A defence of King James II

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33077, 18 November 1972, Page 10

A defence of King James II

James 11. By Jock Haswell. Hamish Hamilton. 323 pp. (Reviewed by D.C.G.)

History is not kind to failures, and especially to rulers who fait In English history it is only necessary to think of Richard ll,' Richard 111, Charles I or James II to see how subsequently their failures have been translated into something akin to historical blacklisting. The process has been particularly severe in the case of Richard 111, who is only now emerging from the monsterhood conferred upon him by the Tudor apologists and their successors. It has, in the eyes of Jock Haswell, been scarcely less just in the case of James 11, a man whom historians from Burnet onwards have stigmatised as a stubbum bigot who tried autocratically to subvert English Protestantism and then, having failed, fled ignominiously to France and a pension. Whether this is the current view of professional historians may be debated. That it is still the popular view of James can be gauged, for instance, from the way he is portrayed in the recent television series dealing with the life of John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough. Watching the early episodes of that series, who could doubt that James richly deserved to lose his throne, or that the heroic Churchill was justified in switching his allegiance to William of Orange? Reading Jock Haswell’s unashamedly partisan account of James’s life, we are tempted to believe the exact opposite, seeing James as “a forthright, courageous, honest” man, and Churchill et al as deep-dyed villains, treacherous and unprincipled.

The circumstances which led Colonel Haswell (he is a retired regular army officer) to this view are interest-

ing. In writing a history of his regiment, he had, to use his own words, “made one or two rather waspish remarks about James II." Later he felt he ought to see whether the remarks were simply inherited prejudice or capable of substantiation. He read Hilaire Belloc’s apologia for James, and felt that most Catholic of authors overstated his case. He read more widely, and became convinced that nonetheless there was a case to be made for James. With all the fervour of a convert, he here makes it.

In reaching his conclusions, it seems pretty clear that Colonel Haswell was influenced by James’s prowess as a soldier, which is indisputable, and as a sailor, which is open to question, but still generally accepted. And certainly in the chapters which relate his service under Turenne, with the Spanish and in command of the English fleet, he emerges as in every way admirable; brave; decisive, and concerned about his men. As the author points out, however, a good soldier may not make a good king. “Soldiers, by experience, tend to adopt a comparatively simple approach to their problems, and their minds become trained by necessity to reduce the options to a straightforward choice of what is and what is not possible. The impossible can be rejected immediately, the possible must be translated into practical action.” This is true enough, and there is something in the conclusions that Colonel Haswell draws from this: that James tended to see things in an unrealistic black and white, and that because of this he laid himself open to defeat at the hands of his political opponents.

Yet all this said, Colonel Haswell nonetheless betrays in his argument a similar fault to the King’s. Admiring the soldier, he admires the King also. He admits James’s errors in tactics, but still feels that he was right in all he attempted, and that his opponents were unprincipled rogues, self-seeking and treacherous. That Shaftesbury was a less than honest man is unquestioned. That Monmouth was vain and weak is equally clear. But it is taking the championship of James too far to write off William of Orange, John Churchill, and James’s daughters, Mary and Anne, as similarly contemptible and unprincipled. Yet this is what Colonel Haswell does. Anne is “James’s faithless daughter.” William is “ruthless, ambitious, and determined.’’ Churchill is lying when he claims in a farewell letter to James that his conscience led him to shift his allegiance to William. The Bishops of the Church of England supported the Test Act because it conferred the “power to persecute.”

If, with Colonel Haswell, we accept that James means well by all he did, that he intended merely to achieve religious toleration for all, and not, under cover of toleration, eventual Catholic hegemony, and that, equally, the influx of Catholic officers into the army meant nothing sinister, then we ought to accept also that James’s opponents could have principles. In this book James is largely whitewashed, while his opponents are blackened. It is not enough to discuss James’s limitations and think this balances the book. It can only be balanced by a just appraisal of those who opposed the King. This is not provided.

Jock Haswell’s James II should be read, then, with reservations, It is good to have a defence of a man who has not generally had a good press, particularly amongst the more popular writers of history. It would be better to have a defence which looked with more sympathy and understanding upon those who, often with great pain and reluctance, decided James had to go. The Glorious Revolution of 1688 may not have been so very glorious after all, but it was not quite so contemptible an affair as is here made out.