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Edmund Bohun and Jus Gentium in the Revolution Debate, 1689–1693

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Mark Goldie
Mark Goldie
Affiliation:
Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge
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Extract

The events of the Revolution of 1688 were the subject of an explosive pamphlet debate in which conservatives and radicals sought to capture the ideological initiative by imposing their rival interpretations upon events. The tories, who in large part brought about the Revolution, attempted to account for the nation's acceptance of the setdement in terms which could be accommodated within the traditional tory principles of non-resistance, hereditary right and monarchical prerogative. Recent scholarship has emphasized the extent to which the settlement was a compromise between conflicting whig and tory attitudes to monarchy, and within die context of this revision of the ‘whig’ interpretation a number of the arguments deployed by tories in 1689 and in subsequent years have now been elucidated.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 20 , Issue 3 , September 1977 , pp. 569 - 586
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1977

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References

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23 As early as January 1689 Bohun put out a reply to a broadside in favour of recalling King James and was labouring to convert Sancroft and Dean George Hickes (Diary, pp. 82–3).Google Scholar

24 This post was established under the Regulation of Printing Act, 1662. See Siebert, F. S., Freedom of the press in England 1476–1776 (Urbana, Illinois, 1952), pp. 243ff.Google Scholar

25 Licensed on die 11 th, published on 15th or 16th. For the full story of what followed see Bohun, , Diary, pp. 101–12;Google ScholarMacaulay, , History, II, 409–16;Google ScholarThe parliamentary diary of Narcissus Luttrell 1691–1693, ed. Horwitz, Henry (Oxford, 1972), pp. 376–83;Google ScholarGrey, Anchitell, Debates of the house of commons (London, 1763), X, 297–8.Google Scholar

26 Bohun, , Diary, pp. 101, 103.Google Scholar

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29 There is not space here fully to give reasons why this story is untrue but it will be evident that two of Macaulay's assumptions are false: that the conquest doctrine was peculiar to Bohun and that no whig could have held it.

30 Burnet, , A Pastoral letter writ by the…Lord Bishop of Sarum (1689). One M.P. shouted ‘Burn-it! Burn-it!’.Google ScholarLloyd, , A discourse of God's ways of disposing of kingdoms (1691).Google Scholar

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35 Grey, , Debates, X, 298;Google ScholarLuttrell, , Parliamentary diary, p. 380.Google Scholar Morduant replied that he was glad Finch thought William I a king de jure and would ‘wish that all his relations were of the same opinion’; a reference to the earl of Nottingham's de facto views. There is here an acknowledged distinction between the tory legitimist and tory de facto positions. Other contemporaries made the distinction too: Wynne, Case of the oaths, pp. 11–12;Google ScholarCollier, , Animadversions, p. 1;Google ScholarLetter to a bishop concerning the present settlement (1689), p. 27.Google Scholar

36 The Sacheverell clause, the duke of Bolton's proposals for a legitimist oath, and the attack in the commons on de facto principles in Dec. 1692, were also parts of this campaign.

37 Rix, , Diary, p. xxiii;Google Scholar Stephen, D[ictionary of] N[ational] B[iography], art. ‘Bohun’; Macaulay, , History, II, 410;Google ScholarStraka, , ‘Final phase’, pp. 648–9;Google ScholarFeiling, , Tory party, p. 295;Google ScholarPocock, , Ancient constitution, p. 211.Google Scholar

38 Macaulay is outspoken in claiming a tory volte face: History, II, 102–3.Google Scholar The claim has a long pedigree: see, e.g., Johnson, Samuel, An argument proving; That the abrogation of king James… (1692), p. 36.Google Scholar Others have followed: e.g. Feiling, , Tory party, pp. 245, 275, 479, 484, 490;Google ScholarSirClark, George, The later Stuarts 1660–1714 (Oxford, 1955), pp. 147, 181, 257, 285.Google Scholar

39 Bohun, , Diary, p. 127.Google Scholar Anglican preparedness to resist monarchy earlier in the century is pointed out by Lamont, William M., Godly rule (London, 1969), pp. 57–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

40 Compare his statements of principle in pre- and post-Revolution tracts. 1682–5: An address to the free-men and freeholders of the nation (1682-1683), pt 1, pp. i ff.; pt III, pp. 63–4;Google ScholarReflections on a pamphlet (1683), p. 95;Google ScholarDefense of Sir Robert Filmer (1684), passim;Google ScholarThe justice of the peace (1684), pp. 64, 68;Google ScholarPatriarcha (1685),Google Scholar preface and conclusion. 1689–93: Diary, pp. 119–20, 128;Google ScholarThe history of the desertion (1689), p. 158;Google ScholarThe doctrine of non-resistance (1689), pp. 1, 10, 15, 35–7;Google ScholarThree charges delivered at…Ipswich (1693), p. 27.Google Scholar

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42 In his edition of Patriarcha he asserted that kings are bound by the rule of law and even denied that Filmer was a proponent of ‘Absolute Monarchy Jure Divino’: preface, sigs. A2v, A5r, C3r; Conclusion, pp. 170–1; cf. Defense of Filmer, pp. 5–6.Google Scholar

43 CUL, Add. MSS 4403 (BB), fo. 35: Bohun to Isaac Girling, ?8–19 Mar. 1689; cf. CUL, Sel. 3.238, no. 359, fo. lv: ‘Is not this Government founded on the same Principles with the former?’

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45 Bohun, , History, sig. A3r.Google Scholar

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47 Patriarcha, preface, sigs E4r-E4V. On Brady see Pocock, Ancient constitution, ch. VII.

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50 On its early influence see Reeves, J. S., ‘Grotius, De jure belli ac pacis: A bibliographical account’, American Journal of International Law, XIX (1925), 251–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar By 1688 three editions had appeared in English: trans, by Clement Barksdale (1654 and 1655) and by Evats (1682). Zouche's, RichardJuris et judicii fecialis (Oxford, 1650) systematized Grotius.Google Scholar

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57 Bohun, , Diary, p. 127;Google ScholarNon-resistance, p. 8.Google Scholar Many prominent tories used this argument, e.g. Danby, : Memoirs of Thomas, earl of Ailesbury, ed. Buckley, W. E. (London, 1891), II, 621;Google Scholar Halifax: Horwitz, , Revolution politicks, p. 81.Google Scholar

58 JBP, 1.3.8, 1.3.9, 1.4.1–1.4.6.

59 JBP, Prol[egomena], 15.

60 Twice in the Diary: pp. 101–12,Google Scholar 119–20; six times in published works in 1689: History, pp. 112, 153;Google ScholarNon-resistance, pp. 5–6, 9, 24–6, 31;Google Scholar once in a tract of 1693: Three charges, p. 13; and in the 1693 MS.Google Scholar

61 CUL, Sel. 3.238, no. 359, two folio sheets written on all four sides in an amanuensis’ hand except for a lengthy footnote on the fourth page in Bohun's hand. The date is established from the chronology of the collection; the authorship from its presence in the collection, from internal evidence, and from comparison with his other writings. On 12 February 1693, concluding his relation of the affair of his dismissal, he wrote in his Diary (p. 113): ‘there are in the folio collection many things that will give further light to these things’. The collection is a bound chronological series of newspapers, tracts, broadsides, ballads, and MS notes and letters covering the period 1675–92.Google Scholar

62 JBP, Prol. 3, 5, 26, 28.

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65 JBP, 2.1.2.

66 JBP, 2.3–2.7 passim.

67 CUL, Sel. 3.238, no. 358, fo. Ir; cf. Diary, pp. 119–20.Google Scholar

68 Diary, pp. 81, 119–20, 128;Google ScholarHistory, p. 2.Google Scholar

69 JBP, 2.7.12–2.7.27.

70 Bohun, , Three charges, p. 13.Google ScholarJBP, 2.25.8: ‘Subjects cannot justifiably take up arms… nevertheless it will not follow that others may not take up arms on their behalf’. Bodin also allowed this: Six livres de la république, bk II, ch. v.

71 CUL, Sel. 3.238, no. 359, fol. IV.

72 Bohun, , History, p. 153; JBP, 1.2.1.Google Scholar

73 JBP, 1.3.4, 3.3.4–3.3.5.

74 For the Declaration see: Bohun, , History, pp. 52–65;Google ScholarWilliams, E. N., The eighteenth-century constitution (Cambridge, 1960), pp. 10–16.Google Scholar

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78 Rights of the victor: JBP, 3.6–3.8; leniency: 3.11.5, 3.11.7, 3.15.7, 3.15.12; government of the vanquished may not be altered: 3.8.1, 3.15.7–3.15.10.

79 Printed in History, pp. 68–9.Google Scholar Johnson, among others, used the Additional Declaration to attack the conquest case: Argument proving, pp. 15, 26–7.Google Scholar

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82 Measures of submission (1689 [i.e. 1688]);Google Scholar sermons of 23 Dec. 1688 and 11 Apr. 1689. For Burnet on conquest see Foxcroft, , Supplement, pp. 387–8.Google Scholar The Pastoral letter was published in London and Edinburgh and in a Dutch trans, in 1689; and reprinted in 1693 and 1704.

83 A letter to a bishop concerning the present settlement, and the new oaths (four editions, 1689).Google Scholar Sometimes attributed to Thomas Comber, but though he approved the argument he denied authorship: The autobiographies and letters of Thomas Comber, ed. Whiting, C. E. (Durham, Surtees Society, 1946-1947), II, 170–2.Google Scholar

84 A vindication of the divines of the church of England (1689), p. 5 (attribution in some doubt).Google Scholar

85 An answer to the paper delivered by Mr Ashton (1690 [i.e. 1691]; attribution here certain).Google Scholar See DNB, art. ‘Fowler’.

86 Bohun was familiar with several of the bishops: Diary, pp. 65, 67, 81, 88, 108.Google Scholar

87 God's ways, sig. A2r. Extracts from this tract are reprinted in Straka, , The Revolution of 1688: whig triumph or palace revolution? (Lexington, Mass., 1968), pp. 25–8.Google Scholar See also Hart, A. Tindal, William Lloyd 1627-/1717 (London, 1952), pp. 233–5.Google Scholar

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89 Macaulay, , History, II, 413;Google ScholarMysticus, , Blount, pp. 26–7.Google Scholar

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91 Blount, , King William, p. 22.Google Scholar

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94 In the same year Collier himself attacked the use of conquest: Animadversions, pp. 1, 8.Google Scholar In taking the baths, Brady had more or less cut himself off from a cause he might usefully have served.

95 Ferguson, , A brief account of some of the late incroachments and depredations of the Dutch upon the English (1695), p. 12.Google Scholar

96 Locke, , Two treatises, II, ch. xvi;Google Scholar Laslett's note to para. 175 is surely incorrect in saying that ‘an argument about conquest would have been irrelevant’ in 1689; Locke discusses both unjust conquest and conquest in a lawful war. Burke, Edmund, Reflections on the French revolution (London, 1910), p. 28.Google Scholar

97 Pinkham, , Respectable Revolution; Jones, Revolution of 1688Google Scholar and Carswell, John, The descent on England (New York, 1969), interpret the Revolution as a military invasion; interestingly Pinkham frequently cites Bohun's History as a source.Google Scholar

98 I am much indebted to Quentin Skinner for valuable criticism of earlier drafts of this paper.