t
down till Monmouth, at the head of some troops from England, had routed
them at Bothwell Bridge. These zealots were most numerous among the
rustics of the western lowlands, who were vulgarly called Whigs. Thus
the appellation of Whig was fastened on the Presbyterian zealots of
Scotland, and was transferred to those English politicians who showed a
disposition to oppose the court, and to treat Protestant Nonconformists
with indulgence. The bogs of Ireland, at the same time, afforded a
refuge to Popish outlaws, much resembling those who were afterwards
known as Whiteboys. These men were then called Tories. The name of Tory
was therefore given to Englishmen who refused to concur in excluding a
Roman Catholic prince from the throne.

The rage of the hostile factions would have been sufficiently violent,
if it had been left to itself. But it was studiously exasperated by the
common enemy of both. Lewis still continued to bribe and flatter
both the court and the opposition. He exhorted Charles to be firm: he
exhorted James to raise a civil war in Scotland: he exhorted the Whigs
not to flinch, and to rely with confidence on the protection of France.

Through all this agitation a discerning eye might have perceived that
the public opinion was gradually changing. The persecution of the Roman
Catholics went on; but convictions were no longer matters of course. A
new brood of false witnesses, among whom a villain named Dangerfield was
the most conspicuous, infested the courts: but the stories of these men,
though better constructed than that of Oates, found less credit. Juries
were no longer so easy of belief as during the panic which had followed
the murder of Godfrey; and Judges, who, while the popular frenzy was at
the height, had been its most obsequious instruments, now ventured to
express some part of what they had from the first thought.

At length, in October 1680, the Parliament met. The Whigs had so great
a majority in the Commons that the Exclusion Bill went through all its
stages there without difficulty. The King scarcely knew on what members
of his own cabinet he could reckon. Hyde had been true to his Tory
opinions, and had steadily supported the cause of hereditary monarchy.
But Godolphin, anxious for quiet, and believing that quiet could be
restored only by concession, wished the bill to pass. Sunderland, ever
false, and ever shortsighted, unable to discern the signs of approaching
reaction, and anxious to con