the king fasten popery on England forever. It was even worse to defend the right of a pretender, probably smuggled into the queen’s bedroom in a warming pan. The work of the club was also made easier by the fact that during June, July, and early August a large part of the king’s army was assembled in the London area. On 1 June the earl of Lichfield’s Regiment of Foot, in which Henry was a captain, was reviewed by the king in Hyde Park, and on 28 June the army began its summer encampment on Hounslow Heath. This display of overwhelming force may have overawed the capital, as it was intended to do, but it also brought the officers into the area of intrigue. During the encampment, four of Langston’s officers, after being entertained at

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the Rose Tavern, entered into a conspiracy to deliver the regiment to the prince of Orange. After the revolution, Tom Wharton’s connection with the army conspiracy and his wide circle of friends among the officers, along with his fluency in French, would make him a commissioner of the army.17 Immediately, however, his involvement meant danger. The danger increased, of course, as the circle of conspiracy widened and as other groups of officers were recruited for the cause. Among the most prominent of the plotters were Henry Fitzroy, duke of Grafton; Edward Hyde, styled Viscount Cornbury; and Colonel Percy Kirke of Tangiers and Sedgemoor fame. Most important of all was John Churchill, then Baron Churchill and later the famous duke of Marlborough. Churchill, a lieutenant-general in the king’s army and the best soldier in England, would bring with him Prince George of Denmark, husband of Princess Anne, and the young James Butler, duke of Ormonde. In the interests of caution, Tom and Henry did not confide in Goodwin, who generally got his political advice from angels via Mary Parish. The brothers had no such difficulty in sharing information with their father, whose legendary caution made him perfectly trustworthy. In July there was a rumor that Lord Wharton would be appointed to the Privy Council.18 This rumor soon proved false. If there had ever been the remotest chance that Lord Wharton would accept an appointment from James, the invitation to William extinguished it. For the Whartons, the summer of 1688 was a time of suspense. Everything now depended upon William’s ability to augment the Dutch fleet and army, get permission from the States General to use them against England, and secure cooperation from his German and Spanish friends—all this without raising the alarm in England or triggering a French invasion of the Dutch Republic. These intricate maneuvers depended, in turn, upon Louis XIV, who had already made two crucial errors. In August 1687 he had begun a trade war with the Dutch, and as tariffs, embargoes, and confiscations escalated, even the pro-French burghers of Amsterdam became alarmed and angry.19 Concurrently, Louis was engaged in a complicated dispute with Pope Innocent XI in which he was supported by James and opposed by his Catholic enemies Spain and Austria. This quarrel made the pope something like a de facto member of the League of Augsburg (the entente designed to prevent further French expansion) and helped to strengthen the alliance between the Catholic powers and the heretical prince of Or-

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ange. It also diverted much of the French fleet into the Mediterranean.20 In July and August of 1688 while William was building up his forces and the conspirators in England waited, the Dutch became convinced that Louis’s threat to their commerce and their frontiers justified the risk of sending their army to England. Aggressive French policies had already convinced many German rulers that Louis must be stopped and that if there was a chance of bringing England into a league against France, it should be taken. Now, Louis further embroiled himself in the Rhineland with a dispute about the archbishopric of Cologne.21 When the pope decided against his candidate, Louis invaded the Palatinate. With this attack, his final and decisive error, he freed the Dutch frontier from immediate danger and thus freed William’s army for a descent upon England. While these complex (and lightly sketched) events were taking place abroad, the widening conspiracy in England went largely undetected, or at least unharried. The agent Joseph Flight, for example, delivered letters from the prince of Orange to the Whartons, the earl of Devonshire, Lord Delamere, and ‘‘other persons of quality’’ without serious difficulty.22 For several weeks, the king and his government, secure with their large army, could see no adequate cause for alarm. They could not easily persuade themselves that the sane and sober prince of Orange would risk the safety of the Dutch Republic on what seemed a wild and hazardous venture—a late-year expedition over the treacherous North Sea and an invasion against superior forces. This purblindness, as it seemed to French intelligence, prompted Louis in late August to send Franc¸ ois d’Usson, marquis de Bonrepaux, to convince James of his danger and to propose a naval pact.23 James remained dubious about the invasion and less than anxious to conclude a formal treaty that most of his subjects would consider a league with the devil—with the villain who was dragooning the Huguenots. Secret subsidies and understandings were one thing; formal alliances were something else. When a French memorial of late August warned the Dutch that if they attacked James, close ‘‘liaisons of friendship and alliance’’ would force Louis to attack them, James not only disavowed any alliance with Louis but recalled Bevil Skelton, the English envoy who had solicited the threat, and sent him to the Tower. James seems not to have been unduly worried by the French reports of disaffection in his armed forces. If he made any special effort to chase down conspirators, his attempts were pitifully unsuc-

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cessful. In retrospect it is amazing that in late September, even after the prince announced his intention to invade England on the invitation of prominent Englishmen, there were no significant arrests. The government tried frantically to reverse the policies which had brought it into peril, but it did not jail its principal domestic enemies. In early October, Tom Wharton was in Yorkshire conferring with the duke of Devonshire.24 What he did for the rest of that anxious month remains a mystery. No surviving document, in a dangerous time for correspondence, tells where he waited for the ‘‘Protestant wind’’ that would bring the Dutch fleet or whether, like Danby, he expected the prince to land on the east coast. What he did in November, however, is English history, easily traceable from contemporary sources; and the activities of the Whartons furnish a textbook illustration of revolution strategy. Like prudent gamblers, the Whartons hedged their bets on the prince’s dangerous venture. They risked one head at a time and only a fraction of the vast Wharton estates. Tom, with his Rose Tavern friends Colchester, Charles Godfrey, and William Jephson, would join the prince as soon as possible. Henry, however, would stay with the king’s army until after Langston, Cornbury, and Sir Francis Compton had tried to deliver their cavalry regiments to the invaders. Then, if all went well, he could join the next wave of deserters. Meanwhile, Lord Wharton could stay safely at Wooburn or St. Giles and disclaim any involvement if the cause foundered. Goodwin, of course, remained outside the conspiracy. The plan actually went into operation when word of the prince’s landing at Torbay, on 5 November, reached Tom and his friends.25 Although the Dutch fleet had been sighted earlier heading westward past Dover and the Isle of Wight, indicating the general direction of the attack, the plotters could not set out until they knew, at least approximately, where they were going. On 7 November a mounted party of about sixty Buckinghamshire men leading sumpter horses passed through Oxford. Later, between one and two the next morning, Tom Wharton, William Jephson, Charles Godfrey, Lord Colchester, and several Life Guards from Colchester’s troop also went through town, obviously on their way to join the prince.26 The prince reached Exeter on 9 November, and it was there that Colchester and Wharton joined him—the first two aristocrats to arrive in his camp. The exact time of their arrival is unclear, though it probably occurred on the tenth, a day or two before the plot to ensnare three regiments of horse went into effect.27 Their appearance was most welcome. The gentry and grandees of the West, who

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remembered too well what had happened to Monmouth’s followers, were in no hurry to bet their lives on William, and their apparent lack of enthusiasm had become worrisome. The appearance of the Colchester-Wharton party showed that promises would be kept and that English support would be forthcoming. How important William considered this early help can probably be judged by the rewards he later distributed. He would give Colchester and Godfrey regiments, he would make Jephson his English secretary, and he would appoint Tom to his Privy Council and make him comptroller of the household. The prince’s army included three English and three Scots regiments—the so-called Anglo-Dutch Brigade. It was to one of the Scots regiments, commanded by Wharton’s friend Thomas Talmash and posted at Honiton, that Colonel Langston delivered his regiment of horse at about twelve o’clock on the night of 12 November. He had left the king’s camp feigning orders to harry the prince’s advance guard, and with the help of the officers he had recruited at the Rose he delivered his regiment without serious difficulty.28 His fellow colonels Cornbury and Compton, who set out at the same time, were not so lucky. They aroused the suspicion of their subordinates as they neared the enemy, and most of their troops turned back, though Cornbury himself with a small contingent reached the prince’s lines. The first reports indicated that all three regiments—part of the cavalry screen of the royal army—had defected to the prince; and the news (in the words of the king’s biographer) seemed to pull up James’s ‘‘hopes and expectations by the roots.’’29 Even when later reports showed that most of Cornbury’s and Compton’s troops had returned and that some of Langston’s men, including Major Ambrose Norton, had straggled back, the damage to the royal cause was immense. The defections indicated a high-level plot within the king’s army, not merely among Whigs like Langston and Colchester but also among good Tories like Cornbury, the son of Clarendon, the king’s brother-in-law. Neither the king nor his army would ever regain their confidence. Two other prominent Tories soon joined the prince at Exeter. The first of these was the earl of Abingdon, Tom’s brother-in-law, and the other, on 17 November, was Sir Edward Seymour. That Seymour, a stalwart among West Country Tories, should join William had both immediate and long-range importance. It showed that Seymour and his friends were now, after the defections, willing to gamble on the revolution. Seymour, in fact, cooperated closely with Tom Wharton and Gilbert Burnet,30 sturdy Whigs, in producing the

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famous ‘‘Association,’’ by which signers pledged to support and defend William.31 Later, the fact that divine-right Tories were in arms against the king would prove embarrassing to their cause. It demonstrated that their doctrine of nonresistance to monarchs could be selectively ignored. Tory rebels could always allege that they were rescuing the king from evil advisors. After the danger had passed, Tom was happy to exploit the contradiction between words and deeds. With an implied sneer at Tory hypocrisy, he would label the Whigs ‘‘the honest party.’’ For the moment, of course, Tory help was vital to the revolution. The appearance of Seymour and his friends was a clear sign that the royal cause was unraveling. It would be followed by Danby’s successful rising in York, several other insurrections in the North, and the earl of Bath’s capture of Plymouth. Meantime, on 19 November, King James came to Salisbury, hoping to rally his troops. What he found was confusion and distrust. In the aftermath of the desertions, there was practically no chance of launching an offensive.32 The king, understandably depressed, was afflicted by nosebleeds, and his commanders were indecisive. Finally, on 23 November, a council of war ordered a retreat to the line of the Thames—a virtual admission of defeat. With the retreat came the second wave of desertions—first Churchill and Grafton, then the prince of Denmark and Ormonde. It was in this wave, on 25 November, that Henry Wharton left the earl of Lichfield’s regiment and went over to the prince.33 A few weeks later, as a reward for his timely defection, he would be given command of the regiment. Sometime during this clutter of events, the prince’s troops began singing ‘‘Lilliburlero’’—the satirical verses Tom Wharton had composed almost two years earlier. Whether Tom’s arrival at Exeter had anything to do with the sudden popularity of the song or whether the king’s importation of Irish regiments was enough in itself to spark an explosion, the ‘‘foolish ballad’’ (in Burnet’s words) ‘‘made an impression on the army that cannot be imagined by those who saw it not. The whole army, and at last all people both in city and country, were singing it perpetually. And perhaps never had so slight a thing so great an effect.’’34 Tom stayed with the prince’s army as it made its leisurely way across southern England. Now that the momentum had shifted to the prince, there was no hurry. Defectors from the king’s cause, including Clarendon himself, were pouring into William’s camp. They were joined by the previously uncommitted and by astute politicians eager to acquire merit in the new political world. One of the latecomers was Goodwin, whose revelations kept him in London

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until 10 December. That night he and his friend Sir Thomas Travell made their way through the king’s outposts on their way to join William—only to find next day that they were too late to claim any credit.35 Coincidentally, King James had chosen the same night to flee from London in his attempt to reach France. He was leaving without a fight, he explained in notes to Feversham, his commanding general, and Dartmouth, the admiral of his fleet, because he could not trust his officers.36 The next day Feversham started disbanding the royal army, and the war was over. The flight of the king threw London into wild confusion, and on 11 December a hastily convened assemblage of Lords, spiritual and temporal, met at the Guildhall. Functioning as a provisional government, the Peers issued orders to various officials, civil and military. They also issued a ‘‘Declaration’’ explaining their actions and pledging their support to the prince of Orange ‘‘in his endeavour to establish a free Parliament.’’37 The Tory committee assigned to draw up the declaration attempted to include a proviso stipulating that King James should be brought home again ‘‘with honor and safety’’; but Lord Wharton led a group of Whig Peers in defeating the proposal—a tactic which helped to determine the course of the revolution settlement.38 Tories hoped to reduce the king’s powers, place him under tight (Tory) control, and save their battered theory of government from further damage. Whigs, on the other hand, wanted to get rid of James forever and, incidentally, to vindicate their good judgment in having tried to exclude him in the first place. The episode at the Guildhall was something like a preamble to the debates in the Convention Parliament. Lord Wharton’s leading role in blocking the Tory proviso would earn him a place on William’s Privy Council and a position in the bedchamber as groom of the stole. With the disintegration of the king’s army, the immediate problem for Tom Wharton and his friends was to get a majority in the ‘‘free Parliament’’ the prince of Orange would call (after consultation with the House of Lords and with the M.P.s who had served in the last Parliament of Charles II). The Whig task was made easier by an explosion of anti-Catholic feeling. The principal abettors of the king, like the king himself, were fleeing the country, and less eminent promoters of the king’s measures suffered heavy political damage. In this climate, the Whartons did very well indeed. Tom himself was returned without difficulty for Buckinghamshire, along with Sir Thomas Lee. He found a seat at Wycombe for his crony William Jephson and one at Malmesbury for Charles Godfrey. Per-

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haps the most satisfying victory was in Westmorland where Henry Wharton and his powerful friend Sir John Lowther were elected knights of the shire—to the frustration of Sir Christopher Musgrave, who before the flight of James had virtually controlled the county. When the Whigs returned a safe majority to the Convention Parliament, Tom Wharton and his friends set about to remove the crown from the king’s head.39 In this project they had help from James, who after failing in his first attempt to flee was allowed, if not helped, to reach France on his second attempt. His flight, Whigs alleged, constituted an abdication and left the throne vacant. The crucial debates on this issue occurred on 28 January 1689. Tom made one of the important speeches. Answering Sir Christopher Musgrave, who argued that James could not be legally deposed, Tom said, The gentleman makes a question whether the king may be deposed; but whether he may be deposed or deposes himself, he is not our King. ’Tis not for mine, nor the interest of most here, that he should come again. Abdication and Dereliction are hard words to me, but I would have no loophole to let in the King; for I believe not myself nor any Protestant in England safe, if you admit him.40

The House agreed with Tom and with Whig legal experts, including John Somers. At the end of the day the members adopted their famous resolution that the king ‘‘having violated the fundamental Laws, and having withdrawn himself out of the Kingdom, has abdicated the Government, and that the Throne is thereby become vacant.’’41 The next day, after the House resolved that it was ‘‘inconsistent with the safety and welfare’’ of the kingdom ‘‘to be governed by a Popish Prince,’’ Tom rose to nominate William and Mary to fill the vacant throne. He hoped, he said, that the government would be resettled ‘‘as near the ancient government as can be,’’ and he was sure that no one was so well qualified to fill the throne as the prince and princess of Orange. To them [he said] we owe all our safety; most of us, by this time, must either have been slaves to the Papists, or hanged. I hope that, for the future, we shall have security and preservation from them, and put them in condition of saving us from our dangers for the future.42

Again the Commons agreed with Wharton, but they insisted upon conditions. They would guard against the abuses of royal power

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that had cost James his crown. Before they offered the throne, they would draw up a declaration of rights to which the new rulers must agree. Whether, as Whigs argued, there was an ‘‘original’’ contract between ruler and people might be debatable, but there would be no doubt about this contract. The Commons defended their resolutions against attempts by the Lords to defeat or amend them. They would accept no changes in the crucial words ‘‘abdicated’’ and ‘‘vacant’’; they would leave no semantical loopholes. They would not have a regency, which would leave James as the nominal king and make William and Mary regents. And there was no need to debate Danby’s scheme of giving the crown to Mary and making William prince consort, since neither Mary nor William would accept the proposal. Eventually, the Lords agreed to the Commons’ resolutions. They were helped to their decisions by the fact that James was now a client of Louis XIV, Ireland was in peril, and the Tories’ nominal king might soon be fighting their proposed regent. In the intervals between constitutional questions, Tom Wharton congratulated his army friends upon their defense of English liberty. A motion had been made to thank the clergy for their heroic resistance to the king’s attempts to silence or browbeat them. Tom agreed, but moved that thanks should also be given to ‘‘such of the army’’ as had helped to deliver the kingdom from popery. The king’s army had been ‘‘formed for a different [sinister] purpose’’; and the men who had frustrated the king’s designs deserved special thanks. Both motions were carried without dissent.43 On 14 February, William and Mary, having accepted the declaration of the two Houses, were crowned at Westminster. King James was gone—forever, as it turned out—and the revolution had gone through its first phase. Tom Wharton, who had contributed heavily to the establishment of the new regime, had good reason to congratulate himself. He had helped finish the task begun ten years earlier of removing James from power. He had survived the Tory reaction to become, at forty, a leader of an indestructible party. He had helped to change permanently the relationship between Parliament and the Crown. But there was little time for self-congratulation. The revolution entailed war on the Continent, in Scotland, and in Ireland. For Tom Wharton it meant new household offices, new duties on army and treaty commissions, membership on the Privy Council, and leadership of his party in the Commons. In the parlance of the track, he had won the first heat, but he had not yet won the race.

Abbreviations List of abbreviations used in the citation of books, periodicals, and manuscripts Add. App. BL Bucks Corr. CP CSPD DNB HC, 1660–90 HCJ HEH HL HLJ HLRO HMC HS M MS, MSS N&Q N.S. OED O.S. Parl. Hist. POAS PR PRO RCHM RO

Additional Appendix British Library Buckinghamshire Correspondence Complete Peerage Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Dictionary of National Biography The House of Commons, 1660–1690 Journal of the House of Commons Henry E. Huntington Library, San Marino, California House of Lords Journal of the House of Lords House of Lords Record Office Historical Manuscripts Commission Harleian Society Microfilm Manuscript, manuscripts Notes & Queries New Style [of dates] Oxford English Dictionary, 1971 ed. Old Style [of dates] The Parliamentary History of England Poems on Affairs of State, Augustan Satirical Verse, 1660–1714 Parish Register Public Record Office Royal Commission on Historical Monuments Record Office 232

ABBREVIATIONS

SP State Trials VHC

State Papers A Complete Collection of State Trials Victoria History of the Counties of England

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Notes Chapter 1. The Heir 1. Oliver Cromwell to Philip, Lord Wharton, 2 September 1648, Rawlinson MS 49, fol. 25. On 28 August, the Presbyterian minister Cornelius Burges had congratulated Lord Wharton on his ‘‘particular happynes at this time, wherein God heapes so many mercyes and miracles upon the publique’’ (Rawlinson MS 52, fol. 163). I have found no record that establishes the place or the exact date of the boy’s birth. His baptism, however (according to CP, vol.12, pt. 2, p. 606), took place on 23 August 1648 at Watford, Herts. 2. Young Philip was baptized at St. Mary Magdalene, Winchendon, on 28 October 1638 and buried there the next day (Bucks RO, Aylesbury, Winchendon PR). Arthur was born 2 June 1641 and buried at St. Paul’s, Wooburn, on 15 March 1642, as his memorial stone attests. 3. Elizabeth Wandesford married Philip, Lord Wharton, on 23 September 1632; she died sometime after 10 October 1635 and was buried at Kirkby Stephen (CP, vol. 12, pt. 2, p. 605). Her daughter Philadelphia was buried at St. James, Clerkenwell, on 6 September 1645 (True Register of . . . St James Clarkenwell, HS Registers, 17:264). 4. Jane, named after her mother and maternal grandmother, was a child of Lord Wharton’s second marriage (at Winchendon, 7 September 1637). She was buried at St. James, Clerkenwell, on 13 January 1645 (ibid., 262). 5. Lord Wharton wrote two accounts of his break with Cromwell’s regime— the first (Carte MS 80, fol. 592) in 1660, the year of the Restoration, and the second (Carte MS 81, fol. 736) in 1685, a few months after the accession of James II. Both accounts minimize his early contributions to the Puritan cause and exaggerate the cleanness of the break between him and his old friends. See also G. F. T. Jones, Saw-Pit Wharton, 137–50. 6. Major documents describing Wharton property include Carte MS 108, fols. 398–99, 402; Carte MS 117, fols. 181–92; Rawlinson MS D 40. 7. For Wharton Hall, parts of which are still extant and in use, see RCHM, Westmorland, 1:240–42 (with photographs and ground plan); Simpson, ‘‘Wharton Hall,’’ pp. 224–27. 8. For Cromwell’s overtures, see Oliver Cromwell to Philip, Lord Wharton, 1 January 1650 (Cromwell, Writings and Speeches, 2:189–91); Cromwell to Wharton, 4 September 1650 (2:328–29); Cromwell to Wharton, 27 August 1651 (2:453); summons 9 December 1657 (ignored) for Lord Wharton to serve in Cromwell’s ‘‘other house’’ (4: 685 and n. 199). For a proposed match between Elizabeth, Lord Wharton’s oldest daughter, and Henry Cromwell, Oliver’s second son, see Cromwell to Lord Wharton, 27 August 1651 (ibid., 2:453). 9. Rawlinson MS D 40. 10. I have been unable to find dates and places of birth for Elizabeth, Anne, or

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Margaret Wharton. It seems likely, however, that Elizabeth, the younger of the two daughters of Lord Wharton’s first marriage and ultimately countess of Lindsey, was born in 1635; that Anne, the oldest surviving child of the second marriage, was born about 1646 and her sister Margaret about 1647. 11. Mary was baptized at St. Mary Magdalene, Winchendon, 29 October 1649 (Bucks RO, Winchendon PR). 12. Born 8 March 1653; baptized 28 March 1653, St. Paul’s, Wooburn (communication from the late G. Dennis Staff, vicar at Wooburn). 13. Baptized 9 September 1655, Winchendon (Bucks RO, Winchendon PR). Another Wharton daughter named Frances was buried at Winchendon on 13 May 1656 (ibid.), but she was obviously born before Philadelphia, and perhaps before Goodwin. 14. Baptized 18 January 1657 (ibid.). 15. In a draft of the study schedule drawn up for the Wharton children, all except Goodwin are listed by their nicknames (Rawlinson MS 49, fols. 11–14). Goodwin is ‘‘Gooding,’’ however, in many family letters. 16. Married 7 June 1646 (Bucks RO, Winchendon PR). 17. Cromwell to Lord Wharton, 27 August 1651, Cromwell, Writings and Speeches, 2:453. 18. Including Kirkby Stephen, Croglin, Dean, Healaugh, Ravenstonedale, Winchendon, Waddesdon, and Wooburn. 19. Now in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. 20. Lady Philadelphia Wharton, daughter of Robert Carey, first earl of Monmouth, married Sir Thomas Wharton 11 April 1611. The manors of Aske and Ravenstonedale were settled upon her for her jointure (Carte MS 117, fols. 181–82). After Sir Thomas’s death (17 April 1622) she resided at Aske, where she died 27 December 1654 (George Sanderson to Lord Wharton, 28 December 1654, Carte MS 103, fol. 267).

Chapter 2. The Battle of Normandy 1. Bucks RO, Wooburn PR. There are at least three portraits of Jane, Lady Wharton (whom Cromwell once described as a ‘‘temptation’’)—two by Vandyke (hence no later than 1640) and a portrait, with Lord Wharton and her baby son Henry, in late 1657 or early 1658 (a fact deducible by the size of Henry, who was baptized 18 January 1657). 2. Philip, Lord Wharton to ———, 22 April 1658, Rawlinson MS 52, fol. 276. 3. Rawlinson MS 49, fols. 11–14. 4. She bore her husband five sons, the eldest (who became fourth earl of Lindsey) on 20 October 1660 (Wharton MS, vol. 9, fol. 58; CP, 8:22). 5. Tom’s memorialist (Memoirs, 7–8, 21) says that the improvements to Wooburn cost more than £30,000. Goodwin says (Autobiography, 2:55) that the renovations cost £40,000. 6. Lord Wharton, still in mourning, ornamented his black clothes with diamond buttons on this occasion; and at the coronation, on 23 April 1661, the accouterments of his horse were valued at £8,000 (E. R. Wharton, Whartons of Wharton Hall, 34–35). Such ostentation is probably a measure of Lord Wharton’s fear of finding himself on the blacklist of the new regime. 7. For the location of the Wharton property, see Strype, Survey, vol. 2, bk. 4, pp. 74–75.

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8. William Carr of Fernihurst, in Roxburghshire, was a gentleman of the bedchamber in the Court of James I. 9. The Popham monument with its impressive and well-preserved statues of Anne and Edward is still extant in the Chapel of St. John the Baptist. 10. Two portraits of Lady Wharton are extant, both painted while Anne was married to Colonel Edward Popham and both offered for sale by Sotheby’s in November 1985. The first, by Sir Peter Lely, is a three-quarter-length portrait, and the second (attributed in the sales catalogue to a ‘‘Follower of Robert Walker’’) is part of a half-length group portrait, where Anne is pictured with Colonel Popham and their two children Letitia and Alexander. For photographic reproductions, see Sotheby’s, The Contents of Littlecote House (Auction Catalog, 1985), plates 842, 867. 11. Clark, Goodwin Wharton, 10–11. 12. Royal Society, Philosophical Transactions 5 (1670): 1098–99; Wallis, Defence, 3–4, 9; Defoe, History of . . . Duncan Campbell, 53. 13. For the study schedules, see Rawlinson MS 49, fols. 3–11. 14. Baptized 29 June 1662 (St. Giles-in-the-Fields PR, consulted by courtesy of the late Peter David Wheatland, verger). 15. All the Wharton children except Philadelphia and Henry (seven and five years old, respectively) were given lessons on the harpsichord (‘‘harpsicall’’) under a master named Honikson, and all were given singing and dancing lessons (Rawlinson MS 49, fol. 11). The older girls—Anne, Margaret, and Mary—were also given lessons on the guitar and the theorbo, and they devoted at least two hours a day to painting. As noted elsewhere (Clark, Goodwin Wharton, 347 n. 9), Macaulay in his sketch of Tom was right about the piety of the Whartons but grotesquely wrong about their attitude towards the arts and exercises. Macaulay, History, 5:2402. 16. See ‘‘Mr Romerill[’s] method of teaching Mr Wharton Lattin,’’ in Rawlinson MS 49, fol. 9. 17. Ibid., fol. 14. 18. Rawlinson MS 52, fol. 298. 19. For sketches of Theophilus Gale, see DNB; Calamy, Abridgement of Baxter’s Life, 2, 64–65; Matthews, Calamy Revised, 200. 20. Gale to Lord Wharton, ca. mid-June 1662, Rawlinson MS 49, fol. 44. 21. John Perkins to Anne Wharton, ca. 5 February 1664, ibid., fol. 296. ‘‘I must needs confess,’’ Perkins writes, ‘‘I beeleve my masters [Tom and Goodwin] had a prejudice against the man [Gale] always and never had anie liking to him. . . .’’ 22. Gale to Lord Wharton, 24 July 1662, 29 July 1662, undated (ca. 4 August 1662), ibid., fols. 41, 56, 60; 4 August 1662, 15 August 1662, Rawlinson MS 52, fols. 359, 362. Gale’s use of the word ‘‘fit’’ for an attack of fever (a good seventeenth-century usage) seems to have made some suspect that Goodwin was epileptic or hysterical (Wharton MS, vol. 10, opp. p. 1). He was not, nor was he ‘‘sickly,’’ as John Carswell says (Old Cause, 37). Except for the siege of fever in the summer of 1662 and a very light case of smallpox in 1664, he was remarkably healthy until his stroke in March 1698. 23. Carte MS 117, fol. 88, as quoted in Wharton MS, vol. 9, pp. 21–22. The fact that a passport was issued misled Edward Ross Wharton into assuming and writing that the two girls and young Henry actually went to France with their two brothers and that they arrived there in 1662 (E. R. Wharton, Whartons of Wharton Hall, 41). In fact, however, Mary, Philadelphia, and Henry did not go to France at all; and Tom and Goodwin did not arrive in Caen until 25 June 1663. Only Theo-

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philus Gale reached France in the autumn of 1662. E. R. Wharton’s error has been repeated several times—perhaps most recently by Philip Jenkins in his excellent article ‘‘Mary Wharton and the Rise of the ‘New Woman’,’’ 173. 24. Gale to Lord Wharton, 15 August 1662, Rawlinson MS 52, fol. 362. 25. Gale to Lord Wharton, 13/23 October 1662, Rawlinson MS 49, fol. 71. For secondary accounts of the Whartons in France, see Matthews, ‘‘Wharton Correspondence,’’ Transactions of the Congregational Historical Society 10: 52–65; Stoye, English Travellers Abroad, 419–28. 26. Gale to Lord Wharton, 22 November/2 December 1662, Rawlinson MS 49, fol. 75. 27. Ibid., fol.79. 28. Ibid., fol. 235. 29. 2/12 February 1664, Rawlinson MS 53, fol. 114. 30. The phrase occurs in Gale’s outline of studies for Tom and Goodwin: ‘‘A Diary for Studies and Other Exercises,’’ Rawlinson MS 49, fols. 1–3. Gale’s theory that classical languages and philosophies derived from the Hebrew tradition and are corrupted forms of a pure original is the theme of his major work The Court of the Gentiles. 31. [Theophilus Gale], ‘‘A Diary for Studies and Other Exercises,’’ Rawlinson MS 49, fol. 2. 32. Gale to Lord Wharton, 9/19 August 1663 and 5/15 November 1663, ibid., fols. 63, 112. 33. Gale to Lord Wharton, 8/18 October 1663, ibid., fol. 108. 34. Gale to Lord Wharton, 11/21 February 1664, 3/13 April 1664, ibid., fols. 83, 171. Tom (Gale wrote in the letter of 3/13 April) had attained ‘‘such perfection’’ in Latin oratory ‘‘that the [French] Regent of the Classe does much glory in him . . . & does publish his elogies throughout the town.’’ 35. Gale to Lord Wharton, ca. 1/11 June 1664, ibid., fol. 191. 36. Lord Wharton’s notes for a letter to Gale, ca. 1 August 1663, ibid., fol. 4; Gale to Lord Wharton, 10/20 August 1663, ibid., fol. 100. 37. At the end of the children’s study schedule of 14 November 1662 is the notation: ‘‘If any of ym doe amisse Let my Lord be acquainted that night if at home, if abroad Mr. Romerill to chasten the 2 eldest boyes Mrs Gunter ye rest of ye Little ones if my Lord be absent, if he be at home, to bring them to my Lord’’ (ibid., fol. 14). 38. Gale to Lord Wharton, 10/20 August 1663, ibid., fol. 100. 39. John Perkins to Anne Wharton, ca. 5/15 February 1664, ibid., fol. 296. 40. Gale to Lord Wharton, 9/19 December 1663, ibid., fol. 115. 41. John Perkins to Mary Wharton ‘‘at Snt giles in the feilds,’’ ca. 8/18 January 1664, ibid., fol. 126. Ironically, thirty-five years later, on 2 April 1699, Mary herself died of smallpox. 42. Lord Wharton might have been less nervous about his heir if he had not been in danger himself—suspected of complicity in the Farnley Woods Plot. For a summary, see Clark, T. Wharton MS, chapter 2, pp. 20–21. 43. 25 January/4 February 1664, Rawlinson MS 49, fol. [143]. Tom’s signature T. Wharton was the one he continued to use after he became a peer. He did not drop the T and simply write his title (Wharton) as other peers did. 44. Gale to Lord Wharton, 8/18 February 1664, ibid., fol. 156. 45. Ibid. 46. Gale to Lord Wharton, 18/28 February 1664, Rawlinson MS 49, fol. 168. 47. The letters (or letter) Lord Wharton wrote to Gale, Tom, Goodwin, and Per-

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kins on 15/25 February 1664 have disappeared, but the summary notes on their contents, in Lord Wharton’s autograph, are extant in ibid., fol. 18. 48. John Perkins to Anne Wharton, ca. 5/15 February 1664, ibid., fol. 296. 49. Ibid., fol. 174. 50. Gale to Lord Wharton, 19/29 May 1664, ibid., fol. 187. 51. Draft, letter Lord Wharton to Gale, written 22 July 1664, but ‘‘nott sent till 12th Sep: 1664,’’ ibid., fol. 20. 52. Theophilus Gale, The True Idea of Jansenisme, both Historick and Dogmatick (London: E. Calvert and G. Widdows, 1669); The Anatomie of Infidelitie (London: J. Darby for Jonathan Robinson, and Giles Widdows, 1672). 53. In November 1711 the Tory government confiscated effigies of the pope, the pretender, and the devil which the Whigs had prepared for an anti-popish, antiTory demonstration on Queen Elizabeth’s birthday. When Tom (then earl of Wharton) was asked what had happened to the three bogey men, he answered (‘‘merrily’’): ‘‘Their Disciples came by Night and stole them away.’’ Oldmixon, History of England, 478. 54. See the debate on the Schism Bill, 4 June 1714, Parl. Hist., 6:1351–52; Memoirs, 103–4; Boyer, Political State, 7:477–79.

Chapter 3. Innocents Abroad 1. Matthews, Calamy Revised, 122. 2. Thomas Gilbert to Lord Wharton, 15 August [1664], Rawlinson MS 53, fol. 189. 3. Abraham Clifford to Lord Wharton, 30 July 1664, ibid., fol. 182. 4. Clifford to Lord Wharton, 7/17 October 1664, ibid., fol. 7. 5. Tom Wharton to Lord Wharton, 6/16 November 1664, Rawlinson MS 49, fol. 281. 6. Gale to Lord Wharton, 10/20 October 1664, ibid., fol. 254. 7. James Le Fevre to Lord Wharton, 26 September/6 October 1664, ibid., fol. 238. 8. Gale to Lord Wharton, 26 September/6 October 1664, ibid., fol. 235. 9. Clifford to Lord Wharton, 7/17 October 1664, Rawlinson MS 54, fol. 7. 10. Clifford to Lord Wharton, 15/25 December 1664, Rawlinson MS 52, fol. 308. 11. Lord Wharton to Clifford, 31 October 1664, Rawlinson MS 54, fol. [13]. 12. Clifford to Lord Wharton, 15/25 December 1664, Rawlinson MS 52, fol. 308. 13. Macky, Memoirs, 92. It is not clear what Macky considered ‘‘middle stature’’; nor is it clear whether Tom’s ‘‘fair complexion’’ included blond hair. The three extant portraits I know are indecisive on this point, since Tom is wearing a periwig in each. I would suppose that he was blond (like his sister Margaret) and that he was about five feet seven or eight inches tall—small enough to win horse races and large enough to win duels. 14. In the collection of the Huntington Art Gallery, San Marino, California. 15. In the National Portrait Gallery, London. 16. Lord Wharton to Clifford, 24 December 1664, Rawlinson MS 54, fol. [15]. 17. Gomboust, Plan monumentale, plate V. 18. Lord Wharton to Clifford, 13 April 1665, Rawlinson MS 54, fol. 34. See also Browne, Journal, 9, 29.

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19. Clifford to Lord Wharton, 29 April/9 May 1665, Rawlinson MS 54, fol. 45. 20. Ibid. Elizabeth Capel, countess of Essex, was the daughter of Algernon Percy, fourth earl of Northumberland. 21. Lord Holles’s correspondence with his government and with Sir George Downing at The Hague during the 1665–66 period (PRO, SP 78/121, 122 and BL, Add. MS 22920) does not mention the young Whartons. 22. Clifford to Lord Wharton, 20/30 May 1665, Rawlinson MS 54, fol. 24. It is possible that Clifford exaggerated Tom’s ignorance in order to talk Lord Wharton out of sending the boys to Germany. 23. Lister, Journey, 6. The English physician Martin Lister visited Paris in late 1665 (while Tom and Goodwin were there) and again in 1698. 24. Matthews, Calamy Revised, 122. He received his medical training at Leyden and an honorary M.D. degree from Oxford. 25. Clifford to Lord Wharton, 3/13 June 1665, Rawlinson MS 54, fol. 32. 26. Fortunately, Lord Wharton had retreated with his family from St. Giles, where (as he said) ‘‘they dye . . . by the hundred in a weeke of the Plague,’’ to Wooburn, which remained uninfected. It was rumored, however, that he and Lady Wharton and sixteen of their servants had died. Lord Wharton to Clifford, 3 July 1665, ibid., fol. 17. 27. Clifford to Lord Wharton, 24 August/3 September 1665, ibid., fol. 43. 28. Tom’s memorialist says, ‘‘He [Tom] made the Tour of France, Italy, Germany, and Holland’’ (Memoirs, 13). Actually, however, Tom never got to Italy, Germany, Holland, or southern France during his stay in Europe. 29. Clifford to Lord Wharton, 4/14 October 1665, Rawlinson MS 54, fol. 53. 30. Clifford to Lord Wharton, 3/13 June 1665, ibid., fol. 32. 31. Clifford to Lord Wharton, 15/25 November 1665, ibid., fol. 26. 32. John Perkins to Lord Wharton, 15/25 November 1665, ibid., fol. 19. 33. Clifford to Lord Wharton, 15/25 November 1665, ibid., fol. 26. 34. For the physicians involved, see Rawlinson MS 49, fol. 291. 35. Clifford to [Anne Wharton], 18/28 November 1665, Rawlinson MS 54, fol. 41. 36. Clifford to [Anne Wharton], 25 November/5 December 1665, ibid., fol. 58. 37. Ibid. 38. Clifford to Lord Wharton, 29 November/9 December 1665, ibid., fol. 56; Clifford to Lord Wharton, 19/29 December 1665, ibid., fol. 64. 39. For the problems of Lord Holles, see Feiling, British Foreign Policy, 197– 200; Crawford, Denzil Holles, 203–5. 40. Clifford to Lord Wharton, from Rouen, 7/17 April 1666, Rawlinson MS 54, fol. 68. 41. Holles arrived at Whitehall on 28 May/7 June. 42. See his letter to George Ludwig, elector of Hanover (later George I), 10 May 1706, Stowe MS 222, fols. 406–7. 43. George I understood English; but in the early days of his reign, he seldom spoke it for more than a sentence or two. See Ragnhild Hatton, George I, 128–32. Although William had an English mother and an English wife, he seems to have been happier in French than in English. For the king’s French, see Baxter, William III, 23.

Chapter 4. Marriage a` la Mode 1. For sketches of Owen (once chaplain to Cromwell), see Matthews, Calamy Revised, 376–77, and DNB; for Gilbert, see Calamy Revised, 221–22.

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2. Thomas Gilbert to Lord Wharton, 5 May 1663 and 9 May 1663, Rawlinson MS 53, fols. 34, 35. 3. Thomas Gilbert to Lord Wharton, 22 December 1664, ibid., fol. 209. 4. For sketches of Clarke and Dodd, see Matthews, Calamy Revised, 119–20, 165–66. Clarke is also sketched in DNB. 5. Lord Wharton’s notes summarizing ‘‘the case at Wob[urn]: 5 Apr: [16]69 between a d[aughter] and F[ather],’’ 14 April 1669, Rawlinson MS 50, fol. 72. This important document will be cited as ‘‘Lord Wharton’s Notes.’’ 6. Ibid. See also Thomas Cole to Lord Wharton, 9 April 1669, Rawlinson MS 50, fol. 69. 7. Lord Wharton’s Notes. 8. Lord Wharton does not identify the minister involved. 9. Lord Wharton’s Notes. 10. Thomas Cole to Lord Wharton, 9 April 1669, Rawlinson MS 50, fol. 69. 11. Lazarus Seaman to Lord Wharton, 2 April 1669, ibid., fol. 61. 12. Wharton MS, vol. 9, 58. Elizabeth’s oldest son, Robert, ultimately became fourth earl and first marquess of Lindsey and first duke of Ancaster. 13. John Dodd to Lord Wharton, 4 October 1670, Rawlinson MS 50, fol. 103. 14. For Matthew Mead, see DNB and Matthews, Calamy Revised, 347–48. 15. Robert Bennett to Matthew Mead, 8 November 1670, Rawlinson MS 50, fols. 104–5. 16. Benjamin Perkins to Lord Wharton, 14 February 1671, ibid., fol. 118. For Perkins, see Matthews, Calamy Revised, 386–87; Alumni Oxonienses, 3:1147. 17. I have found no document that tells what Tom thought of his father’s treatment of his sister. It is worth noting, however, that one of the first things he did when he gained office after the Revolution was to get his brother-in-law William Carr appointed cursitor baron of the Court of the Exchequer. 18. London Marriage Licences, 98. 19. Beaven, Aldermen of the City of London, 2:113. 20. As historian Pat Rogers has pointed out, Oldmixon (1673–1742) was the son of Bawdon’s sister Elnor (as spelled in Bawdon’s will) and her husband John Oldmixon Sr., a Somersetshire gentleman. It was Oldmixon, Rogers argues persuasively, who wrote the anonymous memoirs of Tom and of John Somers, first Baron Somers; and it was his sojourns with John and Letitia Bawdon, his uncle and aunt, that furnished him with concrete details about the Wharton family. See Rogers, ‘‘Memoirs of Wharton and Somers,’’ and ‘‘Two Notes on John Oldmixon and His Family.’’ 21. For the versatile Benjamin Worsley, whose title of Doctor may have been self-conferred, see Biographical Dictionary of British Radicals, 3:341–43. 22. For Francis Hart, a Nonconformist merchant, see B. Worsley to Lord Wharton, 23 January 1672, Rawlinson MS 50, fol. 132; CSPD, Chas. II, 12:128. 23. B. Worsley to Andrew Marvell, 27 December 1671, 1 January 1672, 2 January 1672, 3 January 1672, Rawlinson MS 50, fols. 123, 126, 129, and 149. The first of these letters is addressed to Marvell ‘‘at the Lord Whartons house at Winchingdon.’’ On the last three, Marvell has added notes to Lord Wharton. See also Marvell, Poems and Letters, 2:326–27, 386. I am indebted to Elsie Elizabeth Duncan-Jones for information about the protean Worsley and about the first steps in the marriage negotiation. 24. See the will of Richard Cabell (PRO, Prob 11/339/71), drawn on 6 May 1671 and probated 29 June 1672. Elizabeth was appointed sole executrix of her father’s will, but since she was still a minor, the administration of the properties remained in the hands of trustees.

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25. Roberts, Recovery and Restoration, 164. 26. B. Worsely to Lord Wharton, 23 January 1672, Rawlinson MS 50, fol. 132. 27. Mistress Cabell’s Christian name, Elizabeth, is never mentioned in the voluminous marriage correspondence. I learned her name (and the Christian name of her mother) from her father’s will. 28. Francis Hart to Lord Wharton, 29 January 1672, ibid., fol. 135. 29. Francis Hart to Lord Wharton, 10 February 1672, ibid., fol. 146. Elizabeth’s father had testified, in effect, to her competence by naming her sole executrix of his will. 30. Servington Savery to Lord Wharton, 7 June 1672, ibid., fol. 189. 31. Francis Hart to Lord Wharton, 7 June 1672, ibid., fol. 193. 32. Rough draft, Lord Wharton to Lewis Stucley and Servington Savery, ca. 10 June 1672, ibid., fols. 104, 105. 33. Tom Wharton to Lord Wharton, 17 June 1672, ibid., fol. 197. 34. Samuel Hieron to Lord Wharton, 18 September 1672, ibid., fol. 207. 35. Ibid. 36. A rough draft of Lord Wharton’s letter to Hesket, unaddressed and undated, is still extant in ibid., fol. 214. A clean copy of the letter to Mrs. Cabell, also unaddressed and undated, exists in Rawlinson MS 51, fol. 388. 37. Samuel Hieron to Lord Wharton, 4 December 1672, Rawlinson MS 50, fol. 223. 38. Lord Wharton to [Mrs. Cabell], undated [1672], Rawlinson MS 51, fol. 388. G. Wharton, Autobiography, 2:55–56; Clark, Goodwin Wharton, 3–5. The reassignment of Wooburn provoked a furious argument between Goodwin and Lord Wharton. 39. Samuel Hieron to Lord Wharton, 4 December 1672, Rawlinson MS 50, fol. 223. 40. Lord Wharton’s phrase is repeated by Lewis Stucley in a letter to Lord Wharton, 9 December 1672, ibid., fol. 228. 41. William A. Speck gives the number of eligible voters at Wendover as 120 during the reign of Queen Anne (Tory and Whig, 126). In 1673, however, in the contest between Tom Wharton and Edward Backwell there were 138 uncontested votes and (apparently) one disputed vote. 42. The Whartons expected seven of their own votes to be challenged on grounds of bribery. The probable charges and the answers to be made are listed in Carte 109, fol. 433. 43. For the Wendover election and Tom’s petition, see ibid., fols. 405, 407, 408, 409, 433. See also HCJ, 9:248, 255, 270–71, 274. 44. Samuel Hieron to Lord Wharton, 18 March 1673, Rawlinson MS 50, fol. 247. 45. Sir Ralph Verney laughingly suggested in a letter to his son Edmund (29 May 1673) that Mrs. Cabell’s attitude was ‘‘little less than a breach of [parliamentary] Priviledg[e].’’ Verney, Bucks RO, M 11/Reel 26. 46. Samuel Hieron to Lord Wharton, 22 February 1673, Rawlinson MS 53, fol. 311. 47. Servington Savery to Lord Wharton, 18 March 1673, Rawlinson MS 50, fol. [249]. 48. Samuel Hieron to Lord Wharton, 18 March 1673, ibid., fol. 247. 49. Henry Lever to Lord Wharton, 7 April 1673, ibid., fol. 269. On 29 March Brome Whorwood observed in the House of Commons that the robbery of ‘‘Mr. Wharton’’ had been perpetrated ‘‘by persons like soldiers, armed and horsed.’’ Grey, Debates, 2:175.

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50. Anne was born, says John Cary, a trustee of her estate, ‘‘about the 20th of July’’ [1659]. Cary to Sir Ralph Verney (a fellow trustee), 8 July 1680, Verney, BL, M 636/34. She was baptized at Spelsbury on 24 July 1659, the day of her mother’s funeral (CP, vol. 12, pt. 2, 605). I erroneously gave the date as 24 August in Clark, Goodwin Wharton, 331. 51. PRO, PROB 11/290, 296. Sir Henry’s will is dated 18 March 1658/9; his wife’s will is dated 15 June 1659, with a codicil added on 18 July, and a nuncupative codicil added later by the countess of Rochester. The will of Anne Danvers Lee was probated on 22 December 1659; Sir Henry’s on 16 April 1659. 52. Memoirs of the Verney Family, 4:243. 53. The often cited letter in which Rachel Russell, from London, writes to her husband William Russell at Stratton about the Wharton-Arundell episode has been misdated by a year ever since its first publication. Mary Berry, who edited the letter from the Devonshire collection in 1819, apparently supplied the date May 1672 from the letter’s reference to a naval battle between the English and the Dutch. This she supposed to be the famous battle of Solebay (Southwold Bay), fought on 28 May 1672. Actually, however, the battle was the engagement off Schooneveld on 28 May 1673—a fact made clear by several other references in the letter. For the letter, see [Berry], Some Account of the Life of . . . Lady Russell, 4–5; Russell, Letters of Rachel Lady Russell, 1:9–10. 54. Bucks RO, Wooburn PR. Young Thomas was the son and ‘‘heire apparant’’ of Edmund Thomas of Wenvoe Castle, Glamorganshire. 55. Major Dunch and Margaret Wharton were married at St. Paul’s Wooburn, 26 June 1673 (Bucks RO, Wooburn PR). For the Dunch properties at Pusey, Oxfordshire (now Berkshire), see VHC, Berkshire, 471–74. 56. For a photographic reproduction, see Anne Wharton, Surviving Works, Frontispiece. 57. The correct figure, £8,000, is established by the marriage contract of Anne Lee and Thomas Wharton (Rawlinson MS D 40, p. 1) and by the will of Sir Henry Lee (PRO, Prob 11/290). The erroneous figure of £10,000 is given by Tom’s first biographer (Memoirs, 18) and repeated by many writers, including me (Clark, Goodwin Wharton, 9) and the authors of the sketches in DNB and CP, vol. 12, pt. 2, 605. 58. For the division, in 1681, see PRO, Common Pleas 25 (2)/747/33 Chas. II Trin., no. 1. See also Wharton v Abingdon, PRO, C 5/637/73. In 1660, Danvers House had been leased at the rate of £150 per year to John, Lord Robartes, later (1679) first earl of Radnor, who occupied it until his death in 1685. Strype, Survey, 4:13; CP, 10:713, n. (f). 59. Memoirs, 19. 60. Thomas Yates to Lord Wharton, 27 September 1673, Rawlinson MS 51, fol. 27. 61. Dr. William Denton to Sir Ralph Verney, 22 September 1673, Verney, Bucks RO, D11/Reel 26; HC, 1660–90, 1:549; 3:698. Tom’s biographer, writing forty-two years later, mistakenly says that Tom won the duel (Memoirs, 32).

Chapter 5. The Third Whig 1. Shaftesbury, under his earlier title, first Baron Ashley, was the second a in Cabal, an anagram which denoted Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley, and

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Lauderdale. He was created first earl of Shaftesbury on 23 April 1672 and made lord chancellor on the following 17 November. 2. For Shaftesbury’s speech, see HLJ, 12:525–26. 3. For a concise statement of the overall effects of Charles’s foreign policy, see Gibbs, ‘‘Revolution in Foreign Policy,’’ 60; for the absolutist implications, see James Rees Jones, Country and Court, 164–65. 4. The sanitized treaty, minus the Catholic clauses, was signed at Westminster by Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Shaftesbury (then Ashley), and Lauderdale on 21 December 1670. 5. For the text of the Treaty of Dover, as well as that of the sham treaty, see Mignet, Ne´ gociations, 3:187–99, 256–65. 6. HCJ, 9:246, 256. 7. Both Clifford and Arlington had signed the secret Treaty of Dover (Mignet, Ne´ gociations, 3:199). 8. HCJ, 9:252. 9. As passed by the Commons on 12 March 1673 and agreed to later, with amendments, by the House of Lords, the so-called Test Act was entitled ‘‘An Act for preventing Dangers which may happen from Popish Recusants.’’ HCJ, 9:268; HLJ, 12:554. 10. ‘‘An Act for the raising the sum of Twelve Hundred Thirty-eight Thousand Seven Hundred and Fifty Pounds, for Supply of His Majesty’s extraordinary Occasions’’ (HLJ, 12:584). 11. HLJ, 12:589; Burnet, History, 2:32. 12. For documents on the marriage negotiations, see Campana di Cavelli, Les derniers Stuarts, 1:1–130. Louis, as he explained to the duchess of Modena (the young lady’s mother) in a letter dated 7 August 1673, regarded the alliance between James and Maria as ‘‘a new bond in the union which is already so close between the King of England and me’’ (ibid., 21). 13. HCJ, 9:281. 14. HCJ, 9:284–85. 15. Grey, Debates, 2:197–213. 16. HCJ, 9:285. 17. HCJ, 9:286. 18. In the summer of 1673, an opposition satirist announced an imaginary sale. Among the items offered were ‘‘Two accurate Mapps, the one of a new Queene and the other of makeing the duke of Monmouth Legitimate, both Secundum artem and of the Chancellor’s [Shaftesbury’s] owne drawing, to be presented to parliamt next Sessions, valued at his neck and to be advanced at discretion.’’ See Newton, Lyme Letters, 88. 19. For Shaftesbury’s dismissal and the inconclusive evidence against him, see Haley, Shaftesbury, 327–47. 20. Sir Thomas Osborne was created Viscount Oseburne of Dunblane 2 February 1673 (Scots Peerage), Viscount Latimer 15 August 1673, and earl of Danby 27 June 1674 (CP, 2:507). 21. HLJ, 12:595. 22. On 28 January 1674, a treaty between France and England was read to the Lords. It was not, of course, the original Treaty of Dover but very probably the sham treaty of 21 December 1670, redated 2/12 February 1672 to disguise the fact that the attack on the Dutch was long premeditated and that the king’s ostensible reasons for declaring war were eyewash. Kenneth H. D. Haley, noting the date assigned to the treaty read to the Lords, was under the impression that a third treaty

244

NOTES

had been produced (William of Orange, 182); but Mignet mentions no such document, and a simple change of date would have achieved the desired result. For an account of the reading, which is not recorded in HLJ, see HLRO, HL, MS Minutes, 28 January 1673[4]; HMC, Ninth Report, App., pt. 2, 40. 23. For the proceedings against Lauderdale, Buckingham, and Arlington, see Clark, T. Wharton MS, chapter 5, 19–20. 24. Sir Robert Southwell to Sir Joseph Williamson, 23 Jan. 1674, CSPD, Chas. II, 16:112–13. 25. The terms are recorded in HLJ, 12:617–18. 26. HLJ, 12:632.

Chapter 6. The First Tory 1. CSPD, Chas. II, 16:568, 578. 2. In early March 1675, two J.P.s and a party of redcoats broke up the conventicle in White Hart Yard, and James Bedford, the minister, was arrested and fined £20. This fine, along with the £40 assessed against the place, was paid by Lord Wharton and the countesses of Bedford, Manchester, and Clare, who were attending the meeting. Matthews, Calamy Revised, 43–44; Lacey, Dissent and Parliamentary Politics, 25. 3. HLJ, 12:653–54. 4. For the nature and number of offices held by M.P.s, see HC, 1660–90, 1:25–26; for Danby’s distribution of offices and secret service money, see Browning, Danby, 1:167–73; for specific charges of corruption, see Flagellum Parliamentarium, 1:1–24, and [Marvell], Seasonable Argument. 5. Flagellum Parliamentarium, 1:11. 6. For the instructions of Honore´ Courtin, Louis’s ambassadeur extraordinaire, 1676–1677, on the subject of bribing the mistresses of Charles II, see Recueil, 25:177–80. 7. HLJ, 12:668–69, 671. 8. The famous dispute involved a lawsuit between Dr. Thomas Shirley and Sir John Fagg (an M.P.) and the right of the Lords, sitting in their judicial capacity, to hear appeals from Chancery and to summon a member to appear before them during a session of Parliament. See Parl. Hist., 4:721–40; Browning, Danby, 1:161–64; Ogg, England in the Reign of Charles II, 2:470–71. 9. HCJ, 9:315. 10. HCJ, 9:321, 326–27. 11. HCJ, 9:324–29; Browning, Danby, 1:155–60. 12. Browning, Danby, 1:170–72. 13. For the detailed list, see ibid., 3:63–71. 14. Ibid., 3:99. Sir Richard Wiseman’s list (1676) names M.P.s by counties. Tom is one of six members from Bucks virtually certain to oppose Danby in the next session. 15. Parl. Hist., 4:755–80; HCJ, 9:365. 16. For a summary of the agreement, see Ogg, England in the Reign of Charles II, 2:534. 17. Commenting upon Danby’s failure to persuade the Commons to vote money, Keith Grahame Feiling says: ‘‘. . . the atmosphere of suspicion was too dense to break, and indeed too well justified.’’ History of the Tory Party, 162. 18. HCJ, 9:359, 362, 367, 368, 369, 370, 373–74, 381.

NOTES

245

19. On that day Danby’s forces lost four divisions during the debates on supply (HCJ, 9:373–74). 20. For the secret treaty, 16 February 1676, by which both kings pledged to give no aid to the enemies of the other and to make no treaty without the participation of the other, see Mignet, Ne´ gociations , 4:381–86; Recueil, 25:197–200; Ogg, England in the Reign of Charles II, 2:536; Browning, Danby, 1:190–91. 21. For the importance of the 1675 sessions in the development of parties, see Feiling, History of the Tory Party, 161–62. 22. HLJ, 13:33. 23. Burnet, History, 1:74–76; Haley, Shaftesbury, 377–80. 24. Parl. Hist., 4:791–99. 25. For the extent to which Locke contributed to the contents, see Haley, Shaftesbury, 391–93. The pamphlet, which appeared in early November 1675, is reprinted in Parl. Hist., 4:xxxviii–lxvii. 26. For the importance of the arguments to Whig lawyers, see Landon, Triumph of the Lawyers, 219–51. 27. Parl. Hist., 4:lvii, lx, lxiv; Carte MS 79, fol. 17; G. F. T. Jones, Saw-Pit Wharton, 225–27. 28. Parl. Hist., 4:lvii. 29. See the report of Sir Philip Musgrave (9 October 1676) to Secretary of State Sir Joseph Williamson on Lord Wharton’s journey to the North, CSPD, Chas. II, 18:58–59. 30. The catering accounts for Exeter House from October 1675 to July 1676 show that apart from Shaftesbury’s agent John Harrington, Shaftesbury’s most frequent visitors ‘‘were, in order, Lords Mohun and Wharton and Mr. [Thomas] Wharton.’’ Haley, Shaftesbury, 425 n. 3. The brackets and Tom’s Christian name were supplied by K. D. H. Haley, Shaftesbury’s biographer. 31. See Haley, Shaftesbury, 409. 32. For Buckingham’s speech, see Parl. Hist., 4:815–23. 33. Parl. Hist., 4:823. The account in Parl. Hist. is drawn from North, Examen, 66. 34. Grey, Debates, 4:64–72. 35. Shaftesbury, Wharton, and Salisbury were sentenced on 16 February 1677; Buckingham, who absented himself from the House of Lords on that day, was sentenced on 17 February. For the official censure meted out to Lord Wharton on behalf of the House by the lord chancellor, see Carte MS 228, fol. 98. 36. On 13 November 1680, during the Exclusion Crisis, the House of Lords agreed that the silencing and sentencing of the four Lords had been ‘‘Contrary to the Freedom of Parliament’’ (HLJ, 13:664) and they ordered the proceedings against them expunged from the Journal. Though totally deleted in the published HLJ, the original account (which was crossed out) remains clearly legible in the MS Minutes. See HL MS Minutes, HLRO, 15, 16, 17 February 1676/[7]. See also Carte MS 79, fols. 37–44, 57, 59–60; CSPD, Chas. II, 18:555–56. 37. Carte MS 79, fol. 57. The fact that the offenders had to satisfy the king as well as the House of Lords meant that they would not be released automatically at the end of the Lords’ session. 38. Carte MS 79, fol. 60. 39. HL MS Minutes, HLRO, 16 February 1676/[7]. 40. All four men were sons of Peers and stalwarts of the opposition. 41. [Sir John Robinson to Charles II, 20 February 1677], CSPD, Chas. II, 18:564. 42. Grey, Debates, 4:101–2.

246 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50.

NOTES

Ibid., 4:101. Ibid., 4:102. See the proceedings for 19 February 1677, HCJ, 9:385. HLJ, 13:120. At Mont Cassel, 1/11 April 1677. HCJ, 9:408. HCJ, 9:422. Carte MS 79, fol. 65; HCJ, 9:426.

Chapter 7. The Master at Winchendon 1. Robert Bennett to Lord Wharton, 1 June 1674, Rawlinson MS 51, fol. 96. 2. Samuel Clarke to Lord Wharton, 5 October 1674, 28 November 1676, ibid., fols. 105 and 109; Robert Bennett to Lord Wharton, 3 December 1674, ibid., fol. 112; Sir Thomas Wharton to Sir Thomas Williamson, 26 December 1674, CSPD, Chas. II, 16:481. 3. Thomas Gilbert to Lord Wharton, 26 March 1674, Rawlinson MS 51, fol. 83. 4. It is possible that the last straw for Tom was a series of sermons delivered by Dr. Thomas Manton at Pinner’s Hall in 1672—a series that Tom recalled many years later during the Peers’ debate on the Schism Bill. 5. G. Wharton, Autobiography, 1:12. 6. Macky, Memoirs, 92. 7. Lady Anne Clifford notes that Tom and Goodwin arrived at Wharton Hall on 26 August 1674 and stayed there about a week; they visited her ‘‘severally’’ at Pendragon Castle on 29 and 31 August. Pembroke, Lives, 162. 8. See, for example, Lord Wharton’s letter of 27 January 1678[9], Carte MS 79, fol. 168. 9. Samuel Cradock to Lord Wharton, 13 July 1674, Rawlinson MS 51, fol. 102. 10. S[amuel] Birch to Lord Wharton, 10[?] March 1673[4], ibid., fols. 74–76. 11. Samuel Cradock to Lord Wharton, 28 May 1674, ibid., fol. 92. 12. Samuel Cradock to Lord Wharton, 7 December 1674, ibid., fol. 114. 13. Robert Bennett to Lord Wharton, 18 January 1674[5], ibid., fol. 122. 14. CSPD, Chas. II, 16:106; ibid., 17:81; English Army Lists, 1:167, 182. On 5 July 1678, Henry was promoted to lieutenant in Huitson’s company. CSPD, Chas. II, 20:276. 15. Henry was admitted to Gray’s Inn on 1 November 1672. Register of Admission to Gray’s Inn, 315. 16. Clark, Goodwin Wharton, 300. Among other properties, Goodwin inherited the manors of Aske and Hartforth, near Richmond. 17. His interest in diving earned him the nickname ‘‘Dyedapping Wharton’’ in a satirical poem of the period. See ‘‘Answer to the Satire on the Court Ladies,’’ in Wilson, Court Satires, 44. 18. Clark, Goodwin Wharton, 5–7, 330. 19. Edmund Verney to Sir Ralph Verney, 24 May 1675, Verney, BL, M 636/28. This is the first reference to Tom’s racing in the Verney papers. As a trustee of Anne’s estate, Sir Ralph was unenthusiastic about Tom’s expensive and hazardous sport. After the Brackley races the following year, Sir Ralph reported to his son: ‘‘Mr. Wharton is soe well recoverd of his Fall, that hee is gon to New Market to

NOTES

247

loose his Money, and if he should loose his Race Horses too, the Newes would be welcome. . . .’’ Sir Ralph Verney to John Verney, 10 April 1676, ibid. 20. Dr. William Denton to Sir Ralph Verney, 20 April 1676, Verney, BL, M 636/29. Denton thought that Tom should be scolded for overracing his great gelding. A day or two after winning the plate at Newmarket, the horse was entered in a 3-heat contest but had to be withdrawn on account of fatigue after winning the first heat. At Brackley, Tom’s gelding had won the plate on 2 March, but the next day Tom lost £100 to John, Lord Lovelace, in a wager on a match race. Diary, probably by Bernard Turley, 3 March 1676, Bucks RO, DX 775/5. 21. Tom wanted the fences at Winchendon to be ‘‘ornamental’’ as well as functional. Egerton MS, BL, 3519, fol. 233.

Chapter 8. Subplots 1. Andrew Marvell to Sir Edward Harley, 7 August 1677, in Marvell, Poems and Letters, 2:354. 2. Carte MS 79, fols. 27, 51, 57. 3. State Trials, 6:1269–97. 4. HMC, Ninth Report, App., pt. 2, 95. 5. Carte MS 228, fol. 122; Carte MS 80, fol. 799; HL MS Minutes, HLRO, 16 April 1677. 6. Both Lord and Lady Wharton wrote letters to Sir Ralph Verney on 5 May 1677. Verney, BL, M 636/30; HMC, Seventh Report, App., pt. 1, 463. For Lord Wharton’s other attempts to get help from influential men, see G. F. T. Jones, Sawpit Wharton, 234–35. 7. Andrew Marvell, who relates the episode in a letter to Sir Edward Harley, probably got the story of the interview from Lord Wharton. Marvell, Poems and Letters, 2:354; HMC, Portland, 3:355. 8. HMC, Ninth Report, App., pt. 2, 95. 9. For the Thomas family background, see Jenkins, ‘‘Mary Wharton and the Rise of the ‘New Woman’,’’ 171–72. 10. Anne was born 7 August 1676 and baptized at Wooburn on 10 August 1676. Bucks RO, Wooburn PR. I have been unable to find a place and date of birth for Edmund. 11. Bucks RO, Wooburn PR. 12. Major Dunch died 27 September 1679 and was buried ‘‘in linen’’ at Pusey on 11 October 1679. The children were Margaret (b. 1674, d. December 1690), Jane (b. 1675, d. 1710), Wharton (b. September 1678, d. September 1705), Major (b. posthumously, bapt. April 1680, d. March 1685). Berks. RO, Reading, Pusey PR; Wharton MS, vol. 9, 62; Bucks RO, Wooburn PR. 13. Mary Kemeys to Sir Charles Kemeys, 4 June 1685, Kemeys-Tynte MS, no. 90. 14. Strictly speaking John Wilmot, second earl of Rochester, was Anne’s halfuncle. He was the half-brother of Anne’s father Sir Henry Lee. 15. Mary Kemeys to Sir Charles Kemeys, 11 November 1684, Kemeys-Tynte MS, no. 72. 16. G. Wharton, Autobiography, 1:338. 17. Henry Wharton to Mary Kemeys, 22 November 1685, Kemeys-Tynte MS, no. 93. 18. For twentieth-century accounts of the negotiations, see Browning, Danby,

248

NOTES

1:248–54; Baxter, William III, 147–49. For contemporary accounts, see Burnet, History, 2:118–24; Temple, Works (1720), 1:sig. A5, 448–55 and 2:456–60. 19. Burnet, History, 2:124; Anglesey Diary, 22 October 1677. 20. I have found no document which places Tom at Newmarket in late October 1677 during the prince’s visit, but I suppose he was there unless he was ill. 21. Sir William Temple to Arlington, 3 February 1669, in Courtenay, Memoirs of . . . Sir William Temple, 1:285. For analyses of William’s character, see Baxter, William III, 50–52, 110–11, 248–49, and Firth, Commentary on Macaulay’s History, 334–67. 22. Simon Arnauld de Pomponne, French ambassador to the Republic in 1669, noted that hunting was the only enthusiasm the prince (then nineteen) shared with other young men. Baxter, William III, 51. 23. Tom’s lodge was at Eastleach Grove (Egerton MS 3519, fol. 210), not far from the village of Eastleach Turville. It stood ‘‘just south of the Leach [River] close to the west boundary of the parish.’’ VHC, Gloucestershire, 7:62. 24. CSPD, Wm. III, 8:126. 25. Hore, History of Newmarket, 3:216. 26. Ambassador Paul de Barrillon to Louis XIV, 4 July 1678 N.S., Baschet, PRO 31/3/140, fols. 1–2. See also Baxter, William III, 150. 27. For the complex pas de trois carried on by Charles, Louis, and the Parliament during the spring and summer of 1678, see Ogg, England in the Reign of Charles II, 2:547–58. See also the analysis of editor J. A. A. Jusserand in Recueil, 25:252–62. 28. ‘‘And to let you see [Charles said] that I have . . . done all I could to remove all Sorts of Jealousies, I have married My Niece to the Prince of Orange, by which I hope I have given full satisfaction that I shall never suffer his Interest to be ruined, if I can be assisted as I ought to be to preserve them.’’ HLJ, 13:130. 29. Ibid. 30. HCJ, 9:433, 435. 31. HLJ, 13:189. 32. HCJ, 9:430. The frontiers demanded by the Commons were those established by the Treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659. 33. For the king’s reply, see HCJ, 9:431–32. 34. HCJ, 9:455. 35. For Louis’s later (and mild) threat to use the treaty against Charles, see Recueil, 25:270 and n. 36. Recueil, 25:236–37. 37. Charles had promised Louis to delay the session until April; he actually convened Parliament on 28 January 1678. 38. Later marquis de Ruvigny and earl of Galway. 39. Mignet, Ne´ gociations, 4:533–35. 40. This impressive sum was about £500,000 per year. As befitted a man who would soon have an army of 30,000 men, Charles was asking about five times his ordinary subsidy. 41. How Danby was maneuvered into an action so marvelously stupid and so diametrically opposed to his own pro-Dutch policy is explained very well by Browning in Danby, 1:269–73 and 2:345–59, where a draft of the famous letter is printed. 42. See below, chapter 10, pp. 111–12. 43. Barrillon noted on 4/14 February 1678 that Danby had borrowed £60,000 from English bankers. ‘‘It cannot be doubted, that a part of that sum was employed to gain members of Parliament.’’ Recueil, 25:265 n.

NOTES

249

44. For a synoptic account of the level and methods of corruption, see the proceedings of 18 June 1678 in the House of Commons. HCJ, 9:500–501; Grey, Debates, 6:103–5. For the extent to which bribery actually changed votes, see Haley, Shaftesbury, 488; HC, 1660–90, 1:37; Clark, T. Wharton, chapter 8, pp. 21–22 and nn. 63, 64. 45. G. F. T. Jones, Saw-pit Wharton, 237. 46. HCJ, 9:478. 47. Remarking on the lord chancellor’s recriminations, Keith Feiling says: ‘‘Finch’s speech spelled the downfall of the Danby Administration; in face of the national distrust of the king, which carried even royalists away with it, a programme of constitutional negation and trusting to the Crown was simply obsolete’’ (Tory Party, 173). See also Clayton Roberts, Growth of Responsible Government, 207. 48. For the text of the treaty and Charles’s accompanying letter to Louis, see Mignet, Ne´ gociations, 4:578–82. 49. For the list of places returned to Spain and retained by France, see Recueil, 25:262; Mignet, Ne´ gociations, 4:661–65. 50. The total sum finally granted Charles, on 15 July, was £619,388. Parliament also granted an additional duty on (non-French) wines for three years. HLJ, 13:228. 51. The failure of Charles to recall and disband his troops in accordance with the treaty of May 18 caused Louis to deny Charles the subsidy he had promised. Browning, Danby, 1:282–83; Recueil, 25:263. 52. See chapter 13, p. 144. 53. See Carte MS 228, fols. 95, 138, 139, 143, and 149.

Chapter 9. The Plot 1. The best study of the ‘‘Plot’’ is that of John Phillips Kenyon, The Popish Plot. For a more detailed account than the summary here, see Clark, T. Wharton, chapter 9. 2. For Kirkby’s account of his meetings with Charles, see PRO, SP 29/409, fols. 40–41. Kirkby knew Charles because of their mutual interest in ‘‘chemistry’’; that is to say, alchemy and pharmacology. 3. Israel (or Ezerel) Tonge (1621–80) had begun lambasting the Jesuits in print in 1670, when he published The Jesuits Morals. 4. Oates had begun life as an Anabaptist. His father, Samuel Oates, an Anabaptist preacher, had been a chaplain in Cromwell’s army. The senior Oates conformed to the Established Church at the Restoration and secured the living of All Saints at Hastings. Titus himself attended Cambridge but left without receiving a degree. He was able to take holy orders, nevertheless, and held a few minor church positions before defecting to the Jesuits. 5. The narrative, recast as sworn testimony and enlarged to eighty-one numbered paragraphs, is printed in HLJ, 13:313–30, and State Trials, 6:1430–71. See also Oates, True Narrative, and [Oates], Discovery of the Popish Plot. MS copies survive in PRO, SP 29/409, fols. 13–35; Rawlinson MS D 720, fols. 172–91, 197– 232. In referring to passages in the narrative, I cite HLJ. 6. HLJ, 13:315. 7. HLJ, 13:313. 8. The Irish, Oates said, would be ready with 25,000 men if the French king

250

NOTES

wished to land soldiers in Ireland (HLJ, 13:317); but he did not say that Louis actually intended to invade. 9. In his original story, Oates said that the pope had issued commissions to Irish plotters (HLJ, ibid.), but he did not name the plotters or provide English counterparts. 10. The date 24 April 1678 (the actual date of the ‘‘consult’’ on the English calendar) appears as a notation in Oates’s narrative, but it is not explained and seems to be a later addition to the text. In his official declaration Oates states flatly that the meeting at the Whitehorse Tavern was ‘‘held in the month of May.’’ HLJ, ibid. Oates, who was at St. Omers while the conference was going on, apparently thought in terms of the Continental dates he had heard discussed. April 24 O.S. would be May 4 N.S. 11. On 8 May 1685, after James had become king, he revealed this fact to Sir John Reresby. Speaking of Oates’s imaginary meeting at the Whitehorse Tavern, ‘‘the king [James] said indeed ther was a meeting of the Jesuists [sic] on that day [24 April 1678], which all the schollars of St. Omers knew was to be, but it was well Doctor Oats knew noe better wher it was, for it was then in St. James his [i.e., St. James’s], wher the said king then dwelt; for, said the king, if that had been understood by Oats, he would have made ill worke for me.’’ Reresby, Memoirs, 365. 12. The danger to the political future of the duke posed by the meeting at St. James’s prompted Sir John Pollock to construct an elaborate theory on the murder of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey. Godfrey, says Pollock, inadvertently learned about the location of the meeting from his friend Edward Coleman, and the Jesuits killed him to insure his silence (Popish Plot, 149–66). It might be added that James’s decision to host a Jesuit conference at the palace was not inspired. 13. PRO, PC 2/66, 392. 14. PRO, PC 2/66, 392; Barrillon to Louis XIV, 10 October 1678 N.S., Baschet, PRO, 31/3/141, fol. 9. 15. William Fogarty was Oates’s Irish physician. He was added to the list of plotters and pictured as a manager of the plot in Ireland. 16. PRO, PC 2/66, 392; Sir Robert Southwell to the duke of Ormonde, 1 October 1678, HMC, Ormonde, 4:456. 17. PRO, SP 29/409, fol. 44. 18. Tonge later alleged that about 26 August the unskillful questioning of John Keynes (and Keynes’s ‘‘sagacity’’) warned the conspirators that the ‘‘Plott was knowne.’’ PRO, SP 29/409, fols. 90, 96. 19. HLJ, 13:320. 20. For biographical sketches of La Chaise, see Biographie universelle, 349–51; Nouvelle biographie ge´ ne´ rale, 483–94. 21. HLJ, 13:320. 22. PRO, PC 2/66, 392. 23. Secretary of State Sir Joseph Williamson, who took notes on the Council meeting, explains, in a marvelously patronizing tone, that ‘‘All encouragement possible [is] to be given to Mr. Tonge.’’ CSPD, Chas. II, 20:425. In other words, Tonge should be given every chance to make a fool of himself and no grounds for accusing the Council of trying to stifle the plot. 24. Sir Robert Southwell to the duke of Ormonde, 1 October 1678, HMC, Ormonde, 4:455. 25. As Kenyon points out (67), Williamson’s notes on Oates’s testimony of 28 September show that Williamson was hearing for the first time some of the charges that Oates had made in the narrative. CSPD, Chas. II, 20:425–27.

NOTES

251

26. See Williamson’s notes, 28 September 1678, CSPD, Chas. II, 20:425; PRO, PC 2/66, 392. See also Southwell to Ormonde, 28 September 1678, HMC, Ormonde, 4:454–55. 27. Burnet, History, 2:152. 28. Williamson’s notes, 28 September 1678, CSPD, Chas. II, 20:427; PRO, PC 2/66, 393; BL, Add. MS 38015, fol. 278. 29. As Kenyon says (Popish Plot, 69), Oates’s feat of identification should not have been too difficult for a man who had written all the letters himself. No member of the Council seems to have brought up this possibility. 30. BL, Add. MS 38015, fol. 278. 31. Oates was not the only one who had trouble with La Chaise; clerks of the Commons and of the Privy Council render it Le Chese. HCJ, 9:525; PRO, PC 2/ 66, 396, 399, 424. 32. Sir Joseph Williamson, who took notes on the Council meeting, does not even mention Oates’s momentary embarrassments (CSPD, Chas. II, 20:431–33); nor does Sir Robert Southwell mention them in his long letter to the duke of Ormonde of 1 October 1678. HMC, Ormonde, 4:455–57. 33. PRO, PC 2/66, fol. 396. 34. Kenyon (Popish Plot, 70) calls the statement ‘‘an amazingly lucky shot.’’ 35. CSPD, Chas. II, 20:431. As originally drawn up, the order for arresting Coleman lacked the direction for seizing his papers. Danby noticed the omission and had the order revised. PRO, SP 29/409, fol. 44; Browning, Danby, 1:294. 36. Williamson’s notes, CSPD, Chas. II, 20:433. 37. For the examinations, see PRO, PC 2/66, 398–406. 38. Sir Robert Southwell to the duke of Ormonde, 1 October 1678, HMC, Ormonde, 4:457. 39. PRO, PC 2/66, 405. 40. PRO, PC 2/66, 406. See also BL, Add. MS 38015, fol. 283. 41. Southwell to Ormonde, 1 October 1678, HMC, Ormonde, 4:455. 42. Southwell to Ormonde, 1 October 1678, 19 October 1678, HMC, Ormonde, 4:456, 460. 43. On 29 September 1678, Coleman’s papers ‘‘were at night brought in several Baggs, and one Box, and a Packet of his Wifes letters. . . .’’ PRO, PC 2/66, 396. 44. PRO, PC 2/66, 413. 45. The second letter, undated, was sent shortly after the first. Both letters, along with a reply from La Chaise dated 23 October 1675, were entered in the Journal of the Commons on 31 October 1678. HCJ, 9:525–29. For surviving Coleman letters, including letters to Ferrier and the papal nuncio and letters from the Jesuit St. Germain, see Treby, Collection of Letters. See also HMC, Fitzherbert, 49–113. 46. Coleman to La Chaise, 29 September 1675, HCJ, 9: 525. 47. Coleman to La Chaise, undated (ca. 1 October 1675), HCJ, 9:529. 48. Sir Robert Southwell to the duke of Ormonde, 19 October 1678, HMC, Ormonde, 4:460. 49. CSPD, Chas. II, 20:471. 50. Marvell had died on 16 August 1678. He was buried 18 August in the church of St. Giles-in-the-Fields. 51. Coleman to the papal nuncio, 23 October 1674, in Treby, Collection of Letters, 13. 52. Writing to Louis XIV on 10/20 October, Barrillon says, ‘‘The King of England has spoken at Newmarket of Coleman as of a man who could not evade death if justice is done him. The common opinion is that there is a strong sentiment for hanging him.’’ Baschet, PRO 31/3/141, fol. 22.

252

NOTES

53. Coleman to La Chaise, 29 September 1675, HCJ, 9:529. 54. Southwell to Ormonde, 22 October 1678, HMC, Ormonde, 4:460–61. 55. St. Germain to Coleman, 19/29 January 1676, Treby, Collection of Letters, 30–31. 56. Sir Joseph Williamson’s notes on the coroner’s report to the Council, 20 October 1678, CSPD, Chas. II, 20:472. 57. Ibid. 58. Southwell to Ormonde, 19 October 1678, 26 October 1678, HMC, Ormonde, 4:460, 463. 59. The death of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey has never been satisfactorily explained. The best summary of the current state of speculation is that of Kenyon, Popish Plot, 264–70.

Chapter 10. The Exclusionist 1. ‘‘The opponents of the Court,’’ Barrillon informed Louis on 30 September/ 10 October, ‘‘scoff at the whole accusation. They say it is an artifice to justify keeping the troops on foot.’’ Baschet, PRO 31/3/141, fol. 10. 2. HLJ, 13:293. 3. Ibid., 294–95. 4. Southwell to the duke of Ormonde, 22 October 1678, HMC, Ormonde, 4:461. 5. HCJ, 9:517–18. 6. HLJ, 13:295. 7. HLJ, 13:297. 8. Of the many letters seized from clerical suspects, only two seemed relevant to Oates’s conspiracy stories. One letter, dated 23 February 1677[8], was a notice of the Jesuit meeting in London on 24 April 1678: it enjoined the recipient to caution and secrecy, ‘‘lest Occasion should be given to suspect the Design.’’ The other letter, dated 5 February 1677[8], noted that ‘‘the Patents were sent’’—a phrase that could be construed to refer to the patents described by Oates in his amended testimony before the Commons. Both letters were entered in HCJ (9:552) on 2 November 1678. 9. HCJ, 9:519–22; HLJ, 13:327–30; Rawlinson MS D 720, fols. 193–96; State Trials, 6:1468–69; [Oates], Discovery of the Popish Plot, 42–46. 10. HCJ, 9:519. 11. HLJ, 13:302. 12. Barrillon to Louis XIV, 31 October/7 November 1678, Baschet, PRO 31/3/ 141, fol. 40. 13. In a letter of 2/12 December 1678, Barrillon explained the king’s plight to Louis: ‘‘He [Charles] told me that he was angry to see such violent persecution against so many innocents, and that he regretted all that was done against the Catholics, but that he was not in a position to prevent it, and that he had to let himself be carried by the torrent.’’ Baschet, PRO 31/3/141, fol. 83. 14. PRO, PC 2/66, 447; CSPD, Chas. II, 20:517–18. 15. There were also reports of sinister ships. PRO, PC 2/66, 449; Carte MS 222, fol. 147; Luttrell, Brief Historical Relation, 1:8. 16. On 24 October 1678, the Commons resolved to ask the king to order ‘‘that the Cities of London and Westminster, and Parts adjacent, may, during the Time of the Sitting of the Parliament, be secured and guarded by the Militia’’ [not the

NOTES

253

army]. HCJ, 9:520. The trained bands were duly called up, and one of their regiments patrolled London every night for many months. 17. HCJ, 9:530–31. 18. Oates, who had exonerated the duke in his narrative, appeared voluntarily in the House of Lords to counter the effect of the Coleman letters. The Jesuits, he said, had counterfeited the duke’s seal and made use of his name in their correspondence, but although they hoped ‘‘to draw the D: into the Plott,’’ they had not succeeded. HLJ, 13:309; HL MS Min., HLRO, 30 October 1678. It is possible that Oates’s testimony saved the succession for James. 19. Except for the Admiralty Board, which James attended as admiral for Scotland and Ireland (where there were no test acts), James had no official appointment to the king’s councils; he attended only as an observer. 20. HCJ, 9:533. 21. Grey, Debates, 6:144. 22. Ibid., 133–49. 23. Ibid., 145. 24. Ibid., 147. 25. Ibid., 148. 26. ‘‘For surely,’’ Southwell explained to Ormonde on 9 November, ‘‘had His Majesty not been manifestly convinced that the point of succession would have been driven at, he had not interposed with this declaration of his pleasure in hopes to obviate the same.’’ HMC, Ormonde, 4:467. 27. HCJ, 9:536. 28. Grey, Debates, 6:172. 29. For his narratives, see HLJ, 13:350–53; Carte 81, fols. 424–30. 30. Besides assassinating the king, Bedloe said, the papists intended to kill Buckingham, Shaftesbury, ‘‘Mr. O’Neale,’’ ‘‘Mr. Knight,’’ the earl of Ossory, and the duke of Ormonde. The fact that both Oates and Bedloe included Ormonde on their honor roll of intended victims essentially cleared Ormonde of the charge, made by his proto-Whig enemies, that as lord lieutenant of Ireland he was too favorable to Catholics. 31. PRO, PC 2/66, 430–31; CSPD, Chas. II, 20:494. 32. Officially, the measure was entitled ‘‘An Act for the more effectual Preserving the King’s Person and Government by disabling Papists from sitting in either House of Parliament.’’ 33. A letter of 18 April 1676 from Cardinal Norfolk to Edward Coleman relayed instructions from the pope to the duke of York. James was warned ‘‘not to declare himself a Roman Catholic rashly and unadvisedly.’’ HMC, Eleventh Report, House of Lords, App., vol. 1, pt. 2, 12. James continued to follow the pope’s (politically sound) advice. 34. HCJ, 9:543. 35. Court speakers pointed out that James had raised his two daughters, Anne and Mary, as Protestants and had married Mary, the eldest, to William of Orange. 36. In explaining to Louis XIV the surprising victory of the Court party, Barrillon says, ‘‘It is said that much money was given on the eve [of the vote]. It is certain that many people who by their previous conduct ought to have been against the duke of York were for him.’’ Baschet, PRO 31/3/141, fol. 75. 37. Lord Wharton’s account, Carte MS 81, fol. 396. 38. HLJ, 13:396; Carte MS 81, fols. 388, 394. 39. HLJ, 13:398. 40. John Verney to Sir Ralph Verney, 5 December 1678, Verney, BL, M 636/ 32; mistakenly dated 15 December 1678 in HMC, Seventh Report, App., pt. 1, 471.

254

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41. Southwell to Ormonde, 26 November 1678, HMC, Ormonde, 4:480. HLJ, 13:388–91; Carte MS 81, fols. 432–33. See also Williamson’s notes, 25 November 1678, CSPD, Chas. II, 20:538–39. 42. HLJ, 13:389–92; Carte MS 81, fols. 478–79; Southwell to Ormonde, 30 November 1678, HMC, Ormonde, 4:483. 43. HLJ, 13:392; Southwell to Ormonde, 30 November 1678, HMC, Ormonde, 4:484. 44. State Trials, 7:1–71. 45. Sir Robert Southwell to Thomas Henshaw, 22 November 1682, BL, Add. MS 38015, fol. 278. 46. ‘‘The Effect of what was said [by the duke of York] upon the Report made by the Lords who Examined ye Prisoners at Newgate,’’ 29 October 1678, Carte MS 81, fol. 361. 47. Once during the trial, Coleman almost incriminated James. After conceding that he had sometimes gone beyond instructions and used the duke’s name to open negotiations, he asked the dangerous question, ‘‘but can any imagine that people will lay down money 200,000l. or 20,000l. with me upon the Duke’s name, and not know whether the Duke be in it?’’ Scroggs hastened to fasten upon the admission and to obfuscate the question. State Trials, 7:60. 48. On 28 November, Scroggs authorized Robert Pawlet to print the account of Coleman’s trial, including the letters between Coleman and La Chaise and a letter that Coleman had written to La Chaise in the name of his master—a letter that James denied authorizing or sending. See Tryal of Edward Coleman. 49. HCJ, 9:551. A ‘‘Mr. Wharton,’’ perhaps Tom, perhaps Michael Warton, was teller for the Yeas, the majority in the division. 50. ‘‘Mr. Michael Wharton’’ [Warton] was assigned to carry to the House of Lords the impeachment against Lord Arundell of Wardour. HCJ, 9:552–53. G. F. Trevallyn Jones mistakenly credits Tom with the assignment (Saw-pit Wharton, 241). 51. See Kenyon, Popish Plot, 245. 52. Barrillon explained that he had been spending Louis’s money freely among M.P.s and that he had personally put money into the hands of Sir Thomas Littleton (‘‘Mr Littleyton’’) and Henry Powle (‘‘le Sieur Pavels’’)—than whom there were no two men in the Lower House more ‘‘considerables’’ or ‘‘accredite´ s.’’ Barrillon to Louis XIV, 12/22 December 1678, Baschet, PRO 31/3/141, fol. 96. 53. HCJ, 9:556. 54. The fourteen M.P.s summoned on 11 December represent all shades of the political spectrum. They seem to have been singled out for their normal visibility—as men prominent enough to be missed. 55. See chapter 8, p. 81. 56. Barrillon to Louis XIV, 12/22 December 1678, Baschet, PRO 31/3/141, fol. 96. 57. Haley, Shaftesbury, 487–88. 58. HCJ, 9:560. 59. For the articles of impeachment and the divisions, see HCJ, 9:561–63; for the debates, see Grey, Debates, 6:366–87. 60. For Michael Warton of Beverley, whose name is always spelled Wharton in HCJ, see HC, 1660–1690, 3:672–73, whose editors credit Michael, not Tom, with serving as teller on the fourth impeachment article, but they concede that the assignment is not certain. Since the list of tellers includes Tom’s friend Christopher Vane and several other young proto-Whigs, the ‘‘Wharton’’ may well be Tom.

NOTES

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61. HCJ, 9:563, 565; HLJ, 13:435–36, 443. 62. Browning, Danby, 1:310. 63. Barrillon to Louis XIV, 25 November/5 December 1678, Baschet, PRO 31/ 3/141, fol. 77. 64. Barrillon to Louis XIV, 2/12 December 1678, Baschet, PRO 31/3/141, fols. 83–85. 65. For Danby’s negotiation with moderate leaders of the Opposition (Lord Holles, Sir Thomas Littleton, Hugh Boscawen, and Richard Hampden) to trade dissolution for amnesty, see Burnet, History, 2:181; Browning, Danby, 1:312.

Chapter 11. Misadventures 1. HCJ, 9:623. 2. Col. Edward Cooke to Ormonde, 15 May 1679, HMC, Ormonde, 5:102. 3. PRO, PC 2/67, 62. 4. James, duke of York to William, prince of Orange, 24 January 1679, HMC, Foljambe, 127–28. 5. Lord Wharton to Tom Wharton, 27 January 1678[9], Carte MS 79, fols. 168–69. 6. For the structure of the corporations and the elections at Malmesbury and Westbury, see HC 1660–1690, l:452–53, 457–58. For the Wharton share in the divided properties, see Wharton v Abingdon, PRO, C/637/73; PRO, Common Pleas 25(2)/747/33 Chas. II Trin. no. 1; Hants. RO, Winchester, Normanton MS, box 6, bdle. 63. 7. Lord Wharton to Tom Wharton, 27 January 1678[9], Carte MS 79, fols. 168–69. 8. Ibid. 9. Sir Ralph Verney [in London] to Edmund Verney [in East Claydon], 29 January 1679, Verney, BL, M 636/32. 10. Sir Ralph Verney to Edmund Verney, 30 January 1679, ibid. 11. Tom Wharton to Edmund Verney, 30 January 1678[9], ibid. 12. Edmund Verney to Tom Wharton, 30 January 1679, ibid. 13. Edmund Verney to Sir Ralph Verney, 2 February 1679, ibid. 14. Lord Wharton to Tom Wharton (undated, ca. 31 January 1679), Carte MS 79, fol. 174. 15. The town of Buckingham was represented in the Cavalier Parliament by Sir Richard Temple and Sir William Smith—both ‘‘thrice vile’’ in Shaftesbury’s opinion and both named in A List of one unanimous Club of Voters, 1, as tools of the government. 16. For the momentary fears of Letitia, wife of Richard Hampden, see Lord Wharton’s letters to Tom, 31 January 1678[9], Carte MS 79, fols. 171, 175. 17. Lord Wharton to Tom Wharton (probably 31 January 1679), Carte MS 79, fol. 173. Lord Wharton dictated the letter to his chaplain/secretary William Taylor—a fact which apparently misled John Carswell, who mistakenly attributes the letter to Taylor (Old Cause, 365, notes to chapter 4, n. 1). The matter-of-fact suggestion that Tom should try bribing the under-sheriff makes an interesting contrast with Lord Wharton’s views on the sin of kissing the Bible. 18. Lord Wharton to Tom Wharton, 31 January 1678[9], Carte MS 79, fol. 175. 19. Edmund Verney to Sir Ralph Verney (ca. 2 February 1679), Verney, BL, M

256

NOTES

636/32. Edmund says, ‘‘I know Mr Hampden Hath Hadd ye Writt in his Hand above a weeke.’’ 20. For the precautions, see William Taylor to Sir Ralph Verney, 2 February 1678[9], ibid. 21. For a Tory description of Edgerley’s ‘‘great resentment,’’ see True Account, 1. 22. Carte 79, fol. 179. 23. Edmund Verney to John Verney, 6 February (misdated 6 January) 1679, Verney, BL, M 636/32. 24. Edmund Verney to John Verney, 20 February 1679, ibid. The candidates also had to provide forage for several thousand horses. Sir Ralph estimates that ‘‘the charges of our 2 knights at Alisbury will come to 800£ a peece.’’ Sir Ralph Verney to John Verney, 17 February 1679, ibid. 25. Shaftesbury credited the Court with 158 supporters and estimated his own forces at 302. He listed 36 new M.P.s as ‘‘Doubtful.’’ PRO, PRO 30/24/VIa/348; J. R. Jones, ‘‘Shaftesbury’s Worthy Men.’’ 26. For the correlation between Shaftesbury’s list of worthies and the votes on the first Exclusion Bill, 21 May 1679, see Andrew Browning and Doreen J. Milne, ‘‘Exclusion Bill Division List.’’ 27. Burnet, History, 2:189; J. R. Jones, First Whigs, 49–50; Browning, Danby, 1:318–20. 28. Grey, Debates, 6:404–5; Parl. Hist., 4:1092–93. 29. The phrase was used by Colonel John Birch. Grey, Debates, 6:407. 30. HLJ, 13:449. 31. The Commons might have ignored Danby and voted unanimously to impeach James if they had seen the message James sent to Louis XIV via Ambassador Barrillon on the eve of his departure. The duke hopes, Barrillon reported to Louis, ‘‘that God, who has heaped so much prosperity upon Your Majesty, will inspire you with the will to reestablish the Catholic religion in England, which will very soon be ruined if Your Majesty does not bring a powerful remedy.’’ Barrillon to Louis XIV, 3/13 March 1679, Baschet, PRO 3/31/142, fol. 56. 32. HCJ, 9:568. 33. ‘‘Such elections as were tryed,’’ Sir John Reresby, a Danby partisan, noted on 25 March, ‘‘went against thos that had any friendship for the Treasurer, lett their caus be never soe just.’’ Reresby himself, representing Aldborough, Yorkshire, was unseated on 15 May. Reresby, Memoirs, 175–76, 180–81; HCJ, 9:622. 34. The committee—something like an honor roll of veteran proto-Whigs—is a testimony to the Opposition’s control of the House. HCJ, 9:671. For the articles of impeachment against the five Lords, see HCJ, 9:583–84. 35. Grey, Debates, 7:11–12. 36. For the details of the attempt to reward Danby and its effect upon Parliament, see Browning, Danby, 1:321. 37. Grey, Debates, 7:19. 38. ‘‘I believe,’’ Sir Francis Winnington told the Commons, ‘‘no learned man can pretend, that a Pardon can pass in bar of an impeachment.’’ Grey, Debates, 7:56; Egerton MS 3779, fol. 28. 39. HLJ, 13:570; HL MS Min., HLRO, 13 May 1679. Twenty-one Lords, including Shaftesbury, Wharton, and Halifax, entered protests. 40. HCJ, 9:631–33. See also the Commons’ ‘‘Reasons,’’ Carte MS 81, fols. 556–59. 41. The Spectator, 11 April 1713, dedication to Thomas, earl of Wharton (also in Steele, Correspondence, 468).

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42. For analyses of the famous case Ashby v White, see Turberville, House of Lords, 58–71; Parl. Hist., 6:384–85, 402–5, 420–36; Trevelyan, England under Queen Anne, 2:20–25; Cruickshanks, ‘‘Ashby v. White,’’ 87–106. 43. For the new thirty-member Council, with additions and deletions through 1680, see PRO, PC 2/68, 1–3. For the significance of the changes and the subsequent developments, see Davies, ‘‘Council and Cabinet.’’ 44. Temple, Works (1770), 2:493–98. 45. HLJ, 13:547 (30 April 1679). 46. Sidney, Letters, 51. 47. For the ‘‘revelations’’ in the Commons, see Grey, Debates, 7:323–36; Southwell to Ormonde, 24 May 1679, HMC, Ormonde, 4:517–18; Colonel Edward Cooke to Ormonde, 23, 24 May 1679, ibid., 5:111–12; Parl. Hist., 4:1141–42. 48. ‘‘Mr. Charles Bertie’s Account of Money Received by him from Mr. William Chiffinch . . . in 1676, ’77 and ’78,’’ CTB, vol. 5, pt. 2, 1316–23. The Commons tried, vainly, to get their hands on this document. 49. CTB, vol. 5, pt. 2, 1324–35. 50. HC, 1660–90, 1:641–42. 51. HL MS Min., HLRO, 27 May 1679. 52. Temple, Works (1770), 2:504; Anglesey Diary, 27 May 1679.

Chapter 12. Protestants in Masquerade 1. ‘‘The danger of England,’’ Colonel Henry Mildmay declared in the Commons on 25 March 1679, ‘‘is not so much by Papists, as by Protestants in masquerade.’’ Grey, Debates, 7:53. The phrase achieved a certain popularity to describe Protestant supporters of a Catholic succession. 2. Anglesey Diary, 5 July 1679. 3. Sir Ralph and his son Edmund appeared at Aylesbury to support Tom. Next day, after the election, Sir Ralph wrote a vivid description of the Wharton-Hampden triumph. Letter to John Verney, 21 August 1679, Verney, BL, M 636/33. 4. Letter from a Freeholder, 2. 5. Sir Ralph Verney to John Verney, 21 August 1679, Verney, BL, M 636/33. 6. The sheriff (according to a Tory pamphleteer) did not demand a poll, but only asked whether a poll had been offered. He considered himself legally obliged to raise the question of a poll, however futile an actual poll might be. True Account, 3. 7. Sir Ralph Verney to John Verney, 21 August 1679, Verney, BL, M 636/33. 8. Answer of the Burgesses . . . of Buckingham, 3. 9. For the election at East Grinstead, see HC, 1660–90, 1:422; Goodwin Wharton to Tom Wharton, 14 July 1679, Carte MS 103, fol. 221. 10. Goodwin Wharton to Tom Wharton, 25 August 1679, Carte MS 228, fol. 121. 11. Burnet, History, 2:237. 12. Algernon Sidney to Henry Savile, 8 September 1679, Sidney, Letters, 143. 13. Romney, Diary, 2:21–25; Anglesey Diary, 5 July 1679, 10 July 1679. 14. Temple, Works (1770), 2:517–18; James Rees Jones, First Whigs, 87. 15. James, duke of York, to William, prince of Orange, 7 September 1679, HMC, Foljambe, 137. 16. Carte MS 228, fol. 121. See also Anglesey Diary, 27–31 August 1679; Romney, Diary, 1:97–99.

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17. Knowing the king’s irritation with petitions and petitioners, Lord Wharton refused to add his name to a petition signed by sixteen other Peers or to join a group of nine Peers who presented the petition to Charles on 7 December 1679. He said that ‘‘his heart was with them, but neither hand nor foot.’’ William Denton to Sir Ralph Verney, 8 December 1679, Verney, BL, M 636/33; HMC, Seventh Report, App., pt. 1, 496. 18. CSPD, Chas. II, 21:309. 19. Goodwin, writing to Tom on Monday, 25 August, explains that Sir George Lockhart’s ‘‘buisnesse with our sister is concluded and to be perfected this weeke.’’ Carte MS 228, fol. 121. The marriage was actually ‘‘perfected’’ on 2 September. 20. The DNB mistakenly dates the birth of young George as 1673 (six years before his parents were married) instead of when it actually occurred, sometime before 24 November 1680, the date of a letter from his mother informing Lord Wharton that his grandson was well and resembled him. Philadelphia (Wharton) Lockhart to Lord Wharton, 24 November 1680, Carte MS 228, fols. 159–60. 21. Young George, who became a staunch Jacobite, also became, through his memoirs and letters, a major source of Jacobite history. See [Lockhart], Memoirs; Lockhart, Papers; and Lockhart, Letters of George Lockhart. 22. Mary married Sir Charles, a Welsh baronet, in 1678; her correspondence with her new husband and with her brothers, now in the National Library of Wales, is a rich source of information about the Whartons (Kemeys-Tynte MS). 23. Sir Ralph Verney to John Verney, 28 August 1679, Verney, BL, M 636/33. 24. Anglesey Diary, 15 September 1679. 25. John Verney to Sir Ralph Verney, 24 November 1679, Verney, BL, M 636/ 33; HMC, Seventh Report, App., pt. 1, 477b. For ‘‘Madam’’ Sue Willis and her establishment in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, see Wilson, Court Satires, 294–95. 26. ‘‘Jack’’ Howe was John Grubham (or Grobham) Howe (1657–1722), son of M.P. John Grubham Howe (1625–79), who represented Gloucester in the Cavalier Parliament. Jack was himself elected to Parliament in 1689. 27. The club was organized as a political entity during the early furor over the Popish Plot. The first entry in its journal is dated 14 November 1678. ‘‘Journall of ye Green Ribbon Clubb,’’ 468. On 1 November 1679, the club resolved that a pope should be burned on 17 November in honor of the ‘‘famous Prot. Queen’’ (ibid., 478). The club had 162 members in its heyday. For the list, see ibid., 489–91. 28. The anonymous Whig pamphleteer who describes the celebration of 1679 does not mention the club; he calls the patrons ‘‘a Number of Worthy True Protestant Gentlemen.’’ Londons Defiance to Rome, 2. 29. Whifflers were a body of attendants armed with javelins, battle-axes, or staves. They were employed to clear the way for processions. See OED, s.v. ‘‘whifflers.’’ 30. The parade is pictured in an anonymous broadside, The Solemn Mock Procession of the Pope, Cardinalls, Jesuits, Fryers, &c through ye City of London, November ye 17.th, 1679. It is discussed by Sheila Williams, ‘‘Pope-Burning Processions.’’ 31. Southwell to Ormonde, 25 November 1679, HMC, Ormonde, 4:561. For the absence of mob violence throughout the Exclusion Crisis, as well as a discussion of the pope-burnings, see Miller, Popery and Politics, 182–88. See also Haley, Politics in the Reign of Charles II, 48–49. 32. ‘‘Journall of ye Green Ribbon Clubb,’’ 489–91. 33. Ibid., 489. Goodwin’s name does not appear again in the club journal.

NOTES

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34. In The Earl of Wharton in Whig Party Politics (13–14), Christopher Robbins argues that Tom must have been a member of the club—that his name must have been omitted by mistake. But it is highly unlikely that Wharton’s name could have been left off the list of members and out of all the minutes, which run to dozens of pages. Again, Robbins’s assertion that Lord Wharton was ‘‘a leading spirit’’ of the club is clearly false. Lord Wharton’s name is not on the membership list nor once mentioned in the proceedings. 35. [Manley], True Relation of . . . the intended Riot and Tumult on Queen Elizabeth’s Birthday. 36. At a dinner at Shaftesbury’s London house on 6 November 1679 (says Edmund Warcup), Shaftesbury ‘‘fell on Mr Wharton about being with the heads of both parties.’’ ‘‘Journals of Edmund Warcup, 1676–84,’’ 246–47. Although Tom had two prominent Tory brothers-in-law (Lord Norreys and the earl of Lindsey), Shaftesbury was probably reproving Tom for being friendly with men like Halifax and Essex (Shaftesbury’s former friends and recent rivals), not with genuine Tories. Robbins (Earl of Wharton, 33) mistakenly identifies the ‘‘Mr. Wharton’’ of this episode with Goodwin and says that Goodwin was expelled from the Green Ribbon Club as a result of Shaftesbury’s displeasure. But Goodwin was denied membership in the club on 28 February 1679, many months earlier. 37. Thomas Dangerfield lists three clubs besides the Green Ribbon Club—one at the Green Dragon Tavern in Fleet Street, one at the Sun Tavern behind the Royal Exchange, and one ‘‘at a Chandler’s House’’ in Westminster. Mr. Tho. Dangerfeilds Particular Narrative, 30–33. See also Sitwell, First Whig, 197–203. Tom Wharton is not named on any of the rosters, nor in ‘‘The Cabal,’’ a 1680 Tory satire against Whig leaders. POAS, 2:328–38. 38. Writing to his brother Christopher, Lord Hatton, on Saturday, 29 November 1679, Charles Hatton explains that on ‘‘Thursday night, about ten a clock,’’ Monmouth ‘‘came privatly to Capn Godfrey’s house in Covent Garden, and stay’d there till one ye next morning, and then he went to his own house. . . .’’ Hatton Family, Correspondence, 1:203. 39. Southwell to Ormonde, 28 October, 1 November, 3 November, 4 November, and 8 November 1679, HMC, Ormonde, 4:552–57. 40. For accounts of the duke’s reception in London, see Hatton Family, Correspondence, 1:203–4; Col. Edward Cooke to the duke of Ormonde, 29 November 1679, HMC, Ormonde, 5:245; ibid., 4:561–62. 41. Charles Hatton to Christopher, Lord Hatton, 29 December 1679, Hatton Family, Correspondence, 1:205. Monmouth, says Hatton, is ‘‘visited by very few, except those who are neerly related or depend on him. I heare not of any noblemen, except ye Ld Shaftesbury and ye Ld Wharton, who were this day with him at his house in Hedge Lane, as I wase inform’d by one who saw them there.’’ 42. This important point is well made by James Rees Jones, First Whigs, 113. 43. On 10 December the earl of Anglesey noted sadly that at the meeting of the Privy Council ‘‘the King agt the full advice of his Councel declared that fatall and dismall resolution of proroguing this parliament till november the 11th.’’ Anglesey Diary, 10 December 1679. 44. The loyalty of the London militia to the king proved to be an important factor in maintaining order during the Exclusion Crisis. The trained bands, who were called out in force in 1678 to protect London against popish invasion or insurrection, were willing and able to discourage possible Whig demonstrations. See Allen, ‘‘Role of the London Trained Bands.’’

260

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45. HMC, Eleventh Report, House of Lords, App., pt. 2, 174; Carte MS 228, fol. 146. 46. The story of a mysterious black box containing ‘‘a paper’’ to prove a marriage between King Charles and Monmouth’s mother was industriously spread during the spring and summer of 1680. On 26 April, Sir Gilbert Gerrard was called before the Privy Council and questioned by the king about a report being circulated that he had actually seen such a document. Required by the judges to testify upon oath, Gerrard finally declared that he had not seen the ‘‘pretended’’ paper. The king then declared once more under oath that he was never married to Monmouth’s mother. Charles Hatton to Christopher, Lord Hatton, 27 April 1680, Hatton Family, Correspondence, 2:225. 47. Even Shaftesbury (according to his biographer) ‘‘found it prudent not to commit himself publicly to any one solution of the problem [of succession].’’ Haley, Shaftesbury, 593. 48. For a copy of ‘‘Reasons wherefor the D. of Y. may most strongly be reputed and suspected to be a Papist,’’ see Carte MS 81, fol. 610. The signers are listed as ‘‘Huntington, Shaftesbury, Grey of Werke, Russell, Cavendish, Brandon, T Wharton, Gilb:[ert] Gerrard, [Sir] S[crope] How, [Sir] Edw: Hungerford, [Sir] Hen. Calverly, T Thinn [Thomas Thynne], [Sir] Wm Cowper, Wm Forrester, J Trenchard, Ld Clare, Sr Rowl[and] Gwinn, Wm Wandesford.’’ Apparently, the signers, foiled when they attempted to deliver their ‘‘Reasons’’ to the Middlesex Grand Jury on 26 June 1680 and again on 30 June, intended to try again at the beginning of Michaelmas term. The Carte copy is labeled ‘‘Mich: Terme 1680.’’ 49. John Verney to Edmund Verney, 30 June 1680, 1 July 1680, Verney, BL, M 636/24; HMC, Seventh Report, App., pt. 1, 479; Francis Gwyn to the duke of Ormonde, 26 June 1680, 3 July 1680, HMC, Ormonde, 5:339, 342. 50. Reasons for the Indictment of the D. of York, Presented to the Grand-Jury of Middlesex, Saturday June 26. 80. By the Persons here under-nam’d [London: n.p., 1680]. 51. HCJ, 9:666. 52. HCJ, 9:697. Scroggs had also outraged the Whigs by finding the testimonies of Oates and Bedloe defective in the trial and acquittal of Sir George Wakeman on 16 July 1679. 53. HCJ, 9:637, 640, 645. Wharton was not assigned to the prestigious fifteenman committee that brought in the Exclusion Bill. 54. HLJ, 13:610. 55. If Charles sounds willing to trade a few Catholic heads for the safety of his brother and some money for the relief of the garrison at Tangiers, it should be noted that William Bedloe, one of the star witnesses against the accused Peers, had died in August, and his previous testimony could not be used in a new trial. Charles may have thought that the ‘‘speedy trial’’ he recommended might bring acquittals for the accused Peers. For the problems of the prosecutors, see Kenyon, Popish Plot, 200–203. 56. HCJ, 9:640. 57. Ibid. 58. The speech exists in three versions—two extended and one very brief. First is the account taken down by Anchitell Grey in the House debates on 11 November 1680 (Grey, Debates, 7:448–49). Second is a version written by Goodwin soon afterwards (Carte MS 109, fol. 396). The two accounts agree in substance, but Goodwin’s version is longer and smoother. The brief third version of the speech reduces Goodwin’s lengthy denunciation to a short paragraph. An Exact Collection

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of the most Considerable Debates in the Honourable House of Commons, 89. The speech, which was even too strong for Lord Wharton, was to haunt Goodwin for years. Clark, Goodwin Wharton, 2, 197–98, 231; G. Wharton, Autobiography, 1:14; 2:38–39, 90. 59. Grey, Debates, 7:454–55. 60. Ibid., 450–51, 454–55, 457–58. 61. De Beer, ‘‘House of Lords,’’ 29–30. 62. HCJ, 9:649. 63. HMC, Ormonde, 5:486. 64. Sir Leoline Jenkins to Charles, earl of Middleton, 15 November 1680, CSPD, Chas. II, 21:86. 65. HL MS Min., HLRO, 15 November 1680. 66. For this point, see De Beer, ‘‘House of Lords,’’ 29–30. 67. HL MS. Min., HLRO, 15 November 1680. 68. ‘‘A Ballad, November 1680. Made upon Casting the Bill against the duke of York out of the House of Lords,’’ in An Anthology of Poems on Affairs of State, 264–65. 69. The bishops likewise missed a chance to save the king from his own stupidity: ‘‘Old Rowley [Charles] was there to solicit the cause / Against his own life, the church and the laws / Yet he might have lived safely against his own will / Had the bishops, the bishops not thrown out the bill.’’ Ibid., 265. 70. Grey, Debates, 7:462. 71. For the proceedings, see State Trials, 7:1294–599; for an extended analysis, see Clark, T. Wharton MS, chapter 12, 40–49. 72. State Trials, 7:1493–515. 73. State Trials, 7:1553. 74. For an analysis of the final votes, see De Beer, ‘‘House of Lords,’’ 31. The figures, De Beer says, confute the notion that the trial was a judicial murder motivated by political partisanship, fear of reprisal, and a determination to continue to exploit the plot. ‘‘The peers, or at any rate a great majority of them, voted sincerely; those who for any motives voted for Stafford’s being not guilty were doing so against the whole course of the trial.’’ 75. HCJ, 9:685. 76. Ibid., 702.

Chapter 13. Anne Wharton 1. In the Lavington area Anne and Eleanora owned the manors of Market Lavington, Marden, and Rushell. The first two were allocated to Eleanora in the property division of 1681 and the third to Anne. VHC, Wiltshire, 88, 120, 139. 2. See chapter 8, p. 82. 3. Carte MS 228, fol. 95. 4. Lord Wharton to Tom Wharton, 6 July 1678, Carte MS 228, fol. 143. 5. The passage about Anne’s eyes suggests syphilis, since eye problems are one of the effects of the disease, which probably killed Anne’s beloved uncle the earl of Rochester. See Rochester, Letters, 33–36. I have tentatively ruled out syphilis, however, on the basis of the treatments and Anne’s letters to Tom from Paris. Here, perhaps it is sufficient to say that I have never heard of anyone going to Lavington or Salisbury to be cured of the pox. For the detailed analysis of editors Greer and Hastings, see Anne Wharton, Surviving Works, 100–105.

262

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6. John Cary to Sir Ralph Verney, 11 May 1680, Verney, BL, M 636/34. 7. John Cary to Sir Ralph Verney, 8 June 1680, ibid. 8. Two years later, on 11 July 1682, Cary reported to Sir Ralph Verney, ‘‘Mrs Whartons eyes I think are very well, but she is not quit of her fitts, those do give her som unwellcom visits still.’’ Ibid., M 363/36. 9. John Cary to Sir Ralph Verney, 1 December 1680, Verney, BL, M 636/34. 10. William Taylor to Lord Wharton, 19 March 1681, Rawlinson MS 53, fol. 348. 11. Anne Wharton to Tom Wharton, 29 March/8 April 1681, BL, Add. MS 4162, fol. 234. 12. Like Anne, John Hampden had gone to Paris for his health—to be treated for ‘‘a deep consumption.’’ Protestant (Domestick) Intelligence, no. 95 (9 February 1681). His illness kept him from standing with Tom for reelection as knight of the shire. 13. Anne Wharton to Tom Wharton, 22 March/1 April 1681, BL, Add. MS 4162, fol. 232. 14. Anne Wharton to Tom Wharton, 29 March/8 April 1681, ibid., fol. 234. 15. For Rochester’s transformation from a sinner to a penitent, see Gilbert Burnet, Some Reflections on . . . Rochester; ‘‘Five Letters of Ann[e] Countess dowager of Rochester, wrote . . . to her sister-in-law [Johanna], lady St. John, giving an account of her son’s behaviour during his sickness,’’ BL, Add. MS 6269, fols. 33–37; John Cary to Sir Ralph Verney, 1 June 1680, Verney, BL, M 636/34. 16. ‘‘Elegie on John Earle of Rochester,’’ in Anne Wharton, Surviving Works, 140–42. 17. ‘‘Of an Elegy Made by Mrs. Wharton on the Earl of Rochester,’’ in Poems of Edmund Waller, 2:89. See also Anne Wharton, Surviving Works, 286. 18. G. Wharton, Autobiography, 1:308. 19. See Clark, Goodwin Wharton, 176–85. 20. Goodwin had promised Anne to keep their affair secret, and at her bidding he had destroyed the diary in which he recorded the events as they happened. It was not until his inner voice commanded him to break his promise and confess everything that he confided his and Anne’s secrets to his later (still extant) journal. Ibid., 14–15. 21. During her first month in Paris, between 21 March and 2 April, Anne paraphrased in poetry chapters 1 to 5 in the book of Jeremiah. Ballard, Memoirs of Several Ladies, 297. 22. G. Wharton, Autobiography, 1:308. 23. Ibid. 24. Anne Wharton to Tom Wharton, 10/20 April 1681, Lonsdale MS, D/Lons/ L1/4. 25. Anne Wharton to Tom Wharton, 22 March/1 April 1681, BL, Add. MS 4162, fol. 232. Seven of Anne’s letters to Tom have survived—two in the BL (Add. MS 4162, fols. 232, 234) and five in the Cumbria RO at Carlisle in the Lonsdale MS D/Lons/L1/4. The letters (which begin on 22 March and end on 22 June 1681 O.S.) are invaluable, of course, not only for what they tell about Anne and Tom but also for the establishment of dates. I did not know of the five letters at Carlisle when I wrote Goodwin’s life. Relying upon secondary sources and the first two letters, I misdated Anne’s sojourn in France. She was not in France in December of 1680, as Carswell (Old Cause, 57) says, and she did not return by ‘‘early summer,’’ as I mistakenly wrote (Goodwin Wharton, 13). 26. Anne Wharton to Tom Wharton, 10/20 April 1681, Lonsdale MS D/Lons/ L1/4.

NOTES

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27. Anne Wharton to Tom Wharton, 15 May 1681, ibid. 28. In issue no. 3, 4–8 February 1681, Smith announces the election of Tom Wharton and Richard Hampden for Buckinghamshire. 29. HC, 1660–90, 1:39; Haley, Shaftesbury, 626. 30. Sir Ralph Verney to William Coleman, 27 January 1681, Verney, BL, M 636/35. 31. Luckily for Richard Hampden, the freeholders did not know he had just received five hundred guineas from Barrillon—given as promised because Parliament, in the last session, had not voted Charles II money to support an alliance against France. Barrillon to Louis XIV, 3/13 February 1681, Baschet, PRO 31/3/ 148, fol. 48. 32. [Thomas Flatman], Heraclitus Ridens (1 February 1681–22 August 1682). Flatman was a poet and painter, as well as a Tory propagandist. His miniature of Tom Wharton, painted ca. 1685, is now at HEH. See Frontispiece. 33. Ibid., no. 3 (15 February 1681). 34. Smith’s Protestant Intelligence, no. 14 (14–17 March 1681). 35. For the government’s housing arrangements, see CSPD, Chas. II, 22:143– 44. For the king’s entry into Oxford and his elaborate entertainment there, see Wood, Life and Times, 2:524–29. 36. Smith’s Protestant Intelligence, no. 15 (17–21 March 1681). 37. Thomas Gilbert to Lord Wharton, 19 January 1680[1], Rawlinson MS 53, fol. 336. 38. September 18, 1680, Oxford Council Acts, 1665–1701, 120. 39. According to HC 1660–90, 1:53, the ‘‘Opposition’’ [Whig] party won 62 percent of the seats and their ‘‘Court’’ [Tory] rivals only 38 percent. 40. For the alarm, real or feigned, of Shaftesbury about the danger of a government coup, see Tankerville, Secret History, 7. 41. Smith’s Protestant Intelligence, no. 15 (17–21 March 1681). 42. Ford, Lord Grey (later earl of Tankerville) scoffed at Shaftesbury’s notion that the Parliament at Oxford might continue to sit, protected by its armed retainers, after it had been dissolved by the king. The attempt would be futile and ‘‘hotheaded,’’ Grey told Shaftesbury, ‘‘for the king having a considerable force in and about Oxford would soon pull us out by the ears.’’ Tankerville, Secret History, 11. 43. This time the French treaty was entirely verbal. Trusting political pressures rather than signed documents, Louis was convinced that Charles, having entered into a secret engagement, would do nothing against French interests. Barrillon to Louis XIV, 4/14 March 1681, Baschet, PRO, 30/3/148, fols. 82–86. For the financial negotiations between Barrillon and Laurence Hyde, see also Barrillon’s letter to Louis of 17/27 March 1681, ibid., fols. 87–90. Only Louis, Barrillon, Charles, James, and Hyde knew of the existence of the new French subsidies. 44. Haley points out (Shaftesbury, 633) that Charles was perfectly safe in offering a regency scheme, since there was no chance that the Whig majority would accept it. 45. HCJ, 9:745–46. 46. ‘‘The weight of England is the people,’’ said Sir William Cowper, ‘‘and the World will find, that they will sink Popery at last.’’ Grey, Debates, 8:293. 47. Ibid., 8:318, 322, 331. 48. HCJ, 9:711. Tom was also appointed to the Committee on Privileges and Elections. 49. HLJ, 13:757. 50. Barrillon to Louis XIV, 28 March/7 April 1681, Baschet, PRO 31/3/48, fol. 101.

264

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51. Charles II, His Majesties Declaration To all His Loving Subjects (dated 8 April 1681), 9. Charles ordered the declaration read in all churches. 52. On p. 143 of Goodwin Wharton I mistakenly (and unaccountably) said that the Berties lived at Adderbury. 53. ‘‘The Counterp[ar]t of the Trustees Release to Mrs Wharton of the Patent Lands,’’ 23 June 1680, Verney, Claydon House, MS 8/163; ‘‘Mr Wharton and Mrs Whartons Release to the Trustees,’’ 24 June 1680, ibid., MS 8/164. 54. For the property division, see PRO, Common Pleas, 25 (2)/747/33 Charles II, no. 1; Normanton MS, Box 6, bdle. 63; PRO, C 5/637/73. 55. ‘‘I presume the writings are sealed in france before this time,’’ John Cary wrote to Sir Ralph Verney on 18 June 1681, Verney, BL, M 636/35. 56. ‘‘I am obliged to you for the care you have taken in sending orders to Mr Herbert,’’ Anne wrote Tom on 15/25 May, ‘‘& I have . . . given him a note which charges the same sum of 400l. upon you at London, I am so little used to business of this nature that for fear of mistaking I think fitt to acquaint you with every smale circumstance, & hope you will pardon the troble of it.’’ Lonsdale MS D/Lons/L1/ 4. 57. Ibid. This letter, like Anne’s three previous letters to Tom, was ‘‘to be left with Mr East a Goldsmith att his shop at the signe of the sun nere Temple-Bare, London.’’ 58. The addresses, most of them obviously solicited by the government, are published in the London Gazette, beginning in no. 1609, 18–21 April 1681. 59. Sir Ralph Verney to John Verney, 25 August 1681, and Edmund Verney to John Verney, 29 August 1681, Verney, BL, M 636/36.

Chapter 14. Outrages 1. [Care], Towser the Second a Bull-Dog. 2. [Buckingham], Poetical Reflections. 3. Luttrell, Brief Historical Relation, 1:144. 4. State Trials, 8:759–821. 5. At the verdict, says Luttrell, Brief Historical Relation (1:146), ‘‘there was a very great shout, that made even the court shake.’’ 6. James, duke of York, to William, prince of Orange, 6 July 1679, HMC, Foljambe, 134. 7. Burnet, History, 2:284. 8. For a summary of the attack upon the charters, see Ogg, England in the Reign of Charles II, 2:634–39. 9. Sir Ralph Verney to John Verney, 26 June 1682, Verney, BL, M 636/36. A few days later, Dr. William Denton labeled the incident ‘‘a greivious prank.’’ Denton to Sir Ralph Verney, 8 July 1682, ibid. 10. Life of Robert Frampton, Bishop of Gloucester, 166. According to the editor (viii), the memoir (which he edited from the original MS) was written sometime after January 1716—some thirty-four or five years after the outrage at Barrington (June 1682). Not surprisingly, the account given by the memorialist (probably a layman and certainly a Tory) differs widely from the accounts given in the documents which remain from the time of the event. Of these I have found eight: five letters from Bishop Robert Frampton to Archbishop William Sancroft (24 August 1682, 21 October 1682, 27 January 1682[3], and two undated, one probably written in early February 1683 and the other a week or two later), one letter from Framp-

NOTES

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ton to Tom Wharton (7 November 1682), and two letters from Tom Wharton to Frampton (15 August, 25 November 1682). Four of the letters to Sancroft are found in Tanner MS 35, fols. 73, 111, 172, 178. The first two were included in Royce, History and Antiquities of Stow, 34–36, and reprinted in Gloucestershire N & Q, 2:68–70. I have been unable to find the MS for the fifth letter, the undated letter of about mid-February 1683. An excerpt, undoubtedly genuine, is printed in Royce, History and Antiquities, 36, and in Gloucestershire N & Q, 2:76. The first letter of Tom Wharton to Bishop Frampton, 15 August 1682 (Tanner MS 35, fol. 168) is a true copy forwarded to Sancroft by Frampton on 27 January 1683. The surviving letter of Frampton to Wharton (7 November 1682) is found in Carte MS 103, fol. 177; and Wharton’s reply (25 November 1682) is in Carte MS 103, fol. 279. 11. The Bray family owned the manor of Great Barrington from 1553 to 1735. VHC, Gloucester, 6:19. 12. Frampton to Sancroft (undated, probably ca. 15 February 1683), Royce, History, 36; Gloucestershire N & Q, 2:70. Frampton’s report, made ‘‘after a diligent inquiry,’’ does not mention damage to ‘‘church ornaments’’ as alleged in the anonymous Life, 165–66. 13. Tom Wharton to Frampton, 15 August 1682, Tanner MS 35, fol. 168. 14. There is some chance that the story is false. Bishop Frampton does not mention it in his reports to Sancroft, and Tom complains in his letter of apology that ‘‘there is very little truth in ye storyes that goe abroad.’’ The episode, he writes, has been exaggerated into ‘‘ye most prodigious story . . . that ever was heard of.’’ The fact, however, that Tom does not categorically deny the allegation that he and his friends befouled the church—that he merely says, in effect, that he and his friends were too drunk to remember distinctly what they were doing—makes me suspect that the story is true. Bishop Frampton’s language in his letters to Sancroft also suggests that the offense was something more flagrant than destroying church property. Such phrases as ‘‘great scandal,’’ ‘‘horrid guilt,’’ and ‘‘great wickednesse’’ seem inappropriate to describe cut bell ropes and broken lecterns. 15. I have not been able to identify the vicar of St. Mary. He is not mentioned in Frampton’s correspondence with Archbishop Sancroft; and he is mistakenly called ‘‘the Rector’’ and left unnamed by Frampton’s anonymous biographer (Life, 166), whom I have trusted (perhaps unwisely) for the account of the vicar’s reaction to the attack on his church. I have also trusted the memoir for the story (165) of the servants’ removal of the evidence. 16. John Verney, who derived his information from ‘‘a letter,’’ heard that the event took place on the ‘‘Borders of Oxfordshire or Glostershire.’’ Letter to Sir Ralph Verney, 22 June 1682, Verney, BL, M 636/36. Sir Ralph learned about it from ‘‘severall Letters,’’ which placed the ‘‘foolish rude frolick’’ in Oxfordshire. Letter to John Verney, 26 June 1682, ibid. Dr. William Denton, writing several days later, had heard that the ‘‘prank’’ took place ‘‘in Burford Church.’’ Letter to Sir Ralph Verney, 8 July 1682, ibid. 17. Tom Wharton to Frampton, 15 August 1682, Tanner MS 35, fol. 168. 18. Frampton to Sancroft, 24 August 1682, ibid., 73; Royce, History, 35; Gloucestershire N & Q, 2:69. The allegation by Frampton’s biographer (166–67) that Frampton had first tried vainly to ‘‘reclaim’’ Tom and had then frightened him into submission with threatening letters is pure fiction, as Frampton’s first report to Sancroft makes clear. Communications between Tom and the bishop were opened with Tom’s letter of 15 August. The further allegation that Frampton gave John Cary a rough and contemptuous cross-examination and then issued more threats is equally fanciful. The bishop found Cary (whom he calls ‘‘Mr Cary of Woodstock’’) very persuasive.

266

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19. Frampton to Sancroft, 24 August 1682, Tanner MS 35, fol. 73; Royce, History, 35; Gloucestershire N & Q, 2:69. 20. Frampton to Sancroft, 21 October 1682, Tanner MS 35, fol. 111; Royce, History, 36; Gloucestershire N & Q, 2:69. 21. Fortunately for the brothers, they had not ripped the Book of Common Prayer, as an early rumor had charged (John Verney to Sir Ralph Verney, 22 June 1682, Verney, BL, M 636/36); they had only ripped the church Bible (which they ultimately replaced). In this respect their sin was nonsectarian, as was their attack upon bell ropes, a font cover, and a lectern. Either drunkenly or wisely, or both, they had refrained from breaking church ornaments—a fact that Bishop Frampton makes clear in his undated letter to Sancroft of mid-February 1683 (Royce, History, 36; Gloucestershire N & Q, 2:70). Thus the brothers could plausibly maintain that their ‘‘follies’’ had not been inspired by ‘‘fanaticism’’ (that is to say, Puritan bigotry). 22. Frampton to Sancroft, 21 October 1682, Tanner MS 35, fol. 111; Gloucestershire N & Q, 2:70. 23. Frampton to Sancroft (ca. 15 February 1683), Royce, History, 36; Gloucestershire N & Q, 2:70. 24. Frampton to Tom Wharton, 7 November 1682, Carte MS 103, fol. 277. 25. Tom Wharton to Frampton, 25 November 1682, ibid., fol. 279. 26. Frampton to Sancroft, 27 January 1682/3, Tanner MS 35, fol. 172. 27. Frampton to Sancroft, [ca. 1 February 1683], ibid., fol. 178. 28. Frampton to Sancroft, 27 January 1682/3, ibid., fol. 172. 29. Frampton to Sancroft (undated, ca. 15 February 1683), Royce, History, 36; Gloucestershire N & Q, 2:70. 30. ‘‘Satire on Both Whigs and Tories,’’ in Wilson, Court Satires, 45, lines 62–71. 31. Swift, Prose Works, 3:57. Swift’s invention of a thousand-pound fine is sometimes taken seriously. The figure is given as fact in HC, 1660–90, 3:699. See also Wilson, Court Satires, 293–94. Wilson seems to accept Swift’s figures, but he moves the crime from Gloucester Cathedral to Burford (not Barrington). 32. Dartmouth’s note in Burnet, History, 5:242. Apparently the passage at arms occurred on 6 December 1705, when, after a long and brisk debate, the House of Lords voted 61–30 that the Anglican Church was not in danger. Parl. Hist., 6:479– 508; HLJ, 18:43–44. 33. On 24 February 1682, Henry had been ‘‘forbid ye Co[ur]t for running one of Madm Guin’s coach horses thro wch drove too near him.’’ Newdigate newsletter, as quoted in Wilson, Court Satires, 293. 34. Sir Ralph Verney to William Coleman, 2 March 1685, Verney, BL, M 636/ 39. 35. G. Wharton, Autobiography, 1:308; Clark, Goodwin Wharton, 13–15. 36. Gilbert Burnet to Anne Wharton, 19 December 1682, Granger, Letters, 233. 37. In dating his letters Burnet often fails to supply the year. J. P. Malcolm, editor of the Granger letter collection, seems to have added the year 1681 to the date (14 July) of Burnet’s first extant letter to Anne (Granger, Letters, 220). Helen C. Foxcroft, coauthor of Burnet’s Life, questions the date 1681; and the contents of the letter indicate that the year was 1682. See Clarke and Foxcroft, Life of Gilbert Burnet, 559. 38. Gilbert Burnet to Anne Wharton, 7 September 1682, Granger, Letters, 224. 39. Gilbert Burnet to Anne Wharton, 20 December 1682, ibid., 236. 40. Gilbert Burnet to Anne Wharton, 5 December 1682, ibid., 226–27.

NOTES

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41. Gilbert Burnet to Anne Wharton, 8 December 1682, ibid., 227–29. 42. Gilbert Burnet to Anne Wharton, 11 December 1682, ibid., 229–32. 43. The DNB article ‘‘Anne Wharton’’ contains three gross errors. It badly misdates Anne’s birth (giving the conjectural date of 1632 instead of the real date, 20 July 1659); it describes Rochester as her father’s cousin instead of her father’s half-brother; and it makes the statement that ‘‘it was only the good counsel of Burnet that prevented her from leaving her husband’’; whereas the only effect of the ‘‘good counsel’’ was to earn Burnet a sharp reprimand. 44. For a clear summary of a very complex set of maneuvers, see Haley, Shaftesbury, 697–704. 45. For a long list of the members of Monmouth’s entourage, produced by a Tory informant, see PRO, SP 420/72. 46. Matthew Anderton to James Clarke, 13 September 1682, HMC, Ormonde, 6:444; Hore, History of Newmarket, 3:166. 47. Edmund Verney to John Verney, 12 November 1682, Verney, BL, M 636/ 37. 48. Luttrell, Brief Historical Relation, 1:250; Memoirs, 97–98; London Gazette, no. 1801 (19–22 February 1683). In the Memoirs the date of the race is given as ‘‘about 1678.’’ It took place on 15/25 February 1683. 49. Monmouth himself was making a progress in the Chichester area at the time of the race. 50. Memoirs, 98.

Chapter 15. Seizures 1. CSPD, Chas. II, 25:88. Sir John Borlase was a longtime political power in Marlow and High Wycombe—a Whig friend of the Whartons. 2. Ibid., 91–92, 99, 107. 3. Ibid., 34, 49. 4. For his instructions to his deputy-lieutenants, 25 June 1683, see HEH, STT (Stowe Collection, Temple Correspondence), MS 726. 5. The earl of Bridgwater to Secretary Jenkins, 20 August 1683, CSPD, Chas. II, 25:308. 6. Sir Roger Hill accused Starkey of stealing money and jewels from his house at Denham (ibid., 268, 277). It is noted on the list of Wharton arms held at Aylesbury that ‘‘two saddles, One wth Holsters, the other without,’’ were ‘‘carried away by Mr Starkey’’ (Carte MS 81, fol. 730). 7. John Verney to Sir Ralph Verney, [26 August 1683], Verney, BL, M 636/38. Tom was not at the race, Verney says, ‘‘but came to London that night [24 August] from Tunbridge.’’ 8. Sir Ralph Verney to John Verney, 27 August 1683, ibid. For the charming correspondence that led up to the dinner at Claydon, see Anne Wharton to Sir Ralph Verney, 21 August 1683, and Sir Ralph Verney to Anne Wharton, 21 August 1683, ibid. 9. Carte MS 81, fol. 726. 10. Ibid., fol. 727. 11. Ibid., fol. 730. 12. Tom’s coach was accompanied by no less than five horsemen as it passed through East Claydon one day in early February 1676. Edmund Verney to Sir Ralph Verney, 10 February 1675/6, Verney, BL, M 636/29.

268

NOTES

13. For the ‘‘Arms of Horsemen,’’ see Rushworth, Historical Collections, vol. 2, pt. 2, 137. 14. Tom’s memorialist says nothing about the seizure of the arms at Winchendon in 1683. He says, however, that in 1685 Winchendon was ‘‘search’d for Arms’’ (Memoirs, 28). I have found no other reference to a search of Winchendon at the time of Monmouth’s Rebellion. Possibly the memorialist confused the two dates. 15. One of the addresses, from the Assizes at Derby, was signed by 9,175 people. London Gazette, no. 1886, 13–17 December 1683. 16. Dated 21 July 1683 and published in London Gazette no. 1845 (23–26 July 1683), the Oxford ‘‘Judgment and Decree’’ condemned as ‘‘false, seditious, and impious’’ twenty-seven propositions, including the propositions that government is originally derived from the people, that there is a compact, tacit or expressed, between sovereign and people, and that English sovereignty is divided among King, Lords, and Commons. Books promulgating such doctrines were to be publicly burned. For the bonfire at Oxford on 21 July 1683, see Wood, Life and Times, 3 (1894), 63–64. 17. For the circumstances of Locke’s departure, see Ashcraft, Revolutionary Politics, 409–11. 18. Arraignment, Tryal & Condemnation; State Trials, 9:817–903. 19. State Trials, 8:1039–358. When Tom Wharton’s Tory brother-in-law James Bertie, earl of Abingdon, heard of the king’s victory, he ‘‘caused a bonfier at Thame to be made for joy.’’ Wood, Life and Times, 3 (1894), 57. 20. North, Examen, 574. 21. State Trials, 9:690. 22. Tankerville, Secret History, 42–43. Besides disagreements on strategies, the council differed on ultimate aims. Russell, Monmouth, and Howard were monarchists; Hampden, Essex, and Sidney were republicans. 23. ‘‘An Act for making void the Attainder of William Russell Esquire, commonly called Lord Russell.’’ HLJ, 14:142, 151; HCJ, 10:50. See also State Trials, 9:794–812. 24. Tom Wharton to Lord Wharton, 29 November 1683, Carte MS 228, fol. 77. 25. Arraignment, Tryal & Condemnation, 42; State Trials, 9:875. See also Carswell, Porcupine, 205–22. 26. London Gazette, no. 1880, 22–26 November 1683. 27. PRO, SP 29/435, pt. 1, fols. 68–69; State Trials, 11:1097. See also Carte MS 216, fol. 196. 28. Besides his pardon and a return to favor, Monmouth was given £4,000. 29. James, duke of York, to William, prince of Orange, 27 November 1683, Dalrymple, Memoirs, vol. 2, App., pt. 1, 53. For James’s actual opposition to Monmouth’s return, see Reresby, Memoirs, 320; Burnet, History, 2:412–13. 30. Carte MS 228, fol. 77. 31. After the duke had received his pardon, John Hampden later told a committee of the House of Lords, ‘‘he began to be too free with his discourse’’; and at the duchess of Richmond’s house, he ‘‘spoke as if those Gentlemen who were put to Death suffered unjustly.’’ ‘‘The Examination of John Hampden Esquire, taken the 18th of November, 1689,’’ HLJ, 14:378. 32. William Longueville to Christopher, Viscount Hatton, 6 December 1683. Monmouth’s denials, Longueville says, have raised the spirits of the [Whig] ‘‘mobile’’; ‘‘now he is fully pardoned he is resty [restive], and ye last plot is gone, as say some.’’ Hatton Family, Correspondence, 23:40. 33. Burnet, History, 2:413. The fact that Monmouth was pardoned and that he

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was reputed to have sneered at Howard’s testimony had given rise to a rumor among credulous Londoners that Howard would be arrested and charged with perjury. This bit of wishful thinking, Tom Wharton assured his father, was false. Carte MS 228, fol. 77. 34. PRO, SP 29/435, pt. 1, fol. 65; State Trials, 11:1099. 35. Examination of John Hampden, HLJ, 14:378–79. 36. According to James, the fact that Charles could never again believe Monmouth counterbalanced any damage Monmouth might have done by getting his pardon and then denying his confessions. James, duke of York to William, prince of Orange, 7 December 1683, Dalrymple, Memoirs, vol. 2, App., pt. 1, 54–55. 37. Examination of John Hampden, HLJ, 14:379 38. PRO, SP 29/435, pt. 1, fol. 71; State Trials, 11:1098. 39. PRO, SP 29/435, pt. l, fols. 64–71; State Trials, 11:1097–98. 40. Sidney, Very Copy of a Paper. See also State Trials, 9:907–16. 41. Tom Wharton to Lord Wharton, 29 November 1683, Carte MS 228, fol. 77. 42. Edmund Verney to John Verney, 12 April 1683, Verney, BL, M 636/37. 43. Sir Ralph Verney to John Verney, 7 May 1683, ibid. 44. Sir Ralph Verney to John Verney, 21 May 1683, ibid. Edmund Verney had hoped to dine with the Whartons, but (as he explained to his brother John) he had been having intestinal problems (‘‘looseness’’) and he could not risk offending ‘‘persons of their quality.’’ Edmund Verney to John Verney, ibid.

Chapter 16. Exits 1. Baschet, PRO 31/3/160, fol. 27. 2. For a medical account of the last illness of Charles II, see Crawfurd, Last Days of Charles II. Barrillon’s letters to Louis XIV furnish a vivid eyewitness report of events as they occurred. Baschet, PRO 31/3/160, fol. 27 et seq. See also the summary in Recueil, 25:301–4. 3. Henry Wharton to Mary Wharton Kemeys, 6 February 1684[5], KemeysTynte MS, no. 75. 4. For Charles’s not quite successful efforts to conceal his Catholic sympathies, see Halifax, Works, 2:484–88. 5. Recueil, 25:302. 6. PRO, PC 2/71, 1. 7. An Account of what His Majesty said at His First Coming to Council, [6 February] 1684[5]. 8. For Hampden’s trial and sentence, see State Trials, 9:1053–126. The fine of £40,000, as Burnet says (History, 2:416), really amounted to a life sentence. 9. State Trials, 9:1371–72. 10. For the Armstrong case, see Clark, Goodwin Wharton, 87–89, 339–40 nn. 4–8; CSPD, Chas. II, 27:47–80; Luttrell, Brief Historical Relation, 1:309–12; State Trials, 10:106–24. 11. CTB, vol. 8, pt. 1, x-xi; Proclamation for Continuing the Collection of the Customs, 9 February 1684[5]. 12. Recueil, 309 n. 5. When Louis heard of Charles’s death, he sent James 500,000 livres without being asked—a gift that brought tears of gratitude to James’s eyes. Barrillon to Louis XIV, 16/26 February 1685, Fox, History, App., p. xxviii. 13. Barrillon to Louis XIV, Recueil, 307.

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14. Preamble to Proclamation for Continuing the Collection of the Customs. 15. Clark, Goodwin Wharton, 123–24. 16. For a general account of the election, in which Whig M.P.s were ‘‘reduced to a rump,’’ see HC, 1660–90, 1:40. 17. HC, 1660–90, 1:452–53. Henry and Jephson petitioned unsuccessfully in the ensuing Parliament. HCJ, 9:720. 18. HC, 1660–90, 1:186; HMC, Le Fleming, 403; HCJ, 9:718. 19. Sir George Jeffreys to Robert Spencer, second earl of Sunderland, 5 April 1685, CSPD, James II, 1:122–23. 20. Sir Ralph Verney to William Coleman, 2 March 1684[5], Verney, BL, M 636/39. 21. As noted earlier, Danby’s wife, ne´ e Bridget Bertie, was the sister of Robert Bertie, third earl of Lindsey, whose second wife, Elizabeth Wharton, was Tom Wharton’s half-sister. 22. ‘‘T. Wharton’’ to Thomas (Osborne), first earl of Danby, 16 February 1684[5], Morrison, Catalogue, 6:405. 23. Browning, Danby, 1:368 n. 2. 24. William Butterfield was the rector at Middle Claydon. ‘‘I hope he will make what interest he cann among his Bretheren,’’ Sir Ralph told Coleman. 25. Sir Ralph Verney to William Coleman, 18 February 1684[5], Verney, BL, M 636/39. 26. Tom Wharton (Coleman reported) had sent blacksmith Thomas Matthew to ask the Verney servants to solicit votes on behalf of himself and ‘‘Old Mr [Richard] Hamden.’’ Coleman to Verney, 22 February 1684[5], Verney, BL, M 636/38. Verney replied that he was engaged only to Tom and Lord Brackley and that Coleman should ‘‘speake only for them.’’ 27. Verney, BL, M 636/39. Wharton’s memorialist says that Tom so far outpolled Brackley and Hackett, the Court candidate, that he could have elected either man with the second votes of his followers, and that he chose to support Brackley (Memoirs, 29). This is nonsense. Brackley was never in any danger of losing, and Tom could not have delivered a significant number of votes to Hackett if the absurd idea had ever crossed his mind. 28. The account in HC, 1660–90 (1:136) gives the wrong reason for Richard Hampden’s failure to stand again for the county. It was not that Hampden ‘‘could not oppose the Court without endangering his son’s life.’’ At the time of the election, John’s life was in no danger. Convicted of ‘‘high misdemeanors’’ John was ‘‘safely’’ in prison. Richard Hampden withdrew from the county election because he had little chance of winning and a great chance of getting Tom Wharton defeated. 29. Sir Ralph Verney to William Coleman, 17 February 1684[5], Verney, BL, M 636/39. 30. ‘‘If Mr Wharton is in Towne,’’ Sir Ralph wrote to Coleman on 2 March, ‘‘I will endeavour to get free of that promise [to support him], as to my owne Vote, but keep this to yourselfe, and if any body speakes to you, you need only say, you are confident I will not give him my vote, they need not feare it.’’ Ibid. 31. Sir Ralph Verney to William Coleman, 5 March 1684[5], ibid. 32. Sir Ralph Verney to John Verney, 22 March 1684[5], ibid. 33. Anne Wharton to Sir Ralph Verney, 22 March 1685, ibid. In closing her letter, the last that I have seen, Anne told her friend Sir Ralph: ‘‘This [message] is what I am comanded from him [Tom] but am now to tell you that I was very glad of the opertunity of assuring you that I am with all faithfullnes your obedient humble sert. A Wharton.’’

NOTES

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34. When Tom’s Whig memorialist says (Memoirs, 28–29) that Brackley ‘‘was at best too Passive’’ in the election, he means that Brackley did not campaign against the Tories. 35. Hackett later filed an unsuccessful election petition on the grounds that Tom had brought many unqualified voters to the polls. HC, 1660–90, 1:136–37; HCJ, 9:717, 760. 36. Memoirs, 29–30. 37. For the charming episode at High Wycombe when Tom (to the dismay of his Tory opponents) inquired about the children of the local shoemaker by name and asked whether the boy ‘‘Jemmy’’ was out of petticoats into breeches, see ibid., 31. 38. Sir Ralph Verney to John Verney, 9 April 1685, Verney, BL, M 636/39. 39. Memoirs, 29. 40. Sir Ralph Verney to John Verney, 12 April 1685, Verney, BL, M 636/39; HC, 1660–90, 1:135. 41. HCJ, 9:745. 42. Ailesbury, Memoirs, 1:105. 43. HCJ, 9:714. 44. HCJ, 9:715. 45. HLJ, 14:21. 46. CTB, vol. 8, pt. 1, x. See x–xvi for a description of the money bills. See also HCJ, 9:722–23, 724, 726, 734, 740, 742–43, 747, 748; Lonsdale, Memoir of the Reign of James II, 4–5, 63–64. Cecil Douglas Chandaman has pointed out in The English Public Revenue, 1660–1688, 256–61, that the lifetime revenues the Commons provided were not excessively generous. It was because trade and methods of collection were improving that James was able to dispense with parliaments and quadruple the size of his army. See also Speck, Reluctant Revolutionaries, 47–48. 47. For Wildman’s tortuous dealings with Monmouth, see Clark, Goodwin Wharton, 123–38, 342–43; Clark, ‘‘Goodwin Wharton,’’ HEH MS, HM 49429, chapter 9; HMC, Eleventh Report, House of Lords, App., pt. 2, 383–84. 48. Memoirs, 28. 49. The proclamation, issued at Taunton by Monmouth’s followers on 20 June (BL, Harleian MS 7006, no. 186) declared Monmouth ‘‘lawfull and rightfull Sovereign and King by the name of James the Second,’’ and accused his uncle James of having caused Charles ‘‘to be poysoned.’’ 50. Two particularly interesting 20th-century accounts of Sedgemoor are those of Sir Winston Churchill, Marlborough (1:215–21), and Robin Clifton, Last Popular Rebellion (199–224). 51. For his groveling letters to the king, see Monmouth to James II, undated [ca. 9 July 1685], BL, Harleian MS 7006, no. 197; Monmouth to James II, ‘‘Tuesday’’ [14 July 1685], ibid., no. 198. 52. Sir Ralph Verney to John Cary, 20 June 1685, Verney, BL, M 636/40. For Dr. Richard Lower (1631–91), see DNB. 53. Henry’s commission as captain in the duke of Norfolk’s Regiment of Foot is dated 20 June 1685 (English Army Lists, 2:33). He had been promoted to lieutenant in the Coldstream Regiment of Foot Guards on 5 July 1678 (ibid., 1:239). 54. John Carswell (Old Cause, 64), perhaps misled by the fact that Jane seems to disappear from family records after the probate of her father’s will on 4 July 1684, says that Jane herself died in 1684. This is not true. She was in Tunbridge with Tom Wharton in 1685; like Tom she was having her picture painted by Wis-

272

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sing in 1687; and she was still alive in October 1689 when her brother Colonel Edward Dering died of the fever at Dundalk—an event reported to Tom by Henry (then Colonel Wharton), who would die a few days later himself. For the will of Jane’s father, see Dering, Diaries and Papers, 208–10. 55. G. Wharton, Autobiography, 1:222; Clark, Goodwin Wharton, 139. 56. For a true copy of Lord Wharton’s passport, issued 7 August 1685 and signed by Sunderland, see Carte MS 81, fol. 731. 57. Ashcraft, Revolutionary Politics (472 n. 2) suggests that John Wildman, who escaped to Holland after Sedgemoor, may have left England with Lord Wharton. The suggestion, based upon the fact that Wildman first came under government surveillance when he visited Lord Wharton at Emmerich (in Cleves), is reasonable but wrong. Goodwin stayed with his father at Dover until the last moment (Autobiography, 1:228, 242). It is clear from his account that Wildman was not in the entourage. 58. Philip, Lord Wharton, to Alexander, baron von Spaen, 18 October 1685, Carte 81, fols. 736–38. For the increased persecution of Dissenters, see Speck, Reluctant Revolutionaries, 40, 172–73. 59. John Verney to Sir Ralph Verney, 16 August 1675, Verney, BL, M 636/40. See also Schofield, Jeffreys, 160–61. 60. John Verney to Sir Ralph Verney, 16 August 1685, Verney, BL, M 636/40. Had ‘‘Harry W———’’ not perpetrated another outrage, John Verney might never have recorded the fact that Tom was at Tunbridge with Jane Dering and that about ‘‘12 or 15 days’’ before Harry’s offence he had left for a week, probably (as John supposed) ‘‘to see his wife.’’ 61. Sir Ralph Verney to John Verney, 23 August 1685, ibid. 62. John Cary to Sir Ralph Verney, 2 September 1685, ibid. On 29 August Edmund Verney had written to his brother John, ‘‘Mrs Wharton Doth with much adoe Breathe at Aderbury, & thats all’’ (ibid.). ‘‘Doctor Radcliffe’’ was the celebrated John Radcliffe (1650–1714), who later attended King William and Queen Anne. 63. Sir Ralph Verney to John Verney, 6 September 1685, ibid. 64. John Cary to Sir Ralph Verney, 22 September 1685, ibid. 65. G. Wharton, Autobiography, 1:233. 66. G. Wharton, Autobiography, 2:235; Clark, Goodwin Wharton, 143–44. 67. Anne had settled her property on Tom in agreements made before her last illness and registered in the Court of Common Pleas. For some details, see PRO, C5 637/73. The agreements were a fertile source of lawsuits between Tom Wharton and the Berties. 68. Bucks RO, Winchendon PR, 10 November 1685. ‘‘The widow Cox and her son Edmond received twenty shillings, Ann Townsend and William Coxhal received five shillings apiece, Henry Acorn received eight shillings, Gams [James?] Powel received ten shillings, and [Church Warden] John Young, for trouble and expense, received two shillings.’’

Chapter 17. Dropping the Mask 1. The clearest signal of the king’s intentions was the removal (on 21 October) of Halifax from the Privy Council and the lord presidency (PRO, PC 2/71, p. 146) for opposing any attempt to repeal the Test and Habeas Corpus acts. 2. HCJ, 9:756. 3. Ibid., 766.

NOTES

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4. For the sudden cooperation between Whigs and Opposition Tories, see Barrillon to Louis XIV, 16/26 November 1685. ‘‘Many meetings had taken place on the day preceding [the reconvening of the Commons] in which the old Members who are not in the Present Parliaments [i. e., Whigs] gave instructions to the new representatives.’’ Fox, History, App., p. 137. 5. HC, 1660–90, 3:418. 6. Grey, Debates, 8:357–58; Parl. Hist., 4:1373. 7. Grey, Debates, 8:355–56; Parl. Hist., 4:1372–73. 8. In Grey, Debates, 8:357, and Parl. Hist., 4:1373, this speech (labeled W in early accounts) is attributed to [Sir Edmund] Waller; but the Memoirs (pp. 16–18) attribute it and two subsequent speeches to Tom Wharton. The editors of HC, 1660–90 (3:656) agree with the Memoirs. 9. HCJ, 9:756. 10. Barrillon to Louis XIV, 12/22 November 1685, Fox, History, App., pp. 136–37. 11. It is virtually certain, as I noted in Goodwin Wharton (p. 140), that Lord Wharton had been approached by Monmouth’s agents; and though, like his sons, he was too canny to bet his life and fortunes on the rebels, he was not sure that he would not find himself named in confessions and accused of misprision of treason. This worry, which he had not, of course, explained to Sunderland or even to Baron von Spaen, made him feel safer in Cleves than in England or France. He was not absolutely safe, however, even in Cleves. Frederick William, elector of Brandenburg, sometimes agreed to extradite treasonous Englishmen. On 12 September 1685, he ordered ‘‘the Regency of Cleves’’ to arrest Robert Ferguson, who had been staying in the province, and turn him over to the English minister at The Hague. Skelton Correspondence, August 1685 to April 1686, BL, Add. MS 41818, fol. 54. 12. Grey, Debates, 8:365; Parl. Hist., 4:380–81; Memoirs, 18. 13. HCJ, 9:758. 14. Barrillon to Louis XIV, 6/16 July 1685, Fox, History, App., pp. 102–3. James explained further to Barrillon ‘‘that the possibility of obtaining offices and employments would make more Catholics than a permission to go publicly to mass.’’ 15. HCJ, 9:759; Parl. Hist., 4:1386. 16. Lansdowne MS 253, p. 56; Reresby, Memoirs, 397–98; Grey, Debates, 8:369. 17. HCJ, 9:760. 18. HLJ, 14:74. 19. HLJ, 14:88. 20. Mary’s letter is lost. What it contained can be inferred from the reply by Henry, who said he would ‘‘answer as many parts of it’’ as he could. Henry Wharton to Mary Kemeys, 22 November 1685, Kemeys-Tynte MS, no. 93. 21. Henry and the duchess appear in a satirical poem ‘‘The Lover’s Session,’’ written sometime before 1687 and published in Poems on Affairs of State (1703), 2:157. Among the prominent lovers, the poem says, is ‘‘Harry Wharton fresh reaking from Norfolk’s lewd Moll.’’ For the duchess, born Mary Mordaunt, daughter of the second earl of Peterborough, see CP, 9:630 n. (b). 22. Henry Wharton to Mary Kemeys, 22 November 1685, Kemeys-Tynte MS, no. 93. For Henrietta Yarborough, a maid of honor in the Royal Court, see Wilson, Court Satires, 144–45, 147–48. 23. Tom and Anne Wharton were the first occupants of 22 Soho Square. In 1680

274

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Tom leased the property for twenty-one years, and by 1683 he and Anne had moved there from Chelsea. They paid a yearly rent of £90 for the house and £4 for the coach house and stables in what is now Goslet Yard. Survey of London, 23:81. The Survey gives the impression that Tom gave up the property in October 1686, but he still occupied his ‘‘hous in Soho’’ in January 1688, when he entertained his sister Mary there. Mary Kemeys to Sir Charles Kemeys, 7 January 1687[8], Kemeys-Tynte MS, no. 641. 24. For reports of Bevil Skelton’s agents, see BL, Add. MS 41812, fol. 224; BL, Add. MS 41818, fols. 106, 256. See also Ashcraft, Revolutionary Politics, 520.

Chapter 18. Galloping 1. London Gazette, no. 2120, 11–16 March 1685[6]. 2. Goodwin visited his father in Emmerich in April and accompanied him to Aix in late May. G. Wharton, Autobiography, 1:274–77. 3. CSPD, Jas. II, 2:67–68. 4. Ibid., 66–67. 5. Ibid., 56–58. According to the anonymous author of History of King James’s Ecclesiastical Commission, 1–2, Queen Mary had prohibited preaching on controversial subjects as ‘‘the first step she made to introduce popery.’’ 6. [Oldmixon], History of Addresses, 1:136. 7. Evelyn, Diary, 4:10. 8. Reresby, Memoirs, 426. Entry for 18 May 1686. 9. Luttrell, Brief Historical Relation, 1:381. 10. For the commission granted to seven commissioners, see History of King James’s Ecclesiastical Commission, 2–6; Exact Account of the Whole Proceedings, 1–6; State Trials, 1143–48. The original appointees were Archbishop William Sancroft (who declined to serve); Nathaniel Crew, bishop of Durham; Thomas Sprat, bishop of Rochester; Lord Treasurer Laurence Hyde, earl of Rochester; Sir Edward Herbert, chief justice of the King’s Bench; Secretary of State Robert Spencer, earl of Sunderland; and Lord Chancellor George Jeffreys. 11. Privy Council List, PRO, PC 2/71, fol. v. See also entry for 23 December 1685, fol. 93. 12. See James’s letter to the bishop of London, 14 June 1686, CSPD, Jas. II, 2:171; State Trials, 11:1155. 13. For Compton’s letter to Sunderland (carried by Sharp) and Sharp’s letter of explanation and apology, see State Trials, 11:1155–58. 14. Ibid., 1148–53. 15. Evelyn, Diary, 4:524. 16. On 22 November 1686, Sheffield (then earl of Mulgrave) succeeded Rochester on the commission. 17. Written by James Drake, published in London in 1705. 18. Diary of White Kennett, 6 December 1705, Lansdowne MS 1024, fol. 169. See also Nicolson, London Diaries, 323. 19. The archbishop, in the opinion of Sir Ralph Verney, had ‘‘got immortal Fame by not appearing’’ at Compton’s trial. Verney to Dr. Henry Paman, 15 August 1686. Verney, BL, M 636/41. 20. Compton had earlier written William a fervent letter of thanks for his refusal to support James’s attempts to abolish the Test Act. Henry Compton to William, prince of Orange, 27 October 1687, PRO, SP 8/1/pt. 2, fol. 160.

NOTES

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21. This fact was communicated to me by the late Peter David Wheatland, then verger of St. Giles-in-the-Fields. Lord Wharton’s church was the structure of 1630, not the present building designed by Henry Flitcroft and completed in 1733. 22. For a partial list of the notables buried at St. Giles, see Taylor, Story of St. Giles-in-the-Fields, 16–17. One notable Reverend Taylor does not mention is Mary Parish, the talented mistress of Goodwin Wharton, who was buried there in April 1703. 23. A portrait of Bishop Sharp still hangs in the rector’s study, as Reverend Taylor kindly showed me. 24. For a summary account of James’s children, legitimate and illegitimate, see CP, vol. 12, pt. 2, p. 918 nn. (b), (c). It was widely supposed that the queen’s problems with successful childbirth stemmed from a venereal ‘‘distemper’’ which James, notorious for his infidelities, had passed on from one of his many mistresses. See, inter alia, CP, vol. 12, pt. 1, pp. 143–44, n. (f); POAS, 4:236–37; Burnet, History, 1:417–18. 25. ‘‘By the autumn of 1685,’’ says Howard Nenner, ‘‘it was regarded as effectively determined that there would be no breach of the principle of monarchical succession by hereditary right . . . . The English would accept the temporary encumbrance of a Catholic king and would look to the prospect of his first-born Protestant daughter as their eventual queen.’’ Nenner, ‘‘Sovereignty and the Succession,’’ 104. 26. For the refusal of Charles Seymour, duke of Somerset, to obey an ‘‘illegal’’ order, see Lonsdale, Memoir, 23–24. 27. For the gradual relaxation of proceedings against Dissenters in 1686, see Miller, Popery and Politics, 210–12. 28. William Denton to Sir Ralph Verney, ‘‘rec’d 4 Oct 1686,’’ Verney, Claydon House. 29. William Taylor to Lord Wharton, 29 March 1686, Rawlinson MS 104, fol. 73; John Verney to Sir Ralph Verney, 13 October 1686, and William Denton to Sir Ralph Verney, 19 October 1686, Verney, Claydon House. Mary Kemeys to Sir Charles Kemeys, 19 March 1687, Kemeys-Tynte MS, no. 661. 30. Letter to John Ellis by unnamed writer, 6 February 1686, Ellis Correspondence, 1:40–41. 31. Owen Wynne to Sir William Trumbull, 8 February 1686, HMC, Downshire, 116; Luttrell, Brief Historical Relation, 1:371. 32. G. Wharton, Autobiography, 1:161–62. This was one of the very few of Goodwin’s visions that contained an accurate (though long-range) prediction. Through Tom’s influence, Goodwin was returned for Bucks in 1698. 33. Edmund Verney to John Verney, 18 April 1686, Verney, BL, M 636/40; Hore, History of Newmarket, 3:240. 34. CP, 10:713 n. (13). Although Anne and Tom Wharton were allotted Danvers House in the property settlement with the Berties, it was occupied throughout their marriage by the earl of Radnor. Until the Whartons moved to Soho Square, they occupied a less elegant house nearby, in what was then ‘‘Dove Court.’’ Tom retained possession of this house after his move, and it was sometimes occupied by his sister Mary and her children Anne and Edmund Thomas. 35. Wharton MS, vol. 10, fol. 9. 36. Carnarvon’s assessment ‘‘for the Reliefe of the poore of Waddesdon’’ on 1 January 1687 was £19, 11s. and 4d. The greatest assessment in the parish, it exceeded that of Robert Bertie, earl of Lindsey (£18:10:00) and of ‘‘the Honble Thom: Wharton’’ (£8:05:00). Verney, Claydon House.

276

NOTES

37. Letters of Edmund Verney to John Verney, 4 and 11 October 1686, Verney, Claydon House. Scarsdale, then thirty-two, was colonel of Princess Anne’s cavalry regiment and Spencer, then twenty, a cornet and guidon in the Third Troop of Horse Guards. According to Kenyon, young Lord Spencer was a ‘‘rakehell of the worst type.’’ Kenyon, Robert Spencer, Earl of Sunderland, 156. 38. Edmund Verney to John Verney, 30 October 1686, Verney, Claydon House. 39. PRO, PC 2/71, fol. v; CP, vol. 12, pt. 2, pp. 116–23. 40. HMC, Ormonde, 7:412–47; Childs, Army, James II, and the Glorious Revolution, 56–82. 41. For Sunderland’s maneuvers to displace Clarendon and Rochester and for Tyrconnel’s rise to power in Ireland, see Kenyon, Robert Spencer, Earl of Sunderland, 131–44; CSPD, Jas. II, 2:69–332 passim; Clarendon Correspondence, 1:269–586; 2:1–137. 42. See Clarendon to King James, CSPD, Jas. II, 2:237–39. Tyrconnel, says Clarendon, has displaced more than half of the Protestant army officers. 43. See CSP (Ireland), 4:39, 78, 121, 122, 326–27; Wharton MS, vol. 4, fol. 44; Carte MS 228, fols. 8–66. 44. CSPD, Jas. II, 2:532, 535. 45. PRO, PC 2/71, p. 381. 46. For the batch of commissions that Tyrconnel took with him to Ireland (66, by my count), see CSPD, Jas. II, 2:339–40. 47. For an excellent discussion of ‘‘Lilliburlero’’ in its original and variant versions, see Carswell, Old Cause, 353–58. Carswell points out that the lyrics are so closely tied to the events of Tyrconnel’s appointment in January 1687 that they were clearly written at that time. I have quoted the version that Carswell took from the ballad collection BL, C. 38/1/25 (Old Cause, 354–55). 48. Writing from Dublin on 22 January 1687, Clarendon says, ‘‘The wind from England hath been contrary these three days, which I suppose is the reason my Lord Tyrconnel is not here, for he was to leave Chester on Tuesday last.’’ Clarendon to Rochester, Clarendon, Correspondence, 2:137.

Chapter 19. Gift Horses and Bridles 1. Mary Kemeys to Sir Charles Kemeys, 19 March 1687, Kemeys-Tynte MS, no. 661. 2. Luttrell, Brief Historical Relation, 1:395; G. Wharton, Autobiography, 2:15. 3. Memoirs, 33. 4. Memoirs, 31–32; James Vernon to Charles Talbot, duke of Shrewsbury, 18 July 1699, in Vernon, Letters, 2:324. The quarrel, over precedence at the Quarter Sessions for Buckinghamshire, took place on 13 July 1699. 5. Memoirs, 35–36; Luttrell, Brief Historical Relation, 5:334. 6. Mary Kemeys to Sir Charles Kemeys, 2 April 1687, Kemeys-Tynte MS, no. 99. 7. Luttrell, Brief Historical Relation, 1:401. For an account of Devonshire’s offense and his ruinous fine, see Macaulay, History of England, 2:896–99. 8. Tom Wharton to Mary Kemeys, 23 August 1687, Kemeys-Tynte MS, no. 101. 9. For Wissing, see DNB. 10. PRO, PC 2/72, pp. 428–30; London Gazette, no. 2231, 4–7 April 1687. 11. For government pressure on bishops Crew, Cartwright, Sprat, and White to

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present addresses of thanks, see Cartwright, Diary, 47–49. Thomas White, bishop of Peterborough, refused to comply. 12. From the petition of the seven bishops on 4 May 1688, PRO, PC 72/2, p. 683. 13. Reresby, Memoirs, 450; Lonsdale, Memoir, 15. 14. See Halifax to the prince of Orange, 31 May, 25 August 1687, PRO, SP 8/ 1, fols. 132, 143–44. 15. Halifax, Works, 1:252. 16. Luttrell, Brief Historical Relation, 1:398; Goldie, ‘‘James II and the Dissenters’ Revenge.’’ 17. As John Leslie Miller points out, James ‘‘turned the Tories from vociferous loyalty to sullen apathy’’ (Popery and Politics, 202). 18. ‘‘I doe not wonder that William Penn shall be made a Secretary of State,’’ Sir Ralph Verney wrote, ‘‘for he has been suspected to be a papist a great many years.’’ Letter to John Verney, 15 May 1687, Verney, BL, M 636/41. For a sympathetic account of Penn’s political activities, see Buranelli, The King and the Quaker, especially pp. 112–35. 19. London Gazette, no. 2234, 14–18 April 1687. 20. James was prepared by September 1688 to create about fifty Peers. Speck, Reluctant Revolutionaries, 120. 21. Mary had already received one significant favor. On 27 August 1686, young Edmund Thomas (‘‘Neddie’’), her son by her first marriage, had been knighted. This was a royal nod towards the Whartons and Thomases (a rich Welsh family), as well as a mark of distinction for Mary and her second husband Sir Charles Kemeys, an M.P. for Monmouthshire in the 1685 Parliament. 22. CSPD, Jas. II, 2:430. 23. William Denton to Sir Ralph Verney, 7 June 1687, Verney, BL, M 636/42. 24. Ibid. 25. London Gazette, no. 2302, 8–12 December 1687. 26. For replies which did not neglect the sins of the Established Church, see C[are]., Animadversions on a Late Paper; ‘‘Dr. Wild’s Ghost,’’ POAS, 4:108. 27. PRO, PC 72/2, p. 683. 28. These were published as government propaganda in the London Gazette, nos. 2231–71, 4 April–22 August 1687. 29. Luttrell, Brief Historical Relation, 1:410–11. Bawdon (or Bawden) was appointed on 27 July 1687 and knighted on 29 October 1687. He was removed on 3 October 1688 when the London Charter of 1683 was restored. Beaven, Aldermen of the City of London, 2:113. 30. Tom Wharton to Mary Kemeys, 23 August 1687, Kemeys-Tynte MS, no. 101. 31. Tom Wharton to Sir Charles Kemeys, 16 September 1687, Kemeys-Tynte MS, no. 104. 32. For the remodeling of corporations and county governments, see Duckett, Penal Laws and the Test Act. For the campaign to ‘‘pack a parliament,’’ see Lonsdale, Memoir, 15–19; James Rees Jones, Revolution of 1688, 128–75; Miller, James II, 175–82. 33. London Gazette, no. 2279, 19–22 September 1687. According to Bishop Cartwright, the king’s host in Chester, James ‘‘healed’’ eight hundred people in Chester alone. Cartwright, Diary, 74–75. 34. Most of the primary documents in the controversy have been collected by Bloxam and published in Magdalen College and King James II, Oxford Historical Society, vol. 6. See especially pp. x–xxvi, 84–94.

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35. ‘‘The King,’’ Dr. George Clarke recalled, ‘‘put himself into so great passion that he changed colour and faltered in his speech, but Lord Sunderland stood by his elbow with much sedate malice in his face; the gentlemen of Magdalen’s were all the while on their knees.’’ ‘‘Autobiography of Dr. George Clarke,’’ HMC, Leybourne-Popham, 265. 36. In two long lectures Commissioner Thomas Cartwright, bishop of Chester, paraphrasing the Oxford Declaration of 1683, reminded the stubborn fellows that the king was ‘‘God’s minister.’’ Their obedience was to be ‘‘absolute and unconditional.’’ Bloxam, Magdalen College, 114–17, 185–90. 37. For the political effects of the Magdalen affair, see Miller, James II, 170–71. See also Nenner, ‘‘Liberty, Law, and Property,’’ in Liberty Secured?, 109–10. 38. Oxford Council Acts, 1666–1701, 188, 191. 39. After the fellows were expelled, John Verney reported that Abingdon ‘‘sent to ye Ma: Coll. fellowes wishing he had preferments for ’em all but since he had not that they should be welcome at his house for Beef and Mutton . . . .’’ John to Sir Ralph Verney, 25 January 1687[8], Verney, BL, M 636/42. 40. For the dating of the queen’s pregnancy, see the testimony of her physician Sir Charles Scarburgh on 22 October 1688. State Trials, 12:139–40. 41. Perhaps the most unpopular man in the kingdom, Petre had been, in Reresby’s phrase, ‘‘the greatest incendiary’’ in promoting the king’s declaration (Reresby, Memoirs, 538). For the appointment, on 11 November 1687, see PRO, PC 2/ 71, fol. v; London Gazette, no. 2294, 10–14 November 1687. 42. Luttrell, Brief Historical Relation, 1:420–21; Miller, James II, 180. 43. For the text of ‘‘Ninnies,’’ see POAS, 4:191–214; for the lines about Tom Wharton and one of his brothers (probably Goodwin), see lines 135–74; for dating and other editorial problems, see the original MS, Clark, ‘‘Goodwin Wharton,’’ HM 49425, chapter 11, n. 41. 44. The six extant poems in the exchange between Wharton and Wolseley appear in Poems on Affairs of State . . . Part III, 1–21. 45. Ibid, 22–24. Reprinted with commentary in Harris, Charles Sackville, Sixth Earl of Dorset, 110–11. 46. Memoirs, 10. 47. Indictment against Wolseley, Gaol Delivery Rolls, 13 January 1688, Middlesex County Records, 4:120. Wolseley did not answer the indictment; he fled abroad and was outlawed. He was later pardoned by King William. See Clark, Goodwin Wharton, 355–56. 48. Goodwin, who saw William on the evening of 13 December, said that his half-brother had been ‘‘very well’’ until the previous day, the wound ‘‘being but very slight.’’ G. Wharton, Autobiography, 2:61. 49. The date of William’s death helps to date ‘‘Ninnies,’’ which must have been written before the fatal duel. The author, who devotes nineteen lines to Wolseley, another eminent Ninny, could hardly have failed to mention an event so notorious. Galbraith M. Crump, the editor of ‘‘Ninnies’’ in POAS, 4:191–214, assigns the poem to early 1688. He mistakenly dates the duel 1692 and names the wrong Wharton—Henry instead of William (p. 206). 50. Memoirs, 12–13. This family portrait helps to establish Oldmixon as Tom Wharton’s biographer. 51. By the King, A Proclamation Appointing a time of Publick Thanksgiving (23 December 1687). See also London Gazette, no. 2309, 2–5 January 1687[8].

NOTES

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Chapter 20. Checkmate 1. The letter with the coded signatures is still extant. See PRO, SP 8/1, pt. 2, fols. 224–27; transcribed in CSPD, Jas. II, 3:223–25. For the implausible hearsay report that Tom Wharton wrote the first draft of the invitation to William, see [Kennett], History of England, vol. 3 of A Complete History of England, 523 n. (c). For an analysis of the report, see Clark, T. Wharton MS, chapter 20, 25. 2. Mary Kemeys to Sir Charles Kemeys, 30 June 1688, Kemeys-Tynte MS, no. 640. 3. A primary document dealing with the army conspiracy and the ‘‘Treason Club’’ is ‘‘Colonel N---n’s Account of the Revolution,’’ Rawlinson MS D 148. The body of this narrative was written before 10 November 1710 (when Edward, Lord Griffin, to whom it was shown, died in the Tower); a postscript was added later, as well as a covering note dated 16 October 1713. The author was the Jacobite colonel Ambrose Norton, who in 1688 was a major in the Princess’s Regiment of Foot— commanded at the time by Lt. Col. Thomas Langston. Langston, says Norton, introduced four of his officers ‘‘into the company of the Treason Club (as it was commonly called) at the Rose Tavern in Covent Garden, where they frequently met to consult with the Ld Colchester, Mr Thom: Wharton, Coll. Talmash, Coll. Godfrey, Mr Wm Gibson and many others of their party, & there it was resolved that the Regiment under the foresaid Coll. Langstons command should desert intire, as they did on Sunday the [11th] day of Novr 1688. . . .’’ 4. For the three new regiments of foot raised in the spring of 1688, partially financed by Louis XIV and officered by Englishmen withdrawn from the AngloDutch Brigade, see Childs, Army, 131–35. 5. Ibid., 165. 6. Burnet, History, 3:241. 7. Colonel Norton includes ‘‘Coll [Thomas] Talmash’’ among the Rose Tavern conspirators who ‘‘turned’’ the officers in Langston’s regiment (‘‘Colonel N---n’s Account’’). Talmash, however, had gone to Holland in March (Luttrell, Brief Historical Relation, 1:434; Childs, Army, xiii). 8. ‘‘My service to all my Friends at the Rose,’’ Henry wrote Tom on 24 July 1689, ‘‘with some slender remembrances to my Topp Hussey. . . .’’ Carte MS 228, fols. 202–3. 9. London Gazette, no. 2342, 26–30 April 1688. 10. PRO, PC 2/72, 661; London Gazette, no. 2342, 26–30 April 1688. 11. The Privy Councillors who signed and sealed the order for the arrest of the bishops (8 June 1688) must share with King James the distinction of having committed one of the most memorable blunders in English political history. They include Jeffreys, Sunderland, Arundel, Powys, Mulgrave (later Buckingham), Huntington, Peterborough, Craven, Moray, Middleton, Melfort, Castlemain, Preston, Dartmouth, Godolphin, Dover, Lord Chief Justice Herbert, Sir John Ernle (chancellor of the Exchequer), and Sir Nicholas Butler. PRO, PC/2, 682. Petre was present at the Privy Council meeting, but he did not sign the order. 12. PRO, PC 2/72, 677–78. 13. G. Wharton, Autobiography, 2:63; Clark, Goodwin Wharton, 217. 14. State Trials, 12:150–51. 15. For the proceedings, on 22 October 1688, see PRO, PC 2/72, 758–77; State Trials, 12:123–44. For a compendium of the rumors, theories, and arguments about the birth, see Burnet, History, 3:246–49; State Trials, 12:145–82. 16. ‘‘Colonel N---n’s Account of the Revolution,’’ Rawlinson MS D 148.

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17. On 10 May 1689, a warrant was issued for appointing nine commissioners, including ‘‘Thomas Wharton,’’ to reform ‘‘abuses in the army.’’ CSPD, William and Mary, 1:97–98. 18. ‘‘Here’s little newes stirring,’’ John Verney wrote Sir Ralph, on 11 July 1688, ‘‘only there are 3 new Pri: Coun:rs and some name many more to be soe, as your old friend Lord Wharton, Sr Charles Wolseley, Coll. Norton . . . likewise your neighbour Sr Thos Lee . . . .’’ Dr. William Denton, writing to Sir Ralph the same day, says that news of the appointment of the four men ‘‘is a little allayed.’’ Verney, BM, M 636/42. 19. For the trade war and its effect upon the Dutch, see Israel, ‘‘Dutch Role in the Glorious Revolution,’’ 114–19; Burnet, History, 3:291. 20. For a summary of the conflict between Louis and the pope, see Speck, Reluctant Revolutionaries, 77–78. 21. For a concise account, see Baxter, William III, 222–23. 22. Memoirs, 21. 23. Instructions of Louis XIV to Bonrepaux, 19/29 August 1688, Recueil, 405–9. 24. Browning, Thomas Osborne, Earl of Danby, 2:136–37. 25. The fact that Wharton and some of his friends were not already in the West shows that they did not know where William would land. 26. Wood, Life and Times, 3:281–82. Wood first wrote that the advance party was headed by ‘‘one of the Lord Wharton’s sons,’’ but he later crossed out this passage. Though the advance party had very probably been organized by Wharton, Tom himself (‘‘one of the sons of Lord Wharton’’) apparently waited for Colchester, Jephson, and Godfrey. The fact that Wood twice mentions the Wharton name has misled some writers into believing that there were two Whartons, Tom and Henry. Henry, however, was with his regiment, as the ‘‘Autobiography of Dr. George Clarke’’ clearly shows (HMC, Leyborne-Popham, 167). 27. Burnet, who was with the prince, gives the impression that Tom’s party arrived on the day [9 November] that the prince arrived at Exeter. William, Burnet says (History, 3:331), was joined there every day by important volunteers, the first being Wharton and Colchester. Baxter, William III (239), says that Colchester arrived on 10 November, but he does not give his source. My own guess, based on the distance from Oxford to Exeter and the sloppy condition of the roads, is that Wharton’s party arrived on 10 November. 28. ‘‘Colonel N---n’s Account,’’ Rawlinson MS D 148. 29. [Dicconson], Life of James II, 2:218. 30. Burnet, History, 3:337; Memoirs, 21–22. 31. CSPD, Jas. II, 3:369. 32. As Childs says (Army, 188), ‘‘Cornbury, Langston, and Compton might have achieved little in the numbers they took with them but their achievement, when added to the fog of war, was immense.’’ Essentially, they created an atmosphere that rendered the army ‘‘useless.’’ 33. Clarke, ‘‘Autobiography of Dr. George Clarke,’’ 267. 34. Burnet, History, 3:336. Apparently Burnet, who had been in Holland for several years, had not heard the song before. He gives the impression that it was composed in November 1688—an error that has confused some writers. 35. When Goodwin finally met William at Henley, where he was introduced by Tom, he was ‘‘looked upon as indifferently as many that now flocked into him [William] apace’’ (Autobiography, 2:104). 36. HMC, Dartmouth, 1:226. The notes are an unintended tribute to the effectiveness of the military conspiracy.

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37. CSPD, Jas. II, 3:378–80; London Gazette, no. 2409, 10–13 December 1688. 38. See Bedard, ‘‘Guildhall Declaration,’’ Historical Journal, 11:403–20. Bedard says (413) that the defeat of the Tory proposal was so important in determining the course of the revolution settlement that Wharton and his friends deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as ‘‘the Immortal Seven.’’ See also Boyer, History of King William the Third, 1:268–69. 39. Hill, Growth of Parliamentary Parties, 37–38; Plumb, ‘‘Elections to the Convention Parliament.’’ 40. Grey, Debates, 9:11; Parl. Hist., 5:39. See also ‘‘A Jornall of the Convention begun the 22 of January 1688/9’’; Somers’ notes in Miscellaneous State Papers, 2:406. 41. Parl. Hist., 5:50. 42. Grey, Debates, 9:29. 43. Ibid., 9:41.

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Index Carol B. Pearson

Note: Peers and peeresses are indexed by title, with cross-references by family name. The following abbreviations and short forms are used throughout the index. AW GW HC HL HW Lady Wharton Lord Wharton (nn) TW

Anne Wharton Goodwin Wharton House of Commons House of Lords Henry Wharton Anne, ne´ e Carr (Popham), Lady Wharton Philip Wharton, fourth Baron Wharton Subject referred to but not named Thomas Wharton, later fifth Baron Wharton, first earl of, and first marquis of Wharton William, p of O William, prince of Orange WW William Wharton Abingdon, Eleanora, ne´ e Lee, Bertie, countess of (sister of AW), 117, 188; property division of with AW, 48, 49, 50, 153–54, 255 n. 6, 261 n. 1 Abingdon, James Bertie, fifth Baron Norreys, first earl of (brother-in-law of TW): joins William, p of O, at Exeter, 227; and Magdalen College crisis, 216, 278 n. 39; marriage of to Eleanor Lee, 49, 259 n. 36; removed from offices by James II, 216, 217, 222; and shared property with TW/ AW, 117, 153, 255n. 6; as supporter of James II, 268n. 19 Adderbury, Oxfordshire: Wilmot country house at, 49, 50, 186 Admiralty Board, 103, 253n. 19 Ailesbury, Robert Bruce, first earl of, 183, 184 Anabaptists, 211

Ancaster. See Lindsey Anglesey, James Annesley, second earl of, 222 Anglican Church: and Charles II, 54, 61; and Declaration of Indulgence, 209–10, 220, 221–22; and James II, 177–78, 183, 191, 199, 221–22; and popish succession, 157, 161; and Queen Anne, 161, 201, 266n. 32; and toleration for Dissenters, 212, 213, 277 n. 26. See also Seven Anglican bishops, the Anglo-Dutch Brigade, 184–85 (nn), 227 Anglo-Dutch War, Second, 34, 36 Anglo-Dutch War, Third: and French invasion of Holland, 52–53; and parliamentary session of 1673–74, 53, 54, 55, 57, 60; and Shaftesbury, 56. See also Dover, Treaty of—sham

293

294

INDEX

Anne (queen of England), 161, 201; as Princess Anne Stuart, 57, 223, 253 n. 35 Annesley. See Anglesey anti-popish demonstrations, English. See pope-burning processions Argyll, Archibald Campbell, ninth earl of, 184, 185 Arlington, Henry Bennet, Baron, 75; as first earl of, 54, 242 n. 1, 243 nn. 4 and 7, 244 n. 23 Armstrong, Sir Thomas, 167, 269 n. 10 army, English: attempt to disband (1678), 82, 99, 102, 111, 116, 131, 252 n. 1; Catholics and Dissidents in, 54, 191, 192, 193, 194, 200, 205, 210; Coldstream Regiment of Foot Guards, Duke of Norfolk’s (12th) Regiment of Foot, and Earl of Lichfield’s Regiment of Foot, 72, 186, 223, 228, 271 n. 53; conspiracy within and Glorious Revolution, 221, 224, 226, 227, 231, 279n. 3; disbanded (1688), 223, 228, 229; garrison of at Tangiers (1680), 138, 139, 142, 260 n. 55; on Hounslow Heath, 199, 200, 220, 223; and Monmouth’s Rebellion, 185–86; size of and money for, 57, 60, 63–64, 80, 190, 192, 193–94, 221, 279 n. 4 Army, Irish, remodeling of, 205, 276 n. 42 Army, Scots, 194 Army of William, p of O, and Glorious Revolution, 221, 227, 279n. 4 Army of William III (king of England), 224, 280 Arundell, Henry, third Baron Arundell of Wardour, 101, 110, 111, 113, 279 n. 11 Arundell, John, 43, 49, 50–51, 242 nn. 53 and 61 Arundell, Richard, first Baron Arundell of Trerice, 43 Ashby v White, 125 (nn), 257 n. 42 Ashley. See Cooper; Shaftesbury Aske manor, Yorkshire, 15–16, 235n. 20, 246n. 16 ‘‘Association,’’ the, 227–28 Augsburg, League of, 224 Aylesbury, Bucks, parliamentary elec-

tions at, 15, 118, 120–22, 128–29, 182 Banstead Downs, racetrack at, 115, 116 Barillon, Paul de, French ambassador to England: and bribes for M.P.s and for parliamentary elections, 112, 253n. 36, 254n. 52; on death of Charles II, 176, 269 n. 2; on James II’s Catholicizing policies, 194–95, 256 n. 31; on Oxford Parliament, 153; on Popish Plot, 252 nn. 1 and 13; on secret entente between Louis XIV and Charles II (1678), 80, 113, 151, 263 n. 43; on supply vs. militia resolutions, 192–93; and unsolicited subsidy from Louis XIV to James II, 177, 269n. 12 Barnardiston, Sir Samuel, 178 Barnewell, Thomas, under-sheriff of Bucks, 120, 121, 129, 255n. 17 Bath, John Grenville, first earl of, 228 Bawdon (or Bawden), John (husband of Letitia), 42–43, 213, 240 n. 20, 277 n. 29 Bawdon, Letitia, ne´ e Popham. See Popham, Letitia Baynton, Nicholas, 132 Beaufort. See Somerset, Henry Worcester Bedford, Anne, ne´ e Carr, Russell, countess of, 244 n. 2 Bedford, James, Nonconformist minster, 244n. 2 Bedingfield, Francis, James, duke of York’s confessor, 87, 89 Bedloe, William, and Popish Plot, 105–6, 108–9, 110, 123, 253 n. 30, 260nn. 52 and 55 Belasyse, John, first Baron Belasyse of Worlaby, 101, 106, 108, 110, 111. See also Fauconberg Bennet. See Arlington Bennett, Robert, Nonconformist minister and Lord Wharton’s agent: on character and upbringing of TW, 41–42; on HW, 71–72; and TW/GW problems with Gale in Caen, 27, 28; on TW’s life at Winchendon, 69, 70; and Wharton family marriage negotiations, 40, 41 Bennett, Thomas, M.P., 103–4

INDEX

Berry, Sarah, 38–39 Bertie, Charles, 126, 257n. 48 Bertie, Captain Henry, 204 Bertie, James, 222 Bertie, Robert, styled Lord Willoughby, and later fourth earl of and first marquess of Lindsey and first duke of Ancaster (nephew of TW), 222, 235 n. 4, 240 n. 12 Bertie family: political alliance of with the Whartons, 216, 222; and property settlement with TW/AW, 272n. 67, 275 n. 34 Bertie. See also Abingdon; Lindsey Birch, Samuel, Nonconformist schoolmaster, 71 bishops, Anglican, and right to vote in death penalty trials in HL (1679), 124–25, 127 Black Death (1665), 35, 239n. 26 Blackwell, Edward, 47, 117, 241 nn. 41 and 42 Blathwayte, William, James II’s secretary of war, 194 Blundell, Nicholas, 91, 251n. 29 Bolton. See Winchester Bonrepaux, Franc¸ ois d’Usson, marquis de, 225 Booth. See Delamere Borlase, Sir John, 166, 267 n. 1 Boscawen, Hugh, 255n. 65 Boyle, Charles, 66–67, 245 n. 40 Brackley, John Egerton, styled Viscount, and later third earl of Bridgwater: and Bucks elections (1679, 1685), 117, 118, 119, 180, 181, 183, 217, 270 n. 27, 271 n. 34; dismissed as lord lieutenant of Bucks by James II (1687), 217 Brackley, racetrack at, 73, 203, 246 n. 19, 247n. 20 Brandenburg, Frederick William, elector of, 193 Brandon, Charles Gerrard, styled Viscount, and later second earl of Macclesfield: and the ‘‘information,’’ 135–37 (nn), 260 n. 48; and Monmouth’s Rebellion, 193; and Rye House Plot, 167, 171 Bray, Mr.: and TW/HW escapade at Great Barrington, 157, 158, 265 n. 11

295

bribery: of M.P.s by Coleman, 94–95, 95–96, 109, 110, 254 n. 47; of M.P.s by Danby, 61–62, 63, 81, 107, 126– 27, 244n. 4, 248n. 43, 249 n. 44, 253 n. 36, 257nn. 47 and 48; of M.P.s by Louis XIV, 62, 80, 81, 112–13, 126, 127, 254n. 52, 263 n. 31; in parliamentary elections, 47, 112, 241n. 42 Bridgwater, John Egerton, second earl of: and Bucks elections (1679, 1685); 117, 118, 180; and search for arms in re Rye House Plot, 167, 168, 267n. 4. See also Brackley Bruce. See Ailesbury Buccleuch, Anne Scott, countess of (wife of James Scott, duke of Monmouth), 135 (nn) Buckingham, George Villiers, second duke of, 76, 134, 136, 242 n. 1, 243 n. 4, 244 n. 23, 253n. 30; sent to the Tower by HL, 65–66, 74, 75, 245 nn. 35, 36 and 37; support for TW in Bucks elections, 121–22, 128, 129 (nn), 130. See also Mulgrave Buckingham, town of, and parliamentary elections, 120–22, 128–29, 130, 179, 180, 181, 255n. 15 Buckinghamshire, and parliamentary elections of M.P.s for (1679, 1681, 1685), 114, 116–22, 149, 181, 182, 256 n. 24, 271nn. 34, 35 and 37 Bulkeley, Sophia, ne´ e Stuart, Lady, 217 Burford, racetrack at, 164 Burges, Cornelius, 234n. 1 Burnet, Gilbert, bishop of Salisbury: and the ‘‘Association,’’ 227–28; and correspondence with AW, 162, 163– 64, 266n. 17, 267 n. 43; and deathbed conversion of Rochester, 163; on Oates’s testimony, 90; on popish succession, 157; on TW’s ‘‘Lilliburlero,’’ 228, 280 n. 34; with William, p of O, at Exeter, 280 n. 27 Butler, Sir Nicholas, 279n. 11. See also Ormonde; Ossory Butterfield, William, rector at Middle Claydon, 180, 270n. 24 Cabal, English, 53, 58, 242–43 n. 1 Cabell, Elizabeth (the elder), 43–48, 241 n. 45

296

INDEX

Cabell, Elizabeth (daughter of above), as potential wife for TW, 43–48, 240 n. 24, 241nn. 27 and 29 Cabell, Richard (father of above), 43, 240 n. 24, 241n. 29 Caen, Normandy, education of TW/GW at (1663–65), 20–29 Caldbeck, Cumberland, manor at, 16 Calverly, Sir Henry, and the ‘‘information,’’ 136–37 (nn), 260 n. 48 Campbell. See Argyll Campfield, racetrack at, 132 Capel, Arthur, Baron Capel of Hadam (father of the first earl of Essex), 33 (nn) Capel, Sir Henry, Baron Capel of Tewkesbury, 104, 126, 166. See also Essex Carew, Sir Nicholas, 103–4, 141 Carnarvon, Charles Dormer, second earl of, 179, 204, 275n. 36 Carr, William (brother of Lady Wharton), marriage of to Anne Wharton (TW’s sister), 39–40, 42, 240n. 17 Carr, William, of Fernihurst (father of Lady Wharton), 18, 236 n. 8 Cartwright, Thomas, bishop of Chester, 209, 276–77n. 11, 278 n. 36 Cary, John: on AW’s illnesses, 144–45, 188; as trustee of AW’s estate, 242n. 50, 264n. 55; on TW/HW escapade at Great Barrington, 159, 265 n. 18. See also Monmouth Castlemaine, Roger Palmer, first earl of, 279 n. 11 Castleton, George Saunderson, fifth Viscount, 139 Catherine of Braganza (queen of England), 58, 108–9, 116, 150 Catholics, English: and anti-popish legislation, 55, 59, 60, 61, 92, 93, 99, 100, 102, 104, 105, 106–7, 109, 198, 229, 253 n. 32; in the army and at Court, 54, 191, 192, 193, 194–95, 198–99, 200, 205, 210; and Charles II’s Declaration of Indulgence, 54–55; and James II’s nullification of laws against, 190–95, 198–99, 200– 201; and Popish Plot, 84, 91–100, 102, 104, 106, 110 (see also five Catholic Lords in the Tower; Jesuits, English)

Cavendish. See Devonshire Cecil. See Salisbury Cellier, Elizabeth, 135 Charles I (king of England), 12, 54 Charles II (king of England): and Anglican Church, 54, 61, 177; and Danby, 61, 112, 113, 123–24, 256n. 36; death of, 176, 178, 269 nn. 2 and 4; and Declaration of Indulgence, 54–55, 61; and Dissenters, 54–55, 61, 62, 178, 244n. 2; and English Catholics, 61, 77, 106, 177, 252 n. 13, 269n. 4; and the five Catholic Lords in the Tower, 101; foreign policy of, 52–53, 57, 58, 59, 61, 68, 77, 79–80, 243n. 3, 243–44 n. 22, 248 n. 28; illness of (August 1679), 130–31; and James, duke of York, 103, 104–5, 123, 131; and Lord Wharton, 74, 75, 247n. 7; and marriage of James, duke of York to Mary of Modena, 56–57; and marriage of William, p of O, to Princess Mary Stuart, 79, 247–48 n. 18, 248n. 28, 253 n. 35; mistresses of, 62, 150, 244 n. 6, 260 n. 46; and Monmouth, 116, 131, 135, 136, 171– 74, 259n. 44, 260 n. 46, 268nn. 28, 31 and 32, 268–69 n. 33, 269 n. 36; national distrust of (1678), 81, 249 n. 47; personality and interests of, 70, 73, 75, 90, 95, 249n. 2; and petitions to call a parliament (1679–80), 131, 258n. 17; and pope-burning procession of 1679, 134; and Popish Plot, 84–90, 99–100, 101, 152, 249 n. 2, 251n. 52; and his Privy Council, 125–26, 257 n. 43; and regency scheme, 151, 152, 231, 263 n. 44; and remodeling of corporation charters, 116, 157, 178, 192, 264 n. 8; Restoration and coronation of, 18, 235 n. 6; and Rye House Plot, 166, 169; and Shaftesbury, 52, 56, 65–66, 142; and the succession, 104–5, 125, 126, 128, 131, 137, 139, 152, 157, 253 n. 26; and supply bills (see Parliament: and military supply bills; Parliament: and money to Charles II); and treaties with and subsidies from Louis XIV, 52, 53, 55, 59, 62, 63, 68, 74, 77, 79, 80, 81–82, 111, 112, 113, 143, 151,

INDEX

153, 155, 177, 243–44 n. 22, 244 n. 16, 245n. 20, 248 nn. 35 and 40, 249 nn. 48, 50, and 51, 263 n. 43; and TW, 70, 130, 136, 176–77 ——and his Parliaments: of 1673, 54–56; of 1677, 68; of 1678, 99–100, 101, 108–9, 252 n. 8; of 1679, 112– 14, 116, 122, 123; of 1680, 137, 141– 42, 151; of 1681 (Oxford), 150, 151–52, 153, 155, 263 n. 42, 264 n. 51 Charlton, Francis, 171 Chester, Sir Anthony, 117, 119, 128 Chetwin, Mr.: friend of GW, 134 Cheyne, Charles, and later Viscount Newhaven, 117, 119, 208, 276 n. 4 Chiffinch, William, Charles II’s factotum, 126, 257n. 48 Churchill, John, Baron Churchill, and later first duke of Marlborough, 185, 224, 228 Clare, Gilbert Holles, third earl of, and the ‘‘information,’’ 136–37 (nn), 260 n. 48 Clare, Grace Holles, countess of, 244 n. 2 Clarendon, Henry Hyde, second earl of, 61, 141–42, 228; replacement of in Ireland by Tyrconnel, 204, 205–6, 276 nn. 41, 42 and 48 Clarges, Sir Thomas, 67, 103–4, 192 Clarke, Dr. George, 278n. 35 Clarke, Dr. Henry, president of Magdalen College, Oxford, 214 Clarke, Samuel, Nonconformist minister and Lord Wharton’s agent, 39, 240 n. 4 Claydon, Bucks, Verney property at, 15, 49 Clement X, pope, advises James, duke of York, on declaring himself Catholic, 253n. 33 (nn) Clifford, Abraham: medical degree of, 34, 239n. 24; as TW/GW tutor in France, 30–37 Clifford, Lady Anne. See Dorset Clifford, Thomas, first Baron, 54, 61, 242 n. 1, 243 nn. 4 and 7 Cockermouth, Cumberland, and TW’s plans to stand for M.P. from (1679), 118

297

Coke, John, 195, 196 Colchester, Richard Savage, Viscount, and later fourth Earl Rivers, 221, 226–27, 279 n. 3, 280 nn. 26 and 27 Coldstream Regiment of Foot Guards (earl of Craven’s regiment), 72, 271 n. 53 Cole, Thomas, Nonconformist minister, 40 Coleman, Edward, and Popish Plot, 88– 110, 251nn. 35, 43, 45 and 52, 252n. 56, 254nn. 46, 47, and 48 Coleman, William, Sir Ralph Verney’s steward, 180, 270 n. 26 College, Stephen, the ‘‘Protestant Joiner,’’ 155 Commission for Ecclesiastical Affairs, 199, 200, 201, 215; membership of, 201, 274 nn. 10 and 16 Compton, Sir Francis, 166, 226, 227, 280 n. 32 Compton, Henry, bishop of London: and invitation to William, p of O, to invade England, 201, 220, 274 n. 20, 279 n. 1; removed from Privy Council and suspended by ecclesiastical commission, 200–201, 274 n. 13; and Test Act, 196, 274 n. 20 Conde´ , Louis II de Bourbon, prince of, 34 conventicles, 61, 198, 203, 244n. 2 Conway, Edward, earl of Conway, 139 Conyers, George, 89 Cooper, Anthony Ashley, styled Lord Ashley, and later second earl of Shaftesbury, 113 Cooper. See also Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper Cornbury. See Hyde corporations and county governments: remodeling of by Charles II, 116, 157, 178, 192, 264n. 8; remodeling of by James II, 210, 212, 217, 277n. 32 Council of Six, and Rye House Plot, 170, 268 n. 22 Country (Opposition) party, 79; basic strategy of, 58, 60, 63, 64–68; and control of Committee of Privileges and Elections, 123, 256 n. 33; and disbanding of army, 82, 111; and dis-

298

INDEX

solution of Cavalier Parliament, 255 n. 65; and distrust of Charles II, 79, 80, 81–83; and Exclusion, 104–5, 107, 115; and oaths of allegiance and supremacy, 106; and Popish Plot, 99, 103, 106, 109–10, 252n. 1; and remodeling of Charles II’s Privy Council, 125–26; and Shaftesbury, 58, 60, 64, 66, 67–68, 114, 124–25, 245n. 30, 256n. 39. See also Whig party Court, Royal, 70; Catholics banished from (1678), 106; and Monmouth, 172, 268 n. 28; and Oxford Parliament, 150, 263n. 35; and permission for Catholics to appear at, 198–99; and rumors of royal pregnancy, 216–17; and Wharton family, 266n. 33 Court (later Tory) party: and army disbandment, 111, 254n. 52; beginnings of (1675–77), 61–68, 81, 83, 248 n. 43, 249n. 44; and Exclusion, 107, 115, 253 nn. 35 and 36; and impeachment of Danby, 112–13; and Popish Plot, 99, 100, 101–2, 104, 106. See also Tory party Courtin, Honore´ , French ambassador to England, 244n. 6 Coventry, Sir Henry, secretary of state, 104, 111 Coventry, Sir William, M.P., 111 Cowper, Sir William, 263n. 46; and the ‘‘information,’’ 136–37 (nn), 260 n. 48 Cradock Samuel, Nonconformist schoolmaster, 71 Cragg, Robert, 185 Craven, William, first earl of Craven, 72, 279n. 11 Crew, Nathaniel, bishop of Durham, 201, 209, 274 n. 10, 276–77n. 11 Croglin manor, Cumberland, 16, 235 n. 18 Croke, Robert, M.P., 47 Cromwell, Henry (son of Oliver), 234 n. 8 Cromwell, Mary (daughter of Oliver), 14, 235n. 17 Cromwell, Oliver, 17, 191, 235n. 1; and Lord Wharton, 11, 12–13, 212, 234 nn. 1, 5 and 8

Danby, Bridget (ne´ e Bertie) Osborne, countess of, and later duchess of Leeds (wife of the earl of Danby; sister-in-law of TW), 62, 270n. 21 Danby, Sir Thomas Osborne, earl of, and later duke of Leeds: and bribery of M.P.s, 61–62, 81, 244 n. 4, 248 n. 43, 249 n. 44; downfall of (1678), 81, 249n. 47; as duke of Leeds (1705), baits TW on escapade at Great Barrington, 161, 266n. 32; and the four Lords in the Tower, 65–66; impeachment of by Parliament, 111–14, 123– 25, 254n. 60, 255 n. 65; and invasion of England by William, p of O, 220, 226, 228, 279 n. 1; and James, duke of York, 103, 107; as leader of Court (later Tory) party; 61, 63, 64, 68, 83, 110, 122, 123; as lord treasurer, 58– 59, 116, 243n. 20; and marriage of Princess Mary Stuart to William, p of O, 77–78, 247–48 n. 18; pardon of by Charles II and trial on legality of, 123–25, 127; and Popish Plot, 85, 87, 88, 90, 99–100, 251n. 35; proposes William, p. of O, as prince consort, 231; and rewards from Charles II (1679), 123, 256 n. 36; and secret entente between Charles II and Louis XIV, 77, 81, 248 n. 41; as secret supporter of TW in 1685 election, 179, 180, 270 n. 21; and selection of Speaker of HC (1679), 122; sent to the Tower (1679) and later released (1684), 124, 127, 178; and TW, 62, 113, 125, 179–80, 244 n. 14, 270n. 21 Dartmouth, George Legge, second Baron: admiral of James II’s fleet, 229, 279n. 11; as George Legge, 139 Dartmouth, William Legge, first earl of, 161, 266 n. 32 Dashwood, Mr., duel with TW in Bath (1703), 208 (nn) Datchet, racetrack at, 167–68, 267n. 7 Declaration of Indulgence: by Charles II (15 March 1672), 54–55, 56, 61; by James II (first, 1687), 209–11, 213, 278 n. 41; by James II (second, 1688), 213, 220, 221–22 Declaration of Rights (1689), 231

INDEX

de la Chausse´ e family, hosts of TW/ GW in Caen, 21, 31 Delamere, Henry Booth, second Baron, and later earl of Warrington, 193, 225; as Henry Booth, M.P., 111, 171 Delamere Forest, racetrack at, 164 Denton, Alexander, 204 Denton, Dr. William: on Lord Wharton and loyal address to James II, 212, 280 n. 18; on Lord Wharton’s return to England, 203; on rumored appointments to Privy Council (July 1688), 212; on TW as horse racer, 73, 247n. 20; and TW/HW escapade at Great Barrington, 265 n. 16 Dering, Sir Edward (father of Jane and Edward below), 186, 271–72 n. 54 Dering, Colonel Edward, 271–72 n. 54 Dering, Jane, 196, 107, 208; as TW’s mistress, 186, 188, 271–72 n. 54, 272 n. 60 Devonshire, William Cavendish, fourth earl of, and later first duke of, 70; as Cavendish, attempts to see the four Lords in the Tower, 66–67, 245n. 40; and charge of misbehavior at Court, 208, 276 n. 7; and the ‘‘information,’’ 136–37, 260 n. 48; and invitation to William, p. of O, to invade England, 220, 225, 226, 279n. 1; and popish succession, 103–4, 126, 136–37; and TW, 208, 276 n. 7 Diqueman, Dr., physician to TW/GW in Caen, 24 Disney, William, 185 Dissenters: Anglican attitudes toward, 61, 157, 161, 212, 213; and Charles II’s Declaration of Indulgence, 54– 55, 56, 61; increased persecution of under James II, 187, 272 n. 58; and James II’s Declaration of Indulgence, 209–11; Lord Wharton as patron of, 65; and Monmouth’s Rebellion, 185, 187; revival of laws against by Charles II, 61, 62, 244 n. 2; toleration for under James II, 198, 203, 275n. 27 Dodd, John, Nonconformist minister and Lord Wharton’s agent, 39, 41, 42, 240n. 4 Dolben, John, archbishop of York, 199

299

Dormer. See Carnarvon Dorset, Lady Anne Clifford, countess of Dorset, Pembroke, and Montgomery, 30, 246n. 7 Dorset, Charles Sackville, sixth earl of, ‘‘The Duel,’’ 218 Douglas. See Dumbarton Dover, Henry Jermyn, first Baron, 279 n. 11 Dover, Treaty of—secret, 52, 54, 56, 60, 80, 243 nn. 5 and 7, 248n. 35 Dover, Treaty of—sham, 52, 59, 60, 243 nn. 4 and 5, 243–44 n. 22 Downing, Sir George, M.P., 104 Drake, James, The Memorial of the Church of England (1705), 201, 274 n. 17 Drummond. See Melfort Dryden, John: ‘‘Absalom and Achitophel’’ as attack on Shaftesbury and Monmouth, 150; and AW, 76; dubbed ‘‘Towser the Second,’’ 156 Dugdale, Stephen, 114, 142 Dumbarton, George Douglas, first earl of, 194 Dunch, Major (brother-in-law of TW): death of 76, 132, 247n. 12; marriage of to Margaret Wharton, 49, 242n. 55 Dunch, Major (son of Major and Margaret Dunch; nephew of TW), 247 n. 12 Dunch, Margaret, ne´ e Wharton (wife of Major Dunch). See Wharton, Margaret Dunch, Margaret (daughter of Major and Margaret Dunch; niece of TW), 247 n. 12 Dunch, Wharton (son of Major and Margaret Dunch; nephew of TW), 247 n. 12 Dutch Republic: alliance of Charles II and Louis XIV against (1670), 52; alliance of with England (1677–78), and marriage of William, p of O, to Princess Mary Stuart, 68, 79, 80, 248 n. 27; Louis XIV’s trade war with (August 1687), 224, 225, 280n. 19; and peace at Nijmegen, 81, 82; and Second Anglo-Dutch War, 34, 36; and Third Anglo-Dutch War, 53, 54, 55, 56, 59–60

300

INDEX

East, Mr., goldsmith and TW’s agent, 204, 264 n. 57 East Grinstead, GW as M.P. from (1679), 130, 257 n. 9 Ecclesiastical commission. See Commission for Ecclesiastical Affairs Edgerley, Thomas, high-sheriff of Bucks, and parliamentary elections of 1679, 121, 128, 129–30, 256n. 21 Edward III (king of England), statutes of on convoking of parliaments, 65 Egerton, Rev., parson of Adstock, 120 elections, parliamentary: in 1673, 47, 55, 117, 119, 121, 241 nn. 41 and 42; in 1679 (two), 114, 116–22, 128–29, 130, 246n. 24; in 1681, 149; in 1685, 181, 182; in 1689, 229–30. See also bribery: in parliamentary elections Elford, Thomas, TW tutor, 19 Elizabeth I (queen of England), popeburning processions on birthday of, 133. See also pope-burning processions Ernle, Sir John, M.P., 104, 122, 279n. 11 Essex, Arthur Capel, first earl of: and limitations on Crown power, 126, 128; as member of Council of Six, 170, 268 n. 22; as Privy Councilor, 128, 130, 131; and Rye House Plot and suicide of in the Tower, 167, 170, 174; and TW, 33, 34, 259n. 36 Essex, Elizabeth Capel, countess of, 33, 239 n. 20 Evelyn, John, 200–201 Exchequer, Charles II’s stopping of (1672), 53, 54 Exclusion bills: of May 1679, 96, 105, 115, 116, 126, 151; of 1680, 96, 138– 40, 141, 151, 260 n. 53, 261nn. 68 and 69; of 1681, 96, 148 Exclusionists: rise of, 7, 99–143, 258 nn. 17 and 31; and Tory reaction, 150–57, 164, 165, 169–70, 178, 183, 267 n. 44 Fagg, John, M.P., lawsuit vs. Dr. Thomas Shirley, 244 n. 8 ‘‘Faithful Catalogue of our Most Eminent Ninnies, A,’’ satire on sex scandals, 217, 278 nn. 43 and 49

Farmer, Anthony, and presidency of Magdalen College, Oxford, 214, 215 Farnley Woods Plot, 237 n. 42 Fauconberg, Thomas Belasyse, second Viscount, and later first earl of, 212 Fenwick, John, 91, 92, 251 n. 29 Ferguson, Robert, 167, 273n. 11 Ferrier, Jean, 94 Feversham, Louis de Durfort de Duras, second earl of, 141–42, 185, 229 Filmer, Sir Robert, 169; Patriarcha, 170 Finch, Daniel. See Nottingham, Daniel Finch, second earl of Finch, Heneage. See Nottingham, Heneage Finch, first earl of; Winchilsea, Heneage Finch, third earl of Fire of London, 138 Fitzharris, Edward, 155 Fitzroy. See Grafton five Catholic Lords in the Tower, 106, 110, 123, 127, 137–38, 152, 178, 256n. 34, 260 n. 55 Flatman, Thomas: Heraclitus Ridens, 149–50, 263 n. 32; miniature portrait of TW by, frontispiece, 32, 263 n. 32 Flight, Joseph, agent of William, p of O, 225 Fogarty, William, Oates’s Irish physician, 87, 91, 92, 250 n. 15, 251n. 29 Forrester, William, and the ‘‘information,’’ 135–37 (nn), 260 n. 48 four Opposition Lords in the Tower, 65–66, 74–75, 245 nn. 35, 36, 37, 247nn. 6 and 7 Fowell, Sir Edmund, and his wife (grandparents of Elizabeth Cabell), 43, 44 Fowell, John (trustee and uncle of Elizabeth Cabell), 43, 45 Fox, Sir Stephen, 126, 257 n. 47 Frampton, Robert, Bishop of Gloucester, and TW/HW escapade at Great Barrington, 158–61, 264–65 n. 10, 265nn. 12, 14, 15 and 18, 266n. 21 Frederick William, elector of Brandenburg, and Lord Wharton, 193, 273n. 11 French, Eleanor (‘‘Nell’’), Wharton governess, 19 Gainsborough, Edward Noel, first earl of, 217

INDEX

Gale, Theophilus, TW/GW tutor, 19– 31, 236nn. 19 and 21, 236–37 n. 23, 237 nn. 30, 31 and 34; The Court of the Gentiles, 237n. 30; The True Idea of Jansenisme, 28, 238 n. 52 Galway. See Ruvigny George I (king of England), 37, 239 n. 43 George of Denmark, Prince, 228, 234 Gerrard, Sir Gilbert, 260 n. 46; and the ‘‘information,’’ 136–37 (nn), 260 n. 48 Gibson, William, 279 n. 3 Gifford, Bonaventure, Catholic bishopelect of Madura, 215–16 Gilbert, Thomas, Nonconformist minister, 19, 23, 38, 239 n. 1 Glorious Revolution (1688), 7, 155, 220–31, 279nn. 1, 3, and 7, 280nn. 25, 26, 27, 28, 35, and 36 Godfrey, Charles: joins William, p of O, at Exeter with TW, 226–27, 280 n. 26; as M.P. from Malmesbury (1689), 229; and Monmouth, 135, 259 n. 38; and Treason Club, 221, 279 n. 3 Godfrey, Sir Edmund Berry: death of, 97–98, 99, 105–6, 114, 116, 250n. 12, 252n. 59; effigy of in pope-burning processions, 133, 156; and Oates’s narrative, 90, 98 Godfrey, Michael (brother of above), 156 Godolphin, Sidney, first earl of Godolphin, 279n. 11 Goodwin, Colonel Arthur (maternal grandfather of TW), 13, 14 Goodwin, Jane (mother of Jane, Lady Wharton; maternal grandmother of TW), 14, 235 n. 16 Goodwin, Jane. See Wharton, Jane, ne´ e Goodwin Gordon, George Gordon, duke of, 194 Grafton, Henry Fitzroy, duke of, 224, 228 Grafton, Isabella Fitzroy, duchess of, 217 Graham. See Preston Gray’s Inn, admission of HW to, 72, 246 n. 15 Great Barrington, Gloucester, church at. See St. Mary Church

301

Green Ribbon Club: membership of, 134, 258 nn. 27 and 33, 259nn. 34 and 36; as sponsor of London popeburning processions (17 November 1679, 1680, 1681), 133–34, 140–41, 156 (nn), 169 Gregory, Sergeant William, Speaker of the HC, 122 Grenville. See Bath Grey of Warke (or Werke), Ford Grey, third Baron, and later first earl of Tankerville: and the ‘‘information,’’ 136–37 (nn), 260 n. 48; and Monmouth, 167, 170; and Oxford Parliament, 263n. 42 Griffin, Edward, first Baron, and ‘‘Colonel N——n’s Account of the Revolution,’’ 279 n. 3 Griffiths, George, Nonconformist minister, 42 Grove, John, 86, 89, 91 (nn) Gunter, Frances, Wharton family servant, 17, 237n. 37 Gunter, John (husband of above), Lord Wharton’s chief steward, 44, 47 Gwinn, Sir Rowland, and the ‘‘information,’’ 136–37 (nn), 260 n. 48 Gwynn, Nell, 150, 161, 266n. 33 Habeas corpus Act, and Halifax, 272n. 1 Hackett, Thomas, candidate for M.P. from Bucks (1685), 180, 181, 182, 270 n. 27, 271n. 35 Hales, Sir Edward, 199, 200 Halifax, George Savile, first marquess of, 256 n. 39; Letter to a Dissenter, 210, 212–13; and Monmouth, 171; and popish succession, 126, 128, 130, 131, 139, 140, 261n. 66; as Privy Councilor, 125, 128, 140, 141–42, 272 n. 1; and TW, 259 n. 36 Hampden, John (son of Richard), 70; and Rye House Plot, 167, 170, 171, 173–74, 175, 178, 179, 268 n. 22, 269 n. 8, 270 n. 28; and strategies for parliamentary elections of 1679 (two), 116–22, 128–30, 255–56 n. 19; visit with AW in Paris (1681), 145, 262 n. 12

302

INDEX

Hampden, Letitia (wife of Richard), 255 n. 16 Hampden, Richard (father of John): as M.P., 137, 179, 183, 255 n. 65, 263n. 31; and strategies for parliamentary elections in 1673, in Spring 1679, in 1681, and in 1685, 47, 116–21, 143, 149, 179, 180, 181, 255–56 n. 19, 263 n. 28, 270n. 28 Harleston, racetrack at, 175 Harrington, John, Shaftesbury’s agent, 245 n. 30 Hart, Francis, Nonconformist merchant, 43, 44, 240 n. 22 Hartforth manor, Yorkshire, 246 n. 16 Hartshorn, Nathaniel, 167 Harvey, Sir Eliab, M.P., 111 Hastings. See Huntingdon Hatton, Charles, 135, 259 n. 41 Hatton, Christopher, second Baron and first Viscount Hatton, 203–4 Haughton. See Holles, John Healaugh manor, Yorkshire, 235 n. 18; fairs and markets at, 211 Heraclitus Ridens, Tory periodical, 149, 263 n. 32 Herbert, Admiral Arthur, and later earl of Torrington, 220 Herbert, Sir Edward, lord chief justice 191, 274 n. 10, 279n. 11 Herbert, James, M.P., 179–80 Herbert. See also Powys hereditary right, Oxford University on principles of (July 1683), 169 Hesket, Mr., Exeter lawyer, 43, 46 Hieron, Samuel, of Honiton, agent of Lord W, 43, 45, 46, 48 Holles, Denzell, first Baron Holles of Ifield, 239n. 39, 255 n. 65; and TW/ GW in Paris, 33, 34, 35, 36, 239nn. 21 and 41 Holles, John, styled Lord Haughton, and later third duke of Newcastle, 208 Holles. See also Clare Hone, William, 167 Honikson, Mr., Wharton family music master, 236 n. 15 horse racing: and Louis XIV, 165, 267 n. 48; and Monmouth, 115–16, 155, 164–65, 184; and TW, 46, 51,

72–73, 76, 79, 115–16, 155, 164–65, 184, 188, 246–47 n. 19, 247 n. 20; and William, p of O, 78, 79. See also racetracks horses: Baynton’s bay gelding, 132; Lord Wharton’s, 15, 235n. 6; sent to TW/GW in Paris, 33–34; TW’s, 15, 51, 73, 79, 116, 132, 164–65, 167– 68, 175, 246–47 n. 19, 247n. 20, 267n. 48, 267 n. 12; TW’s and Monmouth, 184; TW’s training in horsemanship in France, 21; Wharton’s Gelding, 116, 165; at Winchendon, 15, 70 Hough, Dr. John, president of Magdalen College, Oxford, 214, 215, 278 n. 36 House of Commons (HC): and absent members, 62, 11, 244n. 13, 254 n. 54; address to James II in re Test Act, 192–94; and attempts to remove prominent Tories from office, 140, 141–42; Committee of Privileges and Elections of, 47, 123, 137, 183, 241 n. 42; Committee of Secrecy of, 123, 126, 256 n. 34; and debate on removal of James, duke of York, from Privy Council and king’s presence (1678), 103–4; and distrust of Charles II (1678), 55–56, 249 n. 47; and exemption of James, duke of York, from anti-popish legislation, 107, 253 n. 36; and impeachment of Danby, 112–13, 123–25, 256 nn. 36 and 38; and judicial powers of HL, 62, 67, 244 n. 8; lists of members of (1676), 244 n. 14; and marriage of James, duke of York, to Mary of Modena, 57; militia resolution of (1685), 192–93; and nomination of William and Mary, prince and princess of Orange, to fill vacant throne, 230–31; and permission for TW to visit Lord Wharton in the Tower, 67; and Popish Plot, 100, 105–6, 108, 253n. 30; and Pride’s Purge, 12, 43; rights and privileges of, 122, 123, 138; vs. royal prerogative, 80, 151. See also bribery; elections, parliamentary; Parliament; placemen; supply bills House of Lords (HL): and anti-popish

INDEX

legislation, 106–7, 109; and the four Opposition Lords in the Tower (1677), 65–67, 68, 74, 75, 245nn. 35, 36, 37, and 40; and impeachment of Danby, 113, 123–25; and James II’s speech rebuking HC (Nov. 1685), 196; judicial powers of, 62, 67, 75, 244 n. 8, 245 n. 36; and popish succession and exclusion, 139–40, 141, 142, 261 n. 69; and right of bishops to vote in death penalty trials (1679), 124–25, 127; and trial and conviction of Stafford, 142, 261 n. 74. See also Parliament Howard, Philip Thomas, Cardinal Norfolk, 253 n. 33 Howard, William, third Baron Howard of Escrick, 170, 173, 268 n. 22, 268– 69 n. 33 Howard. See also Norfolk; Stafford Howe, John Grubham, M.P. (father of ‘‘Jack’’ Howe), 132 (nn), 258n. 26 Howe, John (‘‘Jack’’) Grubham (son of above), M.P., 132, 222, 258n. 26 Howe, Sir Scrope, 136–37 (nn), 260n. 48 Huguenots: in Caen, 20–21; persecution of by Louis XIV, 191 Huitson, Captain John, 72, 246 n. 14 Hungerford, Sir Edward, and the ‘‘information,’’ 136–37 (nn), 260n. 48 Huntingdon (or Huntington), Theophilus Hastings, seventh earl of, 279n. 11; and the ‘‘information,’’ 136–37, 260 n. 48 Hutton, Mr., Wharton family servant, 19 Hyde, Edward, styled Viscount Cornbury, 224, 226, 227, 280 n. 32 Hyde. See also Clarendon; Rochester, Laurence Hyde ‘‘Immortal Seven,’’ and invitation to William, p. of O, to invade England, 201, 220, 274n. 20, 279 n. 1 Indulgence, Declaration of. See Declaration of Indulgence ‘‘information,’’ the, on James, duke of York, as Catholic (1680), 136–37, 260 n. 48 Ingoldsby, Sir Richard, 130

303

Innocent XI, pope: dispute of with Louis XIV (August 1687), 224–25, 280 n. 20; and the five Catholic Lords in the Tower, 101; and Popish Plot, 250 n. 9 Ireland: Catholics in armed by James II, 194; James II’s policy on, 205–6, 231, 276 nn. 41, 42, 46, and 48; proposed risings in and Popish Plot, 86, 89, 91, 101, 249–50 n. 8, 250 nn. 9 and 15; Wharton property holdings in, 205 Ireland, William, 91, 92, 251 n. 29 James, duke of York, 60, 73, 107; as Catholic, 55, 77, 106, 136–37, 138, 253 n. 33, 260nn. 48 and 50; children of, 202, 253n. 35, 275 n. 24; and Exclusion bills, 96, 115, 116, 126, 138– 40, 157, 261 n. 68; and exemption from anti-popish legislation, 107, 253 n. 36; exiles and returns of, 123, 127, 130–31, 132, 157; and GW’s speech in re in HC, 138–39, 141, 178, 260–61 n. 58; and Louis XIV, 80, 94–96, 138, 151, 256 n. 31, 263 n. 43; loyal addresses to (1683), 169, 268 n. 15; marriage of to Mary of Modena, 56–57, 58, 243 nn. 12 and 18; and Monmouth, 130–31, 171, 172, 268 n. 29, 269 n. 36; and oaths of allegiance and supremacy, 106, 107; offices of, 56, 103, 253n. 19; and Popish Plot, 85, 86–87, 91, 94– 96, 99, 102, 103, 109–10, 250 nn. 10, 11, and 12, 254 n. 47; and popish succession, 102, 103–5, 126, 151; and Rye House Plot, 166, 169, 170; and Test Act, 56, 107–8; Tory support for, 150–51, 157; Whig offensive against, 136–37, 182, 260n. 48. See also James II (king of England) James II (king of England): and Anglican Church and ecclesiastical commission, 177–78, 183, 191, 199, 213, 221–22; Catholic officers in army of, 190, 191, 199, 200, 273n. 14; and Declaration of Indulgence (1687; reissued 1688), 209–11, 213, 220, 221– 22, 278n. 41; deposed by Convention Parliament, 230; and Dissenters, 198,

304

INDEX

199, 203, 211, 213; and duel between HW and Robert Moxam, 203; and ecclesiastical commission, 199, 200, 215; first speech to his Privy Council, 177, 269 n. 7; and invasion of England by William, p of O, 225–30, 280 n. 36; and Ireland, 205–6, 231, 276 nn. 41, 42, 46, and 48; and Lord Wharton, 13, 187, 198, 211–12, 277 n. 21; and Louis XIV, 177, 178, 195, 224, 225, 269n. 12; loyal addresses to, 184, 211–12, 213, 277n. 28; and money bills, 178, 183, 190, 193, 269 n. 11, 271n. 46; and Monmouth’s Rebellion, 184–86, 271 n. 51; Parliament of, 178, 183, 190–91, 195, 196, 215, 278n. 35; and pregnancy of Queen Mary of Modena , 214, 216–17, 219, 222–23, 275 n. 24, 278 n. 51, 279n. 13; and presidency of Magdalen College, Oxford, 214– 16, 277n. 34, 278 nn. 35, 36, 37, and 39; proclaimed king, 6 February 1685, 176; and re-remodeling of corporations to ‘‘pack’’ a parliament, 209, 210, 212, 215, 217, 220, 222; and revision of the judiciary, 191; royal progress of (16 August–17 September 1687), 214; satirized in ‘‘A Faithful Catalogue of our Most Eminent Ninnies,’’ 217, 278 n. 43; strategies of for reestablishing Catholicism in England, 198–200, 202, 204–6, 209–11, 212, 213, 214, 216, 217, 277 n. 20; and Test Act, 190–96, 200, 205, 209–12, 217, 221, 272n. 1, 274 n. 20, 277n. 20; and Tory party views on succession, 202, 209–10, 229, 231, 275 n. 25; and touching for King’s Evil, 214; and TW, 176–77, 179, 184, 198, 223; and William Penn, 211, 277 n. 18. See also James, duke of York James Francis Edward Stuart, prince of Wales: birth of 223; as suppositious, 222–23 Jeffreys, Sir George, first Baron Jeffreys of Wem, 170, 217; and ecclesiastical commission, 200–201, 274 n. 10; ennobled by James II and appointed lord chancellor (1685), 191;

estate of in Bucks, 182; HC attempt to remove from all his offices, 138, 141; and John Sharp, 202; and strategy to defeat TW in 1685 Bucks election, 179, 180–81, 182–83 Jeffreys, Dr. James (brother of above), 187 Jenkins, Sir Leoline, secretary of state, 139, 141, 167, 168 Jennings, Sir Edmund, 193 Jennison, Thomas, 92 Jephson, William, 70; joins William, p of O, at Exeter with TW, 226–27, 280n. 26; and parliamentary elections of August 1679, 1685, and 1689, 130, 179, 229, 270 n. 17; as William III’s English secretary, 227 Jermyn. See Dover Jesuits, English: and Bedloe, 105–6, 253n. 30; ‘‘consult’’ of in London (1678), supposed vs. actual, 86–87, 250nn. 10, 11, and 12; and death of Godfrey, 97–98; and Popish Plot, 84, 85, 86, 89, 90, 92, 93, 97, 102, 252n. 8, 253 n. 18 John of Austria (Don Juan the Younger), 109 Johnson, Samuel, on first Whig, 52 Jones, Sir William, attorney general: and trial of Coleman, 106, 109, and trial of Stafford, 142 judiciary, English: James II’s revision of, 191; and support of James II’s power over the law, 202 Kemeys, Sir Charles (husband of Mary Wharton and brother-in-law of TW), 132, 258 n. 22, 277n. 21 Kemeys, Mary, ne´ e Wharton (Thomas). See Wharton, Mary Keynes, John, 89, 250 n. 18 King’s Bench: and case of Sir Edward Hales, 199, 200; dismissal of Middlesex Grand Juries, 137, 260n. 48; revision of by James II, 191; ruling of on Test Act, 200 King’s Evil, James II touches for, 214, 277n. 33 Kirkby, Christopher, 84, 88, 249n. 2 Kirke, Colonel Percy, 224

INDEX

Kit-Cat Club, pope-burning procession of 1711 of, 134, 259 n. 35 Kneller, Sir Godfrey: his Kit-Cat Club portrait of TW, 32; TW’s collection of his paintings, 15 Knollys, Francis, 204 La Chaise, Franc¸ ois d’Aix de, confessor to Louis XIV, 250 n. 20; and Coleman letters, 91, 92–93, 94–95, 96, 109, 110, 251n. 45, 254 n. 48; as Jesuit spymaster, 89, 91, 251 n. 31 Langston, Lt. Colonel Thomas, and delivery of his regiment to William, p of O, 223–24, 226, 227, 279 n. 3, 280 n. 32 Latimer, Edward Osborne, Viscount, 129, 179–80 Lauderdale, John Maitland, second earl of and first duke of, 71, 83, 242–43 n. 1, 243 n. 4 League of Augsburg, 224 Leake. See Scarsdale Lee, Anne. See Wharton, Anne, ne´ e Lee (AW) Lee, Anne, ne´ e Danvers (mother of Eleanora and Anne Lee), 48–49, 242 n. 51 Lee, Eleanora. See Abingdon, Eleanora, ne´ e Lee, Bertie, countess of Lee, Sir Francis Henry (paternal grandfather of AW), 48 Lee, Sir Henry (father of AW), 247n. 14; death and will of, 48–49, 242 nn. 51 and 57 Lee, Sir Thomas, M.P., 67, 118, 119, 229, 280 n. 18 Lee. See also Lichfield Leeds. See Danby Le Fevre, James (or Jacques), Huguenot tutor of TW/GW in France, 20, 21, 23, 24, 31 Legge. See Dartmouth Lely, Sir Peter: Lord Wharton’s paintings by, 15; portrait of Anne Lady Wharton by, 236n. 10 L’Estrange, Roger, 140, 156 Lichfield, Edward Henry Lee, first earl of, 217; his regiment of foot, 223, 228 ‘‘Lilliburlero,’’ TW’s song of the Glori-

305

ous Revolution, 206–7, 228, 276n. 47, 280n. 34 Lindsey, Elizabeth, ne´ e Wharton, Bertie, countess of. See Wharton, Elizabeth Lindsey, Robert Bertie, third earl of (husband of Elizabeth Wharton; brother-in-law of TW), 275n. 36; marriage of to Elizabeth Wharton and their family, 17–18, 41 (nn), 62, 235 n. 4, 240 n. 12, 259n. 36, 270 n. 21 Lindsey, Robert Bertie, fourth earl of. See Bertie Lindsey. See also Bertie List of one unanimous Club of Voters, 255 n. 15 Lister, Dr. Martin, 33 (nn), 239n. 23 Littleton, Sir Thomas, 254 n. 52, 255 n. 65 Locke, John, 64, 169, 245 n. 25, 268 n. 17 Lockhart, George (nephew of TW), 132, 258 nn. 20 and 21 Lockhart, Sir George (father of above; husband of Philadelphia Wharton; brother-in-law of TW), 132, 258n. 19 Lockhart, Philadelphia, ne´ e Wharton. See Wharton, Philadelphia London, citizens of: and Exclusion Bill (1680), 139, 140; and Monmouth, 135, 136, 157, 184, 259n. 40; and pope-burning processions, 156; and Popish Plot, 102, 252–53 n. 16; and return of James, duke of York (1682), 157 London, City of, charter of revised and replaced, 157, 164, 169, 213, 264 n. 8, 268 n. 19, 277nn. 29, 32 London Grand Jury: and finding of Ignoramus in case against Shaftesbury, 156, 157, 164 Long Parliament (Charles I’s), 12 Long Parliament (Charles II’s). See Parliament, Cavalier Lords spiritual and temporal, as provisional government (1688), and Guildhall Declaration of, 229, 281 n. 38 Louis, dauphin of France (1661–1711), 35 Louis XIV (king of France), 60, 77; and

306

INDEX

Anglo-Dutch wars, 35, 56; army of, 34, 191; bribes to M.P.s by, 62, 80, 81, 112–13, 126, 127, 254 n. 52, 263 n. 31; coalition of William, p of O, vs. (1677), 63, 68, 74; frontiers of and Anglo-Dutch alliance, 80, 248 n. 32; and James II, 177, 225, 269 n. 12; and marriage of James, duke of York, to Mary of Modena, 56, 243 n. 12; and marriage of William, p of O, to Princess Mary Stuart, 79, 248n. 27; and Pope Innocent XI, 224–25, 280 n. 20; and Popish Plot, 86, 109, 249–50 n. 8; TW/GW visit to Court of, 35; trade war with the Dutch, 224, 225, 280 n. 19; treaties with and subsidies for Charles II, 52, 53, 55, 59, 62, 63, 68, 74, 77, 79, 80, 81–82, 111, 112, 113, 143, 151, 153, 155, 177, 243–44 n. 22, 244 n. 16, 245 n. 20, 248 nn. 35 and 40, 249 nn. 45, 48, 50, and 51, 263 n. 43 (see also Dover, Treaty of—secret; Dover, Treaty of— sham); and Wharton’s Gelding, 165 Lovelace, John, third Baron Lovelace, 70, 136, 166, 222; and horse racing, 155, 247 n. 20 ‘‘Lover’s Session, The,’’ HW satirized in, 273n. 21 Lower, Dr. Richard, AW’s physician, 186 Lowther, Sir John, 230 loyal addresses: to Charles II, 131, 155, 264 n. 58; to James, duke of York, 169, 268n. 15; to James II, 184, 211– 12, 213, 277 n. 28 Lumley, Richard, Baron Lumley of Lumley Castle, and later first earl of Scarborough, 220 Macky, John, description of TW by, 32, 70, 238n. 13 Magdalen College, Oxford, fellows of, and James II’s appointment of Catholic president for, 214–16, 277n. 34, 278 nn. 35, 36, 37, and 39 Maitland. See Lauderdale Malmesbury, Wiltshire: manor at, 117; parliamentary elections at, 117, 255 n. 6

Manchester, Margaret Montagu, countess of, 244 n. 2 Mansfield, Captain Thomas, 72 Manton, Dr. Thomas, Dissenting minister, 246 n. 4 Marie-The´ re`se of Austria (queen of Louis XIV of France), 35 Market Lavington, Wiltshire, Lee manor at, 144, 261 n. 5 Markham, Sir Robert, 139 Martin, Colonel Francis (second husband of Jane Goodwin; step-grandfather of TW), 14, 40 Martin, Jane (Goodwin) (wife of above; maternal grandmother of TW), 40 Marvell, Andrew, 85; death of, 202, 251n. 50; on Lord Wharton’s apology to Charles II (1677), 75 (nn), 247n. 7; and TW marriage negotiations, 14, 43, 76, 240n. 23 Mary I (queen of England), 133, 274 n. 5 Mary II (queen of England), 77, 239 n. 43, 263n. 44. See also Mary Stuart, princess of Orange Mary Beatrice (queen of James II of England). See Mary of Modena Mary of Modena, ne´ e Marie Beatrice d’Este (queen of James II of England): marriage of to James, duke of York, 56–57, 58, 243nn. 12 and 18; problems with childbearing, 214, 275n. 24; pregnancy of (1687–88), 216–17, 219, 222–23, 278 n. 40 Mary Stuart, princess of Orange: as heiress apparent to English throne, 57, 151, 185; marriage of to William, p of O, 77–78, 79, 82, 247–48 n. 18, 248n. 28, 253 n. 35; as Protestant, 202, 253 n. 35. See also Mary II (queen of England) Mason, Mrs., friend of AW’s, 168 Matthew, Thomas, TW’s blacksmith, 270n. 26 Mead, Matthew, Nonconformist minister, 41, 240 n. 14 ‘‘Meal Tub Plot,’’ 135 Mecham, ‘‘Nurse,’’ Wharton family servant, 17 Melfort, John Drummond, first Viscount, 279n. 11

INDEX

Meres, Sir Thomas, M.P., 103–4, 122 Mews, Peter, bishop of Winchester, 214–15 Middlesex Grand Jury, and Whig ‘‘information’’ that James, duke of York, is Catholic, 137, 182, 260 n. 48 Middleton, Charles, second earl of Middleton, 184, 279 n. 11 militia, London: Charles II’s control of (1679), 136, 259 n. 44; and Popish Plot, 102, 252–53 n. 16, 259n. 44 militia, Scots, 194 militia resolution (1685), 192–93 Milton, John, 12 Mohun, Charles, fourth Baron Mohun of Okehampton, 245n. 30 money bills. See Parliament: military supply bills; Parliament: supply bills of and Exclusion Monmouth, James Scott, duke of, 134, 175; his attempts at legitimization, 58, 116, 130–31, 136, 184, 243 n. 18, 260 n. 46; and city of Oxford (1680), 150, 263 n. 38; and Dryden’s ‘‘Absalom and Achitophel,’’ 156; execution of 186, 193, 202–3; exile and return of (1679 , 132, 135, 136, 157, 184, 259 nn. 38, 40, and 42; exile of (1683), 174, 184, 269n. 36; and James II, 171, 172, 186, 271 n. 51; and Lord Wharton, 136, 259 n. 41, 273 n. 11; progresses of in Cheshire (1682) and Chichester (1683), 164, 267 nn. 45 and 49; and rebellion of Scots Covenanters (1679), 130; and Rye House Plot, 167, 170, 171–74, 268 nn. 14, 22, 31, and 32, 268–69 n. 33, 269n. 36; and Shaftesbury, 131, 134, 136, 259n. 41; Soho Square, London, mansion of, 197; and TW, 115–16, 155, 164–65, 172, 184, 185, 186, 267 n. 48, 268–69 n. 33; Whig cronies of, 135, 259n. 41; and Wildman, 171, 185, 186, 271 n. 47. See also Monmouth’s Rebellion Monmouth, Robert Carey, first earl of (paternal great-grandfather of TW), 235 n. 20 Monmouth’s Rebellion, 56, 170, 184, 185–86, 268n. 14, 271 nn. 49, 50, and 51

307

Montagu, Ralph, and later earl of Montagu, English minister at Versailles (1678), 81, 111–12, 113 Montagu. See also Manchester Moray, Alexander Stewart (or Stuart), fourth earl of, 279 n. 11 Mordaunt. See Peterborough Moxam, Lieutenant Robert, duel with HW, 203 Muker, Yorkshire, manor at, 16 Mulgrave, John Sheffield, third earl of, and later first Marquis of Normanby and first duke of Buckingham, 201, 274 n. 16, 279n. 11 Musgrave, Sir Christopher, 230 Musgrave, Sir Philip, 245 n. 29 Nantes, Edict of, 191 Newcastle. See Holles, John Newhaven, See Cheyne Newmarket, horse races at: and Charles II, 75, 90, 93, 251 n. 52; and TW, 73, 246–47 n. 19, 247n. 20, 248 n. 20; and William, p of O, 78, 79, 248n. 20 Newport, Richard, 66–67, 245 n. 40 Newport Pagnell, Bucks: Bucks parliamentary election of 1685 moved to, 182; racetrack at, 181, 208 Nijmegen, Peace at (1678), 79, 81, 82, 111, 249 n. 49 Noel. See Gainsborough Nonconformist ministers, Lord Wharton as patron of, 38, 39, 40, 43 Nonconformists. See Dissenters nonresistance to monarchs, doctrine of, 64 Norfolk, Henry Howard, seventh duke of: and HW’s outrage in Tunbridge Wells, 187; regiment of, 186, 271 n. 53 Norfolk, Mary (‘‘Moll’’ or ‘‘Molly’’) Howard, duchess of, HW’s mistress, 197, 273 n. 21 Norfolk, Philip Thomas Howard, Cardinal, 253n. 33 Norreys. See Abingdon, James Bertie North, Sir Francis, lord chief justice, 95 Northumberland, Algernon Percy, fourth earl of, 239 n. 20 Norton, Ambrose, 227, 280 n. 18; ‘‘Col-

308

INDEX

onel N—n’s Account of the Revolution,’’ 279 n. 3 Nottingham, Daniel Finch, second earl of: as Daniel Finch, 104, 139; as second earl of, 201, 203–4 Nottingham, Heneage Finch, first earl of: as Sir Heneage Finch 59; as first earl of, 81, 99–100 (nn), 153, 249 n. 47 navy, English: and money from Parliament, 59, 60; and Third Anglo-Dutch War, 53 Oates, Samuel (father of Titus Oates), 249 n. 4 Oates, Titus, 83, 94, 177, 249n. 4; and Coleman letters, 89–98, 101; and James, duke of York, 102–3, 253 n. 18; his narratives of the Popish Plot, 84–85, 87, 88–90, 93, 249 n. 5; testimony of before Privy Council, Parliament, and at various trials, 90–92, 101, 108–9, 110, 123, 142, 251nn. 29, 31, and 32, 260 n. 52 oaths of allegiance and supremacy, 106, 199 Observator. See L’Estrange, Roger occasional conformity, bill against (1705), 161 officeholders (placemen), in HC (1675), 62, 64 Oldmixon, Elnor (sic), ne´ e Bawdon, 240 n. 20 Oldmixon, John, senior (husband of above), 43, 240 n. 20 Oldmixon, John, junior, author of TW’s memoirs, 43, 199, 240 n. 20, 278n. 50 O’Neale, Mr., Popish Plot assassination target, 253n. 30 Opposition party. See Country (Opposition) party Orford. See Russell original contract, Tory version of vs. James II, 199 Orle´ ans, Henrietta Anne, duchesse d’ (‘‘Madam’’), 35 Orle´ ans, Philippe I, duc d’ (‘‘Monsieur’’), 35 Ormonde, James Butler, first duke of, 89, 224, 228, 253 n. 30

Osborne. See Danby; Latimer Ossory, Thomas Butler, styled earl of, 253n. 30 Owen, Dr. John, 38, 239 n. 1 Oxford, City of: Council of, 150, 222, 263n. 38; as host of Oxford Parliament (1681), 150 Oxford Declaration of 1683, 278n. 36 Oxford University, 17, 150, 169, 268 n. 16. See also Magdalen College, Oxford, fellows of Paget, William, sixth Baron Paget, 128 Palmer. See Castlemaine Panton, M., TW/GW landlord in Paris, 32 Paris, TW/GW trip to (1665–66), 21, 32–35 Parish, Mary: burial of, 275 n. 22; and GW, 162, 178, 188–89, 203, 224; and John Wildman, 171, 178 Parker, Samuel, bishop of Oxford, 215 Parliament: and military supply bills, 52, 53–54, 55, 57, 59, 60, 62, 63–64, 68, 79, 80–81, 82–83, 99, 111, 113, 138, 139, 142, 183–84, 243 n. 10, 244n. 17, 245 n. 19, 249 n. 51, 260n. 55; and money to Charles II, 82, 178, 249n. 50; and money to James II, 183–84, 192, 193, 194, 271 n. 46; powers and privileges of vs. royal prerogative, 55, 57, 62, 64, 66, 68, 73, 106–7, 123–24, 126, 128, 151, 152, 153, 177–78, 198, 209–10, 245n. 36, 253n. 32, 277 n. 12; supply bills of and Exclusion, 142–43, 151. See also House of Commons; House of Lords ——Cavalier Parliament: session of 4 February–29 March 1673, 53–54, 55–56; session of 27 October–4 November 1673, 57–58; session of 7 January–24 February 1674, 58–60, 73; session of 13 April–9 June 1675, 61–62, 73; session of 13 October–22 November 1675, 62–64; session of 15 February–28 May 1677, 65–68; session of 28 January–15 July 1678, 79–82, 111; session of 21 October–30 December 1678, 93, 99–109, 110–14, 252 n. 8, 253n. 36, 255n. 65;

INDEX

dissolution of (24 January 1679), 113, 116, 120, 255n. 65 ——First Exclusion Parliament: session of 6–13 March 1679, 122–23; session of 15 March–27 May 1679, 115, 123–27, 128, 256 n. 34 ——Second Exclusion Parliament, 21 October 1680–10 January 1681, 137–43 ——Oxford (third Exclusion) Parliament, 21–28 March 1681, 148, 151– 53, 169, 263 nn. 39, 42, and 46 ——Parliament of James II: first session, 19 May–2 July 1685, 183–84; second session, 9–20 November 1685, 190–96, 273 nn. 4 and 8; dissolution of (2 July 1687), 210–11, 212 ——Convention Parliament (first session, 22 January–22 August 1689): and the succession, 152, 229, 230, 231 Paulet. See Winchester Pawlet, Robert, 254 n. 48 Peace at Nijmegen. See Nijmegen, Peace at Penn, William, and James II, 211, 277 n. 18 Pennington, Mr., his note warning of arrests in Rye House Plot, 166 pensions and pensioners. See bribery; officeholders Percy. See Northumberland Perkins, Benjamin, Nonconformist minster, 42, 240n. 16 Perkins, John, Wharton family servant, 17, 19; and Gale, 26–27, 236 n. 21; with TW/GW in France, 20, 21, 23– 24, 27, 35 Peterborough, Henry Mordaunt, second earl of, 56, 147, 279 n. 11 Petre, Father Edward, James II’s Jesuit confessor, 217, 278 n. 41, 279 n. 11 Petre, William, fourth Baron Petre, and Popish Plot, 101, 110, 111 Pickering Thomas, and Popish Plot, 86, 89, 91 (nn) placemen (officeholders), in HC, 62, 64 Pomponne, Simon Arnauld de, French ambassador to the Dutch Republic (1669), 248 n. 22 pope-burning processions, 169, 258 n.

309

27; of November 17, 1679, 133–34, 258 nn. 28, 29, 30, and 31; of November 17, 1680, 140–41; of November 17, 1681, 156; of 1711, proposed by Kit Cat Club, 134, 238n. 53, 259 n. 35 Popham, Alexander (son of Lady Wharton; stepbrother of TW), 18, 37, 236 n. 10 Popham, Anne, ne´ e Carr. See Wharton, Anne, ne´ e Carr (Popham), Lady Popham, Colonel Edward (first husband of Lady Wharton), 18, 236nn. 9 and 10 Popham, Letitia (‘‘Lizzie’’; daughter of Lady Wharton; stepsister of TW), 18, 19, 37, 42–43, 213, 236n. 10, 240 n. 20 Popish Plot (1678), 7, 64–104, 142, 150, 249 nn. 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, 249– 50 n. 8, 250nn. 9, 10, 11, 12, 18, 20, 23, and 25, 251 nn. 29, 31, 32, 34, 35, 43, 45, and 52, 252 n. 59, 253n. 18 popish succession: and Anglican Church (1682), 157, 161; and Charles II, 104–5, 125, 126, 128, 131, 137, 139, 152, 157, 253n. 26; fears about, 57, 58, 102, 104, 128, 130–31; and HC (see Exclusion bills; Exclusionists); and HL, 139–40, 141, 142, 261 n. 69; and James, duke of York, 102–3, 103–5, 126, 136, 151, 202, 275 n. 25; and limitations on power of popish king, 68, 105, 126, 128, 137, 140; and Rye House Plot, 169–70, 174; and Tory party, 202, 209–10, 229, 231, 275 n. 25 Porter, Lady Diana, 132–33 Porter, George, gentleman of the bedchamber of Charles II, 132–33 Porter, George (son of above), 132–33 Portsmouth, Louise-Rene´ e de Ke´ roualle, duchess of, 150 Powle, Henry, M.P., 103–4, 126, 254n. 52 Powys, Elizabeth, ne´ e Somerset, countess of, 135 Powys, William Herbert, first marquess of, 101, 110, 279n. 11 Prance, Miles, 114 prerogative, royal, 55, 57, 62, 64, 66,

310

INDEX

68, 73, 106–7, 123–24, 126, 128, 151, 198, 209–10, 245n. 36, 253 n. 32, 277n. 12; vs. statutory law, 151, 152, 177–78, 183 Preston, Richard Graham, first Viscount, 196, 279 n. 11 Pride’s Purge, 12, 43 Privy Council of Charles II: and Popish Plot, 89–94, 250n. 23, 251 n. 37; remodeling of (1679), 125–26, 127, 257 n. 43; and Treaty of Dover– secret, 52, 243 n. 7 Privy Council of James II, 177, 204, 217, 224, 278 n. 41, 280 n. 18 Protestants, English: and Popish Plot, 95, 97, 102; and popish succession, 105, 128, 257 n. 1; and pregnancy of Mary of Modena, 216, 222 Protestant succession of 1714, 155 ‘‘Protestant wind,’’ 206–7, 276 n. 48 Proto-Whig party. See Country (Opposition) party Purbeck, Isle of, 102 Pyrenees, Treaty of the (1659), 248n. 32 Quainton Meadows, racetrack at, 15, 73, 132, 155, 188 Quakers, and Declaration of Indulgence, 211 racetracks: state and political business conducted at, 73, 78. See also Banstead Downs; Brackley; Burford; Campfield; Datchet; Delamere Forest; Harleston; Newmarket; Newport Pagnell; Quainton Meadows; Wallasey Radcliffe, Dr. John, physician to AW and to William and Mary, 188, 272 n. 62 Radnor, John Robartes, first earl of, 50, 203, 242 n. 58, 275n. 34 Ravenstonedale, Westmorland, manor at, 16, 235 n. 18 regency schemes, 151, 152, 231, 263 n. 44 Reresby, Sir John, 200, 250n. 11, 256n. 33 Revolution of 1688. See Glorious Revolution

Rich. See Warwick, Robert Rich Rich, Lady Mary, as potential wife for TW, 41, 42 Rigby, Edward, M.P., 111 Rights, Declaration of. See Declaration of Rights Rivers. See Colchester Robartes. See Radnor Rochester, Anne, ne´ e St. John (Lee) Wilmot, dowager countess of (grandmother of AW), 262n. 15; and AW’s visits to, 147, 186, 188; and TW/AW marriage settlement, 48–50, 242 n. 51 Rochester, Henry Wilmot, first earl of (second husband of above), 48, 49 Rochester, John Wilmot, second earl of Rochester (half-uncle of AW), 48, 55, 130, 247 n. 14; and AW, 76, 145–47, 247n. 14, 262 n. 16, 267 n. 43; character of, 146, 262 n. 15; death of, 145–46, 163, 261n. 5 Rochester, Laurence Hyde, first earl of (1682): as Hyde, 79, 104, 139, 141– 42, 151, 263n. 43; as Rochester, 201, 206–7, 274 n. 10, 276n. 41 Robinson, Sir John, lieutenant of the Tower, 67 Romerill, Philip, TW tutor, 17, 19, 236n. 16, 237 n. 37 Romney. See Sidney, Henry Rose Tavern, Covent Garden, London, 221, 279 nn. 3 and 8 Rouse, John, 167 Royalist party. See Court (later Tory) party Rumsey, John, 170 Rupert, Prince, Count Palatine of the Rhine and Duke of Bavaria, 90, 142 Russell, Edward, later (1697) first Earl of Orford, 220, 221, 279 n. 1 Russell, Rachel (wife of William, Lord Russell), 49, 242 n. 53 Russell, William, styled Lord Russell, 70, 80, 103–4, 134, 139; and the four Lords in the Tower, 66–67, 245n. 40; and the ‘‘information,’’ 136–37, 260n. 48; and Rye House Plot, 166– 175, 193, 268 nn. 22 and 23 Russell. See Bedford Ruvigny, Henri de Massue, sieur de,

INDEX

and later marquess and earl of Galway, envoy of Louis XIV, 80, 81, 94, 248 n. 38 Ruyter, Michiel Adriaanszoon de, Dutch admiral, 53 Rycote, Oxfordshire, estate of the earl of Abingdon, 49, 153 Rye House Plot (July 1683), 166–67, 171, 174–75, 184, 268 nn. 14, 22, 31, and 32, 268–69 n. 33, 269n. 36 Sacheverell, William, M.P., 103–4, 105 Sackville. See Dorset, Charles Sackville St. Giles-in-the-Fields Church, London, church of 1630, 202, 275 nn. 21 and 22 St. Mary Church, Great Barrington, Gloucester, and TW/HW escapade at, 157–62, 265 nn. 14 and 15, 266n. 21 St. Mary Magdalene Church, Winchendon, Bucks, 14, 69, 189, 235 n. 18 St. Paul’s Church, Wooburn, Bucks, 218, 235 n. 18 Salisbury, James Cecil, third earl of, sent to the Tower by HL, 65–66, 74, 75, 245nn. 35, 36, and 37 Sambrooke, Mrs., lodgings of in Salisbury Close, 144 Sancroft, William, archbishop of Canterbury, 199, 201, 209, 220, 274nn. 10 and 19; and TW/HW escapade at Great Barrington, 159, 160, 264– 65 nn. 10, 14, 15, and 18 ‘‘Satire on Both Whigs and Tories,’’ 266 n. 30 Saunderson. See Castleton Savage. See Colchester Savery, Servington, 43, 44, 48 Savile, Henry, English ambassador to France, and later vice chamberlain, 145, 174 Savile. See also Halifax Sawyer, Sir Robert, attorney general, 171, 198, 199 Scarborough. See Lumley Scarburgh, Sir Charles, Mary of Modena’s physician, 278 n. 40 Scarsdale, Robert Leake, third earl of, 204, 217, 276n. 37 Schism Bill (1714), 29, 238 n. 54

311

Schooneveld, naval battle of (1673), 53, 242 n. 53 Scots Covenanters, rebellion of (1679), 130 Scott. See Buccleuch Scroggs, Sir William, chief justice, 106, 109–10, 137, 170, 254nn. 47 and 48, 260 n. 52 Sedgemoor, battle of, 186, 271n. 50 Seven Anglican bishops, the, and Declaration of Indulgence, 213, 220, 221–22, 277 n. 12, 279n. 11 Seymour, Sir Edward, Speaker of the House, 67, 112 (nn), 122; joins the Opposition, 192, 193; joins William, p of O, at Exeter, 227–28 Seymour. See also Somerset, Charles Seymour Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper, Baron Ashley and first earl of, 85: arrest of for treason, 155, 156–57, 264 n. 5; dismissal of, 58, 243n. 18; and Dryden’s ‘‘Absalom and Achitophel,’’ 156; election strategies of (1679), 118, 122, 256n. 25; escape to Holland and death of, 164, 169, 193; and the ‘‘information,’’ 136–37, 260 n. 48; as leader of Proto-Whig party, 58, 60, 64–66, 67–68, 114, 124–25, 245 n. 30, 256n. 39; his A Letter from a Person of Quality to his Friend in the Country, 64, 245 n. 25; as lord chancellor, 52, 54, 56, 58, 242–43 n. 1, 243 nn. 2, 4, 18, and 19; and Monmouth, 131, 134, 136, 259 n. 41; and Oxford Parliament, 150, 151, 263 nn. 40 and 42; and Popish Plot, 96, 253n. 30; and popish succession, 103, 108, 113, 131, 170, 260 n. 47; and Privy Council, 125, 128, 131, 132; his rating system for M.P.s, 122, 255 n. 15, 256n. 26; sent to Tower by HL, 65–66, 68, 74, 75, 245 nn. 35, 36, and 37; and TW, 65, 122, 245 n. 30, 259n. 36 Shaftesbury. See also Cooper, Anthony Ashley Shap, Westmorland: fairs and markets at, 211; manor at, 16 Sharp, Dr. John, rector of St. Giles-inthe-Fields, and later archbishop of York, 200, 201–2, 274n. 13, 275n. 23

312

INDEX

Sheffield. See Mulgrave Shepherd, Thomas, 170 Shirley, Dr. Thomas, 244n. 8 Shrewsbury, Charles Talbot, twelfth earl of, and later (1694) first duke of, 220 Sidney, Algernon: and Rye House Plot, 167, 169, 170, 175, 268n. 22; trial and execution of, 170–71, 173, 174, 193 Sidney, Henry, later first earl of Romney, invitation in handwriting of to William, p of O, to invade England, 220, 279 n. 1 Skelton, Bevil, English envoy to France, 197, 225, 274n. 24 smallpox, 24–25, 35–36 Smith, John, chief Jesuit intelligence agent in England, 89, 92 Smith, Sir William, 255n. 15 Smith’s Protestant Intelligence: Domestic and Foreign, Whig periodical, 149, 263 n. 28 Smyrna fleet, Dutch, 53 Solebay, naval battle at (1672), 53, 242 n. 53 Somers, John, first Baron Somers, 230, 240 n. 20 Somerset, Charles Seymour, sixth duke of, 275 n. 26 Somerset, Henry Worcester, third marquess of, and later (1682) first duke of Beaufort, 141–42 Somerset. See also Powys, Elizabeth Somerset House, London, and Popish Plot, 105–6, 108 Southwell, Sir Robert, clerk of the Privy Council 92, 93, 99, 100, 253n. 26 Southwold Bay. See Solebay Spaen, Alexander, baron von, 187, 273 n. 11 Spencer, Robert, styled Lord Spencer, 204, 276 n. 37 Spencer. See also Sunderland Sprat, Thomas, bishop of Rochester, 201, 207, 274 n. 10, 276–77n. 11 Stafford, William Howard, first Viscount, and Popish Plot, 101, 110– 111, 114, 142, 261nn. 71 and 74 Starkey, Samuel, 167, 168, 267 n. 6

Steele, Sir Richard, on TW, 125, 256n. 41 Stucley, Lewis, of Exeter, 43, 241 n. 40 Sunderland, Robert Spencer, second earl of, secretary of state, 167, 201, 205, 274 n. 10, 276n. 41, 278 n. 35, 279n. 11; and Lord Wharton’s passport (1685), 187, 272 n. 56, 273 n. 11 Supply bills. See Parliament: military supply bills; Parliament: supply bills of and Exclusion Swaledale, Yorkshire, Wharton holdings in, 12, 46, 234 n. 6 Swift, Jonathan, 161, 266 n. 31 Talbot. See Shrewsbury Talmash, Colonel Thomas, 227, 279 nn. 3, 7 Tangiers, English garrison at, 138, 142, 260n. 55 Tankerville. See Grey of Warke Taylor, William, chaplain/secretary to Lord Wharton, 255 n. 17 Temple, Sir Richard (‘‘Timber’’), and elections for M.P. from town of Buckingham, 129, 130, 179, 180, 181, 255 n. 15 Temple, Sir William, 77, 125 Test Act, 55, 243 n. 9, 253 n. 19; and James, duke of York, 56, 107–8; and James II, 190–96, 200, 205, 209–12, 217, 221, 272 n. 1, 274 n. 20, 277 n. 20. See also Parliament: Cavalier Parliament (sessions of 1673–74) Texel, naval battle at (1673), 53 Thomas, Anne (daughter of Mary Wharton; niece of TW), 96, 247 n. 10, 275n. 34 Thomas, Edmund, of Wenvoe Castle, Glamorganshire (father of William; father-in-law of Mary Wharton), 76, 242n. 54 Thomas, Edmund (son of Mary Wharton; nephew of TW), 76, 242 n. 54, 247n. 10, 275 n. 34, 277 n. 21 Thomas, William (first husband of Mary Wharton; brother-in-law of TW), 49, 76, 242n. 54, 247 n. 9 Thompson, Sir John, 197 Thynne, Thomas, and the ‘‘information,’’ 136–37 (nn), 260 n. 48

INDEX

Tonge, Dr. Israel: The Jesuits Morals, 249 n. 3; and Popish Plot, 83–91, 123, 250 nn. 18 and 23 Torrington. See Herbert, Admiral Arthur Tory party: and anti-popish demonstrations (1711), 238n. 53; beginnings of, 7, 77, 131–32; and defection to William, p of O, 227–28; and Exclusions Parliaments, 137–43, 151; and opposition to James II, 194, 195–96, 201, 210, 211, 273n. 4, 277n. 17; ‘‘reaction’’ against Exclusion, 150, 157, 164, 165, 169–70, 178, 183, 267 n. 44; and return of James II as figurehead after Glorious Revolution, 229; and support for James II, 177, 178, 179, 183, 184, 190–91; and term ‘‘Tory,’’ 131. See also Court (later Tory) party Tower of London. See five Catholic Lords in the Tower; four Opposition Lords in the Tower; seven Anglican bishops, the Towser. See L’Estrange, Roger Towser the Second. See Dryden, John trained bands. See militia, London Travell, Sir Thomas, 229 Treason Club: and army conspiracy against James II, 221, 223, 279 nn. 3 and 7; membership of 221, 224, 226, 279 n. 3; on suppositious prince of Wales, 223 Treaty of Dover. See Dover, Treaty of Treaty of the Pyrenees (1659), 248 n. 32 Trenchard, John, 171, and the ‘‘information,’’ 136–37 (nn), 260n. 48 Trevor, Sir John, Speaker of HC, 183, 195 Turberville, Edward, 142 Turenne, Henri de La Tour d’Avergne, vicomte de, 34 Tyrconnel, Richard Talbot, as lord deputy of Ireland, 204–6, 276nn. 41, 42, 46, and 48 Uniformity, Act of, 209, 212 Vandyke, Sir Anthony: Lord Wharton’s collection of works of, 15; portraits

313

of Lord and Lady Wharton by, 15, 235 n. 19, 235n. 1 Vane, Christopher, M.P., 254 n. 60 Verney, Edmund: on AW’s final illness, 272 n. 62; dinners with TW/AW at Claydon House, 204, 269n. 44; and support for TW in Bucks elections, 119, 120, 255–56 n. 19, 257 n. 3 Verney, John, 267 n. 7; on earl of Abingdon and fellows of Magdalen College, Oxford, 216, 278n. 39; on rumored appointment of Lord Wharton to Privy Council, 280n. 18; on TW/HW escapade at Great Barrington, 265 n. 16; on TW and Jane Dering at Tunbridge, 186, 187, 272 n. 60 Verney, Sir Ralph: and AW, 168, 175, 186, 188, 267 n. 8; on Archbishop Sancroft, 274n. 19; and Buckinghamshire parliamentary elections, 117, 119, 128, 130, 162, 180, 181, 257 n. 3, 270 nn. 24, 26, and 30; on character of TW and his escapades, 161–62, 265 n. 16; on HW outrages and escapades, 187, 188, 265 n. 16; and TW marriage negotiations with Mrs. Cabell, 241n. 45; on TW’s horse racing, 246–47 n. 19; as trustee of Anne Lee (later AW) estate, 49, 50, 144, 242 n. 50, 246n. 19; and Wharton family, 15, 16, 49, 50, 75, 168, 175, 204, 247n. 6, 267n. 8, 269 n. 44; on William Penn, 277 n. 18 Villiers. See Buckingham Waddesdon, Bucks, manor at, 13, 15, 49, 235n. 18 Wakeman, Sir George, physician to Catherine of Braganza, 86, 91, 92, 101, 133, 260 n. 52 Walcot, Thomas, 167 Wallasey, racetrack at, 164 Waller, Edmund, 76, 146, 262 n. 17; TW’s speech in re militia wrongly attributed to, 273 n. 8 Wallis, Dr. John, 18, 150 Walter, Lucy (mother of Monmouth), 260 n. 46 (nn) Wandesford, William, and the ‘‘information,’’ 136–37 (nn), 260n. 48 Warcup, Edmund, 259 n. 36

314

INDEX

Ward, Sir Patience, 197 Warton (or Wharton), Michael of Beverley, M.P., 113, 254 nn. 50 and 60 Warwick, Sir Philip, M.P., 104 Warwick, Robert Rich, third earl of, 41 Warrington. See Delamere Wendover, Bucks, parliamentary elections at, 47, 55, 117, 119, 121, 241 nn. 41, 42, and 43 Wentworth, Henrietta, mistress of Monmouth, 167 West, Robert, 170 Westbury, parliamentary elections at, 255 n. 6 Westminster Assembly of Divines, 14 Westmorland (county): parliamentary election (Spring 1679) and TW, 118; Wharton holdings in, 12, 234 n. 6 Weston, Bucks, manor at, 13 Wharton, Anne, ne´ e Carr (Popham), Lady (Lady Wharton; stepmother of TW), 18–19, 20, 39, 213, 247n. 6; images of, 18, 236 nn. 9 and 10 Wharton Anne (sister of TW; wife of William Carr), 13, 17, 20, 27, 30, 234–35 n. 10, 236 n. 15; marriage of, 39–41, 42, 240 nn. 5 and 17 Wharton, Anne, ne´ e Lee (wife of TW): birth of, 48–49, 242 n. 50, 267 n. 43; and Burnet, 162, 163–64; charitable works of, 175, 188; death, funeral, and bequests of, 188, 189, 197, 272n. 62, 68; described, 50; and Dryden, 76; fertility problems of, 74, 76; and GW, 147, 148, 162, 189, 262 n. 20; and lawsuits vs. the Berties in re her property, 255 n. 6, 272 n. 67; and marriage negotiations and settlement with TW, 48–50, 242 n. 57; marriage of to TW, 49, 50, 51, 117; and Marvell and Waller, 76, 262n. 17; as poet, 50, 76, 147–48, 163, 175; property division with her sister Eleanora, 49, 50, 144, 153–54, 261n. 1, 264nn. 53, 54, and 55, 272 n. 67; recurrent illness of, 143, 144–45, 148–49, 154, 162, 175, 186, 187, 261 n. 5, 262n. 8; and the second earl of Rochester (her half-uncle), 76, 145–47, 247n. 14, 267 n. 43; and TW, 15, 148–49, 154– 55, 163, 165, 181, 262 n. 25, 264 nn.

56 and 57, 267n. 43, 270 n. 33; and trip to France for her health (1681), 143–49, 154, 262n. 25; and trips to Lavington and Salisbury for her health, 82, 144, 261n. 5; and Verney family, 168, 175, 267n. 8, 269n. 44 ——works: ‘‘Elegie on John Earle of Rochester,’’ 146–47, 163, 262n. 16; ‘‘On the Storm between Gravesend and Dieppe,’’ 145; poetic paraphrase of chapters 1–5 of Jeremiah, 262 n. 21 Wharton, Arthur (brother of TW; died in infancy), 11, 234 n. 2 Wharton, Elizabeth (half-sister of TW; wife of Robert Bertie, third earl of Lindsey), 13, 41, 234 n. 8, 234–35 n. 10; marriage of to Robert Bertie, earl of Lindsey, and family of, 17–18, 41, 62, 235n. 4, 240n. 12, 270 n. 21 Wharton, Elizabeth, ne´ e Wandesford (first wife of Lord Wharton), 11, 234n. 3 Wharton, Frances (sister of TW; died young), 235 n. 13 Wharton, Goodwin (GW; brother of TW): and AW, 147, 148, 162–63, 188–89, 262n. 20; and birth of prince of Wales, 222; character and personality of, 20, 30, 72, 246 n. 17; childhood and education of, 13, 18, 19, 20–37, 235 nn. 12 and 15, 236nn. 21, 22, and 23, 237nn. 25, 30, and 37, 237–38 n. 47, 239n. 23; and Green Ribbon Club, 134, 258n. 33, 259n. 36; illnesses of, 20, 24–25, 236n. 22, 237 n. 47; inheritance of, 46, 72, 241 n. 38, 246 n. 16; and John Wildman, 171; journals of, 147, 262n. 20; and Lord Wharton, 187, 272n. 57, 274 n. 2; and Mary Parish, 147, 162, 178, 197, 222; parliamentary career of, 130, 178, 203, 257 n. 9; 275 n. 32; satirized in ‘‘A Faithful Catalogue of our Most Eminent Ninnies,’’ 278 n. 43; speech of in HC in re James, duke of York, 138–39, 141, 178, 260–61 n. 58; on stepmother and siblings, 18, 77, 258 n. 19, 278 n. 48; and TW, 72, 162–63, 203, 224, 226; trip to Wharton Hall, with Lord

INDEX

Wharton and TW, 70, 246n. 7; and William, p of O, 228–29, 280 n. 35 Wharton, Henry (HW; brother of TW): army career of, 72, 186, 223, 228, 246 n. 14, 271n. 53, 271 n. 53; baptism of, 235 n. 14; childhood and education of, 13–14, 17, 20, 21, 71, 236 nn. 15 and 23; death of, 271– 72 n. 54; on death of Charles II and accession of James II, 176–77; and elections for M.P. at Malmesbury and Westmorland, 178, 230, 270 n. 17; escapades, outrages, and duels of, 141, 157–60, 161, 186, 187, 203, 204, 221, 266 n. 33, 272 n. 60; and Gray’s Inn, 72, 246n. 15; and horse racing, 188; and invasion of England by William, p of O, 226, 228, 280 n. 26; mistresses of, 197, 273n. 21, 279 n. 8; personality and reputation of , 71, 76–77, 161–62, 220–21; portrait of, 235 n. 1; report of on his brothers (November 1685), 196–97, 273n. 20; and Treason Club, 221; and TW, 72, 76, 186–87, 196, 197, 213–14 Wharton, Jane (sister of TW; died young), 11, 234 n. 4 Wharton, Jane, ne´ e Goodwin, Lady (second wife of Lord Wharton; mother of TW), 11, 13, 17, 41, 235 n. 1 Wharton, Margaret (sister of TW; wife of Major Dunch, of Sir Thomas Seyliard, and of William Ross, twelfth Baron Ross), 13, 234–35 n. 10, 236 n. 15, 238n. 13; children of, 76, 247 n. 12; marriage of to Dunch, 49, 242n. 55 Wharton, Mary (sister of TW; wife of William Thomas and of Sir Charles Kemeys): childhood of, 13, 17, 20, 21, 235n. 11, 236 n. 23; death of, 237 n. 41; and HW, 77, 196, 220–21, 273 n. 20, 277n. 21; marriage of to Kemeys (1678), 132, 213–14, 258 n. 22; marriage of to Thomas (1673) and family of, 49, 76, 242n. 54, 277 n. 21; and TW, 208, 220, 273– 74 n. 23, 275 n. 34; and unfinished portrait by Wissing, 208 Wharton, Lady Philadelphia (paternal grandmother of TW), 15, 235 n. 20

315

Wharton, Philadelphia (daughter of Lord Wharton and his first wife Elizabeth Wandesford; died in adolescence), 11, 234 n. 3 Wharton, Philadelphia (sister of TW; wife of Sir George Lockhart and of Captain John Ramsay), 13, 20, 21, 234–35 n. 10, 235n. 13, 236 nn. 15 and 23; marriage of to Lockhart, 132, 202, 258 n. 19 Wharton, Philip, fourth Baron Wharton (Lord Wharton; father of TW), 239n. 26, 258n. 20; advowsons of as lay patron of Anglican churches, 14, 211, 235 n. 18; and Charles II, 75, 235 n. 6, 247 n. 7; and conventicles, 244 n. 2; and Cromwell, 11, 12–13, 212, 234 nn. 1, 5, and 8; and education of HW, 71–72; and education of TW/ GW in France, 23–37, 237n. 42, 237–38 n. 47, 239 n. 22; and English Civil Wars, 11; and Farnley Woods Plot, 237n. 42; gardens of, 15, 18; and GW’s speech in re James, duke of York, 260–61 n. 58; horses of, 15, 33–34, 235 n. 6; and invasion of England by William, p of O, 224, 225, 226; and James II, 13, 187, 198, 211– 12, 277n. 21; London townhouses of, 12, 18, 197, 203, 235 n. 7; and marriage arrangements for his daughters, 39–41, 42, 49, 240 nn. 5 and 17; marriage of to Anne, ne´ e Carr, Popham (1661), 18; marriage of to Elizabeth Wandesford (1632), 11, 234 n. 4; marriage of to Jane Goodwin (1637), 11, 13; marriage negotiations for TW, 38–50, 240 n. 23, 241n. 38, 242 n. 57; and Marvell, 14, 43, 240 n. 23, 247 n. 7; and Monmouth, 136, 259n. 41, 273n. 11; as patron and collector of art, 14–15; as patron of Independent and Presbyterian clergy, 14, 38, 40, 65, 198, 211; personality and wealth of, 14, 38, 70, 159; portraits of, 15, 235 n. 19, 235n. 1; properties of, 12, 15–16, 70, 205, 234nn. 6 and 7, 235 n. 20, 246nn. 7 and 16; public and political life of, 17, 33, 107–8, 113, 120, 124, 134, 198, 203, 224, 256 n. 39, 258 n. 17, 280n. 18; his re-

316

INDEX

lationship with his children, 14–15, 23, 26, 27, 76, 118, 237 n. 37, 278n. 50; sent to the Tower by HL, 65–66, 74–75, 245 nn. 35, 36, and 37, 247 nn. 6 and 7; and Shaftesbury, 65, 245 nn. 29 and 30; and TW, 11, 27, 70–71, 144, 159, 234 n. 1; and TW’s election as M.P. from Buckinghamshire (1679), 116, 117–18, 120, 121, 255 n. 17; and trip to the Continent (August 1685), 186–87, 193, 197, 198, 203, 272 nn. 56 and 57, 274n. 24; and William III, 229, 281 n. 38 Wharton, Philip (son of Lord Wharton and his first wife Elizabeth Wandesford; died at birth), 11, 234 n. 2 Wharton, Sir Thomas (paternal grandfather of TW), 235n. 20 Wharton, Sir Thomas (uncle of TW), 14, 69 Wharton, Thomas, fifth Baron Wharton, and later first earl and first marquess of (TW): birth of, 11; character, personality, and temperament of, 12, 20, 24, 28, 30, 33, 45, 78, 115, 120, 125, 182, 239n. 22, 256 n. 41; and Charles II, 70, 130, 136, 176–77; childhood, upbringing, and education of, 13–37, 235 n. 15, 236 n. 21, 236–37 n. 23, 237 nn. 25, 30, 34, 37, 41, and 42, 237–38 n. 47, 238 n. 53, 239nn. 22, 23, 28, and 42; and Danby, 62, 113, 125, 179–80, 244 n. 14, 270n. 21; description and portraits of, frontispiece, 32, 78, 208, 238 n. 13, 263n. 32, 271 n. 54; and Devonshire, 208, 276n. 7; duels of, 50–51, 208, 242 n. 61, 276n. 4; and early marriage negotiations, 43–48, 240 nn. 21, 22, 23, and 24, 241 nn. 27, 29, 38, 45, and 49; and ecclesiastical commission, 201; escapades and outrages of, 132–33, 141, 157–62, 179, 204, 264–65 n. 10, 265nn. 12, 14, 16, and 18, 266 nn. 21, 31, 32, and 33; and the four Opposition Lords in the Tower, 66–67, 245 n. 40; friendship of with Tories (1686), 203–4; and Glorious Revolution, 221, 224, 226– 28, 279nn. 1 and 3, 280 nn. 26 and 27; and Green Ribbon Club, 134–35,

259n. 34; and horse racing, 70, 72– 73, 76, 78, 79, 115–16, 132, 155, 164–65, 175, 181, 184, 203, 208, 216, 246–47 n. 19, 247n. 20, 248 n. 20, 276n. 48; horses of (see horses: TW’s); and hunting, 78–79, 248 n. 23; illnesses and injuries of, 12, 20, 35–36, 50–51, 115, 167, 168, 181, 246–47 n. 19; and the ‘‘information,’’ 136–37, 182 (nn), 260 n. 48; and James II, 176–77, 179, 184, 198, 223; and ‘‘Lilliburlero,’’ 206–7, 228, 276n. 47, 280 n. 34; and Magdalen College fellows, 216; as member of HL (1701), 125, 257 n. 42; memoir of by Oldmixon, 43, 240n. 20, 278 n. 50; mistress of, 50, 76, 186–88, 196, 197, 217, 271–72 n. 54, 272 n. 60; and Monmouth, 115–16, 155, 164– 65, 172, 184, 185, 186, 267 n. 48, 268–69 n. 33; nickname, titles, and signature of, 7, 13, 38, 237n. 43; offices held by, 15, 37, 79, 150, 222, 224, 227, 263 n. 38, 280n. 17; and politics (see Wharton, Thomas: as M.P. and Whig party leader); properties and London townhouses of, 16, 50, 51, 70, 117, 197, 202, 203–4, 242n. 58, 246 n. 7, 248n. 23, 273– 74 n. 23, 275 nn. 34 and 36; and religion, 14, 22, 25, 27, 28, 41–42, 70, 162, 238 n. 53, 246n. 4; his reputation of as a rake, 50, 162–62, 184, 217, 221, 278 n. 43 (see also Wharton, Thomas, escapades and outrages of); and Rye House Plot, 166–69, 174–75, 267n. 6, 268n. 14, 268– 69 n. 33; and Shaftesbury, 65, 118, 122, 245 n. 30, 259n. 36; and Sidney trial, 170; and Verney family, 49, 175, 204, 269 n. 44; and William, p of O, 78, 227, 248 n. 20 (see also Wharton, Thomas: and the Glorious Revolution); and William and Mary, 227, 230, 280 n. 17 ——and AW: and her affair with GW, 162; courtship and marriage of, 49, 50, 51, 117, 242 n. 53; and her death and burial, 189, 191–92, 197, 272n. 68; and her health-seeking journeys, 82, 143, 145, 154, 261 nn. 1

INDEX

and 5; and her illnesses, 144–45, 188, 189, 261n. 5, 262n. 8; her letters to TW from Paris, 148–49, 154, 262 n. 25; marriage negotiations and settlement with, 48–50, 242 n. 57; and property division between AW and her sister Eleanora, 48, 49, 50, 153–54, 255 n. 6, 261 n. 1, 264 nn. 53 and 54; their relationship, 148–49, 154, 155, 165, 181, 267 n. 43, 270n. 33 ——and family affairs: as co-trustee of brother-in-law Major Dunch’s estate, 132; and GW, 72, 162–63, 203, 228–29, 280n. 35; and HW, 72, 76; and Lord Wharton, 27, 70–71, 138, 187; and his sister Anne, 240 n. 17; and his sister Mary, 213–14, 220, 273–74 n. 23; and WW, 175, 218 ——as M.P. and Whig party leader, 195, 211; apprenticeship of (1673– 78), 52, 55, 58, 60, 62, 78, 81, 111, 244 n. 14, 254n. 50 and 60; and Parliament of 1679, 103–4, 105, 113, 114, 117, 123, 254 nn. 50 and 60; and Parliament of 1680–81, 137, 141, 260 n. 53; and Oxford Parliament (1681), 152, 155, 263n. 48; and Parliament of 1685, 183, 192–196, 273 n. 8; and Convention Parliament, 230, 231 ——parliamentary elections and election strategies of, 15; in 1673, 47, 55, 117, 241 nn. 41 and 42; in 1679, 116–22, 128–30, 182, 255 n. 17, 256 n. 24; in 1681, 142, 145, 149, 263 n. 28; in 1685, 178, 179–83, 217, 270 nn. 26 and 27, 271 n. 37; in 1689, 229 Wharton, William (WW; half-brother of TW), 19, 37, 178, 202, 236n. 14; death of and duel with Robert Wolseley, 217–19, 278nn. 44, 47, 48, and 49; mistress of, 197, 218, 273 n. 22 Wharton family: and Black Death (1665), 239 n. 26; daily regimen of, 18, 19, 23, 236 nn. 13 and 15; early history of, 12; friendships and political alliances of, 16, 47, 49, 216, 222; and Jane, Lady Wharton’s death,

317

17–18; nicknames in, 13, 19, 235n. 15; servants of, 13–14, 17, 161 Wharton Hall, Westmorland, 12, 70, 234 n. 7, 246 n. 7 Whig clubs, London, 135, 259n. 37; and pope-burning processions, 133– 34, 140–41, 156, 169 Whig party: and army disbandment, 111, 254 n. 52; beginnings of (1675– 77), 7, 52, 55–56, 60, 64, 96, 131–32; and Convention Parliament, 230; and election of 1685, 178, 179, 183, 193, 270 n. 16; and James, duke of York, 138–39; and James II, 176– 77, 193, 196, 214, 229, 273n. 4, 281 n. 38; and Monmouth 136, 172, 184, 259 nn. 41 and 42; and Oxford Parliament (1681), 150–51, 169, 263 nn. 40, 42, and 44; and popish succession, 103–4, 130, 136–38, 151, 182, 260 n. 48; and Reasons for the Indictment of the D. of York, 137, 260 n. 50; and regency schemes, 151, 152, 231, 263 n. 44; and Rye House Plot, 169–74; and Second Exclusion Parliament, 137–43; and term ‘‘Whig,’’ 131; TW as leader of (see Wharton, Thomas: as M.P. and Whig party leader); and Tory ‘‘reaction’’ against Exclusion, 150–157, 164, 165, 169–70, 178, 183, 267 n. 44. See also Country (Opposition) party Whitbread, Thomas, 91, 251n. 29 White, Thomas, bishop of Peterborough, 276–77 n. 11 Whorwood, Brome, M.P., 150 Wildman, John: and Mary Parish, 171, 178; and Monmouth, 171, 185, 186, 271 n. 47; and Rye House Plot, 167, 171; and visit with Lord Wharton at Emmerich, 197, 272n. 57 William, prince of Orange (William, p of O): anti-French coalition of, 63, 68, 74, 77, 78; appearance and character of, 37, 78–79, 239 n. 43, 248 nn. 21 and 22; invasion of England by, 201, 220–29, 279n. 1; and James II, 223, 274 n. 20; and Lord Wharton, 229, 281 n. 38; marriage of to Princess Mary Stuart, 77–78, 79, 82, 247–48 n. 18, 248nn. 20 and 28,

318

INDEX

253 n. 35; and Monmouth’s Rebellion, 185, 202–3; and Third AngloDutch War, 53, 56 William and Mary, prince and princess of Orange, nominated by Convention Parliament to fill vacant throne, 230 William III (king of England): and pardon of Robert Wolseley, 278 n. 47; and rewards to his supporters, 79, 224, 227, 229, 280n. 17 Williams, William, Speaker of the House, 137 Williamson, Sir Joseph, secretary of state, 104; and narrative and testimony of Oates, 90, 92, 97, 250nn. 23 and 25 Willis, ‘‘Madam’’ Sue, and TW/HW prank, 132–33, 161, 258 n. 25 Wilmot. See Rochester Winchendon, Bucks, manor of: as home for HW, 72; as Lord Wharton’s property and principal residence, 12– 21, 49; as part of TW/AW marriage settlement, 50, 51; search for arms at in re Rye House Plot, 167–69, 267 n. 6, 268 n. 14; as TW’s principal residence, 69–70, 72–73, 247n. 21. See also St. Mary Magdalene Church, Winchendon Winchester, Charles Paulet, sixth mar-

quess of, and later first duke of Bolton, 117 Winchilsea, Heneage Finch, third earl of, 217 Winnington, Sir Francis, solicitor-general, 104, 112, 256 n. 38 Winslow, Bucks, and parliamentary election of August 1679, 129 Wiseman, Sir Richard, 62, 244n. 14 Wissing, William: death of, 208–9; and unfinished portraits of Jane Dering, Mary, ne´ e Wharton, Kemeys, and TW by, 208, 271–72 n. 54 Wolseley, Sir Charles, 280 n. 18 Wolseley, Robert, duel of with WW and WW’s death, 217–19, 278nn. 44, 47, and 49 Wooburn, Bucks, manor of: as part of TW/AW marriage settlement, 46, 241n. 38; and permission from James II to hold fairs and markets at, 211; as property and principal residence of Lord Wharton, 12, 13, 15, 17, 18, 37, 235n. 5 Worcester. See Somerset, Henry Worcester Worsley, Dr. Benjamin, 43, 240nn. 21 and 23 Wright, Alderman William, 150 Yarborough, Henrietta, WW’s mistress, 197, 218, 273 n. 22