HOUGH James had not been popular as heir-presumptive to the crown, he had no sooner got it on his head than loyal addresses poured in upon him from all sides, for the attachment manifested towards the throne on these occasions refers rather to the upholstery than to the individual. In his capacity of Duke of York, few would have exclaimed, "York, you're wanted!" to fill the regal office, but when he had once succeeded to it, every one was ready to declare that the diadem became him as if it had been expressly made for him.

James and his wife were greatly puzzled about their coronation, for they had an objection to the ceremony being performed by a Protestant prelate, and unfortunately for them "No other was genuine, own conscience—a party, by the way, that is sometimes not very obstinate in coming to terms—James and his queen not only-accepted the crown from Protestant hands, but got over an awkward oath or two by means of some mental quibbles. As the crown was being put upon his head, it tottered and almost fell, which caused a bystander to paraphrase the old saying about the slip 'twixt cup and lip, exclaiming:

an observation that, happily for him who made it, was uttered in a tone that was scarcely audible.

A few days after the coronation, Titus Oates was brought to the bar of the Queen's Bench to be tried over again, though he was already under sentence of perpetual imprisonment. James, however, was desirous of feeding his revenge on Oates, who had done his worst against the Catholics; and Jeffreys, that judicial flail, was set to work to administer to Oates a sound thrashing.

The prisoner assumed a very bold front, and there was a sort of desperate restlessness in his manner, which got him the name of Wild Oates at the time he was undergoing his trial. He was convicted on two indictments, and ordered to pay a thousand marks in respect of each. "But," said the inhuman Jeffreys, "we will supply him with marks in return, for he shall be whipped from Aldgate to Newgate, and from Newgate to Tyburn." He was also granted a life interest, by way of annuity, in the pillory, where he was adjudged to stand five days every year, as long as he lived, and where voluntary contributions of eggs were shelled out in most unwelcome profusion by the populace.

Parliament met on the 22nd of May, 1685, and James delivered a speech from the throne, with notes introduced ad libitum, and a running accompaniment of threats, remarkable for their extreme impudence. This effrontery had its effect, for the Commons, having retired to their chamber, voted him an income of a million and a quarter for his life, with other contingencies which only required asking for. The Court party supported him with zeal, and chiefly recommended him as a king that had never broken his word, which appears to have placed him in the light of a royal phenomenon. In the midst of all this comfortable and complimentary confidence between the Parliament and James, news arrived that Monmouth had landed in the west, with a tremendous standard, round which the mob, who will rush anywhere to see a flag fly, were rapidly rallying. Monmouth had only got a force of one hundred men by way of nucleus to a larger assemblage, or, in other words, as the tag to which the string of rag and bobtail would be most likely to attach itself. The rebellion raised by Monmouth was very soon put down, and Monmouth himself was found cowering at the bottom of a ditch, in the mud of which he must have expired, had it not been for an opponent of his dy-nasty, who would not leave him to die in such a very disagreeable manner. Poor Monmouth was taken, tried, and condemned; and, not to be out of fashion, he gave money to the headsman—thus paying the costs of his own execution even upon the scaffold.

James proceeded to punish all whom he believed to be the enemies of his Government, with a sanguinary fury worthy of the revolutionary tribunals of France during the ascendency of Robespierre. Colonel Kirk, a soldier who had become savage by service at Tangier, and who, having once tasted blood, never knew when he had had enough of it, was sent to use the sword of war upon real or suspected rebels, while Jeffreys hacked about him right and left with the sword of justice. The king himself, with brutal appreciation of the judge's ferocious career, gave it the name of "Jeffreys' campaign," and this disgrace to the ermine inflamed by drink the natural fierceness of his character. He hiccuped out sentences of death with an idiotic stare of counterfeit solemnity, and he rolled about the Bench in such a disgraceful manner, that a junior, who had nothing to do in court but make bad jokes, observed that Jeffreys could never have acted as a standing counsel, and it was, therefore, lucky for him that he had been raised to a post of dignity which he could conveniently lean against. This monster in judicial form was elevated to the office of Lord Chancellor, with the title of Baron Wem, on the death of Lord Keeper North; when, by way of earning his promotion, Jeffreys went hanging away at a much more rapid rate than before, and the only misfortune was, that there was not sufficient rope for him to hang himself, notwithstanding the abundance of that material which was supplied to him. Jeffreys added to the trade of a butcher the less sanguinary pursuits of bribery and corruption, which enabled him to make a certain sum per head of the prisoners, while their heads remained upon their shoulders. He and Father Petre, the king's confessor, divided £6000 paid by Hampden, who was in gaol, to put aside a capital charge of high treason with which he had been threatened; and poor Prideaux, a barrister who had talked himself into the Tower by an unfortunate "gift of the gab," purchased his impunity for £1500, the probable amount of his entire life's professional earnings.

The Marquess of Halifax had sat at the council board for some time with Rochester, who, though swearing from morning till night, and drunk from night till morning, was the recognised head of the high church party, and the great hope of the religious section of the community. Halifax, not exactly liking the projects of his royal master, and the character of his colleague, turned a little refractory; and being dismissed from office, became in the natural order of things the leader of the opposition. His hostility told even upon the haughty Jeffreys, who was made to perform the unpleasant operation of biting the dust—a fate to which those who are always opening their mouths and showing their teeth are necessarily reduced when they are brought to a prostrate condition. James was so much disgusted and disappointed that he dissolved the Parliament, to avoid further discussion, thus as it were turning off the gas by which a light was being thrown upon his own real views and character.

The undisguised object of James was to Catholicise the whole country by dismissing from office all who had the slightest shade of Protestantism in their principles; and even Rochester, the head of the high church party, having got argumentative and disputatious over his drink, was turned out of the council. This ejectment was judicious in the main, though the immediate cause for it scarcely warranted the act; but the council room had been little better than a public-house parlour during the whole time that Rochester had been suffered to sit in it. James next drew up a declaration of liberty of conscience, to be read in all the churches, but the bishops, with very great spirit, resisted the introduction of the obnoxious document. They were consequently summoned on a charge of high misdemeanor before the King's Bench, when Jeffreys tried to cajole them with such amiable observations as "Now then, what's this little affair? There's some mistake, is there not? but we shall soon put it all to rights, I dare say;"—a style of conciliation to which the bishops did not take as kindly as the king and his creatures desired. The people were greatly in favour of the prelates, who were cheered on their way to their trial by an enthusiastic mob of juveniles; for it is worthy of remark, that the boys are ever in advance of their age, as the pioneers of popular opinion.

The jury, having in their own hearts an echo to the general voice, acquitted the defendants, after an adjournment and a locking up for a night, which had been rendered necessary by the obstinacy of a Mr. Arnold, the king's brewer, who supplied the palace with beer, and insisted upon putting what he called "nice pints," for the purpose of raising difficulties in the minds of his colleagues. A verdict of "Not guilty" was however eventually returned, and a round of applause having started in the court itself, passed from group to group till it got to Temple Bar, where the porters taking it up with terrific force, gave it a lift down Fleet Street, and it was thence forwarded by easy stages as far as the Tower. London was illuminated in honour of the occasion, and the Pope having been hanged in effigy, some wag put "a light in his laughing eye," which caused it to twinkle for a few moments, until, like the fire of genius, it consumed the frame in which it was deposited.

On the 10th of June, 1688, the queen, Mary d'Este, the second wife of James, was declared to have been delivered of a "fine bouncing boy," but the people, who would have no Papist heir to the throne, declared the alleged "bouncing boy" to be a bounce altogether. There was not over nicety in the mode chosen to account for the presence of the child, by those who would not believe that it was the son of the king and queen; but the most popular story was, that the little fellow had been brought in a warming-pan into the royal bedchamber. This was hauling the young Pretender rather prematurely over the coals, but as the contents of the warming-pan were never regularly sifted, we cannot vouch for the truth or falsehood of the account that has been handed down to us. The event, whether real or fictitious, was celebrated by a brilliant display of fireworks, which proved a sad failure; for the lightning, which was exceedingly vivid, completely took the shine out of the feu d'artifice, and thoroughly "paled," as if with a pail of cold water, "their ineffectual fires."

All eyes were now turned upon William, Prince of Orange, who, naturally enough, became as proud as a peacock at having so many eyes upon him. Having received a very pressing invitation from England, he determined to come over and question the legitimacy of the alleged Prince of Wales—our young friend of the warming-pan. On Friday, the 16th of October, 1688, William of Orange set sail, and stood over for the English coast; but old Boreas, who stands as sentinel over the British Isles, began railing and blustering in such a boisterous manner, that the invading fleet was driven out of its course, and the order on board every ship was to "Ease her," "Back her," or "Turn her astarn," to prevent a collision that might have proved disagreeable. The fleet, however, sailed definitively on the 1st of November, and arriving at Torbay on the 4th, he landed there amid the usual kissing of hands, grasping of legs, hanging on at the coat tails, and tugging affectionately at the cloak skirts, which form the ordinary demonstrations of affectionate loyalty towards any new object, who can bid tolerably high for it. Nevertheless, the people did not come out half so strongly as he could have desired; and, indeed, he complained that the warmth of his first reception had soon cooled down to mere politeness with the chill off. It is said that he even threatened to return, but recollecting that such quick returns would be productive of no profit, he abandoned the notion of going home, and said to himself, very sensibly, "Well, well! now I am here, I suppose I must make the best of it."

James was completely taken aback at the news of what had occurred, and tried to get up a little bit of popularity by turning quack doctor and running about in all directions to touch people for tne king's evil. It was, however, a mere piece of claptrap, or, as some term it, touch and go; for directly the people had been touched they were found to go without evincing the smallest symptoms of attachment to their doctor and master. James had certainly got a considerable number of soldiers; but he could not rely upon them for three reasons—first, because they were not to be trusted; secondly, because they were not to be depended upon; and thirdly, because there was no reliance to be placed upon them. Any one of these causes would of itself have been sufficient; but James was almost as difficult of conviction as the celebrated angler, who only abandoned his fishing expedition upon finding that there were, in the first place, no fish; secondly, that he had no fishing-rod; and thirdly, that if there were any fish, he did not think they would allow him to catch them.

The soldiers soon began to justify James's doubt of their fidelity, by rapidly deserting him. Lord Colchester went first, and the example was so catching that it ran through all the forces, and when James made up his mind to join the army, he made the mortifying discovery that there was nothing to join, for all the officers were unattached to the cause of the sovereign. The bishops advised him to call a Parliament, and the little Prince of Wales was packed off in a parcel, with "This side upwards" legibly inscribed on the crown of his hat, to Portsmouth. In the midst of his other distresses, the king's nose began to bleed, in consequence, it was said, of the repeated blows he had endured from the soldiery, who had flown in his face with the utmost disloyalty. He consequently made up his mind and his portmanteau to retreat, when, in stopping at Andover, he asked his son-in-law, Prince George of Denmark, and the young Duke of Ormond, to sup with him. They accepted the invitation; but in the morning they were both missing, having run off—without paying their bills—to join the Prince of Orange, whom they found in quarters. On arriving at Whitehall, James found that even his daughter Anne had followed her husband's example and joined the enemy.

As every one else was flying, James began to think that it was high time for himself to run for it. The little Prince of Wales, who had been forwarded to Portsmouth, was actually declined as a parcel on which the carriage had not been paid, and was sent back like a returned letter to London. The queen, putting the little fellow under her arm, walked over Westminster Bridge, popped into the Gravesend coach, and hailed a yacht, which took her and her infant to Calais. James, only waiting to pocket the great seal, ran after his wife; but finding the bauble heavy, and that the great seal, by making him look conspicuous, would perhaps seal his doom, he pitched it into the river. On reaching Lambeth they exclaimed, "Hoy, a hoy!" and a hoy was provided in which he took his passage; but the vessel putting in at the Isle of Sheppy for ballast, the people attacked him with great rudeness, and called him, without knowing who he was, a "hatchet-faced Jesuit." This proves he must have had a very sharp expression, for with a face like a hatchet, he would no doubt have had teeth like a saw, and presented altogether a rather formidable aspect. To save himself from outrage he announced himself as the king, but this disclosure had only the effect of making them rob as well as insult him, for knowing he had money of his own, they were determined to get it out of him. He was seized by a mob of fish-women, sailors, and smugglers, who turned his pockets inside out, and bullied him so severely that he howled out piteously for mercy, and adopted a favourite oath of his brother Charles's, when a salmon lighting rather heavily on his eye, he exclaimed, "Odds fish!" with considerable earnestness. He at length "put up" at the nearest public-house, where he wrote a note to Lord Winchilsea. Upon the arrival of this nobleman, the king sat down and had a good cry, but Winchilsea sagaciously observed to him, "Come, come; it's no use taking on so; you had much better take yourself off as speedily as possible."

The moment the flight of James from his palace was known, the city was thrown into the utmost excitement, and by way of making each other more nervous than need be, the inhabitants set all the bells ringing with incessant vehemence. The people might have knocked each other down with feathers, so agitated had they become; and in their frenzy they not only began burning all the Popish chapels, but looked everywhere for Father Petre to make the same use of him that his namesake saltpetre might have been turned to on such a very explosive occasion. Father Petre had taken himself off to France, but the pope's nuncio, who was in general denounced by the mob, disguised himself as a footman, and kept jumping up behind a carriage, to look as if he was in service, whenever he observed any one apparently watching him with suspicion. Judge Jeffreys having been stupidly intoxicated over some sittings in banco at a public-house, followed by a trial at bar of some cream gin that had been strongly recommended to his lordship for mixing, was unable of course to fly—or even to stand—but, disguised as a sailor, he was perambulating the streets of Wapping. Having been discovered, he was seized by the mob, who, instead of exercising a summary jurisdiction, and hanging him at once, as they might have done had they determined to pay him in his own coin, turned him over to the Lord Mayor as a preliminary to a regular trial.

A provisional Government of the bishops and peers was formed in London, and a note despatched to the Prince of Orange, saying, "that the first time he came that way, if he would drop in they should be very happy to see him." James showed considerable obstinacy before he could be got rid of; and he continued exercising, as long as he could, some of the smaller functions of royalty. He came back to London, and to the surprise of everybody, sat down to dinner as usual at Whitehall, forgetting, perhaps, that his father had taken a chop there on a previous occasion for having given offence to his people. Four battalions of the Dutch Guards were marched into Westminster by way of hint, which James for some time refused to take, and he had actually gone to bed, when Halifax roused him up by the information that he must start off to Ham, as the Prince of Orange was expected at Whitehall the first thing in the morning. James observed that the place suggested to him was very chilly, and as he could not bear cold Ham, he had much rather go to Rochester if it was all the same to Halifax. This was agreed to on behalf of the Prince of Orange; and James, taking the Gravesend boat, quitted London with a very few followers. There was an explosion of cockney sentimentality on this occasion; for the citizens, who had been the first to demand his expulsion, began shedding tears in teacupfuls when they witnessed the departure of the sovereign. Having remained for the night at Gravesend, he started the next morning for Rochester, and after a very brief stay, he went in a fishing-smack smack across the channel to Ambleteuse, a small town in Picardy. From thence he hastened to the Court of Louis the Fourteenth, where James still enjoyed the empty title of king, which was not the only empty thing he possessed, for his pockets were in the same condition until Louis replenished them. He sometimes compared them to a couple of exhausted non-receivers, for these were utterly exhausted, and were not in the receipt of anything but what he obtained from his brother sovereign's munificence. Some historians tell us that James had made a purse, but if he had, it is doubtful whether he had any money remaining to stock it with after the fishermen, who made all fish that came to their net, had encountered him at Torbay, and deprived him of all the loose cash he had about him.

William of Orange could not exactly make up his mind what to do upon the flight of James; but he very wisely declined to follow the advice of some injudicious friends, who recommended him to appear in the character of William the Conqueror. He sagaciously observed that imitations were always bad, evincing an utter absence of any original merit in the imitator, and certain in the end to have their hollowness detected. He admitted that the idea of entering England as William the Conqueror might have been a very good one at first; but that he should very justly be denounced as an impudent humbug if he endeavoured to obtain popularity by trading on the reputation of another. Scorning, therefore, to be a servile copyist, he determined on striking out a path for himself, and tried the "moderately constitutional dodge," which succeeded so well, that he is to this day recognised as the hero of what is termed the "glorious Revolution." He called together some members of Charles the Second's Parliaments, and recommended them, with the assistance of the Lord Mayor and forty Common Councilmen, to consider what had better be done under the peculiar circumstances of the nation. There is something richly ludicrous, according to modern notions, in the idea of consulting a Lord Mayor and forty Common Councilmen on a great political question; for though we would cheerfully be guided by such authorities in the choice of a sirloin of beef or the framing of a bill of fare, their views on the cooking up of a constitution would not in these days be gravely listened to. The peers and bishops had already recommended the summoning of a convention, and the Lord Mayor having proposed that the Commons should say "ditto to that," the suggestion was forthwith adopted.

The Convention having met, the first question it proceeded to discuss was whether James had not, in leaving the kingdom, run away, in fact, from his creditors, for every king owes a debt to his people; and whether the throne, crown and sceptre might not be seized for the benefit of those to whom he was under liabilities. The Commons soon came to the resolution that the throne was vacant, a conclusion which we must not examine too strictly; for if the principle involved in it were to be generally admitted, we should find that a freeholder running away from his freehold house to avoid meeting his Christmas bills, would, by that act, not only oust himself from his property, but cut off all his successors from their right of inheritance. Upon the broad and vulgar principle that the Stuarts were a bad lot, the Convention was justified perhaps in changing the succession to the throne; but, for our own parts, we must confess our disinclination to let in such a plea for the wholesale setting aside of a reigning family. As the last of the Pretenders is happily defunct, we may venture upon taking the line of argument we have adopted, without running the risk of a public meeting being called on the appearance of this number, to consider the immediate restoration of the Stuarts, a measure which our loyalty to the reigning sovereign, who fortunately unites in her own person all claims to the crown, would never tolerate. Had it been otherwise, we should not have been surprised by the announcement of a league, with the usual staff of a chairman, a boy, a brass plate, and a bell, to restore to the house of Stuart the crown of England.

To return, however, to William of Orange, whom we left waiting to be asked to walk up the steps of the throne; and we have great pleasure in taking him by the hand, for the purpose of giving him a lift to that exalted station he was now called to occupy. Some were for engaging him as regent during the minority of the Prince of Wales; but William flatly refused to become a warming-pan for one whose alleged introduction into the royal bed-chamber through the medium of a warming-pan, rendered the simile at once striking and appropriate. "All or none" was the motto adopted by William in his negotiations with the Convention, and it was at length resolved to settle the crown on the joint heads of himself and the Princess of Orange, with a stipulation that the prince should hold the reins of government. A declaration of rights was drawn up, so that everything was reduced to writing, and put down in black and white, for the purpose of avoiding disputes between the king and the people.

James's reign was now hopelessly at an end, and entirely by his own act; for, after he had absconded, it would have been idle for the nation to have been satisfied with writing, "Gone away; not known where," over the throne of England. A sketch of the character of this king is scarcely required from the English historian, who may fairly say, "My former man, James, quitted my service, and you had better make inquiries in his last place, for I have ceased to have anything to do with him. I can venture to say he was sober; but I am not quite sure about his honesty; for though in looking over the plate basket where I kept the regalia, I found the crown, sceptre, and other articles of that description perfectly right, I had missed from time to time a great deal of money, which I verily believe that man James had pocketed. I should say that the fellow was very weak, and not being strong enough for his place, he left his work a great deal to inferior servants, who behaved very shamefully. I think the fellow was willing, and it might be said of him, that he would if he could, but he couldn't—a state in which the servant of a nation is not likely to give much satisfaction to those who require his services." Such is the character that may be fairly written of James the Second, who, we may as well add, was promoted to a saintdom in France, by way of compensation for his forfeiture of the "right divine to govern wrong" in England.