Hampton Court ... Illustrated with forty-three drawings by Herbert ...

104
HAMPTON COURT
affix the Great Seal to blank paper, an act which would
have caused a frenzy of denunciation from every
historian if it had happened under Charles I. or
James II.,or had been performed by any other than
the orthodox Whig Somers. As it is, some people
seem disposed to accept Hallam's ludicrous excuse
for the King, that he was influenced " by a deep sense
of the unworthiness of mankind."
Certainly the refusal of the royal assent to the
" Place Bills," and to the bill for securing the independence
of the judges as regards the Crown, though
they may be explained by a deep sense of the unworthiness
of human nature when not seated upon
an elective throne, are equally irreconcilable with
Revolution theories. Here the man who has been
elevated to the throne on the distinct understanding
that he is to accommodate himself to that idea of
royalty which recognises the legislative supremacy of
Parliament, appears as using the power which has
been conferred upon him in defiance of the compact
under which it was conferred.
As we contemplate the portrait in which Kneller
has striven to immortalise William as a hero, the
words of Hallam rise to our minds: — " Mistaken in
some points of his domestic policy, unsuited by some
failings of his character for the English nation, it is
still to his superiority in virtue and energy over all
her own natives in that age that England is indebted
for her honour and liberty." The words rise to our
minds, but they rise only to be condemned. William