Attribution confusion

Having succeeded in getting Chronobibliography moving again, I wanted to see, while I was on something at least resembling a roll, whether I could get another neglected blog section kick-started. And for obscure reasons with which I need not bore you, I came down upon the Authors In Depth section, and specifically the next novel by one or both of the sisters, Margaret Minifie and Susannah Minifie Gunning.

And almost immediately I hit a speed-bump…which my OCD promptly magnified into a brick wall.

It is known that the sisters wrote novels both separately and together, but correct attributions are difficult due to the range of ways in which they referred to themselves on their title-pages, and by Susannah changing her surname when she married (naturally enough, for the time).

Another complication is that Susannah’s daughter, Elizabeth, also became a novel-writer; and though she is referred to correctly as “Miss Gunning” in some quarters, in others her works have been attributed to her mother, that is, as by “Mrs Gunning”.

So instead of relying upon what seem, frankly, to be some people’s best guesses, I thought I would try to access the ladies’ books online and see what the title-pages actually say; and, working with the knowledge that Susannah got married in 1768 and that Elizabeth was born in 1769 and married in 1803, see what I could pin down, and what remains obscure.

The Histories Of Lady Frances S—, And Lady Caroline S— (1763) : “Written by the MISS MINIFIES, of Fairwater, in Somersetshire”
Family Pictures (1764) : “By a LADY”
The Picture (1766) : “By the MISS MINIFIES of Fairwater in Somersetshire, Authors of The Histories Of Lady Frances S—, And Lady Caroline S—”
Barford Abbey (1768) : Neither the Dublin first edition nor the London second edition carries an attribution, although the latter carries a handwritten note, “By Mrs Susannah (Minifie) Gunning” (NB: this is the year Susannah married) [NB: epistolary]
The Cottage (1769) : “By Miss MINIFIE, Author of Barford-Abbey”
The Hermit (1769) : “By a LADY” (NB: the 1770 edition is attributed to “Miss MINIFIE, Author of Barford-Abbey, The Cottage, &c”; the 1771 edition is attributed to “Miss MINIFIES”, which we can cautiously assume to be a typo rather than a joint-attribution)

Apparently both Margaret and Susannah then fell silent for some eleven years (during which time, some of their works did appear in second and third editions; incredible as that may seem if you’ve actually read them).

The Count de Poland (1780) : “By Miss M. Minifie, one of the authors of Lady Frances and Lady Caroline S—” (the latter suggesting that the ladies’ first novel had been reissued under a revised title; though I can find no record of it)
Coombe Wood (1783) : “By the author of Barford-Abbey and The Cottage” [NB: epistolary]

More silence followed, until the eruption of the Gunning scandal in 1791; in which Margaret was (rightly or wrongly) implicated. And it was after that – after John Gunning had booted them out in an attempt to save his own skin – that both Susannah and Elizabeth began writing to support themselves.

Susannah died in 1800; Elizabeth married John Plunkett in 1803, and after that published as “Mrs Elizabeth Gunning Plunkett” (or a variation thereof). Margaret, meanwhile, almost certainly died during the 1790s: the date of her death is not known, but the last records to show her alive are from April 1791.

Anecdotes Of The Delborough Family (1792) : “By Mrs Gunning”
Memoirs Of Mary (1793) : “By Mrs Gunning”
Delves, A Welch Tale (1796) : “By Mrs Gunning”
Love At First Sight (1797) : Reviewed by Tobias Smollet in The Critical Review as “From the French. With Alterations and Additions. By Mrs Gunning”
Fashionable Involvements (1800) : “By Mrs Gunning”
The Heir Apparent (1802) : “By the late Mrs Gunning” (Susannah died in 1800, leaving this unfinished; Elizabeth finished and published it; it is sometimes listed as “Revised by Miss Gunning”)

The Packet (1794) : “By Miss Gunning”
Lord Fitzhenry (1794) : “By Miss Gunning”
Memoirs Of Madame de Barnveldte (1975) : “Translated from the French by Miss Gunning”
The Foresters (1796) : “Altered from the French by Miss Gunning”
The Orphans Of Snowdon (1797) : “By Miss Gunning”
The Gipsy Countess (1799) : “By Miss Gunning”
The Farmer’s Boy (1802) : “By Miss Gunning” (in some editions; others have it as “By the author of Love At First Sight–Gipsy Countess”, which is just confusing)
The War-Office (1803) : “By Mrs Elizabeth Gunning Plunkett”
The Exile Of Erin (1808) : “By Mrs Plunkett, late Miss Gunning”
Dangers Through Life (1810) : “By Mrs Plunkett (late Miss Gunning)”; may have been reissued in 1815 as “The Victims Of Seduction”

And an outlier: The Union (1802), listed as “By Miss Minifie”, at a time when Susannah was dead, and Margaret presumed so.

We can appreciate that, cashing in as they were on the family scandal, both Susannah and Elizabeth wanted their authorship known. It is those earlier novels where the mystery remains—and while most of them have traditionally been attributed to Susannah (probably because her name is better known), the weight of that title-page evidence suggests that Margaret wrote all of the earlier solo efforts; and that Susannah did not write a novel on her own until the 1790s. It also makes more historical sense, if I can put it that way, that the unmarried Margaret went on writing, while Susannah did not take it up in earnest until she had to earn her own living.

One of the consequences of this research is that I now believe that, in originally attributing Barford Abbey to Susannah, I was probably wrong; and that I need to revise my post about the novel to reflect this.

As for the book that brought me to all this, 1764’s Family Pictures – “By a LADY” – the jury is out. Granted, it’s one of the works usually attributed to Susannah—but then, nearly everything is. And if I needed any more of a reminder to tread cautiously in that respect, I have it in The New Cambridge Bibliography Of English Literature, edited by George Watson, which on one page of the second volume lists both Family Pictures and Barford Abbey, attributing both to Susannah—and offering of the latter the following synopsis:

Heroine, disfigured with smallpox, rewards hero with riches.

…when in fact:

• she catches smallpox but is not disfigured;
• she has no riches;
• she marries the hero.

 

The Blatant Beast Muzzl’d

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The Reader needs but Reflect on this Description, as he peruses this Libel, and he will all the way discover that the Poets Idea of Calumny, is the perfect Pourtraicture of this Contumelious Scribler; for he will observe how he plays upon all the Keyes of Satyr that can be imagin’d; and, according as his Passion tunes his Fancy, he either wrawls discontentedly, or grunts churlishly, or grins and snarls angrily, or rails licentiously, or barks currishly, or stings venomously; and this indifferently both High and Low, Kings and all sorts of Subjects that are not of his own Blatant Kind; either blotting their Names infamously, or biting them injuriously…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The most immediately striking thing about this entry in the ongoing political brawl is how late it was to the party.

There was a reason (of sorts) for this, however, as the reader is informed via a pre-title page:

The Copy of this Treatise was Given out to be Printed a Year and half ago; but by Accident or Negligence, was laid by, and could not be Retriev’d till very lately; which may, I hope, serve to Excuse this Delay in Publishing it.

In context, we can only be thankful that there was thought to be any point in publishing The Blatant Beast Muzzl’d at all—that “Year and half” encompassing the Battle of the Boyne and the final crushing of the hopes of the former James II, and the settling down of England under the almost pugnaciously Protestant rule of William and Mary.

There are several extremely interesting things about this “treatise”, however, that makes me glad the author, who identifies himself only as ‘N. N.’ (and for whom I have not been able to come up with even a guess as to his full name), persisted in getting it into print.

In informational terms, the most worthwhile aspect of this publication is not its main text, but its lengthy preface. It is within this introduction that the author rails against the explosion of crude and slanderous writing via which the reality of James, and the memory of Charles, were being attacked: thus bringing to my attention a whole new batch of political writing from this time of growing unease.

The preface also explains the author’s choice of title, which is drawn from Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, and which comprises a fascinating piece of cross-textual referencing. As academic Christopher Hill puts it in a recent paper, The Blatant Beast: The Thousand Tongues Of Elizabethan Religious Polemic:

“This article addresses the final two books of the 1596 edition of Spenser’s Faerie Queene, in which there arises a formidable adversary: the Blatant Beast. This monster, whose presence dominates the end of Book Five and a substantial portion of Book Six, represents the worst excesses of caustic and satirical rhetoric as manifest in the theological and ecclesiastical pamphlet disputes that erupted after Fields and Wilcox’s 1572 Admonition to Parliament.”

From this we see that the author could hardly have chosen a better symbol for the anti-Stuart / anti-Catholic writing of the time, which is perfectly summed up in the phrase, The worst excesses of caustic and satirical rhetoric.

Throughout his own text, the author refers to “the Blatant kind” and “the Blatants”, lumping together all the objectionable attacks upon Charles and James under a single heading. However, the individual who infuriated him the most was the one responsible for The Secret History Of The Reigns Of K. Charles II, And K. James II – who he insists that he knows, though he does not identify him by name:

I shall do the Author a greater Kindness than he deserves, by not naming him at present, though he is known to more than he dreams of, and may justly fear that his second Recantation will not be so easily prevalent to procure his Pardon, as was his first. His Character is best drawn by himself; for the whole Meen of his Books do amply acknowledg, that he is a wild Debauchee, who has devoted him Life to Sensuality and Amorous Intrigues with his Misses; whence his Heart being full of Affection for those Darling Pleasures, his Fancy could not be at ease till it was delivered of them, by venting them after a very pathetical manner; and, hoping the better to ennoble his own Beastly Conceptions, he applies (without regarding whether there be the least shadow of Ground for it) his own Immodest Pranks to Kings and Queens…

(It is clear from the text, which references a publication supporting Titus Oates, that the author was one of those who believed that John Phillips wrote The Secret History… Whether this description fits Nathaniel Crouch is another matter.)

Though we do not know who the author of The Blatant Beast Muzzl’d is, we do know something about him from his writing. He was not a Catholic—but he was a Tory, the kind of Tory who believed sincerely in the sacredness of kings—and who managed, somehow, to hold onto that belief despite living through the Stuart era. The whole tone of The Blatant Beast Muzzl’d makes it clear that the author was both astonished and mortally offended by the discovery that someone had dared be so disrespectful towards royalty. In fact, he can only explain this body of literature to himself by supposing that its authors are all – gasp! – republicans.

But there’s royalty, and then there’s royalty. There are tacit criticisms of William scattered through this text, oblique but unmistakable; not least the charge that he was actually behind this school of writing. I should note here that the entirety of The Blatant Beast Muzzl’d is presented in the form of a letter to a friend of the author, who asked his opinion of it. In this way, the author can pass off his most extreme opinions as being those of his friend, which he himself deprecates. For example:

Nay, were that Unlikely Supposition of yours True, yet ’tis incredible, that Persons even of Ordinary Prudence, (much less such as they) would not have been chary to abuse Princes so nearly Ally’d to them, with such Foul and Contumelious Language; but would rather have made Choice of some sober and grave Writer, who knew what good Manners and Decency meant, to lay open the plain Naked Truth, (had Necessity so requir’d) in a Style full of charitable and respectful Expressions towards their Persons, and with a sensible regret that he was forced to expose their Faults…

But if no-one else will defend slandered royalty, the author will. Putting ladies first, he weighs in on the insults offered to Mary of Modena:

But alas! What a most improper Subject has this poor unfortunate Ribald made choice of, to fix that Disgraceful Character upon! A PRINCESS, whose Incomparable Worth and Unblemish’d Virtue is such, that it never permitted any occasion to the least sinister Imagination in any that knew her. Nor durst Malice it self ever be so bold, as to taint her Unspotted Life so much as with a Suspicion of deviating from the severest Rules of Modesty…

…which, after “Malice” being “so bold” as to produce three years’ worth of Sham Prince literature, seems an odd thing to say.

Also odd, and extremely revealing, is the attitude taken towards James. Explaining his reasons for writing this defence, the author remarks:

Nor shall I be afraid heartily to own that I had a dutiful Respect, very particularly to the Honour of those two Excellent Princes, whom he so Injuriously and Barbarously traduces, as the Blackest Monsters that ever liv’d, and little less than Devils Incarnate.

Here’s the thing, though: that is one of very few mentions of James in the document; the author makes only a half-hearted effort to defend him against the specific charges brought by his antagonist, even though these encompass crimes including complicity, to put it no more strongly, in the murder of Charles. And in fact, even those efforts tend more to attacks upon his rival author, than true support of James.

Instead, the author devotes almost his entire publication to vindicating Charles. I can only assume that James’ behaviour, including – or perhaps specifically – his leaguing with Louis XIV, offset his inherent “sacredness”.

Despite offering a point-by-point counter-argument to everything proposed by The Secret History…, The Blatant Beast Muzzl’d is a much easier read. The author, while highlighting the innumerable idiocies and lies of his target, keeps his temper surprisingly well—instead employing a tone of disgusted sarcasm that not only deconstructs the opposing text much better than ranting could do, but is pretty funny to boot.

Here, to start with, are just a few of the author’s opinions of his rival:

The Author places a peculiar Felicity in expressing everything waspishly; and no Ragoust of Eloquence pleases his Palate, but that of Satyr and Invective. Never was Man in a higher Salivation with Rage, or drivell’d more Foam. I should take him to be possest with Fits of Madness, but that he has no Lucid Intervals…

I desire you to Note how candidly this Libeller tells you what you may expect from him in that kind, and how plainly he not only confesses, but excellently proves himself to be an Insulting Barbarian…

I am given to understand for Certain, That this Gallimawsry of Scurrility, was writ by an Atheistical, Damning, Swearing, Drunken Fellow…

…such a foul-mouth’d Thersites, whose whole Book is woven quite thorow with such rancorous Invectiveness, that, could a Mad Dog speak, he could scarce vent his Cereberean Foam with more Venome…

With what impertinent and ridiculous Flams does this Baffling Fellow hope to fool his Readers! Yet this is his constant handy-dandy method in every point he handles: Voluntary Talk serves him for Well-Grounded Truth, meer Pretences for Proofs, and flimflam Stories for clear Evidences…

As for The Secret History… itself, the author is not slow to seize upon its overarching absurdity; nor to jeer at its main thesis:

He Fancies himself a little God Almighty, and dives into their very Thoughts; and (which is a Prerogative peculiar to the Divinity) searches their very Hearts and most retruse Intentions; and when he has done, he turns their Consciences inside-outwards: For, otherwise, the Particulars he huddles up together, will fall short of inferring what is still the Burthen of his Song, The Design of introducing Popery and Slavery.

Taking the high ground, the author makes a shrewd and well-reasoned argument against his rival’s approach, pointing out the absurdity of his insistence (highlighted in my post on The Secret History…) that EVERYTHING in the reigns of Charles and James tended to this outcome, and that even the most seemingly commonplace events of the time held a secret and sinister meaning, if only we knew it. Again and again the author shows the bizarre illogic inherent in the efforts made to prove this contention, mocking the notion that EVERYTHING was cause and effect, that EVERYTHING had “consequences”—

But let our Blatant take the business in hand, with his special Gift of drawing Consequences, the whole Action, and every Step that was taken in it, shall clearly demonstrate an arrant Design of introducing Slavery and Popery, however remote and impertinent the Premisses are from the Conclusion.

—even Charles’ sexual adventures:

But, alas! This is one of his stoutest and most Achillean Arguments; K. Ch. the Second could not keep a Miss for his Pleasure, but, have-at-him with a Consequence, cries Blatant, ergo, it was a meer Plot of his to debauch the Nation, and so to introduce Popery and Slavery…

He also takes a somewhat more prosaic view of war with the Dutch than we find in the earlier document:

The Dutch War is levell’d by him at the meer bringing in of Popery and Slavery. Whereas, they being our known Competitors in Shipping and Trade, and daily encroaching upon us…a War once in Seven or (at farthest) Ten Years was ever held by our wisest Statesmen, in former times…as seasonable and necessary, as is the lopping off the under-growing Suckers, that intercept the Sap from the Tree…

And of James’ supposed sabotage:

The then D. of York took an innocent Nap at Sea. A clear Case, says our man of Consequences, that it was a meer treacherous Plot, to let the Dutch  beat the English, and make ’em destroy one another to bring in Slavery and Popery. Our all-seeing Blatant could peep into his Fancy, though all the Windows of his Senses were shut up, and craftily spy out his very Dreams, and there read plainly, that he was still plotting Slavery and Popery, even in his Sleep. Nay more, he makes him to be a man of such a Chimerical Composition, that he both procur’d the firing the Dutch Ships in their Harbours, and also procur’d the firing of our Ships at Chatham; and to mend the Jest, our implacable Blatant, whose ambi-sinistrous Humour nothing can please, is very angry with him for doing both the one and the other…

As for Charles’ supposed incestuous affairs with Barbara Villiers and his sister, Henrietta, the author passes over the shocking nature of the accusations to focus on the ridiculous details of the presentation:

But Blatant makes that Lady King Ch. his sister by the Mother’s side only, which renders it but Incestuous to the half part, and so in his Opinion does not blemish the King enough. Have-at-him then once again (says he) with another and a more compleat Incest with the Dutchess of Orleans, who was his own Sister by Father and Mother’s side both… I demand then his Proof for this double foul-mouth’d Calumny: Not a jot, he thanks you; his own ipse dixit, and bare Affirmation, is all he can afford us: For, sure he cannot think that the D. of B—‘s holding the Door looks, in the least, like a Proof, were it true, which ’tis very unlikely to be; for, Why could they not (were such a shameful Wickedness intended) go into a Room where they could themselves fasten the Door on the inside?

The author sobers when considering the accusations made with respect to the Popish Plot and its associated executions and murders; but he regains his voice after refuting the various attempts to show Charles in a conspiracy with the Pope:

…what gives a kind of Counterfeit Life to his whole Discourse, is his sputtering, and keeping a great coil and clutter to amuse weak Readers, and put them at theit Wits-end what to think. Only, they can see, that either Blatant is the Greatest Lyar living, or, every man he is offended at, is the Greatest Knave in Nature. Whether of them is thus faulty, any sober man may easily divine by his Natural Reason, without needing to go to a Wizzard…

But notwithstanding, he supposes that a few readers will come down on Blatant’s side:

So, if any had to sute with Blatant’s Fancy, (and as will be seen anon, ’tis hard to hit it, without complying with both sides of the Contradiction) then you shall be Saints, Cherubims, or what else you would wish; but if you do not, your Doom is passed; for, be as many for Quantity, or as great for Quality as you please, Igad you are all stark naught, every Mothers Son of you, and he packs you all away in a Bundle to Old Nick, for a company of Doting, Frantick, Knavish, Villanous, Treacherous, Incestuous, Murthering, Fasting, Popish and Atheistical Rogues and Rascals…

If The Blatant Beast Muzzl’d had left it there, it would have served its dual purpose of vindicating Charles and exposing the vindictive lies of the author of The Secret History… – with the bonus of making us laugh – but alas, it did not.

Instead, almost half of the document – no less than 45 pages out of 93 total (including the preface) – is handed over to an attempt to refute one accusation made, by direct testimony:

These few Instances are more than sufficient to demonstrate, that this Self-conceited Coxcomb makes it his least concern to regard either Sense, Reason, Authority, Truth, or Honesty, but rails on contentedly to himself and his Friends. I could have presented you with thrice as many, had it been needful; yet, tho’ I omit them, I stand engaged to add one more…which I was the willinger to examin, because I was inform’d, that he was held by all that knew him (the Lords of the Privy-Council amongst the rest) to be a man of Sincerity and Ingenuity.

The person in question is John Sergeant, of whom The Secret History… has this to say:

Nor must it be omitted as an Argument of His Majesty’s great Zeal for the Protestant Religion, That when one Sergeant, a Priest, made a discovery of the Popish Plot from Holland, which he caus’d to be transmitted to the Court, with an intention to have discovered several others, he was first brib’d off…then sent for into England, slightly and slily examined, had his Pardon given him, and sent back with Five Pound a week, to say no more.

According to the author of The Blatant Beast Muzzl’d, he made a point of seeking out Sergeant, sending him the excerpt in question from The Secret History… and asking for his version of events. Sergeant’s response occupies those 45 pages. He explains how, while he was in exile in Holland, and so presumed to be disaffected against Charles, an attempt was made to draw him into the Popish Plot, one way or the other: that on one hand he was offered a very large bribe to implicate James in the Plot; that on the other, if he would not, he would be ruined by accusations that he was himself involved in that plot and several others; and that this double-threat was immediately acted upon, via accusing letters sent to England, which resulted in Sergeant being summoned to Court.

Sergeant goes on to explain how, luckily, he had contacted Henry Sidney, ambassador to The Hague, when matters first began to stir; and that he could call him to witness that he brought the matter to the attention of the authorities as soon as he reasonably could; and that by spending as much of the intervening time in Sidney’s company, he could account for his movements and disprove many of the accusations against him. Called to England to give his version of the matter, Sergeant was therefore able to convince Charles and the Court of his innocence.

This inserted document is a clear, detailed account of events and how, more by luck than judgement, an innocent man avoided the snare that had been laid for him.

The trouble is—as far as I have been able to determine, it’s also a complete lie. Ironically enough, this seems to be one time where the author of The Secret History… is making claims with some validity (at least up to a point; the part about Sergeant being bribed to shut up by Charles is of course nonsense).

John Sergeant was a Catholic, and a secular priest (that is, he was not a member of a particular order). He was a controversial figure both with and without his faith—carrying on long-running disputes with Protestant divines, but also being critical of English Catholic priests for acting too much on their own authority, and having a hostile, disputatious relationship with the Jesuits. His role in the Popish Plot remains controversial: it has even been suggested that he was one of the originators of the plot, and that it was he who convinced Titus Oates of its reality; while others contend, conversely, that Oates convinced him.

A third line of argument (the one most generally accepted) was that Sergeant no more believed in the Plot than anyone else, but saw an opportunity to act on his hatred of the Jesuits. To the scandal of the Catholics, and the delight of the Protestants, Sergeant volunteered to give evidence – or “evidence” – against the Jesuits to the Privy Council. He was questioned a second time some months later, and on that occasion his testimony was supported by that of another secular priest, David Morris (or Maurice); their depositions were printed, and widely distributed, and contributed to the growing hysteria that finally claimed some twenty victims on the scaffold before there was a revulsion in public feeling. It was later proved that both Sergeant and Morris were paid for their efforts.

This, then, is the individual whom the author of The Blatant Beast Muzzl’d singles out to support his own line of argument.

(The official Catholic stance on Sergeant, by the way, is that, “His mind was unbalanced at the time”…)

Here’s the thing, though: in its own right, the testimony offered by Sergeant within the pages of The Blatant Beast Muzzl’d (assuming he did in fact write it, but either way) is, as I have remarked, clear and detailed—and convincing. Therein lies its danger. We have no difficulty recognising in The Secret History…, with its bluster and hysteria, a specious piece of politicking; but this is something else: a presentation of “the facts” as false as anything offered by its overtly exaggerated predecessor, but one whose leading quality is its seeming reasonableness.

In other words, a textbook example of “truthiness”…
 
 

A Letter From Lewis The Great, To James The Less

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So it turns out that the next entry in our journey through this particular outbreak of political brawling is not prose – still less an actual “letter” – but a poem. Given its relatively short length, I’ve decided to transcribe it rather than deal in excerpts.

This work, whose complete title is A LETTER From LEWIS the Great, To JAMES the Less, His Lieutenant in IRELAND. With Reflections by way of ANSWER to the said LETTER, or serious CONTEMPLATIONS at an Unseasonable Time, is one of the slander-writings that provoked the anger of the author of The Blatant Beast Muzzl’d; although in this case, we assume that it was the crass language and crude sexual innuendo which upset him, rather than the content.

Obviously this poem was part of that subset of political writing which decided that the best way to deal with James was not ranting and raving and tub-thumping, but mockery. It offers the by-now standard view of James as a fool and a cuckold; but it also adds a further smear—presenting him as a coward.

The dating of this poem is uncertain, being unhelpfully listed as 1689-1690 in the catalogues; but there isn’t any doubt that it was published after the Battle of the Boyne, when James’ fate had been decided.

And while there is plenty of crude humour in the text, the poem’s best joke is actually a pretty subtle one: it has Louis XIV offering James the choice of two fates, Death or Glory; but as we know, he found a third option…

(I suppose I should add a warning here for “coarse language” and “sexual references”. Just noting that the censored language is in the original document. And that some of the censoring choices, and non-choices, seem…odd.)

 

I

TO James our Lieutenant this greeting we send:
As you hope to preserve us your Patron and Friend,
As you trust to the vertue of us and your Wife,
Who leads in your absence a dissolute life;
          Now you’ve sold us your Land,
          Obey Our Command,
As your Spouse does our Pego when e’re it will st—,
And what I enjoyn you be sure to observe,
Since you know not to Rule, I will teach you to Serve.

II

To reduce our new Subjects, we sent you ’tis true,
But be sure take upon you no more than you’re due;
Submit to the Fetters your self have put on,
You’ve the Name of a King but the Majesties gone.
          For your bold Son-in-Law,
          The valiant Nassaw,
Who values not you nor my self of a straw,
Will neither be cullied nor bubbled like you,
I’ve a prospect already of what he will do.

III

Let not Infant or Bedrid your pity implore,
You’ve lost all your Kingdoms by that heretofore,
A Hereticks life like a Dog’s I do prise,
Murther all that oppose you, or ‘gainst you dare rise:
          They were Subjects to you,
          Therefore make ’em all rue,
And either give them, or I’le give you your due:
I acknowledge your folly has made me more wise,
I see with my own, and not Jesuits eyes.

IV

These Courses in Ireland, I charge you to steer,
In the Head of your Army be sure to appear,
You’re a Souldier of Fortune and fight for your pay,
You know your reward, if you once run away;
          Either Conquest or Death,
          I to you bequeath,
And therefore prepare for a Shrowd or a Wreath:
So thus I commit you to one of the Two,
If I see you no more here, I bid you adieu.

**********

I

WHEN that Remnant of Royalty Jimmy the Cully,
Had receiv’d this Epistle from Lewis the Bully,
His Countenance chang’d, and for madness he cry’d,
I’ve the Devil to my Friend, and his Dam to my Bride;
          Sure I am the first
          That’s in all things accurst,
Nor can I determine which Plague is the worst,
That of losing my Realms or the News I’ve receiv’d,
Which from any Hand else, I could ne’re have believ’d.

II

I find they agreed when for Ireland they sent me,
And if I knew how, ’tis high time to repent me;
I’ve abandon’d my reason to pleasure a Trull,
Who has made me her Bubble, her Cuckold, and Fool;
          We’re all in the Pit,
          Our designs are besh-t,
And hither I’m sent to recover my Wit:
If this be the fortune proud Este does bring,
Wou’d I’de been a Tinker instead of a King.

III

How or which way to turn me, or whither to go,
By the Faith of a Jesuit I’me a Dog if I know;
For this going to War I do mortally hate,
Tho’ of Sieges and Battles I ever cou’d prate;
          I thought I had Valour,
          But I find it was Choler,
Tho’ thirty years I have been Lewis’s Scholar;
I’ve trac’d all his Policies, Maxims and Rules,
By which I’ve attain’d to be chief of his Fools.

IV

Had I courage to dye I’de refuse to survive,
I’m buried already altho’ I’m alive,
My Story’s like that of unfortunate Jack,
I’ve shuffled and cut till I’ve quite lost the Pack:
          He that trusts to the Pope,
          No better must hope,
Or to Lewis or she whom that Pagan does grope:
For no Monarch must ever expect a good Life,
Who is rid by a Priest, or a damn’d Popish Wife.

V

May Lewis succeed me in all Circumstances,
His Arms unsuccessful where e’re he advances,
May his ill gotten Laurels be blasted and dry,
May a Shrowd be deny’d him when e’re he does dye;
          May his Land be o’re-run,
          By that Champion our Son:
So I’le close up with her who that mischief begun;
May the Curse of Three Kingdoms for ever attend her,
While to WILLIAM and MARY my Crown I surrender.
 
 

 

 

The Secret History Of The Reigns Of K. Charles II, And K. James II

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…the Prince who strives to subvert the Fundamental Law of the Society is the Traytor and the Rebel, and not the People who endeavour to preserve and defend their own. Nor must we ascribe the Miscarriages of his Reign altogether to the remissness of his Nature but to a Principle of Revenge, which his Mother had infus’d into him, not so much for the loss of her Husband, but out of her inbred Malice to the Protestant Religion, which no where flourish’d in that Splendour as in England, foster’d and cherished by the vow’d Enemy of this Nation, his Brother the D. of York, who has been openly heard to declare in his Bedchamber at St. James’s, “That he was resolv’d to be reveng’d upon the English Nation for the Death of his Father”: And what an Ascendant this Brother had over him, the whole Kingdom has felt by sad and woeful experience. For indeed the King had all along an Affection for him, so entire and baneful to the Nation, that he could only be said to Reign, while his Brother Rul’d.

 

 

 

 

Though Pierre Jurieu allowed himself both anger and contempt in his A Defence Of Their Majesties King William And Queen Mary, compared to the second reaction to Antoine Arnauld’s attack upon the incumbent English monarchy his response was only a mild admonition.

Published in 1690, The Secret History Of The Reigns Of K. Charles II, And K. James II is equally furious and scurrilous: an ugly and ultimately absurd piece of scandal-writing that devotes itself to the thesis that Charles was from the start a secret Catholic; and that the sole goal of his reign was the establishment in England of – get used to hearing this expression, folks! – Popery and Slavery.

The Secret History… has been attributed over the years to two different authors—most commonly to John Phillips, a nephew of John Milton, who wrote well-received poetry, translations and history, but also supported himself by hack-work. Phillips’ attribution may have originated in his support of Titus Oates, and his efforts to “prove” the Popish Plot. But whatever the original reason, this looks like a case of one person saying something and everyone else copying it.

Anthony Wood’s extraordinary bibliographical work, Athenæ Oxonienses. An Exact History of All the Writers and Bishops who have had their Education in the University of Oxford, remarks of Phillips that:

He is also supposed to be the author of The Secret History of the Reigns of King Charles II. and King James II. printed 1690. oct. ‘Tis a vile piece.

However, in the 1813 edition of the Athenæ Oxonienses, edited by Philip Bliss (which updates and annotates the original entries), we find the comment:

That it is a vile piece is most certain; but that Phillips was the author rests on no good authority, nor is it probable either from the style or the matter of the book.

The first Secret History was followed by The Secret History Of K. James I And K. Charles I. Compleating The Reigns Of The Last Four Monarchs. By The Author Of The Secret History Of K. Charles II And K. James II—which was itself followed by an updated compilation, The Secret History, Of The Last Four Monarchs Of Britain, which contains the same texts, along with an altered preface and an appendix describing James’ movements between his abdication and “this present January, 1691”, and focusing upon events in Ireland. This document is widely attributed to Nathaniel Crouch, although apparently without anyone joining the dots backwards.

Nathaniel Crouch was a printer and bookseller, and also a writer who generally published under the initials “R. B.”, standing for Richard or Robert Burton, his pseudonym of choice. A pseudonym was necessary, as Crouch had  a reputation as a plagiarist. Debate continues over his legacy, however, because though he certainly plundered other people’s writing, he used it to create simplified history texts aimed at the newly literate, the first such “opening up” of material previously aimed exclusively at the upper-classes. Historians tend to be kinder to his memory than publishers and authors.

Further, albeit indirect, support for this alternative attribution of The Secret History… to Crouch may be found in what seems to be yet another re-working of the material, a much-toned-down document entitled, The History Of The Two Late Kings, Charles the Second and James the Second, which promises an account of “secret French and Popish Intrigues and Designs”. This 1693 publication carries the initials “R. B.” and the detail, “Printed for Nath. Crouch”.

But whoever the author—it is not exactly surprising that The Secret History… was published anonymously, and without any publication details. Even by the standards of the scandal-histories with which we are familiar, this is an outrageous attack with no limit to what the author is willing to accuse the Stuarts of: treason, murder, national sabotage and incest being only the head-liners.

However, the very relentlessness of the attack ultimately makes this a wearisome read—and an absurd one. The anonymous author was, apparently, everywhere during the reigns of Charles and James: lurking in corners at Court, hiding in bedrooms, onboard ships in the English navy, hopping between England and France and back again, somehow getting access to everyone’s correspondence; even getting literally inside people’s heads, or so we assume from his willingness to tell us what everyone was thinking and planning.

All this is intended to prove not merely that Charles was devoted to establishing Popery and Slavery in England, but that everything – and I mean EVERYTHING – he did during his reign was with this goal in mind; and if it sometimes looked like he was doing something to the benefit of England, well, that was just because you didn’t know the secret history.

And here we hit the real issue with The Secret History… because, while in order to argue his thesis the author needs to present Charles as a kind of master-conspirator, manipulating the people around him and pulling strings across Europe, at the same time every word he writes drips with a contempt for Charles so profound, you can hear the sneer inside your head while you’re reading.

But this contradiction is perfectly in tune with the subject matter presented, wherein we learn such interesting facts as that England went to war with Dutch not over trade and territory, but because the Dutch were the defenders of the Protestant faith; that to to damage England, Charles (via James) sabotaged the English fleet during the Raid on the Medway; that Charles was behind the Popish Plot, even though (as the author seems to have forgotten) *he* was the target of it; and that the Pope was so intent upon backing Charles in bringing about Popery and Slavery, he instituted a levy upon Roman Catholic priests all over the world, in order to fund his efforts.

And so on.

I don’t intend to consider The Secret History… in any detail, partly because it would be tedious for both of us, and partly because someone else already did—and I’ll be considering that. Instead, I thought I would simply provide a series of quotes, which would give you a taste of this document, while highlighting a few things that struck me as particularly outré.

This early passage (dealing with the negotiations for the Restoration) gives a good idea of the author’s approach to his material: sweeping condemnatory statements about events that for one reason or another, he can’t produce any proof of just at the moment, or that didn’t come to light at the time for one reason of another…

And as for the second, his Zeal for the Protestant Religion, nothing could render him more a Hypocrite then such a Profession, when at the same time he was both himself a Papist, and under Promises and Obligations to the Pope and the Romish Clergy, to destroy the Protestant and introduce the Roman Catholick Religion, as afterwards appear’d by the Attestations of Ocular Witnesses, who often saw him at Mass during his Exile: and was yet more evident by a Letter under his own Hand, written in the Year 1652 to the Pope himself; which once was printed in Whitlocks Memoirs; but upon considerations of the danger that might ensue upon divulging it at that time to the World, torn out before the publishing of the Book.

We also learn that Charles’ sexual irregularities were even more irregular than we thought:

Soon after he arrived in England, where he was receiv’d with all the Pomp and Splendour, and all the Demonstrations of Joy that a Nation could express; but then, as if he had left all his Piety behind him in Holland, care was taken against the very first Night that his Sacred Majesty was to lie at Whitehall, to have the Lady Castlemain seduc’d from her Loyalty to her Husbandand entic’d into the Arms of the happily restor’d Prince. Which was not only Adultery, but Incest in the Lord’s Annointed, it being the Opinion of several Persons, who had reason to know more than others did, that she was his Sister by the Mother’s Side, as being begotten by the E. of St. A. upon the Queen’s Body, after the Death of C. the First: which is the rather to be believ’d, for that I my self have often heard Mr. R. Osborn, then at Paris with the Exil’d King, affirm, That he saw the said E. and the Queen solemnly marry’d together.

(I don’t know who Mr. R. Osborn is; there was a Sir Richard Osborne, an Irish baronet, but he doesn’t seem to have had any connection to Charles.)

But indirect, possibly unknowing incest isn’t good enough for our Charlie:

To which purpose the Duchess of Orleans was sent over, as one that would be a welcom Guest to her Brother, and whose Charms and Dexterity, joyn’d with her other advantages, would give her such an ascendent over him, as could not fail of Success; and indeed she acquitted herself so well of her Commission, that she quite supplanted all the King;s good Councils, and by yielding to his Incestuous Embraces, while the D. of B. held the Door, so charmed his most Sacred Majesty, that he quite and clean forgot his Tripple League…

But there’s more to all this than just Charles’ overactive hormones:

…he gave these lewd Examples himself, on purpose, that after he had thus Enervated the Minds and Resolutions of his Subjects, he might the more easily trample upon their Necks, and reduce them under the perpetual Yoke of Antichrist, in expectation of his Mothers Blessing, and to fulfil the Agreement between himself, the Pope, and the French King.

Much of the text of The Secret History… is devoted to explaining how the Triple Alliance between England, Sweden and the United Provinces, formed to support Spain against France, was actually meant to help France; and how the Popish Plot – supposedly a Catholic plan to murder Charles, for the benefit of James – was actually part of Charles’ plot to introduce Popery and Slavery:

So that now all things running on the Papistical side to their Hearts desire, what with Popish Souldiers, Popish Officers, Popish Counsels, Popish Priests and Jesuits swarming about the Town and Country, and France at leisure to help them who help’d him to be more a Conqueror by the Peace, than he could have expected by a War; the Duke of York was for the King pulling off his Vizard, and for setting up Alamode of France, according to what had been so often debated at White Hall and St. James’s…

Having explained the role of Charles in the Popish Plot, and similarly his guilt with respect to the deaths of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey and the Earl of Essex, the author huffs:

If this be not enough to discover his Inclinations, and the whole drift of his Intrigueing Reign, there can be nothing sharp enough to penetrate the stupid and besotted Bigotry of those that stand up in his Justification. But notwithstanding the wilful Blindness of such People, it is to be hoped, that other Men less biassed, and having the same just pretensions to common Understanding, have a greater value for their Reason, than to forfeit it to Prejudice, and an Interest, now exploded by all the sober part of the World…

Despite all this, Charles is eventually considered too dilatory in his introduction of Popery and Slavery; and James is tasked with putting someone more active in charge of proceedings—i.e. himself. Thus Charles dies, conveniently enough.

…it was as plain, That he had a mortal Antipathy against the Protestant Religion, and more particularly against the Professors of it in England; but more especially the Dissenters, upon the score of Revenging his Father’s Death. An Imbitter’d Hatred, which he deriv’d from his Mother, who mortally malic’d England upon the same Account, and which he acknowledg’d in his Bedchamber at St. James’s, where he openly declar’d: That he was resolv’d to be reveng’d upon the English Nation for his Father’s Death. Which if those unthinking People, who are so eager to have him again, would but consider, they would not be so forward for his return…

One of the few genuinely interesting things about The Secret History… is its twinned views of Charles and James—the former a better plotter than his brother, but selfish and greedy, stringing along his co-conspirators while he demanded money, and more money, until he overreached himself; the latter red-hot and incautious in his rush to Catholicism, so that he undid his own design.

The text is on firmer ground here, inasmuch as most of what is laid to James’ charge is open fact instead of “secret intrigue”: his alterations to the religious laws, the placing of Catholics in high civil and military positions, and the horrifying reprisals that followed the Monmouth Rebellion.

On the other hand, James is accused of abetting the Catholics who started the Great fire; and we have to hash over the Popish Plot yet again; and of course, there’s always the Sham Prince:

    The World that grows Wiser every day than other, will never be made believe, that a Person debilitated by the unfortunate Effects of the exasperated Revenge of an injured Bed, and meeting a Consort no less infirm, by whom he never had before any Child, but what dropt into the Grave, as soon as Born, not having any substantial Rafters for Life to build upon, should so seasonably nick it, to be both the Parents of a sound Off-spring for the preservation of Popery…
    It was look’d upon all over Europe, as a very low and mean Condescension of a Sovereign Prince, Hedge-Sparrow like, to hatch the Cuckoo’s Egg…

Fortunately, help was at hand—or at least in Holland. Or maybe heaven:

For now the Nation, no longer able to brook such such a deluge of illegal Oppressions, and the whole Body of the Nobility and Gentry of the Kingdom, observing such a general Desolation impending upon their Religion, Lives, and Fortunes, apply themselves to their Highnesses the Princess and Prince of Orange, as the only Cherubims on Earth, under whose Wings they could retire for Safety and Protection…

And if our author’s language has been extreme in dealing with Charles and James, well, you ain’t heard nothing yet; even if it is now tending in the other direction:

It seem’d a Labyrinth of Providence, to which the Belov’d of Heaven WILLIAM HENRY only had the Clue; while Prudence and Fortitude were the Ariadnes that gave him their Assistance to subdue the Minotaur that devoured our Religion and Liberties. Two conspicuous Examples at one of Heaven’s Indignation , and the Almighty’s Favour; the one pursuing to his downfal an Apostate from God, and an Oppressor of his People, and exposing him among unbelieving Bog-trotters upon the lingering death-bed of his gasping Glory, the fetter’d Vassal of his once fawning Confederate. The other prospering with Miracles of Success, the Generous Redeemer of the True Reformed Religion, from the devouring Jaws of that double-headed Monster, Popery and Slavery; By whose Auspicious Conduct two late languishing Kingdoms, groaning under the heavy weight of Misery and Tyranny, enjoy a Jubilee of Peace and Tranquility, and freed from the daily fears of Massacre and Destruction, in the fair way to recover their Pristin Glory, have now no more to do, but to repay their Praises to Heaven, and their due Acknowledgments to Them that have approv’d themselves the truly Indulging Father and Mother of their Country: A Prince, the Wonder of His Age; a Princess, the Miracle of Her Sex; in whom all Virtues, as in their proper Center meet; rendring the Nation happy in Two in One, as the whole World is blest in Three in One…
 
 

A Defence Of Their Majesties King William And Queen Mary

 
 
…there is something that is singular in the violence of these Motions; and it is this, that the Revolution that has lately happened in England by the wise Conduct of William III King of England does irritate them to so great an elevation of Fury. If his present Majesty had poured his Forces into France, and obliged that King to leave his Throne, the Rage would have been raised to such a pitch, as to admit of no Accession. The Piety, Clemency and Justice of King William (who now strikes Lewis with so great a Terror) is the August Subject of this Discourse. These glorious Qualities made manifest in his said Majesties late Expedition into England, in Opposition to the French Designs there, are the Subject Matter of this small Treatise. Neither the late King James nor the Irish and English Papists, his Friends, were so hot in their Resentments as the French. There is something extraordinary in it, and this boundless Wrath of the French King against William King of England, was possibly not so much kindled by the consideration of what he has done, as by the fearful prospect of what he can do…

 

 

 

So. We find ourselves in Europe, in the year 1688. Contrary to the popular belief of an alliance between Louis XIV and the Pope, the latter was actually collaborating in the opposing, non-sectarian alliance formed between William of Orange, the Protestant rulers of several of the German States, and Leopold I of Austria, a Catholic: an alliance intended to keep France confined.

In England, the rule of the Catholic James II was moving towards the twin crises of James’ imprisonment of the seven bishops who refused to read his Declaration of Indulgence from their pulpits, and the birth of the – putative – Prince of Wales; both of which occurred in June. Though these events were the immediate cause of the appeal to William by the “Immortal Seven”, another driving force was the knowledge that, in Ireland, the Earl of Tyrconnell was raising an army for James—a Catholic army.

William had been ready to move for some time, pending the receipt of a formal invitation from England; and on the 5th November 1688, he and his army landed at Brixham, on the coast of Devon. A stand-off followed: James sent his wife, Mary of Modena, and their baby out of England early in December, but himself held his ground while he considered his options. At this time there were many more than willing to support him if he would roll back his policies in favour of his fellow-Catholics, but this proved the sticking-point. Abandoned by his Parliament, his army and his navy, James fled England on the 23rd December, and took refuge at the Court of Louis XIV. Subsequently, and after much wrangling – and their agreement to a Bill of Rights henceforth restricting the power of the monarchy – William and his wife, Mary, were asked jointly to accept the throne; their coronation followed on the 11th April 1689.

James and Louis had no intention of allowing this situation to go unchallenged. Louis immediately placed an army at James’ disposal, and the two agreed that Ireland should be the base for preparations of their efforts to re-establish James in England. On the 22nd March 1689, James and the army commanded by the Comte de Lauzun landed in Kinsale, in County Cork. Over the following fifteen months, James made Ireland his own, with only the island town of Enniskillen and the walled city of Londonderry holding out against him.

Naturally enough, this uncertain situation prompted another outbreak of political writing in England—and across Europe, too, as the various factions argued their position in both religious and secular terms.

The opening salvo in the war of words currently under consideration was Antoine Arnauld’s 1689 publication, Le véritable portrait de Guillaume Henry de Nassau, nouvel Absalon, nouvel Hérode, nouvel Cromwel, nouvel Néron, which was translated into English as, A True Portraicture Of William Henry, Prince Of Nassau.

My French isn’t up to a consideration of the former, and the latter is unavailable; so we move on to the first of the two responses to Arnauld’s attack, that penned by Pierre Jurieu as, Apologie pour leurs Sérénissimes Majestés Britanniques, contre un Infame Libelle intitulé ‘Le vray portrait de Guillaume Henry de Nassau’, and translated into English as, A defence of Their Majesties King William and Queen Mary, against an infamous and Jesuitical libel, entituled, A true portraicture of William Henry, Prince of Nassau &c, by someone who identifies himself only as ‘R. S.’

Though we cannot access the earlier documents, it is reasonably easy to infer the attack made upon William by Arnauld from the counter-arguments posed by Jurieu. It is also a fairly simple matter to judge where Jurieu felt himself to be on firm ground, and where his (or rather, William’s) position was a little more shaky.

Despite the title of the translation, Mary barely figures in it: she is mentioned only in an early passage, in conjunction with an hilariously fulsome eulogy to William’s piety that, had we not previously suffered through twenty years of Charles II being called “god-like”, would be intolerable; and which makes the passage on Mary seem like a mild compliment in comparison:

As for the Queen, it is generally agreed, that there was never one more Devout, nor more exact, in the Practice of her Duties towards God. Her Piety is not accompanied with the vain shew of Hypocrisy. She is great without being Proud: She has a Natural Air, she appears in all her Actions without Affectation. She is tender and full of Compassion, and incapable of forgetting the Obligations of Nature…

…the latter presumably prompted by criticism of her behaviour towards her father.

Jurieu starts out well enough, as we see from the quote above, with the suggestion that all this outrage emanating from France has nothing to do with indignation over the abused rights of kings, and everything to do with the thwarting of French ambition. However, he stumbles as he tries to defend William (and Mary) against accusations of impious and unfilial behaviour towards James, and to show that they had a moral and legal right, and the right of precedent, to displace him. In pursuit of this, he draws clearly inappropriate examples from the bible and from European history to show that the “right” king isn’t necessarily the next heir, and that God is (presumably) okay with the correctly qualified individual taking the throne.

Curiously, while ignoring primogeniture, Jurieu basically argues for the throne being “entailed”, that is, that an heir has the right to try and prevent anything done by the incumbent monarch that he perceives as damaging to the country or to the people; extrapolating from this William’s right to interfere in James’ proceedings; and arguing, in effect, that James had forfeited his right to the throne. He finally draws a rather intriguing comparison between James and his father—suggesting that William’s intervention prevented a similar scenario of an executed king and a civil war.

From all this it follows, that the English Nation did justly look upon King James II as incapable of the Crown, because of his Religion, and as fallen from his Rights by his violation of all the Fundamental Laws, and consequently William III, his Son-in-Law, and Mary his Daughter, now King and Queen of England possess the Crown most lawfully, which returns to them by Right of Succession… They did not trample upon the respect which they owed to him who was their Father, or held the place of a Father, for nothing is owing to a Father in prejudice of the Rights that are due to God and our Country. They committed no Violence as a means of coming by the Crown; they did nothing against the Commands of St. Peter and St. Paul of being Subject to the Powers, for neither St. Peter nor St. Paul had any design of Establishing the Arbitrary Power of Kings (whose Authority is limited by the Laws) nor of favoring Tyrants…

Jurieu conversely contends that James’ seeming generosity (via the Declaration of Indulgence) to non-mainstream religions was an accidental consequence of his rolling back laws in favour of the Catholics, and that he would not have included them if he could have avoided it:

They know very well, and all the World is sensible of it, that King James did extreamly hate the Presbyterians, Independents and Anabaptists, looking upon them as the Authors of his Father’s death and as his own Enemies. It is very well known, that during all the time that he was Duke of York, he did cruelly Persecute them…

Lengthy religious brawling follows—most of it obvious, with one interesting touch: Arnauld’s apparent condemnation of William for posing as “defender of the English faith”, when he himself was Presbyterian.

Much of the next section flew over my head, in addressing Dutch history and being (I gather) intended to disprove an accusation that William, far from being a pious saviour, had always been a rapacious acquirer of territory and power. I deduce that the reference to him as of Nassau rather than Orange is meant to underscore this.

One part of the story did, however, make me sit up and blink.

Reading backwards, we find Arnauld accusing William of being behind the violent overthrow in 1672 of Johan de Witt, then Grand Pensionary of the Dutch Republic, who with his brother, Cornelis, was blamed for the Rampjaar, or “disaster year”, during which large areas of the Republic were seized by invading armies. A mob descended upon the prison where Johann was visiting Cornelis, who had already been arrested; the guards decided they would be better off elsewhere; and the brothers were brutally killed and—partially eaten!?

Brief research would suggest that William’s hands were not exactly clean in the matter: if he didn’t instigate the mob, he took no action against the participants afterwards; and it was the Orange-ists, as they were known, who came out ahead in the resulting land-grab.

(Evidently Alexandre Dumas, père, used this incident as the opening of The Black Tulip, which is now On The List.)

Jurieu’s defence of William here is not exactly rock-solid – more along the lines of, Oh yeah? Prove it! – and he changes the subject as quickly as he possibly can, to that of the Sham Prince.

There is some amusing sleight-of-hand here, with Jurieu declaring that he won’t get into all that again, even as he proceeds to rehash the story one more time, and in detail; and arguing for the baby’s suspicious antecedents (…in all probability…nothing else but a Chimera…), while simultaneously offering a grimly prosaic view of the Prince’s likely fate were James to die and leave him a “Popish Minor”. Likewise, Jurieu here professes to believe the revisionist view of the arrest of the seven bishops, that is, that James didn’t want them around during the baby’s birth; even though elsewhere he presents the standard explanation for the arrests, the bishops’ resistance to James’ Declaration of Indulgence.

From here Jurieu goes into a lengthy defence of William’s “unlawful” conduct in invading England, and his behaviour after he got there, most of it sensibly argued: we accept that William wanted neither civil war nor a dead James, and that his “menaces” were merely to build pressure and nothing he intended acting upon.

He then condemns James’ own behaviour after William’s landing:

If James II upon the Prince’s arrival in Exeter, had, of his own accord, given his consent to the calling of a free Parliament, there might have been sufficient assurance given, as of a thing most certain, that he might have had all manner of freedom, to propose, to speak, and to demand of the Parliament, whatever he pleased; Who would have barr’d him from this? He had his Guards, he had his Army, consisting of about 40,000 Men, against ten or twelve thousand, whom the Prince had taken with him. It is certain, that the Army would have proved faithful to him, and not one person would have joyned with the Prince, against him, if, at that instant, the King had called a free Parliament: But God, who intended to Ruine him, did leave him to be blinded and made obstinate, by Popish Counsels…

Jurieu also turns the tables by asking the same questions raised by Arnauld of Louis:

Indeed this Orator would not have done amiss to have spared his Breath, to have reserved his Rhetoric and his Eloquence to Answer the Demands that William of Nassau, in all likelihood will make, ‘ere it be long, to Lewis XIV, for if it should so happen, that he prove the stronger, one day he has very good reason to call him to an account, and ask him, by what Laws he invaded and retained Lorain, and possessed himself of Strasburg in the time of Peace; by what Laws he laid the principality of Orange Desolate, and treated the same as a place subjected to him by an absolute Conquest, why he reduced the Palatinate, and the Towns and Villages on the Rhione to Ashes, treating it as a country destined by the most Savage Proscription, to a perpetual Desolation, and why he seizes the Possessions of every one, and keeps Faith with none?

Attention then shifts back to England, and the legality or otherwise of the proceedings of William and Parliament after James’ “abdication”: much quibbling follows, with Jurieu not finding a firm voice again until dealing with William’s attitude towards the English Catholics:

The Man complains loudly, that the Prince, in his Declaration, founds his Order for the Papists laying down their Arms, upon their Meeting about London and Westminster, ‘with a barbarous Design of making some attempt upon the said Cities, either by Fire, or a Massacre, or by both together’. He must certainly be very much in the wrong, who suspects Papists and Popery of such Attempts; they are very little acquainted with them. St. Bartholomew’s Massacre, and many others committed in France: The Murders attempted upon the person of Queen Elizabeth, and committed upon those of Henry the Third and Henry the Fourth: The assassination of William of Orange: The Gunpowder Plot, for blowing up the Two House of Parliament in the beginning of the Reign of James the First: The Burning of London: The Assassination of Justice Godfrey: The Death of the Earl of Essex by a rasour; And that of King Charles the Second by Poyson, with a Hundred other Enterprizes of this nature, make it appear, that we commit an outrageous violence against Popery, if we believe, that she is capable of inspiring the blackest Designs…

…and what a fascinating mixture of fact and fiction THAT is! Interesting how belief, or “belief”, that the Catholics were responsible for the Great Fire, comes and goes over time; also that James murdered Charles; while responsibility for the death of the Earl of Essex tends to shift around.

But it is Arnauld’s prediction of William’s eventual cruelty towards English Catholics that pushes Jurieu over the edge:

It is a mark of great judgment to look for Cruelty out of France, and to accuse a Foreign Prince thereof, whil’st he lives under the most cruel Government that has been in Europe for these many ages. A Government under which a Thousand Cruelties have been committed upon the Protestants to make them abjure their Religion… They burnt, they rack’d, they tortured them… They massacred, and burnt and tore many in pieces alive. They left infinite numbers of People to perish in frightful Prisons, and in unspeakable miseries… These are the Men who accuse our Princes of Severity. Get you gone then, you Infamous Man! Go, and read Lectures of Clemency to your own Masters, before you charge ours with Cruelty.

And Jurieu wraps things up by drawing comparisons between Louis’ behaviour, and that of James after the Battle of Sedgemoor:

After the defeat of the Duke of Monmouth, he sent a Monster of Injustice into the West of England. He caused to Hang and Quarter more than two thousand persons in those Counties. An example of horrible Cruelty, and which possibly cannot be parallel’d in History. In the most Criminal Rebellions, the Heads are punished, and the Multitude is pardoned. But he was for cutting off both Leaders and People, and burying them under the same ruins. You speak for a Prince who is suspected to have his hands stained with his Brother’s Blood, and to have dipt them in that of the Earl of Essex. You ought to have let these Ideas of Horror sleep, and engage those who wish him well, not to awaken them, and expose them to the view of England…

 
 

“Oh, yeah?” “Yeah!” “Oh, yeah?” “Yeah!”

Well. I was hoping for a relatively straightforward re-start of my Chronobibliography; I seem to have opened a can of worms instead.

The next work on my existing list is – or was – The Secret History Of The Reigns Of K. Charles II, And K. James II, one of the numerous pieces of revisionist history to emerge in the wake of the Glorious Revolution. Published anonymously, the item is sometimes listed in library catalogues and other such sources as by John Phillips, but with sufficient doubt about it to prompt me to go looking for more concrete information on the subject.

That may have been a mistake.

My initial research did indeed turn up a suggested alternative author in the form of bookseller, historian and plagiarist, Nathaniel Crouch. It also brought to light a response to the publication: The Blatant Beast Muzzl’d: or, Reflexions On A Late Libel, Entituled, The Secret History Of The Reigns Of K. Charles II. And K. James II.

Okay. Paired opinions. Might be interesting.

So I read The Secret History…noting in its preface a reference to a third work, One of the French King’s most Scandalous Libels, and bitter Invectives against our Present Sovereign; Intitled, The True Portraicture of William Henry of Nassau, &c.

And then I began to glance into The Blatant Beast Muzzl’d…whose own preface references a raft of contemporary literature, before launching into a point-by-point criticism of the its rival publication.

It was quickly apparent that I had inadvertently wandered into the middle of an ongoing brawl. When the dust settled, the landscape looked something like this—

In 1689, the French theologian, philosopher and (as one source put it) “professional controversialist” Antoine Arnauld published Le véritable portrait de Guillaume Henry de Nassau, nouvel Absalon, nouvel Hérode, nouvel Cromwel, nouvel Néron.

(Some impressive name-calling there: I’m amused by the designation of William as “Absalom”, which as we might recall was the term applied by John Dryden to the Duke of Monmouth, Charles’ rebellious illegitimate son; now we find it being applied to William of Orange, a rebellious Stuart nephew.)

The first reaction to this was – curiously, at first glance – also French. The same year saw the publication of Apologie pour leurs Sérénissimes Majestés Britanniques, contre un Infame Libelle intitulé ‘Le vray portrait de Guillaume Henry de Nassau by Pierre Jurieu, a leading French Protestant who understandably spent most of his life outside of France, and who like Antoine Arnaud was a disputatious writer. (He seems to have done more practical good than Arnaud, however, particularly in assisting fellow-Protestants impacted by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes.)

In due course, both of these documents were translated into English—the former becoming the aforementioned A True Portraicture Of William Henry, Prince Of Nassau, and the latter appearing as A defence of Their Majesties King William and Queen Mary, against an infamous and Jesuitical libel entituled, A true portraicture of William Henry, Prince of Nassau.

(In fact Arnaud seems to have spent a lot of time butting heads with the Jesuits, but of course “Jesuitical” was just English for “particularly evil Catholic”.)

As we have seen, the first translation prompted the writing of The Secret History, which in turn prompted The Blatant Beast Muzzl’d…which begins with a lengthy rant against the proliferation of revisionist and scandal-histories and the slanderers who write them, and comparing them unfavourably, in respect of their “truth”, with the exaggerated historical “romances” popular in France; in the process mentioning by title:

• A Letter From Lewis The Great, To James The Less
• The Royal Wanton; or, The Amours Of Messalina
• Cassandre (by Gauthier de Costes, seigneur de la Calprenède, 1642-1650, translated into English by Sir Charles Cotterell between 1652-1661)
• Artamène; ou le Grand Cyrus (1649-1654; originally attributed to Georges de Scudéry, but written by his sister, Madeleine; considered the longest novel ever written)
• Ibrahim; ou le Ilustrious Basa (1641, also by Madeleine de Scudéry, also originally attributed to Georges; translated into English in 1652 by Henry Cogan and adapted into a play by Elkanah Settle in 1676)
• The Great Bastard, Protector Of The Little One
• The Abdicated Prince; or, The Adventures Of Four Years

…the last two of which further brought to my attention:

• The Royal Cuckold; or, Great Bastard: giving an account of the birth and pedegree of Lewis le Grand, the first French King of that name and race (which seems to have been a German work, not translated into English until 1693; although The Great Bastard is clearly a pseudo-sequel of sorts)
• The Bloody Duke; or, The Adventures For A Crown
• A Compleat History Of The Pretended Prince of Wales: from his supposed conception by the late abdicated Qeen, to the fatal exit of his true mother Mrs. Mary Grey

Sigh.

Having sat down feeling good about about getting back to this project, I’m now doing my impression of a deer caught in headlights…with my only definite decision about where to go from here being that I will *not* be tackling the literary efforts of the absurdly fecund Mlle de Scudéry.

The one overarching conclusion we can draw from all this, I think, is that William and Mary were not as secure on their thrones as history may now make it seem. There were still those who supported the Stuarts, or at least held by “the true line”; and there was fear and uncertainty about what James might do, with sufficient backing from Louis XIV: of all these works, only The Royal Cuckold appeared (in English) after the Battle of the Boyne. Clearly it was felt necessary to shore by the new monarchs’ position by reminding everyone of the iniquities and failures of Charles and James, and their sinister connection to Louis.

Although I have previously tagged 1689 as a watershed year in the development of the English novel, in that it was the first year in which prose writing was dominated by fiction rather than politics, we can see from this that it was rather a brief respite in the conflict, while the combatants of 1688 were gathering their forces for another clash.

As for the rest— Clearly my hope that I had seen the last of James was premature and delusive. I can’t say I’m feeling much enthusiasm – to put it mildly – about the prospect of hashing over the Sham Prince saga yet again. Nor about another round of sex-scandal romans à clef: The Royal Wanton, by the way, is Gregory Leti’s follow-up to The Amours Of Messalina, expanding on the putative affair between Louis XIV and Mary of Modina and intended, like so much of this literature, to make James look stupid.  And I already know that The Secret History and The Blatant Beast Muzzl’d are just tiresome exercises in slander and insult.

On the other hand, I don’t honestly feel that I can just skip over this second wave of political writing, which serves to illustrate the emotional and political climate in England leading up to James’ attempt to re-seize his crown.

So what I think I will try to do, is simply give a brief overview of the works in question—unless they seem to deserve a closer look. I have some hopes that one or two of them, A Letter From Lewis The Great, To James The Less, for example, might actually be funny.

Of course, the downside of this schema is that it requires me actually to read these things in the first place…

[This space for rent]

Well…I could sit here making excuses…but how about we just move on?