The judgment against the City of London was a prelude to the forfeitures or compulsory surrenders of most of the Corporations in the kingdom. Roger North relates that Jeffreys, when Chief Justice, returned from a circuit laden with the spoil of Corporations; "whose charters," he says, "fell before him, as the walls of Jericho." Among the transactions relative to this subject recorded in the State Trials, the Author mentions with gratification the resistance made at Nottingham (in the Corporation of which town he had the honor to fill the office of Recorder) to the violation of their Charter. The mace of the new Sheriff, appointed by the Crown, was captured and made a trophy, amid cries of "No new charter!" and although the agitators were punished as for a pretended riot, by the thrice infamous Jeffreys, they afforded an example to all the Corporations of the kingdom of that resistance to the domination of might over right which was conducted with more success at the Revolution, but never with more energy than by the People of Nottingham in defence of their ancient Charter. Among subordinate objects to be attained by the Court from its influence over Corporations, and especially that of London, by means of the Corporation Act, was a facility of borrowing money, probably without any reasonable prospect of repayment. An illustration of this practice occurs in Pepys's Diary, under the date October 26th, 1664: "The City, last night, did very freely lend the King £100,000, without any security but the King's word, which was very noble." It is not surprising that we learn from another source, quoted by Lord Braybrooke, that the King and Queen were present at the city banquet palm on the subject of Lord Shaftesbury's Medal. According to some verses on a city pageant representing St Dunstan, quoted in the Author's Gems of Latin Poetry, the Citizens' ears in 1687 had become attuned to Tory melodies. The verses run: Nor need you fear the shipwreck of your cause, Your loss of Charter, or the penal laws; Indulgence granted by your bounteous Prince, Makes for that loss too great a recompence. after the Lord Mayor's show on the 29th of the ensuing November. The Corporation Oath of Non-resistance was abolished, not indeed at the Revolution, though it most probably became a dead letter from that epoch, but at the accession of the House of Brunswick, by the "Act for quieting and establishing Corporations" (5 Geo. I. c. 6, s. 2). The judgment in respect of the forfeiture of the Charter of the Corporation of London was reversed by a Statute of William and Mary (2 W. and M. sess. 1. c. 8,) as "illegal and arbitrary;" and, by the same statute it was declared, that the franchises of the City of London should never more be forfeited for any cause whatever. The Sacramental Test, the great point of contention for a series of years between liberal and intolerant statesmen, was abolished in the reign of George IV. (9 Geo. IV. c. 7), and the following Declaration substituted. "I, A. B., do solemnly and sincerely, in the presence of God, profess, testify, and declare upon the true faith of a Christian, that I will never exercise any power, authority or influence which I may possess by virtue of the office of to injure or weaken the Protestant Church, as it is by law established in England, or to disturb the said Church, or the Bishops and Clergy of the said Church in the possession of any rights or privileges to which such Church, or the said Bishops or Clergy are or may be by law entitled." This Declaration (the making of which, being a preliminary qualification for municipal offices, does not fall within the annual indemnity Acts) has been modified in the present reign, in order to obviate the religious objections of Quakers, Separatists, Moravians, and those who have been of those persuasions, and lastly (8th and 9th Vict. c. 52), by dispensing with any reference to the "true faith of a Christian," Jews. The Jury Act of George IV., the Reform Act, and the Municipal Corporations Act of William IV. (5th and 6th W. IV. c. 76), complete the catalogue of laws affecting the constitutional powers of Corporations. These institutions, in the early history of the country, had formed a counterpoise to the exorbitant powers and rapacity of the feudal barons; by their means order and security, industry, trade, and the arts, were revived in Italy, France, Germany, Flanders and England. The conversion of them into instruments for the establishment of tyrannical power, and the infliction of religious persecution, was in a great measure accomplished in the reign of Charles II.; but it is now counted among the by-gone and surmounted perils of the English Constitution. (b) The Test Act. The Test Act was passed with the object of preventing political power being placed in the hands of Papists, though they were even appointed to offices by the Crown. Unlike the Corporation Act, it was not a winnowing-machine of the Court, but was forced upon the government by the Country Party, which, at least upon subjects connected with Popery and French Alliance, had acquired an ascendancy in Parliament. During a lapse of thirteen years since the Restoration, fears for the re-establishment of a Commonwealth, through the imputed machinations of Dissenters, had almost been dissipated, and new objects of alarm had engrossed the public mind-Charles had married a Papist; and he had been engaged, at least as early as 1664, in secret negotiations with the French King, which resulted in the treaty of Dover, signed in 1670. And although this treaty was masked even from the King's protestant ministers by a sham treaty, yet its existence and general import were suspected'. Besides which the Duke of York had announced 1 The nature of the alliance with France, and the pension received by Charles, are explained in the Stuart Papers and Barillon's Letters. Writers on the subject do not appear to have noticed the following passage in Pepys's Diary, under the date of 28th of April, 1669: "I find that it is brought almost to effect, that, for a sum of money, we shall enter into a league with the King of France, and that this L his intended marriage with a Roman Catholic Princess, of the House of Modena, a family in close alliance with the Court of France, and he had openly avowed his renunciation of the Protestant communion. All which circumstances had prepared the nation for the passing of the Test Act; as, a few years afterwards, without the like reason, they obtained credence for the perjuries of an Oates, and applause for the judicial murder of Lord Stafford. James II. represented, in his private memoirs, that it was the circumstance of his having refused compliance with the King's solicitations to preserve an outward appearance of conformity which "led to the Test." Evelyn, in his Diary, under the date of the 30th of March, 1673, writes, that this was the second year in which the Duke of York had forborne taking the sacrament with the King. The Papists, in the long recess of Parliament preceding the passing of the Test Act, managed to increase popular odium against them by an indiscreet display of the fantastic ceremonies of their religion. Evelyn, in his Diary, under the date of 4th of April, 1672, writes, "I went to see the fopperies of the Papists at Somerset House, and at York House, where now the French Ambassador had caused to be represented our blessed Saviour at the Paschal Supper with his Disciples, in figures and puppets made as big as life, of wax-work, curiously clad, and sitting round a large table, the room nobly hung1, and shining with innumerable lamps and candles: this was exposed to all the world; all the city came to see it: such liberty had the Roman Catholics at this time obtained!" The popular zeal against Popery had been fanned both for latinists and simpletons by insculptures on "London's column money will so help the King, that he will not need the Parliament. Lady Castlemaine is instrumental in this matter. But this is a thing will make the Parliament and kingdom mad." 1 "The false forest of a well-hung room."-Cowley's Ode on Liberty. pointing to the skies." Its vivacity about the time of passing the Test Act may be collected from a passage of Evelyn's Diary in the same year, under the date of 5th of November, 1673: "This night the youths of the City burnt the Pope in effigy, after they had made procession with it in great triumph, they being displeased with the Duke at altering his religion, and marrying an Italian Lady." Dryden, in his Epilogue to the play of Edipus, writes: What your palates relish most, Charm! song! and shew! a murder and a ghost! To please you more, but burning of a Pope'. A Popish Test had, indeed, been prescribed in Elizabeth's Act of Supremacy, which applied to all persons accepting temporal and ecclesiastical offices, and consisted of a denial of the spiritual jurisdiction of the Pope. But, though the refusal of this oath, when tendered, subjected the Recusant to various penalties, none were attached to the neglect of taking it; nor was the oath made a previous qualification for the enjoyment of office; nor could it be offered to Peers, who were exempted by a special provision. Elizabeth's Test was designed for punishment, rather than disability. The Test Act (25th of Charles II. c. 2) was passed on the 29th of March, 1673. The Title of the Act is "An Act for preventing dangers which may happen from Popish Recusants." Its preamble is "For preventing dangers which may happen from Popish Recusants, and quieting the minds of his Majesty's good subjects." 1 W. Scott, in his edition of Dryden, appends to this passage a minute description of the burning of a Pope, from a rare broadside. Among the characters in the procession are Six Jesuits, with bloody daggers; the dead body of Sir E. Godfrey; Sir G. Wakeman, the Queen's physician, with Jesuits' powder in one hand, and an urinal in the other; the Pope, wearing a triple crown, and carrying St Peter's keys, with a number of beads and Agnus Dei's. The Devil at the Pope's back whispers him to destroy the King; forge a Protestant plot; fire the City again, for which purpose he offers his Holiness a lighted torch. |