V.

desired to repeal made attendance at Divine service compulsory. CHAP. By Elizabeth's Act of Uniformity every person who, without reasonable and lawful cause, did not attend church, both on Sundays and holy days, might be fined one shilling on each occasion. By a second law of Elizabeth the fine was raised to £20 a month. By a third any person who obstinately refused to go to church was to be committed to gaol till he conformed; but if after three years he persisted in his refusal, he was to be banished from the Realm, his property was to be confiscated, and he was liable to death if he returned. Under James I it was provided that two-thirds of the lands of the offender might be taken; that every householder was liable to a fine of £10 a month for every servant, visitor, or visitor's servant, who abstained from church; and that informations, suits or actions, against those who did not attend church might be laid in any county and at the pleasure of any informer. The Toleration Act had indeed relieved Protestant Dissenters who believed in the Trinity from these penalties by authorising their places of worship; but it left those who, from conscientious reasons or from taste, abstained from attending any form of public worship liable to the ancient penalties.

There were several other statutes which it was desirable to repeal. The laws of Elizabeth rendering it compulsory to eat fish on fast-days had expired; but to eat meat on fast-days was still an ecclesiastical offence, punishable in ecclesiastical courts. The power of excommunication, with all its civil penalties, still remained. An act of Charles II still made any peer who went to Court, or remained in the King's presence without having taken the Oath of Supremacy and Declaration against popery, a popish recusant, although it had become so perfectly obsolete that, as Stanhope observed, the whole bench of Protestant Bishops had violated it. The Canons of 1663, breathing a spirit of implacable intolerance, were still believed to be binding on the clergy, and any writing which impugned the supernatural character of the Christian creed was a criminal offence. Though the greater part of this legislation had become inoperative, it might be set in motion by individual fanaticism or private malevolence. He was able to cite more than thirty cases in which persecuting laws had been put in force during the preceding twenty-six years, sometimes against Roman Catholics, sometimes against Protestant Dissenters, sometimes against persons who simply abstained from going to church.

The main object of the Bill was to improve the condition of Protestant Dissenters. Among his friends Stanhope numbered

V.

CHAP. many Nonconformists, including the famous scientist, Joseph Priestley, the equally celebrated Dr. Price, the literary Kippis and Towers. Dissenters were conspicuous in various branches of science, philosophy, and literature, and they were an orderloving and law-abiding people; but the Established Church was jealous of its prerogative, and the advanced views of many Nonconformists made them obnoxious to the Government. Moreover, the French Revolution was already beginning to cast its shadow over English politics. The Bishops united against any encroachment on the privileges of the Establishment. The Archbishop of Canterbury contended that, if unrestrained speaking, writing, printing, and publishing of religious opinions were permitted, there was scarcely a mischief to the Church or to civil society that imagination could form an idea of which might not be effected. Such a measure,' said Bishop Horsley, 'would leave our mutilated Constitution a prodigy in politics, a civil polity without any public religion for its basis.'

Though the Bill was thrown out in the Lords on the second reading, Stanhope was determined to persevere. If the right reverend bench would not suffer him to load away their rubbish by cartfuls, he would endeavour to carry it off in wheelbarrows; and if that mode of removal was resisted, he would take it away with a spade, a little at a time.'1 He immediately moved to introduce another Bill 'to repeal an Act of the 27th of Henry VIII, to prevent vexatious suits relative to Quakers.' This provoked an altercation with the Lord Chancellor, which Stanhope ended by saying, 'On another occasion I shall teach the noble and learned lord law, as I have to-day taught the bench of bishops religion.' The religious scruples of Quakers prevented their paying tithes, which rendered them liable first to excommunication, then to be cited in a spiritual court, and then to be handed over to justices of the peace and cast into prison. Some most. respectable Quakers were now confined in common gaols for paltry sums. It was the extreme of absurdity as well as of oppression, he declared, to deprive men of their liberty for these petty causes. He considers it wonderfully absurd, too, in the ecclesiastical law which enacts the same punishment for various offences. Men are forbidden to marry their mothers or grandmothers. If any man offend against this law his punishment. would be excommunication with all its civil consequences. So that a man's marrying his mother or grandmother is the same offence in the eye of the ecclesiastical law as owing two-pence

1 Parl. Hist., xxviii. 133.

or three-pence to any minister of the church.' He contended CHAP. against the right of the clergy to excommunicate for civil causes, V. and he proposed to enact that no suit should hereafter be brought or maintainable in any ecclesiastical court for the recovery of any tithes, dues, or other spiritual profit.1 The Bishops did not relish Stanhope's Erastian doctrines, and this Bill was also rejected.

1 Parl. Hist., xxviii. 218.

CHAPTER VI

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION, 1789-1790

I

CHAP. IN every great revolution some petty incident becomes symVI. bolical, and thenceforward holds in the imagination of mankind a place altogether disproportionate. The Bastille was of slight strategic consequence; its capture was not a brilliant exploit, and it was dishonoured by infamous cruelty. Only seven prisoners, most of them detained for good reason, were found within its walls. But to popular feeling, both in France and abroad, it was the embodiment of all that was most hateful in arbitrary power; and its fall seemed to announce a new age of freedom, justice, and humanity.' As such, it was regarded by most of the friends of liberty in England; and Stanhope shared the view of Fox that it was much the best and happiest event that had ever happened.

The fall of despotic government was celebrated by the Revolution Society at its annual meeting on November 4.2 In the forenoon the members assembled at the Old Jewry, and listened to a sermon by Dr. Richard Price on 'The Love of our Country.' In the convulsions in France he discovered a repetition of our own revolution of 1688. 'I could almost say, "Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation." After sharing in the benefits of one revolution, I have been spared to witness two others, both glorious.' This celebrated discourse was the proximate cause of Burke's Reflections on the French Revolution.' The report of the Committee congratulated the members as Men, Britons, and Citizens of the

1 Cambridge Modern History, viii. 167.

* The following pages are based on The Correspondence of the Revolution Society with the National Assembly, and with various Societies of the Friends of Liberty in France and England. London, 1792.

World, on that noble spirit of civil and religious liberty which CHAP. had since the last meeting so conspicuously shone forth on the VI. Continent, more especially on the glorious success of the French Revolution; and they expressed their ardent wishes that the influence of so glorious an example might be felt by all mankind, till tyranny and despotism should be swept from the face of the globe, and universal liberty and happiness should prevail. Dr. Price then moved the famous address to the National Assembly, which stirred Burke to fury. The Society for commemorating the Revolution in Great Britain, disdaining national partialities and rejoicing at every triumph of liberty and justice over arbitrary power, offer to the National Assembly of France their congratulations on the revolution in that country and on the prospect it gives to the two first kingdoms of the world of a common participation in the blessings of civil and religious liberty. They cannot help adding their ardent wishes of a happy settlement of so important a revolution, and at the same time expressing the particular satisfaction with which they reflect on the tendency of the glorious example given in France to encourage other nations to assert the inalienable rights of mankind, and thereby to introduce a general reformation in the government of Europe, and to make the world free and happy.' At the unanimous wish of the meeting the signature of Stanhope, who acted as Chairman, was affixed to the address, which was forwarded to the Duc de la Rochefoucauld with a letter requesting him to present it to the National Assembly. The Duke informed Price that the address forwarded by Earl Stanhope had been received by the Assembly with lively applause. They had directed their President to write, but as he had not yet found time to do so, he had not delayed his reply to Dr. Price. On the receipt of the letter the General Committee of the Society met, with Stanhope in the chair, and passed a vote of thanks to the Duke for presenting their address and for sending them a copy of his speeches.

Shortly after, the official reply of the Assembly arrived from the Archbishop of Aix, the President, dated December 5. The National Assembly, he wrote, discovered in the address of the Revolution Society the principles of universal benevolence, which ought to bind together the true friends to the liberty and happiness of mankind in every country. The Revolution Society at once dispatched a reply, signed by Stanhope and the Secretary, cordially thanking the President for his letter. The members of the Society,' runs the communication, 'feel particularly the justice which the august Assembly has done them by imputing