office. But the memory of the high-handed proceedings of
Puritan rulers was still too recent to allow Englishmen to run
the risk of a reimposition of their yoke, and this feeling, fanciful
as it was, was sufficient to keep the Test Act in force for years
to come.
The complement of the Toleration Act was the abolition of the censorship of the press (1695). The ideas of the author of the Areopagitica had at last prevailed. The attempt to fix certain opinions on the nation which were pleasing to those in power was abandoned by king Liberty of the press.and parliament alike. The nation, or at least so much of it as cared to read books or pamphlets on political subjects, was acknowledged to be the supreme judge, which must therefore be allowed to listen to what counsellors it pleased.
This new position of the nation made itself felt in various ways. It was William’s merit that, fond as he was of power, he recognized the fact that he could not rule except so far as he carried the goodwill of the nation with him. No doubt he was helped to an intelligent perception of the new situation by the fact that, as a foreigner, he cared far more for carrying on war successfully against France than for influencing the domestic legislation of a country which was not his own, and by the knowledge that the conduct of the struggle which lasted till he was able to treat with France on equal terms at Ryswick (1697) was fairly trusted to his hands. Nevertheless these years of war called for the united action of a national government, and in seeking to gain this support for himself, he hit upon an expedient which opened a new era in constitutional politics.
The supremacy of the House of Commons would have been
an evil of no common magnitude, if it had made government
impossible. Yet this was precisely what it threatened
to do. Sometimes the dominant party in the House
pressed with unscrupulous rancour upon its opponents.
Beginning
of cabinet government.
Sometimes the majority shifted from side to side as
the House was influenced by passing gusts of passion or sympathy,
so that, as it was said at the time, no man could foretell
one day what the House would be pleased to do on the next.
Against the first of these dangers William was to a great extent
able to guard by the exercise of his right of dissolution, so as
to appeal to the constituencies, which did not always share in
the passions of their representatives. But the second danger
could not be met in this way. The only cure for waywardness
is responsibility, and not only was this precisely what the
Commons had not learned to feel, but it was that which it was
impossible to make them feel directly. A body composed of
several hundred members cannot carry on government with the
requisite steadiness of action and clearness of insight. Such
work can only fitly be entrusted to a few, and whenever difficult
circumstances arise it is necessary that the action of those few
be kept in harmony by the predominance of one. The scheme
on which William hit, by the advice of the earl of Sunderland,
was that which has since been known as cabinet government.
He selected as his ministers the leading members of the two
Houses who had the confidence of the majority of the House of
Commons. In this way, the majority felt an interest in supporting
the men who embodied their own opinions, and fell in turn
under the influence of those who held them with greater prudence
or ability than fell to the lot of the average members of the
House. All that William doubtless intended was to acquire a
ready instrument to enable him to carry on the war with success.
In reality he had refounded, on a new basis, the government of
England. His own personal qualities were such that he was able
to dominate over any set of ministers; but the time would come
when there would be a sovereign of inferior powers. Then the
body of ministers would step into his place. The old rude
arrangements of the middle ages had provided by frequent depositions
that an inefficient sovereign should cease to rule, and
those arrangements had been imitated in the cases of Charles I.
and James II. Still the claim to rule had, at least from the time
of Henry III., been derived from hereditary descent, and the
interruption, however frequently it might occur, had been regarded
as something abnormal, only to be applied where there
was an absolute necessity to prevent the wielder of executive
authority from setting at defiance the determined purpose of the
nation. After the Revolution not only had the king’s title been
so changed as to make him more directly than ever dependent
on the nation, but he now called into existence a body which
derived its own strength from its conformity with the wishes
of the representatives of the nation.
For the moment it seemed to be but a temporary expedient. When the war came to an end, the Whig party which had sustained William in his struggle with France split up. The dominant feeling of the House of Commons was no longer the desire to support the crown against a foreign enemy, but to make government as cheap as possible, leaving future dangers to the chances of the future. William had not so understood the new invention of a united ministry as binding him to take into his service a united ministry of men whom he regarded as fools and knaves. He allowed the Commons to reduce the army to a skeleton, to question his actions, and to treat him as if he were a cipher. But it was only by slow degrees that he was brought to acknowledge the necessity of choosing his ministers from amongst the men who had done these things.
The time came when he needed again the support of the nation. The death of Charles II., the heirless king of the huge Spanish monarchy, had long been expected. Since the peace of Ryswick, William and Louis XIV. had come to terms by two successive partition treaties for The Spanish succession. a division of those vast territories in such a way that the whole of them should not fall into the hands of a near relation either of the king of France or of the emperor, the head of the house of Austria. When the king of Spain actually died in 1700, William seemed to have no authority in England whatever; and Louis was therefore encouraged to break his engagements, and to accept the whole of the Spanish inheritance for his grandson, who became Philip V. of Spain. William saw clearly that such predominance of France in Europe would lead to the development of pretensions unbearable to other states. But the House of Commons did not see it, even when the Dutch garrisons were driven by French troops out of the posts in the Spanish Netherlands which they had occupied for many years (1701).
William had prudently done all that he could to conciliate the Tory majority. In the preceding year (1700) he had given office to a Tory ministry, and he now (1701) gave his assent to the Act of Settlement, which secured the succession of the crown to the electress Sophia of The Act of Settlement. Hanover, daughter of James I.’s daughter Elizabeth, to the exclusion of all Roman Catholic claimants, though it imposed several fresh restrictions on the prerogative. William was indeed wise in keeping his feelings under control. The country sympathized with him more than the Commons did, and when the House imprisoned the gentlemen deputed by the freeholders of Kent to present a petition asking that its loyal addresses might be turned into bills of supply, it simply advertised its weakness to the whole country.
The reception of this Kentish petition was but a foretaste of the discrepancy between the Commons and the nation, which was to prove the marked feature of the middle of the century now opening. For the present the House was ready to give way. It requested the king to enter The Grand Alliance. into alliance with the Dutch. William went yet further in the direction in which he was urged. He formed an alliance with the emperor, as well as with the Netherlands, to prevent the union of the crowns of France and Spain, and to compel France to evacuate the Netherlands. An unexpected event came to give him all the strength he needed. James II. died, and Louis acknowledged his son as the rightful king of England. Englishmen of both parties were stung to indignation by the insult. William dissolved parliament, and the new House of Commons, Tory as it was by a small majority, was eager to support the king. It voted men and money according to his wishes. England was to be the soul of the Grand Alliance against France. But before a blow was struck William was thrown from his horse. He died on the 8th of March 1702. “The man,” as Burke said
