The Constitutional History of England, From the Accession of Henry VII to the Death of George II (New York W. J. Widdleton, 1871) by Henry Hallam Pt 2
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Title:The constitutional history of England, from the accession of Henry VII. to the death of George II.; by Henry Hallam …

Author:Hallam, Henry, 1777-1859.

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Print Source:The constitutional history of England, from the accession of Henry VII. to the death of George II.; by Henry Hallam …

Hallam, Henry, 1777-1859.

3 v. 19 1/2cm.

New York,

W. J. Widdleton,

1871.

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THE CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND FROM THE ACCESSION OF HENRY VII. TO

THE DEATH OF GEORGE II. VOLUME IL

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THE CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND FROM THE ACCESSION OF HENRY VII. TO

THE DEATH OF GEORGE II. BY HENRY HALLAM, LL.D., F.RA.S., IOBEIGa ASSOCIATE

OF THE INSTITUTE OF TRACBE. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOLUME II. NEW YORK: W. J.

WIDDLETON, PUBLISHER. 1871.

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CAMBRIDGE: PRESSWORK BY JOHN WILSON AND SON.

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CONTENTS OF THE SECOND VOLUME. CHAPTER VIII. FROM THE DISSOLUTION OF

CHARLES’S THIRD PALIAMENT TO TOH MEETING OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT.

Declaration of the King after the Dissolution - Prosecutions of Eliot and others for conduct in Parliament-Of Chambers for refusing to pay Customs-Commendable Behavior of Judges in some instances-Means adopted to raise the Revenue -Compositions for Knighthood -Forest Laws - Monopolies -

ShipMoney- Extension of it to inland Places - Hampden’s Refusal to pay -

Arguments on the Case - Proclamations - Various arbitrary Proceedings -

StarChamber Jurisdiction - Punishments inflicted by it - Cases of Bishop Williams, Prynne, &c. - Laud, his Character -Lord Strafford -

Correspondence between these twoConduct of Laud in the Church-Prosecution of Puritans - Favor shown to Catholics - Tendency to their Religion-Expectations entertained by them - Mission of Panzani - Intrigue of Bishop Montagu with him - Chillingworth - Hales - Character of Clarendon’s Writings -Animadversions on his Account of this Period  Scots Troubles and Distress of the Government - Parliament of April, 1640-Council of York-Convocation of Long Parliament………………… Page 9 CHAPTER

IX. FROM THE MEETING OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT TO THE BEGINNING OF THE CIVIL

WAR. Character of Long Parliament - Its salutary Measures -Triennial BillOther beneficial Laws Observations-Impeachment of StraffordDiscussion of its Justice - Act against Dissolution of Parliament without its Consent-Innovations meditated in the Church-Schism in the Constitutional Party - Remonstrance of November, 1641 - Suspicions of the King’s Sincerity-Question of the Militia-Historical Sketch of

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vi CONTENTS OF THE SECOND VOLUME. Military Force in England-Encroachments of the Parliament -Nineteen Propositions - Discussion of the respective Claims of the two Parties to Support-Faults of both………………………… Page 96 CHAPTER X. FROM THE BREAKING

OUT OF THE CIVIL WAR TO THE RESTORATION. PART I. Success of the King in the first part of the War -Efforts by the Moderate Party for Peace-Affair at Brentford-Treaty of Oxford-Impeachment of the Queen - Waller’s Plot -

Secession of some Peers to the King’s Quarters Their Treatment there impolitic The Anti-pacific Party gain the Ascendant at Westminster The Parliament makes a new Great Seal - and takes the Covenant - Persecution of the Clergy who refuse it - Impeachment and Execution of Laud - Decline of the King’s Affairs in 1644-Factions at Oxford-Royalist Lords and Commoners summoned to that City - Treaty of Uxbridge - Impossibility of Agreement - The Parliament insist on unreasonable Terms - Miseries of the War - Essex and Manchester suspected of Lukewarmness - Selfdenying Ordinance Battle of Naseby -Desperate Condition of the King’s Affairs He throws himself into the hands of the Scots His Struggles to preserve Episcopacy, against the Advice of the Queen and others-Bad Conduct of the Queen-Publication of Letters taken at Naseby - Discovery of Glamorgan’s Treaty-King delivered up by the Scots-Growth of the Independents and Republicans - Opposition to the Presbyterian Government-Toleration -

Intrigues of the Army with the King His Person seized-The Parliament yield to the Army - Mysterious Conduct of Cromwell - Imprudent Hopes of the King - He rejects the Proposals of the Army -His Flight from Hampton CourtAlarming Votes against him -Scots Invasion-The Presbyterians regain the Ascendant-Treaty of Newport - Gradual Progress of a Republican Party-Scheme among the Officers of bringing Charles to Trial This is finally determined-Seclusion of Presbyterian Members  Motives of some of the King’s Judges-Question of his Execution discussed  His Character -Icon Basilikd……………… Page 150 PART II. Abolition of the Monarchy - and of the House of Lords - Commonwealth - Schemes of Cromwell - His Conversations with Whitelock - Unpopularity of the Parliament -

Their fall - Little Parliament - Instrument of Government - Parliament called by Cromwell - Dissolved by him - Intrigues of the King and his Party-Insurrectionary Movements in 1655-Rigorous Measures of Cromwell -

His arbitrary Government - He summons another Parliament - Designs to take the Crown - The Project fails - but his Authority as Protector is augmented - He aims

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CONTENTS OF THE SECOND VOLUME. vii at forming a new House of Lords -His Death - and Character - Richard his Son succeeds him-Is supported by some prudent Men-but opposed by a Coalition-Calls a Parliament-The Army overthrow both-Long Parliament restored-Expelled again-and again restored - Impossibility of establishing a Republic - Intrigues of the Royalists - They unite with the Presbyterians - Conspiracy of 1659 -

Interference of Monk-His Dissimulation-Secluded Members return to their Seats-Difficulties about the Restoration-New Parliament - King restored-Whether previous Conditions required-Plan of reviving the Treaty of Newport inexpedient - Difficulty of framing Conditions  Conduct of the Convention about this not blamable - except in respect of the Militia -

Conduct of Monk………………. Page 224 CHAPTER XI. FROM THE

RESTORATION OF CHARLES II. TO THE FALL OF THE CABAL ADMINISTRATION.

Popular Joy at the Restoration-Proceedings of the Convention Parliament-Act of Indemnity-Exclusion of the Regicides and others -

Discussions between the Houses on it - Execution of Regicides -

Restitution of Crown and Church Lands-Discontent of the Royalists -

Settlement of the Revenue -Abolition of Military Tenures-Excise granted instead - Army disbanded-Clergy restored to their Benefices - Hopes of the Presbyterians from the King - Projects for a Compromise - King’s Declaration in favor of it - Convention Parliament dissolved - Different Complexion of the next - Condemnation of Vane - its Injustice -Acts replacing the Crown in its Prerogatives  Corporation ActRepeal of Triennial Act-Star-chamber not restored Presbyterians deceived by the King-Savoy Conference -Act of Uniformity-Ejection of Non-conformist Clergy-Hopes of the Catholics-Bias of the King towards them - Resisted by Clarendon and the Parliament - Declaration for Indulgence-Objected to by the Commons -Act against Conventicles-Another of the same kind-Remarks on them - Dissatisfaction increases - Private Life of the King 

Opposition in Parliament - Appropriation of Supplies - Commission of Public Accounts - Decline of Clarendon’s Power - Loss of the King’s favor - Coalition against him - His Impeachment - Some Articles of it not unfounded - Illegal Imprisonments - Sale of Dunkirk - Solicitation of French Money - His Faults as a Minister - His pusillanimous Flight - and consequent Banishment-Cabal Ministry-Scheme of Comprehension and Indulgence - Triple Alliance  Intrigue with France - King’s Desire to be absolute - Secret Treaty of 1670 - Its Objects - Differences between Charles and Louis as to the mode of its Execution -Fresh severities against Dissenters - Dutch War - Declaration of Indulgence - Opposed by Parliament - and withdrawn - Test Act - Fall of Shaftesbury and his Colleagues………………………………… Page 290

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viii CONTENTS OF THE SECOND VOLUME. CHAPTER XII. Earl of Danby’s Administration-Opposition in the Commons-Frequently corrupt-Character of Lord Danby-Connection of the popular party with France Its Motives on both Sides -Doubt as to their Acceptance of Money - Secret Treaties of the King with France - Fall of Danby - His Impeachment-Questions arising on it - His Commitment to the Tower  Pardon pleaded in Bar-Votes of Bishops  Abatement of Impeachments by Dissolution - Popish Plot - Coleman’s Letters - Godfrey’s Death - Injustice of Judges on the Trials - Parliament dissolved - Exclusion of Duke of York proposed - Schemes of Shaftesbury and Monmouth - Unsteadiness of the King - Expedients to avoid the Exclusion - Names of Whig and Tory-New Council formed by Sir William Temple Long Prorogation of ParliamentPetitions and Addresses - Violence of the Commons-Oxford Parliament - Impeachment of Commoners for Treason constitutional - Fitzharris impeached - Proceedings against Shaftesbury and his Colleagues - Triumph of the Court - Forfeiture of Charter of London - and of other Places Projects of Lords Russell and Sidney - Their Trials - High-Tory Principles of the ClergyPassive Obedience - Some contend for absolute Power-Filmer- Sir George Mackenzie  Decree of University of Oxford-Connection with Louis broken off-King’s Death……………………………………….. Page 376

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THE CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND FROM HENRY VII. TO GEORGE IL CHAPTER

VIII. FROM THE DISSOLUTION OF CHARLES’S THIRD PARLIAMENT TO THE MEETING OF

THE LONG PARLIAMENT. Declaration of the King after the Dissolution -

Prosecutions of Eliot and others for Conduct in Parliament-Of Chambers for refusing, to pay Customs - Commendable Behavior of Judges in some Instances-Means adopted to raise the Revenue -Compositions for Knighthood - Forest Laws - Monopolies-ShipMoney- Extension of it to inland Places-Hampden’s Refusal to payArguments on the Case - Proclamations-Various arbitrary Proceedings - StarChamber Jurisdiction-Punishments inflicted by it-Cases of Bishop Williams, Prynne, &c. - Laud, his Character - Lord Strafford-Correspondence between these two - Conduct of Laud in the Church-Prosecution of Puritans  Favor shown to Catholics - Tendency to their Religion - Expectations entertained by them-Mission of Panzani-Intrigue of Bishop Montagu with him - Chfllingworth -Hales -

Character of Clarendon’s Writings - Animadversions on his Account of this Period-Scots Troubles and Distress of the Government - Parliament of April, 1640 - Council of York - Convocation of Long Parliament. THE
dissolution of a parliament was always to the prerogative what the dispersion of clouds is to the sun. Declaration As if in mockery of the transient obstruction, it of the king shone forth as splendid and scorching as before. after the Even after the exertions of the most popular and intrepid house of commons that had ever met, and after the most important statute that had been passed for some hundred years, Charles found himself in an instant unshackled by his law or his word; once more that absolute king for whom his sycophants had preached and pleaded, as if awakened from a fearful dream of sounds and sights that such monarchs hate to endure, to the full enjoyment of

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10 PROSECUTIONS OF CHAP. VIII. an unrestrained prerogative. He announced his intentions of government for the future in a long declaration of the causes of the late dissolution of parliament, which, though not without the usual promises to maintain the laws and liberties of the people, gave evident hints that his own interpretation of them must be humbly acquiesced in.1 This was followed up by a proclamation that he ” should account it presumption for any to prescribe a time to him for parlia.

ment, the calling, continuing, or dissolving of which was always in his own power; and he should be more inclinable to meet parliament again, when his people should see more clearly into his intents and actions, when such as have bred this interruption shall have received their condign punishment.” He afterwards declares that he should “not overcharge his subjects by any more burdens, but satisfy himself with those duties that were received by his father, which he neither could nor would dispense with; but should esteem them unworthy of his protection who should deny them.” 2 The king next turned his mind, according to his own and Prosecutions his father’s practice, to take vengeance on those of Eliotand who had been most active in their opposition to others for conduct in him.

A few days after the dissolution, sir John parliament. Eliot, Holles, Selden, Long, Strode, and other eminent members of the commons, were committed, some to the Tower, some to the King’s Bench, and their papers seized. Upon suing for their habeas corpus, a return was made that they were detained for notable contempts, and for stirring up sedition, alleged in a warrant under the king’s sign manual. Their counsel argued against the sufficiency of this return, as well on the principles and precedents employed in the former case of sir Thomas Darnel and his colleagues, as on the late explicit confirmation of them in the Petition of Right. The king’s counsel endeavored, by evading the authority of that enactment, to set up anew that alarming pretence to a power of arbitrary imprisonment which the late parliament had meant to silence forever. c A petition in parliament,” said the attorney-general Heath, “is no law, yet it is for the honor and dignity of the king to 1 ” It hath so happened,” he says, “by highly contemned as our kingly office the disobedient and seditious carriage of cannot bear, nor any former age can those said ill-affected persons of the house parallel.” Rymer, xix. 80. of commons, that we and our regal au-2 Rymer, xix. 62. thority and commandment have been so

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CHIA. 1.-1629-40. ELIOT AND OTHERS. 11 observe it faithfully; but it is the duty of the people not to stretch it beyond the words and intention of the king. And no other construction can be made of the petition than that it is a confirmation of the ancient liberties and rights of the subjects.

So that now the case remains in the same quality and degree as it was before the petition.” Thus, by dint of a sophism which turned into ridicule the whole proceedings of the late parliament, he pretended to recite afresh the authorities on which he had formerly relied, in order to prove that one committed by the command of the king or privy council is not bailable. The judges, timid and servile, yet desirous to keep some measures with their own consciences, or looking forward to the wrath of future parliaments, wrote what Whitelock calls “a humble and stout letter ” to the king, that they were bound to bail the prisoners; but requested that he would send his direction to do so.1 The gentlemen in custody were, on this intimation, removed to the Tower; and the king, in a letter to the court, refused permission for them to appear on the day when judgment was to be given. Their restraint was thus protracted through the long vacation; towards the close of which, Charles, sending for two of the judges, told them he was content the prisoners should be bailed, notwithstanding their obstinacy in refusing to present a petition declaring their sorrow for having offended him. In the ensuing Michaelmas term accordingly they were brought before the court, and ordered not only to find bail for the present charge, but sureties for their good behavior.

On refusing to comply with this requisition, they were remanded to custody. The attorney-general, dropping the charge against the rest, exhibited an information against sir John Eliot for words uttered in the house; namely, That the council and judges had conspired to trample under foot the liberties of the subject; and against Mr. Denzil Holles and Mr.

Valentine for a tumult on the last day of the session; when the speaker, having attempted to adjourn the house by the king’s command, had been forcibly held down in the chair by some of 1 Whitelock’s Memorials, p. 14.

White-Jones guilty of delay in not bailing these lock’s father was one of the judges of gentlemen, they voted also that Croke the king’s bench: his son takes pains to and Whitelock were not guilty of it. exculpate him from the charge of too The proceedings. as we now read them, much compliance, and succeeded so well hardly warrant this favorable distinction. with the long parliament that, when Parl. Hist. ii. 869, 876. they voted chief-justice Hyde and justice

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12 PROSECUTIONS OF ELIOT AND OTHERS. CHAP. VIII. the members, while a remonstrance was voted. They pleaded to the court’s jurisdiction, because their offences were supposed to be committed in parliament, and consequently not punishable in any other place. This brought forward the great question of privilege, on the determination of which the power of the house of commons, and consequently the character of the English constitution, seemed evidently to depend. Freedom of speech, being implied in the nature of a representative assembly called to present grievances and suggest remedies, could not stand in need of any special law or privilege to support it. But it was also sanctioned by positive authority.

The speaker demands it at the beginning of every parliament among the standing privileges of the house; and it had received a sort of confirmation from the legislature by an act passed in the fourth year of Henry VIII., on occasion of one Strode, who had been prosecuted and imprisoned in the Stannary court, for proposing in parliament some regulations for the tinners in Cornwall; which annuls all that had been done, or might hereafter be done, towards Strode, for any matter relating to the parliament, in words so strong as to form, in the opinion of many lawyers, a general enactment. The judges however held, on the question being privately sent to them by the king, that the statute concerning Strode was a particular act of parliament extending only to him and those who had joined with him to prefer a bill to the commons concerning tinners; but that, although the act were private and extended to them alone, yet it was no more than all other parliament-men, by privilege of the house, ought to have; namely, freedom of speech concerning matters there debated.1 It appeared by a constant series of precedents, the counsel for Eliot and his friends argued, that the liberties and privileges of parliament could only be determined therein, and not by any inferior court; that the judges had often declined to give their opinions on such subjects, alleging that they were beyond their jurisdiction; that the words imputed to Eliot were in the nature of an accusation of persons in power which the commons had an undoubted right to prefer; I Strode’s act is printed in Hatsell’s like many of our ancient laws, so con.

Precedents, vol. i. p. 80, and in several fusedly as to make its application uncer. other books, as well as in the great edition tain; but it rather appears to me not to of Statutes of the Realm. It is worded, have been intended as a public act.

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CHA. I. -1629-40. JUDGMENT OF KING’S BENCH. 13 that no one would venture to complain of grievances in par. liament, if he should be subjected to punishment at the discretion of an inferior tribunal; that whatever instances had occurred of punishing the alleged offences of members after a dissolution were but acts of power, which no attempt had hitherto been made to sanction; finally, that the offences imputed might be punished in a future parliament. The attorney-general replied to the last point, that the king was not bound to wait for another parliament; and, moreover, that the house of commons was not a court of justice, nor had any power to proceed criminally, except by imprisoning its own members. He admitted that the judges had sometimes declined to give their judgment upon matters of privilege; but contended that such cases had happened during the session of parliament, and that it did not follow but that an offence committed in the house might be questioned after a dissolution. He set aside the application of Strode’s case, as being a special act of parliament; and dwelt on the precedent of an information preferred in the reign of Mary against certain members for absenting themselves from their duty in parliament, which, though it never came to a conclusion, was not disputed on the ground of right. The court were unanimous in holding that they had jurisdiction, though the alleged offences were committed in parliament, and that the defendants were bound to answer. The privileges of parliament did not extend, one of them said, to breaches of the peace, which was the present case; and all offences against the crown, said another, were punishable in the court of king’s bench. On the parties refusing to put in any other plea, judgment was given that they should be imprisoned during the king’s pleasure, and not released without giving surety for good behavior, and making submission; that Eliot, as the greatest offender and ringleader, should be fined in 20001., Holles and Valentine to a smaller amount.1 Eliot, the most distinguished leader of the popular party, died in the Tower without yielding to the submission required. In the long parliament the commons came to several votes on the illegality of all these proceedings, both as to the delay in granting their habeas corpus, and the overruling their plea to the jurisdiction of the king’s bench. But 1 State Trials, vol. iii. from Rushworth.

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14 PROSECUTION OF CHAMBERS. CHAP. VI11 the subject was revived again in a more distant and more tranquil period. In the year 1667 the commons resolved that the act of 4 H VIII. concerning Strode was a general law, “extending to indemnify all and every the members of both houses of parliament, in all parliaments, for and touching any bills, speaking, reasoning, or declaring of any matter or matters in and concerning the parliament to be communed and treated of, and is a declaratory law of the ancient and necessary rights and privileges of parliament.” They resolved also that the judgment given 5 Car. I. against sir John Eliot, Denzil Holles, and Benjamin Valentine, is an illegal judgment, and against the freedom and privilege of parliament. To these resolutions the lords gave their concurrence. And Holles, then become a peer, having brought the record of the king’s bench by writ of error before them, they solemnly reversed the judgment.1 An important decision with respect to our constitutional law, which has established beyond controversy the great privilege of unlimited freedom of speech in parliament; unlimited, I mean, by any authority except that by which the house itself ought always to restrain indecent and disorderly language in its members. It does not, however, appear to be a necessary consequence, from the reversal of this judgment, that no actions committed in the house by any of its members are punishable in a court of law. The argument in behalf of Holles and Valentine goes indeed to this length; but it was admitted in the debate on the subject in 1667 that their plea to the jurisdiction of the king’s bench could not have been supported as to the imputed riot in detaining the speaker in the chair, though the judgment was erroneous in extending to words spoken in parliament. And it is obvious that the house could inflict no adequate punishment in the possible case of treason or felony committed within its walls; nor, if its power of imprisonment be limited to the session, in that of many smaller offences. The customs on imported merchandises were now rigorously enforced.2 But the late discussions in parliament, and rosecution the growing disposition to probe the legality of all of Chambers acts of the crown, rendered the merchants more forrefusing discontented than ever. Richard Chambers, havtoms. ing refused to pay any further duty for a bale 1 Hatsell, pp. 212,242. s Rushworth

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CHA. I. 1629-40. BEHAVIOR OF JUDGES. 15 of silks than might be required by law, was summoned before the privy counsel. In the presence of that board he was provoked to exclaim that in no part of the world, not even in Turkey, were the merchants so screwed and wrung as in England. For these hasty words an information was preferred against him in the starchamber; and the court, being of opinion that the words were intended to make the people believe that his majesty’s happy government might be termed Turkish tyranny, manifested their laudable abhorrence of such tyranny by sentencing him to pay a fine of 20001., and to make a humble submission.

Chambers, a sturdy puritan, absolutely refused to subscribe the form of submission tendered to him, and was of course committed to prison. But the court of king’s bench admitted him to bail on a habeas corpus; for which, as Whitelock tells us, they were reprimanded by the council.1 There were several instances, besides this just mentioned, wherein the judges manifested a more courageous Commend spirit than they were able constantly to preserve; able behavand the odium under which their memory labors irdt o for a servile compliance with the court, especially some inin the case of shipmoney, renders it but an act of tances. justice to record those testimonies they occasionally gave of a nobler sense of duty. They unanimously declared, when Charles expressed a desire that Felton, the assassin of the duke of Buckingham, might be put to the rack in order to make him discover his accomplices, that the law of England did not allow the use of torture. This is a remarkable proof that, amidst all the arbitrary principles and arbitrary measures of the time, a truer sense of the inviolability of law had begun to prevail, and that the free constitution of England was working off the impurities with which violence had. stained it. For, though it be most certain that the law never recognized the use of torture, there had been many instances of its employment, and even within a few years.2 In this 1 Rushworth; State Trials, iii. 878; cially against Roman catholics, under Whitelock, p. 12.

Chambers applied Elizabeth. Those accused of the gunseveral times for redress to the long par-powder conspiracy were also severely liament on account of this and subse-tortured; and others in the reign of quent injuries, but seems to have been James. Coke, in the Countess of Shrewscruelly neglected, while they were voting bury’s case, i612, State Trials, ii. 778, large sums to those who had suffered mentions it as a privilege of the nobility much less, and he died in poverty. that “their bodies are not subject to tor2 I have remarked in former passages ture in cause criminis lsesee majestatis.” that the rack was much employed, espe-Yet, in his Third Institute, p. 85, he says,

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16 BEHAVIOR OF JUDGES. CHAP. VIII. public assertion of its illegality the judges conferred an eminent service on their country, and doubtless saved the king and his council much additional guilt and infamy which they would have incurred in the course of their career. They declared about the same time, on a reference to them concerning certain disrespectful words alleged to have been spoken by one Pine against the king, that no words can of themselves amount to treason within the statute of Edward III.1

They resolved, some years after, that Prynne’s, Burton’s, and Bastwick’s libels against the bishops were no treason.2 In their old controversy with the ecclesiastical jurisdiction they were inflexibly tenacious. An action having been brought against some members of the highcommission court for false imprisonment, the king, on Laud’s remonstrance, sent a message to desire that the suit might not proceed till he should have conversed with the judges. The chief-justice made answer that they were bound by their oaths not to delay the course of justice; and, after a contention before the privy council, the commissioners were compelled to plead.8 Such instances of firmness serve to extenuate those unhappy deficiencies which are more notorious in history. Had the judges been as numerous and independent as those of the parliament of Paris, they would not probably have been the rack in the Tower was brought in by a theory which does, as it seems to me, the duke of Exeter, under Henry VI., go the full length of justifying, in a leand is therefore familiarly called the gal sense, the violent proceedings of the duke of Exeter’s daughter; and,. after crown under all the Plantagenets, Tuquoting Fortescue to prove the practice dors, and Stuarts. 1845.] illegal, concludes - ” There is no law to 1

State Trials, iii. 859. This was a very warrant tortures in this land, nor can important determination, and put an end they be justified by any prescription, be-to such tyrannical persecution of Roman ing so lately brought in.” Bacon ob-catholics for bare expressions of opinion serves, in a tract written in 1603, “In the as had been used under Elizabeth and highest cases of treason, torture is used James. for discovery, and not for evidence,” i. 2 Rushworth’s Abr., ii. 258; Strafford’s 898. See also Miss Aikin’s Memoirs of Letters, ii. 74. James I., ii. 158. Whitelock, 16; Kennet, 68. We find [This subject has been learnedly elu-in Rymer, xix.

279 a commission, dated cidated by Mr. Jardine, in his “‘Reading May 6, 1631, enabling the privy council on the Use of Torture in the Criminal at all times to come, “to hear and exLaw of England, 1887.” The historical amine all differences which shall arise facts are very well brought together in betwixt any of our courts of justice, this essay; but I cannot agree with this-especially between the civil and ecclehighly-intelligent author in considering siastical jurisdictions,” &c. This was in the use of torture as having been ” law-all probability contrived by Laud, or some ful as an act of prerogative, though not so of those who did not favor the common by the common and statute law.” P. 59. law. But I do not find that anything The whole tenor of my own views of the was done under this commission, which, constitution, as developed in this and in I need hardly say, was as illegal as’ most former works, forbids my acquiescence in of the king’s other proceedings.

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CHA. I. 1629-40. COMPOSITIONS FOR KNIGHTHOOD. 17 wanting in equal vigor.

But, holding their offices at the king’s will, and exposed to the displeasure of his council whenever they opposed any check to the prerogative, they held a vacillating course, which made them obnoxious to those who sought for despotic power,, while it forfeited the esteem of the nation. In pursuance of the system adopted by Charles’s ministers, they had recourse to exactions, some odi-Means ous and obsolete, some of very questionable le-adopted to raise the gality, and others clearly against law. Of the revenue. former class may be reckoned the compositions for Composinot taking the order of knighthood. The early knighthood. kings of England, Henry III. and Edward I., very little in the spirit of chivalry, had introduced the practice of summoning their military tenants, holding 201. per annum, to receive knighthood at their lands. Those who declined this honor were permitted to redeem their absence by a moderate fine.1

Elizabeth, once in her reign, and James, had availed themselves of this ancient right. But the change in the value of money rendered it far more oppressive than formerly, though limited to the holders of 401. per annum in military tenure. Commissioners were now appointed to compound with those who had neglected some years before to obey the proclamation, summoning them to receive knighthood at the king’s coronation.2 In particular instances very severe fines are recorded to have been imposed upon defaulters, probably from some political resentment.8 Still greater dissatisfaction attended the king’s attempt to revive the ancient laws of the forests - those laws, of which, in elder times, so many complaints had r been heard, exacting money by means of pretensions which long disuse had rendered dubious, and showing himself to 1 2 Inst. 598. The regulations con-force, which by express words exempts pained in the statute de militibus, 1 Ed. them. See Mr. Brodie’s Hist. of British Il., though apparently a temporary law, Empire, ii. 282. There is still some difseem to have been considered by Coke as ficulty about this, which I cannot cleat permanently binding. Yet in this stat-up, nor comprehend why the title, if it ute the estate requiring knighthood, or could be had for asking, was so continua composition for it, is fixed at 201. per ally declined; unless it were, as Mr. B. aianum. hints, that the fees of knighthood greatly 2 According to a speech of Mr. Hyde in exceeded the composition. Perhaps none the long parliament, not only military, who could not prove their gentility were tenants, but all others, and even lessees admitted to the honor, though the fine and merchants, were summoned before was extorted from them. It is said that the council on this account. Parl. Hist. the king got 100.0001. by this resource. ii.

948. This was evidently illegal; espe-Macaulay, ii. 107. cially if the Statutum de militibus was in Rushworth’s Abr. ii. 102. VOL. II. 2

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18 MONOPOLIES. CHAP. VIII. those who lived on the borders of those domains in the hateful light of a litigious and encroaching neighbor. The earl of Holland held a court almost every year, as chief-justice in eyre, for the recovery of the king’s forestal rights, which made great havoc with private property. No prescription could be pleaded against the king’s title, which was to be found, indeed, by the inquest of a jury, but under the direction of a very partial tribunal. The royal forests in Essex were so enlarged that they were hyperbolically said to include the whole county.1 The earl of Southampton was nearly ruined by a decision that stripped him of his estate near the New Forest.2 The boundaries of Rockingham forest were increased from six miles to sixty, and enormous fines imposed on the trespassers; lord Salisbury being amerced in 20,0001., lord Westmoreland in 19,0001., Sir Christopher Hatton in 12,0001.8 It is probable that a part of these was remitted. A greater profit was derived from a still more pernicious Monopolies. and indefensible measure, the establishment of a chartered company with exclusive privileges of making soap. The recent statute against monopolies seemed to secure the public against this species of grievance. Noy, however, the attorney-general, a lawyer of uncommon eminence, and lately a strenuous assertor of popular rights in the house of commons, devised this project, by which he probably meant to evade the letter of the law, since every manufacturer was permitted to become a member of the company. They agreed to pay eight pounds for every ton of soap made, as well as 10,0001.

for their charter. For this they were empowered to appoint searchers, and exercise a sort of inquisition over the trade. Those dealers who resisted their interference were severely fined on informations in the starchamber.

Some years afterwards, however, the king received money from a new corporation of soap-makers, and revoked the patent of the former.4 1

Strafford’s Letters, i. 885. cited no great clamor in the long parlia2 Id.

468, 467. ment. And there is in Rymer, xx. 686, 8 Id. ii. 117. It is well known that a commission to Cottington and others, Charles made Richmond Park by means directing them to compound with the of depriving many proprietors not only owners of lands within the intended enof common rights, but of their freehold closures. Dec. 12. 1684. lands. Clarendon, i.176. It is not clear 4 Kennet, 64; Rushworth’s Abridg. ii. that they were ever compensated; but I 132; Strafford’s Letters, i. 446; Rymer, think this probable, as the matter ex-xix. 824; Laud’s Diary, 61.

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CHA. I.- 1629-40. SHIPMONEY. 19 This precedent was followed in the erection of a similar company of starch-makers, and in a great variety of other grants, which may be traced in Rymer’s Feedera,-and in the proceedings of the long parliament; till monopolies, in transgression or evasion of the late statute, became as common as they had been under James or Elizabeth. The king, by a proclamation at York, in 1639, beginning to feel the necessity of diminishing the public odium, revoked all these grants.1 He annulled at the same time a number of commissions that had been issued in order to obtain money by compounding with offenders against penal statutes. The catalogue of these, as well as of the monopolies, is very curious. The former were, in truth, rather vexatious than illegal, and sustained by precedents in what were called the golden ages of Elizabeth and James, though at all times the source of great and just discontent. The name of Noy has acquired an unhappy celebrity by a far more famous invention, which promised to S realize the most sanguine hopes that could have been formed of carrying on the government for an indefinite length of time without the assistance of parliament. Shaking off the dust of ages from parchments in the Tower, this man of venal diligence and prostituted learning discovered that the seaports and even maritime counties had in early times been sometimes called upon to furnish ships for the public service; nay, there were instances of a similar demand upon some inland places. Noy himself died almost immediately afterwards. Notwithstanding his apostasy from the public cause, it is just to remark that we have no right to impute to him the more extensive and more unprecedented scheme of shipmoney, as a general tax, which was afterwards carried into execution. But it sprang by natural consequence from the former measure, according to the invariable course of encroachment, which those who have once bent the laws to their will ever continue to pursue. The first writ issued from the council in October, 1634.. It was directed to the magistrates of London and other seaport towns. Reciting the depredations lately committed by pirates, and slightly adverting to the dangers imminent in a season of general war on the continent, it enjoins them to provide a certain number of ships of war of a prescribed tonnage and equipage; em1 Rymer, xx. 840.

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20 FOREIGN POLICY. CHAP. VIII. powering them also to assess all the inhabitants for a contribution towards this armament according to their substance. The citizens of London humbly remonstrated that they conceived themselves exempt, by sundry charters and acts of parliament, from bearing such a charge. But the council peremptorily compelled their submission, and the murmurs of inferior towns were still more easily suppressed. This is said to have cost the city of London 35,0001.1 There wanted not reasons in the cabinet of Charles for placing the navy at this time on a respectable footing. Algerine pirates had become bold enough to infest the Channel, and, what was of more serious importance, the Dutch were rapidly acquiring a maritime preponderance which excited a natural jealousy both for our commerce and the honor of our flag. This commercial rivalry conspired with a far more powerful motive at court, an abhorrence of everything republican or Calvinistic, to make our course of policy towards Holland not only unfriendly, but insidious and inimical in the highest degree. A secret treaty is extant, signed in 1631, by which Charles engaged to assist the king of Spain in the conquest of that great protestant commonwealth, retaining the isles of Zealand as the price of his cooperation.2 Yet, with preposterous inconsistency, as well as ill faith, the two characteristics of all this unhappy prince’s foreign policy, we find him in the next year carrying on a negotiation with a disaffected party in the Netherlands, in some strange expectation of obtaining the sovereignty on their separation from Spain. Lord Cottington betrayed this intrigue (of which one whom we should little expect to find in these paths of conspiracy, Peter Paul Rubens, was the negotiator) to the court of Madrid.8 It was, in fact, an unpardonable and unprovoked breach of faith on the king’s part, and accounts for the indifference, to say no more, which that government always showed to his misfortunes.

Charles, whose domestic position rendered a pacific system absolutely necesRKennet, 74, 76; Strafford’s Letters, novelty. But they were summoned to ii 868. Some petty seaports in Sussex London for this, and received a reprirefused to pay shipmoney; but, finding mand for their interference.

Id. 872. that the sheriahad authority to distrain 2 Clarendon State Papers, i. 49, and ii. on them, submitted. The deputylieu- Append p.

xxvi. tenants of Devonshire wrote to the coun-8 This curious intrigue, before unol1 in behalf of some towns a few miles known, I believe, to history, wa brought distant from the sea, that they might to liht by lord Hardwicke. State Papers, be spared from this tax, saying it was a ii. H.

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CHA. I.-1629-40. FOREIGN POLICY. 21 sary, busied himself far more than common history has recorded with the affairs of Europe. He was engaged in a tedious and unavailing negotiation with both branches of the house of Austria, especially with the court of Madrid, for the restitution of the Palatinate. He took a much greater interest than his father had done in the fortunes of his sister and her family; but, like his father, he fell into the delusion that the cabinet of Madrid, for whom he could effect but little, or that of Vienna, to whom he could offer nothing, would so far realize the cheap professions of friendship they were always making as to sacrifice a conquest wherein the preponderance of the house of Austria and the catholic religion in Germany were so deeply concerned. They drew him on accordingly through the labyrinths of diplomacy, assisted, no do:. b, by that party in his council, composed at this time of lord Cottington, secretary Windebank, and some others, who had always favored Spanish connections.1 It appears that the fleet raised in 1634 was intended, according to an agreement entered into with Spain, to restrain the Dutch from fishing in the English seas, nay, even as opportunities should arise, to cooperate hostilely with that of Spain.2 After above two years spent in these negotiations, Charles discovered that the house of Austria were deceiving him; and, still keeping in view the restoration of his nephew to the electoral dignity and territories, entered into stricter relations with France: a policy which might be deemed congenial to the queen’s inclinations, and recommended by her party in his council, the earl of Holland, sir Henry Vane, and perhaps by the earls of Northumberland and Arundel. In the first impulse of indignation at the duplicity of Spain, 1

See Clarendon State Papers i. 490, for seas, to satisfy the court of Spain himself a proof of the manner in which, through out of ships and goods belonging to the the Hispano-popish party in the cabinet, Dutch; and by the second, to give secret the house of Austria hoped to dupe and instructions to the commanders of his dishonor Charles. ships, that, when those of Spain and 2 Clarendon State Papers, i. 109, et Flanders should encounter their enemies post. Five English ships out of twenty at open sea, far from his coasts and limits, were to be at the charge of the king of they should assist them if over-matched, Spain. Besides this agreement, according and should give the like help to the to which the English were only bound prizes which they should meet, taken by to protect the ships of Spain within their the Dutch, that they might be freed and own seas, or the Iimits claimed as such, set at liberty; taking some convenient there were certain secret articles, signed pretext to justify it, that the Hollanders Dec. 16, 1634; by one of which Charles might not hold it an act of hostility. bound himself, in case the Dutch should But no partof his treaty was to take effect not make restitution of some Spanish till the imperial ban upon the elector vessels taken by them within the English palatine should be removed. Id. 215.

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22 SHIPMONEY. CHAP. VII. the king yielded so far to their counsels as to meditate a declaration of war against that power.1 But his own cooler judgment, or the strong dissuasions of Strafford, who saw that external peace was an indispensable condition for the security of despotism,2 put an end to so imprudent a project; though he preserved, to the very meeting of the long parliament, an intimate connection with France, and even continued to carry on negotiations, tedious and insincere, for an offensive alliance.8 Yet he still made, from time to time, similar overtures to Spain;4 and this unsteadiness, or rather duplicity, which could not easily be concealed from two cabinets eminent for their secret intelligence, rendered both of them his enemies, and the instruments, as there is much reason to believe, of some of his greatest calamities. It is well known that the Scots covenanters were in close connection with Richelieu, and many circumstances render it probable that the Irish rebellion was countenanced and instigated both by him and by Spain. This desire of being at least prepared for war, as well as Extension the general system of stretching the prerogative of writs for beyond all limits, suggested an extension of the to inland former writs from the seaports to the whole kingplaces. dom. Finch, chief-justice of the common pleas, has the honor of this improvement on Noy’s scheme. He was a man of little learning or respectability, a servile tool of the despotic cabal; who, as speaker of the last parliament, had, in obedience to a command from the king to adjourn, refused to put the question upon a remonstrance moved in the house. By the new writs for shipmoney, properly so denominated, since the former had only demanded the actual 1 Clarendon State Papers, i. 721, 761. Richelieu in 1639 is matter of notorious 2

Strafford Papers, ii. 62, 68, 60, 66. history. It has lately been confirmed Richelieu sent d’Estrades to London, in and illustrated by an important note in 1637, according to Pere Orleans, to secure Mazure. Hist.

de la Revolution en 1688, the neutrality of England in case of his ii.

402. It appears by the above-menattacking the maritime towns of Flanders tioned note of Mr. Mazure that the celeconjointly with the Dutch. But the ambrated letter of the Scotch lords, addressbassador was received haughtily, and the ed “Au Roy,” was really sent, and is ex neutrality refused; which put an end to tant. There seems reason to think that the scheme, and so irritated Richelieu, Henrietta joined the Austrian faction that he sent a priest named Chamberlain about 1639; her mother being then in to Edinburgh the same year, in order to England and very hostile to Richelieu. foment troubles in Scotland. R6vol. This is in some degree corroborated by a d’Anglet. iii. 42. This is confirmed by passage in a letter of lady Carlisle. Sidd’Estrades himself. See note in Sidney ney Papers, i. 614. Papers, ii. 447, and Harris’s Life of 8 Sidney Papers ii.

618. Charles, 189; also Lingard, x. 69. The 4 Clarendon State Papers, ii.

16. connection of the Scotch leaders with

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CHA. 1. -1629-40. SHIP-MONEt. 23 equipment of vessels, for which inland counties were of course obliged to compound, the sheriffs were directed to assess every landholder and other inhabitant, according to their judgment of his means, and to enforce the payment by distress.1 This extraordinary demand startled even those who had hitherto sided with the court. Some symptoms of opposition were shown in different places, and actions brought against those who had collected the money. But the greater part yielded to an overbearing power, exercised with such rigor that no one in this king’s reign who had ventured on the humblest remonstrance against any illegal act had escaped without punishment. Indolent and improvident men satisfied themselves that the imposition was not very heavy, and might not be repeated. Some were content to hope that their contribution, however unduly exacted, would be faithfully applied to public ends. Others were overborne by the authority of pretended precedents, and could not yet believe that the sworn judges of the law would pervert it to its own destruction. The ministers prudently resolved to secure not the law, but its interpreters, on their side. The judges of assize were directed to inculcate on their circuits the necessary obligation of forwarding the king’s service by complying with his writ. But, as the measure grew more obnoxious, and strong doubts of its legality came more to prevail, it was thought expedient to publish an extrajudicial opinion of the twelve judges, taken at the king’s special command, according to the pernicious custom of that age. They gave it as their unanimous opinion that, ” when the good and safety of the kingdom in general is concerned, and the whole kingdom in danger, his majesty might, by writ under the great seal, command all his subjects, at their charge, to provide and furnish such number of ships, with men, munition, and victuals, and for such times, as he should think fit, for the defence and safeguard of the kingdom; and that by law he might compel the doing thereof, in case of refusal or refractoriness; and that he was the sole judge both of the danger, and when and how the same was to be prevented and avoided.” This premature declaration of the judges, which was publicly read by the lord-keeper Coventry in the starchamber, did not prevent a few intrepid persons from bringing the 1 See the instructions in Rushworth, ii. 214.

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24 HAMPDEN’S REFUSAL TO PAY. CHAP. VIIi. question solemnly before them, that the liberties of their country might at least not perish silently, nor those who had betrayed them avoid the responsibility of a public avowal of their shame. The first that resisted was the gallant Richard Chambers, who brought an action against the lord-mayor for imprisoning him on account of his refusal to pay his assessment on the former writ. The magistrate pleaded the writ as a special justification; when Berkley, one of the judges of the king’s bench, declared that there was a rule of law and a rule of government, that many things which could not be done by the first rule might be done by the other, and would not suffer counsel to argue against the lawfulness of shipmoney.l The next were lord Say and Mr.

Hampden, both of whom appealed to the justice of their country; but the famous decision which has made the latter so illustrious put an end to all attempts at obtaining redress by course of law. Hampden, it seems hardly necessary to mention, was a Hampden’s gentleman of good estate in Buckinghamshire, refusal to whose assessment to the contribution for shippay. money demanded from his county amounted only to twenty shillings.2 The cause, though properly belonging to the court of exchequer, was heard, on account of its nagnitude, before all the judges in the exchequer-chamber.8 The precise question, so far as related to Mr.

Hampden, was, Whether the king had a right, on his own allegation of public danger, to require an inland county to furnish ships, or a prescribed sum of money by way of commutation, for the defence of the kingdom? It was argued by St. John and 1 Rushworth, 253. The same judge set down for 81s. 6d., and is returned, declared afterwards, in a charge to the with many others, as refusing to pay. grand jury of York, that shipmoney Memoirs of Hainpden and his Times, was an inseparable flower of the crown, vol. i. p. 230. But the suit in the exglancing at Hutton and Croke for their chequer was not on account of this deopposition to it. Id.

267. wand, but for 20s., as stated in the text, As it is impossible to reconcile the due for property situate in the parish trifling amount of this demand with of Stoke Mandevile. This explains the Hampden’s known estate, the tax being smallness of the sum immediately in probably not much less than sixpence in question; it was assessed only on a porthe pound, it has been conjectured that tion of Hampden’s lands. 1845.] his property was purposely rated low. There seems to have been something But it is hard to perceive any motive for unusual, if not irregular, in this part of this indulgence; and it seems more likely the proceeding. The barons of the exthat a nominal sum was fixed upon, in chequer called in the other judges, not order to try the question; or that it was only by way of advice but direction, as only assessed on a part of his estate. the chief Baron declares. State Trials; [Lord Nugent has published a fac-1203. And a proof of this is, that, the.imile of the return made by the asses-court of exchequer being equally divided, sors of shipmoney for the parish of no judgment could have been given by Great Kimble, wherein Mr. Hampden is the barons alone.

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uA, I. -1629-40. ABGIMENTS ON THE CASE. 2 Holborne in behalf of lIampden; by the solicitorgeneral Littleton and the attorney-general Banks for the crown.1 The law and constitution of England, the former maintained, had provided in various ways for the Arguments public safety and protection against enemies. on the ea First, there were the military tenures, which bound great part of the kingdom to a stipulated service at the charge of the possessors. The cinque ports also, and several other towns, some of them not maritime, held by a tenure analo. gous to this; and were bound to furnish a quota of ships or men as the condition of their possessions and privileges, These for the most part are recorded in Domesday-book, though now in general grown obsolete. Next to this specific service, our constitution had bestowed on the sovereign his certain revenues, the fruits of tenure, the profits of his vari. ous minor prerogatives; whatever, in short, he held in right of his crown was applicable, so far as it could be extended, to the public use. It bestowed on him, moreover, and per. haps with more special application to maritime purposes, the customs on importation of merchandise. These indeed had been recently augmented far beyond ancient usage. For these modern impositions,” says St. John, “of the legality thereof I intend not to speak; for in case his majesty may impose upon merchandise what himself pleaseth, there will be less cause to tax the inland counties; and in case he cannot do it, it will be strongly presumed that he can much less tax them.” But as the ordinary revenues might prove quite unequal to great exigencies, the constitution has provided another means as ample and sufficient as it is lawful and regular parliamentary supply. To this the kings of England have in all times had recourse; yet princes are not apt to ask as a concession what they might demand of right. The frequent loans and benevolences which they have required, though not always defensible by law, are additional proofs that they possessed no general right of taxation, To borrow on promise of repayment, to solicit, as it were, alms from their subjects, is not the practice of sovereigns whose prerogatives entitle them to exact money. Those loans had sometimes been repaid expressly to discharge the king’s conscience. And a very arbitrary prince, Henry VIII., had obtained 1 State Trials, ii. 826-1252.

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26 ARGUMENTS ON THE CASE. CHAP. VIII. acts of parliament to release him from the obligation of repayment. These merely probable reasonings prepare the way for that conclusive and irresistible argument that was founded on statute law. Passing slightly over the charter of the Conqueror, that his subjects shall hold their lands free from all unjust tallage, and the clause in John’s Magna Charta, that no aid or scutage should be assessed but by consent of the great council (a provision not repeated in that of Henry III.), the advocates of Hampden relied on the 25 E. I., commonly called the Confirmatio Chartarum, which forever abrogated all taxation without consent of parliament; and this statute itself they endeavored to prove was grounded on requisitions very like the present, for the custody of the seal which Edward had issued the year before. Hence it was evident that the saving contained in that act for the accustomed aids and prizes could not possibly be intended, as the opposite counsel would suggest, to preserve such exactions as shipmoney, but related to the established feudal aids, and to the ancient customs on merchandise. They dwelt less, however (probably through fear of having this exception turned against them), on this important statute than on one of more celebrity, but of very equivocal genuineness, denominated De Tallagio non Concedendo, which is nearly in the same words as the Confirmatio Chartarum, with the omission of the above-mentioned saving. More than one law enacted under Edward III. reasserts the necessity of parliamentary consent to taxation.

It was indeed the subject of frequent remonstrance in that reign, and the king often infringed this right. But the perseverance of the commons was successful, and ultimately rendered the practice conformable to the law.

In the second year of Richard II., the realm being in imminent danger of invasion, the privy council convoked an assembly of peers and other great men, probably with a view to avoid the summoning of a parliament. This assembly lent their own money, but declared that they could not provide a remedy without charging the commons, which could not be done out of parliament, advising that one should be speedily summoned. This precedent was the more important as it tended to obviate that argument from peril and necessity on which the defenders of shipmoney were wont to rely. But they met that specious plea more

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CHA. I. 1629-40. CASE OF HAMPDEN. 27 directly. They admitted that a paramount overruling necessity silences the voice of law; that in actual invasion, or its immediate prospect, the rights of private men must yield to the safety of the whole; that not only the sovereign, but each man in respect of his neighbor, might do many things absolutely illegal at other seasons; and this served to distinguish the present case from some strong acts of prerogative exerted by Elizabeth in 1588, when the liberties and religion of the people were in the most apparent jeopardy. But here there was no overwhelming danger; the nation was at peace with all the world: could the piracies of Turkish corsairs, or even the insolence of rival neighbors, be reckoned among those instant perils for which a parliament would provide too late? To the precedents alleged on the other side it was replied, that no one of them met the case of an inland county; that such as were before the 25 E. I. were sufficiently repelled by that statute, such as occurred under Edward III. by the later statutes, and by the remonstrances of parliament during his reign; and there were but very few afterwards. But that, in a matter of statute law, they ought not to be governed by precedents, even if such could be adduced. Before the latter end of Edward I.‘s reign, St. John observes, ” All things concerning the king’s prerogative and the subjects’ liberties were upon uncertainties.”

“The government,” says Holborne truly, “was more of force than law.” And this is unquestionably applicable, in a less degree, to many later ages.

Lastly, the Petition of Right, that noble legacy of a slandered parliament, reciting and confirming the ancient statutes, had established that no man thereafter be compelled to rake or yield any gift, loan, benevolence, tax, or such like charge, without common consent by act of parliament. This latest and most complete recognition must sweep away all contrary precedent, and could not, without a glaring violation of its obvious meaning, be stretched into an admission of shipmoney. The king’s counsel, in answer to these arguments, appealed to that series of records which the diligence of Noy had collected. By far the greater part of these were commissions of array. But several, even of those addressed to inland towns (and, if there were no service by tenure in

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28 CASE OF HAMPDEN. CHAP. VIII. the case, it does not seem easy to distinguish these in principle from counties), bore a very strong analogy to the present. They were, however, in early times. No sufficient answer could be offered to the statutes that had prohibited unparliamentary taxation. The attempts made to elude their force were utterly ineffectual, as those who are acquainted with their emphatic language may well conceive. But the council of Charles I., and the hirelings who ate their bread, disdained to rest their claim of shipmoney (big as it was with other and still more novel schemes) on obscure records, or on cavils about the meaning of statutes. They resorted rather to the favorite topic of the times, the intrinsic, absolute authority of the king. This the attorney-general Banks placed in the very front of his argument. ” This power,” says he, ” is innate in the person of an absolute king, and in the persons of the kings of England. All magistracy it is of nature, and obedience and subjection it is of nature. This power is not any ways derived from the people, but reserved unto the king when positive laws first began. For the king of England he is an absolute monarch; nothing can be given to an absolute prince but what is inherent in his person. He can do no wrong. He is the sole judge, and we ought not to question him.

Where the law trusts we ought not to distrust. The acts of parliament,” he observed, “contained no express words to take away so high a prerogative; and the king’s prerogative, even in lesser matters, is always saved wherever express words do not restrain it.” But this last argument appearing too modest for some of the judges who pronounced sentence in this cause, they denied the power of parliament to limit the high prerogatives of the crown. “This imposition without parliament,” says Justice Crawley, ” appertains to the king originally, and to the successor ipso facto, if he be a sovereign in right of his sovereignty from the crown. You cannot have a king without these royal rights, no, not by act of parliament.” ” Where Mr. Holborne,” says Justice Berkley, “supposed a fundamental policy in the creation of the frame of this kingdom, that, in case the monarch of England should be inclined to exact from his subjects at his pleasure, he should be restrained, for that he could have nothing from them but upon a common consent in parliament, he is utterly mistaken

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CHA. I.-1629-40. DECISION OF THE JUDGES. 29 herein. The law knows no such king-yoking policy. The law is itself an old and trusty servant of the king’s; it is his instrument or means which he useth to govern his people by: I never read nor heard that lex was rex; but it is common and most true that rex is lex.” Vernon, another judge, gave his opinion in few words: “That the king, pro bono publico, may charge his subjects for the safety and defence of the kingdom notwithstanding any act of parliament, and that a statute derogatory from the prerogative doth not bind the king; and the king may dispense with any law in cases of necessity.” Finch, the adviser of the shipmoney, was not backward to employ the same argument in its behalf. ” No act of parliament,” he told them, ” could bar a king of his regality, as that no land should hold of him, or bar him of the allegiance of his subjects or the relative on his part, as trust and power to defend his people; therefore acts of parliament to take away his royal power in the defence of his kingdom are void; they are void acts of parliament to bind the king not to command the subjects, their persons, and goods, and I say their money too; for no acts of parliament make any difference.” Seven of the twelve judges, namely, Finch, chief-justice of the common pleas, Jones) Berkley, Vernon, Crawley, Trevor, and Weston, gave judgment for the crown. Brampston, chief-justice of the king’s bench, and Davenport, chiefbaron of the exchequer, pronounced for Hampden, but on technical reasons, and adhering to the majority on the principal question.

Denham, another judge of the same court, being extremely ill, gave a short written judgment in favor of Hampden But justices Croke and Hutton, men of considerable reputation and experience, displayed a most praiseworthy intepidity in denying, without the smallest qualification, the alleged prerogative of the crown and the lawfulness of the writ for shipmoney.

They had unfortu~ nately signed, along with the other judges, the above-men,. tioned opinion in favor of the right.. For this they made the best apology they could, that their voice was concluded by the majority.

But in truth it was the ultimate success that. sometimes attends a struggle between conscience and self-interest or timidity.l 1 Croke, whose conduct on the bench out blemish, had resolved to give judgin other political questions was not with-ment for the king, but was withheld by

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30 EFFECTS OF THE DECISION. CHAP. VIII. The length to which this important cause was protracted, six months having elapsed from the opening speech of Mr. Hampden’s council to the final judgment, was of infinite disservice to the crown. During this long period every man’s attention was directed to the exchequer-chamber. The convincing arguments of St. John and Holborne, but still more the division on the bench, increased their natural repugnance to so unusual and dangerous a prerogative.1 Those who had trusted to the faith of the judges were undeceived by the honest repentance of some, and looked with indignation on so prostituted a crew.

That respect for courts of justice which the happy structure of our judicial administration has in general kept inviolate was exchanged for distrust, contempt, and desire of vengeance. They heard the speeches of some of the judges with more displeasure than even their final decision.

Shipmoney was held lawful by Finch and several other judges, not on the authority of precedents, which must in their nature have some bounds, but on principles subversive of any property or privilege in the subject.

Those paramount rights of monarchy, to which they appealed today in justification of shipmoney, might tomorrow serve to supersede other laws, and maintain new exertions of despotic power. It was manifest by the whole strain of the court lawyers that no limitations on the king’s authority could exist but by the king’s sufferance. This alarming tenet, long bruited among the churchmen and courtiers, now resounded in the halls of justice. But shipmoney, in consequence, was paid with far less regularity and more reluctance than before.2 The discontent that had been tolerably smothered was now displayed in every county; and though the council did not flinch in the least from exacting payment, nor willingly remit any part of its rigor towards the uncomhis wife, who implored him not to sacri-in a great deal more slowly than they did flee his conscience for fear of any danger in former years, and that to a very conor prejudice to his family, being content siderable sum. Thirdly, it puts thoughts to sufferany misery with him, rather than into wise and moderate men’s heads to be an occasion for him to violate his which were better out; for they think, if integrity. Whitelock, p. 26. Of such the judges which are behind, do not high-minded and inflexible women our their parts both exceeding well and thorBritish history produces many examples.

oughly, it may much distemper this ex1 Laud writes to Lord Wentworth, that traordinary and great service.” StrafCroke and Hutton had both gone against ford Letters, ii. 170. the king very sourly. “The accidents t It is notoriously known that pressure which have followed upon it already are was borne with much more cheerfulness these: First, the faction are grown very before the judgment for the king than bold, Secondly, the king’s moneys come ever it was after. Clarendon, p. 122.

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CHA. I. -1629-40. PROCLAMATIONS. 31 plying, it was impossible either to punish the great body of the country gentlemen and citizens, or to restrain their murmurs by a few examples. Whether in consequence of this unwillingness, or for other reasons, the revenue levied in different years under the head of shipmoney is more fluctuating than we should expect from a fixed assessment; but may be reckoned at an average sum of 200,0001.1 It would doubtless be unfair to pass a severe censure on the government of Charles I. for transgressions Proclamaof law which a long course of precedents might tions. render dubious, or at least extenuate.

But this common apology for his administration, on which the artful defence of Hume is almost entirely grounded, must be admitted cautiously, and not until we have well considered how far such precedents could be brought to support it. This is particularly applicable to his proclamations. I have already pointed out the comparative novelty of these unconstitutional ordinances, and their great increase under James. They had not been fully acquiesced in; the commons had remonstrated against their abuse; and Coke, with other judges, had endeavored to fix limits to their authority very far within that which they arrogated. It can hardly, therefore, be said that Charles’s council were ignorant of their illegality; nor is the case at all parallel to that of general warrants, or any similar irregularity into which an honest government may inadvertently be led. They serve at least to display the practical state of the constitution, and the necessity of an entire reform in its spirit.

The proclamations of Charles’s reign are far more numerous than those of his father. They imply a pre-various rogative of intermeddling with all matters of trade, arbitrary prohibiting or putting under restraint the impor-proceedings. tation of various articles, and the home growth of others, or establishing regulations for manufactures.2 Prices of several minor articles were fixed by proclamation; and in one instance this was extended to poultry, butter, and coals.8 The king declares by a proclamation that he had incorporated all 1 Rushworth Abr. ii. 841

Clarendon mention some of these. The best turkey State Papers, i. 600. It is said by Heylin was to be sold at 4s. 6d.; the best goose that the clergy were much spared in the at 2s 4d.; the best pullet Is. 8d.; three assessment of s lip-money: Life of Laud, eggs for a penny; fresh butter at 56. in 802. summer and 6d. in winter. This was in 2 Rymer, passim. 1684. 8

Id. xix. 512 It may be curious to

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32 ARBITRARY PROCEEDINGS CaAP. VII. tradesmen and artificers within London and three miles round; so that no person might set up any trade without having served a seven years’ apprenticeship, and without admission into such corporation.1 He prohibits, in like manner, any one from using the trade of a maltster or that of a brewer without admission into the corporations of maltsters or brewers erected for every county.2 I know not whether these projects were in any degree founded orh the alleged pretext of correcting abuses, or were solely designed to raise money by means of these corporations. We find, however, a revocation of the restraint on malting and brewing soon after. The illegality of these proclamations is most unquestionable. The rapid increase of London continued to disquiet the court. It was the stronghold of political and religious disaffection.

Hence the prohibitions of erecting new houses, which had begun under Elizabeth, were continually repeated.8 They had indeed some laudable objects in view; to render the city more healthy, cleanly, and magnificent, and by prescribing the general use of brick instead of wood, as well as by improving the width and regularity of the streets, to afford the best security against fires, and against those epidemical diseases which visited the metropolis with unusual severity in the earlier years of this reign. The most jealous censor of royal encroachments will hardly object to the proclamations enfbrcing certain regulations of police in some of those alarming seasons. It is probable, from the increase which we know to have taken place in London during this reign, that licenses for building were easily obtained. The same supposition is applicable to another class of proclamation, enjoining all persons who had residences in the country to quit the capital and repair to them.4 Yet, that these were not always a dead letter appears from an information exhibited in the starchamber against seven lords, sixty knights, and one hundred esquires, besides many ladies, for disobeying the king’s proclamation, 1 Rymer, xx.

113. ers. It recites the care of Elizabeth and 2 Id. 167. James to have the city built in an uni3 Id. xviii. 33. et alibi. A commission form manner with brick, and also to was granted to the earl of Arundel and clear it from under-tenants and basepeoothers, May 30, 1626, to inquire what plewho live bybegging andstealing. Id. houses, shops, &c., had been built for xviii. 97. ten years past, especially since the last 4 Id. xix.

876. proclamation, and to commit the offend

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CHA. I.-1629-40. OF THE CROWN. 33 either by continuing in London or returning to it after a short absence.1 The result of this prosecution, which was probably only intended to keep them in check, does not appear.

No proclamation could stand in need of support from law while this arbitrary tribunal assumed a right of punishing misdemeanors. It would have been a dangerous aggravation of any delinquent’s offence to have questioned the authority of a proclamation, or the jurisdiction of the council. The security of freehold rights had been the peculiar boast of the English law. The very statute of Henry VIII., which has been held up to so much infamy, while it gave the force of law to his proclamations, interposed its barrier in defence of the subject’s property. The name of freeholder, handed down with religious honor from an age when it conveyed distinct privileges, and as it were a sort of popular nobility, protected the poorest man against the crown’s and the lord’s rapacity. He at least was recognized as the liber homo of Magna Charta, who could not be disseised of his tenements and fianchises. His house was his castle, which the law respected, and which the king dared not enter. Even the public good must give way to his obstinacy; nor had the legislature itself as yet compelled any man to part with his lands for a compensation which he was loath to accept. The council and starchamber had very rarely presumed to meddle with his right; never perhaps where it was acknowledged and ancient. But now this reverence of the common law for the sacredness of real property was derided by those who revered nothing as sacred but the interests of the church and crown. The privy council, on a suggestion that the demolition of some houses and shops in the vicinity of St. Paul’s would show the cathedral to more advantage, directed that the owners should receive such satisfaction as should seem reasonable; or, on their refusal, the sheriff was required to see the buildings pulled down, “it not being thought fit the obstinacy of those persons should hinder so considerable a work.“2 By another order of council, scarcely less oppressive and illegal, all shops in Cheapside and Lombard Street, except those of goldsmiths, were directed to be shut up, that the avenue to St.

Paul’s might appear more splendid; and the mayor and aldermen were repeatedly threatened for remissness in executing this mandate of tyranny.8 1 Rushworth &br. ii. 282. a Id. ii. 79. 8 Id. p. 818 VOL. I. 3

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34 ARBITRARY PROCEEDINGS. CHAP. VIIJ In the great plantation of Ulster by James, the city of London had received a grant of extensive lands in the county of Derry, on certain conditions prescribed in their charter. The settlement became flourishing, and enriched the city. But the wealth of London was always invidious to the crown, as well as to the needy courtiers. On an information filed in the starchamber for certain alleged breaches of their charter, it was not only adjudged to be forfeited to the king, but a fine of 70,0001. was imposed on the city. They paid this enormous mulct; but were kept out of their lands till restored by the long parliament.1 In this proceeding Charles forgot his duty enough to take a very active share, personally exciting the court to give sentence for himself.2 Is it then to be a matter of surprise or reproach that the citizens of London refused him assistance in the Scottish war, and through the ensuing times of confusion harbored an implacable resentment against a sovereign who had so deeply injured them? We may advert in this place to some other stretches of power, which no one can pretend to justify, though in general they seem to have escaped notice amidst the enormous mass of national grievances. A commission was issued in 1635 to the recorder of London and others, to examine all persons going beyond seas, and tender to them an oath of the most inquisitorial nature.8 Certain privy councillors were empowered to enter the house of sir Robert Cotton, and search his books, records, and papers, setting down such as ought to belong to the crown.4 This renders probable what we find in a writer who had the best means of information, that secretary Windebank, by virtue of an order of council, entered sir Edward Coke’s house while he lay on his death-bed, and took away his manuscripts, together with his last will, which was never returned to his family.6 1 Rushworth Abr. iii. 123; Whitelock, and the reproach sometimes thrown on p. 35; Strafford Letters, i. 374, et alibi. England, of wanting a fit mansion for its See what Clarendon says, p. 293 (ii. 151, monarchs, would have been prevented. edit. 1826). The second of these tells us But the exchequer of Charles I. had that the city offered to build for the king never been in such a state as to render it a palace in St. James’s park by way of at all probable that he could undertake composition, which was refused. If this so costly a work. be true it must allude to the palace al-2 Strafford Letters, i. 340. ready projected by him. the magnificent s Rymer, xix. 699. designs for which by Inigo Jones are well 4 Id. 198. known. Had they been executed the 6 Roger Coke’s Detection of the Court metropolis would have possessed a splen-of England, i. 309. He was sir Edward’s did monument of Palladian architecture; grandson.

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CHA. I.- 1629-40. STARCHAMBER JURISDICTION. 35 The highcommission court were enabled by the king’s “supreme power ecclesiastical” to examine such as were charged with offences cognizable by them on oath, which many had declined to take, according to the known maxims of English law.1 It would be improper to notice as illegal or irregular the practice of granting dispensations in particular instances. either from general acts of parliament or the local statutes of colleges. Such a prerogative, at least in the former case, was founded on long usage and judicial recognition.

Charles, however, transgressed its admitted boundaries when he empowered others to dispense with them as there might be occasion. Thus, in a commission to the president and council of the North, directing them to compound with recusants, he in effect suspends the statute which provides that no recusant shall have a lease of that portion of his lands which the law sequestered to the king’s use during his recusancy; a clause in this patent enabling the commissioners to grant such leases notwithstanding any law or statute to the contrary. This seems to go beyond the admitted limits of the dispensing prerogative.2 The levies of tonnage and poundage without authority of parliament, the exaction of monopolies, the extension of the forests, the arbitrary restraints of proclamations, above all the general exaction of shipmoney, form the principal articles of charge against the government of Charles, so far as relates to its inroads on the subject’s property. These were maintained by a vigilant and unsparing exercise of jurisdiction in the court of starchamber. I have, in another chapter, traced the revival of this great tribunal, probably under Henry VIII., in at least as formidable a shape as before the now neglected statutes of Edward III. and Richard II., which had placed barriers in its way. It was the great weapon of executive power under Elizabeth and James; nor can we reproach the present reign with innovation in this respect, though in no former period had the proceedings of this court been accompanied with so much violence and tyranny. But this will require some fuller explication. I hardly need remind the reader that the juris-Star-chamdiction of the ancient Concilium regis ordinarium, ber juriaor court of starchamber, continued to be exer-diction. 1 Rymer, xx. 190.

Id. xix. 740. See also 82.

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36 JURISDICTION-OF THE CHAP. VI. cised more or less frequently, notwithstanding the various statutes enacted to repress it; and that it neither was supported by the act erecting a new court in the third of Henry VII., nor originated at that time. The records show the starchamber to have taken cognizance both of civil suits and of offences throughout the time of the Tudors. But precedents of usurped power cannot establish a legal authority in defiance of the acknowledged law. It appears that the lawyers did not admit any jurisdiction in the council, except so far as the statute of Henry VII. was supposed to have given it. “The famous Plowden put his hand to a demurrer to a bill,” says Hudson, “because the matter was not within the statute; and, although it was then overruled, yet Mr. Sergeant Richardson, thirty years after, fell again upon the same rock, and was sharply rebuked for it.“1 The chancellor, who was the standing president of the court of starchamber, would always find pretences to elude the existing statutes, and justify the usurpation of this tribunal. The civil jurisdiction claimed and exerted by the starchamber was only in particular cases, as disputes between alien merchants and Englishmen, questions of prize or unlawful detention of ships, and in general such as now belong to the court of admiralty; some testamentary matters, in 1 Hudson’s Treatise of the Court of He proceeds to inform us that by search StarChamber, p. 51. This valuable into records he traced its jurisdiction work, written about the end of James’s much higher. This shows, however, the reign, is published in Collectanea Ju-doubts entertained of its Jurisdiction in ridica, vol. ii. There is more than one the queen’s time. This writer, extolling manuscript of it in the British Museum. the court highly, admits that ” some of In another treatise, written by a clerk late have deemed it to be new, and put of the council about 1690 (Hargrave the same in print, to the blemish of its MSS.

ccxvi. 195), the author says, - beautiful antiquity.” He then discusses “There was a time when there grew a the question (for such it seems it was), controversy between the starchamber whether any peer, though not of the and the king’s bench, for their jurisdic-council, might sit in the starchamber; tion in a cause of perjury concerning and decides in the negative, “Ao. 5to. tithes, sir Nicholas Bacon, that most of her majesty,”

he says, in the case of grave and worthy counsellor, then being the earl of Hertford, “‘there were as. lord-keeper of the great seal, and sir Rob-sembled a great number of the noble ert Catlyn, knight, then lord chief-justice barons of this realm, not being of the of the bench. To the deciding thereof council, who offered there to sit; but at were called by the plaintiff and defendant that time it was declared unto them by a great number of the learned counsellors the lord-keeper that they were to give of the law: they were called into the in-place, and so they did, and divers of ner starchamber after dinner, where be-them tarried the hearing of the cause at fore the lords of the council they argued the bar.” the cause on both sides, but could not This note ought to have been inserted find the court of greater antiquity by all in Chapter I., where the antiquity of the their books than Henry VII. and Richard starchamber is mentioned, but was acolIII. On this I fell in cogitation how to dentally overlooked. find some further knowledge thereof.”

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CHA. I.- 1629-40. COURT OF STARCHAMBER. 37 order to prevent appeals to Rome, which might have been brought from the ecclesiastical courts; suits between corporations, ” of which,” says Hudson, “I dare undertake to show above a hundred in the reigns of Henry VII. and Henry VIII., or sometimes between men of great power and interest, which could not be tried with fairness by the common law.” 1 For the corruption of sheriffs and juries furnished an apology for the irregular, but necessary, interference of a controlling authority. The ancient remedy, by means of attaint, which renders a jury responsible for an unjust verdict, was almost gone into disuse, and, inasmuch as it depended on the integrity of a second jury, not always sure to be obtained; so that in many parts of the kingdom, and especially in Wales, it was impossible to find a jury who would return a verdict against a man of good family, either in a civil or criminal proceeding. The statutes, however, restraining the council’s jurisdiction, and the strong prepossession of the people as to the sacredness of freehold rights, made the starchamber cautious of determining questions of inheritance, which they commonly remitted to the judges; and from the early part of Elizabeth’s reign they took a direct cognizance of any civil suits less frequently than before; partly, I suppose, from the increased business of the court of chancery and the admiralty court, which took away much wherein they had been wont to meddle; partly from their own occupation as a court of criminal judicature, which became more conspicuous as the other went into disuse.2 This criminal jurisdiction is that which rendered the starchamber so potent and so odious an auxiliary of a despotic administration. The offences principally cognizable in this court were forgery, perjury, riot, maintenance% fraud, libel, and conspiracy.8 But, besides these, every misdemeanor came within the proper scope of its inquiry; those especially of public importance, and for which the law, as then understood, had provided no sufficient punishment. For the judges interpreted the law in early times with too great narrowness and 1 Hudson’s Treatise of the Court of king,” he says, “should be sometimes StarChamber, p. 56. present, yet not too often.” James was s P.

62. Lord Bacon observes that too often present, and took one wellthe council in his time did not meddle known criminal proceeding, that against with mneum and tuum as formerly; and sir Thomas Lake and his family, entirely that such causes ought not to be enter-into his own hands.‘Ained. Vol. i. 720: vol. ii. 208. “The 8 P. 82.

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38 STARCHAMBER JURISDICTION. CHAP. VIII. timidity; defects which, on the one hand, raised up the overruling authority of the court of chancery, as the necessary means of redress to the civil suitor who found the gates of justice barred against him by technical pedantry; and, on the other, brought this usurpation and tyranny of the starchamber upon the kingdom by an absurd scrupulosity about punishing manifest offences against the public good. Thus corruption, breach of trust, and malfeasance in public affairs, or attempts to commit felony, seem to have been reckoned not indictable at common law, and came in consequence under the cognizance of the starchamber.1 In other cases its jurisdiction was merely concurrent; but the greater certainty of conviction, and the greater severity of punishment, rendered it incomparably more formidable than the ordinary benches of justice. The law of libel grew up in this unwholesome atmosphere, and was moulded by the plastic hands of successive judges and attorneys-general. Prosecutions of this kind, according to Hudson, began to be more frequent from the last years of Elizabeth, when Coke was attorney-general; and it is easy to conjecture what kind of interpretation they received. To hear a libel sung or read, says that writer, and to laugh at it, and make merriment with it, has ever been held a publication in law. The gross error that it is not a libel if it be true, has long since, he adds, been exploded out of this court.2 Among the exertions of authority practised in the starchamber which no positive law could be brought to warrant, he enumerates ” punishments of breach of proclamations before they have the strength of an act of parliament; which this court hath stretched as far as ever any act of parliament did. As in the 41st of Elizabeth builders of houses in London were sentenced, and their houses ordered to be pulled down, and the materials to be distributed to the benefit of the parish where the building was; which disposition of the goods soundeth as a great extremity, and beyond the warrant of our laws; and yet surely very necessary, if anything would deter men from that horrible mischief of increasing that head which is swoln to a great hugeness already.” 8 1 Hudson’s Treatise of the Court of information was preferred in the starStar-Chamber, p. 108. chamber against Griffin and another for 2 P. 100,102. erecting a tenement in Hog Lane, which 8 P. 107.

The following case in the he divided into several rooms, wherein queen’s reign goes a great way:-An were inhabiting two poor tenants, that

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CHA. I. - 1629-40. PUNISHMENTS. 39 The mode of process was sometimes of a summary nature; the accused person being privately examined, and his examination read in the court, if he was thought to have confessed sufficient to deserve sentence, it was immediately awarded without any formal trial or written process. But the more regular course was by information filed at the suit of the attorney-general, or, in certain cases, of a private relator. The party was brought before the court by writ of subpoena; and having given bond with sureties not to depart without leave, was to put in his answer upon oath, as well to the matters contained in the information, as to special interrogatories. Witnesses were examined upon interrogatories, and their depositions read in court.

The course of proceeding on the whole seems to have nearly resembled that of the chancery.1 It was held competent for the court to adjudge any punishment short of death. Fine and imprisonment Punishment were of course the most usual. The pillory, inflicted by whipping, branding, and cutting off the ears, grew the starinto use by degrees. In the reign of Henry VII.

and Henry VIII., we are told by Hudson, the fines were not so ruinous as they have been since, which he ascribes to the number of bishops who sat in the court, and inclined to mercy; ” and I can well remember,” he says, “that the most reverend archbishop Whitgift did ever constantly maintain the liberty of the free charter, that men ought to be fined, salvo contenemento. But they have been of late imposed according to the nature of the offence, and not the estate of the person. The slavish punishment of whipping,” he proceeds to observe, ” was not introduced till a great man only lived and were maintained by the down other habitations must be found, relief of their neighbors, &c. The attor-did not, as requested, order this to be ney-general, and also the lord mayor and done for the present, but that the tenants aldermen, prayed some condign punish-should continue for their lives without ment on Griffin and the other, and that payment of rent, and the landlord is the court would be pleased to set down directed not to molest them, and after and decree some general order in this the death or departure of the tenants the and other like cases of new building and houses to be pulled down. Harl. MSS. division of tenements. Whereupon the N. 299, fol. 7. court, generally considering the great 1 Harl. MSS. p. 142, &c. It appears growing evils and inconveniences that that the court of starchamber could not continually breed and happen by this sentence to punishment on the deposition new-erected building and divisions made of an eye-witness (Rushw. Abr. ii. 114): and divided contrary to her majesty’s a rule which did not prevent their receivsaid proclamation, commit the offenders ing the most imperfect and inconclusive to the Fleet, and fine them 201. each; but testimony. considering that if the houses be pulled

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40 PUNISHMENTS INFLICTED CHAP. VIII. of the common law, and otherwise a worthy justice, forgot his place of session, and brought it in this place too much in use.” 1 It would be difficult to find precedents for the aggravated cruelties inflicted on Leighton, Lilburne, and others; but instances of cutting off the ears may be found under Elizabeth.2 The reproach, therefore, of arbitrary and illegal jurisdiction does not wholly fall on the government of Charles. They found themselves in possession of this almost unlimited authority. But doubtless, as far as the history of proceedings in the starchamber are recorded, they seem much more numerous and violent in the present reign than in the two preceding. Rushworth has preserved a copious selection of cases determined before this tribunal.

They consist principally of misdemeanors, rather of an aggravated nature; such as disturbances of the public peace, assaults accompanied with a good deal of violence, conspiracies, and libels. The necessity, however, for such a paramount court to restrain the excesses of powerful men no longer existed, since it can hardly be doubted that the common administration of the law was sufficient to give redress in the time of Charles I.; though we certainly do find several instances of violence and outrage by men of a superior station in life, which speak unfavorably for the state of manners in the kingdom. But the object of drawing so large a number of criminal cases into the starchamber seems to have been twofold: first, to inure men’s minds to an authority more immediately connected with the crown than the ordinary courts of law, and less tied down to any rules of pleading or evidence; secondly, to eke out a scanty revenue by penalties and forfeitures. Absolutely regardless of the provision of the Great Charter, that no man shall be amerced even to the full extent of his means, the councillors of the starchamber inflicted such fines as no court of justice, even in the present reduced value of money, 1 Hudson, p. 86. 224.

Instead of” the his ears. Harl. MSS. 6265, fol. 373. So slavish punishment of whipping,” the also the conspirators who accused archprinted book has “
the slavish speech of bishop Sandys of adultery. Id. 376. And whispering,”

which of course entirely al-Mr. Pound, a Roman catholic gentleman, ters the sense, or rather makes nonsense. who had suffered much before for his I have followed a MS. in the Museum religion, was sentenced by that court, in (Hargrave, vol. 260), which agrees with 1608, to lose both his ears, to be fined the abstract of this treatise by Rush-10001., and imprisoned for life, unless he worth, ii. 348. declare who instigated him to charge 2

Vallenger, author of seditious libels, sergeant Philips with injustice in conwas sentenced in the queen’s reign to demning a neighbor of his to death. stand twice in the pillory and lose both Winwood, ii. 36.

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CHA. I. - 1629-40. BY THE STARCHAMBER. 41 would think of imposing. Little objection indeed seems to lie, in a free country, and with a well-regulated administration of justice, against the imposition of weighty pecuniary penalties, due consideration being had of the offence and the criminal. But, adjudged by such a tribunal as the star chamber, where those who inflicted the punishment reaped the gain, and sat, like famished birds of prey, with keen eyes and bended talons, eager to supply for a moment, by some wretch’s ruin, the craving emptiness of the exchequer, this scheme of enormous penalties became more dangerous and subversive of justice, though not more odious, than corporal punishment. A gentleman of the name of Allington was fined 12,0001. for marrying his niece. One who had sent a challenge to the earl of Northumberland was fined 50001.; another for saying the earl of Suffolk was a base lord, 40001. to him, and a like sum to the king. Sir David Forbes, for opprobrious words against lord Wentworth, incurred 50001. to the king, and 30001. to the party. On some soap-boilers, who had not complied with the requisitions of the newlyincorporated company, mulcts were imposed of 15001. and 10001. One man was fined and set in the pillory for engrossing corn, though he only kept what grew on his own land, asking more in a season of dearth than the overseers of the poor thought proper to give.l Some arbitrary regulations with respect to prices may be excused by a wellintentioned though mistaken policy. The charges of inns and taverns were fixed by the judges. But even in those a corrupt motive was sometimes blended. The company of vintners, or victuallers, having refused to pay a demand of the lord treasurer, one penny a quart for all wine drunk in their houses, the starchamber, without information filed or defence made, interdicted them from selling,or dressing victuals till they submitted to pay forty shillings for each tun of wine to the king.2 It is evident that the strong interest of the court in these.fines must not only have had a tendency to aggravate the punishment, but to induce sentences of con1 The scarcity must have been very to prohibit them to dress meat; some. great this season (1631), for he refused what was required of them, a halfpenny 2. 18s. for the quarter of rye. Rush-a quart for French wine, and a penny worth, ii. 110. for sack and other richer wines, for the a Rushworth, ii.

340. Garrard, the cor-king: the gentlemen vintners grew sul. respondent of Wentworth, who sent him len, and woulu not give it, so they are all London news, writes about this, “The all well enough served.” Strafford Letattorney-general hath sent to all taverns ters, i. 607.

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42 BISHOP WILLIAMS. CHAP. VIII. demnation on inadequate proof. From all that remains of proceedings in the starchamber, they seem to have been very frequently as iniquitous as they were severe. In many celebrated instances the accused party suffered less on the score of any imputed offence than for having provoked the malice of a powerful adversary, or for notorious dissatisfaction with the existing government. Thus Williams, bishop case of of Lincoln, once lord keeper, the favorite of king bishop James, the possessor for a season of the power Williams. that was turned against him, experienced the rancorous and ungrateful malignity of Laud; who, having been brought forward by Williams into the favor of the court, not only supplanted by his intrigues, and incensed the king’s mind against his benefactor, but harassed his retirement by repeated persecutions.1 It will sufficiently illustrate the spirit of these times to mention that the sole offence imputed to the bishop of Lincoln in the last information against him in the starchamber was, that he had received certain letters from one Osbaldiston, master of Westminster school, wherein some contemptuous nickname was used to denote Laud.2 It did not appear that Williams had ever divulged these letters. But it was held that the concealment of a libellous letter was a high misdemeanor. Williams was therefore adjudged to pay 50001. to the king, and 30001. to the archbishop, to be imprisoned during pleasure, and to make a submission; Osbaldiston to pay a still heavier fine, to be deprived of all his benefices, to be imprisoned and make submission, and moreover to stand in the pillory before his school in Dean’s-yard, with his ears nailed to it.

This man had the good fortune to conceal himself; but the bishop of Lincoln, refusing to make the required apology, lay about three years in the Tower, till released at the beginning of the long parliament. It might detain me too long to dwell particularly on the punishments inflicted by the court of starchamber in this reign. Such historians as have not written in order to palliate the tyranny of Charles, and especially Rushworth, will furnish abundant details, with all those circumstances that portray the barbarous and tyrannical spirit of those who composed that tribunal. Two or three instances are so celebrated that I cannot pass them over. Leighton, a Scots 1 Hacket’s Life of Williams. Rush-2

Osbaldiston swore that he did not worth, Abr. ii. 315, et post. Brodie, ii. 363. mean Laud; an undoubted perjury.

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CHA. I.- 1629-40. PRYNNE. 43 divine, having published an angry libel against the hierarchy, was sentenced to be publicly whipped at Westminster and set in the pillory, to have one side of his nose slit, one ear cut off, and one side of his cheek branded with a hot iron, to have the whole of this repeated the next week at Cheapside, and to suffer perpetual imprisonment in the Fleet.1 Lilburne, for dispersing pamphlets against the bishops, was whipped from the Fleet prison to Westminster, there set in the pillory, and treated afterwards with great cruelty.2 Prynne, a lawyer of uncommon erudition, and a case of zealous puritan, had printed a bulky volume, called Prynne. Histriomastix, full of invectives against the theatre, which he sustained by a profusion of learning. In the course of this he adverted to the appearance of courtesans on the Roman stage, and by a satirical reference in his index seemed to range all female actors in the class.8 The queen, unfortunately, six weeks after the publication of Prynne’s book, had performed a part in a mask at court. This passage was accordingly dragged to light by the malice of Peter Heylin, a chaplain of Laud, on whom the archbishop devolved the burden of reading this heavy volume in order to detect its offences. Heylin, a bigoted enemy of everything puritanical, and not scrupulous as to veracity, may be suspected of having aggravated, if not misrepresented, the tendency of a book much more tiresome than seditious. Prynne, however, was already obnoxious, and the starchamber adjudged him to stand twice in the pillory, to be branded in the forehead, to lose both his ears, to pay a fine of 50001., and to suffer perpetual imprisonment. The dogged puritan employed the leisure of a jail in writing a fresh libel against the hierar1 Mr. Brodie (Hist. of Brit. Emp., vol. starchamber, some of the lords turned ii. p. 309) observes that he cannot find up his hair, and expressed great indignain Leighton’s book (which I have never tion that his ears had not been better seen) the passage constantly brought cropped.

State Trials, 717. The most forward by Laud’s apologists, wherein he brutal and servile of these courtiers seems is supposed to have recommended the to have been the earl of Dorset, though assassination of the bishops. He admits, Clarendon speaks well of him. He was indeed, as does Harris, that the book was also impudently corrupt, declaring that violent; but what can be said of the he thought it no crime for a courtier that punishment? lives at a great expense in his attendance 2 Rushworth.

State Trials. to receive a reward to get a business done 8 Id. Whitelock p. 18. Harris’s Life by a great man in favor. Rushw. Abr. of Charles, p.

262. The unfortunate ii. 246. It is to be observed that the words in the index, ” Women actors no-star-chamber tribunal was almost as intorious whores,” cost Prynne half his famous for its partiality and corruption ears; the remainder he saved by the as its cruelty. See proofs of this in the hangman’s mercy for a second harvest. same work, p. 241. When he was brought again before the

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44 ARCHBISHOP LAUD. CHAP. VIII chy. For this, with two other delinquents of the same class, Burton a divine and Bastwick a physician, he stood again at the bar of that terrible tribunal. Their demeanor was what the court deemed intolerably contumacious, arising in fact from the despair of men who knew that no humiliation would procure them mercy.l Prynne lost the remainder of his ears in the pillory; and the punishment was inflicted on them all with extreme and designed cruelty, which they endured, as martyrs always endure suffering, so heroically as to excite a deep impression of sympathy and resentment in the assembled multitude.2 They were sentenced to perpetual confinement in distant prisons. But their departure from London, and their reception on the road, were marked by signal expressions of popular regard; and their friends resorting to them even in Launceston, Chester, and Carnarvon castles, whither they were sent, an order of council was made to transport them to the isles of the Channel. It was the very first act of the long parliament to restore these victims of tyranny to their families. Punishments by mutilation, though not quite unknown to the English law, had been of rare occurrence; and thus inflicted on men whose station appeared to render the ignominy of whipping and branding more intolerable, they produced much the same effect as the still greater cruelties of Mary’s reign, in exciting a detestation for that ecclesiastical dominion which protected itself by means so atrocious. The person on whom public hatred chiefly fell, and who Character proved in a far more eminent degree than any of Laud. other individual the evil genius of this unhappy sovereign, was Laud. His talents, though enabling him to acquire a large portion of theological learning, seem to have been by no means considerable. There cannot be a more contemptible work than his Diary; and his letters to Strafford display some smartness, but no great capacity. He managed indeed his own defence, when impeached, with some ability; but on such occasions ordinary men are apt 1 The intimidation was so great, that that it excited general disapprobation. no counsel dared to sign Prynne’s plea; P. 73. yet the court refused to receive it with-8 [This has lately been republished at out such signature. Rushworth, ii. 277. Oxford, 1839, under the title “AutobiStrafford Letters, ii. 74. ography of Archbishop Laud,” with a 2

Id. 85. Rushw. 295. State Trials. preface, sufficiently characteristic of its Clarendon, who speaks in a very unbe-celebrated editor; who has subjoined the coming manner of this sentence, admits ” Acts of his Martyrdom.”]

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CHA. I.-1629-40. ARCHBISHOP LAUD. 45 to put forth a remarkable readiness and energy. Laud’s inherent ambition had impelled him to court the favor of Buckingham, of Williams, and of both the kings under whom he lived, till he rose to the see of Canterbury on Abbot’s death, in 1633. No one can deny that he was a generous patron of letters, and as warm in friendship as in enmity. But he had placed before his eyes the aggrandizement, first of the church, and next of the royal prerogative, as his end and aim in every action. Though not literally destitute of religion, it was so subordinate to worldly interest, and so blended in his mind with the impure alloy of temporal pride, that he became an intolerant persecutor of the puritan clergy, not from bigotry, which in its usual sense he never displayed, but systematic policy. And being subject, as his friends call it, to some infirmities of temper, that is, choleric, vindictive, harsh, and even cruel to a great degree, he not only took a prominent share in the severities of the starchamber, but, as his correspondence shows, perpetually lamented that he was restrained from going further lengths.1 Laud’s extraordinary favor with the king, through which he became a prime adviser in matters of state, rendered him secretly obnoxious to most of the council, jealous, as ministers must always be, of a churchman’s overweening ascendency. His faults, and even his virtues, contributed to this odium. For, being exempt from the thirst of lucre, and, though in the less mature state of his fortunes a subtle intriguer, having become frank through heat of temper and self-confidence, he discountenanced all schemes to serve the private interest of courtiers at the expense of his master’s exhausted treasury, and went right onward to his object, the exaltation of the church and crown. He aggravated the invidiousness of his own situation, and gave an astonishing proof of his influence, by placing Juxon, bishop of London, a creature of his own, in the greatest of all posts, that of lord high-treasurer. Though Williams had lately been lord1 Laud’s character is justly and fairly coat; which, notwithstanding, he was so drawn by May, neither in the coarse far from concealing in a subtle way, that caricature style of Prynne, nor with the he increased the envy of it by insolence. absurdly-flattering pencil of Clarendon. He had few vulgar and private vices, as ” The Archbishop of Canterbury was a being neither taxed of covetousness, inmain agent in this fatal work; a man temperance, nor incontinence; and in a vigilant enough, of an active or rather of word a man not altogether so bad in his a restless mind; more ambitious to un-personal character as unfit for the state dertake than politic to carry on; of a of England.” History of Parliament, 19 disposition too fierce and cruel for his

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46 LORD STRAFFORD. CHAP. VII keeper of the seal, it seemed more preposterous to place the treasurer’s staff in the hands of a churchman, and of one so little distinguished even in his own profession, that the archbishop displayed his contempt of the rest of the council, especially Cottington, who aspired to that post, by such a recommendation.1 He had previously procured the office of secretary of state for Windebank. But, though overawed by the king’s infatuated partiality, the faction adverse to Laud were sometimes able to gratify their dislike, or to manifest their greater discretion, by opposing obstacles to his impetuous spirit. Of these impediments, which a rash and ardent man calls Lord Straf-lukewarmness, indolence, and timidity, he freford. quently complains in his correspondence with the lord deputy of Ireland that lord Wentworth, so much better known by the title of earl of Strafford, which he only obtained the year before his death, that we may give it him by anticipation, whose doubtful fame and memorable end have made him nearly the most conspicuous character of a reign so fertile in recollections.

Strafford had in his early years sought those local dignities to which his ambition prob1 The following entry appears in Laud’s a bishop, Dr. Wren, bishop of Norwich; Diary (March 6, 1636):-” Sunday, Wil-and as chancellor of the exchequer Dr. liam Juxon, lord bishop of London, made Bancroft, bishop of Oxford; but this lord high-treasurer of England: no comes only from the young fry of the churchman had it since Henry VII.‘s clergy; little credit is given to it, but it time. I pray God bless him to carry it so is observed they swarm mightily about that the church may have honor, and the the court.” The tone of these letters king and the state service and content-shows that the writer suspected that ment by it. And now, if the church will Wentworth would not be well pleased at not hold themselves up under God, I can seeing a churchman set over his head. do no more.” But in several of his own letters he posiThose who were far from puritanism tively declares his aversion to the office, could not digest this strange elevation. and perhaps with sincerity. Ambition James Howell writes to Wentworth, - was less predominant in his mind than “The news that keeps greatest noise pride and impatience of opposition. He here at this present is that there is a new knew that as lord-treasurer he would be lord-treasurer; and it is news indeed, it perpetually thwarted and undermined being now twice time out of mind since by Cottington and others of the council. thewhite robe and the white staff marched They, on the other hand must have together; we begin to live here in the dreaded that such a colleague might church triumphant; and there wants but become their master. Laud himself, in one more to keep the king’s conscience, his correspondence with Strafford, never which is more proper for a churchman throws out the least hint of a wish that than his coin, to make it a triumvirate.” he should succeed Weston, which would Straff. Letters, i.

622. Garrard, another have interfered with his own views. correspondent, expresses his surprise, and It must be added that Juxon redeemed thinks Strafford himself, or Cottington, the scandal of his appointment by an would have done better: p. 623. And unblemished probity, and gave so little afterwards, vol. ii. p. 2, ” The clergy are offence in this invidious greatness that so high here since the joining of the the long parliament never attacked him, white sleeves with the white staff, that and he remained in his palace at Fulham there is much talk of having as secretary without molestation till 1647.

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CHA. I.- 1629-40. LORD STRAFFORD. 47 ably was at that time limited, the representation of the county of York and the post of custos rotulorum, through the usual channel of court-favor. Slighted by the duke of Buckingham, and mortified at the preference shown to the head of a rival family, sir John Saville, he began to quit the cautious and middle course he had pursued in parliament, and was reckoned among the opposers of the administration after the accession of Charles.1 He was one of those who were made sheriffs of their counties, in order to exclude them from the parliament of 1626. This inspired so much resentment, that he signalized himself as a refuser of the arbitrary loan exacted the next year, and was committed in consequence to prison. He came to the third parliament with a determination to make the court sensible of his power, and possibly with some real zeal for the liberties of his country. But patriotism unhappily, in his self-interested and ambitious mind, was the seed sown among thorns.

He had never lost sight of his hopes from the court; even a temporary reconciliation with Buckingham had been effected in 1627, which the favorite’s levity soon broke; and he kept up a close connection with the treasurer Weston. Always jealous of a rival, he contracted a dislike for sir John Eliot, and might suspect that he was likely to be anticipated by that more distinguished patriot in royal favors.2 The hour 1 Strafford’s Letters, i. 33, &c. The second parliament of Charles, from which letters of Wentworth in this period of his it is notorious that the former had been life show a good deal of ambition and re-excluded. sentment. but no great portion of public 2 Hacket tells us, in his elegant style, spirit.

This collection of the Strafford that “sir John Eliot of the west and sir letters forms a very important portion of Thomas Wentworth of the north, both in our historical documents. Hume had the prime of their age and wits, both looked at them very superficially, and conspicuous for able speakers, clashed so quotes them but twice. They furnished often in the house, and cudgelled one materials to Harris and Macaulay; but another with such strong contradictions, the first is little read at present, and the that it grew from an emulation between second not at all. In a recent and de-them to an enmity. The lord-treasurer servedly popular publication, Macdiar-Weston picked out the northern cock, sir mid’s Lives of British Statesmen, the Thomas, to make him the king’s creature, work of a young man of letters, who did and set him upon the first step of his risnot live to struggle through the distresses ing; which was wormwood in the taste of that profession, the character of Straf-of Eiiot, who revenged himself upon the ford is drawn from the best authorities, king in the bill of tonnage, and then fell and with abundant, perhaps excessive, upon the treasurer, and declaimed against candor. Mr. Brodie has well pointed out him that he was the author of all the that he has obtained more credit for the evils under which the kingdom was opearly period of his parliamentary life pressed.” He proceeds to inform us that than he deserves, by being confounded bishop Williams offered to bring Eliot with Mr. Wentworth, member for Ox-over, for which Wentworth never.forgave ford: vol. ii. p. 249. Rushworth has even him. Life of Williams, p. 82.

The magascribed to sir Thomas Wentworth the nanimous fortitude of Eliot forbids us to speeches of this Mr. Wentworth in the give credit to any surmise unfavorable to

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48 LORD STRAFFORD. CHAP. VII of Wentworth’s glory was when Charles assented to the Petition of Right, in obtaining which, and in overcoming the king’s chicane and the hesitation of the lords, he had been preeminently conspicuous. From this moment he started aside from the path of true honor; and, being suddenly elevated to the peerage and a great post, the presidency of the council of the North, commenced a splendid but baleful career, that terminated at the scaffold.1 After this fatal apostasy he not only lost all solicitude about those liberties which the Petition of Right had been designed to secure, but became their deadliest and most shameless enemy. The council of the North was erected by Henry VIII. after the suppression of the great insurrection of 1536. It had a criminal jurisdiction in Yorkshire and the four more northern counties, as to riots, conspiracies, and acts of violence. It had also, by its original commission, a jurisdiction in civil suits, where either of the parties were too poor to bear the expenses of a process at common law; in which case the council might determine, as it seems, in a summary manner, and according to equity. But this latter authority had been held illegal by the judges under Elizabeth.2 In fact, the lawfulness of this tribunal in any respect was, to say the least, highly problematical. It was regulated by instructions issued from time to time under the great seal. Wentworth spared no pains to enlarge the jurisdiction of his court. A commission issued in 1632, empowering the council of the North to hear and determine all offences, misdemeanors, suits, debates, controversies, demands, causes, things, and matters whatsoever therein contained, within certain precincts, namely, from the Humber to the Scots frontier. They were specially appointed to hear and determine divers offences, according to the course of the starchamber, whether provided for by act of parliament or not; to hear complaints according to the rules of the court of chancery, and stay proceedings at common law by injunc tion; to attach persons by their sergeant in any part of the realm.8 his glory upon such indifferent author-the assassination of Buckingham. His ity; but several passages in Wentworth’s patent in Rymer bears date 22nd July, letters to Laud show his malice towards 1628, a month previous to that event. one who had perished in the great cause 2 Fourth Inst. c. 49. See also 18 Re which he had so basely forsaken. ports. 31. 1 Wentworth was brought over before 8 Rymer, xix. 9. Rushworth, ii. 127

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CHA. I. 1629-40. STRAFFORD IN IRELAND. 49 These inordinate powers, the soliciting and procuring of which, especially by a person so well versed in the laws and constitution, appears to be of itself a sufficient ground for impeachment, were abused by Strafford to gratify his own pride, as well as to intimidate the opposers of arbitrary measures. Proofs of this occur in the prosecution of sir David Foulis, in that of Mr. Bellasis, in that of Mr. Males verer, for the circumstances of which I refer the reader to more detailed history.1 Without resigning his presidency of the northern council, Wentworth was transplanted in 1633 to a still more extensive sphere, as lord-deputy of Ireland. This was the great scene on which he played his part; it was here that he found abundant scope for his commanding energy and imperious passions. The Richelieu of that island, he made it wealthier in the midst of exactions, and, one might almost say, happier in the midst of oppressions. He curbed subordinate tyranny; but his own left a sting behind it that soon spread a deadly poison over Ireland. But of his merits and his injustice towards that nation I shall find a better occasion to speak. Two well-known instances of his despotic conduct in respect to single persons may just be mentioned: the deprivation and imprisonment of the lord chancellor Loftus for not obeying an-order of the privy council to make such a settlement as they prescribed on his son’s marriage - a stretch of interference with private concerns which was aggravated by the suspected familiarity of the lord-deputy with the lady who was to reap advantage from it;2 and, secondly, the sentence of death passed by a council of war on lord Mountnorris, in Strafford’s presence, and evidently at his instigation, on account of some very slight expressions which 1 Rushworth. Strafford’s Trial, &c. to impose upon it.”

Sept. 1632. Somers Brodie, ii. 319. Straff. Letters, i. 145. Tracts, iv.

198. In a letter to lord Doncaster, pressing 2 Rushworth, Abr. iii. 85.

Clarendon, for a severe sentence on Foulis, who had i. 390 (1826). The original editors left been guilty of some disrespect to himself out some words which brought this home as president of the North, Wentworth to Strafford. And if the case was as there shows his abhorrence of liberty with all seems every reason to believe, I would the bitterness of a renegado; and urges ask those who talk of this man’s innothe ” seasonable correcting an humour cence whether, in any civilized country, and liberty I find reign in these parts, of a more outrageous piece of tyranny has observing a superior command no farther been committed by a governor than to tnan they like themselves, and of ques-compel a nobleman of the highest station tioning any profit of the crown, called to change the disposition of his private upon by his majesty’s ministers, which estate, because that governor carried on might enable it to subsist of itself, with-an adulterous intercourse with the daughout being necessitated to accept of such ter-in-law of the person whom he treated conditions as others might easily think thus imperiously? VOL. II. 4

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50 CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN CHAP. VIII. he had used in private society.

Though it was never the deputy’s intention to execute this judgment of his slaves, but to humiliate and trample upon Mountnorris, the violence and indecency of his conduct in it, his long persecution of the unfortunate prisoner after the sentence, and his glorying in the act at all times, and even on his own trial, are irrefragable proofs of such vindictive bitterness as ought, if there were nothing else, to prevent any good man from honoring his memory.1 The haughty and impetuous primate found a congenial Correspond-spirit in the lord-deputy. They unbosom to each ence be-other, in their private letters, their ardent thirst to tween Laud and Straf-promote the king’s service by measures of more ford. energy than they were permitted to exercise. Do we think the administration of Charles during the interval of parliaments rash and violent? They tell us it was overcautious and slow. Do we revolt from the severities of the starchamber? To Laud and Strafford they seemed the feebleness of excessive lenity. Do we cast on the crownlawyers the reproach of having betrayed their country’s liberties? We may find that, with their utmost servility, they fell far behind the expectations of the court, and their scruples were reckoned the chief shackles on the half-emancipated prerogative. The system which Laud was longing to pursue in England, and which Strafford approved, is frequently hinted at by the word Thorough. “

For the state,” says he, ” indeed, my lord, I am for Thorough; for I see that both thick and thin stay somebody, where I conceive it should not, and it is impossible to go thorough alone.” 2 “I am very glad” (in another letter) ” to read your lordship so resolute, and more to hear you 1

Clarendon Papers, i. 449, 643, 594. ment, but to purchase an estate in ScotRushworth, Abridg. iii. 43. Clar. Hist. land. Id. 511. i. 386 (1826).

Strafford Letters, i. 497, Hume, in extenuating the conduct of et post.

This proceeding against lord Strafford as to Mountnorris’s trial, says Mountnorris excited much dissatisfaction that, ” sensible of the iniquity of the sen in England; those of the council who tence, he procured his majesty’s free pardisliked Strafford making it a pretext to don to Mountnorris.” There is not the inveigh against his arrogance. But the slightest evidence to warrant the words king, invariably on the severe and arbi-in italics; on the contrary, he always justrary side, justified the measure, which tified the sentence, and had most manisilenced the courtiers: p. 612. Be it festly procured it. The king, in return added that the virtuous Charles took a to a moving petition of lady Mountnorris, bribe of 60001. for bestowing Mountnor-permitted his release from confinement, ris’s office on sir Adam Loftus, not out of ” on making such a submission as my distress through the parsimony of parlia-lord-deputy shall approve.” 2 Strafford Letters, i. 111.

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CHA. I. -1629-40. LAUD AND STRAFFORD. 51 affirm that the footing of them that go thorough for our master’s service is not upon fee, as it hath been. But you are withal upon so many Ifs, that by their help you may preserve any man upon ice, be it never so slippery. As first, if the common lawyers may be contained within their ancient and sober bounds; if the word Thorough be not left out, as I am certain it is; if we grow not faint; if we ourselves be not in fault; if we come not to a peccatum ex te Israel; if others will do their parts as thoroughly as you promise for yourself, and justly conceive of me. Now I pray, with so many and such Ifs as these, what may not be done, and in a brave and noble way? But can you tell when these Ifs will meet, or be brought together? Howsoever I am resolved to go on steadily in the way which you have formerly seen me go; so that (to put in one if too), if anything fail of my hearty desires for the king and the church’s service, the fault shall not be mine.” 1 As for my marginal note ” (he writes in another place), “I see you deciphered it well” (they frequently corresponded in cipher), “and I see you make use of it too; do so still, thorough and thorough. Oh that I were where I might go so too! but I am shackled between delays and uncertainties; you have a great deal of honor here for your proceedings; go on a God’s name.” “I have done,” he says some years afterwards, ” with expecting of Thorough on this side.” 2 It is evident that the remissness of those with whom he was joined in the administration, in not adopting or enforcing sufficiently energetic measures, is the subject of the archbishop’s complaint. Neither he nor Strafford loved the treasurer Weston, nor lord Cottington, both of whom had a considerable weight in the council. But it is more difficult to perceive in what respects the Thorough system was disregarded. He cannot allude to the church, which he absolutely governed through the highcommission court. The inadequate punishments, as he thought them, imposed on the refractory, formed a part, but not the whole, of his grievance. It appears to me that the great aim of these two persons was to effect the subjugation of the common lawyers. Some sort of tenderness for those constitutional privileges, so indissolubly interwoven with the laws they administered, adhered 1 Strafford Letters, i. 15E. inefficient system of the rest of the coun2 P. 829. In other letters they corn-cil, unless it is a personal nickname for plain of what they call the lady Mora, Weston. which seems to be a cant word for the

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52 CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN CHAP. VIII to the judges, even while they made great sacrifices of their integrity at the instigation of the crown. In the case of habeas corpus, in that of shipmoney, we find many of them display a kind of half-compliance, a reservation, a distinction, an anxiety to rest on precedents, which, though it did not save their credit with the public, impaired it at court. On some more fortunate occasions, as we have seen, they even manifested a good deal of firmness in resisting what was urged on them. Chiefly, however, in matter of prohibitions issuing from the ecclesiastical courts, they were uniformly tenacious of their jurisdiction. Nothing could expose them more to Laud’s ill-will. I should not deem it improbable that he had formed, or rather adopted from the canonists, a plan, not only of rendering the spiritual jurisdiction independent, but of extending it to all civil causes, unless perhaps in questions of freehold.1 The presumption of common lawyers, and the difficulties they threw in the way of the church and crown, are frequent themes with the two correspondents. ” The church,” says Laud, “is so bound up in the forms of the common law, that it is not possible for me or for any man to do that good which 1 The bishops, before the Reformation, in the starchamber, 1637, and again on issued process from their courts in their his trial, asserts episcopal jurisdiction own names. By the statute of 1 Edw. VI. (except what is called in foro contentioso) c. 2, all ecclesiastical jurisdiction is de-to be of divine right; a doctrine not dared to be immediately from thecrown; easily reconcilable with the crown’s and it is directed that persons exercising supremacy over all causes under the it shall use the king’s arms in their seal, statute of Elizabeth; since any spiritual and no other. This was repealed under censure may be annulled by a lay tribuMary; but her act is itself repealed by 1 nal, the commission of delegates; and Jac. I. c. 25, ~ 48. This seems to revive how this can be compatible with a divine the act of Edward. The spiritual courts, authority in the bishop to pronounce it, however, continued to issue process in seems not easy to prove. Laud, I have the bishop’s name, and with his seal. On no doubt, would have put an end to this some difficulty being made concerning badge of subordination to the crown. this, it was referred by the starchamber The judges in Cawdrey’s case, 5 Reports, to the twelve judges, who gave it under held a very different language; nor would their hands that the statute of Edward Elizabeth have borne this assumption of was repealed, and that the practice of the the prelates as tamely as Charles, in his ecclesiastical courts in this respect was poor-spirited bigotry, seems to have done.

agreeable to law. Neal, 589. Kennet, Stillingfleet, though he disputes at great 92. Rush. Abr. iii. 840. Whitelock says, length the doctrine of lord Coke, in his p. 22, that the bishops all denied that fifth Report, as to the extent of the royal they held their jurisdiction from the supremacy before the first of Elizabeth, king, for which they were liable to heavy fully admits that, since the statute of that penalties. This question is of little con-year, the authority for keeping courts, in sequence; for it is still true that ecclesi-whose name soever they may be held, is astical jurisdiction, according to the law, derived from the king. Vol. iii. 768, 778. emanates from the crown; nor does anyThis arrogant contempt of the lawyers thing turn on the issuing of process in manifested by Laud and his faction of the bishop’s name, any more than on the priests led to the ruin of the great churchholding courts-baron in the name of the men, and of the church itself-by the lord. In Ireland, unless I am mistaken, hands, chiefly, of that powerful body they the king’s name is used in ecclesiastical had insulted, as Clarendon has justly proceedings. Laud, in his famous speech remarked.

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CHA. I.-1629-40. LAUD AND STRAFFORD. 58 he would, or is bound to do. For your lordship sees, no man clearer, that they which have gotten so much power in and over the church will not let go their hold; they have indeed fangs with a witness, whatsoever I was once said in a passion to have.” 1

Strafford replies, “I know no reason but you may as well rule the common lawyers in England as I, poor beagle, do here; and yet that I do, and will do, in all that concerns my master, at the peril of my head. I am confident that the king, being pleased to set himself in the business, is able, by his wisdom and ministers, to carry any just and honorable action through all imaginary opposition, for real there can be none; that to start aside for such panic fears, fantastic apparitions, as a Prynne or an Eliot shall set up, were the meanest folly in the whole world; that, the debts of the crown being taken off, you may govern as you please; and most resolute I am that the work may be done without borrowing any help forth of the king’s lodgings, and that it is as downright a peccatum ex te Israel as ever was, if all this be not effected with speed and ease.”

-Strafford’s indignation at the lawyers breaks out on other occasions. In writing to lord Cottington he complains of a judge of assize who had refused to receive the king’s instructions to the council of the North in evidence, and beseeches that he may be charged with this great misdemeanor before the councilboard. “I confess,” he says, “I disdain to see the gownmen in this sort hang their noses over the flowers of the crown.” 8 It was his endeavor in Ireland, as well as in Yorkshire, to obtain the right of determining civil suits. ” I find,’” he says, “that my lord Falkland was restrained by proclamation not to meddle in any cause between party and party, which did certainly lessen his power extremely: I know very well the common lawyers will be passionately against it, who are wont to put such a prejudice upon all other professions, as if none were to be trusted or capable to administer justice but themselves; yet how well this suits with monarchy, when they monopolize all to be governed by their year-books, you in England have a costly experience; and I am sure his majesty’s absolute power is not weaker in this kingdom, where hitherto the deputy and councilboard have had a stroke with them.” 4 The king indulged him in this, with a restriction as to matters of inheritance. 1 Strafford Letters, i. 111. p. 129. 2 p. 173. 4 P. 201. See also p. 228.

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54 PRINCIPLES AND ACTS CHAP. VII1 The cruelties exercised on Prynne and his associates have generally been reckoned among the great reproaches of the primate. It has sometimes been insinuated that they were rather the act of other counsellors than his own. But his letters, as too often occurs, belie this charitable excuse. He expresses in them no sort of humane sentiment towards these unfortunate men, but the utmost indignation at the oscitancy of those in power, which connived at the public demonstrations of sympathy. “A little more quickness,” he says, “in the government would cure this itch of libelling. But what can you think of Thorough when there shall be such slips in business of consequence? What say you to it, that Prynne and his fellows should be suffered to talk what they pleased while they stood in the pillory, and win acclamations from the people, &c.? By that which I have above written, your lordship will see that the Triumviri will be far enough from being kept dark. It is true that, when this business is spoken of, some men speak as your lordship writes, that it concerns the king and government more than me. But when anything comes to be acted against them, be it but the execution of a sentence, in which lies the honor and safety of all justice, yet there is little or nothing done, nor shall I ever live to see it otherwise.” 1 The lord-deputy fully concurred in this theory of vigorous government. They reasoned on such subjects as cardinal Granville and the duke of Alva had reasoned before them. ” A prince,” he says in answer, ” that loseth the force and example of his punishments, loseth withal the greatest part of his dominion. If the eyes of the Triumviri be not sealed so close as they ought, they may perchance spy us out a shrewd turn when we least expect it. I fear we are hugely mistaken, and misapply our charity thus pitying of them, where we should indeed much rather pity ourselves. It is strange indeed,” he observes in another place, “to see the frenzy which possesseth the vulgar now-a-days, and that the just displeasure and chastisement of a state should produce greater estimation, nay reverence, to persons of no consideration either for life or learning, than the greatest and highest trust and employments shall be able to procure for others of unspotted conversation, of most eminent virtues and deepest knowledge: a grievous and overspreading leprosy! bit 1 Strafford Letters, ii. 100.

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CHA. I.- 1629-40. OF STRAFFORD. 55 where you mention a remedy, sure it is not fitted for the hand of every physician; the cure under God must be wrought by one AEsculapius alone, and that in my weak judgment to be effected rather by corrosives than lenitives: less than Thorough will not overcome it; there is a cancerous malignity in it, which must be cut forth, which long since rejected all other means, and therefore to God and him I leave it.“1 The honorable reputation that Strafford had earned before his apostasy stood principally on two grounds: his refusal to comply with a requisition of money without consent of parliament, and his exertions in the Petition of Right, which declared every such exaction to be contrary to law. If any, therefore, be inclined to palliate his arbitrary proceedings and principles in the executive administration, his virtue will be brought to a test in the business of shipmoney. If he shall be found to have given countenance and support to that measure, there must be an end of all pretence to integrity or patriotism. But of this there are decisive proofs. He not only made every exertion to enforce its payment in Yorkshire during the years 1639 and 1640, for which the peculiar dangers of that time might furnish some apology, but long before, in his correspondence with Laud, speaks thus of Mr. Hampden, deploring, it seems, the supineness that had permitted him to dispute the crown’s claim with impunity. ” Mr. Hampden is a great brother [i. e. a puritan], and the very genius of that people leads them always to oppose, as well civilly as ecclesiastically, all that ever authority ordains for them; but in good faith, were they right served, they should be whipt home into their right wits, and much beholden they should be to any one that would thoroughly take pains with them in that kind.” 2 <” In truth, I still wish, and take it also to be a very charitable one, Mr. H. and others to his likeness were well whipt into their right senses; if that the rod be so used as that it smarts not, I am the more sorry.” 8 Hutton, one of the judges who had been against the crown in this case, having some small favor to ask of Strafford, takes occasion in his letter to enter on the subject of shipmoney, mentioning his own opinion in such a manner as to give the least possible offence, and with all qualifications in 1 Strafford Letters, ii. 136. a p. 38. a P. 168.

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56 PRINCIPLES AND ACTS CHAP. VIII. favor of the crown; commending even lord Finch’s argument on the other side.’ The lord-deputy, answering his letter after much delay, says, ” I must confess, in a business of so mighty importance, I shall the less regard the forms of pleading, and do conceive, as it seems my lord Finch pressed, that the power of levies of forces at sea and land for the very, not feigned, relief and safety of the public, is a property of sovereignty, as, were the crown willing, it could not divest it thereof: Salus populi suprema lex; nay, in cases of extremity, even above acts of parliament,” &c. It cannot be forgotten that the loan of 1626, for refusing which Wentworth had suffered imprisonment, had been demanded in a season of incomparably greater difficulty than that when shipmoney was levied: at the one time war had been declared against both France and Spain, at the other the public tranquillity was hardly interrupted by some bickerings with Holland. In avowing therefore the king’s right to levy money in cases of exigency, and to be the sole judge of that exigency, he uttered a shameless condemnation of his former virtues. But lest any doubt should remain of his perfect alienation from all principles of limited monarchy, I shall produce still more conclusive proofs. He was strongly and wisely against the war with Spain, into which Charles’s resentment at finding himself the dupe of that power in the business of the Palatinate nearly hurried him in 1637. At this time Strafford laid before the king a paper of considerations dissuading him from this course, and pointing out particularly his want of regular troops.2 ” It is plain, indeed,” he says, ” that the opinion delivered by the judges, declaring the lawfulness of the assessment for the shipping, is the greatest service that profession hath done the crown in my time, But unless his majesty hath the like power declared to raise a land army upon the same exigent of state, the crown seems to me to stand but upon one leg at home, to be considerable but by halves to foreign powers. Yet this sure methinks convinces a power for the sovereign to raise payments for land forces, and consequently submits to his wisdom and ordinance the transporting of the money or men into foreign states. Seeing, then, that this piece well fortified forever vindicates the royalty at home from under the conditions and restraints of subjects, renders us also abroad I Stfford Letters, ii. 178. 2 P. 60

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CHA. 1. 1629-40. OF STRAFFORD. 57 even to the greatest kings the most considerable monarchy in Christendom; seeing, again, this is a business to be attempted and won from the subject in time of peace only, and the people first accustomed to these levies, when they may be called upon as by way of prevention for our future safety, and keep his majesty thereby also moderator of the peace of Christendom, rather than upon the bleeding evil of an instant and active war; I beseech you, what piety to alliances is there that should divert a great and wise king forth of a path which leads so manifestly, so directly, to the establishing his own throne, and the secure and independent seating of himself and posterity in wealth, strength, and glory, far above any their progenitors, verily in such a condition as there were no more hereafter to be wished them in this world but that they would be very exact in their care for the just and moderate government of their people, which might minister back to them again the plenties and comforts of life, that they would be most searching and severe in punishing the oppressions and wrongs of their subjects, as well in the case of the public magistrate as of private persons; and, lastly, to be utterly resolved to exercise this power only for public and necessary uses; to spare them as much and often as were possible; and that they never be wantonly vitiated or misapplied to any private pleasure or person whatsoever? This being, indeed, the very only means to preserve, as may be said, the chastity of these levies, and to recommend their beauty so far forth to the subject, as, being thus disposed, it is to be justly hoped they will never grudge the parting with their moneys…. ” Perhaps it may be asked, where shall so great a sum be had? My answer is, Procure it from the subjects of England, and profitably for them too. By this means preventing the raising upon them a land army for defence of the kingdom, which would be by many degrees more chargeable; and hereby also insensibly gain a precedent, and settle an authority and right in the crown to levies of that nature, which thread draws after it many huge and great advantages, more proper to be thought on at some other seasons than now.” It is, however, remarkable that, with all Strafford’s endeavors to render the king absolute, he did not intend to abolish the use of parliaments. This was apparently the aim of Charles; but, whether from remains of attachment

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58 PRINCIPLES OF STRAFFORD. CHAP. VIII to the ancient forms of liberty surviving amidst his hatred of the real essence, or from the knowledge that a well-governed parliament is the best engine for extracting money from the people, this able minister entertained very different views. He urged accordingly the convocation of one in Ireland, pledging himself for the experiment’s success. And in a letter to a friend, after praising all that had been done in it, ” Happy it were,” he proceeds, ” if we might live to see the like in England: everything in its season; but in some cases it is as necessary there be a time to forget, as in others to learn; and howbeit the peccant (if I may without offence so term it) humor be not yet wholly purged forth, yet do I conceive it in the way, and that once rightly corrected and prepared, we may hope for a parliament of a sound constitution indeed; but this must be the work of time, and of his majesty’s excellent wisdom; and this time it becomes us all to pray for and wait for, and, when God sends it, to make the right use of it.” 1

These sentiments appear honorable and constitutional. But let it not be hastily conceived that Strafford was a friend to the necessary and ancient privileges of those assemblies to which he owed his rise. A parliament was looked upon by him as a mere instrument of the prerogative. Hence he was strongly against permitting any mutual understanding among’ its members, by which they might form themselves into parties, and acquire strength and confidence by previous concert. “As for restraining any private meetings either before or during parliament, saving only publicly in the house, I fully rest in the same opinion, and shall be very watchful and attentive therein as a means which may rid us of a great trouble, and prevent many stones of offence, which otherwise might by malignant spirits be cast in among us.” 2 And, acting on this principle, he kept a watch on the Irish parliament to prevent those intrigues which his experience in England had taught him to be the indispensable means of obtaining a control over the crown. Thus fettered and kept in awe, no one presuming to take a lead in debate from uncertainty of support, parliaments would have become such mockeries of their venerable name as the joint contempt of the court and nation must soon have annihilated. Yet so difficult is it to preserve this dominion over any representa1 Strafford Letters, i. 420. 2 P. 246 see also p. 870.

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CHA. I. -1629-40. ABBOT AND LAUD. 59 tive body, that the king judged far more discreetly than Strafford in desiring to dispense entirely with their attendance. The passages which I have thus largely quoted will, I trust, leave no doubt in any reader’s mind that the earl of Strafford was party in a conspiracy to subvert the fundamental laws and liberties of his country. For here are not, as on his trial, accusations of words spoken in heat, uncertain as to proof, and of ambiguous interpretation; nor of actions variously reported and capable of some explanation; but the sincere unbosoming of the heart in letters never designed to come to light. And if we reflect upon this man’s coolblooded apostasy on the first lure to his ambition, and on his splendid abilities, which enhanced the guilt of that desertion, we must feel some indignation at those who have palliated all his iniquities, and even ennobled his memory with the attributes of patriot heroism. Great he surely was, since that epithet can never be denied without paradox to so much comprehension of mind, such ardor and energy, such courage and eloquence; those commanding qualities of soul, which, impressed upon his dark and stern countenance, struck his contemporaries with mingled awe and hate, and still live in the unfading colors of Vandyke.1 But it may be reckoned as a sufficient ground for distrusting any one’s attachment to the English constitution, that he reveres the name of the earl of Strafford. It was perfectly consonant to Laud’s temper and principles of government to extirpate, as far as in him lay, Conduct of the lurking seeds of disaffection to the Anglican Laud in the church prosechurch. But the course he followed could incution of nature have no other tendency than to give them puritan. nourishment. His predecessor Abbot had perhaps connived to a limited extent at some irregularities of discipline in the puritanical clergy, judging not absurdly that their scruples at a few ceremonies, which had been aggravated by a vexatious rigor, would die away by degrees and yield to that centripetal force, that moral attraction towards uniformity and obedience to custom, which Providence has rendered one of 1 The unfavorable physiognomy of May says, they were all on his side. The Strafford is noticed by writers of that portraits by Vandyke at Wentworth and time. Somers Tracts, iv. 281. It did Petworth are well known; the latter apnot prevent him from being admired by pears eminently characteristic. the fair sex, especially at his trial, where,

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60 LAUD’S CONDUCT IN THE CHAP. VIII. the great preservatives of political society. His hatred to popery and zeal for Calvinism, which undoubtedly were narrow and intolerant, as well as his avowed disapprobation of those churchmen who preached up arbitrary power, gained for this prelate the favor of the party denominated puritan. In all these respects no man could be more opposed to Abbot than his successor. Besides reviving the prosecutions for nonconformity in their utmost strictness, wherein many of the other bishops vied with their primate, he most injudiciously, not to say wickedly, endeavored, by innovations of his own, and by exciting alarms in the susceptible consciences of pious men, to raise up new victims whom he might oppress. Those who made any difficulty about his novel ceremonies, or even who preached on the Calvinistic side, were harassed by the highcommission court as if they had been actual schismatics.1 The most obnoxious, if not the most indefensible, of these prosecutions were for refusing to read what was called the Book of Sports; namely, a proclamation, or rather a renewal of that issued in the late reign, that certain feasts or wakes might be kept, and a great variety of pastimes used on Sundays after evening service.2 This was reckoned, as I have already observed, one of the tests of puritanism. But whatever superstition there might be in that party’s judaical observance of the day they called the sabbath, it was in itself preposterous, and tyrannical in its intention, to enforce the reading in churches of this license, or rather recommendation, of festivity. The precise clergy refused in general to comply with the requisition, and were suspended or deprived in consequence. Thirty of them were 1 See the cases of Workman, Peter the Somerset assizes by chief-justice Smart, &c., in the common histories: Richardson, at the request of the justices Rushworth, Rapin, Neal, Macaulay, Bro-of peace, for suppressing these feasts, die, and even Hume, on one side; and which had led to much disorder and profor what can be said on the other, Col-faneness. Laud made the privy council lier and Laud’s own defence on his trial. reprove the judge, and direct him to reA number of persons, doubtless inclining yoke the order. Kennet, p. 71; Rushw. to the puritan side, had raised a sum of Abr. ii. 166. Heylin says the gentlemen money to buy up impropriations, which of the county were against Richardson’s they vested in trustees for the purpose order, which is one of his habitual falseof supporting lecturers; a class of min-hoods. See Rushw. Abr. ii. 167. I must isters to whom Laud was very averse. add, however, that the proclamation was He caused the parties to be summoned perfectly legal, and according to the before the starchamber, where their as-spirit of the late act, 1 Car. I. c. 1, for sociation was dissolved, and the impro-the observance of the Lcrd’s day. It has priations already purchased were confs-been rather misrepresented by those who sated to the crown. Rushworth, Abr. have not attended to its limitations, as Ui. 17; Neal, i. 666. Neal and Mr. Brodie. Dr. Lingard, ix. 2 This originated in an order made at 422, has stated the matter rightly.

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CHA. I  1629-40. PROSECUTION OF THE PURITANS. 61 excommunicated in the single diocese of Norwich; but as that part of England Was rather conspicuously puritanical, and the bishop, one Wren, was the worst on the bench, it is highly probable that the general average fell short of this.1

Besides the advantage of detecting a latent bias in the clergy, it is probable that the high-church prelates had a politic end in the Book of Sports. The morose gloomy spirit of puritanism was naturally odious to the young and to men of joyous tempers. The comedies of that age are full of sneers at its formality. It was natural to think that, by enlisting the common propensities of mankind to amusement on the side of the established church, they might raise a diversion against that fanatical spirit which can hardly long continue to be the prevailing temperament of a nation. The church of Rome, from which no ecclesiastical statesman would disdain to take a lesson, had for many ages perceived, and acted upon the principle, that it is the policy of governments to encourage a love of pastime and recreation in the people, both because it keeps them from speculating on religious and political matters, and because it renders them more cheerful and less sensible to the evils of their condition; and it may be remarked by the way, that the opposite system so long pursued in this country, whether from a puritanical spirit or from the wantonness of petty authority, has no such grounds of policy to recommend it. Thus much at least is certain, that, when the puritan party employed their authority in proscribing all diversions, in enforcing all the Jewish rigor about the sabbath, and gave that repulsive air of austerity to the face of England of which so many singular illustrations are recorded, they rendered their own yoke intolerable to the youthful and gay; nor did any other cause perhaps so materially contribute to bring about the Restoration. But mankind love sport as little as prayer by compulsion; and the immediate effect of the king’s declaration was to produce a far more scrupulous abstinence from diversions on Sundays than had been practised before. The resolution so evidently taken by the court to admit df no half-conformity in religion, especially after Laud had obtained an unlimited sway over the king’s mind, convinced 1 Neal 669; Rushworth, Abr. ii. 166; his own account that no suspension or Collier, 758; Heylin’s Life of Laud, 241, censure was taken off till the party con290. The last writer extenuates the performed and read the declaration. secution by Wren; but it is evident by

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62 EMIGRATION TO AMERICA. CHAP. VIII, the puritans that England could no longer afford them an asylum. The state of Europe was not such as to encourage their emigration, though many were well received in Holland.

But, turning their eyes to the newly-discovered regions beyond the Atlantic Ocean, they saw a secure place of refuge from present tyranny, and a boundless prospect for future hope. They obtained from the crown the charter of Massachusetts Bay in 1629. About three hundred and fifty persons, chiefly or wholly of the independent sect, sailed with the first fleet. So many followed in the subsequent years that these New England settlements have been supposed to have drawn near half a million of money from the mothercountry before the civil wars.1 Men of a higher rank than the first colonists, and now become hopeless alike of the civil and religious liberties of England, men of capacious and commanding minds, formed to be the legislators and generals of an infant republic, the wise and cautious lord Say, the acknowledged chief of the independent sect; the brave, open, and enthusiastic lord Brook; sir Arthur Haslerig; Hampden, ashamed of a country for whose rights he had fought alone; Cromwell, panting with energies that he could neither control nor explain, and whose unconquerable fire was still wrapped in smoke to every eye but that of his kinsman Hampden, were preparing to embark for America, when Laud, for his own and his master’s curse, procured an order of council to stop their departure.2 Besides the reflections which such an instance of destructive infatuation must suggest, there are two things not unworthy to be remarked: first, that these chiefs of the puritan sect, far from entertaining those schemes of overturning the government at home that had been imputed to them, looked only in 1638 to escape from imminent tyranny; and, secondly, that the views of the archbishop were not so much to render the church and crown secure from the attempts of disaffected men, as to gratify a malignant humor by persecuting them. 1 Neal, p. 646. I do not know how he in a letter to Strafford, ii. 169, complains makes his computation. of men running to New England when 2 A proclamation, dated May 1, 168, there was a want of them in Ireland. reciting that the king was informed that And why did they so, but that any trackmany persons went yearly to New Eng-less wilderness seemed better than his land, in order to be out of the reach of own or his friend’s tyranny? In this letecclesiastical authority, commands that ter he laments that he is left alone in the no one shall pass without a license and a envious and thorny part of the work, testimonial of conformity from the minis-and has no encouragement.‘er of his parish. Rymer, xx. 223. Laud,

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CHa. I. -1629-40. HOPES OF THE CATHOLICS. 63 These severe proceedings of the court and hierarchy became more odious on account of their suspected leaning, or at least notorious indulgence, towards popery. With some fluctuations, according to circumstances or changes Favor of influence in the council, the policy of Charles shown to was to wink at the domestic exercise of the cath-Tendency olic religion, and to admit its professors to pay to their compositions for recusancy which were not regularly enforced.l The catholics willingly submitted to this mitigated rigor, in the sanguine expectation of far Expectations more prosperous days. I shall, of course, not cen-entertained sure this part of his administration. Nor can we by them. say that the connivance at the resort of catholics to the queen’s chapel in Somerset House, though they used it with much ostentation, and so as to give excessive scandal, was any more than a just sense of toleration would have dictated.2 Unfortunately the prosecution of other sectaries renders it difficult to ascribe such a liberal principle to the council of Charles I. It was evidently true, what the nation saw with alarm, that a proneness to favor the professors of this religion, and to a considerable degree the religion itself, was at the bottom of a conduct so inconsistent with their system of government.

The king had been persuaded in 1635, through the influence of the queen, and probably of Laud,8 to receive privately, as an accredited agent from the court of Rome, a secular priest, named Panzani, whose os-Mission of tensible instructions were to effect a reconciliation Panzani. of some violent differences that had long subsisted between 1 In thirteen years, ending with 1640, don, i. 261, confirms the systematic inbut 40801. was levied on recusants by pro-dulgence shown to catholics, which Dr. cess from the exchequer, according to Lingard seems, reluctantly and by silence, Commons’ Journals, 1 Dec. 1640. But to’admit. it cannot be denied that they paid con-2 Strafford Letters, i. 505, 524; ii. 2, 57. siderable sums by way of composition, 8 Heylin, 286. The very day of Abbot’s though less probably than in former death an offer of a cardinal’s hat was times.

Lingard, ix. 424, &c., note G. made to Laud, as he tells us in his Diary, Weston is said by Clarendon to have ” by one that avowed ability to perform offended the catholics by enforcing pen-it.” This was repeated some days afalties to raise the revenue. One priest terwards; Aug. 4th and 17th, 1633. It only was executed for religion before the seems very questionable whether this meeting of the long parliament. Butler, came from authority. The new primate iv. 97. And, though, for the sake of made a strange answer to the first appli. appearance, proclamations for arresting cation, which might well encourage a priests and recusants sometimes came second; certainly not what might have forth, they were always discharged in a been expected from a steady protestant. short time.

The number pardoned in If we did not read this in his own Diary the first sixteen years of the king is said we should not believe it. The offer at to have amounted, in twenty-nine coun-least proves that he was supposed capable ties only, to 11,970. Neal, 604.  laren-of acceding to it.

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64 MISSION OF PANZANI. CAPo. VIIL the secular and regular clergy of his communion. The chief motive, however, of Charles was, as I believe, so far to conciliate the pope as to induce him to withdraw his opposition to the oath of allegiance, which had long placed the catholic laity in a very invidious condition, and widened a breach which his majesty had some hopes of closing. For this purpose he offered any reasonable explanation which might leave the oath free from the slightest appearance of infringing the papal supremacy. But it was not the policy of Rome to make any concession, or even enter into any treaty, that might tend to impair her temporal authority. It was better for her pride and ambition that the English catholics should continue to hew wood and draw water, their bodies the law’s slaves, and their souls her own, than, by becoming the willing subjects of a protestant sovereign, that they should lose that sense of dependency and habitual deference to her commands in all worldly matters, which states wherein their faith stood established had ceased to display.

She gave, therefore, no encouragement to the proposed explanations of the oath of allegiance, and even instructed her nuncio Con, who succeeded Panzani, to check the precipitance of the English catholics in contributing men and money towards the army raised against Scotland in 1639.1 There might indeed be some reasonable suspicion that the court did not play quite fairly with this body, and was more eager to extort what it could from their hopes than to make any substantial return. The favor of the administration, as well as the antipathy that every parliament had displayed towards them, not unnaturally rendered the catholics, for the most part, assertors of the king’s arbitrary power.2 This again increased the 1 Clarendon State Papers, ii. 44. It is as to the oath of allegiance; one party always important to distinguish dates. maintaining that the king had a right to By the year 1639 the court of Rome had put his own explanation on that oath, seen the fallacy of those hopes she had which was more to be regarded than the previously been led to entertain, that the sense of parliament; while another denied king and church of England would re-that they could conscientiously admit the turn to her fold. This might exasperate king’s interpretation against what they her against him, as it certainly did against knew to have been the intention of the Laud; besides which, I should suspect legislature who imposed it. A Mr. Courtthe influence of Spain in the conclave. ney, who had written on the later side, 2 Proofs of this abound in the first was imprisoned in the Tower, on pretext volume of the collection just quoted, as of recusancy, but really for having prowell as in other books. The catholics mulgated so obnoxious an opinion. P. were not indeed unanimous in the view 258, et alibi; Memoirs of Panzani, p. 140. they took of the king’s prerogative, which The Jesuits were much against the oath, became, of importance in the controversy and, from whatever cause, threw all the

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CHA. I.-1629-40. CONVERSIONS TO POPERY. ~5 popular prejudice. But nothing excited so much alaim as the perpetual conversions to their faith. These had not been quite unusual in any age since the Reformation, though the balance had been very much inclined to the opposite side. They became, however, under Charles the news of every day; protestant clergymen in several instances, but especially women of rank, becoming proselytes to a religion so seductive to the timid reason and susceptible imagination of that sex. They whose minds have never strayed into the wilderness of doubt vainly deride such as sought out the beaten path their fathers had trodden in old times; they whose temperament gives little play to the fancy and sentiment want power to comprehend the charm of superstitious illusions, the satisfaction of the conscience in the performance of positive rites, especially with privation or suffering, the victorious self-gratulation of faith in its triumph over reason, the romantic tenderness that loves to rely on female protection, the graceful associations of devotion with all that the sense or the imagination can require, - the splendid vestment, the fragrant censer, the sweet sounds of choral harmony, and the sculptured form that an intense piety half endows with life. These springs were touched, as the variety of human character might require, by the skilful hands of Romish priests, chiefly jesuits, whose numbers in England were about 250,1 concealed under a lay garb, and combining the courteous manners of gentlemen with a refined experience of mankind, and a logic in whose labyrinths the most practical reasoner was perplexed. Against these fascinating wiles the puritans opposed other weapons from the same armory of human nature; they awakened the pride of reason, the stern obstinacy of dispute, the names, so soothing to the ear, of free inquiry and private judgment. They inspired an abhorrence of the adverse party that served as a barrier against insidious approaches. But far different principles actuated the prevailing party in the church of England. A change had for some years been wrought in its obstacles they could in the way of a good trifling for our notice in this place. More understanding between the king and the than half Panzani’s Memoirs relate to it. pope. Onereasonwas their apprehension 1 Memoirs of Panzani, p. 207. This is that an article of the treaty would be the a statement by father Leander; in anappointment of a catholic bishop in Eng-other place, p. 140, they are reckoned land; a matter about which the members at 860. There were about 180 other, regof.that church have been quarrellingever ulars, and five or six hundred secular since the reign of Elizabeth, but too priests. VOL. II. 5

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66 TENDENCY TO POPERY OF CHAP. VIII. tenets, and still more in its sentiments, which, while it brought the whole body into a sort of approximation to Rome, made many individuals shoot as it were from their own sphere, on coming within the stronger attraction of another. The charge of inclining towards popery, brought by one of our religious parties against Laud and his colleagues with invidious exaggeration, has been too indignantly denied by another. Much indeed will depend on the definition of that obnoxious word; which one may restrain to an acknowledgment of the supremacy in faith and discipline of the Roman see; while another comprehends in it all those tenets which were rejected as corruptions of Christianity at the Reformation; and a third may extend it to the ceremonies and ecclesiastical observances which were set aside at the same time. In this last and most enlarged sense, which the vulgar naturally adopted, it is notorious that all the innovations of the school of Laud were so many approaches, in the exterior worship of the church, to the Roman model. Pictures were set up or repaired; the communion-table took the name of an altar; it was sometimes made of stone; obeisances were made to it; the crucifix was sometimes placed upon it; the dress of the officiating priests became more gaudy; churches were consecrated with strange and mystical pageantry.1 These petty superstitions, which would of themselves have disgusted a nation accustomed to despise as well as abhor the pompous rites of the catholics, became more alarming from the evident bias of some leading churchmen to parts of the Romish theology. The doctrine of a real presence, distinguishable only by vagueness of definition from that of the church of Rome, was generally held.2 Mon1

Kennet, 78; Harris’s Life of Charles, soon afterwards, ” Nobis vobiscum de ob220; Collier, 772; Brodie, ii. 224, note; jecto convenit, de modo lis omnis est. De Neal, p. 572, &c. Laud, in his defence at hoc est, fide firmS tenemus quod sit, de his trial, denies or extenuates some of the hoc modo est, ut sit Per, sive In, sive charges. There is, however, full proof of Cum, sive Sub, sive Trans, nullum inibi all that I have said in my text. The fa-verbum est.” I quote from Casaubon’s mous consecration of St. Catharine’s Creed Epistles, p. 393. This is, reduced to plain church in 1631 is mentioned by Rush-terms, We fully agree with you that worth, Welwood, and others. Laud said Christ’s body is actually present in the in his defence that he borrowed the cere-sacramental elements, in the same sense monies from Andrews, who had found as you use the word; but we see no cause them in some old liturgy. for determining the precise mode.

whether 2 In Bishop Andrews’s answer to Bel-by transubstantiation or otherwise. larmine he says, ” Preesentiam credimus The doctrine of the church of England, non minus quam vos veram; de modo as evidenced by its leading ecclesiastics, prlesentise nil temere definimus.” And underwent a change in the reign of

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CHA. I. -1629-40. LAUD AND HIS PARTY. 67 tagu, bishop of Chichester, already so conspicuous, and justly reckoned the chief of the Romanizing faction, went a considerable length towards admitting the invocation of saints; prayers for the dead, which lead naturally to the tenet of purgatory, were vindicated by many in fact, there was hardly any distinctive opinion of the church of Rome which had not its abettors among the bishops, or those who wrote under their patronage. The practice of auricular confession, which an aspiring clergy must so deeply regret, was frequently inculcated as a duty. And Laud gave just offence by a public declaration that in the disposal of benefices he should, in equal degrees of merit, prefer single before married priests.1 They incurred scarcely less odium by their dislike of the Calvinistic system, and by what ardent men construed into a dereliction of the protestant cause, a more reasonable and less dangerous theory on the nature and reward of human virtue than that which the fanatical and presumptuous spirit of Luther had held forth as the most fundamental principle of his Reformation. It must be confessed that these English theologians were less favorable to the papal supremacy than to most other distinguishing tenets of the catholic church. Yet even this they were inclined to admit in a considerable degree, as a matter of positive, though not divine, institution; content to make the doctrine and discipline of the fifth century the rule of their bastard reform. An extreme reverence for what they called the primitive church had been the source of their James, through Andrews, Casaubon, and I believe, used by our writers of the 16th others, who deferred wholly to antiquity. age, but as synonymous with corporal, In fact, as I have elsewhere observed, and consequently is condemned by them. there can be but two opinions, neglecting Cranmer calls it ” that error of the real subordinate differences, on this famous presence,” i. lxxv. Jewel challenges his controversy. It is clear to those who adversary to produce any authority for have attended to the subject that the those words from the fathers. I do not Anglican reformers did not hold a local know when it came into use; probably presence of Christ’s human body in the under James, or, it may be, rather consecrated bread itself, independent of earlier.] the communicant, or, as the technical 1 Heylin’s Life of Laud, p. 212. He phrase was, extra usum: and it is also probably imbibed this, like many other clear that the divines of the latter school of his prejudices, from bishop Andrews, did so. This question is rendered intri-whose epitaph in the church of St. cate at first sight, partly by the strong Saviour’s in Southwark speaks of him as figurative language which the early re-having received a superior reward in formers employed in order to avoid shock-heaven on account of his celibacy; coeing the prejudices of the people; and lebs migravit ad aureolam coelestem. partly by the incautious and even ab-Biog. Britannica. Aureola, a word of no surd use of the word real presence to classical authority, means, in the style mean real absence; which is common of popish divinity which the author of with modern theologians. this epitaph thought fit to employ, the [The phrase’: real presence ” is never, crown of virginity. See Du Cange in voc.

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68 BISHOP ANDREWS. CHAP. VUIL errors. The first reformers had paid little regard to that authority. But as learning, by which was then meant an acquaintance with ecclesiastical antiquity, grew more general in the church, it gradually inspired more respect for itself; and men’s judgment in matters of religion came to be measured by the quantity of their erudition.1 The sentence of the early writers, including the fifth and perhaps sixth centuries, if it did not pass for infallible, was of prodigious weight in controversy. No one in the English church seems to have contributed so much towards this relapse into superstition as Andrews, bishop of Winchester, a man of eminent learning in this kind, who may be reckoned the founder of the school wherein Laud was the most prominent disciple.2 A characteristic tenet of this party was, as I have already observed, that episcopal government was indispensably requisite to a Christian church.8 Hence they treated the presbyterians with insolence abroad and severity at home. A brief to be read in churches for the sufferers in the Palatinate having been prepared, wherein they were said to profess the same religion as ourselves, Laud insisted on this being struck out.4 The Dutch and Walloon churches in England, which had subsisted since the Reformation, and which various motives of policy had led Elizabeth to protect, were harassed by the primate and other bishops for their want of conformity to the Anglican ritual.6 The English ambassador, instead. of frequenting the Hugonot church at Charenton, as had been the former practice, was instructed to disclaim 1 See Life of Hammond in Words-writings against Perron he throws away worth’s Eccles.

Biography, vol. v. 343. a great part of what have always been It had been usual to study divinity in considered the protestant doctrines.

compendiums, chiefly drawn up in the 8 Hall, bishop of Exeter, a very consixteenth century. King James was a siderable person, wrote a treatise on the gr.et favorer of antiquity, and prescribed Divine Institution of Episcopacy, which, the study of the fathers in his Instruc-according to an analysis given by Heylin tions to the Universities in 1616. and others of its leading positions, is so 2 Andrews gave scandal in the queen’s much in the teeth of Hooker’s Ecclesireign by preaching at court’ thatcon-astical Polity, that it might pass for an trition, without confession and absolu-answer to it. Yet it did not quite come tion, and deeds worthy of repentance up to the primate’s standard, who made was not sufficient; that the ministers had him alter some passages which looked too the two keys of power and knowledge de-like concessions. Heylin’s Life of Laud, livered unto them; that whose sins so-874; Collier, 789. One of his offences ever they remitted upon earth should be was the asserting the pope to be Antiremitted in heaven. - The court is full christ, which displeased the king as well of it for such doctrine was not usually as primate, though it had been orthodox taught there.” Sidney, Letters, ii. 185. under James.

Harrington also censures him for an at-4 Collier, 764; Neal, 682; Heylin, 288. tmpt to bring in auricular confession. 6 Collier, 763; Heylin, 260.

MugeI Antique, ii. 192. In his own

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COA. I. - 1629-40. FOREIGN REFORMED CHURCHES. 69 all fraternity with their sect, and set up in his own chapel the obnoxious altar and the other innovations of the hierarchy.1 These impolitic and insolent proceedings gave the foreign protestants a hatred of Charles, which they retained through all his misfortunes. This alienation from the foreign churches of the reformed persuasion had scarcely so important an effect in begetting a predilection for that of Rome, as the language frequently held about the Anglican separation. It became usual for our churchmen to lament the precipitancy with which the Reformation had been conducted, and to inveigh against its principal instruments. The catholic writers had long descanted on the lust and violence of Henry, the pretended licentiousness of Anne Boleyn, the rapacity of Cromwell, the pliancy of Cranmer: sometimes with great truth, but with much of invidious misrepresentation. These topics, which have no kind of operation on men accustomed to sound reasoning, produce an unfailing effect on ordinary minds. Nothing incurred more censure than the dissolution of the monastic orders, or at least the alienation of their endow. ments; acts accompanied, as we must all admit, with great rapacity and injustice, but which the new school branded with the name of sacrilege. Spelman, an antiquary of eminent learning, was led by bigotry or subserviency to compose a wretched tract called the History of Sacrilege, with a view to confirm the vulgar superstition that the possession of es1 Clarendon, iii. 866; State Papers, i. “To think well of the reformed re888. ” Lord Scudamore, the English ligion,” says Northumberland, in 1640, ambassador, set up an altar, &c., in the is enough to make the archbishop an Laudean style. His successor, lord Lei-enemy; and though he cannot for shame cester, spoke to the archbishop about go-do it in public, yet in private he will do ing to Charenton; and telling him lord Leicester all the mischief he can.”’ olScudamore did never go thither, Laud lins’s Sidney Papers, ii. 623. answered, ”’ He is the wiser.” Leicester Such was the opinion entertained of requested his advice what he should do, Laud by those who could not reasonably in order to sift his disposition, being be called puritans, except by such as himself resolved how to behave in that made that word a synonym for protesmatter. But the other would only say tant. It would be easy to add other that he left it to his discretion. Leicester proofs. The prosecution in the starsays, he has many reasons to think that chamber against Sherfield, recorder of for his going to Charenton the archbishop Salisbury, for destroying some superstidid him all the ill offices he could to the tious pictures in a church, led to a disking, representing him as a puritan, and play of the aversion many of the council consequently in his method an enemy to entertained for popery and their jealousy monarchical government, though he had of the archbishop’s bias.

They were with not been very kind before. The said arch-difficulty brought to condemn Sherfield, bishop, he adds, would not countenance and passed a sentence at last very ualike BlondePs book against the usurped power those to which they were accustomed. sf the pope.” Blencowe’s Sidney Papers, Rushworth; State Trials. Hume mirep161. resents the case.

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70 LAUD’S OBJECT. CHAP. VIII. tates alienated from the church entailed a sure curse on the usurper’s posterity. There is some reason to suspect that the king entertained a project of restoring all impropriated hereditaments to the church. It is alleged by one who had much access to Laud, that his object in these accommodations was to draw over the more moderate Romanists to the English church, by extenuating the differences of her faith, and rendering her worship more palatable to her prejudices.1

There was, however, good reason to suspect, from the same writer’s account, that some leading ecclesiastics entertained schemes of a complete reunion; 2 and later discoveries have abundantly confirmed this suspicion.

Such schemes have doubtless been in the minds of men not inclined to offer every sacrifice; and during this very period Grotius was exerting his talents (whether judiciously or otherwise we need not inquire) to make some sort of reconciliation and compromise appear practicable.8 But we now know that the views of a party in the English church were much more extensive, and went almost to an entire dereliction of the protestant doctrine. The catholics did not fail to anticipate the most favorable consequences from this turn in the church. The Clarendon State Papers, and many other documents, contain remarkable proofs of their sanguine and not unreasonable hopes. Weston the lord treasurer, and Cottington, were already in secret of their persuasion; though the former did not take much pains to promote their interests. No one, however, showed them such decided favor as secretary Windebank, through whose hands a correspondence was carried on with the court of Rome by some of its agents.4 They exult in the peaceful and flourishing state of their religion in England as compared with former times. The recusants, they write, were not molested; and if their compositions were enforced, 1 Heylin’s Life of Laud, 390.

Windebank, 1633, to have a case of books 2 Id. 388. The passage is very remark-restored, that had been carried from the able, but too long to be extracted in a custom-house to archbishop Abbot. - work not directly ecclesiastical. It is “Now he is dead I make this demand rather ambiguous; but the Memoirs of upon his effects and library that they Panzani afford the key. may be restored to me; as his majesty’s 3 [I should now think less favorably order at that time was ineffectual, as well of Grotius, and suspect that he would as its appearing that there was nothing ultimately have made every sacrifice. contraband or prohibited.” A list of See Hist.

of Literature of 15th, 16th, and these books follows, and is curious. They 17th centuries, vol. iii. p. 58 (first edi-consisted of English popish tracts by tion). 1845.] wholesale, intended, of course, for circu4 The Spanish ambassador applies to lation. clar. State Papers, 66.

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CHA. I. - 1629-40. MISSION OF PANZANI. 71 it was rather from the king’s want of money than any desire to injure their religion. Their rites were freely exercised in the queen’s chapel and those of ambassadors, and, more privately, in the houses of the rich. The church of England was no longer exasperated against them; if there was ever any prosecution, it was to screen the king from the reproach of the puritans. They drew a flattering picture of the resipiscence of the Anglican party; who are come to acknowledge the truth in some articles, and differ in others rather verbally than in substance, or in points not fundamental; who hold all other protestants to be schismatical, and confess the primacy of the holy see, regretting the separation already made, and wishing for reunion; who profess to pay implicit respect to the fathers, and can best be assailed on that side.1 These letters contain, no doubt, a partial representation; that is, they impute to the Anglican clergy in general what was only true of a certain number. Their aim was to inspire the court of Rome with more favorable views of that of England, and thus to pave the way for a permission of the oath of allegiance, at least with some modification of its terms. Such flattering tales naturally excited the hopes of the Vatican, and contributed to the mission of Panzani, who was instructed to feel the pulse of the nation, and communicate more unbiased information to his court than could be expected from the English priests. He confirmed, by his letters, the general truth of the former statements, as to the tendency of the Anglican church, and the favorable dispositions of the court. The king received him secretly, but with much courtesy; the queen and the catholic ministers, Cottington and Windebank, with unreserved confidence. It required all the adroitness of an Italian emissary from the subtlest of courts to meet their demonstrations of friendship without too much committing his employers. Nor did Panzani altogether satisfy the pope, or at least his minister, cardinal Barberini, in this respect.2 1

Clarendon State Papers, 197, 8c. pendent or person in his confidence. 2

Id. 249. The Memoirs of Panzani, Their truth, as well as authenticity, after furnishing some materials to Dodd’s appears to me quite beyond controversy; Church History were published by Mr. they coincide, in a remarkable manner, Berington, in 1794. They are, however, with all our other information; the become scarce, and have not been much names and local details are particularly quoted. It is plain that they were not accurate for the work of a foreigner; in his own work, but written by some de-short. they contain no one fact of any

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72 INTRIGUE OF BISHOP MONTAGU. CHAP. VIII During the residence of Panzani in England, an extraordinary negotiation was commenced for the reconciliation of the church of England with that of Rome; and, as this fact, though unquestionable, is very little known, I may not be thought to digress in taking particular notice of it. Windebank and lord Cottington were the first movers in that business; both calling themselves to Panzani catholics, as in fact they were, but claiming all those concessions from the see of Rome which had been sometimes held out in the preceding Intrigue century. Bishop Montagu soon made himself a of bishop party, and had several interviews with Panzani. Montagu with Pan-He professed the strongest desire for a union, and amni. added, that he was satisfied both the archbishops, the bishop of London, and several others of that order, besides many of the inferior clergy, were prepared to acknowlconsequence which there is reason to and are more hated by moderate protesdistrust.

Some account of them may tants than are the catholics. A great be found in Butler’s Engl. Calh. vol. iv. change is apparent in books and sermons A small tract, entitled ” The Pope’s compared with former times; auricular Nuncio,” printed in 1643, and said to be confession praised, images well spoken of, founded on the information of the Vene-and altars. The pope is owned as patritian ambassador, is, as I conceive, derived arch of the West; and wishes are exin some direct or indirect manner from pressed for reunion. The queen has a these Memoirs. It is republished in the public chapel besides her private one, Somers’ Tracts, vol. iv. where service is celebrated with much Mr. Butler has published, for the first pomp: also the ambassadors; and there time, a long and important extract from are others in London. The laws against Panzani’s own report to the pope con-recusants are much relaxed; though cerning the state of the catholic religion sometimes the king, being in want of in England. Mem. of Catholics, iv. 65. money, takes one third of their incomes He reckons them at 150,000; many of by way of composition. The catholics them, however, continuing so outwardly are yet molested by the pursuivants, who to live as not to be known for such, enter their houses in search of priests or among whom are many of the first no-sacred vessels; and though this evil was bility. From them the neighboring cath-not much felt while he was in London, olics have no means of hearing mass or they might be set at work at any time. going to the sacraments. Others, more He determined therefore, to obtain, if bold, give opportunity, more or less, to possible, a general order from the king to their poorer neighbors to practise their restrain the pursuivants; and the busiduty. Besides these there are others, ness was put into the hands of some who, apprehensive of losing their proper-councillors, but not settled at his departy or places, live in appearance as protes-ture. The oath of allegiance divided the tants, take the oaths of supremacy and ecclesiastics, the major part refusing to allegiance, frequent the churches, and take it. After a good deal about the apspeak occasionally against catholics; yet pointment of a catholic bishop in Engin their hearts are such, and sometimes land, he mentions father Davenport or keep priests in their houses, that they Sancta Clara’s book, entitled Deus, Namay not be without help if necessary. tura, Gratia, with which the king, he Among them he includes some of the first says, had been pleased, and was therefore nobility, secular and ecclesiastical, and disappointed at finding it put in the Inmany of every rank. While he was in dex Expurgatorius at Rome.-This book. London, almost all the nobility who died, which made much noise at the time, was though reputed protestants, died catho-an attempt to show the compatibility of lies. The bishops are protestants, except the Anglican doctrines with those of the four, Durham, Salisbury, Rochester, and catholic church; the usual trick of popish Oxford, who are puritans.

The latter intriguers. See an abstract of it in Stil. are most numerous among the people, lingfieet’s Works, vol. v. p 176.

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QUA.. I.-1629-40. THREE GREAT POINTS OF DISCIPLINE. 73 edge the spiritual supremacy of the holy see; there being no method of ending controversies but by recurring to some centre of ecclesiastical unity. For himself, he knew no tenet of the Roman church to which he would not subscribe, unless it were that of. transubstantiation, though he had some scruples as to communion in one kind. But a congress of moderate and learned men, chosen on each side, might reduce the disputed points into small compass, and confer upon them. This overture being communicated to Rome by its agent, was, of course, too tempting to be disregarded, though too ambiguous to be snatched at. The reunion of England to the catholic church, in itself a most important advantage, might, at that particular juncture, during the dubious struggle of the protestant religion in Germany, and its still more precarious condition in France, very probably reduce its adherents throughout Europe to a proscribed and persecuted sect. Panzani was, therefore, instructed to flatter Montagu’s vanity, to manifest a great desire for reconciliation, but not to favor any discussion of controverted points, which had always proved fruitless, and which could not be admitted till the supreme authority of the holy see was recognized. As to all usages founded on positive law, which might be disagreeable to the English nation, they should receive as much mitigation as the case would bear.

This, of course, alluded to the three great points of discipline, or ecclesiastical institution - the celibacy of the clergy, the exclusion of the laity from the eucharistical cup, and the Latin liturgy. In the course of the bishop’s subsequent interviews, he again mentioned his willingness to acknowledge the pope’s supremacy; and assured Panzani that the archbishop was entirely of his mind, but with a great mixture of fear and caution.1 Three bishops only, Morton, Hall, and Davenant, were obstinately bent against the church of Rome; the rest might be counted moderate.a The agent, however, took care 1 If we may believe Heylin, the queen thority, in a late work, be true, he was prevailed on Laud to use his influence at that time sufficiently inclined to have with the king that Panzani might come accepted a cardinal’s hat, and made into London, promising to be his friend. terest for it. Blencowe’s Sidney Papers, Life of Laud, 286. p.

262. One bishop, Goodman of Glou2 P. 246. It may seem extraordinary cester, was undoubtedly a Roman cathothat he did not mention Williams; but I lie, and died in that communion. He presume he took that political bishop’s refused, for a long time, to subscribe the weal to be insincere.

Williams had been, canons of 1640, on account of one that while in power, a great fkvorer of the contained a renunciation of popery; but toleration of papists. If, indeed, a story yielded at length for fear of suspension, told of him, on Endymion Porter’s au-and charged Montagu with having insti

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74 CONSTANCY OF THE KING. CHAP. VIII. to obtain from another quarter a more particular account of each bishop’s disposition, and transmitted to Rome a report, which does not appear. Montagu displayed a most unguarded warmth in all this treaty; notwithstanding which, Panzani suspected him of still entertaining some notions incompatible with the catholic doctrine.

Hie behaved with much greater discretion than the bishop; justly, I suppose, distrusting the influence of a man who showed so little capacity for a business of the utmost delicacy. It appears almost certain that Montagu made too free with the name of the archbishop, and probably of many others; and it is well worthy of remark, that the popish party did not entertain any sanguine hopes of the king’s conversion. They expected doubtless that, by gaining over the hierarchy, they should induce him to follow; but he had evidently given no reason to imagine that he would precede. A few casual words, not perhaps exactly reported, might sometimes elate their hopes, but cannot excite in us, who are better able to judge than his contemporaries, any reasonable suspicion of his constancy. Yet it is not impossible that he might at one time conceive a union to be more practicable than it really was.1 The court of Rome, however, omitted no token of civility or goodwill to conciliate our king’s favor. Besides expressions of paternal kindness which Urban lavished on him, gated his refusal, though he subscribed que s’il pouvoit arriver i ce point, il y himself. Nalson, i. 371; Rushw. Abr. iii. auroit si peu de difference de la foi ortho168; Collier, 793; Laud’s defence on his doxe a la leur, qu’il seroit aise peu & peu trial. d’y conduire le roi. Pour travailler A ce 1

Henrietta Maria, in her communica-grand ouvrage, que ne paroissoit au roi tion to Madame de Motteville, has the d’Angleterre que le retablissement parfait following passage, which is not unde-de la liturgie, et qui est le seul dessein serving of notice, though she may have qui ait 6et dans le coeur de ce prince, been deceived: ” Le Roi Jacques…‘archeveque de Cantorberi lui conseilla composa deux livres pour la defense de de commencer par 1’Ecosse, comme plus la fausse religion d’Angleterre, et fit re-eloignee du coeur du royaume; lui disant, ponse & ceux que le cardinal du Perron que leurremuement seroit moins i crain6crivit contre lui. En defendant le men-dre. Le roi, avant que de partir, voulant songe, il concut de lamour pour la verite, envoyer cette liturgie en l’Ecosse, l’apporet souhaita de se retirer de l’erreur. Ce ta un soir dans la chambre de la reine, et fut en voulant accorder les deux reli-la pria de lire ce livre, lui disant, qu’il gions, la n6tre et la sienne; mais il seroit bien aise qu’elle le vit, afin qu’elle mourut avant que d’executer ce louable slt combien ils approchoient de creance.” dessein. Le Roi Charles Stuard, son fils, Mdm. de Motteville, i. 242. A well-inquand il vint a la couronne, se trouva formed writer, however, says Charles was presque dans les memes sentimens. II a protestant and never liked the catholic avoit aupres de lui l’archeveque de Can-religion P. Orleans, Revolut. d’Anglet. torberi, qui, dans son coeur etant tres-bon iii. 35. He says the same of Laud, but catholique, inspira au roi son maltre un refers to Vittorio Siri for an opposite grand desir de retablir la liturgie, croyant story.

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CHA. I.- 1629-40. CON, POPE’S LEGATE. 75 cardinal Barberini gratified his well-known taste by a present of pictures. Charles showed a due sense of these courtesies. The prosecutions of recusants were absolutely stopped, by cashiering the pursuivants who had been employed in the odious office of detecting them. It was arranged that reciprocal diplomatic relations should be established, and conse. quently that an English agent should constantly reside at the court of Rome, by the nominal appointment of the queen, but empowered to conduct the various negotiations in hand. Through the first person who held this station, a gentleman of the name of Hamilton, the king made an overture on a matter very near to his heart, the restitution of the Palatinate. I have no doubt that the whole of his imprudent tampering with Rome had been considerably influenced by this chimerical hope. But it was apparent to every man of less unsound judgment than Charles, that except the young elector would renounce the protestant faith, he could expect nothing from the intercession of the pope. After the first preliminaries, which she could not refuse to enter upon, the court of Rome displayed no eagerness for a treaty which it found, on more exact information, to be embarrassed with greater difficulties than its new allies had confessed.1 Whether this subject continued to be discussed during the mission of Con, who succeeded Panzani, is hard to determine; because the latter’s memoirs, our unquestionable authority for what has been above related, cease to afford us light. But as Con was a very active intriguer for his court, it is by no means unlikely that he proceeded in the same kind of parley with Montagu and Windebank. Yet whatever might pass between them was intended rather with a view to the general interests of the Roman church, than to promote a reconciliation with that of England, as a separate contracting party. The former has displayed so systematic a policy to make no concession to the reformers, either in matters of belief, wherein, since the council of Trent, she could in fact do nothing, or even, as far as possible, in points of discipline, as to which she judged, perhaps rightly, that 1 Cardinal Barberini wrote word to tives for it, and that the whole world was Panzani, that the proposal of Windebank against them on the first-mentioned that the church of Rome should sacrifice points: p. 173. This is exactly what any communion in one kind, the celibacy of one might predict who knew the long the clergy, &c., would never please; discussions on the subject with Austria that the English ought to look back on and France at the time of the council of the breach they had made, and their mo-Trent.

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76 BOLDNESS OF THE CATHOLIC PARTY. CHAP. VIL her authority would be impaired by the precedent of concession without any proportionate advantage; so unvarying in all cases has been her determination to yield nothing except through absolute force, and to elude force itself by every subtlety; that it is astonishing how honest men on the opposite side (men, that is, who seriously intended to preserve any portion of their avowed tenets), could ever contemplate the possibility of reconciliation. Upon the present occasion, she manifested some alarm at the boasted approximation of the Anglicans. The attraction of bodies is reciprocal; and the English catholics might, with so much temporal interest in the scale, be impelled more rapidly towards the established church than that church towards them. ” Advise the clergy,” say the instructions to the nuncio in 1639, “to desist from that foolish, nay rather illiterate and childish, custom of distinction in the protestant and puritan doctrine; and especially this error is so much the greater, when they undertake to prove that protestantism is a degree nearer to the catholic faith than the other. For since both of them be without the verge of the church, it is needless hypocrisy to speak of it, yea, it begets more malice than it is worth.” I This exceeding boldness of the catholic party, and their success in conversions, which were, in fact, less remarkable for their number than for the condition of the persons, roused the primate himself to some apprehension. He preferred a formal complaint to the king in council against the resort of papists to the queen’s chapel, and the insolence of some active zealots about the court.2 Henrietta, who had courted his friendship, and probably relied on his connivance, if not 1 ”’ Begets more malice ” is obscure-the Roman catholics seems to be, that, perhaps it means ” irritates the puritans with a view of gaining them over to his more.” Clar. Papers, ii. 44. own half-way protestantism, and also of 2

Heylin, p. 838; Laud’s Diary, Oct. ingratiating himself with the queen, he 1637; Strafford Letters, i. 426. Garrard, had for a time gone along with the tide, a dependent friend whom Strafford re-till he found there was a real danger of tained, as was usual with great men, to being carried farther than he intended. communicate the news of the court, fre-This accounts for the well-known story quently descants on the excessive bold-told by Evelyn, that the Jesuits at Rome ness of the papists. ” Laud,” he says, spoke of him as their bitterest enemy. vol. ii. p. 74, “does all he can to beat He is reported to have said that they down the general fear conceived of bring-and the puritans were the chief obstacles ing on popery.” So in p. 166 and many to a reunion of the churches. There is other places. an obscure story of a plot carried on by It is manifest, by a letter of Laud to the pope’s legate Con and the English Strafford in 1638, that he was not satis-jesuits against Laud, and detected in fled with the systematic connivance at 1640 by one Andrew Habernfield, which recusarcy. Id. 171. The explanation of some have treated as a mere fiction. the arcLkbshop’s conduct with respect to Rushworth, iii. 282.

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COA. I. 1629-40. SIR THOMAS BROWNE. 77 support, seems never to have forgiven this unexpected attack. Laud gave another testimony of his unabated hostility to popery by republishing with additions his celebrated conference with the jesuit Fisher, a work reckoned the great monument of his learning and controversial acumen. This conference had taken place many years before, at the desire and in the presence of the countess of Buckingham, the duke’s mother. Those who are conversant with literary and ecclesiastical anecdote must be aware, that nothing was more usual in the seventeenth century than such single combats under the eye of some fair lady, whose religious faith was to depend upon the victory. The wily and polished jesuits had great advantages in these duels, which almost always, I believe, ended in their favor. After fatiguing their gentle arbitress for a time with the tedious fencing of text and citation, till she felt her own inability to award the palm, they came, with her prejudices already engaged, to the necessity of an infallible judge; and as their adversaries of the English church had generally left themselves vulnerable on this side, there was little difficulty in obtaining success. Like Hector in the spoils of Patroclus, our clergy had assumed to themselves the celestial armor of authority; but found that, however it might intimidate the multitude, it fitted them too ill to repel the spear that had been wrought in the same furnace. A. writer of this school in the age of Charles I., and incomparably superior to any of the churchmen belonging to it, in the brightness and originality of his genius, sir Thomas Browne, whose varied talents wanted nothing but the controlling supremacy of good sense to place him in the highest rank of our literature, will furnish a better instance of the prevailing bias than merely theological writings.

He united a most acute and skeptical understanding with strong devotional sensibility, the temperament so conspicuous in Pascal and Johnson, and which has a peculiar tendency to seek the repose of implicit faith. “Where the Scripture is silent,” says Browne in his Religio Medici, ” the church is my text; where it speaks,‘tis but my comment.” That jesuit must have been a disgrace to his order, who would have asked more than such a concession to secure a proselyte-the right of interpreting whatever was written and of supplying whatever was not. At this time, however, appeared one man in the field of religious debate, who struck out from that insidious track, of

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78 CHILLINGWORTH. CHAP. VIII. which his own experience had shown him the perils. ChilChiling-lingworth, on whom nature had bestowed someworth.

thing like the same constitutional temperament as that to which I have just adverted, except that, the reasoning power having a greater mastery, his religious sensibility rather gave earnestness to his love of truth than tenacity to his prejudices, had been induced, like so many others, to pass over to the Roman church. The act of transition, it may be observed, from a system of tenets wherein men had been educated, was in itself a vigorous exercise of free speculation, and might be termed the suicide of private judgment. But in Chillingworth’s restless mind there was an inextinguishable skepticism that no opiates could subdue; yet a skepticism of that species which belongs to a vigorous, not that which denotes a feeble, understanding. Dissatisfied with his new opinions, of which he had never been really convinced, he panted to breathe the freer air of protestantism, and, after a long and anxious investigation, returned to the English church. He well redeemed any censure that might have been thrown on him, by his great work in answer to the jesuit Knott, entitled The Religion of Protestants a Safe Way to Salvation. In the course of his reflections he had perceived the insecurity of resting the Reformation on any but its original basis, the independency of private opinion. This, too, he asserted with a fearlessness and consistency hitherto little known, even within the protestant pale; combining it with another principle, which the zeal of the early reformers had rendered them unable to perceive, and for want of which the adversary had perpetually discomfited them, namely, that the errors of conscientious men do not forfeit the favor of God. This endeavor to mitigate the dread of forming mistaken judgments in religion runs through the whole work of Chillingworth, and marks him as the founder, in this country, of what has been called the latitudinarian school of theology. In this view, which has practically been the most important one of the controversy, it may pass for an anticipated reply to the most brilliant performance on the opposite side, the History of the Variations of Protestant Churches; and those who from a delight in the display of ~human intellect, or from more serious motives of inquiry, are led to these two masterpieces, will have seen, perhaps, the utmost strength that either party, in the great schism of Christendom, has been able to put forth.

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CHA. I. - 1629-40. HALES. 79 This celebrated work, which gained its author the epithet of immortal, is now, I suspect, little studied even by the clergy. It is no doubt, somewhat tedious, when read continuously, from the frequent recurrence of the same strain of reasoning, and from his method of following, sentence by sentence, the steps of his opponent; a method which, while it presents an immediate advantage to controversial writers, as it heightens their reputation at the expense of their adversary, is apt to render them very tiresome to posterity. But the closeness and precision of his logic, which this mode of incessant grappling with his antagonist served to display, are so admirable, perhaps, indeed, hardly rivalled in any book beyond the limits of strict science, that the study of Chillingworth might tend to chastise the verbose and indefinite declamation so characteristic of the present day. His style, though by no means elegant or imaginative, has much of a nervous energy that rises into eloquence. He is chiefly, however, valuable for a true liberality and tolerance; far removed from indifference, as may well be thought of one whose life was consumed in searching for truth, but diametrically adverse to those pretensions which seem of late years to have been regaining ground among the Anglican divines. The latitudinarian principles of Chillingworth appear to have been confirmed by his intercourse with a Hales. man, of whose capacity his contemporaries entertained so high an admiration, that he acquired the distinctive appellation of the Ever-memorable John Hales. This testimony of so many enlightened men is not to be disregarded, even if we should be of opinion that the writings of Hales, though abounding with marks of an unshackled mind, do not quite come up to the promise of his name. He had, as well as Chillingworth, borrowed from Leyden, perhaps a little from Racow, a tone of thinking upon some doctrinal points, as yet nearly unknown, and therefore highly obnoxious, in England. More hardy than his friend, he wrote a short treatise on schism, which tended, in pretty blunt and unlimited language, to overthrow the scheme of authoritative decisions in any church, pointing at the imposition of unnecessary ceremonies and articles of faith as at once the cause and the apology of separation. This, having been circulated in manuscript, came to the knowledge of Laud who sent for Hales to Lambeth, and questioned him as to his opinions on

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80 TREATISE ON SCHISM. CHAP. VIII. that matter. Hales, though willing to promise that he would not publish the tract, receded not a jot from his free notions of ecclesiastical power; which he again advisedly maintained in a letter to the archbishop, now printed among his works. The result was equally honorable to both parties; Laud bestowing a canonry of Windsor on Hales, which, after so bold an avowal of his opinion, he might accept without the slightest reproach. A behavior so liberal forms a singular contrast to the rest of this prelate’s history. It ls a proof, no doubt, that he knew how to set such a value on great abilities and learning, as to forgive much that wounded his pride. But besides that Hales had not made public this treatise on schism, for which I think he could not have escaped the highcommission court, he was known by Laud to stand far aloof from the Calvinistic sectaries, having long since embraced in their full extent the principles of Episcopius, and to mix no alloy of political faction with the philosophical hardiness of his speculations.1 These two remarkable ornaments of the English church, who dwelt apart like stars, to use the fine expression of a living poet, from the vulgar bigots of both her factions, were accustomed to meet, in the society of some other eminent persons, at the house of lord Falkland, near Burford. One of those, who, then in a ripe and learned youth, became afterwards so conspicuous a name in our annals and our literature, Mr. Hyde, the chosen bosom-friend of his host, has dwelt with affectionate remembrance on the conversations of that mansion. His marvellous talent of delineating character -a talent, I think, unrivalled by any writer (since, combining the bold outline of the ancient historians with the analytical minuteness of De Retz and St. Simon, it produces a higher effect than either) -is never more beautifully displayed than in that part of the memoirs of his life where Falkland, Hales, Chillingworth, and the rest of his early friends, pass over the scene. For almost thirty ensuing years Hyde himself becomes the companion of our historical reading. Seven folio vol1 Heylin, in his Life of Laud, p. 840, as his treatise on schism, proves that tells this story as if Hales had recanted Heylin’s narrative is one of his many his opinions and owned Laud’s supe-wilful falsehoods; for, by making himriority over him in argument. This is self a witness to the pretended circumludicrous, considering the relative abili-stances, he has precluded the excuse of: ties of the two men. And Hales’s letter error. to the archbishop, which is full as bold

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CHA. I. -1629-40. CLARENDON. 81 umes contain his History of the Rebellion, his Life, and the Letters, of which a large portion are his own. We contract an intimacy with an author who has Charlaren poured out to us so much of his heart. Though don’s writlord Clarendon’s chief work seems to me not quite mgs. accurately styled a history, belonging rather to the class of memoirs,1 yet the very reasons of this distinction, the long circumstantial narrative of events wherein he was engaged, and the slight notice of those which he only learned from others, render it more interesting, if not more authentic. Conformably to human feelings, though against the rules of historical composition, it bears the continual impress of an intense concern about what he relates. This depth of personal interest united frequently with an eloquence of the heart and imagination that struggles through an involved, incorrect, and artificial diction, makes it, one would imagine, hardly possible for those most alien from his sentiments to 1 It appears by the late edition at Ox-deavors, not quite necessarily, to excuse ford (1826) that lord Clarendon twice or justify the original editors (who seem altered his intention as to the nature of to have been Sprat and Aldrich, with the his work, having originally designed to sanction probably of lords Clarendon and write the history of his time, which he Rochester, the historian’s sons) for what changed to memorials of his own life, they did, and even singularly asserts and again returned to his first plan. that “the present collation satisfactorily The consequence has been that there proves that they have in no one instance are two manuscripts of the History and added, suppressed, or altered any historiof the Life, which, in a great degree, are cal fact” (Adver. to edit. 1826, p. v.), yet transcripts one from the other, or con-it is certain that, besides the perpetual tain the same general fact with varia-impertinence of mending the style, there tions.

That part of the Life, previous to are several hundred variations which 1660, which is not inserted in the History affect the sense, introduced from one moof the Rebellion, is by no means extentive or another, and directly contrary to sive. the laws of literary integrity. The long The genuine text of the History has passages inserted in the appendixes to only been published in 1826. A story, several volumes of this edition contain as is well known, obtained circulation surely historical facts that had been supwithin thirty years after its first appear-pressed. And, even with respect to subance, that the manuscript had been ma-ordinate alterations, made for the purpose terially altered or interpolated. This of softening traits of the author’s angry was positively denied, and supposed to temper, or correcting his mistakes, the be wholly disproved.

It turns out how-general effect of taking such liberties ever that, like many other anecdotes, it with a work is to give it an undue credit had a considerable basis of truth, though in the eyes of the public, and to induce with various erroneous additions, and men to believe matters upon the writer’s probably wilful misrepresentations. It is testimony, which they would not have nevertheless surprising that the worthy done so readily if his errors had been editor of the original manuscript should fairly laid before them. Clarendon insay, ” that the genuineness of the work deed is so strangely loose in expression has rashly, and for party purposes, been as well as incorrect in statement, that it called in question,” when no one, I be-would have been impossible to remove lieve, has ever disputed its genuineness; his faults of this kind without writing and the anecdote to which I have alluded, again half the History; but it is certain and to which, no doubt, he alludes, has that great trouble was very unduly takbeen by his own industry (and many en tolighten their impression upon the thanks we owe him for it) perfectly con-world. firmed in substance. For though he enVOL. II. 6

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82 ANIMADVERSIONS ON HIS FIRST BOOK. CHAP. VHI. read his writings without some portion of sympathy. But they are on this account not a little dangerous to the soundness of our historical conclusions; the prejudices of Clarendon, and his negligence as to truth, being full as striking as his excellencies, and leading him not only into many erroneous judgments, but into frequent inconsistencies. These inconsistencies are nowhere so apparent as in the first or introductory book of his History, which professes to give a general view of the state of affairs before the meeting of the long parliament. It is certainly the most ntmanaver- “iO`-
defective part of his work. A strange mixture Ularendon’s of honesty and disingenuousness pervades all he this period. has written of the early years of the king’s reign; retracting, at least in spirit, in almost every page what has been said in the last, from a constant fear that he may have admitted so much against the government as to make his readers impute too little blame to those who opposed it. Thus, after freely censuring the exactions of the crown, whether on the score of obsolete prerogative or with  out any just pretext at all, especially that of shipmoney, and confessing that ” those foundations of right, by which men valued their security, were never, to the apprehension and understanding of wise men, in more danger of being destroyed,” he turns to dwell on the prosperous state of the kingdom during this period, ” enjoying the greatest calm and the fullest measure of felicity that any people in any age for so long time together have been blessed with,” till he works himself up to a strange paradox, that “many wise men thought it a time wherein those two adjuncts, which Nerva was deified for uniting, Imperium et Libertas, were as well reconciled as is possible.” Such wisdom was not, it seems, the attribute of the nation. “These blessings,” he says, ” could but enable, not compel, us torbe happy; we wanted that sense, acknowledgments and value of our own happiness which all but we had, and took pains to make, when we could not find, ourselves miserable. There was, in truth, a strange absence of understanding in most, and a strange perverseness of understanding in the rest; the court full of excess, idleness, and luxury; the country full of pride, mutiny, and discontent; every man more troubled and perplexed at that they called the violation of the law than delighted or pleased with the observation of all

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SA. I.. 182940. INCONSISTENCIES. 83 the rest of the charter; never imputing the increase of theilr receipts, revenue, and plenty to the wisdom, virtue, and merit of the crown, but objecting every small impositiof to the exorbitancy and tyranny of the’government.” This strange passage is as inconsistent with other parts of the same chapter, and with Hyde’s own conduct t at the beginning of the parliament, as it is with all reasonable notions of government.l For if kings and ministers may plead in excuse for violating one law that they have not transgressed the rest (though it would be difficult to name ahy violation of law that Charles had not committed) i if this were eitioigh to reconcile their subjects, and to make dissatisfaction pass for a want of perversion of understanding, they must be in a very different predicament from all others who live within the pale of civil society, whose obligation to obey its discipline is held to be entire and universal. By this great writer’s own admissions, the decision in the case of shipmoney had shaken every man’s security for the enjoyment of his private inheritance. Though as yet not weighty enough to be actually very oppressive, it might, and, aci May thtis answeri, by a sort of pro-in tny kingdom, and yet that France phetic anticipation, this passage of Clar-flourished, and the gentry lived well; endon:-” Another sort of men,” he that the Austrian princes, especially in saysj “and especially lords and gentle-Spain, laid heavy burdens upon theil men, by whom the pressures of the subjects. Thus did many of the English government wemre not much felt, who en-gentry, by way of comparison, in ordijoyed their own plentiful fortunes, with naty discourse, plead for their own servllittle or insensible detriment, looking no tude. iftither thai their present safety anid “The courtiers would begin to dispute prosperity. and the yet undisturbed against parliaments, in their ordinary peace of the nation, whilst other king-discourse, that they were cruel to those doins were embroiled it calamities, and Whom the king favored, and too injurli66 Germany sadly wasted by a sharp War, to his prerogative; that the late paritdid nothing but applaud the happiness ment stood upon too high terms with the of England, and called those ungrateful king, and that they hoped the king factious spirits who complained of the should never beed any more parliaments. breati of las anid liberties; that the Some of the greatest statesmen and privykingdom abounded with wealth, plenty, councillors Would ordinarily laugh at thi and all kinds of elegancies, more than ancient language of England when the ever; thai it i as for the honor of a word liberty of the subject was naimed. people that the monarch should live But these gentlemen, who seemed so forspledidlly, and ndo be curbed at all in ward in taking up their own yoke, were his prerogative, which would bring him but a small part of the nation (thorgtth a into greater esteem with other princes, number considerable enough to make a adfd more enable hhil tb p’revail in trea-reformation hard) compared with those ties; that what they sfeired. by mobop-gentlemen who Were sensible of theii Olies was insensible and not grievous, birthrights and the true interests of the if coasparied ith otfiei states; that the kingdom; bn which side the cbirmon duke of Tuscany Sat heavier upon hip people in the generality and the countiy people in that Very kind; that the French freeholders stood, who would rationally king had made himself anl albolte 6rd, at g’e of their Owi rigts, hfia those oiand quite depressed the power of parlia-pressidns that were lai, uion them.‘n meint, which hid ben there as griet as Hist.

of Piliaiment, p. 1 (edt. 12 i ).

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84 PROSPERITY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. VII1. cording to the experience of Europe, undoubtedly would, become such by length of time and peaceable submission.

We may acknowledge without hesitation that the kingdom had grown during this period into remarkable prosperity and affluence. The rents of land were very considerably increased, and large tracts reduced into cultivation. The manufacturing towns, the seaports, became more populous and flourishing. The metropolis increased in size with a rapidity that repeated proclamations against new buildings could not restrain. The country-houses of the superior gentry throughout England were built on a scale which their descendants, even in days of more redundant affluence, have seldom ventured to emulate. The kingdom was indebted for this prosperity to the spirit and industry of the people, to the laws which secure the commons from oppression, and which, as between man and man, were still fairly administered; to the opening of fresh channels of trade in the eastern and western worlds (rivulets, indeed, as they seem to us who float in the full tide of modern commerce, yet at that time no slight contributions to the stream of public wealth); but, above all, to the long tranquillity of the kingdom, ignorant of the sufferings of domestic, and seldom much affected by the privations of foreign, war. It was the natural course of things that wealth should be progressive in such a land. Extreme tyranny, such as that of Spain in the Netherlands, might, no doubt, have turned back the current. A less violent but long-continued despotism, such as has existed in several European monarchies, would, by the corruption and incapacity which absolute governments engender, have retarded its advance. The administration of Charles was certainly not of the former description. Yet it would have been an excess of loyal stupidity in the nation to have attributed their riches to the wisdom or virtue of the court, which had injured the freedom of trade by monopolies and arbitrary proclamations, and driven away industrious manufacturers by persecution.

If we were to draw our knowledge from no other book than lord Clarendon’s History it would still be impossible to avoid the inference that misconduct on the part of the crown, and more especially of the church, was the chief, if not the sole, cause of these prevailing discontents. At the time when Laud unhappily became archbishop of Canterbury,

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CHA.. - 1629-40. CAUSE OF PREVAILING DISCONTENTS. 85 “the general temper and humor of the kingdom,” he tells us, “was little inclined to the papist, and less to the puritan. There were some late taxes and impositions introduced, which rather angered than grieved the people, who were more than repaid by the quiet peace and prosperity they enjoyed; and the murmur and discontent that was, appeared to be against the excess of power exercised by the crown, and supported by the judges in Westminster Hall. The church was not repined at, nor the least inclination to alter the government and discipline thereof, or to change the doctrine. Nor was there at that time any considerable number of persons of any valuable condition throughout the kingdom who did wish either; and the cause of so prodigious a change in so few years after was too visible from the effects.” This cause, he is compelled to admit, in a passage too diffuse to be extracted, was the passionate and imprudent behavior of the primate.

Can there be a stronger proof of the personal prepossessions which forever distort the judgment of this author than that he should blame the remissness of Abbot, who left things in so happy a condition, and assert that Laud executed the trust of solely managing ecclesiastical affairs “infinitely to the service and benefit” of that church which he brought to destruction? Were it altogether true, what is doubtless much exaggerated, that in 1633 very little discontent at the measures of the court had begun to prevail, it would be utterly inconsistent with experience and observation of mankind to ascribe the almost universal murmurs of 1639 to any other cause than bad government. But Hyde, attached to Laud and devoted to the king, shrunk from the conclusion that his own language would afford; and his piety made him seek in some mysterious influences of Heaven, and in a judicial infatuation of the people, for the causes of those troubles which the fixed and uniform dispensations of Providence were sufficient to explain.1 1 It is curious to contrast the incon-case, which he vindicates in his History. sistent and feeble apologies for the pre-Somers’ Tracts, iv. 802. Indeed the whole rogative we read in Clarendon’s History speech is irreconcilable with the picture with his speech before the lords, on im-he afterwards drew of the prosperity of peaching the judges for their decision in England, and of the unreasonableness of the case of shipmoney. In this he speaks discontent.

very strongly as to the illegality of the The fact is, that when he sat down in proceedings of the judges in Rolls. and Jersey to begin his History, irritated, Vassal’s cases, though in his History he disappointed, afflicted at all that had endeavors to insinuate that the king had passed in the last five years, he could not a right to tonnage and poundage; he in-bring his mind back to the state in which vcigshs also against the decision in Bates’s it had been at the meeting of the long

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86 BlDITRE$$ OFi’ TIE GOVERNMENT. CHAr. VYII. It is difficult to pronounce how much longer the nation’s Scot trub-signal forbearance would have held out, if the tles. and twt^of Scots had not precipitated themselves into rebelthe govern-lion. There was still a confident hope that parlia=ent.

ment ent must soon or late be assembled, and it seemed equally impolitic and unconstitutional to seek redress by any violent means. The patriots, too, had just cause to lament the ambition of some whom the court’s favor subdued, and the levity of many more whom its vanities allured. But the unexpected success of the tumultuous rising at Edinburgh against the service-book revealed the impotence of the English government. Destitute of money, and neither daring to ask it from a parliament, nor to extort it by any fresh demand from the people, they hesitated whether to employ force or to submit to the insurgents. In the exchequer, as lord iorthumberland wrote to Strafford, there was but the sum of 2001.; with all the means that could be devised, not above 110,0001. could be raised; the magazines were all unfurnished, and the people were so discontented by reason of the multitude of projects daily imposed upon them, that he saw reason to fear a great part of them would be readier to join with the Scots than to draw their swords in the king’s service.1 ” The discontents at home,” he observes some months afterwards, ” do rather increase than lessen, there being no course taken to give any kind of satisfaction. The king’s coffers were never emptier than at this time; and to us that have the hpnor to be near about him no way is yet known how he will find means either to maintain or begin a war without the help of his people.” 2

Strafford himself dissuaded a war in such circumstances, though hardly knowing what parliament; and believed himself to have people to submit to the fury of this parpartaken far less in the sense of abuses liament), as an offence and scandal to and desire of redress than he had really religion, in the same degree that shipdone. There may, however, be reason money was to liberty and property.” to suspect that he had, in some respects, State Papers, ii. 836. But when we turn gone farther in the first draught of his to the passage in the History of the ReHistory than appears at present; that is, bellion, p. 268, where this is mentioned, I conceive, that he erased himself some we do not find a single expression reflectpassages or phrases unfavorable to the ing on the court, though the catholics court. Let the reader judge from the themselves are censured for imprudence. following sentence in a letter to Nicholas This may serve to account for several of relating to his work, dated 3Eb.12 1647: Clarendon’s inconsistencies, for nothing -” I will ofer no excuse for the enter-renders an author so inconsistent with taining of Con, who came after’panzani, himself as corrections made in a different and was succeeded by Rosetti; which was temper of mind from that which actuated $
business of so much folly, or worse, him in the first composition. that I have mentioned it in my prolegom-1 Strafford Letters, ii. 186. ena (of those distempers and exorbi-5 Id. 267. wet in o~,vernmentwhich prepared thq

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Ca. 1.- 1629-40. COJTRIB1UTIONS BY CATHOLICS. 87 other course to advise.1

He had now awaked from the dreams of infatuated arrogance to stand appalled at the perils of his sovereign and his own. In the letters that passed between him and Laud after the Scots troubles had broken out we read their hardly-concealed dismay, and glimpses of “the two-handed engine at the door.” Yet pride fbrbade them to perceive or confess the real causes of this portentous state of affairs. They fondly laid the miscarriage of the business of Scotland on failure in the execution, and an “over-great desire to do all quietly.” 2 In this imminent necessity the king had recourse to those who had least cause to repine at his administration. The catholic gentry, at the powerful interference of their queen, made large contributions towards the campaign of 1639. Many of them volunteered their personal service. There was, indeed, a further project, so secret that it is not mentioned, I believe, till very lately, by any historical writer. This was to procure 10,000 regular troops from Flanders, in exchange for so many recruits to be levied for Spain in England and Ireland. These troops were to be for six months in the king’s pay. Colonel Gage, a catholic and the negotiator of this treaty, hints that the pope would probably contribute money, if he had hopes of seeing the penal laws repealed; and observes that with such an army the king might both subdue the Scots, and at the same time keep his parliament in check, so as to make them come to his conditions.8 The treaty, however, was never concluded. Spain. was far more inclined to revenge herself for the bad faith she imputed to Charles than to lend him any assistance.

Hence, when, in the next year, he offered to declare war against Holland, as soon as he should have subdued the Scots, for a loan of 1,200,000
crowns, the Spanish ambassador haughtily rejected the proposition.4 I Strafford Letters, ii. 191. such like.” Laud answers in the same 2 Id.

250. ” It was ever clear in my strain: ” Indeed, my lord, the business judgment,” says Strafford, “that the of Scotland, I can be bold to say without business of Scotland, so well laid, so vanity, was well laid, and was a great pleasing to God and man, had it been service to the crown as well as to God effected, was miserably lost in the exe-himself. And that it should so fatally cution; yet could never have so fatally fail in the execution is a great blow as miscarried if there had not been a fail-well to the power as honor of the king,” are likewise in this direction, occasioned &c. He lays the blame in a great degree either by over-great desires to do all on lord Traquair. P. 264. quietly without noise, by the state of 3 Clarendon State Papers, ii. 19, the business misrepresented, by oppor-4 Id. 84, and Appendix, xxvi. tunities and seasons slipped, or by some

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88 SHIPMONEY. CHAP. VIII. The pacification, as it was termed, of Berwick, in the summer of 1639, has been represented by several historians as a measure equally ruinous and unaccountable. That it was so far ruinous as it formed one link in the chain that dragged the king to destruction, is most evident; but it was both inevitable and easy of explanation. The treasury, whatever Clarendon and Hume may have said, was perfectly bankrupt.1 The citizens of London, on being urged by the council for a loan, had used as much evasion as they dared.2 The writs for shipmoney were executed with greater difficulty, several sheriffs willingly acquiescing in the excuses made by their counties.8 Sir Francis Seymour, brother to the earl of Hertford, and a man, like his brother, of very moderate principles, absolutely refused to pay it, though warned by the council to beware how he disputed its legality.4 Many of the Yorkshire gentry, headed by sir Marmaduke Langdale, combined to refuse its payment.6

It was impossible to rely again on catholic subscriptions, which the court of Rome, as I have mentioned above, instigated perhaps by that of Madrid, had already tried to restrain. The Scots were enthusiastic, nearly unanimous, and entire masters of their country. The English nobility in general detested the archbishop, to whose passion they ascribed the whole mischief, and feared to see the king become despotic in Scotland. If the terms of Charles’s treaty with his revolted subjects were unsatisfactory and indefinite, enormous in concession, and yet afford1 Hume says that Charles had an ac-Lest it should seem extraordinary that 1 cumulated treasure of 200,0001. at this sometimes contradict lord Clarendon on time.

I know not his authority for the the authority of his own collection of particular sum; but Clarendon pretends papers, it may be necessary to apprise that “the revenue had been so well im-the reader that none of these, anterior proved, and so wisely managed, that there to the civil war, had come in his posseswas money in the exchequer proportion-sion till he had written this part of his able for the undertaking any noble en-History terprise.” This is, at the best, strangely 3 The grand jury of Northampton prehyperbolical; but, in fact, there was an sented shipmoney as a grievance. But absolute want of everything. Shipmoney the privy-council wrote to the sheriff would have been a still more crying sin that they would not admit his affected than it was, if the produce had gone be-excuses; and if he neglected to execute yond the demands of the state: nor was the writ, a quick and exemplary reparathis ever imputed to the court. This is tion would be required of him. Rushw. one of lord Clarendon’s capital mistakes; Abr. iii. 98. for it leads him to speak of the treaty of 4 Rushw. Abr. iii. 47. The king writes Berwick as a measure that might have in the margin of Windebank’s letter, inbeen avoided, and even, in one place, to forming him of Seymour’s refusal, - ascribe it to the king’s excessive lenity ” You must needs make him an example, and aversion to sheddingtblood; wherein not only by distress, but, if it be possible, a herd of superficial writers have followed an information in some court, as Mr. At him. torney shall advise.” 2 Clarendon State Papers, ii. 46, 54. 5 Strafford Letters, ii. 308.

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CHA. I.- 1629-40. CONVOCATION OF PARLIAMENT. 89 ing a pretext for new encroachments, this is no more than the common lot of the weaker side.

There was one possible, though not under all the circumstances very likely, method of obtaining the sinews of war - the convocation of parliament. This many, at least, of the king’s advisers appear to have long desired, could they but have vanquished his obstinate reluctance.

This is an important observation: Charles, and he perhaps alone, unless we reckon the queen, seems to have taken a resolution of superseding absolutely and forever the legal constitution of England. The judges, the peers, lord Strafford, nay, if we believe his dying speech, the primate himself, retained enough of respect for the ancient laws to desire that parliaments should be summoned whenever they might be expected to second the views of the monarch. They felt that the new scheme of governing by proclamations and writs of shipmoney could not and ought not to be permanent in England. The king reasoned more royally, and indeed much better. He well perceived that it was vain to hope for another parliament so constituted as those under the Tudors. He was ashamed (and that pernicious woman at his side would not fail to encourage the sentiment) that his brothers of France and Spain should have achieved a work which the sovereign of England, though called an absolute king by his courtiers, had scarcely begun. All mention, therefore, of calling parliament grated on his ear. The declaration published at the dissolution of the last, that he should account it presumption for any to prescribe a time to him for calling parliaments, was meant to extend even to his own counsellors. He rated severely lord-keeper Coventry for a suggestion of this kind.1 He came with much reluctance into Wentworth’s proposal of summoning one in Ireland, though the superior control of the crown over parliaments in that kingdom was pointed out to him. “The king,” says Cottington, “at the end of 1638, will not hear of a parliament; and he is told by a committee of learned men that there is no other way.” 2 This repug1 ” The king hath so rattled my lord-banished; so many oppressions had been keeper, that he is now the most pliable set on foot, so many illegal actions done, man in England, and all thoughts of that the only way to justify the mischiefs parliaments are quite out of his pate.” already done was to do that one greater; Cottington to Strafford, 29th Oct. 1633, to take away the means which were orvol. i. p. 141. dained to redress them, the lawful gova Vol.

ii. p. 246. “So by this time,” ernment of England by parliaments.” says a powerful writer, ” all thoughts of May, History of Parliament, p. 11. ever having a parliament again was quite

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90;PALIAMENT OF APRIL, 1640. CHAP. yII. nvnce to meet his people, and his inability to carry on the war by any other methods, produced the ignominious pacification at Berwick, But as the Scots, grown bolder by success, had, after this treaty, almost thrown off all subjection, and the renewal of the war, or loss of the sovereignty over that kingdom, appeared necessary alternatives, overpowered by the concurrent advice of his council, and especially of’Strafford, he issued writs for that parliament which met in April 1640,1 They told him that, making trial once more of the ancient and ordinary way, he would leave his people without excuse if that should fail; and have wherewithal to justify himself to God and the world, if he should be forced contrary to his inclinations to use extraordinary means, rather than through the peevishness of some factious spirit to suffer his state and government to be lost.2 It has been universally admitted that the parliament which Parliament met on the 13th of April, 1640, was as favorably of April, disposed towards the king’s service, and as little 1640. influenced by their many wrongs, as any man of ordinary judgment could expect.8 But though cautiously abstaining from any intemperance, so much as to reprove a member for calling shipmoney an abomination (no very out1 Sidney Papers, ii. 628. Clarendon much In the men as in the times: the Papers, ii. 81. bad administration and bad success of 2 Id. ibid. The attentive reader will 1640, as well as the dissolution of the not fail to observe that this is the iden-short parliament, having greatly aggratical language of the famous advice im-vated the public discontents. puted to Strafford, though used on The court had never augured well of another occasion. this parliament. ” The elections,” as 3 May. Clarendon. The latter says, lord Northumberland writes to lord Leiupon the dissolution of this parliament, cester at Paris (Sidney Papers, ii. 641), -“It could never be hoped that so ” that are generally made of knights and many sober and dispassionate men would burgesses in this kingdom, give us cause ever meet again in that place, or fewer to fear that the parliament will not sit who brought ill purposes with them.” long; for such as have dependence upon This, like so many other passages in the the court are in divers places refused, poble historian, is calculated rather to and the most refractory persons chosen.” mislead the reader. All the principal There are some strange things said by men who headed the popular party in Clarendon of the ignorance of the comthe long parliament were members of mons as to the value of twelve subsidies, this; and the whole body, so far as their which Hume, who loves to depreciate the subsequent conduct shows, was not at knowledge of former times, implicitly all constituted of different elements from copies. But they cannot be true of that the rest; for I find, by comparison of the enlightened body, whatever blunders one list of this parliament, in Nalson’s Col-or two individuals might commit. The lections, with that of the long parlia-rate at which every man’s estate was ment, in the Parliamentary History, assessed to a subsidy was perfectly notothat eighty, at most, who had not sat in rious; and the burden of twelve subthe former, took the covenant; and that sidies, to be paid in three years, was more seventy-three, in the same circumstances, than the charge of shipmoney they had sat in the king’s convention at Oxford. been enduring. The difference, therefore, was not so

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Can. I.-1629-40. JUDGMENT AGAINST MR. HAMPDEN. 91 rageous expression), they sufficiently manifested a determination not to leave their grievances unredressed. Petitions against the manifold abuses in church and state covered their table; Pyr, Rudyard, Waller, lord Digby, and others more conspicuous afterwards, excited them by vigorous speeches; they appointed a committee to confer with the lords, according to some precedents of thelast reign, on a long list of grievances, divided into ecclesiastical innovations, infringements of the propriety of goods, and breaches of the privilege of parliament. They voted a request of the peers, who, Clarendon says, were more entirely at the king’s disposal, that they would begin with the business of supply, and not proceed to debate on grievances till afterwards, to be a high breach of privilege.1 There is not the smallest reason to doubt that they would have insisted on redress in all those particulars with at least as much zeal as any former parliament, and that the king, after obtaining his subsidies, would have put an end to their remonstrances, as he had done before.2 In order to obtain the supply he demanded, namely, twelve subsidies, to be paid in three years, which, though unusual, was certainly not beyond his exigencies, he offered to release his claim to shipmoney in any manner they should point out. But this the commons indignantly repelled. They deemed shipmoney the great crime of his administration, and the judgment against Mr. Hampden the infamy of those who pronounced it. Till that judgment should be annulled, and those judges punished, the national liberties must be as precarious as ever. Even if they could hear of a compromise with so flagrant a breach of the constitution, and of purchasing their undoubted rights, the doctrine asserted in Mr. Hampden’s case by the crown lawyers, and adopted by some of the judges, rendered all stipulations nugatory. The right of taxation had been claimed as an absolute prerogative so inherent in the crown that no act of parliament could take it away. All former statutes, down to the Petition of Right, had been prostrated at the foot of the throne; by what new compact were the present parliament to give a sanctity more inviolable to their own? 8 It will be in the recollection of my readers that, while the 1 Journals. Parl. ist,. WIson. Clar-‘parliaments are like cats: they grow endon. curst with age.” 2 The king had long before said that’ See Mr.

Waller’s speech on Crawleyqs impeachment. Nalsoa, ii. 358.

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92 THE TWELVE SUBSIDIES. CHAP. VIII. commons were deliberating whethler to promise any supply before the redress of grievances, and in what measure, sir Henry Vane, the secretary, told them that the king would accept nothing less than the twelve subsidies he had required; in consequence of which the parliament was dissolved next day. Clarendon, followed by several others, has imputed treachery in this to Vane, and told us that the king regretted so much what he had done, that he wished, had it been practicable, to recall the parliament after its dissolution. This is confirmed, as to Vane, by the queen herself, in that interesting narrative which she communicated to madame de Motteville.1 Were it not for such authorities, seemingly independent of each other, yet entirely tallying, I should have deemed it more probable that Vane, with whom the solicitorgeneral Herbert had concurred, acted solely by the king’s command. Charles, who feared and hated all parliaments, had not acquiesced in the scheme of calling the present till there was no other alternative; an insufficient supply would have left him in a more difficult situation than before as to the use of those extraordinary means, as they were called, which his disposition led him to prefer: the intention to assail parts of his administration more dear to him than ship1 Mem. de Motteville, i. 288-278. P. ords; and he admits himself that they Orleans, Rev. de 1’Angleterre, tome iii., were resolute against granting subsidies says the same of Vane; but his testimony as a consideration for the abandonment may resolve itself into the former. It is of that grievance.

Besides. Hyde himto be observed that shipmoney, which self not only inveighs most severely in the king offered to relinquish, brought in his History against shipmoney, but was 200,0001. a year, and that the proposed himself one of the managers of the imtwelve subsidies would have amounted, peachment against six judges for their at most, to 840,0001., to be paid in three conduct in regard to it; and his speech years. Is it surprising that, when the before the house of lords on that occahouse displayed an intention not to grant sion is extant. Rushw. Abr. ii. 477.

But the whole of this, as appears by Claren-this is merely one instance of his eternal don’s own story. the king and his advis-inconsistency. ers should have thought it better to break “It seems that the lord-lieutenant of off altogether? I see no reason for im-Ireland wished from the beginning that puting treachery to Vane, even if he did matters should thus be driven to the not act merely by the king’s direction. utmost. For he wished the king to insist Clarendon says he and Herbert persuaded on a grant of money before any progress the king that the house ” would pass should be made in the removal of the such a vote against shipmoney as would abuses which had grown up a proceedblast that revenue and other branches of ing at variance with that of the preceding the receipt; which others believed they parliament. No less did he vote for the would not have the confidence to have violent measure of demanding twelve attempted.

and very few that they would subsidies, only five at the utmost having have had the credit to have compassed.” been previously granted. He either enP. 245. The word they is as inaccurate tertained the view of thus gaining conas is commonly the case with this writer’s sideration with the king, or of moving language. But does he mean that the him to an alliance with the Spaniards, house would not have passed a vote in whose confidence he is.” Montreuil’s against shipmoney? They had already despatches, in Raumer, ii. 308 entered on the subject, and sent for rec

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CHA. I.-1629-40. DISSOLUTION OF PARLIAMENT. 93 money, and especially the ecclesiastical novelties, was apparent. Nor can we easily give him credit for this alleged regret at the step he had taken, when we read the declaration he put forth, charging the commons with entering on examination of his government in an insolent and audacious manner, traducing his administration of justice, rendering odious his officers and ministers of state, and introducing a way of bargaining and contracting with the king, as if nothing ought to be given him by them but what he should purchase, either by quitting somewhat of his royal prerogative, or by diminishing and lessening his revenue.1 The unconstitutional practice of committing to prison some of the most prominent members, and searching their houses for papers, was renewed. And having broken loose again from the restraints of law, the king’s sanguine temper looked to such a triumph over the Scots in the coming campaign as no prudent man could think probable. This dissolution of parliament in May, 1640, appears to have been a very fatal crisis for the king’s popularity. Those who, with the loyalty natural to Englishmen, had willingly ascribed his previous misgovernment to evil counsels, could not any longer avoid perceiving his mortal antipathy to any parliament that should not be as subservient as the cortes of Castile. The necessity of some great change became the common theme. “It is impossible,” says lord Northumberland, at that time a courtier, ” that things can long continue in the condition they are now in; so general a defection in this kingdom hath not been known in the memory of any!” 2 Several of those who thought most deeply on public affairs now entered into a private communication with the Scots insurgents. It seems probable, from the well-known story of lord Saville’s forged letter, that there had been very little connection of this kind until the present summer.8 And we may conjecture that, during this ominous interval, those great projects which were displayed in the next session acquired consistence and ripeness by secret discussions in the houses of the earl of Bedford and lord Say. The king meanwhile 1 Parl. Hist.

Rushworth. Nalson. ticularly by the earl of Manchester, in 2 June 4,1640.

Sidney Papers, ii. 654. his unpublished Memorials, from which 8 A late writer has spoken of this cele-Nalson has made extracts; and who brated letter as resting on very question-could neither be mistaken nor have any able authority. Lingard, x. 43. It is, apparent motive, in this private narrahowever, mentioned as a known fact by tive, to deceive. Nalson, ii.

427. several contemporary writers, and par

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94 COUNCIL OF YORK. CHAP. VIII experienced aggravated misfottune and ignominy in his military operations. Shipmoney indeed was enforced With greater rigor than before, several sheriffs and the lord mayor of London being prosecuted in the starchamber fof neglecting to levy it. Some citizens were imprisoned for refusing a loan. A new imposition was laid on the counties, under the name of coat-and-conduct-money, for clothing and defraying the travelling charges of the new levies.1 A state of actual invasion, the Scots having passed the Tweed, might excuse some of these irregularities, if it could have been forgotten that the war itself was produced by the king’s impolicy, and if the nation had not been prone to see friends and deliverers rather than enemies in the Scottish army. They were, at the best indeed, troublesome and expensive guests to the northern counties which they occupied; but the cost of their visit was justly laid at the king’s door. Various arbitrary resources having been suggested in the council, and abandoned as inefficient and impracticable - such as the seizing the merchants’ bullion in the Mint, or issuing a debased coin -
the unhappy king adopted the hopeless scheme of convenCouncil of ing a great council of all the peers at York, as the York. only alternative of a parliament.? It Was foreseen that this assembly would only advise the kinig to Fieet his people in a legal way. The public voice could no longer be suppressed. The citizens of London presented a petition to the king, complaining of grievances, and asking fbr a parliament. This was speedily followed by one signed by twelve peers of Convocation popular character.8

The lords assembled at York of the long almost unanimously concurred in the same advice, parliament. to which the king, after some hesitation, gave his assent. They had more difficulty in bringing about a settleItRmer, xx. 42. Rushworth, Abr. had partly forgottenpartlynever known, iii. 168, &c. Nalson, i. 889, &e. Raumer, the state of Englafd before the opening ii 318. of the long parliament. In fact, the dis2 Lord Clarendon seems not to have affection, or at least discontent, had prowell understood the secret of this great ceeded so far in 1640 that no human skill council, and supposes it to have been could have averted a great part of the suggested by those who wished for a pat-cosiequences. But Clarendon’s partiality liament; whereas the HardWicke Paper to the king, and to some of his advisers, show the contrary: pp. 116 and 118. leads him to see in every event particular His notions about the facility of com-causes, or an overruling destiny rather posing the public disoontent are strangely than the sure operation of impolicy and mistaken. “Without doubt,” he says, iisgoLermnent. a that fire at that time, hich did shortly These were lHetford, Bedford, Essex, after brn the whole kingdom, might Warwik, Paget, Wharton Say, Brook, hav been covered under a bushel.” But Kimbolton, Saviltle Mulgrave, Bolingthe whole of this introductory book of broke. NalSoi, 486, 47. his History abounds with proofs that he

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nA&. L  1629-40. CONVOCATtON OF LONG PARLIAMENT. 95 ment with the Scots: the English army, disaffected and undisciplined, had already made an inglorious retreat; and even Strafford, though passionately against a treaty, did not venture to advise an engagement.1 The majority of the peers, however, overruled all opposition; and in the alarming posture of his affairs, Charles had no resource but the dishonorable pacification of Ripon.2 Ahticipating the desertion of some who had partaken in his councils, and conscious that others would more stand in need of his support than be capable of affording any, he awaited in fearful suspense the meeting of parliament. I This appears from the minutes of the letters, with marginal notes by the king council (Hardwicke Papers), and contra-In one of these he says, “The mayor dicts the common opinion. Lord Con-now, with the city, are to be flattered, way’s disaster at Newburn was by no not threatened.” P. 123. Windebank means surprising: the English troops, writes to him in another (Oct. 16, 1640) who had been lately pressed into service, that the clerk of the lower house of parwere perfectly mutinous some regi-liament had come to demand the journal. ments had risen and even murdered their book of the last assembly and some officers on the road. Rymer, 414, 425. petitions, which, by the king’s command, 2 The Hardwicke State Papers, ii. 168, he (Windebank) had taken into his cus&c., contain much interesting mforma-tody, and requests to know if they should tion about the council of York. See also be given up. 0harles writes on the mar. the Clarendon Collection for some curious gin ” Ay, by all means.” P. 182

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96 CHARACTER OF LONG PARLIAMENT. CHAP. IX. CHAPTER IX. FROM THE MEETING OF

THE LONG PARLIAMENT TO THE BEGINNING OF THE CIVIL WAR. Character of Long Parliament-Its salutary Measures-Triennial BillOther beneficial Laws -Observations -Impeachment of StraffordDiscussion of its Justice - Act against Dissolution of Parliament without its Consent - Innovations meditated in the Church-Schism in the Constitutional Party - Remonstrance of November, 1641-Suspicions of the King’s Sincerity-Question of the Militia-Historical Sketch of Military Force in England -Encroachments of the Parliament -Nineteen Propositions -Discussion of the respective Claims of the two Parties to Support -Faults of both. WE are now arrived at that momentous period in our hisCharacter tory which no Englishman ever regards without of the long interest, and few without prejudice; the period parliament from which the factions of modern times trace their divergence, which, after the lapse of almost two centuries, still calls forth the warm emotions of party-spirit, and affords a test of political principles; at that famous parliament, the theme of so much eulogy and of so much reproach; that synod of inflexible patriots with some, that conclave of traitorous rebels with others; that assembly, we may more truly say, of unequal virtue and checkered fame, which, after having acquired a higher claim to our gratitude, and effected more for our liberties, than any that had gone before or that has followed, ended by subverting the constitution it had strengthened, and by sinking in its decrepitude, and amidst public contempt, beneath a usurper it had blindly elevated Its salutary to power.

It seems agreeable to our plan, first to measures. bring together those admirable provisions by which this parliament restored and consolidated the shattered fabric of our constitution, before we advert to its measures of more equivocal benefit, or its fatal errors; an arrangement not very remote from that of mere chronology, since the former were chiefly completed within the first nine months of its session, before the king’s journey to Scotland in the summer of 1641.

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QHA. I.-1640-42. ITS SfiUTARY MEA.SURES. 9, It must, I think, be admitted by every one who concurs in the representation given in this work, and especially in the last chapter, of the practical state of our government, that some new securities of a more powerful efficacy than any which the existing laws held forth were absolutely indispensable for the preservation of English liberties and privileges. These, however sacred in name, however venerable by prescription, had been so repeatedly transgressed, that to obtain their confirmation, as had been done in the Petition of Right, and that as the price of large subsidies, would but expose the commons to the secret.derision of the court. The king, by levying shipmoney in contravention of his assent to that petition, and by other marks of insincerity, had given too just cause for suspicion that, though very conscientious in his way, he had a fund of casuistry at command that would always release him from any obligation,to respect the laws. Again, to punish delinquent ministers was a necessary piece of justice; but who could expect that any such retribution would deter ambitious and intrepid men from the splendid lures of power? Whoever, therefore, came to the parliament of November, 1640, with serious and steady purposes for the public weal, and.most, I believe, except mere courtiers, entertained such purposes according to the measure of their capacities and energies, must have looked to some essential change in the balance of government, some important limitations of royal authority, as the primary object of his attendance. Nothing could be more obvious than that the excesses of the late unhappy times had chiefly originated in the long intermission of parliaments. No lawyer would havedared to suggest shipmoney with the terrors of a house of commons before his eyes. But the king’s known resolution to govern without parliaments gave bad men more confidence of impunity. This resolution was not likely to be shaken by the unpalatable chastisement of his servants and redress of abuses, on which the present parliament was about to enter. A statute as old as the reign of Edward III. had already provided that parliaments should be held “every year, or oftener if need be.”.l But this enactment had in no age 1 4 E.‘8, c. 14. It appears by the holding of parliaments. ft,seems to Journals, 30th Dec. 1640, that the trien-have been altered in the committee; at nial bill was originally for the yearly least we find thetitle changed, Jan. 19. VOL. II. 7

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98 TRIENNIAL BILL. CHAP. IX. been respected. It was certain that, in the present temper of the administration, a law simply enacting that the interval between parliaments should never exceed three years would Triennial prove wholly ineffectual. In the famous act therebill. fore for triennial parliaments, the first fruits of the commons’ laudable zeal for reformation, such provisions were introduced as grated harshly on the ears of those who valued the royal prerogative above the liberties of the subject, but without which the act itself might have been dispensed with.

Every parliament was to be ipso facto dissolved at the expiration of three years from the first day of its se:sion, unless actually sitting at the time, and in that case at its first adjournment or prorogation. The chancellor or keeper of the great seal was to be sworn to issue writs for a new parliament within three years from the dissolution of the last, under pain of disability to hold his office, and further punishment: in case of his failure to comply with this provision, the peers were enabled and enjoined to meet at Westminster, and to issue writs to the sheriffs; the sheriffs themselves, should the peers not fulfil this duty, were to cause elections to be duly made; and, in their default, at a prescribed time the electors themselves were to proceed to choose their representatives. No future parliament was to be dissolved or adjourned without its own consent in less than fifty days from the opening of its session. It is more reasonable to doubt whether even these provisions would have afforded an adequate security for the periodical assembling of parliament, whether the supine and courtier-like character of the peers, the want of concert and energy in the electors themselves, would not have enabled the government to set the statute at nought, than to censure them as derogatory to the reasonable prerogative and dignity of the crown. To this important bill the king, with some apparent unwillingness, gave his assent.1 It effected, indeed, a strange revolution in the system of his government. The nation set a due value on this admirable statute, the passing of which they welcomed with bonfires and every mark of joy. After laying this solid foundation for the maintenance of Beneficial such laws as they might deem necessary, the laws. house of commons proceeded to cut away the more flagrant and recent usurpations of the crown. They 1 Parl.

Hist. 702, 717. Stat. 16 Car. I., c. 1.

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CHA. I. -1640-42. BENEFICIAL LAWS. 99 passed a bill declaring shipmoney illegal, and annulling the judgment of the exchequer chamber against Mr.

Hampden.1 They put an end to another contested prerogative, which, though incapable of vindication on any legal authority, had more support from a usage of fourscore years - the levying of customs on merchandise. In an act granting the king tonnage and poundage it is “declared and enacted that it is, and hath been, the ancient right of the subjects of this realm, that no subsidy, custom, impost, or other charge whatsoever, ought or may be laid or imposed upon any merchandise exported or imported by subjects, denizens, or aliens, without common consent in parliament.“2

This is the last statute that has’ been found necessary to restrain the crown from arbitrary taxation, and may be deemed the complement of those numerous provisions which the virtue of ancient times had extorted from the first and third Edwards. Yet these acts were hardly so indispensable, nor wrought so essential a change in the character of our mon-Observa archy, as that which abolished the starchamber. tions. Though it was evident how little the statute of Henry VII. could bear out that overweening power it had since arrogated, though the statute-book and parliamentary records of the best ages were irrefragable testimonies against its usurpations; yet the course of precedents under the Tudor and Stuart families was so invariable that nothing more was at first intended than a bill to regulate that tribunal. A suggestion, thrown out, as Clarendon informs us, by one not at all connected with the more ardent reformers, led to the substitution of a bill for taking it altogether away.8 This abrogates 1 Stat. 16 Car. I., c. 14. Berkshire, were zealous royalists during 2 C. 8. The king had professed, in the subsequent war.

Parl. Hist. 722. lord-keeper Finch’s speech on opening But he is not, I presume, the person to the parliament of April, 1640, that he whom Clarendon alludes. This author had only taken tonnage and poundage de insinuates that the act for taking away facto, without claiming it as a right, and the starchamber passed both houses had caused a bill to be prepared grant-without sufficient deliberation, and that ing it to him from the commencement of the peers did not venture to make any his reign.

Parl. Hist. 633. See preface opposition; whereas there were two conto Hargrave’s Collection of Law Tracts, ferences between the houses on the subp. 195, and Rymer, xx. 118, for what ject, and several amendments and proCharles did with respect to impositions visos made by the lords and agreed to by on merchandise. The long parliament the commons. Scarce any bill, during called the farmers to account. this session, received so much attention. 8 16 Car. I. c. 10. The abolition of The king made some difficulty about asthe starchamber was first moved, March senting to the bills taking away the star5th, 1641, by lord Andover, in the house chamber and highcommission courts, of lords, to which he had been called by but soon gave way. Parl. Hist. 858. writ. Both he and his father, the earl of

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100 ABOLITION OF CHAP. IX. all exercise of jurisdiction, properly so called, whether of a civil or criminal nature, by the privy council as well as the starchamber. The power of examining and committing persons charged with offences is by no means taken away; but, with a retrospect to the language held by the judges and crown lawyers in some cases that have been mentioned, it is enacted, that every person committed by the council or any of them, or by the king’s special command, may have his writ of habeas corpus; in the return to which the officer in whose custody he is shall certify the true cause of his commitment, which the court from whence the writ has issued shall within three days examine, in order to see whether the.cause thus certified appear to be just and legal or not, and do justice accordingly by delivering, bailing, or remanding the party.

Thus fell the great court of starchamber, and with it the whole irregular and arbitrary practice of government, that had for several centuries so thwarted the operation and obscured the light of our free constitution, that many have been prone to deny the existence of those liberties which they found so often infringed, and to mistake the violations of law for its standard. With the court of starchamber perished that of the highcommission, a younger birth of tyranny, but perhaps even more hateful, from the peculiar irritation of the times. It had stretched its authority beyond the tenor of the act of Elizabeth whereby it had been created, and which limits its competence to the correction of ecclesiastical offences according to the known boundaries of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, assuming a right not only to imprison, but to fine, the laity, which was generally reckoned illegal.1 The statute repealing that of Elizabeth, under which the high commission existed, proceeds to take away from the ecclesiastical courts all power of inflicting temporal penalties, in terms so large, and doubtless not inadvertently employed, as to render their jurisdiction nugatory. This part of the act was repealed after the Restoration; and, like the other measures of that time, with little care to prevent the recurrence of those abuses which had provoked its enactments.2 1 Coke has strongly argued the lMe-lams, ” nothing but the old rusty sword gality of fining and imprisoning by the of the church, excommunication.’ ” Ca high commission; 4th Inst. 324. And he bala, p. 108. Oa re was taken to restore omitted this power in a commission he this authority in the reign of Charles. drew, “leaving us,” says bishop Wil-2 16 Car. I. c.‘11.

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CKA. L 1640-42. IRREGULAR TRIBUNALS. 101 A single clause in the act that abolished, the starchamber was sufficient to annihilate the, arbitrary jurisdiction of several other irregular tribunals, grown out of the despotic temper of the Tudor dynasty:- the court of the president and council of the North, long obnoxious to the common lawyers, and lately the sphere of Strafford’s tyrannical arrogance;1 the court of the president and council of Wales and the Welsh marches, which had pretended, as before mentioned, to a jurisdiction over the adjacent counties of Salop, Worcester, Hereford, and Gloucester; with those of the duchy of Lancaster and county palatine of Chester. These, under various. pretexts, had usurped so extensive a cognizance as to deprive one third of England of the privileges of the common law. The jurisdiction, however, of the two latter courts in matters touching the. king’s private estate has not been taken away by the statute. Another act afforded remedy for some abuses in the stannary courts of Cornwall and Devon.2 Others retrenched the vexatious prerogative of purveyance, and took away that of compulsory knighthood.8 And one of greater importance put an end to a fruitful source of oppression and complaint by determining forever the extent of royal forests, according to their boundaries in the twentieth year of James, annulling all the perambulations and inquests by which they had subsequently been enlarged.4 I must here reckon, among the beneficial acts of this parliament, one that passed some months afterwards, after the king’s return from Scotland, and perhaps the only measure of that second period on which we can bestow unmixed commendation. The delays and uncertainties of raising troops by voluntary enlistment, to which the temper of the English nation, pacific though intrepid, and impatient of the strict control of martial law, gave small encouragement, had led to the usage of pressing soldiers for service, whether in Ireland or on foreign expeditions. This prerogative seeming dangerous and oppressive, as well as of dubious legality, it is 1 Myde distinguished himself as chair-however, softened a little what he did man of the committee which brought in say in one or two places; as where he the bill for abolishing the court of York. uses the word tyranny in speakng of In his speech on, presenting this to the lord Mountnorris’s case. lords he alludes to the tyranny of Straf a(. 16. ford, not rudely, but in a style hardly 3 (. 19, 20.

consistent with that of his History. 16 Car. L o. 16. Parl. Hist. 766. The editors of this,

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102 IMPRESSMENT. CHAP. IX. recited in the preamble of an act empowering the king to levy troops by this compulsory method for the special exigency of the Irish rebellion, that, “by the laws of this realm, none of his majesty’s subjects ought to be impressed or compelled to go out of his country to serve as a soldier in the wars, except in case of necessity of the sudden coming in of strange enemies into the kingdom, or except they be otherwise bound by the tenure of their lands or possessions:” The king, in a speech from the throne, adverted to this bill while passing through the houses, as an invasion of his prerogative. This notice of a parliamentary proceeding the commons resented as a breach of their privilege; and having obtained the consent of the lords to a joint remonstrance, the king, who was in no state to maintain his objection, gave his assent to the bill. In the reigns of Elizabeth and James we have seen frequent instances of the crown’s interference as to matters debated in parliament. But from the time of the long parliament the law of privilege, in this respect, has stood on an unshaken basis.2 These are the principal statutes which we owe to this parliament. They give occasion to two remarks of no slight importance. In the first place, it will appear, on comparing them with our ancient laws and history, that they made scarce any material change in our constitution such as it had been established and recognized under the house of Plantagenet: the law for triennial parliaments even receded from those unrepealed provisions of the reign of Edward III., that they should be assembled annually. The court of starchamber, if it could be said to have a legal jurisdiction at all which, by that name it had not, traced it only to the Tudor period; its recent excesses were diametrically opposed to the existing laws and the protestations of ancient parliaments. The court of ecclesiastical commission was an offset of the royal supremacy, established at the Reformation. The impositions on merchandise were both plainly illegal, and of no long usage. That of shipmoney was flagrantly, and by universal confession, a strain of arbitrary power without pretext of right. Thus, in by far the greater 1 O. 28. commons, does not censure their explicit 2

Journals, 16th Dec. Parl. Hist. 968. assertion of this privilege. He lays the Nalson, 750. It is remarkable that Clar-blame of the king’s interference on St. endon, who is sufficiently jealous of all John’s advice; which is very improbathat he thought encroachment in the ble.

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CHA. I. -1640-42. TRIENNIAL PARLIAMENTS. 103 part of the enactments of 1641, the monarchy lost nothing that it had anciently possessed; and the balance of our constitution might seem rather to have been restored to its former equipoise than to have undergone any fresh change. But those common liberties of England which our forefathers had, with such commendable perseverance, extorted from the grasp of power, though by no means so merely theoretical and nugatory in effect as some would insinuate, were yet very precarious in the best periods, neither well defined, nor exempt from anomalous exceptions, or from occasional infringements. Some of them, such as the statute for annual sessions of parliament, had gone into disuse. Those that were most evident could not be enforced; and the new tribunals that, whether by law or usurpation, had reared their heads over the people, had made almost all public and personal rights dependent on their arbitrary will. It was necessary, therefore, to infuse new blood into the languid frame, and so to renovate our ancient constitution that the present era should seem almost a new birth of liberty. Such was the aim, especially, of those provisions which placed the return of parliaments at fixed intervals, beyond the power of the crown to elude. It was hoped that by their means, so long as a sense of public spirit should exist in the nation (and beyond that time it is vain to think of liberty), no prince, however able and ambitious, could be free from restraint for more than three years; an interval too short for the completion of arbitrary projects, and which few ministers would venture to employ in such a manner as might expose them to the wrath of parliament. It is to be observed, in the second place, that by these salutary restrictions, and some new retrenchments of pernicious or abused prerogative, the long parliament formed our constitution such nearly as it now exists. Laws of great importance were doubtless enacted in subsequent times, particularly at the Revolution; but none of them, perhaps, were strictly necessary for the preservation of our civil and political privileges; and it is rather from 1641 than any other epoch, that we may date their full legal establishment. That single statute which abolished the starchamber gave every man a security which no other enactments could have afforded, and which no government could essentially impair.

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104 CHARACTER OF LONG PARLIAMENT. CHAP. IX. Though the reigns of the two latter Stuarts, accordingly, are justly obnoxious, and were marked by several illegal measures, yet, whether we consider the number and magnitude of their transgressions of law, or the practical oppression of their government, these princes fell very short of the despotism that had been exercised, either under the Tudors or the two first of their own family. From this survey of the good works of the long parliament we must turn our eyes with equal indifference to the opposite picture-of its errors and offences; faults which, though the mischiefs they produced were chiefly temporary, have yet served to obliterate from the recollection of too many the permanent blessings we have inherited through its exertions.

In reflecting on the events which so soon clouded a scene of glory, we ought to learn the dangers that attend all revolutionary crises, however justifiable or necessary; and that, even when posterity may have cause to rejoice in the ultimate result, the existing generation are seldom compensated for their present loss of tranquillity. The very enemies of this parliament confess that they met in November 1640 with almost unmingled zeal for the public good, and with loyal attachment to the crown. They were the chosen representatives of the commons of England, in an age more eminent for steady and scrupulous conscientiousness in private life than any, perhaps, that had gone before or has followed; not the demagogues or adventurers of transient popularity, but men well-born and wealthy, than whom there could perhaps never be assembled five hundred more adequate to redress the grievances, or to fix the laws, of a great nation. But they were misled by the excess of two passions, both just and natural in the circumstances wherein they found themselves, resentmenit and distrust; passions eminently contagious, and irresistible when they seize on the zeal and credulity of a popular assembly. The one betrayed them into a measure certainly severe and sanguinary, and in the eyes of posterity exposed to greater reproach than it deserved, the attaincer of lord Strafford, and some other proceedings of too much violence; the other gave a color to all their resolutions, and aggravated their differences with the king till there iemained no other arbitrator but the sword.

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CHA. I. - 1640-42. IMPEACHM-ENi T OF STRAFFORD. 105 Those who know the’

conduct ands character of the earl of Strafford, his abuse of power in the North, h-i Impeachfar more outrageous trangressions. in Ireland, his ment of dangerous influence over the king’s counsels, can-trafford. not hesitate to admit, if indeed they profess any regard to the constitution of this kingdom, that to bring so great a delinquent to justice according to the known process of law was among the primary duties of the new parliament. It was that which all, with scarce an exception but among his own creatures (for most of the court were openly or in secret his enemies 1), ardently desired; yet which the king’s favor and his own commanding genius must have rendered a doubtful enterprise. He came to London, not unconscious of the danger, by his master’s direct injunctions. The first days of the session were critical; and any vacillation or delay in the commons might probably have given time for’ some strong exertion of power to frustrate their designs. We must therefore consider the bold suggestion of Pym, to carry up to the lords an impeachment for high treason against Strafford, not only as a master-stroke of that policy which is fittest for revolutions, but as justifiable by the’ circumstances wherein they stood.

Nothing short of a commitment to the Tower would have broken the spell that so many years of arbitrary dominion had been working. It was dissipated in the instant that the people saw him in the hands of the usher of the, black rod: and with his power fell also that of his master; so that Charles, from the very hour of Strafford’s impeachment, never once ventured to resume the high tone of command congenial to his disposition, or to speak to the commons but as one complaining of a superior force.2 I “A greater and more universal questioning some of the great ones, they hatred,”’ says Northumberland in a let-intend to endeavor the displacing of Jerter to Leicester, Nov. 13, 1640 (Sidney myn, Newcastle, and Walter Montague.” Papers, ii. 668),,” was never contracted 2 Clarendon, i. 305.

No one opposed by any person than he has drawn upon the resolution to impeach the lord-lieuhimself. He is not at all dejected, but tenant, save that Falkland suggested the believes confidently to clear himself in appointment of a committee, as more the opinion of all equal alid indifferent-suitable to the gravity of their proceednoinded hearers, when he shall come to ings. But Pymn frankly answered that make his defence.

The king is in such this would ruin all; since Strafford would a strait that I do not know how be will doubtless obtain a dissolution of the parpossibiy avoid, without endangering the liament, unless they could shut hit otit oss of the whole kingdom, the giving from access to the king. way to the remove of divers persons, as The letters of Robert raillie, Principal well as other things that will be demanded of the’ tjniverstty of Glasgow (two vols., by the parliament. After theyh ave doei’ Edinburgh, 1776) abound with curious

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106 DISCUSSION OF THE JUSTICE CHAP. IX. The articles of Strafford’s impeachment relate principally Discussion to his conduct in Ireland. For though he had of its jus-begun to act with violence in the court of York, as tice. lord-president of the North, and was charged with having procured a commission investing him with exorbitant power, yet he had too soon left that sphere of dominion for the lieutenancy of Ireland to give any wide scope for prosecution. But in Ireland it was sufficiently proved that he had arrogated an authority beyond what the crown had ever lawfully enjoyed, and even beyond the example of former viceroys of that island, where the disordered state of society, the frequency of rebellions, and the distance from all control, had given rise to such a series of arbitrary precedents as would have almost excused any ordinary stretch of power.1 Notinformation as to this period, and for his knees, he is delivered to the keeper of several subsequent years. Baillie was the black rod, to be prisoner till he was one of the Scots commissioners deputed cleared of these crimes the house of comto London at the end of 1640, and took mons had charged him with. He offered an active share in promoting the destruc-to speak. but was commanded to be gone tion of episcopacy.

His correspondence without a word. In the outer room, breathes all the narrow and exclusive James Maxwell required him, as prisoner, bigotry of the presbyterian school. The to deliver his sword. When he had got following passage is so interesting, that, it, he cries with a loud voice for his man notwithstanding its length, it may find a to carry my lord-lieutenant’s sword. This place here: - done, he makes through a number of ”’ The lieutenant of Ireland came but people towards his coach; all gazing, no on Monday to town late, on Tuesday man capping to him, before whom, that rested, on Wednesday came to parliament, morning, the greatest of England would but ere night he was caged. Intolerable have stood uncovered, all crying,’ What pride and oppression cries to heaven for is the matter?’ He said,’ A small mata vengeance. The lower house closed ter, I warrant you.’ They replied,‘Yes, their doors; the speaker kept the keys indeed, high-treason is a small matter.’ till his accusation was concluded. There-Coming to the place where he expected after Mr. Pym went up, with a number his coach, it was not there; so he behoved at his back, to the higher house; and, in to return that same way, through a world a pretty short speech, did, in the name of of gazing people. When at last he had the lower house, and in the name of the found his coach, and was entering, James commons of all England, accuse Thomas Maxwell told him,‘Your lordship is my earl of Strafford, lord-lieutenant of Ire-prisoner, and must go in my coach;’ and land, of high treason; and required his so he behoved to do.” P. 217. person to be arrested till probation might 1 The trial of Strafford is best to be be heard; so Mr.

Pym and his back were read in Rushworth or Nalson. The acremoved. The lords began to consult count in the new edition of the State on that strange and unexpected motion. Trials, I know not whence taken, is The word goes in haste to the lord-lieu- curious, as coming from an eye-witness, tenant, where he was with the king; with though very partial to the prisoner; but speed he comes to the house; he calls it can hardly be so accurate as the others. rudely at the door; James Maxwell, His famous peroration was printed at the keeper of the black rod, opens: his lord-time in a loose sheet. It is in the Somers ship, with a proud glooming countenance, Tracts. Many of the charges, seem to makes towards his place at the board have been sufficiently proved, and would head: but at once many bid him void undoubtedly justify a severe sentence on the house; so he is forced, in confusion, an impeachment for misdemeanors. It to go to the door till he was called. After was not pretended by the managers that consultation, being called in, he stands, more than two or three of them amountbut is commanded to kneel, and on his ed to treason; but it is the unquestionkneas to hear the sentence. Being on able right of the commons to blend of

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CHA. I.-1640-42. OF STRAFFORD’S IMPEACHMENT. 107 withstanding this, however, when the managers came to state and substantiate their articles of accusation, though some were satisfied that there was enough to warrant the severest judgment, yet it appeared to many dispassionate men that, even supposing the evidence as to all of them to be legally convincing, they could not, except through a dangerous latitude of construction, be aggravated into treason. The law of England is silent as to conspiracies against itself. St. John and Maynard struggled in vain to prove that a scheme to overturn the fundamental laws and to govern by a standing army, though as infamous as any treason, could be brought within the words of the statute of.Edward III., as a compassing of the king’s death. Nor, in fact, was there any conclusive evidence against Strafford of such a design. The famous words imputed to him by sir Henry Vane, though there can be little reason to question that some such were spoken, seem too imperfectly reported,1 as well as uttered too much in the heat of passion, to furnish a substantive accusation; and I should rather found my conviction of Strafford’s systematic hostility to our fundamental laws on his correspondence since brought to light, as well as on his general conduct in administration, than on any overt acts proved on his impeachment. The presumption of history, to whose mirror the scattered rays of moral evidence converge, may be irresistible, when the legal inference from insulated actions is not only technically, but fences of a different degree in an im-to find that their obedience to the king peachment. could be turned into treason against It has been usually said that the corn-him. mons had recourse to the bill of attainder 1 They were confirmed, in a considerbecause they found it impossible to sup-able degree, by the evidence of Northumport the impeachment for treason. But berland and Bristol, and even of Usher St. John positively denies that it was and Juxon. Rushw. Abr. iv. 455, 559, intended to avoid the judicial mode of 586; Baillie, 284. But are they not al’o proceeding. Nalson, ii.

162. And, what exactly according to the principles always is stronger, the lords themselves voted avowed and acted upon by that minister, upon the articles judicially, and not as and by the whole phalanx of courtiers, if they were enacting a legislative meas-that a king of England does very well to ure. As to the famous proviso in the ask his people’s consent in the first inbill of attainder, that the judges should stance, but, if that is frowardly refused, determine nothing to be treason by he has a paramount right to maintain virtue of this bill which they would not his government by any means? have determined to be treason otherwise It may be remarked that Clarendon (on which Hume and many others have says ” the law was clear that less than relied to show the consciousness of par-two witnesses ought not to be received liament that the measure was not warin a case of treason.” Yet I doubt ranted by the existing law), it seems to whether any one had been allowed the have been introduced in order to quiet benefit of that law; and the contrary the apprehensions of some among the had been asserted repeatedly by the peers, who had gone great lengths with judges. the late government, and were astonished

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,08, DISCUSSION OF THE JUSTICE CHAP. IX. substantially, inconclusive. Yet we are not to suppose that the charges against this minister appeared so evidently to fall short of high treason, according to the apprehension of that age, as in later times has usually been taken for granted, Accustomed to the unjust verdicts obtained in cases of trea. son by the court, the statute of Edward having been perpetually stretched by constructive interpretations, neither the people nor the lawyers annexed a definite sense to that crime. The judges themselves, on a solemn reference by the house of lords for their opinionr whether some of the articles charged against Strafford amounted to treason, answered unanimously, that, upon all which their lordships had voted to be proved, it was their opinion the earl of Strafford did deserve to undergo the pains and penalties of high treason by law.1 And, as an apology, at least, for this judicial opinion, it may be remarked that the fifteenth article of the impeachment, charging him with raising money by his own authority, and quartering troops on the people of Ireland, in order to compel their obedience to his unlawful requisitions (upon which, and one other article, not on the whole matter, the peers voted him guilty), does, in fact, approach very nearly, if we may not say more, to a substantive treason within the statute of Edward IIL, as a levying war against the king, even without reference to some Irish acts of parliament upon which the managers of the impeachment relied. It cannot be extravagant to assert that, if the colonel of a regiment were to issue an order commanding the inhabitants of the district where it is quartered to contribute certain sums of money, and were to compel the payment by quartering troops on the houses of those who refused, in a general and systematic manner, he would, according to a warrantable eonstruetion of the statutes, be guilty of the treason called levying war on the king; and that, if we could imagine him to do this by an order from the privy council or the war-office, the case would not be at all altered. On the other hand, a single act of such I Lords’ Journals, May 6i Parl. lsist. to the mouth of Williams. Parr’s Life 767. This opinion of the judges, which of Usher, p. 46; Hacket’s Life of Wills not mentioned by Clarendon, Hume, lians, p. 160. Juxon is said to have and other common historians, seems to stood alone, among five bishops, in ad have cost Strafford his life. It was relied vising the king to follow his conscienee., on by some bishops, especially Usher, Clarendon, indeed, does not mention this, whom Charles consulted whether he though he glances at Usher with some reshould pass the bill of attainder, though proach, p.

461; but the story is as old as Clarendon puts much worse casuistry inthe Icon Basilike,i whicht it is alluded to.

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CHA. I. -1640-4. OF STRAFFORD’S IMPEACHMENT. 109 violenee might be (in tedlhical language) trespass, miisde. meanor,.or felony, according to circumstances; but would want the generality whieh, as the statute has been construed, determines its character to be treason. It is however manifest that Strafford’s actual enforcement of his order, by quartering soldiers, was not by any means proved to be so frequently done as to bring it within the line of treason; and the evidence is also open to every sort of legal objection. But in that age the rules of evidence, so scrupulously defined since, were either very imperfectly recognized, or con tinually transgressed. If then Strafford could be brought within the letter of the law, and if he were also deserving of death for his misdeeds towards the commonwealth, it might be thought enough to justify his condemnation, although he,had not offended against what seemed to be the spirit.and intention of the statute. This should, at least, restrain us from -passing;an unqualified censure on those who voted against him, comprehending undoubtedly the far more respectable portion of the.commons, though only twenty-six peers against nineteen formed the feeble majority,on the bill of attainder,1 It may be observed that the house;of commons acted in one 1 The names of the fifty-nine members have. come into this. But the sudden and of the commons who voted against the illtimed death of that eminent peer put bill of attainder, and which were placarded an end to the negotiation for bringing the,as Straffordians, may be found in the parliamentary leaders into office, wherein’Parliamentary HIistoryand several other it was a main object with the king to books. It is remarkable that few of them:save the life of Strafford-entirely, as I are distinguished persons, none so much am inclined to believe, from motives of zso as Selden, whose whole parliamentary conscience and honor, without any views career, notwithstanding. the, timidity not.of ever again restoring him to power. very fairly imputed to him, was eminently Charles had no personal attachment to honorable and independent. But we.Strafford; and the queen’s dislike of him look in vain for Hyde, Falkland, Cole-

(according to Clarendon and Burnet, pepper, or Palmer. The first, probably, though it must be owned that Madame did not vote; the others may have been de Motteville does not confirm this), or in the majority of 204
by whom the bill at least his general unpopularity at court, was passed; indeed, I have seen a MS. would have determined the king to lay account of the debate, where Falkland him aside. and Colepepper appear to have both It is said by Burnet that the queen spoken’ for it. As to the lords, we have, prevailed on Charles to put that strange so far as I,know, no list of the nineteen postscript to his letter to the lords, in bewho acquitted Strafford. It does not cornm-half of Strafford, ” If he must die, it were prehend Hertford Bristol, or Holland, charity to reprieve him till Saturday;’ who were absent (Nalson, 316), nor any by which he manifestly surrendered him of the popishlords, whether through fear up, and gave cause to suspect his own or any private influence. Lord Clare, his sincerity. Doubts have been thrown out brother-in-law, and lord Saville, a man of by Carte as to the genuineness of Straf-.he most changeable character, were his fords celebrated letter requesting the prominent advocates duripg the trial; king to pass the bill of attainder. They though Bristol, Hertford, and even:Say do not appear to be founded on much desired Ato have 1had his lfe spared evidenee; but it is certain, by the manner (Baillie, 248, 247, 271, 292); and the earl in which he received the news, that he did of Bedford, according to Clarendon, would not expect tobe sacrificed by his master.

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110 DISCUSSION OF THE JUSTICE CHAP. IX respect with a generosity which the crown had never shown in any case of treason, by immediately passing a bill to relieve his children from the penalties of forfeiture and corruption of blood. It is undoubtedly a very important problem in political ethics, whether great offences against the commonwealth may not justly incur the penalty of death by a retrospective act of the legislature, which a tribunal restrained by known laws is not competent to inflict. Bills of attainder had been by no means uncommon in England, especially under Henry VIII.; but generally when the crime charged might have been equally punished by law. They are less dangerous than to stretch the boundaries of a statute by arbitrary construction. Nor do they seem to differ at all in principle from those bills of pains and penalties which, in times of comparative moderation and tranquillity, have sometimes been thought necessary to visit some unforeseen and anomalous transgression beyond the reach of our penal code. There are many, indeed, whose system absolutely rejects all such retrospective punishment, either from the danger of giving too much scope to vindictive passion, or on some more abstract principle of justice. Those who may incline to admit that the moral competence of the sovereign power to secure itself by the punishment of a heinous offender, even without the previous warning of law, is not to be denied, except by reasoning which would shake the foundation of its right to inflict punishment in ordinary cases, will still be sensible of the mischief which any departure from stable rules, under the influence of the most public-spirited zeal, is likely to produce. The attainder of Strafford could not be justifiable, unless it were necessary; nor necessary, if a lighter penalty would have been sufficient for the public security. This therefore becomes a preliminary question, upon which lhe whole mainly turns. It is one which does not seem to admit of a demonstrative answer; but with which we can perhaps deal better than they who lived at that time. Their distrust of the king, their apprehension that nothing less than the delinquent minister’s death could insure them from his return to power, rendered the leaders of parliament obstinate against any proposition of a mitigated penalty. Nor can it be denied that there are several instances in history where the favorites of monarchs, after a transient exile or impris

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CHA. I.-1640-42. OF STRAFFORD’S IMPEACHMENT. 111 onment, have returned, on some fresh wave of fortune, to mock or avenge themselves upon their adversaries. Yet the prosperous condition of the popular party, which nothing but intemperate passion was likely to impair, rendered this contingency by no means probable; and it is against probable dangers that nations should take precautions, without aiming at more complete security than the baffling uncertainties of events will permit. Such was Strafford’s unpopularity, that he could never have gained any sympathy, but by the harshness of his condemnation and the magnanimity it enabled him to display. These have half redeemed his forfeit fame, and misled a generous posterity. It was agreed on all hands that any punishment which the law could award to the highest misdemeanors, duly proved on impeachment, must be justly inflicted. ” I am still the same,” said lord Digby, in his famous speech against the bill of attainder, ” in my opinions and affections, as unto the earl of Strafford; I confidently believe him to be the most dangerous minister, the most insupportable to free subjects, that can be charactered. I believe him to be still that grand apostate to the commonwealth, who must not expect to be pardoned in this world till he be despatched to the other. And yet let me tell you, Mr. Speaker, my hand must not be to that despatch.“1 These sentiments, whatever we may think of the sincerity of him who uttered them, were common to many of those who desired most ardently to see that uniform course of known law which neither the court’s lust of power nor the clamorous indignation of a popular assembly might turn aside. The king, whose conscience was so deeply wounded by his acquiescence in this minister’s death, would gladly have assented to a bill inflipting the penalty of perpetual banishment; and this, accompanied, as it ought to have been, by degradation from the rank for which he had sold his integrity, would surely have exhibited to Europe an example sufficiently conspicuous of just retribution. Though nothing perhaps could have restored a tolerable degree of confidence between Charles and the parliament, it is certain that his resentment and aversion were much aggravated by the painful compulsion they had put on him, and that the schism among the constitutional party began from this, among other causes, to grow more sensi. ble, till it terminated in civil war.2 1 Parliamentary History, ii. 750. 2 See some judicious remarks on this

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112 APPREHENSIONS OF THE COMMONS. CHAr. IX. But, if we pay such regard to the principles of clemency and moderation, and of adherence to the fixed rules of law, as to pass some censure on this deviation from them in the attainder of lord Strafford, we must not yield to the clamorous invectives of his admirers, or treat the prosecution as a scandalous and flagitious excess of party vengeance. Look round the nations of the globe, and say in what age or country would such a man have fallen into the hands of his enemies without paying the forfeit of his offences against the commonwealth with his life. They who grasp at arbitrary power, they who make their fellow-citizens tremble before them, they who gratify a selfish pride by the humiliation and servitude of mankind, have always played a deep stake; and the more invidious and intolerable has been their preeminence, their fall has been more destructive and their punishment more exemplary. Something beyond the retirement or the dismissal of such ministers has seemed necessary to ” absolve the gods,” and furnish history with an awful lesson of retribution. The spontaneous instinct of nature has called for the axe and the gibbet against such capital delinquents.

If, then, we blame in some measure the sentence against Strafford, it is not for his sake, but for that of the laws on which he trampled, and of the liberty which he betrayed. He died justly before God and man, though we may deem the precedent dangerous, and the better course of a magnanimous lenity unwisely rejected; and in condemning the bill of attainder we cannot look upon it as a crime. The same distrustful temper, blamable in nothing but its Act against excess, drew the house of commons into a measdissolutionof ure more unconstitutional than the attainder of parliament without its Strafford, the bill enacting that they should not consent. be dissolved without their own consent. Whether by May, p. 64, who generally shows a found, because they are beasts of prey.” good deal of impartiality at this period Nor was this a mere burst of passionate of history. The violence of individuals, declamation, but urged as a serious arguespecially when of considerable note, de-ment for taking away Strafford’s life serves to be remarked as characteristic of without sufficient grounds of law or testhe temper that influenced the house, and timony. Rushworth, Abr. iv. 61. Claras accounting for the disgust of moderate endon, i. 407. Strode told the house that, men. ”’ Why should he have law him-as they had charged Strafford with high self? ” said St.

John, in arguing the bill treason, it concerned them to charge as of attainder before the peers,’ who would conspirators in the same treason all who not that others should have any? We had before, or should hereafter, plead in indeed give laws to hares and deer, be-that cause.

Baillie, 252. This monstrous cause they are beasts of chase; but we proposal seems to please the presbyterian give none to wolves and foxes, but knock bigot. ” If this hold,” he observes, them on the head wherever they are “Strafford’s counsel will be rare”

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CHA. I.-1640-42. APPREHENSIONS OF THE COMMONS. 113 or not this had been previously meditated by the leaders is uncertain; but the circumstances under which it was adopted display all the blind precipitancy of fear. A scheme for bringing up the army from the north of England to overawe parliament had been discoursed of, or rather in a great measure concerted, by some young courtiers and military men. The imperfection and indefiniteness of the evidence obtained respecting this plot increased, as often happens, the apprehensions of the commons. Yet, difficult as it might be to fix its proper character between a loose project and a deliberate conspiracy, this at least was hardly to be denied, that the king had listened to and approved a proposal of appealing from the representatives of his people to a military force.1 Their greatest danger was a sudden dissolution. The triennial bill afforded, indeed, a valuable security for the future. Yet, if the present parliament had been broken with any circumstances of violence, it might justly seem very hazardous to confide in the right of spontaneous election reserved to the people by that statute, which the crown would have three years to defeat. A rapid impulse, rather than any concerted 1 Clarendon and Hume of course treat subscription, and asserted by Clarendon this as a very trifling affair, exaggerated to have been the only step taken by those for factious purposes. But those whojudge engaged in the supposed conspiracy from the evidence of persons unwilling to (though not, as Mr. Brodie too rashly accuse themselves or the king, and from conjectures. a fabrication of his own), is the natural probabilities of the case, will most carelessly referred by him to that suspect, or rather be wholly convinced, period, or to the agency of Wilmot and that it had gone much farther than these his coadjutors - having been, in fact, prewriters admit. See the accounts of this pared about the July following, at the plot in Rushworth and Nalson, or in the instigation of Daniel O’Neale and some Parliamentary History, also what is said others of the royalist party. This is by Montreuil in Raumer, p. 324. The manifest, not only from the allusions it strongest evidence, however, is furnished contains to events that had not occurred by Henrietta, whose relation of the cir-in the months of March and April, when cumstances to Madame de Motteville the plot of Wilmot and Goring was on proves that the king and herself had the foot, especially the bill for triennial parstrongest hopes from the influence of liaments, but from evidence given before Goring and Wilmot over the army, by the house of commons in October, 1641, means of which they aimed at saving and which Mr. Brodie has published in Strafford’s life; though the jealousy of the appendix to his third volume, though, those ambitious intriguers, who could with an inadvertence of which he is selnot both enjoy the place to which each dom guilty, overlooking its date and pur. aspired, broke the whole plot. Mem. de port. This, however, is of itself sufficient Motteville, i. 253. Compare with this to display the inaccurate character of passage Percy’s letter and Goring’s depo-Clarendon’s History; for I can scarcely sition (Nalson, ii. 286, 294), for what is ascribe the present incorrectness to desaid of the king’s privity by men who sign.

There are, indeed, so many misdid not lose his favor by their evidence, takes as to dates and other matters in Mr. Brodie has commented in a long note Clarendon’s account of this plot, that, (iii. 189) on Clarendon’s apparent mis-setting aside his manifest disposition to representations of this business. But suppress the truth, we can place not the what has escaped the acuteness of this least reliance on his memory as to those writer is, that the petition to the king points which we may not be well able to and parliament, drawn up for the army’s bring to a test. VOL. II.

8

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114 INNOVATIONS LN THE CHURCH. CHAP. IX. resolution, appears to have dictated this hardy encroachment on the prerogative. The bill against the dissolution of the present parliament without its own consent was resolved in a committee on the fifth of May, brought in the next day, and sent to the lords on the seventh. The upper house, in a conference the same day, urged a very wise and constitutional amendment, limiting its duration to the term of two years. But the commons adhering to their original provisions, the bill was passed by both houses on the eighth.1 Thus, in the space of three days from the first suggestion, an alteration was made in the frame of our polity which rendered the house of commons equally independent of the sovereign and their constituents; and, if it could be supposed capable of being maintained in more tranquil times, would, in the theory at least of speculative politics, have gradually converted the government into something like a Dutch aristocracy. The ostensible pretext was, that money could not be borrowed on the authority of resolutions of parliament until some security was furnished to the creditors that those whom they were to trust should have a permanent existence. This argument would have gone a great way, and was capable of an answer; since the money might have been borrowed on the authority of the whole legislature. But the chief motive, unquestionably, was a just apprehension of the king’s intention to overthrow the parliament, and of personal danger to those who had stood most forward from his resentment after a dissolution. His ready acquiescence in this bill, far more dangerous than any of those at which he demurred, can only be ascribed to his own shame and the queen’s consternation at the discovery of the late plot: and thus we trace again the calamities of Charles to their two great sources; his want of judgment in affairs, and of good faith towards his people. The parliament had met with as ardent and just an indigInnovations nation against ecclesiastical as temporal grievances. meditatedin The tyranny, the folly, and rashness of Charles’s the church bishops were still greater than his own. It was 1

Journals; Parliamentary Hist. 784; the conference with the lords. But in May, 67; Clarendon. According to Mrs. sir Ralph Verney’s manuscript notes I Hutchinson, p. 97, this bill originated find Mr. Whitelock mentioned as being with Mr. Pierpoint. If we should draw ordered by the house to prepare the bill; any inference from the Journals, sir John which seems to imply that he had moved Colepepper seems to have been the most it, or at least been very forward in it. prominent of its supporters. Mr. Hyde Yet all these were moderate men. and lord Falkland were also managers of

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CHA. I.-1640-42. MODERATE EPISCOPACY. 115 evidently an indispensable duty to reduce the overbearing ascendency of that order which had rendered the nation, in regard to spiritual dominion, a great loser by the Reformation.

They had been so blindly infatuated as, even in the year 1640, amidst all the perils of the times, to fill up the measure of public wrath by enacting a series of canons in convocation. These enjoined, or at least recommended, some of the modern innovations, which, though many excellent men had been persecuted for want of compliance with them, had not got the sanction of authority. They imposed an oath on the clergy, commonly called the ” et caetera oath,” binding them to attempt no alteration ” in the government of the church by bishops, deans, archdeacons, &c.” This oath was by the same authority enjoined to such of the laity as held ecclesiastical offices.1 The king, however, on the petition of the council of peers at York, directed it not to be taken. The house of commons rescinded these canons, with some degree of excess on the other side; not only denying the right of convocation to bind the clergy, which had certainly been exercised in all periods, but actually impeaching the bishops for a high misdemeanor on that account.2 The lords, in the month of March, appointed a committee of ten earls, ten bishops, and ten barons, to report upon the innovations lately brought into the church. Of this committee Williams was chairman. But the spirit which now possessed the commons was not to be exorcised by the sacrifice of Laud and Wren, or even by such inconsiderable alterations as the moderate bishops were ready to suggest.8 There had always existed a party, though by no means coextensive with that bearing the general name of puritan, who retained an insuperable aversion to the whole scheme of episcopal discipline, as inconsistent with the ecclesiastical parity they believed to be enjoined by the apostles. It is not easy to determine what proportion these bore to the community. They were certainly at the opening of the parliament by far the less numerous, though an active and increasing party. Few of the house of commons, according to 1 Neal, p. 632, has printed these can-canons, however, were carried, nem. con. ons imperfectly. They may be found at Journals, 16th Dec. 1640. length in Nalson, i. 542. 3 Neal, 709. Laud and Wren were 2

Clarendon; Parl. Hist. 678, 896; both impeaclied Dec. 18; the latter enNeal, 647, 720. These votes as to the tirely for introducing superstitions. Part. Hist. 861. He lay in the Tower till 1659.

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116 ANTI-EPISCOPACY. CHAP. IX. Clarendon and the best contemporary writers, looked to a destruction of the existing hierarchy.1 The more plausible scheme was one which had the sanction of Usher’s learned judgment, and which Williams was said to favor, for what was called a moderate episcopacy; wherein the bishop, reduced to a sort of president of his college of presbyters, and differing from them only in rank, not in order (gradu, non ordine), should act, whether in ordination or jurisdiction, by their concurrence.2 This intermediate form of churchgov.

ernment would probably have contented the popular leaders of the commons, except two or three, and have proved acceptable to the nation. But it was hardly less offensive to the Scottish presbyterians, intolerant of the smallest deviation from their own model, than to the high-church episcopalians; and the necessity of humoring that proud and prejudiced race of people, who began already to show that an alteration in the church of England would be their stipulated condition for any assistance they might afford to the popular party, led the majority of the house of commons to give more countenance than they sincerely intended to a bill preferred by what was then called the root-and-branch party, for the entire abolition of episcopacy This party, composed chiefly of presbyterians, but with:o small admixture of other sectaries, predominated in the city of London. At the instigation of the Scots commissioners, a petition against episcopal government, with 15,000 signatures, was presented early in the session (Dec. 11, 1640), and received so favorably as to startle those who bore a good affection to the church.8 This gave rise to the first difference that was 1 Neal says that the major part of the 8 Parl. Hist. 678; Clarendon, i. 356, parliamentarians at the beginning of the Baillie’s Letters, 218, &c. Though sanwar were for moderated episcopacy (ii. 4), guine as to the progress of his sect, he and asserts the same in another place admits that it was very difficult to pluck (i. 715) of the puritans, in contradiction of up episcopacy by the roots; for this reason Rapin. “How this will go,” says Baillie, they did not wish the house to give a in April, 1641, ” the Lord knows; all are speedy answer to the city petition: p. 241. for the creating of a kind of presbytery, It was carried by 36 or 37 voices, he says, and for bringing down the bishops, in all to refer it to the committee of religion: things spiritual and temporal, so low as p. 246. No division appears on the Jour.

can be with any subsistence; but their nals. utter abolition, which is the only aim of The whole influence of the Scots comthe most godly, is the knot of the ques-missioners was directed to this object; as tion.” i.

245. not only Baillie’s Letters, but those of 2 Neal, 666, 672, 718; Collier, 805; Johnstone of Wariston (Dalrymple’s MeBaxter’s Life, p. 62.

The ministers’ peti-morials of James and Charles I., ii. 114, tion, as it was called, presented Jan. 28, &c.), show. Besides their extreme bigo1641, with the signatures of 700 beneficed try, which was the predominant motive, clergymen, went to this extent of refor-they had a better apology for interfering mation. Neal, 679 with churchgovernment in England, with

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CHA. I.- 1640-42. ANTI-EPISCOPAL PARTY. 117 expressed in parliament: Digby speaking warmly against 1he reference of this petition to a committee, and Falkland, though strenuous for reducing the prelates’ authority, showing auch reluctance to abolish their order.1 A bill was, how-;ver, brought in by sir Edward Dering, an honest but not rery enlightened or consistent man, for the utter extirpation Df episcopacy, and its second reading carried on a division by 139 to 108.2 This, no doubt, seems to show the anti-episcopal party to have been stronger than Clarendon admits. Yet I suspect that the greater part of those who voted for it did not intend more than to intimidate the bishops. Petitions, very numerously signed, for the maintenance of episcopal government, were presented from several counties;8 nor is it, I think, possible to doubt that the nation sought only the abridgment of that coercive jurisdiction and temporal power by which the bishops had forfeited the reverence due to their function, as well as that absolute authority over presbyters, which could not be reconciled to the customs of the primitive church.4 This was the object both of the act abolishing the high commission, which by the largeness of its which the archbishop. had furnished ment of the church we are most thankful them; it was the only sure means of to God, believing it in our hearts to be preserving their own. the most pious and the wisest that any 1 Rushworth; Nalson. people or kingdom upon earth hath been 2 Parl. Hist.

814, 822, 828. Clarendon withal since the apostles’ days; though tells us that, being chairman of the com-we may not deny but, through the frailty mittee to whom this bill was referred, of men and corruption of times, some he gave it so much interruption, that no things of ill consequence, and other needprogress could be made before the ad-less, are stolen or thrust into it; which journment. The house came, however, we heartily wish may be reformed, and to a resolution that the taking away the the church restored to its former purity. offices of archbishops, bishops, chancel-And, to the end it may be the better lors, and commissaries out of this church preserved from present and future innoand kingdom should be one clause of the vation, we wish the wittingly and malibill. June 12.

Commons’ Journals. ciously guilty, of what condition soever 8 Lord Hertford presented one to the they be, whether bishops or inferior lords, from Somersetshire, signed by clergy, may receive condign punishment.

14,350 freeholders and inhabitants. Nal-But, for the miscarriage of governors, to son, ii. 727. The Cheshire petition, for destroy the government, we trust it shall preserving the Common Prayer, was never enter into the hearts of this wise signed by near 10,000 hands. Id. 758. I and honorable assembly.” have a collection of those petitions now 4 The house came to a vote on July before me, printed in 1642, from thirteen 17, according to Whitelock, p. 46, in English and five Welsh counties, and all favor of Usher’s scheme, that each very numerously signed. In almost every county should be a diocese, and that there instance, I observe, they thank the par-should be a governing college or presliament for putting a cheek to innovations bytery, consisting of twelve, under the and abuses, while they deprecate the abo-presidency of a bishop: sir E. Dering lition of episcopacy and the liturgy. Thus spoke in favor of this, though his own it seems that the presbyterians were very bill went much further. Nalson, ii.

294; far from having the nation on their side. Neal, 703. I cannot find the vote in the The following extract from the Somerset-Journals; it passed, therefore, I suppose shire petition is a good sample of the in the committee, and was not reported general tone: “For the present govern-to the house.

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118 BISHOPS EXCLUDED PARLIAMENT. CHAP. IX. expressions seemed to take away all coercive jurisdiction fiom the ecclesiastical courts, and of that for depriving the bishops of their suffrages among the peers; which, after being once rejected by a large majority of the lords, in June, 1641, passed into a law in the month of February following, and was the latest concession that the king made before his final appeal to arms.1 This was hardly, perhaps, a greater alteration of the established constitution than had resulted from the suppression of the monasteries under Henry; when, by the fall of the mitred abbots, the secular peers acquired a preponderance in number over the spiritual, which they had not previously enjoyed. It was supported by several persons, especially lord Falkland, by no means inclined to subvert the episcopal discipline; whether from a hope to compromise better with the opposite party by this concession, or from a sincere belief that the bishops might be kept better to the duties of their function by excluding them from civil power. Considered generally, it may be reckoned a doubtful question in the theory of our government whether the mixture of this ecclesiastical aristocracy with the house of lords is advantageous or otherwise to the public interests, or to those of religion. 1 Parl. Hist. 774, 794, 817, 910, 1087. as having been misled by Hampden to The lords had previously come to resolu-take an unexpected part in favor of the tions that bishops should sit in the house first bill for excluding the bishops from of lords, but not in the privy council, parliament. ” The house was so marnor be in any commission of the peace.

vellously delighted to see the two insepId. 814. arable friends divided in so important a The king was very unwilling to give point that they could not contain from a his consent to the bill excluding the kind of rejoicing; and the more because bishops from parliament, and was, of they saw Mr. Hyde was much surprised course, dissuaded by Hyde from doing with the contradiction, as in truth he so. He was then at Newmarket, on his was, having never discovered the least way to the north, and had nothing but inclination in the other towards such a war in his head. The queen, however, compliance: ” i. 413. There is, however, and sir John Colepepper, prevailed on an earlier speech of Falkland in print him to consent.

Clarendon, History, ii. against the London petition; wherein, 247 (1826); Life, 61. The queen could while objecting to the abolition of the not be expected to have much tenderness order, he intimates his willingness to for a protestant episcopacy; and it is to take away their votes in parliament, with be said in favor of Colepepper’s advice, all other temporal authority. Speeches who was pretty indifferent in ecclesias-of the Happy Parliament, p. 188 (pubtical matters that the bishops had ren-lished in 1641). Johnstone of Wariston dered themselves odious to many of those says there were but four or five votes who wished well to the royal cause. See against taking away civil places and seats the very remarkable conversation of Hyde in parliament from the bishops. Dalwith sir Edward Verney, who was killed rymple’s Memorials, ii. 116. But in the at the battle of Edgehill, where the latter Journals of the commons, 10th March, declares his reluctance to fight for the 1640-41, it is said to be resolved, after a bishops, whose quarrel he took it to be, long and mature debate, that the legisthough bound by gratitude not to desert lative power of bishops is a hinderance to the king. Clarendon’s Life, p. 68. their function. This author represents lord Falkland

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CHA. I. 1640-42. PURITAN DEVASTATIONS. 119 Their great revenues, and the precedence allotted them, seem naturally to place them on this level; and the general property of the clergy, less protected than that of other classes against the cupidity of an administration or a faction, may perhaps require this peculiar security. In fact, the disposition of the English to honor the ministers of the church, as well as to respect the ancient institutions of their country, has usually been so powerful, that the question would hardly have been esteemed dubious if the bishops themselves (I speak of course with such limitations as the nature of the case requires) had been at all times sufficiently studious to maintain a character of political independence, or even to conceal a spirit of servility, which the pernicious usage of continual translations from one see to another, borrowed, like many other parts of our ecclesiastical law, from the most corrupt period of the church of Rome, has had so manifest a tendency to engender.1 This spirit of ecclesiastical, rather than civil, democracy, was the first sign of the approaching storm that alarmed the Hertfords and Southamptons, the Hydes and Falklands. Attached to the venerable church of the English reformation, they were loath to see the rashness of some prelates avenged by her subversion, or a few recent innovations repressed by incomparably more essential changes. Full of regard for established law, and disliking the puritan bitterness, aggravated as it was by long persecution, they revolted from the indecent devastation committed in churches by the populace, and from the insults which now fell on the conforming ministers. The lords early distinguished their temper as to those points by an order on the 16th of January for the performance of divine service according to law, in consequence of the tumults that had been caused by the heated puritans under pretence of abolishing innovations. Little regard was shown to this order; 2 but it does not appear that the com  mons went further on the opposite side than to direct some ceremonial novelties to be discontinued, and to empower one of their members, sir Robert Harley, to take away all pic1 [1827.] 2 ” The higher house,” says Baillie, does not discourage any one.” P. 287. “4 have made an order, which was read in Some rioters, however, who had pulled the churches, that none presume of their down rails about the altar, &c., were own head to alter any customs estab-committed by crder of the lords in June lished by law: this procured ordinance Nalson, ii. 276.

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120 SCHISM IN CONSTITUTIONAL PARTY. CHAP. IX. tures, crosses, and superstitious figures within churches or without.1 But this order, like many of their other acts, was a manifest encroachment on the executive power of the crown.2 It seems to have been about the time of the summer recess, during the king’s absence in Scotland, that the apprehension of changes in church and state, far beyond what had been Schism in dreamed of at the opening of parliament, led to a the constitu-final schism in the constitutional party.8 Charles, tional party. by abandoning his former advisers, and yielding, with just as much reluctance as displayed the value of the concession, to a series of laws that abridged his prerogative, had recovered a good deal of the affection and confidence of some, and gained from others that sympethy which is seldom withheld from undeserving princes in their humiliation. Though the illtimed death of the earl of Bedford in May had partly disappointed an intended arrangement for bringing the popular leaders into office, yet the appointments of Essex, Holland, Say, and St. John from that party, were apparently pledges of the king’s willingness to select his advisers from their ranks; whatever cause there might be to suspect that their real influence over him would be too inconsiderable.4 Those who were still excluded, and who distrusted 1 Parl. Hist. 868. By the hands of ship of God and peace of the realm.” this zealous knight fell the beautiful See Nalson, ii. 484.

crosses at Charing and Cheap, to the S May, p. 76. See this passage, which lasting regret of all faithful lovers of is very judicious. The disunion, howantiquities and architecture. ever, had in some measure begun not 2

Parl. Hist. 907. Commons’ Jour-long after the meeting of parliament; nals, Sept. 1, 1641. It was carried at the court wanted, in December 1640, to the time, on a division, by 55 to 87, that have given the treasurer’s staff to Hertthe committee ” should propound an ad-ford, whose brother was created a peer dition to this order for preventing all by the title of Lord Seymour. Bedford contempt and abuse of the Bock of Comn-was the favorite with the commons for mon Prayer and all tumultuous disorders the same office, and would doubtless have that might arise in the church there-been a fitter man at the time, notwithupon.” This is a proof that the church standing the other’s eminent virtues. party were sometimes victorious in the Sidney Letters, ii. 665, 666. See also house. But they did not long retain what Baillie says of the introduction of this casual advantage. For, the lords seven lords, “all commonwealth’s men,” having sent down a copy of their order into the council, though, as generally of 16th January above, mentioned, re-happens, he is soon discontented with questing the commons’ concurrence, some of them. P. 246, 247. There was they resolved, Sept. 9, “that the house even some jealousy of Say, as favoring do not consent to this order; it being Strafford. thought unreasonable at this time to 4 Whitelock. p. 46. Bedford was to urge the severe execution of the said have been lord treasurer, with Pym, laws.”

They contented themselves with whom he had brought into parliament “expecting that the commons of this for Tavistock. as his chancellor of the realm do, in the mean time, quietly at-exchequer; Hollis secretary of state. tend the reformation intended, without Hampden is said. but not perhaps on any tumultuous disturbance of the wor-good authority, to have sought the office

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CHA. I. -1640-42. REMONSTRANCE OF NOVEMBER, 1641. 121 the king’s intentions as well towards themselves as the public cause, of whom Pym and Hampden, with the assistance of St. John, though actually solicitorgeneral, were the chief, found no better means of keeping alive the animosity that was beginning to subside, than by framing the Remonstrance on the state of the kingdom, presented to the king in November, 1641. This being a recapitulation of all the grievances and misgovernment that had existed since his accession, which his acquiescence in so many meas-strance cf ures of redress ought, according to the common November, courtesy due to sovereigns, to have cancelled, was hardly capable of answering any other purpose than that of reanimating discontents almost appeased, and guarding the people against the confidence they were beginning to place in the king’s sincerity. The promoters of it might also hope, from Charles’s proud and hasty temper, that he would reply in such a tone as would more exasperate the commons.

But he had begun to use the advice of judicious men, Falkland, Hyde, and Colepepper, and reined in his natural violence so as to give his enemies no advantage over him. The jealousy which nations ought never to lay aside was especially required towards Charles, whose love of arbitrary dominion was much better proved than his sincerity in relinquishing it. But if he were intended to reign at all, and to reign with any portion either of the prerogatives of an English king, or the respect claimed by every sovereign, the Remonstrance of the commons could but prolong an irritation incompatible with public tranquillity. It admits, indeed, of no question, that the schemes of Pym, Hampden, and St. John, already tended to restrain the king’s personal exercise of any effective power, from a sincere persuasion of governor to the prince of Wales; acted, as he thought. very ungratefully, which Hume, not very candidly, brings Say being a known enemy to episcopacy, as a proof of his ambition. It seems and Essex, though of the highest honor, probable that, if Charles had at that not being of a capacity to retain much time (May 1641) carried these plans into influence over the leaders of the other execution, and ceased to listen to the house. Clarendon insinuates that, even queen, or to those persons about his bed-as late as March, 1642, the principal chamber who were perpetually leading patriots, with a few exceptions, would him astray, he would have escaped the have been content with coming themexorbitant demands which were after-selves into power under the king, and on wards made upon him, and even saved this condition would have left his remainhis favorite episcopacy. But, after the ing prerogative untouched (ii. 826). But death of the earl of Bedford, who had it seems more probable that, after the not been hostile to the church, there was accusation of the five members, no no man of rank in that party whom he measure of this kind would have been liked to trust; Northumberland having of any service to Charles.

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122 tHE REMONSTRANCE CARRIED. CHAP. IX. that no confidence could ever be placed in him, though not to abolish the monarchy, or probably to abridge in the same degree the rights of his successor. Their Remonstance was put forward to stem the returning tide of loyalty, which not only threatened to obstruct the further progress of their endeavors, but, as they would allege, might, by gaining strength, wash away some at least of the bulwarks that had been so recently constructed for the preservation of liberty. It was carried in a full house by the small majority of 159 to 148.1 So much was it deemed a trial of strength, that Cromwell declared after the division that, had the question been lost, he would have sold his estate, and retired to America. It may be thought rather surprising that, with a house of commons so nearly balanced as they appear on this vote, the 1 Commons’ Journals, 22d November. grievances might be recited; which cor On a second division the same night, mittee had never brought any report to whether the Remonstrance should be the house; most men conceiving, and printed, the popular side lost it by 124 very reasonably, that the quick’ and efto 101. But on the 15th December the fectual progress his majesty made for the printing was carried by 135 to 83. Sev-reparation of those grievances, and preeral divisions on important subjects vention of the like for the future, had about this time show that the royalist rendered that work needless. But as minority was very formidable. But the soon as the intelligence came of his attendance, especially on that side, seems majesty being on his way from Scotto have been irregular; and, in general, land towards London, that committee was, when we consider the immense impor-with great earnestness and importunity, tance of these debates, we are surprised called upon to bring in the draft of such to find the house so deficient in numbers remonstrance,” &c. I find a slight noas many divisions show it to have been. tice of this origin of the Remonstrance in Clarendon frequently complains of the the Journals, Nov. 17, 1640. supineness of his party; a fault invari-In another place, also suppressed in ably imputed to their friends by the zeal-the common editions, Clarendon says, - ous supporters of established authority, “This debate held many hours in which who forget that sluggish, lukewarm, and the framers and contrivers of the declathoughtless tempers must always exist, ration said very little, or answered any and that such will naturally belong to reasons that were alleged to the contheir side. I find in the short pencil trary; the only end of passing it, which notes taken by sir Ralph Verney, with a was to incline the people to sedition, copy of which I have been favored by being a reason not to be given; but Mr. Sergeant D’Oyly, the following entry called still for the question, presuming on the 7th of August, before the king’s their number, if not their reason, would journey to Scotland:  “A remonstrance serve to carry it; and after two in the to be made how we found the kingdom morning (for so long the debate continand the church, and how the state of it ued, if that can be called a debate when now stands.” This is not adverted to in those only of one opinion argued), &c., it Nalson nor in the journals at this time. was put to the question.”

What a But Clarendon says, in a suppressed pas-strange memory this author had! I have sage, vol. ii. Append. 691, that, “at the now before me sir Ralph Verney’s MS. beginning of the parliament, or shortly note of the debate, whence it appears after, when all men were inflamed with that Pym, Hampden, Hollis, Glyn, and the pressures and illegalities which had Maynard spoke in favor of the Remonbeen exercised upon them, a committee strance; nay, as far as these brief memwas appointed to prepare a remonstrance oranda go, Hyde himself seems not to of the state of the kingdom, to be pre-have warmly opposed it. sented to his majesty, in which the several

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CHA. I.- 1640-42. DOUBTS OF THE KING’S SINCERITY. 123 king should have new demands that annihilated his authority made upon him, and have found a greater ma-Suspicions jority than had voted the Remonstrance ready to of the king’s oppose him by arms; especially as that paper sincerity.

contained little but what was true, and might rather be censured as an illtimed provocation than an encroachment on the constitutional prerogative. But there were circumstances, both of infelicity and misconduct, which aggravated that distrust whereon every measure hostile to him was grounded. His imprudent connivance at popery, and the far more reprehensible encouragement given to it by his court, had sunk deep in the hearts of his people. His illwishers knew how to irritate the characteristic sensibility of the English on this topic. The queen, unpopular on the score of her imputed arbitrary counsels, was odious as a maintainer of idolatry.1 The lenity shown to convicted popish priests, who, though liable to capital punishment, had been suffered to escape with sometimes a very short imprisonment, was naturally (according to the maxims of those times) treated as a grievance by the commons, who petitioned for the execution of one Goodman and others in similar circumstances, perhaps in the hope that the king would attempt to shelter them. But he dexterously left it to the house whether they should die or not; and none of. them actually suffered.2 Rumors of pretended conspiracies by the catholics were perpetually in circulation, and rather unworthily encouraged by the chiefs of the commons. More substantial motives for alarm appeared to arise from the 1 The letters of sir Edward Nicholas, at Westminster the appellation of a par. published as a supplement to Evelyn’s liament: p. 90. Diary, show how generally the apprehen-2 The king’s speech about Goodman, sions of popish influence were entertained. Baillie tells us, gave great satisfaction to It is well for superficial pretenders to lay all; ” with much humming was it rethese on calumny and misrepresentation; ceived.” P. 240. Goodman petitioned but such as have read our historical docu-the house that he might be executed ments know that the royalists were al-rather than become the occasion of differmost as jealous of the king in this respect ences between the king and parliament. as the puritans. See what Nicholas says This was earlier in time. and at least to the king himself, pp. 22,25,29. Indeed equal in generosity, to lord Strafford’s he gives several hints to a discerning famous letter; or perhaps rather more reader that he was not satisfied with the so, since, though it turned out otherwise, soundness of the king’s intentions, espe-he had greater reason to expect that he cially as to O’Neale’s tampering with the should be taken at his word. It is rearmy: p. 77. Nicholas, however, became markable that the king says, in his anafterwards a very decided supporter of swer to the commons, that no priest had the royal cause; and in the council at been executed merely for religion, either Oxford, just before the treaty of Uxbridge, by his father or Elizabeth; which, though was the only one who voted according to well meant, was quite untrue. Parl the king’s wish, not to give the members Hist. 712; Butler, ii. 6.

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124 IRISH REBELLION. CHAP. IX. obscure transaction in Scotland, commonly called the Incident, which looked so like a concerted design against the two great leaders of the constitutional party, Hamilton and Argyle, that it was not unnatural to anticipate something similar in England.1 In the midst of these apprehensions, as if to justify every suspicion and every severity, burst out the Irish rebellion with its attendant massacre.

Though nothing could be more unlikely in itself, or less supported by proof; than the king’s connivance at this calamity, from which every man of common understanding could only expect, what actually resulted from it, a terrible aggravation of his difficulties, yet, with that distrustful temper of the English, and their jealous dread of popery, he was never able to conquer their suspicions that he had either instigated the rebellion, or was very little solicitous to suppress it; suspicions, indeed, to which, however ungrounded at this particular period, some circumstances that took place afterwards gave an apparent confirmation.2

It was, perhaps, hardly practicable for the king, had he given less real excuse for it than he did, to lull that disquietude which so many causes operated to excite. The most circumspect discretion of a prince in such a difficult posture cannot restrain the rashness of eager adherents, or silence the murmurs of a discontented court. Those nearest Charles’s person, and who always possessed too much of his confidence, were notoriously and naturally averse to the recent changes. Their threatening but idle speeches, and impotent denunciations of resentment, conveyed with malignant exaggeration among the populace, provoked those tu1 See what Clarendon says of the effect have been the medium between the parproduced at Westminster by the Inci-liamentary chiefs and the French court, dent, in one of the suppressed passages. signified howmuch this would be dreaded Vol. ii. Append. p. 575, edit. 1826. by the former; and Richelieu took care 2 Nalson, ii. 788. 792, 804; Clarendon, to keep her away, of which she bitterly ii. 84. The queen’s behavior had been complained. This was in February. Her extraordinarily imprudent from the very majesty’s letter, which M. Mazure has beginning. So-early as Feb. 17, 1641, been malicious enough to print verbatim, the French ambassador writes word,- is a curious specimen of orthography. ” La reine d’Angleterre dit publiquement Id. p.

416. Her own party were equally qu’il y a une trove arrestee pour trois ans averse to this step, which was chiefly the entre la France et l’Espagne, et que ces effect of cowardice; for Henrietta was by deux couronnes vont unir leurs forces no means the high-spirited woman that pour la defendre et pour venger les cath-some have fancied. It is well known oliques.7’ Mazure, Hist. de la Revol. en that a few months afterwards she pre1688, ii. 419. She was very desirous to tended to require the waters of Spa for go to France, doubtless to interest her her health; but was induced to give up brother and the queen in the cause of her journey. royalty. Lord Holland, who seems to

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CHA. I.  1640-42.- TUMULTUOUS ASSEMBLAGES. 125 multuous assemblages which afforded the king no bad pretext for withdrawing himself from a capital where his personal dignity was so little respected.1 It is impossible however to deny that he gave by his own conduct no trifling reasons for suspicion, and last of all by the appointment of Lunsford to the government of the Tower; a choice for which, as it would never have been made from good motives, it was natural to seek the worst. But the single false step 2 1 Clarendon, ii. 81. This writer in-his intentions lest he should encounter timates that the Tower was looked upon opposition. by the court as a bridle upon the city. The following account of the king’s 2

Nalson, ii. 810, and other writers, coming to the house on this occasion is ascribe this accusation of lord Kimbolton copied from the pencil-notes of sir R. in the peers, and of the five members, as Verney. It has been already printed by they are commonly called, Pym, Hollis, Mr. Hatsell (Precedents, iv. 106), but Hampden, Haslerig, and Strode, to se-with no great correctness. What sir R. cret information obtained by the king in V.

says of the transactions of Jan. 3 is Scotland of their former intrigues with much the same as we read in the Jourthat nation. This is rendered in some nals. He thus proceeds:-” Tuesday, measure probable by a part of the written January 4, 1641. The five gentlemen charge preferred by the attorney-general which were to be accused came into the before the house of lords, and by expres-house, and there was information that sions that fell from the king; such as they should be taken away by force.’; it was a treason which they should all Upon this the house sent to the lord thank him for discovering.” Clarendon, mayor, aldermen, and common council, however, hardly hints at this; and gives to let them know how their privileges at least a hasty reader to understand were likely to be broken and the city put that the accusation was solely grounded into danger, and advised them to look to on their parliamentary conduct. Proba-their security. bly he was aware that the act of oblivion ” Likewise some members were sent passed last year afforded a sufficient legal to the inns of court to let them know defence to the charge of corresponding how they heard they were tampered with the Scots in 1640. In my judg-withal to assist the king against them, ment they had an abundant justification and therefore they desired them not to in the eyes of their country for intrigues come to Westminster. which, though legally treasonable, had “

Then the house adjourned to one of been the means of overthrowing despotic the clock. power. The king and courtiers had been “As soon as the house met again it elated by the applause he received when was moved, considering there was an inhe went into the city to dine with the tention to take these five members away lord mayor on his return from Scotland; by force, to avoid all tumult, let them be and Madame de Motteville says plainly commanded to absent themselves; upon that he determined to avail himself of it this the house gave them leave to absent in order to seize the leaders in parlia-themselves, but entered no order for it. ment. (i.

264.) And then the five gentlemen went out of Nothing could be more irregular than the house. the mode of Charles’s proceedings in this ” A little after the king came with all case. He sent a message by the ser-his guard, and all his pensioners, and geantat-arms to require of the speaker two or three hundred soldiers and gene that five members should be given up to tlemen. The king commanded the solhim on a charge of high treason; no diers to stay in the hall, and sent us magistrate’s or councillor’s warrant ap-word he was at the door. The speaker peared; it was the king acting singly, was commanded to sit still with the mace without the intervention of the law. It lying before him, and then the king is idle to allege, like Clarendon, that came to the door and took the palsgrave privilege of parliament does not extend in with him, and commanded all that to treason; the breach of privilege, and came with him upon their lives not to of all constitutional law, was in the mode come in. So the doors were kept open, of proceeding. In fact, the king was and the earl of Roxburgh stood within gulled by bad private advice, and cared the door, leaning upon it. Then the not to let any of his privy council know king came upwards towards the ehair

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126 ATTEMPT TO ARREST THE FIVE MEMBERS. CHAP. IX. which rendered his affairs irretrievable by anything short of civil war, and placed all reconciliation at an insuperable distance, was his attempt to seize the five members within the walls of the house; an evident violation, not of common privilege, but of all security for the independent existence of parliament in the mode of its execution, and leading to a very natural though perhaps mistaken surmise, that the rlarge itself of high treason made against these distinguished leaders, without communicating any of its grounds, had no other foundation than their parliamentary conduct. And we are in fact warranted by the authority of the queen herself to assert that their aim in this most secret enterprise was to strike terror into the parliament, and regain the power that had been wrested from their grasp.1

It is unnecessary to dwell on a measure so well known, and which scarce any of the king’s advocates have defended. The only material with his hat off, and the speaker stepped take members out of our house. They out to meet him; then the king stepped allowed the Irish committee to sit, but up to his place, and stood upon the step, would meddle with no other business till but sat not down in the chair. this were ended; they acquainted the “

And after he had looked a great lords in a message with what they had while he told us he would not break our done, and then they adjourned the house privileges, but treason had no privilege; till Tuesday next.” he came for those five gentlemen, for he The author of these memoranda in expected obedience yesterday, and not pencil, which extend, at intervals of an answer. Then he called Mr. Pym time, from the meeting of the parliament and Mr. Hollis by name, but no answer to April, 1642, though mistaken by Mr. was made. Then he asked the speaker Hatsell for sir Edward Verney, member if they were here, or where they were? for the county of Bucks, and killed at Upon this the speaker fell on his knees, the battle of Edgehill, has been ascerand desired his excuse, for he was a ser-tained by my learned friend, Mr. Servant to the house, and had neither eyes geant D’Oyly, to be his brother, sir nor tongue to see or say anything but Ralph, member for Aylesbury. He conwhat they commanded him: then the tinued at Westminster, and took the king told him he thought his own eyes covenant; but afterwards retired to were as good as his, and then said his France, and was disabled to sit by a birds had flown, but he did expect the vote of the house, Sept. 22, 1645. house should send them to him; and if 1 Mem. de Motteville, i. 264. Clarenthey did not, he would seek them him-don has hardly been ingenuous in throwself, for their treason was foul, and such ing so much of the blame of this affair a one as they would all thank him to on lord Digby. Indeed, he insinuates in discover: then he assured us they should one place that the queen’s apprehension have a fair trial; and so went out, of being impeached, with which some pulling off his hat till he came to the one in the confidence of the parliamendoor. tary leaders (either lord Holland or lady ” Upon this the house did instantly re-Carlisle) had inspired her, led to the solve to adjourn till tomorrow at one of scheme of anticipating them.

(ii. 232.) the clock, and in the interim they might It has been generally supposed that lady consider what to do. Carlisle gave the five members a hint to “Wednesday, 6th January, 1641. absent themselves. The French ambas”The house ordered a committee to sador, however, Montereuil, takes the sit at Guildhall in London, and all that credit to himself: - “J’avois pr6venu would come had voices. This was to mes amis, et ils s‘6toient mis en silretb.” consider and advise how to right the Mazure, p. 429. It is probable that he house in point of privilege broken by the was in communication with that intriguking’s coming yesterday with a force to ing lady.

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CHA. I. -1640-42. THE MILITIA. 127 subject it affords for reflection is, how far the manifest hostility of Charles to the popular chiefs might justify them in rendering it harmless by wresting the sword out of his hands. No man doubtless has a right, for the sake only of his own security, to subvert his country’s laws, or to plunge her into civil war.

But Hampden, Hollis, and Pym might not absurdly consider the defence of English freedom bound up in their own, assailed as they were for its sake and by its enemies. It is observed by Clarendon that ” Mr. Hampden was much altered after this accusation; his nature and courage seeming much fiercer than before.” And it is certain that both he and Mr. Pym were not only most forward in all the proceedings which brought on the war, but among the most implacable opponents of all overtures towards reconciliation; so that, although, both dying in 1643, we cannot pronounce with absolute certainty as to their views, there can be little room to doubt that they would have adhered to the side of Cromwell and St. John, in the great separation of the parliamentary party. The noble historian confesses that not Hampden alone, but the generality of those who were beginning to judge more favorably of the king, had their inclinations alienated by this fatal act of violence.1 It is worthy of remark that each of the two most striking encroachments on the king’s prerogative sprang directly from the suspicions roused of an intention to destroy their privileges: the bill perpetuating the parliament having been hastily passed on the discovery of Percy’s and Jermyn’s conspiracy, and the present attempt on the five members inducing the commons to insist peremptorily on vesting the command of the militia in Question of persons of their own nomination; a security, in-themilitia. deed, at which they had been less openly aiming from the time of that conspiracy, and particularly of late.2 Every 1 P. 159, 180. names to the house, and who are the 2 The earliest proof that the commons governors of forts and castles in their gave of their intention to take themilitia counties.

Commons’ Journals. Not long into their hands was immediately upon-afterwards, or at least before the king’s the discovery of Percy’s plot, 5th May, journey to Scotland, sir Arthur Haslerig, 1641, when an order was made that the as Clarendon informs us, proposed a bill members of each county, &c., should for settling the militia in such hands as meet to consider in what state the places they should nominate, which was seefor which they serve are in respect of onded by St. John, and read once, “but arms and ammunition, and whether the with so universal a dislike, that it was deputylieutenants and lord-lieutenants never called upon a second time.” Clarare persons well affected to the religion endon, i. 488. I can find nothing of this and the public peace, and to present their in the Journals, and believe it to be one

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128 MILITARY FORCE IN ENGLAND.: CHAP. IX. one knows that this was the grand question upon which the quarrel finally rested; but it may be satisfactory to show, more precisely than our historians have generally done, what was meant by the power of the militia, and what was the exact ground of dispute in this respect between Charles I. and his parliament.

The military force which our ancient constitution had Historical placed in the hands of its chief magistrate and sketch of those deriving authority from him, may be classed the military force in under two descriptions: one principally designed England. to maintain the king’s and the nation’s rights abroad, the other to protect them at home from attack or disturbance. The first comprehends the tenures by knight’s service, which, according to the constant principles of a feudal monarchy, bound the owners of lands, thus held from the crown, to attend the king in war, within or without the realm, mounted and armed, during the regular term of service. Their own vassals were obliged by the same law to accompany them.

But the feudal service was limited to forty days, beyond which time they could be retained only by their own consent, and at the king’s expense.

The military tenants were frequently called upon in expeditions against Scotland, and last of all in that of 1640; but the short duration of their legal service rendered it, of course, nearly useless in continental warfare. Even when they of the anachronisms into which this these numbers.

The bill, however, was author has fallen, in consequence of laid aside, a new plan having been dewriting at a distance from authentic vised. It was ordered, 81st Dec. 1641, materials. The bill to which he alludes ” that the house be resolved into a commust, I conceive, be that brought in by mittee on Monday next (Jan. 3), to take Haslerig long after, 7th December, 1641, into consideration the militiaof the kingnot, as he terms it, for settling the mili-dom.” That Monday, Jan. 3, was the tia, but for making certain persons, leav-famous day of the king’s message about ing their names in blank, “lords general the five members; and on Jan. 13, a of all the forces within England and declaration for putting the kingdom in a Wales, and lord admiral of England.” state of defence passed the commons, by The persons intended seem to have been which all officers, magistrates, &c., were Essex, Holland, and Northumberland. enjoined to take care that no soldiers be The commons had for some time planned raised, nor any castles or arms given up, to give the two former earls a supreme without his majesty’s pleasure signified command over the trained bands north’by both houses ofparliament. Commons’ and south of Trent (Journals, Nov. 15

Journals. Parl. Hist. 1035. The lords and 16). which was afterwards changed at the time refused to concur in this decInto the scheme of lord-lieutenants of laration, which was afterwards changed their own nomination for each county. into the ordinance for the militia; but The bill above mentioned having been 32 peers signed a protest (id. 1049), and once read, it was moved that it be re-the house not many days afterwards jected, which was negatived by 158 to came to an oppositevote. joining with the 125. Commons’ Journals, 7th Dec. Nal-commons in their demand of the militia. son, ii. 719, has made a mistake about Id. 1072, 1091.

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CIA. I. -1640-42. LAWS AGAINST COMPULSORY LEVIES. 129 formed the battle, or line of heavy-armed cavalry, it was necessary to complete the army by recruits of foot-soldiers, whom feudal tenure did not regularly supply, and whose importance was soon made sensible by their skill in our national weapon, the bow. What was the extent of the king’s lawful prerogative for two centuries or more after the Conquest as to compelling any of his subjects to serve him in foreign war, independently of the obligations of tenure, is a question scarcely to be answered; since, knowing so imperfectly the boundaries of constitutional law in that period, we have little to guide us but precedents; and precedents, in such times, are apt to be much more records of power than of right. We find certainly several instances under Edward I. and Edward II., sometimes of proclamations to the sheriffs, directing them to notify to all persons of sufficient estate that they must hold themselves ready to attend the king whenever he should call on them, sometimes of commissions to particular persons in different counties, who are enjoined to choose and array a competent number of horse and foot for the king’s service.1 But these levies being, of course, vexatious to the people, and contrary at least to the spirit of those immunities which, under the shadow of the great charter, they were entitled to enjoy, Edward III., on the petition of his first parliament, who judged that such compulsory service either was or ought to be rendered illegal, passed a remarkable act, with the simple brevity of those times: *‘That no man from henceforth should be charged to arm himself, otherwise than he was wont in the time of his progenitors, the kings of England; and that no man be compelled to go out of his shire, but where necessity requireth, and sudden coming of strange enemies into the realm; and then it shall be done as hath been used in times past for the defence of the realm.” 2 This statute, by no means of inconsiderable importance in our constitutional history, put a stop for some ages to these arbitrary conscriptions. But Edward had recourse to another means of levying men without his own cost, by calling 1 Rymer sub Edw. I. et II. passim.

probarent indilat; ita quod sint prompti Thus, in 1297, a writ to the sheriff of et parati ad veniendum ad nos et eundum Yorkshire directs him to make known to cum propria persons nostrd, pro defenall, qui habent 20
libratas terrse et reditus sione ipsorum et totius regni nostri preper annum, tam illis qui non tenent de dicti, quandocunque pro ipsis duxerimus nobis in capite quam illis qui tenent, ut demandandum: ii. 864. de equis et armis sibi provideant et se 2 Stat. 1 Edw. III. c. 6 VOL. II. 9

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130 LAWS AGAINST COMPULSORY LEVIES. CHAP. IX. on the counties and principal towns to furnish a certain number of troops. Against this the parliament provided a remedy by an act in the 25th year of his reign: “

That no man shall be constrained to find men-at-arms, hoblers, nor archers, other than those who hold by such service, if it be not by common consent and grant in parliament.” Both these statutes were recited and confirmed in the fourth year of Henry IV.1 The successful resistance thus made by parliament appears to have produced the discontinuance of compulsory levies for foreign warfare. Edward III. and his successors, in their long contention with France, resorted to the mode of recruiting by contracts with men of high rank or military estimation, whose influence was greater probably than that of the crown towards procuring voluntary enlistments. The pay of soldiers, which we find stipulated in such of those contracts as are extant, was extremely high; but it secured the service of a brave and vigorous yeomanry. Under the house of Tudor, in conformity to their more despotic scheme of government, the salutary enactments of former times came to be disregarded; Henry VIII. and Elizabeth sometimes compelling the counties to furnish soldiers: and the prerogative of pressing men for military service, even out of the kingdom, having not only become as much established as undisputed usage could make it, but acquiring no slight deglee of sanction by an act passed under Philip and Mary, which, without repealing or adverting to the statutes of Edward III. and Henry IV., recognizes, as it seems, the right of the crown to levy men for service in war, and imposes penalties on persons absenting themselves from musters commanded by the king’s authority to be held for that purpose.2 Clarendon, whose political heresies sprang in a great measure from his possessing but a very imperfect knowledge of our ancient constitution, speaks of the act that declared the pressing of soldiers illegal, though exactly following, even in its language, that of Edward III., as contrary to the usage and custom of all times. 1 25 Edw, III. c.

8; 4 H. IV. c. 13. tion. See vols. 309,1926,2219, and others, 2 4 & 6

Philip and Mary, c. 8. The Thanks to Humphrey Wanley’s diligence, Harleian manuscripts are the best au-the analysis of these papers in the catathority for the practice of pressing sol-logue will save the inquirer the trouble diers to serve in Ireland or elsewhere, of reading, or the mortification of finding and are full of instances. The Mouldys he cannot read, the terrible scrawl in and Bullcalfs were in frequent requisi-which they are generally written.

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CA. I. - 1640-42. NO REGULAR ARMY IN ENGLAND. 131 It is scarcely perhaps necessary to observe that there had never been any regular army kept up in England. Henry VII. established the yeomen of the guard in 1485, solely for the defence of his person, and rather perhaps, even at that time, to be considered as the king’s domestic servants than as soldiers. Their number was at first fifty, and seems never to have exceeded two hundred. A kind of regular troops, however, chiefly accustomed to the use of artillery, was maintained in the very few fortified places where it was thought necessary or practicable to keep up the show of defence; the Tower of London, Portsmouth, the castle of Dover, the fort of Tilbury, and, before the union of the crowns, Berwick and some other places on the Scottish border. I have met with very little as to the nature of these garrisons. But their whole number must have been insignificant, and probably at no time equal to resist any serious attack. We must take care not to confound this strictly military force, serving,‘whether by virtue of tenure or engagement, wheresoever it should be called, with that of a more domestic and defensive character to which alone the name of militia was usually applied. By the Anglo-Saxon laws, or rather by one of the primary and indispensable conditions of political society, every freeholder, if not every freeman, was bound to defend his country against hostile invasion. It appears that the alderman or earl, while those titles continued to imply the government of a county, was the proper commander of this militia. Henry II., in order to render it more effective in cases of emergency, and perhaps with a view to extend its service, enacted, by consent of parliament, that every freeman, according to the value of his estate or movables, should hold himself constantly furnished with suitable arms and equipments.’ By the statute of Winchester, in the 13th year of Edward I., these provisions were enforced and extended. Every man, between the ages of fifteen and sixty, was to be assessed, and sworn to keep armor according to the value of his lands and goods; for fifteen pounds and upwards in. rent, or forty marks in goods, a hauberk, an iron breastplate, a sword, a knife, and a horse; for smaller property, less extensive arms.

A view of this armor was to be taken twice in the year by constables chosen in every hun1 Wilkins’s Leges Anglo-Saxonicae, p. 388; Lyttleton’s Henry II., iii. 854.

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132 COMMISSIONS OF ARRAY. CHAP. IX, dred.l These regulations appear by the context of the whole statute to have more immediate regard to the preservation of internal peace, by suppressing tumults and arresting robbers, than to the actual defence of the realm against hostile invasion; a danger not at that time very imminent. The sheriff, as chief conservator of public peace and minister of the law, had always possessed the right of summoning the posse comitatus; that is, of calling on all the king’s liege subjects within his jurisdiction for assistance, in case of any rebellion or tumultuous rising, or when bands of robbers infested the public ways, or when, as occurred very frequently, the execution of legal process was forcibly obstructed. It seems to have been the policy of that wise prince, to whom we are indebted for so many signal improvements in our law, to give a more effective and permanent energy to this power of the sheriff.

The provisions, however, of the statute of Winchester, so far as they obliged every proprietor to possess suitable arms, were of course applicable to national defence. In seasons of public danger, threatening invasion from the side of Scotland or France, it became customary to issue commissions of array, empowering those to whom they were addressed to muster and train all men capable of bearing arms in the counties to which their commission extended, and hold them in readiness to defend the kingdom. The earliest of these commissions that I find in Rymer is of 1324, and the latest of 1557. The obligation of keeping sufficient arms according to each man’s estate was preserved by a statute of Philip and Mary, which made some changes in the rate and proportion as well as the kind of arms.2 But these ancient provisions were abrogated by James in his first parliament.8 The nation, become forever secure from invasion on the quarter where the militia service had been most required, and freed from the other dangers which had menaced the throne of Elizabeth, gladly saw itself released from an expensive obligation. The government again may be presumed to have thought I Stat. 18 E. 1. estate to furnish a lance at the discretion s 6 Philip and Mary,c. 2. of the lord-lieutenant, was unwarranted I 1 Jac. c. 25, ~ 46. An order of coun-by any existing law, and must be reckcit in Dec. 1638, that every man having oned among the violent stretches of prelands of inheritance to the clear yearly rogative at that time. Rushw. Abr. ii. value of 2001. should be chargeable to fur-600. nish a light horseman, every one of 3001.

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CHA. I.-1640-42. OFFICE OF LORD-LIEUTENANT. 133 that weapons of offence were safer in its hands than in those of its subjects. Magazines of arms were formed in different places, and generally in each county:1 but, if we may reason from the absence of documents, there was little regard to military array and preparation; save that the citizens of London mustered their trained bands on holidays, an institution that is said to have sprung out of a voluntary association, called the Artillery Company, formed in the reign of Henry VIII. for the encouragement of archery, and acquiring a more respectable and martial character at the time of the Spanish Armada.2 The power of calling to arms, and mustering the population of each county, given in earlier times to the sheriff or justices of the peace, or to special commissioners of array, began to be intrusted, in the reign of Mary, to a new officer, entitled the lord-lieutenant. This was usually a peer, or at least a gentleman of large estate within the county, whose office gave him the command of the militia, and rendered him the chief vicegerent of his sovereign, responsible for the maintenance of public order. This institution may be considered as a revival of the ancient local earldom; and it certainly took away from the sheriff a great part of the dignity and importance which he had acquired since the discontinuance of that office. Yet the lord-lieutenant has so peculiarly military an authority, that it does not in any degree control the civil power of the sheriff as the executive minister of the law. In certain cases, such as a tumultuous obstruction of legal authority, each might be said to possess an equal power; the sheriff being still undoubtedly competent to call out the posse comitatus in order to enforce obedience. Practically, however, in all serious circumstances, the lord-lieutenant has always been reckoned the efficient and responsible guardian of public tranquillity. From an attentive consideration of this sketch of our military law, it will strike the reader that the principal question to be determined was, whether, in time of peace, without pretext of danger of invasion, there were any legal authority that could direct the mustering and training to arms of the able-bodied men in each county, usually denominated the militia. If the power existed at all, it manifestly resided in 1 Rymer, xix. 810. The word artillery wa used In that eta s Grose’s Military Antiquities, i. 160. for the long bow.

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134 ENCROACHMENTS OF PARLIAMENT.. CHAP. IX. the king. The notion that either or both houses of parlia. ment, who possess no portion of executive authority, could take on themselves one of its most peculiar and important functions, was so preposterous that we can scarcely give credit to the sincerity of any reasonable person who advanced it. In the imminent peril of hostile invasion, in the case of intestine rebellion, there seems to be no room for doubt that the king, who could call on his subjects to bear arms for their country and laws, could oblige them to that necessary discipline and previous training, without which their service would be unavailing. It might also be urged that he was the proper judge of the danger. But that, in a season of undeniable tranquillity, he could withdraw his subjects from their necessary labors against their consent, even for the important end of keeping up the use of military discipline, is what, with our present sense of the limitations of royal power, it might be difficult to affirm. The precedents under Henry VIII. and Elizabeth were numerous; but not to mention that many, perhaps most, of these might come under the class of preparations against invasion, where the royal authority was not to be doubted, they could be no stronger than those other precedents for pressing and mustering soldiers, which had been declared illegal. There were at least so many points uncertain, and some wherein the prerogative was plainly deficient, such as the right of marching the militia out of their own counties, taken away, if it had before existed, by the act just passed against pressing soldiers, that the concurrence of the whole legislature seemed requisite to place so essential a matter as the public defence on a secure and permanent footing.1 The aim of the houses however in the bill for regulating Encroach-the militia, presented to Charles in February, ments of 1642, and his refusal to pass which led by rapid theparli steps to the civil war, was not so much to remove those uncertainties by a general provision (for in effect they left them much as before), as to place the command of the sword in the hands of those they could control; -nominating in the bill the lords-lieutenant of every county, who were to obey the orders of the two houses, and to be ir1 Whitelock maintained, both on this 129.

This, though not very well exoccasion and at the treaty of Uxbridge, pressed, can only mean that it required that the power of the militia resided in an act of parliament to determine and the king and two houses jointly: p. 55, regulate it.

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CHA. I. -1640-42. CHARLES’S CONCESSIONS. 135 removable by the king for two years. No one can pretend that this was not an encroachment on his prerogative.’ It can only find a justification in the precarious condition, as the commons asserted it to be, of those liberties they had so recently obtained, in their just persuasion of the king’s insincerity, and in the demonstrations he had already made of an intention to win back his authority at the sword’s point.2 But it is equitable, on the other hand, to observe that the commons had by no means greater reason to distrust the faith of Charles, than he had to anticipate fresh assaults from them on the power he had inherited, on the form of religion which alone he thought lawful, on the counsellors who had served him most faithfully, and on the nearest of his domestic ties. If the right of self-defence could be urged by parliament for this demand of the militia, must we not admit that a similar plea was equally valid for the king’s refusal? However arbitrary and violent the previous government of Charles may have been, however disputable his sincerity at present, it is vain to deny that he had made the most valuable concessions, and such as had cost him very dear. He had torn away from his diadem what all monarchs would deem its choicest jewel that high attribute of uncontrollable power, by which their flatterers have in all ages told them they resemble and represent the Divinity. He had seen those whose counsels he had best approved rewarded with exile or imprisonment, and had incurred the deep reproach of his own heart by the sacrifice of Strafford. He had just now given a reluctant assent to the extinction of one estate of parliament, by the bill excluding bishops from the house of peers. Even in this business of the militia he would have consented to nominate the persons recommended to him as lieutenants, by commissions revocable at his pleasure: or would have passed the bill rendering them irremov1 See the list of those recommended. ado accepted, and first read, there were Parl. Hist. 1083.

Some of these were few men who imagined it would ever royalists: but, on the whole, three-fourths receive further countenance; but now of the military force of England would there were very few who did not believe have been in the hands of persons who, it to be a very necessary provision for the though men of rank and attached to the peace and safety of the kingdom. So monarchy, had given Charles no reason great an impression had the late proceedto hope that they would decline to obey ings made upon them, that with little any order which the parliament might opposition it passed the commons, and issue, however derogatory or displeasing was sent up to the lords.” Clarendon, to himself. ii. 180. 2 ” When this bill had been with much

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136 THE NINETEEN PROPOSITIONS. CHAP. IX. able for one year, provided they might receive their orders from himself and the two houses jointly.l It was not unreasonable for the king to pause at the critical moment which was to make all future denial nugatory, and inquire whether the prevailing majority designed to leave him what they had Nineteen not taken away. But he was not long kept in propositions. uncertainty upon this score. The nineteen propositions tendered to him at York in the beginning of June, and founded upon addresses and declarations of a consider.. ably earlier date,2 went to abrogate in spirit the whole existing constitution, and were in truth so far beyond what the king could be expected to grant, that terms more intolerable were scarcely proposed to him in his greatest difficulties, not at Uxbridge, nor at Newcastle, nor even at Newport.

These famous propositions import that the privy council and officers of state should be approved by parliament, and take such an oath as the two houses should prescribe; that during the intervals of parliament no vacancy in the council should be supplied without the assent of the major part, subject to the future sanction of the two houses; that the education and marriages of the king’s children should be under parliamentary control; the votes of popish peers be taken away; the church government and liturgy be reformed as both houses should advise; the militia and all fortified places put in such hands as parliament should approve; finally, that the king should pass a bill for restraining all peers to be made in future from sitting in parliament, unless 1 Clarendon, ii. 875; Parl.

Hist. 1077, work does not notice that it had passed 1106, &c. It may be added, that the the commons on Feb. 19, before the king militia bill, as originally tendered to the had begun to move towards the north. king by the two houses, was ushered in Commons’ Journals. It seems not to have by a preamble asserting that there had pleased the house of lords, who postbeen a most dangerous and desperate de-poned its consideration, and was much sign on the house of commons, the effect more grievous to the king than the nineof the bloody counsels of the papists and teen propositions themselves. One proother ill-affected persons, who had al-posal was to remove all papists from ready raised a rebellion in Ireland.

Clar. about the queen-that is, to deprive her p. 836. Surely he could not have passed of the exercise of her religion, guaranteed this, especially the last allusion, without by her marriage contract. To this obrecording his own absolute dishonor; but jection Pym replied that the house of it must be admitted, that on the king’s commons had only to consider the law of objection they omitted this preamble, and God and the law of the land; that they also materially limited the powers of the must resist idolatry, lest they incur the lords-lieutenant to be appointed under divine wrath, and must see the laws of the bill. this kingdom executed; that the public 2 A declaration of the grievances of faith is less than that they owe to God, the kingdom, and the remedies proposed, against which no contract can oblige, dated April 1, may be found in the Par-neither can any bind us against the law liamentary History, p. 1155. But that of the kingdom.

Parl. Hist. 1162.

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CHA. I.-164042. CLAIMS OF SUPPORT. 137 they be admitted with the consent of both houses. A few more laudable provisions, such as that the judges should hold their offices during good behavior, which the king had long since promised,1 were mixed up with these strange demands. Even had the king complied with such unconstitutional requisitions, there was one behind which, though they had not advanced it on this occasion, was not likely to be forgotten. It had been asserted by the house of commons in their last remonstrance, that, on a right construction of the old coronation oath, the king was bound to assent to all bills which the two houses of parliament should offer.2 It has been said by some that this was actually the constitution of Scotland, where the crown possessed a counterbalancing influence; but such a doctrine was in this country as repugnant to the whole history of our laws as it was incompatible with the subsistence of the monarchy in anything more than a nominal preeminence.

In weighing the merits of this great contest, in judging whether a thoroughly upright and enlightened Discussion of man would rather have listed under the royal or the respecparliamentary standard, there are two political tivetlaims postulates, the concession of which we may reparties to quire: one, that civil war is such a calamity as support.

nothing but the most indispensable necessity can authorize any party to bring on; the other, that the mixed government of England by king, lords, and commons, was to be maintained in preference to any other form of polity. The first of these can hardly be disputed; and though the denial of the second would certainly involve no absurdity, yet it may justly be assumed where both parties avowed their adher1 Parl. Hist. 702. if the former were right, as to the point 2 Clarendon, p. 452. Upon this pas-of Latin construction, though consuetusage in the remonstrance a division took dines seems naturally to imply a past place, when it was carried by 103 to 61. tense, I should by no means admit the Parl. Hist. 1302. The words in the old strange inference that the king was form of coronation oath, as preserved in a bound to sanction all laws proposed to bill of parliament under Henry IV., con-him. His own assent is involved in the cerning which this grammatico-political expression, ” quas vulgus elegerit,” which contention arose, are the following: - was introduced, on the hypothesis of the ” Concedis justas leges et consuetudines word being in the future tense, as a seesse tenendas, et promittis per te eas esse curity against his legislation without protegendas, et ad honorem Dei corro-consent of the people in parliament. The borandas, quas vulgus elegirit, secundum English coronation oath which Charles rires tuas? It was maintained by one had taken excludes the future: Sir. will side that elegerit should be construed in you grant to hold and keep the laws and the future tense, while the other con-rightful customs, which the commonaltq tended for the praeterperfect. But even of this your kingdom have?

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138 FAULTS OF BOTH. CHAP. IX. ence to it as a common principle. Such as prefer a despotic or a republican form of government will generally, without much further inquiry, have made their election between Charles I.

and the parliament. We do not argue from the creed of the English constitution to those who have abandoned its communion. There was so much in the conduct and circumstances of Faults of both parties in the year 1642 to excite disapproboth. bation and distrust, that a wise and good man could hardly unite cordially with either of them. On the one hand he would entertain little doubt of the king’s desire to overthrow by force or stratagem whatever had been effected in parliament, and to establish a plenary despotism; his arbitrary temper, his known principles of government, the natural sense of wounded pride and honor, the instigations of a haughty woman, the solicitations of favorites, the promises of ambitious men, were all at work to render his new position as a constitutional sovereign, even if unaccompanied by fresh indignities and encroachments, too grievous and mortifying to be endured. He had already tampered in a conspiracy to overawe, if not to disperse, the parliament: he had probably obtained large promises, though very little to be trusted, from several of the presbyterian leaders in Scotland during his residence there in the summer of 1641: he had attempted to recover his ascendency by a sudden blow in the affair of the five members; he had sent the queen out of England, furnished with the crown jewels, for no other probable end than to raise men and procure arms in foreign countries:1 he was now about to take the field with an army, composed in part of young gentlemen disdainful of a puritan faction that censured their license, and of those soldiers of fortune, reckless of public principle, and averse to civil control, whom the war in Germany had trained; in part of the catholics, a wealthy and active body, devoted to the crown, from which alone they had experienced justice or humanity, and from whose favor and gratitude they now expected the most splendid returns. Upon neither of these parties could a lover of his country and her liber1 See what is said as to this by P. ly suspicious. The house, it appears, had Orleans, iii. 87, and by Madame de Motte-received even then information that the ville. i. 26. Her intended journey to crown jewels were to be carried away. Spa,July, 1641, which was given up on’ Nalson, ii. 891. the remonstrance of parliament, is high

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CHA. I. 1640-42. CONDUCT OF THE COMMONS. 139 ties look without alarm; and though he might derive more hope from those better spirits who had withstood the prerogative in its exorbitance, as they now sustained it in its decline, yet it could not be easy to foretell that they would preserve sufficient influence to keep steady the balance of power, in the contingency of any decisive success of the royal arms. But, on the other hand, the house of commons presented still less favorable prospects. We should not indeed judge over-severely some acts of a virtuous indignation in the first moments of victory,’ or those heats of debate, without some excess of which a popular assembly is in danger of falling into the opposite extreme of phlegmatic security. But, after every allowance has been made, he must bring very heated passions to the records of those times who does not perceive in the conduct of that body a series of glaring violations, not only of positive and constitutional, but of those higher principles which are paramount to all immediate policy. Witness the ordinance for disarming recusants passed by both houses in August, 1641, and that in November authorizing the earl of Leicester to raise men for the defence of Ireland without warrant under the great seal, both manifest encroachments on the executive power; 2 and the enormous extension of privilege, under which every person accused on the slightest testimony of disparaging their proceedings, or even of introducing new-fangled ceremonies in the church, 1 The impeachments of lord Finch and rod to the court of king’s bench, while of judge Berkeley for high treason are at the judges were sitting, who took him least as little justifiable in point of law away to prison, ” which struck a great as that of Strafford. Yet, because the terror,” says Whitelock, ” in the rest of former of these was moved by lord Falk-his brethren then sitting in Westminsterland, Clarendon is so far from objecting hall, and in all his profession.” The imto it that he imputes as a fault to the peachment against Berkeley for high parliamentary leaders their lukewarm-treason ended in his paying a fine of ness in this prosecution, and insinuates 10,0001. But what appears strange and that they were desirous to save Finch. unjustifiable is, that the houses suffered See especially the new edition of Claren-him to sit for some terms as a judge don, vol. i. Appendix. But they might with this impeachment over his head. reasonably think that Finch was not of The only excuse for this is that there sufficient importance to divert their at-were a great many vacancies on that tention from the grand apostate, whom bench. they were determined to punish. Finch 2 Journals, Aug. 80 and Nov.

9. It fled to Holland; so that then it would may be urged in behalf of these ordihave been absurd to take much trouble nances, that the king had gone into Scotabout his impeachment: Falkland, how-land against the wish of the two houses, ever, opened it to the lords, 14 Jan. 1641, and after refusing to appoint a custos in a speech containing full as many ex-regni at their request. But if the exitravagant propositions as any of St. gency of the case might justify, under John’s. Berkeley, besides his forward-those circumstances, the assumption of ness about shipmoney, had been notorian irregular power, it ought to have been ous for subserviency to the prerogative. limited to the period of the sovereign’s The house sent the usher of the black absence.

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140 CONDUCT OF THE COMMONS. CHAP. IX a matter wholly out of their cognizance, was dragged before them as a delinquent, and lodged in their prison.1 Witness the outrageous attempts to intimidate the minority of their own body in the commitment of Mr. Palmer, and afterwards of sir Ralph Hopton to the Tower, for such language used in debate as would not have excited any observation in ordinary times; - their continual encroachments on the rights and privileges of the lords, as in their intimation that if bills thought by them necessary for the public good should fall in the upper house, they must join with the minority of the lords in representing the same to the king; 2 or in the impeachment of the duke of Richmond for words, and those of the most trifling nature, spoken in the upper house;8 - their despotic violation of the rights of the people, in imprisoning those who presented or prepared respectful petitions in behalf of the established constitution; 4 while they encouraged those of a tumultuous multitude at their bar in favor of 1

Parl. ist. 671, et alibi. Journals to consent to the passing of those acts passim. Clarendon, i. 475, says, this and others necessary to the preservation began to pass all bounds after the act and safety of the kingdom, that then this rendering them indissoluble. “It had house, together with such of the lords never,” he says, ” been attempted before that are more sensible of the safety of this parliament to commit any one to the kingdom, may join together and repprison, except for some apparent breach resent the same unto his majesty.” This of privilege, such as the arrest of one of was on December 3, 1641, before the their members, or the like.” Instances argument from necessity could be preof this, however, had occurred before, tended, and evidently contains the germ of which I have mentioned in another of the resolution of February, 1649, that place the grossest, that of Floyd, in 1621. the house of lords was useless. The lords, in March, 1642, condemned The resolution was moved by Mr. Pym; one Sandford, a tailor, for cursing the and on Mr. Godolphin’s objecting, very parliament, to be kept at work in Bride-sensibly, that if they went to the king well during his life, besides some minor with the lesser part of the lords, the inflictions. Rushworth. A strange order greater part of the lords might go to the was made by the commons, Dec. 10.1641, king with the lesser part of them, he was that sir William Earl having given infor-commanded to withdraw (Verney MS); mation of some dangerous words spoken and an order appears on the Journals, by certain persons, the speaker shall issue that on Tuesday next the house would a warrant to apprehend such persons as take into consideration the offence now sir Willianz Earl should point out. given by words spoken by Mr. Godolphin. 2 The entry of this in the Journals is Nothing further, however, seems to have too characteristic of the tone assumed in taken place. the commons to be omitted. ” This 3 This was carried Jan. 27, 1642, by a committee [after naming some of the majority of 228 to 128, the largest numwarmest men] is appointed to prepare ber, I think, that voted for any question heads for a conference with the lords, and during the parliament. Richmond was to acquaint them what bills this house an eagercourtier, and, perhaps, an enemy hath passed and sent up to their lord-to the constitution. which may account ships, which much concern the safety of for the unusual majority in favor of his the kingdom, but have had no consent of impeachment, but cannot justify it. He their lordships unto them; and that this had merely said, on a proposition to adhouse being the representative body of journ, ” Why should we not adjourn for the whole kingdom, and their lordships six months? ” being but as particular persons, and 4 Parl.

Hist. 1147, 1160, 1188. Olarencoming to parliament in a particular ca-don, ii. 284, 846. pacity, that if they shall not be pleased

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C.A. L-1640-42. CONDUCT OF THE COMMONS. 141 innovation; - their usurpation at once of the judicial and legislative powers in all that related to the church, particularly by their committee for scandalous ministers, under which denomination, adding reproach to injury, they subjected all who did not reach the standard of puritan perfection to contumely and vexation, and ultimately to expulsion from their lawful property.2 Witness the impeachment of the twelve bishops for treason, on account of their protestation against all that should be done in the house of lords during their compelled absence through fear of the populace; a protest not perhaps entirely well expressed, but abundantly justifiable in its argument by the plainest principles of law.8 These great abuses of power, becoming daily more frequent, as they became less excusable, would make a sober man hesitate to support them in a civil war, wherein their success must not only consummate the destruction of the crown, the church, and the peerage, but expose all who had dissented from their proceedings, as it ultimately happened, to an oppression less severe perhaps, but far more sweeping, than that which had rendered the starchamber odious. But it may reasonably also be doubted whether, in staking their own cause on the perilous contingencies of war, the house of commons did not expose the liberties for which they professedly were contending to a far greater risk than they 1 Clarendon, 322. Among other peti-them only mad, and proposed that they tions presented at this time the noble should be sent to Bedlam instead of the author inserts one from the porters of Tower. Even Clarendon bears rather London. Mr. Brodie asserts of this that hard on the protest, chiefly, as is evident, ” it is nowhere to be found or alluded to, because it originated with Williams. In so far as I recollect, except in Clarendon’s fact, several of these prelates had not History; and I have no hesitation in courage to stand by what they had done, pronouncing it a forgery by that author and made trivial apologies. Parl. Hist. to disgrace the petitions which so galled 996. Whether the violence was such as him and his party. The journals of the to form a complete justification for their commons give an account of every peti-absenting themselves is a question of fact tion; and I have gone over them with the which we cannot well determine. Three utmost care, in order to ascertain whether bishops continued at their posts, and voted such a petition ever was presented, and against the bill for removing them from yet cannot discover a trace of it.” (iii. the house of lords. See a passage from 306.) This writer is here too precipitate. Hall’s Hard Measure, in Wordsworth’s No sensible man will believe Clarendon Eccles. Biogr., v. 317. The king always to have committed so foolish and useless entertained a notion that this act was a forgery; and this petition is fully no-null in itself; and in one of his proclaticed, though not inserted at length, in mations from York not very judiciously the journal of February 3d. declares his intention to preserve the 2 Nalson, ii. 234, 245. privileges of the three estates of parlia8 The bishops had so few friends in ment. The lords admitted the twelve the house of commons that in the debate bishops to bail; but, with their usual arising out of this protest all agreed that pusillanimity, recommitted them on the they should be charged with treason, ex-commons’

expostulation. Parl. Hist. cept one gentleman, who said he thought 1092.

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142 CONDUCT OF THE COMMONS. CHAP. IX could have incurred even by peace with an insidious court. For let any one ask himself what would have been the condition of the parliament if by the extension of that panic which in fact seized upon several regiments, or by any of those countless accidents which determine the fate of battles, the king had wholly defeated their army at Edgehill? Is it not probable, nay, in such a supposition, almost demonstrable, that in those first days of the civil war, before the parliament had time to discover the extent of its own resources, he would have found no obstacle to his triumphal entry into London? And, in such circumstances, amidst the defection of the timid and lukewarm, the consternation of the brawling multitude, and the exultation of his victorious troops, would the triennial act itself, or those other statutes which he had very reluctantly conceded, have stood secure? Or, if we believe that the constitutional supporters of his throne, the Hertfords, the Falklands, the Southamptons, the Spencers, would still have had sufficient influence to shield from violent hands that palladium which they had assisted to place in the building, can there be a stronger argument against the necessity of taking up arms for the defence of liberties, which, even in the contingency of defeat, could not have been subverted? There were many indeed at that time, as there have been ever since, who, admitting all the calamities incident to civil war, of which this country reaped the bitter fruits for twenty years, denied entirely that the parliament went beyond the necessary precautions for self-defence, and laid the whole guilt of the aggression at the king’s door. He had given, it was said, so many proofs of a determination to have recourse to arms, he had displayed so insidious an hostility to the privileges of parliament, that if he should be quietly allowed to choose and train soldiers under the name of a militia, through hired servants of his own nomination, the people might find themselves either robbed of their liberties by surprise, or compelled to struggle for them in very unfavorable circumstances. The commons, with more loyal respect perhaps than policy, had opposed no obstacle to his deliberate journey towards the north, which they could have easily prevented,1 though well aware that he had no other aim but to collect 1 May, p. 187, insinuates that the civil been in their power to have secured the war should have been prevented by more king’s person before he reached York. vigorous measures on the part of the But the majority were not ripe for such parliament. And it might probably have violent proceedings.

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CHA. I. - 1640-42. CONDUCT OF THE COMMONS. 143 an army; was it more than ordinary prudence to secure the fortified town of Hull with its magazine of arms from his grasp, and to muster the militia in each county under the command of lieutenants in whom they could confide, and to whom, from their rank and personal character, he could frame no just objection? These considerations are doubtless not without weight, and should restrain such as may not think them sufficient from too strongly censuring those who, deeming that either civil liberty or the ancient constitution must be sacrificed, persisted in depriving Charles I. of every power which, though pertaining to a king of England, he could not be trusted to exercise. We are, in truth, after a lapse of ages, often able to form a better judgment of the course that ought to have been pursued in political emergencies than those who stood nearest to the scene. Not only have we our knowledge of the event to guide and correct our imaginary determinations, but we are free from those fallacious rumors, those pretended secrets, those imperfect and illusive views, those personal prepossessions, which in every age warp the political conduct of the most well-meaning. The characters of individuals, so frequently misrepresented by flattery or party rage, stand out to us revealed by the tenor of their entire lives, or by the comparison of historical anecdotes, and that more authentic information which is reserved for posterity. Looking as it were from an eminence, we can take a more comprehensive range, and class better the objects before us in their due proportions and in their bearings on one another. It is not easy for us even now to decide, keeping in view the maintenance of the entire constitution, from which party in the civil war greater mischief was to be apprehended; but the election was, I am persuaded, still more difficult to be made by contemporaries. No one, at least, who has given any time to the study of that history will deny that among those who fought in opposite battalions at Edgehill’ and Newbury, or voted in the opposite parliaments of Westminster and Oxford, there were many who thought much alike on general theories of prerogative and privilege, divided only perhaps by some casual prejudices, which had led these to look with greater distrust on courtly insidiousness, and those with greater indignation at popular violence. We cannot believe that Falkland and Colepepper differed greatly in their constitutional

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144 CONCESSIONS OF THE KING. Cas. IX. principles from Whitelock and Pierpoint, or that Hertford and Southampton were less friends to a limited monarchy than Essex and Northumberland. There is, however, another argument sometimes alleged of late, in justification of the continued attacks on the king’s authority, which is the most specious, as it seems to appeal to what are now denominated the Whig principles of the con stitution. It has been said that, sensible of the maladministration the nation had endured for so many years (which, if the king himself were to be deemed by constitutional fiction ignorant of it, must at least be imputed to evil advisers), the house of commons sought only that security which, as long as a sound spirit continues to actuate its members, it must ever require - the appointment of ministers in whose fidelity to the public liberties it could better confide; that by carrying frankly into effect those counsels which he had unwisely abandoned upon the earl of Bedford’s death, and bestowing the responsible offices of the state on men approved for patriotism, he would both have disarmed the jealousy of his subjects and insured his own prerogative, which no ministers are prone to impair. Those who are struck by these considerations may not, perhaps, have sufficiently reflected on the changes which the king had actually made in his administration since the beginning of the parliament. Besides those already mentioned, Essex, Holland, Say, and St. John, he had, in the autumn of 1641, conferred the post of secretary of state on lord Falkland, and that of master of the rolls on sir John Colepepper, both very prominent in the redress of grievances and punishment of delinquent ministers during the first part of the session, and whose attachment to the cause of constitutional liberty there was no sort of reason to distrust. They were indeed in some points of a different way of thinking from Pym and Hampden, and had doubtless been chosen by the king on that account. But it seems rather beyond the legitimate bounds of parliamentary opposition to involve the kingdom in civil war, simply because the choice of the crown had not fallen on its leaders. The real misfortune was, that Charles did not rest in the advice of his own responsible ministers, against none of whom the house of commons had any just cause of exception.

The theory of our constitution in this respect was very ill established; and, had it been more so,

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CHA. I.-1640-42. RELUCTANCE OF ROYALISTS TO ARM. 145 there are perhaps few sovereigns, especially in circumstances of so much novelty, who would altogether conform to it. But no appointment that he could have made from the patriotic band of parliament would have furnished a security against the intrigues of his bedchamber, or the influence of the queen. The real problem that we have to resolve, as to the political justice of the civil war, is not the character, the past actions, or even the existing designs of Charles; not even whether he had as justly forfeited his crown as his son was deemed to have done for less violence and less insincerity; not even, I will add, whether the liberties of his subjects could have been absolutely secure under his government; but whether the risk attending his continuance upon the throne with the limited prerogatives of an English sovereign were great enough to counterbalance the miseries of protracted civil war, the perils of defeat, and the no less perils, as experience showed, of victory. Those who adopt the words spoken by one of our greatest orators, and quoted by another, ” There was ambition, there was sedition, there was violence; but no man shall persuade me that it was not the cause of liberty on one side, and of tyranny on the other,” have for themselves decided this question.’ But as I know (and the history of eighteen years is my witness) how little there was on one side of such liberty as a wise man would hold dear, so I am not yet convinced that the great body of the royalists, the peers and gentry of England, were combating for the sake of tyranny. I cannot believe them to have so soon forgotten their almost unanimous discontent at the king’s arbitrary government in 1640, or their general concurrence in the first salutary measures of the parliament. I cannot think that the temperate and constitutional language of the royal declarations and answers to the house of commons in 1642, known to have proceeded from the pen of Hyde, and as superior to those on the opposite side in argument as they are in eloquence, was intended for the willing slaves of tyranny. I cannot discover in the extreme reluctance of the royalists to take up arms, and their constant eagerness for an accommodation (I speak not of mere soldiers, but of the greater and more important 1 These words are ascribed to lord on the History of the English GovernChatham, in a speech of Mr.

Grattan, ac-ment, p. 55. cording to lord John Russell, in his Essay VOL.

II. 10

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146 EFFECT OF THE KING’S CONCESSIONS. CHAP. IX. portion of that party), that zeal for the king’s reestablishment in all his abused prerogatives which some connect with the very names of a royalist or a cavalier.1 It is well observed by Burnet, in answer to the vulgar notion that Charles I.

was undone by his concessions, that, but for his concessions, he would have had no party at all. This is, in fact, the secret of what seems to astonish the parliamentary historian, May, of the powerful force that the king was enabled to raise, and the protracted resistance he opposed. He had succeeded, according to the judgment of many real friends of the constitution, in putting the house of commons in the wrong. Law, justice, moderation, once ranged against him, had gone over to his banner. His arms might reasonably be called defensive, if he had no other means of preserving himself from the condition, far worse than captivity, of a sovereign compelled to a sort of suicide upon his own honor and authority.

For, however it may be alleged that a king is bound in conscience to sacrifice his power to the public will, yet it could hardly be inexcusable not to have practised this disinterested morality; especially while the voice of his people was by no means unequivocal, 1 Clarendon has several remarkable ing certain persons in each county to passages, chiefly towards the end of the raise troops, was in fact issued immefifth book of his History, on the slowness diately after this declaration. It is rather and timidity of the royalist party before mortifying to find lord Falkland’s name, the commencement of the civil war. The not to mention others, in this list; but peers at York, forming, in fact, a majority he probably felt it impossible to refuse his of the upper house - for there were nearly signature, without throwing discredit on forty of them - displayed much of this. the king; and no man engaged in a party Want of political courage was a charac-ever did, or ever can, act with absolute teristic of our aristocracy at this period, sincerity; or at least he can be of no use bravely as many behaved in the field. to his friends if he does adhere to this But I have no doubt that a real jealousy uncompromising principle. of the king’s intentions had a consider-The commission of array was ill reable effect. ceived by many of the king’s friends, as They put forth a declaration, signed not being conformable to law. Clarenby an their hands, on the 15th of June, don, iii. 91. Certainly it was not so; but 16427
professing before God their full per-it was justifiable as the means of opposing suasion that the king had no design to the parliaments ordinance for the militia, make war on the parliament, and that at least equally illegal. This, however, they saw no color of preparations or shows very strongly the cautious and counsels that might reasonably beget a constitutional temper of many of the belief of any such designs; but that all royalists, who could demur about the his endeavors tended to the settlement legality of a measure of necessity, since of the protestant religion, the just privi-no other method of raising an army leges of parliament, the liberty of the would have been free from similar excepsubject, &c. This was an ill-judged and tion. The same reluctance to enter on even absurd piece of hypocrisy, calculated the war was displayed in the propositions to degrade the subscribers, since the for peace, which the king, in consequence design of raising troops was hardly con-of his council’s importunity, sent to the cealed, and every part of the king’s con-two houses through the earl of Southduct since his arrival at York manifested ampton, just before he raised his standit. The commission of array, authoriz-ard at Nottingham.

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CHA. I.-1640-42. CLARENDON’S OPINION. 147. and while the major part of one house of parliament adhered openly to his cause.1 It is indeed a question perfectly distinguishable from that of the abstract justice of the king’s cause, whether he did not too readily abandon his post as a constitutional head of the parliament; whether, with the greater part of the peers and a very considerable minority in the commons, resisting in their places at Westminster all violent encroachments on his rights, he ought not rather to have sometimes persisted in a temperate though firm assertion of them, sometimes had recourse to compromise and gracious concession, instead of calling away so many of his adherents to join his arms as left neither numbers nor credit with those who remained. There is a remarkable passage in lord Clarendon’s Life, not to quote Whitelock and other writers less favorable to Charles, where he intimates his own opinion that the king would have had a fair hope of withstanding the more violent faction, if, after the queen’s embarkation for Holland, in February, 1642, he had returned to Whitehall; admitting, at the same time, the hazards and inconveniences to which this course was liable.2 That he resolved on trying the fortune of arms, his noble historian insinuates to have been the effect of the queen’s influence, with whom before her departure he had concerted his future proceedings. Yet, notwithstanding the deference owing to contemporary opinions, I cannot but suspect that Clarendon has, in this instance as in some other passages, attached too great an importance to particular individuals, measuring them rather by their rank in the state than by that capacity and energy of mind, which, in the levelling hour of revolution, are the only real pledges of political influence. He thought it of the utmost consequence to the king that he should gain over the earls of Essex and Northumberland, both, or at least the former, wavering between the two parties, though voting entirely with the commons.

Certainly the king’s situation required every aid, and his repulsive hardness towards all who had ever given him offence displayed an obstinate unconciliating 1 According to a list made by the mencement of the war, and five or six house of lords, May 25, 1642, the peers afterwards; two or three of those at York with the king at York were thirty-two; returned.

During the war there were at those who remained’ at Westminster, the outside thirty peers who sat in the forty-two. But of the latter, more than parliament. ten joined the others before the corn-2 Life of Clarendon, p. 56.

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148 COMMENCEMENT OF CIVIL WAR. CHAP. IX. character which deprived him of some support he might have received. But the subsequent history of these two celebrated earls, and indeed of all the moderate adherents to the parliament, will hardly lead us to believe that they could have afforded the king any protection. Let us suppose that he had returned to Whitehall instead of proceeding towards the north. It is evident that he must either have passed the bill for the militia or seen the ordinances of both houses carried into effect without his consent. He must have consented to the abolition of episcopacy, or at least have come into some compromise which would have left the bishops hardly a shadow of their jurisdiction and preeminence. He must have driven from his person those whom he best loved and trusted. He would have found it impossible to see again the queen without awakening distrust and bringing insult on them both. The royalist minority of parliament, however considerable in numbers, was lukewarm and faint-hearted. That they should have gained strength so as to keep a permanent superiority over their adversaries, led as they were by statesmen so bold and profound as Hampden, Pym, St. John, Cromwell, and Vane, is what, from the experience of the last twelve months, it was unreasonable to anticipate. But even if the commons had been more favorably inclined, it would not have been in their power to calm the mighty waters that had been moved from their depths. They had permitted the populace to mingle in their discussions, testifying pleasure at its paltry applause, and encouraging its tumultuous aggressions on the minority of the legislature. What else could they expect than that, so soon as they ceased to satisfy the city apprentices, or the trained bands raised under their militia bill, they must submit to that physical strength which is the ultimate arbiter of political contentions? Thus, with evil auspices, with much peril of despotism on the one hand, with more of anarchy on the other, amidst the apprehensions and sorrows of good men, the civil war commenced in the summer of 1642. I might now perhaps pass over the period that intervened, until the restoration of Charles II., as not strictly belonging to a work which undertakes to relate the progress of the English constitution. But this would have left a sort of chasm that might disappoint the reader; and as I have already not wholly excluded our

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CHA. I. -1640-42. COMMENCEMENT OF CIVIL WAR. 149 more general political history, without a knowledge of which the laws and government of any people must be unintelligible, it will probably not be deemed an unnecessary digression, if I devote one chapter to the most interesting and remarkable portion of British story.

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150 THE CIVIL WAR. CHAP. X. CHAPTER X. FROM THE BREAKING OUT OF THE CIVIL

WAR TO THE RESTORATION. PART I. Success of the King in the first part of the War-Efforts by the Moderate Party for Peace - Affair at Brentford-Treaty of Oxford -Impeachment of the Queen - Waller’s Plot - Secession of some Peers to the King’s Quarters — Their Treatment there impolitic -The Anti-pacific Party gain the ascendant at Westminster - The Parliament makes a new Great Seal - And takes the Covenant-Persecution of the Clergy who refuse it - Impeachment and Execution of Laud  Decline of the King’s Affairs in 1644-Factions at Oxford-Royalist Lords and Commoners summoned to that City - Treaty of Uxbridge - Impossibility of Agreement-The Parliament insist on unreasonable Terms-Miseries of the WarEssex and Manchester suspected of Lukewarmness-Self-denying OrdinanceBattle of Naseby-Desperate Condition of the King’s Affairs - He throws himself into the hands of the Scots - His Struggles to preserve Episcopacy, against the advice of the Queen and others - Bad Conduct of the Queen-Publication of Letters taken at Naseby - Discovery of Glamorgan’s Treaty - King delivered up by the Scots - Growth of the Independents and Republicans - Opposition to the Presbyterian Government-Toleration- Intrigues of the Army with the King  His Person seized - The Parliament yield to the Army - Mysterious Conduct of Cromwell - Imprudent Hopes of the King - He rejects the Proposals of the Army - His Flight from Hampton Court - Alarming Votes against him - Scots’ Invasion - The Presbyterians regain the Ascendant -

Treaty of Newport - Gradual Progress of a Republican Party-Scheme among the Officers of bringing Charles to Trial - This is finally determined-Seclusion of Presbyterian Members-Motives of some of the King’s Judges-Question of his Execution Discussed -His Character-Icon Basilike.

FACTIONS that, while still under some restraint from the forms at least of constitutional law, excite our disgust by their selfishness or intemperance, are little likely to redeem their honor when their animosities have kindled civil warfare. If it were difficult for an upright man to enlist with an entire willingness under either the royalist or the parliamentarian banner at the commencement of hostilities in 1642, it became far less easy for him to desire the complete success of one or the other cause, as advancing time displayed the faults of both in darker colors than they had previously worn. Of the parliament - to begin with the more powerful and victorious party -it may be said, I think, with not greater severity than truth, that scarce two or three public acts of justice, humanity, or generosity, and very few of political wisdom

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CIA. I. -1642-49. THE KING’S SUCCESS. 151 or courage, are recorded of them from their quarrel with the king to their expulsion by Cromwell.

Notwithstanding the secession from parliament before the commencement of the war of nearly all the peers who could be reckoned on the king’s side, and of a pretty considerable part of the commons, there still continued to sit at Westminster many sensible and moderate persons, who thought that they could not serve their country better than by remaining at their posts, and labored continually to bring about a pacification by mutual concessions. Such were the earls of Northumberland, Holland, Lincoln, and Bedford, among the peers; Selden, Whitelock, Hollis, Waller, Pierpoint, and Rudyard, in the commons. These, however, would have formed but a very ineffectual minority if the war itself, for at least twelve months, had not taken a turn little expected by the parliament. The hard usage Charles seemed to endure in so many encroachments on his ancient prerogative awakened the sympathies of a generous aristocracy, accustomed to respect the established laws, and to love monarchy, as they did their own liberties, on the score of its prescriptive title; averse also to the rude and morose genius of puritanism, and not a little jealous of those upstart demagogues who already threatened to subvert the graduated pyramid of English society. Their zeal placed the King at the head of a far more considerable army than either party had anticipated.l In the first battle, that of Edgehill, though he did not remain master of the field, yet all the the kng in military consequences were evidently in his favor.2 the first part In the ensuing campaign of 1643, the advantage ofhewar. was for several months entirely his own, nor could he be said to be a loser on the whole result, notwithstanding some reverses that accompanied the autumn. A line drawn from Hull to Southampton would suggest no very incorrect idea of the two parties, considered as to their military occupation 1 May, p.

165. its consequences: ” Our army, after some 2 Both sides claimed the victory. May, refreshment at Warwick, returned to who thinks that Essex, by his injudicious London, not like men that had obtained conduct after the battle, lost the advan-a victory, but as if they had been beattage he had gained in it, admits that the en,’ p. 52. This shows that they had effect was to strengthen the king’s side. not, in fact, obtained much of a victory; ” Those who thought his success impos-and lord Wharton’s report to parliament sible began to look upon him as one who almost leads us to think the advantage, might be a conqueror, and many neuters upon the whole, to have been with the joined him,” p. 176. Ludlow is of the king.

Parl. Hist. ii. 1495. same opinion as to Essex’s behavior and

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152 EFFORTS FOR PEACE. CHAP. X. of the kingdom, at the beginning of September, 1643; for if the parliament, by the possession of Gloucester and Plymouth, and by some force they had on foot in Cheshire and other midland parts, kept their ground on the west of this line, this was nearly compensated by the earl of Newcastle’s possession at that time of most of Lincolnshire, which lay within it. Such was the temporary effect, partly indeed of what may be called the fortune of war, but rather of the zeal and spirit of the royalists, and of their advantage in a more numerous and intrepid cavalry.1 It has been frequently supposed, and doubtless seems to have been a prevailing opinion at the time, that if the king, instead of sitting down before Gloucester at the end of August, had marched upon London, combining his operations with Newcastle’s powerful army, he would have brought the war to a triumphant conclusion.2 In these matters men judge principally by the event. Whether it would have been prudent in Newcastle to have left behind him the strong garrison of Hull under Fairfax, and an unbroken though inferior force commanded by lord Willoughby and Cromwell in Lincolnshire, I must leave to military critics; suspecting, however, that he would have found it difficult to draw away the Yorkshire gentry and yeomanry, forming the strength of his army, from their unprotected homes. Yet the parliamentary forces were certainly, at no period of the war, so deficient in numbers, discipline, and confidence; and it may well be thought that the king’s want of permanent resources, with his knowledge of the timidity and disunion which prevailed in the capital, rendered the boldest and most forward game his true policy. It was natural that the moderate party in parliament I May, 212. Baillie, 873, 391 such as the king’s army, with its weak I May, Baillie, Mrs.

Hutchinson, are cavalry and bad artillery, could not as much of this opinion as sir Philip easily have carried. Lord Sunderland, Warwick and other royalist writers. It four days before the battle of Newbury, is certain that there was a prodigious wherein he was killed, wrote to his wife, alarm, and almost despondency, among that the king’s affairs had never been in the parliamentarians. They immediate-. a more prosperous condition; that sitting ly began to make intrenchments about down before Gloucester had prevented London, which were finished in a month.

theirfinishing the war that year, ” which May, p. 214. In the Somers Tracts, iv. nothing could keep us from doing, if we 534, is an interesting letter from a Scots-had a month’s more time.” Sidney man then in London, giving an account Letters, ii. 671. He alludes in the same of these fortifications, which, considering letters to the divisions in the royalist the short time employed about them, party. seem to have been very respectable, and

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CHA. I. -1642-49. TREATY AT OXFORD. 153 should acquire strength by the untoward fortune of its arms. Their aim, as well as that of the constitutional royalists, was a speedy pacification; neither the moderate party so much considering what terms might be party for peace. most advantageous to their own side, as which way the nation might be freed from an incalculably protracted calamity. On the king’s advance to Colnbrook, in November, 1642, the two houses made an overture for negotiation, on which he expressed his readiness to enter. But, Affair at during the parley, some of his troops advanced to Brentford. Brentford, and a sharp action took place in that town. The parliament affected to consider this such a mark of perfidy and blood-thirstiness as justified them in breaking off the treaty, a step to which they were doubtless more inclined by the king’s retreat, and their discovery that his army was less formidable than they had apprehended. It is very probable, or rather certain, even from Clarendon’s account, that many about the king, if not himself, were sufficiently indisposed to negotiate; yet, as no cessation of arms had been agreed upon, or even proposed, he cannot be said to have waived the unquestionable right of every belligerent to obtain all possible advantage by arms, in order to treat for peace in a more favorable position. But, as mankind are seldom reasonable in admitting such maxims against themselves, he seems to have injured his reputation by this affair of Brentford. A treaty, from which many ventured to hope much, was begun early in the next spring at Oxford, after a Treaty at struggle which had lasted through the winter within Oxford. the walls of parliament.1 But though the party of Pym and Hampden at Westminster were not able to prevent negotiation against the strong bent of the house of lords, and even of the city, which had been taught to lower its tone by the interruption of trade, and especially of the supply of coals from Newcastle, yet they were powerful enough to make the houses insist on terms not less unreasonable than those contained in their nineteen propositions the year before.2 The 1 Parl. Hist. iii. 45, 48. It seems is to be considered, on the other hand, natural to think that. if the moderate that the king could never have raised an party were able to contend so well army, if he had not been able to rally against their opponents, after the deser-the peers and gentry round his banner, tion of a great many royalist members and that in his army lay the real secret who had joined the king, they would of the temporary strength of the pacific have maintained a decisive majority, had party. these continued in their places. But it 2 Parl. Hist. iii. 68, 94. Clarendon,

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154 TREATY AT OXFORD. CHAP. X. king could not be justly expected to comply with these; but, had they been more moderate, or if the parliament would have in some measure receded from them, we have every reason to conclude, both by the nature of the terms he proposed in return, and by the positive testimony of Clarendon, that he would not have come sincerely into any scheme of immediate accommodation. The reason assigned by that author for the unwillingness of Charles to agree on a cessation of arms during the negotiation, though it had been originally suggested by himself (and which reason would have been still more applicable to a treaty of peace), is one so strange that it requires all the authority of one very unwilling to confess any weakness or duplicity of the king to be believed. He had made a solemn promise to the queen on her departure for Holland the year before, “that he would receive no person who had disserved him into any favor or trust, without her privity and consent; and that, as she had undergone many reproaches and calumnies at the entrance into the war, so he would never make any peace but by her interposition and mediation, that the kingdom might receive that blessing only from her.” 1 Let this be called, as the reader may please, the extravagance of romantic affection, or rather the height of pusillanimous and criminal subserviency, we cannot surely help acknowledging that this one marked weakness in Charles’s character, had there been nothing else to object, rendered the return of cordial harmony between himself and his people scarce within the bounds of natural possibility. In the equally balanced condition of both forces May, Whitelock. If we believe the last urged by Hyde. That peer was, at this (p. 68), the king, who took as usual a time, and for several months afterwards, very active part in the discussions upon inclining to come over to the king; but, this treaty. would frequently have been on the bad success of Holland and Bedinclined to come into an adjustment of ford in their change of sides, he gave terms; if some of the more warlike into the opposite course of politics, and spirits about him (glancing apparently joined the party of lords Say and Wharat Rupert) had not over-persuaded his ton, in determined hostility to the king. better judgment. This.

however, does Dr. Lingard has lately thrown doubts not accord with what Clarendon tells us upon this passage in Clarendon, but of the queen’s secret influence, nor in-upon grounds which I do not clearly deed with all we have reason to believe understand. Hist. of England, x. 208, of the king’s disposition during the note. That no vestige of its truth war.

should appear, as he observes, in the 1 Life of Clarendon, p. 79. This in-private correspondence between Charles dueed the king to find pretexts for avoid-and his consort (if he means the letters ing the cessation, and was the real cause taken at Naseby, and I know no other), of his refusal to restore the earl of Nor-is not very singular; as the whole of thumberland to his post of lord admiral that correspondence is of a much later during this treaty of Oxford, which was date.

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CHA. I. -1642-49. IMPEACHMENT OF THE QUEEN. 155 at this particular juncture, it may seem that some compromise on the great question of the militia was not impracticable, had the king been truly desirous of accommodation; for it is only just to remember that the parliament had good reason to demand some security for themselves, when he had so peremptorily excluded several persons from amnesty. Both parties, in truth, were standing out for more than either according to their situation as belligerents, or even perhaps according to the principles of our constitution, they could reasonably claim; the two houses having evidently no direct right to order the military force, nor the king, on the other hand, having a clear prerogative to keep on foot an army, which is not easily distinguishable from a militia, without consent of parliament. The most reasonable course apparently would have been for the one to have waived a dangerous and disputed authority, and the other to have desisted from a still more unconstitutional pretension, which was done by the bill of rights in 1689. The kingdom might have well dispensed, in that age, with any military organization, and this seems to have been the desire of Whitelock, and probably of other reasonable men. But, unhappily, when swords are once drawn in civil war, they are seldom sheathed till experience has shown which blade is the sharper. Though this particular instance of the queen’s prodigious ascendency over her husband remained secret till the publication of lord Clarendon’s Life, it was in general well known, and put the leaders of the commons on a remarkable stroke of policy, in order to prevent the renewal of negotiations. On her landing in the north, with a supply of mpeachmoney and arms, as well as with a few troops she ment of had collected in Holland, they carried up to the the queen. lords an impeachment for high treason against her. This measure (so obnoxious was Henrietta) met with a less vigorous opposition than might be expected, though the moderate party was still in considerable force.1 It was not only 1 I cannot discover in the Journals Martin with his usual fury and rudeness. any division on this impeachment. But The first of these carried up the impeachIollis inveighs against it in his memoirs ment to the house of lords. as one of the flagrant acts of St. John’s This impeachment was not absolutely party: and there is an account of the lost sight of for some time. In January, debate on this subject in the Somers 1644, the lords appointed a committee Tracts, v. 500; whence it appears that to consider what mode of proceeding it was opposed by Maynard, Waller, for bringing the queen to trial was most Whitelock, and others; but supported agreeable to a parliamentary way, and by Pym, Strode, Long, Glynn, and by to peruse precedents. ParL Hist. 194.

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156 WALLER’S PLOT. CHAP. X. an insolence which a king, less uxorious than Charles, could never pardon, but a violation of the primary laws and moral sentiments that preserve human society, to which the queen was acting in obedience. Scarce any proceeding of the long parliament seems more odious than this; whether designed by way of intimidation, or to exasperate the king, and render the composure of existing differences more impracticable.

The enemies of peace were strengthened by the discovery Waller’s of what is usually called Waller’s plot, a scheme plot. for making a strong demonstration of the royalist party in London, wherein several members of both houses appear to have been more or less concerned. Upon the detection of this conspiracy, the two houses of parliament took an oath not to lay down arms, so long as the papists now in arms should be protected from the justice of parliament; and never to adhere to, or willingly assist, the forces raised by the king, without the consent of both houses. Every individual member of the peers and commons took this oath; some of them being then in secret concert with the king, and others entertaining intentions, as their conduct very soon evinced, of deserting to his side.1

Such was the commencement of a system of perjury, which lasted for many years, and belies the pretended religion of that hypocritical age. But we may always look for this effect from oppressive power, and the imposition of political tests. The king was now in a course of success, which made him rather hearken to the sanguine courtiers of Oxford, where, according to the invariable character of an exiled faction, every advantage or reverse brought on a disproportionate exultation or despondency, than to those better counsellors who knew the precariousness of his good fortune.

He published a declaration, wherein he denied the two houses at Westminster the name of a parliament; which he could no more take from them, after the bill he had passed, than they could deprive him of his royal title, and by refusing which he shut up all avenues to an equal peace.2 This was soon followed by so extraordinary a political error as manifests the king’s want of judgment, and the utter improbability that 1

Parl. Hist. 129. 2 Id. 133, June 20; Clarendon, iv. containing full assurances of his deter155. He published, however, a declara-mination to govern by the known lawe. tion soon after the taking of Bristol, Parl.

Hist. 144.

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CHA..-1642-49. SECESSION OF PEERS TO THE KING. 157 any event of the war could have restored to England the blessings of liberty and repose. Three peers of Secession of the moderate party, the earls of Holland, Bedford, some peers and Clare, dissatisfied with the preponderance of tothe king’s a violent faction in the commons, left their places at Westminster, and came into the king’s quarters. It might be presumed, from general policy as well as from his constant declarations of a desire to restore peace, that they would have been received with such studied courtesy as migh serve to reconcile to their own mind a step which, when taken with the best intentions, is always equivocal and humiliating. There was great reason to believe that the earl of Northumberland, not only the first peer then in England as to family and fortune, but a man highly esteemed for prudence, was only waiting to observe the reception of those who went first to Oxford before he followed their steps. There were even well-founded hopes of the earl of Essex, who, though incapable of betraying his trust as commander of the parliament’s army, was, both from personal and public motives, disinclined to the war-party in the commons.

There was much to expect from all those who had secretly wished well to the king’s cause, and from those whom it is madness to reject or insult, the followers of fortune, the worshippers of power, without whom neither fortune nor power can long subsist. Yet such was the state of Charles’s coun-Their treatcil-board at Oxford that some were for arresting ment there these proselyte earls; and it was carried with dif-impolitic.

ficulty, after they had been detained some time at Wallingford, that they might come to the court. But they met there with so many and such general slights, that, though they fought in the king’s army at Newbury, they found their position intolerably ignominious, and, after about three months, returned to the parliament with many expressions of repentance, and strong testimonies to the evil counsels of Oxford.l 1 Clarendon, iv.

192, 262; Whitelock, commoner, who had been in the king’s 70. They met with a worse reception at quarters, should be admitted again to sit Westminster than at Oxford, as indeed in either house. Parl. Hist. 271.

This they had reason to expect. A motion severity was one cause of Essex’s disconthat the earl of Holland should be sent tent, which was increased when the comto the Tower was lost in the commons by mons refused him leave to take Holland only one voice. Parl. Hist. 180. They with him on his expedition into the west were provoked at his taking his seat that summer.

Baillie, i. 426; Whitewithout permission. After long refusing lock, 87. If it be asked why this Roman to consent, the lords agreed to an ordi-rigor was less impolitic in the parliament dance, June 29, 1644, that no peer or than in the king, I can only answer that

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158 ADVERSENESS TO OVERTURES OF PEACE. CHAP. X The king seems to have been rather passive in this strange piece of impolicy, but by no means to have taken the line that became him, of repressing the selfish jealousy or petty revengefulness of his court. If the earl of Holland was a man whom both he and the queen, on the score of his great obligations to them, might justly reproach with some ingratitude, there was nothing to be objected against the other two, save their continuance at Westminster, and compliance in votes that he disliked. And if this were to be visited by neglect and discountenance, there could, it was plain, be no reconciliation between him and the parliament. For who could imagine that men of courage and honor, while possessed of any sort of strength and any hopes of preserving it, would put up with a mere indemnity for their lives and fortunes, subject to be reckoned as pardoned traitors, who might thank the king for his clemency, without presuming to his favor? Charles must have seen his superiority consolidated by repeated victories, before he could prudently assume this tone of conquest. Inferior in substantial force, notwithstanding his transient advantages, to the parliament, he had no probability of regaining his station but by defections from their banner; and these, with incredible folly, he seemed to decline; far unlike his illustrious father-in-law, who had cordially embraced the leaders of a rebellion much more implacable than the present. For the Oxford counsellors and courtiers, who set themselves against the reception of the three earls, besides their particular animosity towards the earl of Holland,1 and that general feeling of disdain and distrust which, as Clarendon finely observes, seems by nature attached to all desertion and inconstancy, whether in politics or religion (even among those who reap the advantage of it, and when founded upon what they ought to reckon the soundest reasons), there seem grounds to suspect that they the stronger and the weaker have differ-tained no resentment against him. As ent measures to pursue. But relatively to Bedford and Clare, they would probato the pacification of the kingdom, upon bly have been better received, if not acsuch terms as fellow-citizens ought to companied by so obnoxious an intriguer require from each other, it was equally of the old court. This seems to account blamable in both parties, or rather for the unanimity which the historian more so in that possessed of the greater describes to have been shown in the power. council against their favorable reception. 1 It is intimated by Clarendon that Light and passionate tempers, like that some at Oxford, probably Jermyn and of Henrietta, are prone to forget inDigby, were jealous of Holland’s recov-juries; serious and melancholic ones, ering the influence he had possessed like that of Charles, nf ver lose sight of with the queen, who seems to have re-them.

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CHA. I. 1642-49. ANTI-PACIFIC PARTY. 159 had deeper and more selfish designs than they cared to manifest. They had long beset the king with solicitations for titles, offices, pensions; but these were necessarily too limited for their cravings. They had sustained, many of them, great losses; they had performed real or pretended services for the king; and it is probable that they looked to a confis cation of enemies’ property for their indemnification or reward. This would account for an adverseness to all overtures for peace, as decided, at this period, among a great body of the cavaliers, as it was with the factions of Pym or Vane. These factions were now become finally predominant ai Westminster. On the news that prince Rupert The antihad taken Bristol, the last and most serious loss pacific part> that the parliament sustained, the lords agreed on gain thent propositions for peace to be sent to the king, of an at Westunusually moderate tone.1 The commons, on a minster. division of 94 to 65, determined to take them into considera tion; but the lord-mayor Pennington having procured an address of the city against peace, backed by a tumultuous mob, a small majority was obtained against concurring with the other house.2 It was after this that the lords above mentioned, as well as many of the commons, quitted Westminster. The prevailing party had no thoughts of peace till they could dictate its conditions. Through Essex’s great success in raising the siege of Gloucester, the most distinguished exploit in his military life, and the battle of Newbury, wherein the advantage was certainly theirs, they became secure against any important attack on the king’s side, the war turning again to endless sieges and skirmishes of partisans. And they now adopted two important measures, one of which gave a new complexion to the quarrel. 1 Baillie deplores at this time ” the Hist. 156, &c.; Clarendon, iv. 183; Holhorrible fears and confusions in the city, lis’s Memoirs. Hollis was a teller for the the king everywhere being victorious. majority on the first occasion; he had left In the city a strong and insolent party the warlike party some months (Baillie, for him.” P. 391. “The malignants i. 356); and his name is in the Journals stirred a multitude of women of the repeatedly, from November, 1642, as teller meaner and more infamous rank to come against them, though he is charged with to the door of both houses, and cry tu-having said the year before that he abmultuously for peace on any terms. This horred the name of accommodation. tumult could not be suppressed but by Hutchinson, p. 296. Though a very violence, and killing some three or four honest, and to a certain extent an able women, and hurting some of them, and man, he was too much carried away by imprisoning many.” P. 300. personal animosities; and as these shifted 2

Lords’ and Commons’ Journals; Parl. his principles shifted also.

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160 A NEW GREAT SEAL. CHAP. X. Littleton, the lord-keeper of the great seal, had carried it away with him to the king. This of itself put a stop to the regular course of the executive government, and to the administration of justice within the parliament’s quarters. No employments could be filled up, no writs for election of members issued, no commissions for holding the assizes completed, without the indispensable formality of affixing the great seal. It must surely excite a smile, that men who had raised armies, and fought battles against the king, should be perplexed how to get over so technical a difficulty. But the great seal, in the eyes of the English lawyers, has a sort of mysterious efficacy, and passes for the depository of royal authority in a higher degree than the person of the king. The The parlia- - mentmakes commons prepared an ordinance in July for maka new great ing a new great seal, in which the lords could not be induced to concur till October. The royalists, and the king himself, exclaimed against this as the most audacious treason, though it may be reckoned a very natural monsequence of the state in which the parliament was placed; and in the subsequent negotiations it was one of the minor points in dispute, whether he should authorize the proceedings under the great seal of the two houses, or they consent to sanction what had been done by virtue of his own. The second measure of parliament was of greater moment and more fatal consequences. I have already mentioned the stress laid by the bigoted Scots presbyterians on the establishment of their own churchgovernment in England. Chiefly perhaps to conciliate this people, the house of commons had entertained the bill for abolishing episcopacy; and this had formed a part of the nineteen propositions that both houses tendered to the king.’ After the action at Brentford they concurred in a declaration to be delivered to the Scots commissioners, resident in London, wherein, after setting forth the malice of the prelatical clergy in hindering the reformation of ecclesiastical government, and professing their own desire willingly and affectionately to pursue a closer union in such matters between the two nations, they request their brethren of Scotland to raise such forces as they should judge sufficient for the securing the peace of their own bor1 The resolution, that government by 1642. Parl. Hist. ii. 1465. But the ordiarchbishops, bishops, &c., was inconven-nance to carry this fully into effect was ient and ought to be taken away, passed not made till October, 1646. Scobell’s both houses unanimously, September 10, Ordinances.

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CHA. I. 1642-49. SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT. 161 ders against ill-affected persons there; as likewise to assist them in suppressing the army of papists and foreigners which, it was expected, would shortly be on foot in England.1 This overture produced for many months no sensible effect. The Scots, with all their national wariness, suspected that, in spite of these general declarations in favor of their church polity, it was not much at heart with most of the parliament, and might be given up in a treaty, if the king would concede some other matters in dispute.

Accordingly, when the progress of his arms, especially in the north, during the ensuing summer, compelled the parliament to call in a more pressing manner, and by a special embassy, for their aid, they resolved to bind them down by such a compact as no wavering policy should ever rescind. They insisted therefore on the adoption of the solemn league and covenant, founded on a similar association of their own five years before, through which they had successfully resisted the king and overthrown the prelatic government. The covenant consisted in an oath to be subscribed by all sorts of persons in both kingdoms, whereby they bound themselves to preserve the reformed religion in the church of Scotland, in doctrine, worship, discipline, and government, according to the word of God and practice of the best reformed churches; and to endeavor to bring the churches of God in the three kingdoms to the nearest conjunction and uniformity in religion, confession of faith, form of churchgovernment, directory for worship, and catechizing; to endeavor, without respect of persons, the extirpation of popery, prelacy (that is, churchgovernment by archbishops, bishops, their chancellors, and commissaries, deans and chapters, archdeacons, and all other ecclesiastical officers depending on that hierarchy), and whatsoever should be found contrary to sound doctrine and the power of godliness; to preserve the rights and privileges of the parliaments and the liberties of the kingdoms, and the king’s person and authority, in the preservation and defence of the true religion and liberties of the kingdoms; to endeavor the discovery of incendiaries and malignants, who hinder the reformation of religion, and divide the king from his people, that they may be brought to punishment; finally, to assist and defend all such as should enter into this cove1 Parl. Hist.

iii. 16. VOL. I. 11

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162 PARLIAMENT ACCEPTS THE COVENANT. CHAP. X. nant and not suffer themselves to be withdrawn from it, whether to revolt to the opposite party, or to give in to a detestable indifference or neutrality. In conformity to the strict alliance thus established between the two kingdoms, the Scots commissioners at Westminster were intrusted, jointly with a committee of both houses, with very extensive powers to administer the public affairs.1 Every member of the commons who remained at WestThe par-minster, to the number of 228, or perhaps more, liament and from 20
to 30 peers that formed their upper subscribes 2 pd to the house,2
subscribed this deliberate pledge to overcovenant. turn the established church; many of them with extreme reluctance, both from a dislike of the innovation, and from a consciousness that it raised a most formidable obstacle to the restoration of peace; but with a secret reserve, for which some want of precision in the language of this covenant (purposely introduced by Vane, as is said, to shelter his own schemes) afforded them a sort of apology.8 It was next imposed on all civil and military officers, and upon all the beneficed clergy.4 A severe persecution fell on 1 This committee, appointed in Feb-p. 289. I am not quite satisfied as to ruary, 1644, consisted of the following this, which later writers seem to have persons, the most conspicuous, at that taken from Burnet. It may well be suptime, of the parliament: the earls of posed that the ambiguity of the covenant Northumberland, Essex, Warwick, and was not very palpable; since the Scots Manchester; lords Say, Wharton, and presbyterians, a people not easily cozRoberts; Mr. Pierpoint, the two sir ened, were content with its expression. Henry Vanes, sir Philip Stapylton, sir According to fair and honest rules of inWilliam Waller, sir Gilbert Gerrard, sir terpretation, it certainly bound the subWilliam Armyn, sir Arthur Iaslerig; scribers to the establishment of a churchMessrs. Crew, Wallop, St. John, Crom-government conformed to that of Scotwell, Brown, and Glynn. Parl. Hist. iii. land; namely, the presbyterian, exclu248. sive of all mixture with any other. But 2 Somers Tracts, iv. 533. The names Selden, and the other friends of moderate marked in the Parliamentary History as episcopacy who took the covenant, justihaving taken the covenant are 236. fled it, I suppose, to their consciences, The earl of Lincoln alone, a man of by the pretext that, in renouncing the great integrity and moderation, though jurisdiction of bishops, they meant the only conspicuous in the Journals, refused unlimited jurisdiction without concurto take the covenant, and was excluded in rence of any presbyters.

It was not, consequence from his seat in the house; however, an action on which they could but, on his petition next year, though, as reflect with pleasure. Baxter says that far as appears, without compliance, was Gataker, and some others of the assemrestored, and the vote rescinded.

Parl. bly, would not subscribe the covenant, Hist. 393. He regularly protested against but on the understanding that they did all violent measures; and we still find not renounce primitive episcopacy by it. his name in the minority on such occa-Life of Baxter, p. 48. These controversions after the Restoration. sial subtleties elude the ordinary reader Baillie says, the desertion of about six of history. peers at this time to the king was of 4 After the war was ended none of the great use to the passing of the covenant king’s party were admitted to compound in a legal way. Vol. i. p. 390. for their estates without taking the coveBurnet’s Mem. of Duke of Hamilton, nant. This Clarendon, in one of his let

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CHA. I.- 1642-49. CLERGY REFUSE TO SUBSCRIBE. 163 the faithful children of the Anglican church. Many had already been sequestered from their livings, or even subjected to imprisonment, by the parliamentary committee for scandalous ministers, or by subordinate committees of the same kind set up in each county within their quarters; sometimes on the score of immoralities or false doctrine, more frequently for what they termed malignity, or attachment to the king and his party.1 Yet wary men, who meddled not with politics, might hope to elude this inquisition. of the clergy But the covenant, imposed as a general test, who refuse drove out all who were too conscientious to pledge themselves by a solemn appeal to the Deity to resist the polity which they generally believed to be of his institution. What number of the clergy were ejected (most of them but for refusing the covenant, and for no moral offence or imputed superstition) it is impossible to ascertain. Walker, in his Sufferings of the Clergy, a folio volume published in the latter end of Anne’s reign, with all the virulence and partiality of the high-church faction in that age, endeavored to support those who had reckoned it at 8000; a palpable overstatement upon his own showing, for he cannot produce near 2000 names after a most diligent investigation. Neal, however, admits 1600, probably more than one fifth of the beneficed ministers in the kingdom.2 The biographical collections furnish a pretty copious martyrology of men the most disters, calls ” making haste to buy damna-on the score of prejudice, is at least bettion at two years’ purchase.” Vol. ii.p. 286.

ter than Walker’s. i Neal, ii. 19, &c., is fair enough in The king’s party were not less opprescensuring the committees. especially sive towards ministers whom they reckthose in the country. “The greatest oned puritan; which unluckily comprepart [of the clergy] were cast out for ma-hended most of those who were of strict lignity [attachment to the royal cause]; lives, especially if they preached Calvinsuperstition and false doctrine were hard-istically, unless they redeemed that suspily ever objected; yet the proceedings of cion by strong demonstrations of loyalty. the sequestrators were not always justifi-Neal, p. 21. Baxter’s Life, p. 42.

And, if able; for, whereas a court of judicature they put themselves forward on this side, should rather be counsel for the prisoner they were sure to suffer most severely for than the prosecutor, the commissioners it on the parliament’s success: an ordiconsidered the king’s clergy as their most nance of April 1, 1643, having sequestered dangerous enemies, and were ready to lay the private estates of all the clergy who hold of all opportunities to discharge had aided the king. Thus the condition them their pulpits.” P. 24. But if we of the English clergy was every way most can rely at all on White’s Century of Ma-deplorable; and in fact they were utterly lignant Ministers (and I do not perceive ruined. chat Walker has been able to controvert 2 Neal, p. 93. He says it was not tenit), there were a good many cases of irreg-dered, by favor, to some of the clergy ular life in the clergy, so fir at least as who had not been active against the parhaunting ale-houses; which, however,was liament and were reputed Calvinists. P. much more common, and consequently 69. Sanderson is said to be one instance. less indecent, in that age than at present. This historian, an honest and wellSee also Baxter’s Life, p. 74; whose au-natured man at bottom, justly censures thority, though open to some exceptions its imposition.

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164 IMPEACHMENT OF LAUD. CHAP. X tinguished by their learning and virtues in that age. The remorseless and indiscriminate bigotry of presbyterianism might boast that it had heaped disgrace on Walton, and driven Lydiat to beggary; that it trampled on the old age of Hales, and embittered with insult the dying moments of Chillingworth. But the most unjustifiable act of these zealots, and one of the greatest reproaches of the long parliament, ment and was the death of archbishop Laud. In the first execution days of the session, while the fall of Strafford of Laud. struck every one with astonishment, the commons had carried up an impeachment against him for high treason, in fourteen articles of charge; and he had lain ever since in the Tower, his revenues and even private estate sequestered, and in great indigence. After nearly three years’ neglect, specific articles were exhibited against him in October, 1643, but not proceeded on with vigor till December, 1644; when, for whatever reason, a determination was taken to pursue this unfortunate prelate to death. The charges against him, which Wild, Maynard, and other managers of the impeachment were to aggravate into treason, related partly to those papistical innovations which had nothing of a political character about them, partly to the violent proceedings in the starchamber and highcommission courts, wherein Laud was very prominent as a councillor, but certainly without any greater legal responsibility than fell on many others. He defended himself, not always prudently or satisfactorily, but with courage and ability; never receding from his magnificent notions of spiritual power, but endeavoring to shift the blame of the sentences pronounced by the council on those who concurred with him. The imputation of popery he repelled by a list of the converts he had made; but the word was equivocal, and he could not deny the difference between his protestantism and that of our Reformation. Nothing could be more monstrous than the allegation of treason in this case. The judges, on a reference by the lords, gave it to be understood, in their timid way, that the charges contained no legal treason.’ But, the commons having changed their impeachment into 1 “All the judges answered that they pressed to be treason in the statute of could deliver no opinion in this case, in 25 E.

III., and so referred it wholly to point of treason by the law: because they the judgment of this house.” Lords’ could not deliver any opinion in point of Journals, 17th December, 1644. treason but what was particularly ex

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CHA. I.-1642-49. DECLINE OF THE KING’S AFFAIRS. 165 an ordinance for his execution, the peers were pusillanimous enough to comply. It is said by Clarendon that only seven lords were in the house on this occasion: but the Journals unfortunately bear witness to the presence of twenty.1 Laud had amply merited punishment for his tyrannical abuse of power; but his execution at the age of seventy, without the slightest pretence of political necessity, was a far more unjustifiable instance of it than any that was alleged against him. Pursuant to the before-mentioned treaty, the Scots army of 21,000 men marched into England in January, D 1644. This was a very serious accession to the king’s Charles’s difficulties, already sufficient to dissipate aff’r in all hopes of final triumph, except in the most sanguine minds. His successes, in fact, had been rather such as to surprise well-judging men than to make them expect any more favorable termination of the war than by a fair treaty. From the beginning it may be said that the yeomanry and trading classes of towns were generally hostile to the king’s side, even in those counties which were in his military occupation; except in a few, such as Cornwall, Worcester, Salop, and most of Wales, where the prevailing sentiment was chiefly royalist; 2 and this disaffection was prodigiously increased through the license of his ill-paid and ill-disciplined army. On the other hand, the gentry were in a great majority attached to his cause, even in the parts of England which lay subject to the parliament. But he was 1 Lords’ Journals, 4th January.

It is But the Worcestershire populace, he says, not said to be done nem.

con. were violent royalists: p. 39. Clarendon 2 ” The difference in the temper of the observes in another place, iii. 41, ” There common people of both sides was so great was in this county (Cornwall), as throughthat they who inclined to the parliament out the kingdom, a wonderful and superleft nothing unperformed that might stitious reverence towards the name of a advance the cause; whereas they who parliament, and a prejudice to the power wished well to the king thought they had of the court.” He afterwards, p. 436, performed their duty in doing so, and calls ” an implicit reverence to the name that they had done enough for him in of a parliament the fatal disease of the that they had done nothing against him.” whole kingdom.” So prevalent was the Clarendon, p. 3,452.’ Most of the gen-sense of the king’s arbitrary government, try of the county (Nottinghamshire),” especially in the case of shipmoney. says Mrs.

Hutchinson, “were disaffected Warburton remarks that he never exto the parliament; most of the middle pressed any repentance, or made any consort, the able substantial freeholders and fession in his public declarations, that his the other commons, who had not their former administration had been illegal dependence upon the malignant nobility Notes on Clarendon, p. 566. But this and gentry, adhered to the parliament.” was not, perhaps, to be expected; and P. 81. This I conceive to have been the his repeated promises to govern according case in much the greater part of England. to law might be construed into tacit acBaxter, in his Life, p. 30, says just the knowledgments of past errors.

same thing in a passage worthy of notice.

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166 FACTIONS AT OXFORD. CHAP. X. never able to make any durable impression on what were called the associated counties, extending from Norfolk to Sussex inclusively, within which no rising could be attempted with any effect; while, on the other hand, the parliament possessed several garrisons, and kept up considerable forces, in that larger portion of the kingdom where he might be reckoned superior. Their resources were far greater; and the taxes imposed by them, though exceedingly heavy, were more regularly paid and less ruinous to the people than the sudden exactions, half plunder half contribution, bf the ravenous cavaliers. The king lost ground during the winter. He had built hopes on bringing over troops from Ireland; for the sake of which he made a truce, then called the cessation, with the rebel catholics. But this reinforcement having.

been beaten and dispersed by Fairfax at Namptwich, he had the mortification of finding that this scheme had much increased his own unpopularity, and the distrust entertained of him even by his adherents, without the smallest advantage. The next campaign was marked by the great defeat of Rupert and Newcastle at Marston Moor, and the loss of the north of England; a blow so terrible as must have brought on his speedy ruin, if it had not been in some degree mitigated by his strange and unexpected success over Essex in the west, and by the tardiness of the Scots in making use of their victory. Upon the result of the campaign of 1644, the king’s affairs were in such bad condition that nothing less than a series of victories could have reinstated them; yet not so totally ruined as to hold out much prospect of an approaching termination to the people’s calamities. There had been, from the very commencement of the war, Factions all that distraction in the king’s councils at Oxford, at Oxford.

and all those bickerings and heart-burnings among his adherents, which naturally belong to men embarked in a dangerous cause with different motives and different views. The military men, some of whom had served with the Swedes in Germany, acknowledged no laws but those of war; and could not understand that, either in annoying the enemy or providing for themselves, they were to acknowledge any re1 The associated counties, properly but it was equally within the parliamenspeaking, were at first Norfolk, Suffolk, tary pale, though the gentry were reEssex, Hertford, Cambridge; to which markably loyal in their inclinations. The some others were added. Sussex, I be-same was true of Kent. ieve, was not a part of the association:

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CHA. I.-1642-49. PARLIAMENT AT OXFORD. 167 straints of the civil power.

The lawyers, on the other hand, and the whole constitutional party, labored to keep up, in the midst of arms, the appearances at least of legal justice and that favorite maxim of Englishmen, the supremacy of civil over military authority, rather more strictly perhaps than the nature of their actual circumstances would admit. At the head of the former party stood the king’s two nephews, Rupert and Maurice, the younger sons of the late unfortunate elector palatine, soldiers of fortune (as we may truly call them), of rude and imperious characters, avowedly despising the council and the common law, and supported by Charles, with all his injudiciousness and incapacity for affairs, against the greatest men of the kingdom. Another very powerful and obnoxious faction was that of the catholics, proud of their services and sacrifices, confident in the queen’s protection, and looking at least to a full toleration as their just reward. They were the natural enemies of peace, and little less hated at Oxford than at Westminster.1 At the beginning of the winter of 1643 the king took the remarkable step of summoning the peers and cor-Royalist moners of his party to meet in parliament at Oxford. lords and commoners This was evidently suggested by the constitution-summoned alists with the intention of obtaining a supply by to that city. more regular methods than forced contribution, and of opposing a barrier to the military and popish interests.2 Whether it 1 Clarendon, passim. May, 160. Baillie, Sari la compagnia malvagia e ria, i. 416. See, in the Somers Tracts, v. 495, Nella quel tu cadrai in questa valle. a dialogue between a gentleman and a citizen, printed at Oxford, 1643. Though We know too little of this excellent man, of course a royalist pamphlet, it shows whose talents however and early pursuits the disunion that prevailed in that un-do not seem to have particularly qualified fortunate party, and inveighs against the him for public life. It is evident that he influence of the papists, in consequence did not plunge into the loyal cause with of which the marquis of Hertford is said all the zeal of his friend Hyde; and the to have declined the king’s service. Ru-king doubtless had no great regard for pert is praised, and Newcastle struck at. the counsels of one who took so very It is written, on the whole, in rather a different a view of some important matlukewarm style of loyalty. The earl of ters from himself.

Life of Clarendon, 48. Holland and sir Edward Dering gave out He had been active against Strafford, and as their reason for quitting the king’s side probably had a bad opinion of Laud. The that there was great danger of popery. prosecution of Finch for high treason he This was much exaggerated; yet lord had himself moved. In the Ormond LetSunderland talks the same language. Sid-ters, i. 20, he seems to be struck at by ney Papers, ii. 667. Lord Falkland’s de-one writing from Oxford, June 1, 1643: jection of spirits, and constant desire of “God forbid that the best of men anil peace, must chiefly be ascribed to his diskings be so used by some bad hollo sgust with the councils of Oxford, and the hearted counsellors, who affect too muc-h greater part of those with whom he was the parliamentary way. Many spare not associated. to name them; and I doubt not but you have heard their names.” E quel che piii ti graverL le spalle 2 It appears by the late edition of Clar

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168 PARLIAMENT AT OXFORD. CHAP. X. were equally calculated to further the king’s cause may admit of some doubt. The royalist convention indeed, which name it ought rather to have taken than that of parliament, met in considerable strength at Oxford. Forty-three peers, and one hundred and eighteen commoners, subscribed a letter to the earl of Essex, expressing their anxiety for a treaty of peace; twenty-nine of the former, and fifty-seven of the latter, it is said, being then absent on the king’s service, or other occasions.1 Such a display of numbers, nearly double in one house and nearly half in the other, of those who remained at Westminster, might have an effect on the nation’s prejudices, and at least redeem the king from the charge of standing singly against his parliament.

But they came in no spirit of fervid loyalty, rather distrustful of the king, especially on the score of religion; averse to some whom he had injudiciously raised to power, such as Digby and Cottington; and so eager for pacification as not perhaps to have been unwilling to purchase it by greater concessions than he could prudently make.2 Peace however was by no means brought nearer by their meeting; the parliament, jealous and alarmed at it, would never recognize their existence, and were so provoked at their voting the lords and commons at Westminster guilty of treason, that, if we believe a writer of some authority, the two houses unanimously passed a vote on Essex’s motion, summoning the king to appear endon, iv.

351, that he was the adviser ting, if attentively considered, a little of calling the Oxford parliament. The apprehension of popery and arbitrary former editors omitted his name. power. Baillie says, in one of his let1

Parl. Hist. 218. The number who ters: “The first day the Oxford parliatook the covenant in September, 1643, ment met, the king made a long speech; appears by a list of the long parliament but many being ready to give in papers in the same work, vol. ii., to be 236; but for the removing of Digby, Cottington, twelve of these are included in both lists, and others from court, the meeting having gone afterwards into the king’s was adjourned for some days.” i. 429. quarters. The remainder, about 100, Indeed, the restoration of Cottingtou, were either dead since the beginning of and still more of Windebank, to the the troubles, or for some reason absented king’s councils, was no pledge of protesthemselves from both assemblies. Pos-tant or constitutional measures. This sibly the list of those who took the cove-opposition, so natural to parliaments in nant is not quite complete; nor do I any circumstances, disgusted Charles.

think the king had much more than In one of his letters to the queen he conabout sixty peers on his side. The par-gratulates himself on being “
freed from liament however could not have produced the place of all mutinous motions, his thirty. Lords’ Journals, Jan. 22. 1644. mongrel parliament.” It may be preWhitelock, p. 80, says that two hundred sumed that some of those who obeyed and eighty appeared in the house of con-the king’s summons to Oxford were inmons, Jan. 1644, besides one hundred fluenced less by loyalty than a considerabsent in the parliament’s service; but ation that their estates lay in parts oc. this cannot be quite exact. cupied by his troops; of course the same 2 Rushworth, Abr. v.

266 and 296; is applicable to the Westminster parlia. where is an address to the king, intima-ment.

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CHA. I. -1642-49. TREATY OF UXBRIDGE. 169 by a certain day.1 But the Scots commissioners had force enough to turn aside such violent suggestions, and ultimately obtained the concurrence of both houses in propositions for a treaty.2 They had begun to find themselves less likely to sway the counsels of Westminster than they had expected, and dreaded the rising ascendency of Cromwell. The treaty was opened at Uxbridge in January, 1645. But Treaty of neither the king nor his adversaries entered on it Uxbridge. with minds sincerely bent on peace: they, on the one hand, resolute not to swerve from the utmost rigor of a conqueror’s terms, without having conquered; and he, though more secretly, cherishing illusive hopes of a more triumphant restoration to power than any treaty could be expected to effect.8 The three leading topics of discussion among the negotiators at Uxbridge were the church, the militia, and Impossithe state of Ireland. Bound by their unhappy bilityof covenant, and watched by their Scots colleagues, agreement. the English commissioners on the parliament side demanded the complete establishment of a presbyterian polity, and the substitution of what was called the directory for the Anglican liturgy. Upon this head there was little prospect of a union. The king had deeply imbibed the tenets of 1 Baillie, 441. I can find no mention Essex, with six more, would meet the of this in the Journals; but, as Baillie general (earl of Brentford), with six was then in London, and in constant in-more, to consider of all means possible tercourse with the leaders of parliament, to reconcile the unhappy differences and there must have been some foundation misunderstandings that have so long affor his statement, though he seems to flicted the kingdom. Sir Edward Walkhave been inaccurate as to the fact of er’s Historical Discourses, 59. The king the vote. was acquainted with this letter before it 2 Parl. Hist. 299, et post. Clarendon, was sent, but after some hands had been v. 16. Whitelock, 110, &c. Rush. Abr. subscribed to it. He consented, but eviv. 449, &c.

dently with great reluctance, and even 3 It was impossible for the king to indignation; as his own expressions testi avoid this treaty. Not only his Oxford fyin this passage of Walker, whose manparliament, as might naturally be ex-uscript here, as in many other places, pected, were openly desirous of peace, contains interlineations by Charles him but a great part of the army had, in self. It was doubtless rather in a mutiAugust, 1644, while opposed to that of nous spirit, which had spread widely Essex in the west, taken the extraor-through the army, and contributed to dinary step of sending a letter to that its utter ruin in the next campaign. I general, declaring their intentions for the presume it was at the king’s desire that rights and liberties of the people, privi-the letter was signed by the general as leges of parliament, and protestant re-well as by prince Maurice, and all the ligion against popish innovations; and colonels, I believe, in his army, to take that, on the faith of subjects, the honor off the appearance of a faction; but it and reputation of gentlemen and sol-certainly originated with Wilmot, Percy, diers, they would with their lives main-and some of those whom he thought ill tain that which his majesty should pub-affected. See Clarendon, iv. 527, et post. licly promise in order to a bloodless Rushw.

Abr. v. 348, 858. peace; they went on to request that

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170 IMPOSSIBILITY OF AGREEMENT. CHAP. X Andrews and Laud, believing an episcopal government indispensably necessary to the valid administration of the sacraments, and the very existence of a Christian church. The Scots, and a portion of the English clergy, were equally confident that their presbyterian form was established by the apostles as a divine model, from which it was unlawful to depart.1 Though most of the laity in this kingdom entertained less narrow opinions, the parliamentary commissioners thought the king ought rather to concede such a point than themselves, especially as his former consent to the abolition of episcopacy in Scotland weakened a good deal the force of his plea of conscience; while the royalists, even could they have persuaded their master, thought episcopacy, though not absolutely of divine right (a notion which they left to the churchmen), yet so highly beneficial to religion and so important to the monarchy, that nothing less than extreme necessity, or at least the prospect of a signal advantage, could justify its abandonment.

They offered, however, what in an earlier stage of their dissensions would have satisfied almost every man, that limited scheme of episcopal hierarchy, above mentioned as approved by Usher, rendering the bishop among his presbyters much like the king in parliament, not free to exercise his jurisdiction, nor to confer orders without their consent, and offered to leave all ceremonies to the minister’s discretion. Such a compromise would probably have pleased the English nation, averse to nothing in their established church except its abuses; but the parliamentary negotiators would not so much as enter into discussion upon it.2 They were hardly less unyielding on the subject of the militia. They began with a demand of naming all the commanders by sea and land, including the lord-lieutenant of Ire1 The king’s doctors, Steward and lish parliament; and, if this offer was Sheldon, argued at Uxbridge that epis-sincerely made, it must have been from copacy was jure divino; Henderson and a conviction that he could not become others, that presbytery was so.

White-such. lock, 132. These churchmen should 2 Rushworth Whitelock, Clarendon. have been locked up like a jury, without The latter tells in his Life, which reveals food or fire, till they agreed. several things not found in his History, If we may believe Clarendon, the earl that the king was very angry with some of Loudon offered in the name of the of his Uxbridge commissioners, especially Scots that, if the king would give up Mr. Bridgman, for making too great conepiscopacy, they would not press any of cessions with respect to episcopacy. He the other demands. It is certain how-lived, however, to make himself much ever that they would never have suffered greater. him to become the master of the Eng

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CH-A. I. 1642-49. DEMANDS OF THE PARLIAMENT. 171 land, and all governors of garrisons, for an unlimited time. The king, though not very willingly, proposed that the command should be vested in twenty persons, half to be named by himself, half by the parliament, for the term of three years, which he afterwards extended to seven, at the expiration of which time it should revert to the crown. But the utmost concession that could be obtained from the other side was to limit their exclusive possession of this power to seven years, leaving the matter open for an ulterior arrangement by act of parliament at their termination.1 Even if this treaty had been conducted between two mentinsist belligerent states, whom rivalry or ambition often obunrea8sonexcite to press every demand which superior power can extort from weakness, there yet was nothing in the condition of the king’s affairs which should compel him thus to pass under the yoke, and enter his capital as a prisoner. But we may also remark that, according to the great principle that the English constitution, in all its component parts, was to be maintained by both sides in this contest, the question for parliament was not what their military advantages or resources for war entitled them to ask, but what was required for the due balance of power under a limited monarchy. They could rightly demand no further concession from the king than was indispensable for their own and the people’s security; and I leave any one who is tolerably acquainted with the state of England at the beginning of 1645 to decide whether their privileges and the public liberties incurred a greater risk by such an equal partition of power over the sword as the king proposed, than his prerogative and personal freedom would have encountered by abandoning it altogether to their discretion. I am far from thinking that the acceptance of the king’s propositions at Uxbridge would have restored tranquillity to England. He would still have repined at the limitations of monarchy, and others would have conspired against its existence. But of the various consequences which we may picture to ourselves as capable of resulting from a pacification, that which appears to me the least likely is, that Charles should have reestablished that arbitrary power which he had exercised in the earlier period of his reign.

Whence, in fact, was he to look for assistance? Was it with such creatures of a court as Jermyn or Ashburnham, 1 Whitelock, 138.

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172 PROBABLE RESULTS OF A PACIFICATION. CHAP. X. or with a worn-out veteran of office like Cottington, or a rash adventurer like Digby, that he could outwit Vane, or overawe Cromwell, or silence the press and the pulpit, or strike with panic the stern puritan and the confident fanatic?

Some there were, beyond question, both soldiers and courtiers, who hated the very name of a limited monarchy, and murmured at the constitutional language which the king, from the time he made use of the pens of Hyde and Falkland, had systematically employed in his public declarations.1 But it is as certain that the great majority of his Oxford parliament, and of those upon whom he must have depended either in the field or in council, were apprehensive of any victory that might render him absolute, as that Essex and Manchester were unwilling to conquer at the expense of the constitution.2 The catholics, indeed, generally speaking, would have gone great lengths in asserting his authority. Nor is this any reproach to that body, by no means naturally less attached to their country and its liberties than other Englishmen, but driven by an unjust persecution to see their only hope of emancipation in the nation’s servitude. They could not be expected to sympathize in that patriotism of the seventeenth century, which, if it poured warmth and radiance on the protestant, was to them as a devouring fire. But the king could have made no use of the catholics as a distinct body for any political purpose without uniting all other parties against him. He had already given so much offence, at the commencement of the war, by accepting the services 1 The creed of this party is set forth to consult. Father Orleans, in a passage in the Behemoth of Hobbes; which is, with which the bishop probably was acin other words, the application of those quainted, confirms this; and his authorprinciples of government which are laid ity is very good as to the secret of the down in the Leviathan to the constitu-court. Rupert, he says, proposed to tion and state of England in the civil march to London.

“Mais lesprit Anglois, war. It is republished in baron Maseres’s qui ne se dement point meme dans les Tracts, ii. 665, 567. Sir Philip Warwick, plus attaches & la royaute, l’esprit Anin his Memoirs, 198, hints something of glois, dis-je, toujours entbte de ces libertez the same kind. si funestes au repos de la nation, porta la 2 Warburton, in the notes subjoined plus grande partie du conseil i s opposer to the late edition of Clarendon, vii. 563, a ce dessein. Le pr6texte fut qu’il etoit mentions a conversation he had with the dangereux pour le roy de lentreprendre. duke of Argyle and lord Cobham (both et pour la ville que le prince Robert soldiers, and the first a distinguished one) l’ex6cutast, jeune comme il etoit, emas to the conduct of the king and the porte, et capable d’y mettre le feu. La earl of Essex after the battle of Edgehill. vraie raison etoit qu’ils craignoient que, They agreed it was inexplicable on both si le roy entroit dans Londres les armes & sides by any military principle.

Warbur-la main, il ne pretendist sur la nation une ton explained it by the unwillingness to espece de droit de conquete, qui le renbe too victorious, felt by Essex himself, dist trop absolu.” R6volut.

d’Anglcterre, and by those whom the king was forced iii. 104.

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CHA. I. -1642-49. THE KING’S PROSPECTS. 173 which the catholic gentry were forward to offer, that, instead of a more manly justification, which the temper of the times, he thought, did not permit, he had recourse to the useless subterfuges of denying or extenuating the facts, and even to a strangely improbable recrimination, asserting on several occasions that the number of papists in the parliament’s army was much greater than in his own.1 It may still indeed be questioned whether, admitting the propositions tendered to the king to have been unreasonable and insecure, it might not yet have been expedient, in the perilous condition of his affairs, rather to have tried the chances of peace than those of war. If he could have determined frankly and without reserve to have relinquished the church, and called the leaders of the presbyterian party in both houses to his councils, it is impossible to prove that he might not both have regained his power over the militia in no long course of time, and prevailed on the parliament to consent to its own dissolution. The dread that party felt of the republican spirit rising amongst the independents would have induced them to place in the hands of any sovereign they could trust full as much authority as our constitution permits. But no one who has paid attention to the history’ of that period will conclude that they could have secured the king against their common enemy, had he even gone wholly into their own measures.2 And this were to suppose such an entire change in his character and ways of thinking as no external circumstances could produce. Yet his prospects, from a continuance of hostilities, were so unpromising, that most of the royalists would probably have hailed his almost unconditional submission at Uxbridge. Even the steady Richmond and 1 Rushworth, Abr. iv. 550. At the of about five hundred gentlemen who very time that he was publicly denying lost their lives for Charles in the civil his employment of papists he wrote to war, one hundred and ninety-four were Newcastle, commanding him to make catholics. They were, doubtless, a very use of all his subjects’ services, without powerful faction in the court and army. examining their consciences, except as to Lord Spencer (afterwards earl of Sunloyalty. Ellis’s Letters, iii. 291, from an derland), in some remarkable letters to original in the Museum. No one can his wife from the king’s quarters at rationally blame Charles for anything in Shrewsbury, in September, 1642, speaks this but his inveterate and useless habit of the insolency of the papists with great of falsehood.

See Clarendon, iii. 610. dissatisfaction. Sidney Papers, ii. 667. It is probable that some foreign cath-2 It cannot be doubted, and is admitted olics were in the parliament’s service. in a remarkable conversation of Hollis But Dodd says, with great appearance of and Whitelock with the king at Oxford, truth, that no one English gentleman of in November, 1644, that the exorbitant that persuasion was in arms on their side. terms demanded at Uxbridge were carChurch History of England, iii. 28. He ried by the violent party, who disliked reports as a matter of hearsay, that, out all pacification. Whitelock, p. 118.

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174 MISERIES OF THE WAR. CHIAP. X. Southampton, it is said, implored him to yield, and deprecated his misjudging confidence in promises of foreign aid or in the successes of Montrose.l The more lukewarm or discontented of his adherents took this opportunity of abandoning an almost hopeless cause: between the breach of the treaty of Uxbridge and the battle of Naseby, several of the Oxford peers came over to the parliament, and took an engagement never to bear arms against it. A few instances of such defection had occurred before.2 It remained only, after the rupture of the treaty at Ux Miseries of bridge, to try once more the fortune of war. The the war. people, both in the king’s and parliament’s quarters, but especially the former, heard with dismay that peace could not be attained.

Many of the perpetual skirmishes and captures of towns, which made every man’s life and fortune precarious, have found no place in general history, but may be traced in the journal of Whitelock, or in the Mercuries and other fugitive sheets, great numbers of which are still extant. And it will appear, I believe, from these, that scarcely one county in England was exempt, at one time or other of the war, from becoming the scene of this unnatural contest. Compared, indeed, with the civil wars in France in the preceding century, there had been fewer acts of enormous cruelty, and less atrocious breaches of public faith. But much blood had been wantonly shed, and articles of capitulation had been very indifferently kept.

“Either side,” says Clarendon, “having somewhat to object to the other, the requisite honesty and justice of observing conditions was mutually, as it were by agreement, for a long time violated.” 8 The royalist army, especially the cavalry, commanded by men either wholly unprincipled, or at least regardless of the people, and deeming them ill affected, the 1

Baillie, ii. 91. He adds, “That indeed the earls of Holland and Bedford) which has been the greatest snare to the was sir Edward Dering, who came into king is the unhappy success of Mon-the parliament’s quarters, Feb.

1644. He trose in Scotland.” There seems, indeed, was a weak man, of some learning, who great reason to think that Charles, al-had already played a very changeable ways sanguine, and incapable of calcu-part before the war. lating probabilities, was unreasonably s A flagrant instance of this was the elated by victories from which no per-plunder of Bristol by Rupert, in breach of manent advantage ought to have been the capitulation.

I suspect that it was expected. Burnet confirms this on good the policy of one party to exaggerate the authority. Introduction to History of cruelties of the other; but the short his Times, 51. narratives dispersed at the time give a 2 Whitelock, 109, 137, 142. Rushw. wretched picture of slaughter and devas Abr. v. 163. The first deserter (except tation.

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CHA. I. -1642-49. MISERIES OF THE WAR. 175 princes Rupert and Maurice, Goring and Wilmot, lived without restraint, or law, or military discipline, and committed every excess even in friendly quarters.1 An ostentatious dissoluteness became characteristic of the cavalier, as a formal austerity was of the puritan: one spoiling his neighbor in the name of God, the other of the king. The parliament’s troops were not quite free from these military vices, but displayed them in a much less scandalous degree, owing to their more religious habits and the influence of their presbyterian chaplains, to the better example of their commanders, and to the comparative, though not absolute, punctuality of their pay.2 But this pay was raised through unheard-of assessments, especially an excise on liquors, a new name in England, and through the sequestration of the estates of all the king’s adherents: resources of which he also had availed himself, partly by the rights of war, partly by the grant of his Oxford parliament.8 -1 Clarendon and Whitelock, passimn. the atrocity of putting their Irish prisonBaxter’s Life, pp. 44 55. This license ers to death, in obedience, however, to an of Maurice’s and Gornng’s armies in the ordinance of parliament. Parl. Hist iii. west first led to the defensive insurrec-295; Rushworth’s Abridgment, v. 402. tion, if so it should be called, of the club-It passed October 24,1644, and all remissmen; that is, of yeomen and country ness in executing it was to be reckoned a people, armed only with clubs, who favoring of the Irish rebellion. When hoped, by numbers and concert, to resist we read, as we do perpetually, these vioeffectually the military marauders of both lent and barbarous proceedings of the parparties, declaring themselves neither for liament, is it consistent with honesty or king nor parliament, but for their own humanity to hold up that assembly to liberty and property. They were of course admiration, while the faults on the king’s regarded with dislike on both sides; by side are studiously aggravated? The the king’s party when they first appeared partiality of Oldmixon, Harris, Macaulay, in 1644, because they crippled the royal and now of Mr. Brodie and Mr.

Godwin, army’s operations, and still more openly is full as glaring, to say the very least, as by the parliament next year, when they that of Hume. opposed Fairfax’s endeavor to carry on, 2 Clarendon and Baxter. the war in the counties bordering on the 8 The excise was first imposed by an Severn. They appeared at times in great ordinance of both houses in July, 1643 strength; but the want of arms and dis- (Husband’s Collection of Ordinances, p. cipline made it not very difficult to sup-267), and afterwards by the king’s conpress them. Clarendon, v. 197; White-vention at Oxford. See a view of the lock, 137; Parl. Hist. 379, 390. financial expedients adopted by both The king himself, whose disposition was parties, in Lingard, x. 243. The plate very harsh and severe, except towards the brought in to the parliament’s commisfew he took into his bosom, can hardly be sioners at Guildhall, in 1642, for which exonerated from a responsibility for some they allowed the value of the silver, and acts of inhumanity (see Whitelock, 67, one shilling per ounce more, is stated by and Somers Tracts, iv. 502, v. 369; Neal at 1,267,3261., an extraordinary Maseres’s Tracts, i. 144, for the ill treat-proof of the wealth of London; yet I do ment of prisoners); and he might proba-not know his authority, though it is probbly have checked the outrages which took ably good. The university of Oxford place at the storming of Leicester, where gave all they had to the king, but could he was himself present. Certainly no not, of course, vie with the citizens. imputation of this nature can be laid at The sums raised within the parlia. the door of the parliamentary commandment’s quarters, from the beginning of ers, though some of them were guilty of the war to 1647, are reckoned in a pam.

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176 ITS PROTRACTION. CRAP. X. A war so calamitous seemed likely to endure till it had exhausted the nation. With all the parliament’s superiority, they had yet to subdue nearly half the kingdom. The Scots had not advanced southward, content with reducing Newcastle and the rest of the northern counties. These they treated almost as hostile, without distinction of parties, not only exacting contributions, but committing, unless they are much belied, great excesses of indiscipline; their presbyterian gravity not having yet overcome the ancient national propensities.1 In the midland and western parts the king had just the worse, without having sustained material loss; and another summer might pass away in marches and countermarches, in skirmishes of cavalry, in tedious sieges of paltry fortifications, some of them mere country-houses, which nothing but an amazing deficiency in that branch of military science could have rendered tenable. This protraction of Essex and the war had long given rise to no unnatural disconManchester tent with its management, and to suspicions, first suspected of luke-of Essex, then of Manchester and others in comwarmness. mand, as if they were secretly reluctant to complete the triumph of their employers. It is, indeed, not impossible that both these peers, especially the former, out of their desire to see peace restored on terms compatible with some degree of authority in the crown, and with the dignity of their own order, did not always press their advantages against the king as if he had been a public enemy.2 They phlet of that year, quoted in Sin-See Ludlow, i. 133. There certainly ap-lair’s Hist. of the Revenue, i. 283, at pears to have been a want of military 17,612,4001.

But, on reference to the energy on this occasion; but it is said tract itself, I find this written at random. by Baillie (ii. 76) that all the general The contributions, however, were really officers, Cromwell not excepted, conrery great; and, if we add those to the curred in Manchester’s determination. king, and the loss by waste and plunder, Essex had been suspected from the time we may form some judgment of the of the affair at Brentford, or rather from effects of the civil war. the battle of Edgehill (Baillie and Lud1 The independents raised loudclam-low); and his whole conduct, except in ors against the Scots army; and the the celebrated march to relieve Gloucesnorthern counties naturally complained ter, confirmed a reasonable distrust either of the burden of supporting them, as of his military talents, or of his zeal in well as of their excesses. Many passages the cause.’ He loved monarchy and in Whitelock’s journal during 1645 and nobility,” says Whitelock, p. 108, “and 1646
relate to this. Hollis endeavors dreaded those who had a design to destroy to deny or extenuate the charges; but he both.” Yet Essex was too much a man is too prejudiced a writer; and Baillie of honor to enter on any private inhimself acknowledges a great deal. Vol. trigues with the king.

The other peers ii. 138, 142, 106. employed under the parliament, Stam2

The -chief imputation against Man-ford. Denbigh, Willoughby, were not succhester was for not following up his vic-cessful enough to redeem the suspicions tory in the second battle of Newbury, that fell upon their zeal. with which Cromwell openly taxed him. All our republican writers, such as

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CHA. I.- -1642-49. SELF-DENYING ORDINANCE. 177 might have thought that, having drawn the sword avowedly for the preservation of his person and dignity as much as for the rights and liberties of the people, they were no further bound by their trust than to render him and his adherents sensible of the impracticability of refusing their terms of accommodation.

There could, however, be no doubt that Fairfax and Cromwell were far superior, both by their own talents self-denying for war and the discipline they had introduced ordinance. into their army, to the earlier parliamentary commanders; and that, as a military arrangement, the self-denying ordinance was judiciously conceived. This, which took from all members of both houses their commands in the army, or civil employments, was, as is well known, the first great victory of the independent party which had grown up lately in parliament under Vane and Cromwell.l They carried another measure of no less importance, collateral to the former; the newmodelling, as it was called, of the army; reducing it to twenty-one or twenty-two thousand men; discharging such officers and soldiers as were reckoned unfit, and completing their regiments by more select levies. The ordinance, after being once rejected by the lords, passed their house with some modifications in April.2 But many joined them on Ludlow and Mrs. Hutchinson in that blamed as they for not pressing his adage, Mrs. Macaulay and Mr. Brodie more vantages with vigor. of late, speak acrimoniously of Essex. 1 It had been voted by the lords a year “Most will be of opinion,:’ says Mr. B. before, Dec. 12, 1643, ” That the opinion (History of British Empire, iii. 665), and resolution of this house is from ” that, as ten thousand pounds a-year henceforth not to admit the members of out of the sequestered lands were settled either house of parliament into any place upon him for his services, he was re-or office, excepting such places of great warded infinitely beyond his merits.” trust as are to be executed by persons of The reward was doubtless magnificent; eminency and known integrity, and are but the merit of Essex was this, that he necessary for the government and safety made himself the most prominent object of the kingdom.” But a motion to make of vengeance in case of failure, by taking this resolution into an ordinance was carthe command of an army to oppose the ried in the negative. Lords’

Journals; king in person at Edgehill; a command Parl. Hist. 187. The first motion had of which no other man in his rank was been for a resolution without this excapable, and which could not, at that ception, that no place of profit should time, have been intrusted to any man of be executed by the members of either inferior rank, without dissolving the house.

whole confederacy of the parliament. 2 Whitelock, pp. 118, 120. It was opIt is to be observed, moreover, that the posed by him, but supported by Piertwo battles of Newbury, like that of point, who carried it up to the lords. Edgehill, were by no means decisive vie-The lords were chiefly of the presbytories on the side of the parliament; terian party; though Say, Wharton, and that it is not clear whether either and a few more, were connected with Essex or Manchester could have pushed the independents.

They added a proviso the king much more than they did. Even to the ordinance raising forces to be after Naseby his party made a pretty commanded by Fairfax, that no officer long resistance, and he had been as much refusing the covenant should be capable VOL. II. 12

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178 DESPERATE CONDITION OF CHAP. X. this occasion for those military reasons which I have mentioned, deeming almost any termination of the war better than its continuance. The king’s rejection of their terms at Uxbridge had disgusted, however unreasonably, some of the men hitherto accounted moderate, such as the earl of Northumberland and Pierpoint, who deeming reconciliation impracticable, took from this time a different line of politics from that they had previously followed, and were either not alive to the danger of newmodelling the army, or willing to hope that it might be disbanded before that danger could become imminent. From Fairfax, too, the new general, they saw little to fear and much to expect; while Cromwell, as a member of the house of commons, was positively excluded by the ordinance itself. But, through a successful intrigue of his friends, this great man, already not less formidable to the presbyterian faction than to the royalists, was permitted to continue lieutenant-general.1 The most popular justification for the self-denying ordinance, and yet perhaps its Battle of real condemnation, was soon found at Naseby; for Naseby.

there Fairfax and Cromwell triumphed not only over the king and the monarchy, but over the parliament and the nation. It does not appear to me that a brave and prudent man, in the condition of Charles I., had, up to that condition of unfortunate day, any other alternative than a vigthff king’s orous prosecution of the war, in hope of such decisive success as, though hardly within probable calculation, is not unprecedented in the changeful tide of fortune. I cannot therefore blame him either for refusing unreasonable terms of accommodation or for not relinquishing altogether the contest. But after his defeat at Naseby his affairs were, in a military sense, so irretrievable that, in prolonging the war with as much obstinacy as the broken state of his party would allow, he displayed a good deal of of serving, which was thrown out in the ried, the measure was not made prospeclower house. But another proviso was tive. This, which most historians have carried in the commons by 82 to 63, that overlooked, is well pointed out by Mr. the officers, though appointed by the Godwin.

By virtue of this alteration, general, should be approved by both many officers were elected in the course houses of parliament. Cromwell was of 1645 and 1646; and the effect, whatone of the tellers for the minority.

Com-ever might be designed, was very advanmons’ Journals. Feb. 7 and 13, 1645. tageous to the republican and indepenIn the original ordinance the members dent factions. of both houses were excluded during the 1

Whitelock, p. 145. war; but in the second, which was car

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CHA.. - 1642-49. THE KING’S AFFAIRS. 179 that indifference to the sufferings of the kingdom and of his own adherents which has been sometimes imputed to him. There was, from the hour of that battle, one only safe and honorable course remaining. He justly abhorred to reign, if so it could be named, the slave of parliament, with the sacrifice of his conscience and his friends. But it was by no means necessary to reign at all. The sea was for many months open to him; in France, or still better in Holland, he would have found his misfortunes respected, and an asylum in that decent privacy which becomes an exiled sovereign. Those very hopes which he too fondly cherished, and which lured him to destruction - hopes of regaining power through the disunion of his enemies-might have been entertained with better reason, as with greater safety, in a foreign land.

It is not perhaps very probable that he would have been restored; but his restoration in such circumstances seems less desperate than through any treaty that he could conclude in captivity at home.1 Whether any such thoughts of abandoning a hopeless contest were ever entertained by the king during this particular period, it is impossible to pronounce; we should infer the contrary from all his actions. It must be said that many of his counsellors seem to have been as pertinacious as himself, having strongly imbibed the same sanguine spirit, and looking for deliverance, according to their several fancies, from the ambition of Cromwell or the discontent of the Scots. But, whatever might have been the king’s disposition, he would not have dared to retire from England. That sinister domestic rule to which he had so long been subject controlled every action. Careless of her husband’s happiness, and already attached probably to one whom she afterwards married, Henrietta longed only for his recovery of a power which would become her own.2 Hence, while she constantly 1 [It was the opinion of Montreuil that 2 Whether there are sufficient grounds the plan of flight which the king was for concluding that Henrietta’s connecmeditating before he took refuge with the tion with Jermyn was criminal I will not Scots ” is by far the best, and in every pretend to decide; though Warburton point of view necessary; for the parlia-has settled the matter in a very summnent will by that time have fallen into mary style. See one of his notes on dissensions, and the throne will be far Clarendon, vol. vii. p. 636. But I doubt more easily restored, if the king come whether the bishop had authority for back to it from abroad, than if he were what he there says, though it is likely to issue from a prison. I only fear that enough to be true. See also a note of flight will, perhaps, be no longer possi-lord Dartmouth on Burnet, i. 68. hle.”

Jan. 10, 1646. Raumer, p. 840.]

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0P CHARLES TAKES REFUGE CHAP. X. laid her injunctions on Charles never to concede anything as to the militia or the Irish catholics, she became desirous, when no other means presented itself, that he should sacrifice what was still nearer to his heart, the episcopal churchgovernment. The queen-regent of France, whose sincerity in desiring the king’s restoration there can be no ground to deny,1 was equally persuaded that he could hope for it on no less painful conditions. They reasoned of course very plausibly from the great precedent of flexible consciences, the reconciliation of Henrietta’s illustrious father to the catholic church.

As he could neither have regained his royal power nor restored peace to France without this compliance with his subjects’ prejudices, so Charles could still less expect, in circumstances by no means so favorable, that he should avoid The king a concession, in the eyes of almost all men but throws hi-himself, of incomparably less importance. It was self into the i hands of in expectation, or perhaps rather in the hope, of the Scots.

this sacrifice that the French envoy Montreuil entered on his ill-starred negotiation for the king’s taking shelter with the Scots army. And it must be confessed that several of his best friends were hardly less anxious that he should desert a church he could not protect.2 They doubted 1

Clarendon speaks often in his His-French connections; and his passionate tory, and still more frequently in his loyalty made him think it a crime, or at private letters, with great resentment of least a piece of base pusillanimity, in the conduct of France, and sometimes of foreign states, to keep on any terms with Holland, during our civil wars. I must the rebellious parliament. The case was confess that I see nothing to warrant altered after the retirement of the regent this. The States-General, against whom Anne from power: Mazarin’s latter conCharles had so shamefully been plotting, duct was, as is well known, exceedingly interfered as much for the purpose of adverse to the royal cause.

mediation as they could with the slight-The account given by Mr.

D’Israeli of est prospect of success, and so as to give Tabran’s negotiations in the fifth volume offence to the parliament (Rushworth of his Commentaries on the Reign of Abridged, v. 567; Baillie, ii. 78; White-Charles I., though it does not contain lock, 141,148; Harris’s Life of Cromwell. anything very important, tends to show 246); and as to France, though Richelieu Mazarin’s inclination towards the royal had instigated the Scots malecontents, cause in 1644 and 1646. and possibly those of England, yet after 2 Colepepper writes to Ashburnham, his death, in 1642, no sort of suspicion in February, 1646, to advance the Scots ought to lie on the French government; treaty with all his power. “It is the the whole conduct of Anne of Austria only way left to save the crown and the having been friendly, and both the mis-kingdom; all other tricks will deceive sion of Harcourt in 1643, and the present you…. It is no time to dally on disnegotiations of Montreuil and Bellievre, tinctions and criticisms.

All the world perfectly well intended. That Mazarin will laugh at them when a crown is in made promises of assistance which he had question.”

Clar. Papers, ii. 207. no design, nor perhaps any power, to The king had positively declared his fulfil, is true; but this is the common resolution not to consent to the estabtrick of such statesmen, and argues no lishment of presbytery. This had so malevolent purpose. But Hyde, out of much disgusted both the Scots and Eughis just dislike of the queen, hated all lish presbyterians (for the latter had been

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CHA. I. -1642-49. WITH THE SCOTS. 181 not, reasoning from their own characters, that he would ultimately give way. But that Charles, unchangeably resolved on this head,1 should have put himself in the power of men fully as bigoted as himself (if he really conceived that the Scots presbyterians would shed their blood to reestablish the prelacy they abhorred), was an additional proof of that delusion which made him fancy that no government could be established without his concurrence; unless indeed we should rather consider it as one of those desperate courses into which he who can foresee nothing but evil from every calculable line of action will sometimes plunge at a venture, borrowing some ray of hope from the uncertainty of their consequences.2 It was an inevitable effect of this step that the king surrendered his personal liberty, which he never afterwards recovered. Considering his situation, we may at first think the parliament tolerably moderate in offering nearly the same terms of peace at Newcastle which he had rejected at Uxbridge; the chief difference being that the power of the militia, which had been demanded for commissioners nominated and removable by the two houses during an indefinite period, was now proposed to reside in the two houses for the space of twenty years; which rather more unequivocally indicated their design of making the parliament perpetual.8 concerned in the negotiation), that Mon-to Ormond, which was intercepted, treuil wrote to say he thought they wherein he assured him of his expectawould rather make it up with the inde-tion that their army would join with his, pendents than treat again. ” De sorte and act in conjunction with Montrose, to qu’il ne faut plus marchander, et que V. procure a happy peace and the restoraM. se doit hater d’envoyer aux deux partion of his rights. Whitelock, p. 208. lemens son consentiment aux trois proCharles had bad luck with his letters, positions d’Uxbridge; ce qu’etant fait, which fell, too frequently for his fame elle sera en surete dans l’arm6e d’E-and interest, into the hands of his enecosse.” (15th Jan. 1640.) P. 211. mies. But who, save this most ill-judg1 ” I assure you,” he writes to Capel, ing of princes, would have entertained 1Topton, &c., Feb. 2, 1646, ” whatever an idea that the Scots presbyterian army paraphrases or prophecies may be made would cooperate with Montrose, whom upon my last message (pressing the two they abhorred, and very justly, for his horses to consent to a personal treaty), I treachery and cruelty, above all men shall never part with the church, the living? essentials of my crown, or my friends.” 3 Parl. Hist 499.

Whitelock, 215, 218. P. 206. Baillie could not believe the It was voted, 17th June, that after these report that the king intended to take twenty years the king was to exercise no refuge in the Scots army, as ” there power over the militia without the prewould be no shelter there for him, unvious consent of parliament, who were to less he would take the covenant, and fol-pass a bill at any time respecting it, if.ow the advice of his parliament. Hard they should judge the kingdom’s safety pills to be swallowed by a wilful and an to be concerned, which should be valid unadvised prince.” Vol. ii. p. 203. without the king’s assent. Commons’ 2

Not long after the king had taken Journal. shelter with the Scots he wrote a letter

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182 CHARLES’S STRUGGLES CHAP. X. But in fact they had so abridged the royal prerogative by their former propositions, that, preserving the decent semblance of monarchy, scarce anything further could be exacted.

The king’s circumstances were, however, so altered that by persisting in his refusal of those propositions he excited a natural indignation at his obstinacy in men who felt their own right (the conqueror’s right) to dictate terms at pleasure. Yet this might have had a nobler character of firmness if, during all the tedious parleys of the last three years of his life, he had not by tardy and partial concessions given up so much of that for which he contended, as rather to appear like a peddler haggling for the best bargain than a sovereign unalterably determined by conscience and public spirit. We must, however, forgive much to one placed in such unparalleled difficulties. Charles had to contend, during his unhappy residence at Newcastle, not merely with revolted subjects in Charles’s the pride of conquest, and with bigoted priests, as struggles to blindly confident in one set of doubtful proposipescoracy, tions as he was in the opposite, but with those he against the had trusted the most and loved the dearest. We advice of the queen have in the Clarendon State Papers a series of and others, letters from Paris, written, some by the queen, others jointly by Colepepper, Jermyn, and Ashburnham, or the two former, urging him to sacrifice episcopacy, as the necessary means of his restoration. We have the king’s answers, that display in an interesting manner the struggles of his mind under this severe trial.1 No candid reader, I think, can doubt that a serious sense of obligation was predominant in Charles’s persevering fidelity to the English church. For though he often alleges the incompatibility of presbyterianism with monarchy, and says very justly, “I am most confident that religion will much sooner regain the militia than the militia will religion,” 2 yet these arguments 1 P. 248. ” Show me any precedent,” antimonarchical.” P.

260. See also p. he says in another place, ” wherever 278. presbyterian government and regal was 2 ” The design is to unite you with together without perpetual rebellions, the Scots nation and the presbyterians which was the cause that necessitated the of England against the antimonarchical king my father to change that govern-party, the independents….. If by conment in Scotland. And even in France, science it is intended to assert that episwhere they are but on tolerance, which copacy is jure divino exclusive, wherein likelihood shall cause moderation, did by no protestant, or rather Christian, they ever sit still so long as they had church can be acknowledged for such power to rebel? And it cannot be other-without a bishop, we must therein crave wise; for the ground of their doctrine is leave only to differ. And if we be in

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CIIA. I.-1642-49. TO PRESERVE EPISCOPACY. 183 seem rather intended to weigh with those who slighted his scruples than the paramount motives of his heart. He could hardly avoid perceiving that, as Colepepper told him in his rough style, the question was whether he would choose to be a king of presbytery or no king. But the utmost length which he could prevail on himself to go was to offer the continuance of the presbyterian discipline, as established by the parliament, for three years, during which a conference of divines might be had, in order to bring about a settlement.

Even this he would not propose without consulting two bishops, Juxon and Duppa, whether he could lawfully do so. They returned a very cautious answer, assenting to the proposition as a temporary measure, but plainly endeavoring to keep the king fixed in his adherence to the episcopal church.1 Pressed thus on a topic so important above all others in his eyes, the king gave a proof of his sincerity by greater concessions of power than he had ever intended. He had some time before openly offered to let the parliament name all the commissioners of the militia for seven years, and all the officers of state and judges to hold their places for life.2 an error, we are in good company, there after by virtue of the ordinance directing not being, as we have cause to believe, the sale of bishops’ lands, Nov. 16, 1646. six persons of the protestant religion of Parl. Hist. 528. A committee was apthe other opinion.. Come, the ques-pointed, Nov. 2, 1646, to consider of a tion in short is, whether you will choose fitting maintenance to be allowed the to be a king of presbytery, or no king, bishops, both those who had remained and yet presbytery or perfect indepen-under the parliament, and those who had dency to be?” P.

263. Theywere, how-deserted it. Journals. Iwas led to this ever, as much against his giving up the passage by Mr. Godwin, Hist. of Commilitia or his party, as in favor of his monwealth, ii. 250. Whether anything abolishing episcopacy. further was done I have not observed. Charles was much to be pitied through-But there is an order in the Journals, 1st out all this period; none of-his corre-May. 1647 that, whereas divers of the late spondents understood the state of affairs tenants of Dr. Juxon, late bishop of Lonso well as himself: he was with the Scots, don, have refused to pay the rents or other and saw what they were made of, while sums of money due to him as bishop of the others fancied absurdities through London, at or before the 1st of November their own private self-interested views. last, the trustees of bishops’ lands are diIt is very certain that by sacrificing epis-rected to receive the same, and pay them copacy he would not have gained a step over to Dr. Juxon. Though this was only with the parliament: and as to reigning justice, it shows that justice was done, in Scotland alone, suspected, insulted, at least in this instance, to a bishop. degraded, this would, perhaps, just have Juxon must have been a very prudent been possible for himself, but neither and judicious man, though not learned; Henrietta nor her friends would have which probably was all the better. found an asylum there. 2 Jan. 29,1646. Parl. Hist.

436. White1 Juxon had been well treated by the lock says, “Many sober men and lovers parliament, in consequence of his prudent of peace were earnest to have complied abstinence from politics, and residence in with what the king proposed; but the their quarters. He dates his answer to major part of the house was contrary, the king from his palace at Fulham. He and the new-elected members joined those vas, however, dispossessed of it not long who were averse to compliance.” P.207.

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184 BAD CONDUCT OF THE QUEEN CIAP. X. He now empowered a secret agent in London, Mr. William Murray, privately to sound the parliamentary leaders, if they would consent to the establishment of a moderated episcopacy after three or five years, on condition of his departing from the right of the militia during his whole life.’ This dereliction of the main ground of contest brought down the queen’s indignation on his head. She wrote several letters, *in an imperious and unfeeling tone, declaring that she would never set her foot in England as long as the parliament should exist.2 Jermyn and Colepepper assumed a style hardly less dictatorial in their letters,8 till Charles withdrew the proposal, which Murray seems never to have communicated.4 It was indeed the evident effect of despair and a natural weariness of his thorny crown. He now began to express serious thoughts of making his escape,6 and seems even to hint more than once at a resignation of his government to the prince of Wales. But Henrietta forbade him to think of an escape, and alludes to the other with contempt and Bad conduct indignation.6 With this selfish and tyrannical of the queen. woman, that life of exile and privacy which religion and letters would have rendered tolerable to the king, must have been spent in hardly less bitterness than on a dishon1 Clar. Papers, p. 275. monastery, in consequence of his refusal 2 Id. pp. 294, 297, 300. She had said to comply with her wishes: p. 270. See as much before (King’s Cabinet Opened also Montreuil’s Memoir in Thurloe’s p. 28); so that this was not a burst of State Papers, i. 85, whence it appears passion. ” Conservez-vous la militia,” that the king had thoughts of making she says in one place (p.

271), “et his escape in Jan. 1647. n’abandonnek jamais; et par cela tout 6

“For the proposition to Bellievre (a reviendra.” Charles, however, disclaimed French agent at Newcastle, after Monall idea of violating his faith in case of a treuil’s recall), I hate it. If any such treaty (p.

273); but observed as to the thing should be made public, you are militia, with some truth, that t; the re-undone; your enemies will make a malitaining of it is not of so much couse-cious use of it. Be sure you never own quence-I am far from saying none-it again in any discourse, otherwise than as is thought, without the concurrence of as intended as a foil, or an hyperbole, or other things; because the militia here is any other ways, except in sober earnest,” not, as in France and other countries, a &c. p. 304. The queen and her counselformed powerful strength; but it serves lors, however, seem afterwards to have more to hold off ill than to do much retracted in some measure what they good. And certainly if the pulpits teach had said about his escape; and advised not obedience (which will never be, if that, if he could not be suffered to go presbyterian government be absolutely into Scotland, he would try Irelaud or settled), the crown will have little com-Jersey; p. 312. fort of the militia.” P. 296. Her dislike to the king’s escape showed 3 P. 801.

itself, according to Clarendon. vi. 192, 4 P. 313. even at a time when it appeared the only 5 Pp. 245, 247, 278, 814. In one place means to secure his life, during his conhe says that he will go to France to finement in the Isle of Wight. Some may elcar his reputation to the queen; p. 265.

suspect that Henrietta had consoled herHe wrote in great distress of mind to self too well with lord Jermyn to wish foi Jermyn and Colepepper, on her threat-her husband’s return. ening to retire from all business into a

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CHA. I. - 1642-49. LETTERS TAKEN AT NASEBY. 185 ored throne. She had displayed in France as little virtue as at home: the small resources, which should have been frugally dispensed to those who had lost all for the royal cause, were squandered upon her favorite and her French servants.1 So totally had she abandoned all regard to English interests, that Hyde and Capel, when retired to Jersey, the governor of which, sir Edward Carteret, still held out for the king, discovered a plan formed by the queen and Jermyn to put that island into the hands of France.2 They were exceedingly perplexed at this discovery, conscious of the impossibility of defending Jersey, and yet determined not to let it be torn away from the sovereignty of the British crown. No better expedient occurred than, as soon as the project should be ripe for execution, to despatch a message “s to the earl of Northumberland or some other person of honour,” asking for aid to preserve the island. This was of course, in other words, to surrender it into the power of the parliament, which they would not name even to themselves. But it was evidently more consistent with their loyalty to the king and his family than to trust the good faith of Mazarin. The scheme, however, was abandoned, for we hear no more of it.

It must, however, be admitted at the present day, that there was no better expedient for saving the king’s life, and some portion of the royal authority for his descendants (a frank renunciation of episcopacy perhaps only excepted), than such an abdication, the time for which had come before he put himself into the hands of the Scots. His own party had been weakened, and the number of his well-wishers diminished, by something more than the events of war. The last unfortunate year had, in two memorable instances, revealed fresh proofs of that culpable imprudence, speaking mildly, which made wise and honest men hopeless of any permanent accommodation. At the battle of Naseby copies of some letters to the queen, chiefly written about of lettersn the time of the treaty of Uxbridge, and strangely taken at preserved, fell into the hands of the enemy, and asey were instantly published.8 No other losses of that fatal day 1 Clar. Papers, p. 344. whole rabble of Charles’s admirers. But 2 P.

279. it could not reasonably be expected that 3 Clarendon and Hume inveigh against such material papers should be kept the parliament for this publication; in back: nor were the parliament under any which they are of course followed by the obligation to do so. The former writer

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186 LETTERS TAKEN AT NASEBY. CHAP. X were more injurious to his cause.

Besides many proofs of a contemptible subserviency to one justly deemed irreconcilable to the civil and religious interests of the kingdom, and many expressions indicating schemes and hopes inconsistent with any practicable peace, and especially a design to put an end to the parliament,1 he gave her power to treat with the English catholics, promising to take away all penal laws against them as soon as God should enable him to do so, in consideration of such powerful assistance as might deserve so great a favor, and enable him to effect it.2 Yet it was cerinsinuates that they were garbled; but the whole collection but what will lessen Charles himself never pretended this (see the character of the king and offend all Supplement to Evelyn’s Diary, p. 101); those who wish well to his memory. He nor does there seem any foundation for thinks it very unfit to expose any man’s the surmise. His own friends garbled conversation and familiarity with his them, however, after the Restoration: wife, but especially that king’s; for it some passages are omitted in the edition was apparently his blind side, and his of King Charles’s Works; so that they enemies gained great advantage by showcan only be read accurately in the origi-ing it. But my lord hopes his friends nal publication, called the King’s Cabinet will spare him; and therefore he has orOpened, a small tract in quarto; or in the dered me not to deliver the book to the modern compilations, such as the Par-bookseller, but put it into your lordship’s liamentary History, which have copied it. hands; and when you have read it, he Ludlow says he has been informed that knows you will be of his opinion. If some of the letters taken at Naseby were your lordship has not time to read it all, suppressed by those intrusted with them, my lord has turned down some leaves who since the king’s restoration have where he makes his chief objections. If been rewarded for it. Memoirs, i. 156. your lordship sends any servant to town, But I should not be inclined to believe I beg you will order him to call here for this. the book, and that you would take care There is, however, an anecdote which about it.” may be mentioned in this place: a Dr. Hickman, afterwards bishop of Derry, Though the description of these letters wrote in 1690 the following letter to Sprat, answers perfectly to those in the King’s bishop of Rochester, a copy of which, in Cabinet Opened, which certainly ” deDr. Birch’s handwriting, may be found tract much from the reputation of in the British Museum. It was printed Charles’s prudence, and something from by him in the Appendix to the “

Inquiry his integrity,” it is impossible that Rochinto the Share K.

Charles I. had in Gla-ester and the others could be ignorant morgan’s Transactions,” and from thence of so well-known a publication; and we by Harris in his Life of Charles I. p. 144. must consequently infer that some letters injurious to the king’s character “My Lord, have been suppressed by the caution of ” Last week Mr. Bennet [a bookseller] his friends. left with me a manuscript of letters from 1 The king had long entertained a king Charles I. to his queen; and said it notion, in which he was encouraged by was your lordship’s desire and Dr. Pell-the attorney-general Herbert, that the ing’s that my lord Rochester should read act against the dissolution of the parliathem over, and see what was fit to be ment without its own consent was void left out in the intended edition of them. in itself. Life of Clarendon, p. 86. This Accordingly, my lord has read them over, high monarchical theory of the nullity and upon the whole matter says he is of statutes in restraint of the prerogative very much amazed at the design of print-was never thoroughly eradicated till the ing them, and thinks that the kings ene-Revolution, and in all contentions bemies could not have done him a greater tween the crown and parliament dediscourtesy. He showed me many pas-stroyed the confidence without which no sages which detract very much from the accommodation could be durable. reputation of the king’s prudence, and 2: There is little or no appearance but something from his integrity; and in that this summer will be the hottest for short he can find nothing throughout war of any that hath been yet; and be

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CHA. I. -1642-49. GLAMORGAN’S TREATY. 187 tain that no parliament, except in absolute duress, would consent to repeal these laws. To what sort of victory therefore did he look? It was remembered that, on taking the sacrament at Oxford some time before, he had solemnly protested that he would maintain the protestant religion of the church of England, without any connivance at popery. What trust could be reposed in a prince capable of forfeiting so solemn a pledge? Were it even supposed that he intended to break his word with the catholics, after obtaining such aid as they could render him, would his insincerity be less flagrant?1 These suspicions were much aggravated by a second discovery that took place soon afterwards, of a secret Discovery of treaty between the earl of Glamorgan and the Glamorgan’s confederate Irish catholics, not merely promising treaty. the repeal of the penal laws, but the establishment of their religion in far the greater part of Ireland.2 The marquis of Ormond, as well as lord Digby, who happened to be at Dublin, loudly exclaimed against Glamorgan’s presumption in concluding such a treaty, and committed him to prison on confident that, in making peace I shall satisfaction this in general if there ever show my constancy in adhering to had been but two, besides myself, of my bishops and all our friends, not forgetting opinion, I had not done it; and the arto put a short period to this perpetual gument that prevailed with me was, that parliament.” King’s Cabinet Opened, p. the calling did noways acknowledge them 7. ” It being presumption, and no piety, to be a parliament, upon which condition so to trust to a good cause as not to use and construction I did it, and no otherall lawful means to maintain it, I have wise, and accordingly it is registered in thought of one means more to furnish the council-books, with the council’s thee with for my assistance than hitherto unanimous approbation.” Id. p. 4. The thou hast had: it is, that I give thee one councillor who concurred with the power to promise in my name, to whom king was secretary Nicholas. Supplethou thinkest most fit, that I will take ment to Evelyn’s Memoirs, p. 90. away all the penal laws against the Ro-1 The queen evidently suspected that man catholics in England as soon as God he might be brought to abandon the shall enable me to do it; so as by their catholics. King’s Cabinet Opened, p. 30, Means, or in their favours, I may have 31. And, if fear of her did not prevent so powerful assistance as may deserve him, I make no question that he would so great a favour and enable me to do it. have done so, could he but have carried But if thou ask what I call that assist-his other points. ance, I answer that, when thou knowest 2 Parl. Hist. 428; Somers Tracts, v. what may be done for it, it will be easily 642. It appears by several letters of the seen if it deserve to be so esteemed. 1 king, published among those taken at need not tell thee what secrecy this busi-Naseby, that Ormond had power to promness requires; yet this I will say, that ise the Irish a repeal of the penal laws this is the greatest point of confidence I and the use of private chapels, as well as can express to thee; for it is no thanks a suspension of Poyning’s law. King’s to me to trust thee in anything else but Cabinet Opened, pp. 16,19; Rushw. Abr. m this, which is the only point of differ-v. 589. Glamorgan’s treaty granted them ence in opinion betwixt us: and yet I all the churches, with the revenues thereknow thou wilt make as good a bargain of, of which they had at any time since for me, even in this, as if thou wert a October, 1641, been in possession; that protestant.” Id. ibid. “As to my call-is, the reestablishment of their religion; ing those at London a parliament, I they, on the other hand, were to furnish shall refer thee to Digby for particular a very large army to the king in England.

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188 DISCOVERY OF CHAP. X a charge of treason. He produced two commissions from the king, secretly granted without any seal or the knowledge of any minister, containing the fullest powers to treat with the Irish, and promising to fulfil any conditions into which he should enter. The king, informed of this, disavowed Glamorgan; and asserted in a letter to the parliament that he had merely a commission to raise men for his service, but no power to treat of anything else, without the privity of the lord-lieutenant, much less to capitulate anything concerning religion or any property belonging either to church or laity.1 Glamorgan, however, was soon released and lost no portion of the king’s or his family’s favor.

This transaction has been the subject of much historical controversy. The enemies of Charles, both in his own and later ages, have considered it as a proof of his indifference at least to the protestant religion, and of his readiness to accept the assistance of Irish rebels on any conditions.

His advocates for a long time denied the authenticity of Glamorgan’s commissions. But Dr. Birch demonstrated that they were genuine; and, if his dissertation could have left any doubt, later evidence might be adduced in confirmation.2 I RIushw. Abr. v. 582, 594. This, as undo the king forever, that no repentwell as some letters taken on lord Digby’s ance shall ever obtain a pardon of this route at Sherborne about the same time, act, if it be true, from his parliaments.” made a prodigious impression. ” Many Baillie, ii. 185. Jan. 20,1646. The king’s good men were sorry that the king’s disavowal had some effect; it seems as if actions agreed no better with his words; even those who were prejudiced against that he openly protested before God with him could hardly believe him guilty of horrid imprecations that he endeavored such an apostasy as it appeared in their nothing so much as the preservation of eyes. P. 175.

And, in fact, though the the protestant religion. and rooting out catholics had demanded nothing unreaof popery; yet in the mean time, under-sonable either in its own nature or achand, he promised to the Irish rebels an cording to the circumstances wherein abrogation of the laws against them, they stood, it threw a great suspicion on which was contrary to his late expressed the king’s attachment to his own faith, promises in these words,’ I will never when he was seen to abandon altogether, abrogate the laws against the papists.’ as it seemnd, the protestant cause in And again he said,’ I abhor to think of Ireland, while he was struggling so tenabringing foreign soldiers into the king-ciously for a particular form of it in dom,’ and yet he solicited the duke of Britain. Nor was his negotiation less Lorrain, the French, the Danes, and the impolitic than dishonorable. Without very Irish, for assistance.”

May’s Bre-depreciating a very brave and injured viate of Hist. of Parliament in Maseres’s people, it may be said with certainty Tracts, i.

61.. Charles had certainly that an Irish army could not have had never scrupled (I do not say that he the remotest chance of success against ought to have done so) to make applica-Fairfax and Cromwell; the courage being tion in every quarter for assistance; and equal on our side, the skill and discipline began in 1642 with sending a col. Coch-incomparably superior. And it was eviran on a secret mission to Denmark, in dent that Charles could never reign in the hope of obtaining a subsidiary force England but on a protestant interest. from that kingdom. There was at least 2 Birch’s Inquiry into the Share which no danger to the national independence King Charles I. had in the Transactions from such allies. “

We fear this shall of the Earl of Glamorgan, 1747. Four

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CHA. I. -1642-49. GLAMORGAN’S TREATY. 189 Hume, in a very artful and very unfair statement, admitting the authenticity of these instruments, endeavors to show that they were never intended to give Glamorgan any power to treat without Ormond’s approbation. But they are worded in the most unconditional manner, without any reference to Ormond. No common reader can think them consistent with the king’s story. I do not, however, impute to him any intention of ratifying the terms of Glamorgan’s treaty.

His want of faith was not to the protestant, but to the catholic. Upon weighing the whole of the evidence, it appears to me that he purposely gave Glamorgan, a sanguine and injudicious man, whom he could easily disown, so ample a commission as might remove the distrust that the Irish were likely to entertain of a negotiation wherein Ormond should be concerned; while, by a certain latitude in the style of the letters of Charles to Glamorgan, now in War in Ireland. The cipher may be the British Museum (Sloane MSS. 4161), found in the BiographiaBritannica, under in Birch’s handwriting, but of which he the article BALES. Dr. L. endeavors to was not aware at the time of that publi-prove that Glamorgan acted all along cation, decisively show the king’s duplic-with Ormond’s privity: and it must be ity. In the first, which was meant to owned that the expression in the king’s be seen by Digby, dated Feb. 3, 1646, he last letter about revenge and reparation, blames him for having been drawn to which Dr. L. does not advert to, has a consent to conditions much beyond his very odd appearance. instructions.-” If you had advised with The controversy is, I suppose, commy lord-lieutenant, as you promised me, pletely at an end; so that it is hardly all this had been helped; ” and tells him necessary to mention a letter from Glahe had commanded as much favor to be morgan, then marquis of Worcester, to shown him as might possibly stand with Clarendon, after the Restoration, which his service and safety. On Feb. 28 he has every internal mark of credibility, writes, by a private hand, sir John and displays the king’s unfairness. Clar, Winter, that he is every day more and State Pap. ii. 201; and Lingard, ubi more confirmed in the trust that he had supra. It is remarkable that the transof him. In a third letter, dated April 6, action is never mentioned in the History he says, in a cipher, to which the key is of the Rebellion.

The noble author was, given, ” you cannot be but confident of however, convinced of the genuineness of my making good all instructions and Glamorgan’s commission, as appears by promises to you and nuncio.” The fourth a letter to secretary Nicholas: - ” I must letter is dated April 6, and is in these tell you, I care not how little I say in words:-” Herbert, as I doubt not but that business of Ireland, since those you have too much courage to be dis-strange powers and instructions given to mayed or discouraged at the usage like your favorite Glamorgan, which appear you have had, so I assure you that my to be so inexcusable to justice, piety, and estimation of you is nothing diminished prudence. And I fear there is very much by it, but rather begets in me a desire of in that transaction of Ireland, both before revenge and reparation to us both (for and since, that you and I were never in this I hold myself equally interested thought wise enough to be advised with with you), whereupon, not doubting of in.

Oh! Mr. Secretary, those stratagems your accustomed care and industry in have given me more sad hours than all my service, I assure you of the continu-the misfortunes in war which have beance of my favor and protection to you, fallen the king, and look like the eftcts and that in deeds more than in words I of God’s anger towards us.” Id. P. 237. shall show myself to be your most as-See also a note of Mr. Laing, IIist. of sured constant friend. C. R.” Scotland, iii. 557, for another letter of These letters have lately been repubthe king to Glamorgan, from Newcastle, lished by Dr. Lingard, Hist. of Eng. x. in July, 1646, not less explicit than the note B, from Warner’s Hist. of the Civil foregoing.

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190 CHARLES GIVEN UP BY THE SCOTS. CHAP. X. instrument, and by his own letters to the lord-lieutenant about Glamorgan’s errand, he left it open to assert, in case of necessity, that it was never intended to exclude the former’s privity and sanction. Charles had unhappily long been in the habit of perverting his natural acuteness to the mean subterfuges of equivocal language. By these discoveries of the king’s insincerity, and by what seemed his infatuated obstinacy in refusing terms of accommodation, both nations became more and more alienated from him; the one hardly restrained from casting him off, the other ready to leave him to his fate.1 This ill deliverd opinion of the king forms one apology for that up by the action which has exposed the Scots nation to so Scots. much reproach their delivery of his person to the English parliament. Perhaps, if we place ourselves in their situation, it will not appear deserving of quite such indignant censure. It would have shown more generosity to have offered the king an alternative of retiring to Holland; and, from what we now know, he probably would not have neglected the opportunity. But the consequence might have been his solemn deposition from the English throne; and, however we may think such banishment more honorable than the acceptance of degrading conditions, the Scots, we should remember, saw nothing in the king’s taking the covenant, and sweeping away prelatic superstitions, but the bounden duty of a Christian sovereign, which only the most perverse self-will induced him to set at nought.2 They had 1

Burnet’s Mem. of Dukes of Hamil-with both parties, the presbyterians and ton, 284. Baillie’s letters, throughout independents, were now known; and all 1646, indicate his apprehension of the sides seem to have been ripe for deposing prevalent spirit, which he dreaded as him: 245. These letters are a curious implacable, not only to monarchy, but to contrast to the idle fancies of a speedy presbytery and the Scots nation. ” The and triumphant restoration, which Clarleaders of the people seem inclined to endon himself, as well as others of less have no shadow of a king, to have liberty judgment, seem to have entertained. for all religions, a lame Erastian presby-2 ” Though he should swear it,” says tery, to be so injurious to us as to chase Baillie,’ no man will believe that he us hence with the sword.”-148, March sticks upon episcopacy for any con31, 1646. “

The common word is, that science,” ii. 205. And again: “It is pity they will have the king prisoner. Pos-that base hypocrisy, when it is pellucid, sibly they may grant to the prince to be shall still be entertained. No oaths did a duke of Venice. The militia must be ever persuade me that episcopacy was absolutely, for all time to come, in the ever adhered to on any conscience.” 224. power of the parliament alone,”

&c. 200. This looks at first like mere bigotry. On the king’s refusal of the propositions But, when we remember that Charles had sent to Newcastle, the Scots took great abolished episcopacy in Scotland, and was pains to prevent a vote against him: 226. ready to abolish protestantism in Ireland, There was still, however, danger of this: Baillie’s prejudices will appear less un236, Oct. 13, and p. 243. His intrigues reasonable. The king’s private letters in

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CliA. I.-1642-49. CHARLES GIVEN UP BY THE SCOTS. 191 a right also to consider the interests of his family, which the threatened establishment of a republic in England would defeat. To carry him back with their army into Scotland, besides being equally ruinous to the English monarchy, would have exposed their nation to the most serious dangers. To undertake his defence by arms against England, as the ardent royalists desired, and doubtless the determined republicans no less, would have been, as was proved afterwards, a mad and culpable renewal of the miseries of both kingdoms.1 He had voluntarily come to their camp; no faith was pledged to him; their very right to retain his person, though they had argued for it with the English parliament, seemed open to much doubt. The circumstance, unquestionably, which has always given a character of apparent baseness to this transaction, is the payment of 400,0001. made to them so nearly at the same time that it has passed for the price of the king’s person. This sum was part of a larger demand on the score of arrears of pay, and had been agreed upon long before we have any proof or reasonable suspicion of a stipulation to deliver up the king.2 That the parliament would never have actually paid it in case of a refusal to comply with this the Clarendon Papers have convinced me in all his maxims, a full Canterburian, of his conscientiousness about church both in matters of religion and state, he government; but of this his contempo-still inclined to a new war; and for that raries could not be aware. end resolved to go to Scotland. Some 1 Hollis maintains that the violent great men there pressed the equity of party were very desirous that the Scots Scotland’s protecting of him on any terms. should carry the king with them, and This untimeous excess of friendship has that nothing could have been more in-ruined that unhappy prince; for the betjurious to his interests. If we may be-ter party finding the conclusion of the lieve Berkley, who is much confirmed by king’s coming to Scotland, and thereby Baillie, the presbyterians had secretly en-their own present ruin, and the ruin of gaged to the Scots that the army should the whole cause, the making the mabe disbanded. and the king brought up lignants masters of church and state, the to London with honor and safety. Me-drawing the whole force of England upon moirs of sir J. Berkley, in Maseres’s Scotland for their perjurious violation of Tracts, i. 358. Baillie, ii. 257. This af-their covenant, they resolved ty all means fords no bad justification of the Scots for to cross that design.” P. 253. delivering him up. 2 The votes for payment of the sum of’ It is very like,” says Baillie, “if he 400,0001. to the Scots are on Aug. 21, 27, had done any duty, though he had never and Sept. 1; though it was not fully taken the covenant, but permitted it to agreed between the two nations till Dec. have been put in an act of parliament in 8. Whitelock, 220, 229. But Whitelock both kingdoms, and given so satisfactory dates the commencement of the underan answer to the rest of the propositions, standing as to the delivery of the king as easily he might, and sometimes I know about Dec. 24 (p. 231). See Commons’ he was willing, certainly Scotland had Journals; Baillie, ii.

246, 253; Burnet’s been for him as one man; and the body Memoirs of Hamilton, 293, &c.; Laing, of England, upon many grounds, was iii. 862; and Mr. Godwin’s History of the upon a disposition to have so cordially Commonwealth, ii. 258, a work in which embraced him, that no man, for his life, great attention has been paid to the or. durst have muttered against his present der of time. restitution. But remaining what he was

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192 INDEPENDENTS AND REPUBLICANS. CHAP. X requisition, there can be, I presume, no kind of doubt; and of this the Scots must have been fully aware. But whether there were any such secret bargain as had been supposed, or whether they would have delivered him up if there had been no pecuniary expectation in the case, is what I cannot perceive sufficient grounds to pronounce with confidence, though I am much inclined to believe the affirmative of the latter question. And it is deserving of particular observation that the party in the house of commons which sought most earnestly to obtain possession of the king’s person, and carried all the votes for payment of money to the Scots, was that which had no further aim than an accommodation with him, and a settlement of the government on the basis of its fundamental laws, though doubtless on terms very derogatory to his prerogative; while those who opposed each part of the negotiation were the zealous enemies of the king, and, in some instances at least, of the monarchy. The Journals bear witness to this.1 Whatever might have been the consequence of the king’s Growth of accepting the propositions of Newcastle, his chance the inde-of restoration upon any terms was now in all appendents and repub-pearance very slender. He had to encounter licans. enemies more dangerous and implacable than the presbyterians. That faction, which from small and insensible beginnings had acquired continued strength, through ambition in a few, through fanaticism in many, through a despair in some of reconciling the pretensions of royalty with those of the people, was now rapidly ascending to superiority. Though still weak in the house of commons, it had spread prodigiously in the army, especially since its newmodelling at the time of the self-denying ordinance.2 The presbyterians saw with dismay the growth of their own and the constitution’s enemies. But the royalists, who had 1 Journals, Aug. and Sept.; Godwin, with them, and those the most resolute ubi supra; Baillie, ii. passim. and confident; though they had no con2 Baillie, who, in Jan.

1644, speaks of siderable force either in Essex’s or Walthe independents as rather troublesome ler’s army, nor in the assembly of divines than formidable, and even says, ” No or the parliament (ii. 5, 19, 20). This man, I know, in either of the houses of was owing in a great degree to the inany note. is for them ” (437); and that fluence, at that period, of Cromwell over’ lord Say’s power and reputation is Manchester. ” The man,”

he says, “is none at all;’ admits, in a few months, a very wise and active head, universally the alarming increase of independency well beloved, as religious and stout; and sectarianism in the earl of Man-being a known independent, and most chester’s army; more than two parts in of the soldiers who love new ways put three of the officers and soldiers being themselves under his command ” (60).

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CHA. I. - 1642-49. TOLERATION. 193 less to fear from confusion than from any settlement that the commons would be brought to make, rejoiced in the increasing disunion, and fondly believed, like their master, that one or other party must seek assistance at their hands.1 The independent party comprehended, besides the members of that religious denomination,2 a countless brood of fanatical sectaries, nursed in the lap of presbyterianism, anwl fed with the stimulating aliment she furnished, till their intoxicated fancies could neither be restrained to the preswithin the limits of her creed nor those of her byteriangov-,. 8~~~. 3

~~~~ernment. discipline.3 The presbyterian zealots were systematically intolerant. A common cause made toleration the doctrine of the sectaries.

About the beginning of Tolertion. the war it had been deemed expedient to call together an assembly of divines, nominated by the parliament, and consisting not only of clergymen, but, according to the presbyterian usage, of lay members, peers as well as commoners, by whose advice a general reformation of the church was to be planned.4 These were chiefly presbyterian, though a 1 The independent party, or at least generally admitted, to a very limited some of its most eminent members, as degree, the alliance of churches for mutlord Say and Mr. St. John, were in a seual counsel and support. Their second cret correspondence with Oxford, through characteristic was the denial of spiritual the medium of lord Saville, in the spring powers communicated in ordination by of 1645, if we believe Hollis, who asserts apostolical succession; deeming the call that he had seen their letters, asking of a congregation a sufficient warrant for offices for themselves. Mem. of Hollis, the exercise of the ministry.

See Orme’s sect. 43, Baillie refers this to an earlier Life of Owen for a clear view and able period, the beginning of 1644 (i. 427); defence of the principles maintained by and I conceive that Hollis has been in-this party. I must add that Neal seems correct as to the date. The king, how-to have proved that the independents, as ever, was certainly playing a game with a body, were not systematically adverse them in the beginning of 1646, as well as to monarchy. with the presbyterians, so as to give both 3

Edwards’s Gangreena, a noted book in parties an opinion of his insincerity. that age, enumerates one hundred and Clarendon State Papers, 214; and see seventy-six heresies, which however are two remarkable letters written by his reduced by him to sixteen heads; and order to sir Henry Vane, 226, urging a these seem capable of further consolida-,union, in order to overthrow the presby-tion. Neal, 249. The house ordered a terian government. general fast, Feb. 1647, to beseech God 2 The principles of the independents to stop the growth of heresy and blasare set forth candidly, and even favor-phemy: Whitelock, 236: a presbyterian ably, by Collier, 829; as well as by Neal, artifice to alarm the nation.

ii. 98. For those who are not much ac-4 Parl. Hist. ii. 1479. They did not quainted with ecclesiastical distinctions, meet till July 1, 1643; Rush. Abr. v. it may be useful to mention the two 123; Neal, 42; Collier, 823. Though this essential characteristics of this sect, by assembly showed abundance of bigotry which they differed from the presbyte-and narrowness, they were by no means rians. The first was, that all churches or so contemptible as Clarendon represents separate congregations were absolutely them, ii. 423; and perhaps equal in independent of each other as to jurisdic-learning, good sense, and other merits, tion or discipline; whence they rejected to any lower house of convocation that all synods and representative assemblies ever made a figure in England as possessing authority; though they VOL. II. 13

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194 PRESBYTERIAN ORDINANCE. CHAP. X small minority of independents, and a few moderate episcopalians, headed by Selden,1 gave them much trouble. The general imposition of the covenant, and the substitution of the directory for the common prayer (which was forbidden to be used even in any private family, by an ordinance of August, 1654), seemed to assure the triumph of presbyterianism, which became complete, in point of law, by an ordinance of February 1646, establishing for three years the Scots’ model of classes, synods, and general assemblies throughout England.2 But in this very ordinance there was a reservation which wounded the spiritual arrogance of that party. Their favorite tenet had always been the independency of the church. They had rejected, with as much abhorrence as the catholics themselves, the royal supremacy, so far as it controlled the exercise of spiritual discipline. But the house of commons were inclined to part with no portion of that prerogative which they had wrested from the crown. Besides the independents, who were still weak, a party called Erastians,8 and chiefly composed of the common lawyers, under 1 Whitelock, 71; Neal, 103. Selden, in the present age ignorantly, and therewho owed no gratitude to the episcopal fore indefinitely; but I apprehend that church, was from the beginning of its the fundamental principle of his followers dangers a steady and active friend, dis-was this:- That, in a commonwealth playing, whatever may have been said where the magistrate professes Christianof his timidity, full as much courage ity, it is not convenient that offences as could reasonably be expected from a against religion and morality should be studious man advanced in years. Baillie, punished by the censures of the church, in 1641, calls him ” the avowed proctor especially by excommunication. Probof the bishops,” i. 245; and, when proably he may have gone farther, as Selden voked by his Erastian opposition in 1646, seems to have done (Neal, 194), and depresumes to talk of his ”’ insolent absur-nied the right of exclusion from church dity,”

ii. 96. Selden sat in the assembly communion, even without reference to of divines; and by his great knowledge the temporal power; but the limited propof the ancient languages and of ecclesi-osition was of course sufficient to raise astical antiquities, as well as by his the practical controversy. The Helvetic sound logic and calm clear judgment, ob-divines, Gualter and Bullinger, strongly tained an undeniable superiority, which concurred in this with Erastus: ” Conhe took no pains to conceal.

tendimus disciplinam esse debere in ec2 Scobell; Rush. Abr. v. 576; Parl.

clesia, sed satis esse, si ea administretur Hist. iii. 444; Neal, 199. The latter says a magistratu.” Erastus, de Excommuthis did not pass the lords till June 6. nicatione, p. 350; and a still stronger pasBut this is not so. Whitelock very rightly sage in p. 379. And it is said that archopposed the prohibition of the use of the bishop Whitgift caused Erastus’s book to common prayer, and of the silencing epis-be printed at his own expense.

See one copal ministers, as contrary to the prin-of Warburton’s notes on Neal. Calvin, ciple of liberty of conscience avowed by and the whole of his school, held, as is the parliament, and like what had been well known, a very opposite tenet. See complained of in the bishops: 226, 239, Erasti Theses de Excommunicatione, 4to. 281. But, in Sept. 1647, it was voted 1579. that the indulgence in favor of tender The ecclesiastical constitution of Engconsciences should not extend to tolerate land is nearly Erastian in theory, and the common prayer. Id. 274. almost wholly so in practice. Every sen8 The Erastians were named from Erastence of the spiritual judge is liable to tus, a German physician in the sixteenth be reversed by a civil tribunal, the court century. The denomination is oftenused of delegates, by virtue of the king’s su

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CHA. I.L-1642-49. STRENGTH OF PRESBYTERIAN PARTY. 195 the guidance of Selden, the sworn foe of every ecclesiastical usurpation, withstood the assembly’s pretensions with success. They negatived a declaration of the divine right of presbyterian government. They voted a petition from the assembly, complaining of a recent ordinance as an encroachment on spiritual jurisdiction, to be a breach of privilege. The presbyterian tribunals were made subject to the appellant control of parliament, as those of the Anglican church had been to that of the crown. The cases wherein spiritual censures could be pronounced, or the sacrament denied, instead of being left to the clergy, were defined by law.1 Whether from dissatisfaction on this account, or some other reason, the presbyterian discipline was never carried into effect except to a certain extent in London and in Lancashire. But the beneficed clergy throughout England, till the return of Charles II., were chiefly, though not entirely, of that denomination.2 This party was still so far predominant, having the strong support of the city of London and its corporation,8 with premacy over all causes. And, practi-terian was to all intents and purposes the cally, what is called church discipline, or established religion during the time of the censures of ecclesiastical governors the commonwealth.” But, as coercive for offences, has gone so much into dis-discipline and synodical government are use, and what remains is so contemptible, no small intents and purposes of that that I believe no one, except those who religion, this assertion requires to be derive a little profit from it, would regret modified, as it has been in my text. Beits abolition. sides which there were many ministers of ” The most part of the house of com-the independent sect in benefices, some mons,” says Baillie, ii. 149, “
especially of whom probably had never received orthe lawyers, whereof there are many, and dination. “Both baptists and iudependivers of them very able men, are either dents,’ says a very well-informed writer half or whole Erastians, believing no of the latter denomination, ” were in the church government to be of divine right, practice of accepting the livings, that is, but all to be a human constitution, de-the temporalities of the church. They pending on the will of the magistrate.”

did not, however, view themselves as ” The pope and king,” he says in another parish ministers and bound to administer place, 196, ” were never more earnest for all the ordinances of religion to the parish the headship of the church than the plu-population. They occupied the parochial rality of this parliament.” See also p. edifices and received a portion of the 183; and Whitelock, 169. tithes for their maintenance; but in all I Parl.

Hist. 459, et alibi; Rushw. Abr. other respects acted according to their v. 578, et alibi; Whitelock, 165, 169, 173, own principles.” Orme’s Life of Owen, 176, et post; Baillie’s Letters, passim; 136. This he thinks would have produced Neal, 23, &c. 194, et post; Collier, 841. very serious evils if not happily checked The assembly attempted to sustain their by the Restoration. ” During the comown cause by counter votes; and, the monwealth,” he observes afterwards, 245, minority of independents and Erastians “no system of church government can having withdrawn, it was carried, with be considered as having been properly or the single dissent of Lightfoot, that Christ fully established. The presbyterians, if had established a government in his auy, enjoyed this distinction.” church independent of the civil magis-8 The city began to petition for the trate. Neal, 223. establishment of presbytery, and against 2 Neal, 228.

Warburton says, in his toleration of sectaries, early in 1646; and note on this passage, that’* the presby-not long after came to assume what

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196 STRENGTH OF PRESBYTERIAN PARTY. CHAP. Xi almost all the peers who remained in their house, that the independents and other sectaries neither opposed this ordinance for its temporary establishment, nor sought anything further than a toleration for their own worship. The question, as Neal well observes, was not between presbytery and independency, but between presbytery with a toleration and without one.’ Not merely from their own exclusive bigotry, but from a political alarm by no means ungrounded, the presbyterians stood firmly against all liberty of conscience. But in this again they could not influence the house of commons to suppress the sectaries, though no open declaration in favor seemed to the commons too dictatorial a and were burned in Smithfield in 1575; tone. This gave much offence, and con-on Matthew Hammond in 1579, Thomas tributed to drive some members into the Lewis in 1583, and Francis Ket in 1588; opposite faction. Neal, 193, 221, 241; all burned by Scambler, bishop of NorWhitelock, 207, 240. wich. It was also inflicted on Bartholo1 Vol. ii. 268. See also 207 and other mew Legat and Edward Wightman. under places. This is a remark that requires James, in 1614; the first burned by King, attention; many are apt to misunder-bishop of London, the second by Neyle stand the question. “For this point of Lichfield. A third, by birth a Span(toleration) both they and we contend,”

iard, incurred the same penalty; but the saysBaillie,’ tanquam pro aris et focis,” compassion of the people showed itself so ii. 175. ” Not only they praise your mag-strongly at Legat’s execution, that James istrate “

(writing to a Mr. Spang in Hol-thought it expedient not to carry the senland),’ who for policy gives some secret tence into effect. Such is the venomous tolerance to divers religions, wherein, as and demoralizing spirit of bigotry, that I conceive, your divines preach against Fuller, a writer remarkable for good nathem as great sinners. but avow that, by ture and gentleness, expresses his indigGod’s command, the magistrate is disnation at the pity which was manifested charged to put the least discourtesy on by the spectators of Legat’s sufferings. any man, Jew, Turk, Papist, Socinian, or Church Hist. part ii. p. 62. In the preswhatever, for his religion:” 18. See also ent case of Paul Best, the old sentence of 61, and many other passages. ” The fire was not suggested by any one; but army ” (says Hugh Peters, in a tract en-an ordinance was brought in, Jan. 1646, titled A Word for the Army, and Two to punish him with death. Whitelock, Words to the People, 1647)’ never hin-190. Best made, at length, such an exdered the state from a state religion, planation as was accepted; Neal, 214; but having only wished to enjoy now what an ordinance to suppress blasphemies and the puritans begged under the prelates; heresies as capital offences was brought in. when we desire more, blame us, and Commons’ Journals, April, 1646. The shame us.” In another, entitled Vox independents gaining strength, this was Militaris, the author says, “We did long delayed; but the ordinance passed never engage against this platform, nor both houses, May 2,1648. Id. 303. Neal, for that platform, nor ever will, except 8382 justly observes that it shows the govbetter informed; and, therefore, if the erning presbyterians would have made a state establisheth presbytery, we shall terrible use of their power, had they been never oppose it.” supported by the sword of the civil magisThe question of toleration, in its most trate. The denial of the trinity, incarnaimportant shape, was brought at this tion, atonement, or inspiration of any time before parliament, on occasion of book of the Old or New Testament, was one Paul Best who had written against made felony. Lesser offences, such as the doctrine of the trinity. According to anabaptism, or denying the lawfulness the common law, heretics, on being ad-of presbyterian government, were punjudged by the spiritual court, were de-ishable by imprisonment till the party livered over to be burned under the writ should recant. It was much opposed, de haeretico comburendo. This punish-especially by Whitelock The writ de ment had been inflicted five times under haeretico comburendo, as is well known, Elizabeth; on Wielmacker and Ter Wort, was taken away by act of parliament in two Dutch anabaptists, who. like many 1677. of that sect, entertained Arian tenets,

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CHA. I. 1642-49. CHARLES’S ILL-GROUNDED HOPES. 197 of indulgence was as yet made. It is still the boast of the independents that they first brought forward the great principles of religious toleration (I mean as distinguished from maxims of political expediency) which had been confined to a few philosophical minds-to sir Thomas More, in those days of his better judgment when he planned his republic of Utopia, to Thuanus, or L’Hospital. Such principles are, indeed, naturally congenial to the persecuted; and it is by the alternate oppression of so many different sects that they have now obtained their universal reception. But the independents also assert that they first maintained them while in power-a far higher praise, which, however, can only be allowed them by comparison.

Without invidiously glancing at their early conduct in New England,1 it must be admitted that the continuance of the penal laws against catholics, the prohibition of the episcopalian worship, and the punishment of one or two anti-trinitarians under Cromwell, are proofs that the tolerant principle had not yet acquired perfect vigor. If the independent sectaries were its earliest advocates, it was the Anglican writers, the school of Chillingworth, Hales, Taylor, Locke, and Hoadley, that rendered it victorious.2 The king, as I have said, and his party cherished too sanguine hopes from the disunion of their opponents.8 Though 1 ” In all New England, no liberty of without imbibing its spirit in the fullest living fora presbyterian. Whoever there, measure. The great work of Jeremy were they angels for life and doctrine, Taylor, on the Liberty of Prophesying, will essay to set up a different way from was published in 1647; and, if we except them [the independents], shall be sure of a few concessions to the temper of the present banishment.” Baillie, ii. 4; also times, which are not reconcilable to its 17. I am surprised to find a late writer general principles, has left little for those of that country (Dwight’s Travels in New who followed him. Mr. Orme admits England) attempt to extenuate at least that the remonstrants of Holland mainthe intolerance of the independents tow-tained the principles of toleration very ards the quakers who came to settle there; early (p. 50); but refers to a tract by and which, we see, extended also to the Leonard Busher, an independent, in 1614, presbyterians. But Mr. Orme, with more as “
containing the most enlightened and judgment, observes that the New Eng-scriptural views of religious liberty” (p. land congregations did not sufficiently 99). He quotes other writings of the same adhere to the principle of independency, sect under Charles I. and acted too much as a body; to which 3 Several proofs of this occur in the he ascribes their persecution of the quak-Clarendon State Papers. A letter, in parers and others. Life of Owen, p. 335. ticular, from Colepepper to Digby, in It is certain that the congregational Sept. 1645, is so extravagantly sanguine, scheme leads to toleration, as the na-considering the posture of the king’s aftional church scheme is adverse to it, for lairs at that time, that, if it was perfectly manifold reasons which the reader will sincere, Colepeppermust have been a man discover. of less ability than has generally been 2 Though the writings of Chillingworth supposed. Vol. ii.

p. 188. Neal has some and Hales are not directly in behalf of sensible remarks on the king’s mistake in toleration, no one could relish them supposing that any party which he did

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198 CONCLUSION OF THE WAR. CHAP. X. warned of it by the parliamentary commissioners at Uxbridge, though, in fact, it was quite notorious and undisguised, they seem never to have comprehended that many active spirits looked to the entire subversion of the monarchy. The king in particular was haunted by a prejudice, natural to his obstinate and undiscerning mind, that he was necessary to the settlement of the nation; so that, if he remained firm, the whole parliament and army must be at his feet. Yet during the negotiations at Newcastle there was daily an imminent danger that the majority of parliament, irritated by his delays, would come to some vote excluding him from the throne. The Scots Presbyterians, whatever we may think of their behavior, were sincerely attached, if not by loyal affection, yet by national pride, to the blood of their ancient kings.

They thought and spoke of Charles as of a headstrong child, to be restrained and chastised, but never cast off.1 But in England he had absolutely no friends among the prevailing party; many there were who thought monarchy best for the nation, but none who cared for the king.

This schism, nevertheless, between the parliament and the army was at least in appearance very desirable for Charles, and seemed to afford him an opportunity which a discreet prince might improve to great advantage, though it unfortunately deluded him with chimerical expectations.2 At the not join must in the end be ruined: p. Baillie’s judgment of men was not more 268. He had not lost this strange confi-conspicuous than his moderation. “Vane dence after his very life had become des-and Cromwell are of horrible hot fancies perate; and told Sir John Bowring, when to put all in confusion, but not of any he advised him not to spin out the time deep reach. St. John and Pierpoint are at the treaty of Newport, that”

any in-more stayed, but not great heads.” P. terests would be glad to come in with 258. The drift of all his letters is, that him.” See Bowring’s Memoirs in Hali-every man who.resisted the jus diviuum fax’s Miscellanies, 132. of presbytery was knave or fool, if not 1 Baillie’s letters are full of this feel-both. They are however eminently sering, and must be reckoned fair evidence, viceable as historical documents.

since no man could be more bigoted to 2 “Now for my own particular resopresbytery, or more bitter against the lution,” he says in a letter to Digby, royalist party. I have somewhere seen March 26, 1646. “it is this.

I am enBaillie praised for his mildness. His let-deavouring to get to London, so that the ters give no proof of it. Take the follow-conditions may be such as a gentleman ing specimens: -” Mr. Maxwell of Ross may own, and that the rebels may achas printed at Oxford so desperately mali-knowledge me king; being not without cious an invective against our assemblies hope that I shall be able so to draw either and presbyteries, that, however I could the presbyterians or independents to side hardly consent to the hanging of Canter-with me for extirpating the one or the bury or of any jesuit, yet I could give other, that I shall be really king again.” my sentence freely against that unhappy Carte’s Ormond, iii. 452; quoted by Mr. man’s life.” - ii. 99.’* God has struck Brodie, to whom I am indebted for the Coleman with death; he fell in an ague, passage. I have mentioned already his and, after three or four days, expired. overture about this time to sir Henry It is not good to stand in Christ’s way.”

Vane through Ashburnham. P.199.

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CHA. I.  1642-49. INTRIGUES OF THE ARMY. 199 conclusion of the war, which the useless obstinacy of the royalists had protracted till the beginning of 1647,1 the commons began to take measures for breaking the force of their remaining enemy. They resolved to disband a part of the army, and to send the rest into Ireland.2 They formed schemes for getting rid of Cromwell, and even made some demur about continuing Fairfax in command.8

But in all measures that exact promptitude and energy, treachery and timidity are apt to enfeeble the resolutions of a popular assembly. Their demonstrations of enmity were Intrigues however so alarming to the army, who knew them-of the army selves disliked by the people, and dependent for with the their pay on the parliament; that as early as April, 1647, an overture was secretly made to the king, that they would replace him in his power and dignity. He cautiously answered that he would not involve the kingdom in a fresh war, but should ever feel the strongest sense of this offer from the army.4 Whether they were discontented at 1 Clarendon, followed by Hume and having provided for the payment of the several others, appears to say that Rag-army’s arrears at the time they were thus lan castle in Monmouthshire, defended by disbanding them. Whitelock advised the marquis of Worcester, was the last Hollis and his party not to press the disthat surrendered; namely, in August, banding; and on finding them obstinate, 1646. I use the expression appears to drew off, as he tells us, from that connecsay, because the last edition, which exhib-tion. and came nearer to Cromwell. P. its his real text, shows that he paid this 248. This, however, he had begun to do compliment to Pendennis castle in Corn-rather earlier. Independently of the wall, and that his original editors (I danger of disgusting the army, it is probsuppose to do honor to a noble family) able that, as soon as it was disbanded, the foisted in the name of Raglan. It is true royalists would have been up in arms. however of neither. The North Welsh For the growth of this discontent, day by castles held out considerably longer; day, peruse Whitelock’s journals for that of Harlech was not taken till April, March and the three following months, 1647, which put an end to the war. as well as the Parliamentary History. Whitelock. 8 It was only carried by 169 to 147, Clarendon, still more unyielding than March 5,1647, that the forces should be his master, extols the long resistance of commanded by Fairfax.

But on the 8thk his party, and says that those who sur-the house voted, without a division, that rendered at the first summons obtained no officer under him should be above the no better terms than they who made the rank of a colonel, and that no member of; stoutest defence; as if that were a suffi-the house should have any command in cient justification for prolonging a civil the army. It is easy to see at whom this. war. In fact, however, they did the king was levelled. Commons’ Journals. They some harm; inasmuch as they impeded voted at the same time that the officers the efforts made in parliament to disband should all take the covenant, which had. the army. Several votes of the commons been rejected two years before; and, by a show this; see the Journals of 12th May majority of 136
to 108, that they should and 31st July, 1646. all conform to the government of the 2 The resolution to disband Fairfax’s church established by both houses of regiment next Tuesday at Chelmsford parliament. passed 16th May, 1647, by 136 to 115; 4 Clar. State Papers, ii. 865. The army, Algernon Sidney being a teller of the in a declaration not long after the king noes. Commons’ Journals. In these votes fell into their power, June 24, use these the house, that is, the presbyterian major-expressions:- “

We clearly profess that Ity, acted with extreme imprudence; not we do not see how there can be any

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200 PREPONDERANCE OF THE ARMY. CHAP. X. the coldness of this reply, or, as is more probable, the offer had only proceeded from a minority of the officers, no further overture was made, till not long afterwards the bold manHis person oeuvre of Joyce had placed the king’s person in seized.

their power. The first effect of this military violence was to display the The parlia parliament’s deficiency in political courage. It conment yield tained, we well know, a store of energetic spirits, to the army. not apt to swerve from their attachments. But, where two parties are almost equally balanced, the defection, which external circumstances must produce among those timid and feeble men from whom no assembly can be free, even though they should form but a small minority, will of course give a character of cowardice and vacillation to counsels, which is imputed to the whole. They immediately expunged, by a majority of 96 to 79, a vote of reprehension passed some weeks before, upon a remonstrance from the army which the presbyterians had highly resented, and gave other proofs of retracing their steps. But the army was not inclined to accept their submission in full discharge of the provocation. It had schemes of its own for the reformation and settlement of the kingdom, more extensive than those of the presbyterian faction. It had its own wrongs also to revenge.

Advancing towards London, the general and council of war sent up charges of treason against eleven principal members of that party, who obtained leave to retire beyond sea. Here may be said to have fallen the legislative power and civil government of England; which from this hour till that of the Restoration had never more than a momentary and precarious gleam of existence, perpetually interrupted by the sword. Those who have once bowed their knee to force, must expect that force will be forever their master. In a few weeks after this submission of the commons to the army, they were insulted by an unruly, tumultuous mob of apprentices, engaged in the presbyterian politics of the city, who compelled them by actual violence to rescind several of their late votes.1
peace to this kingdom, firm or lasting, army from this mob; the riot being “a without a due provision for the rights, sudden tumultuous thing of young idle quiet, and immunity of his majesty, his people without design.”

Possibly this royal family, and his late partakers.” might be the case; but the tumult at the Parl. Hist. 647. door of the house, 26th July, was such 1 Hollis censures the speakers of the that it could not be divided.

Their votes,two houses and others who fled to the were plainly null, as being made under

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CHA. I.-1642-49. CONDUCT OF CROMWELL. 201 Trampled upon by either side, the two speakers, several peers, and a great number of the lower house, deemed it somewhat less ignominious, and certainly more politic, to throw themselves on the protection of the army. They were accordingly soon restored to their places, at the price of a more complete and irretrievable subjection to the military power than they had already undergone. Though the presbyterians maintained a pertinacious resistance within the walls of the house, it was evident that the real power of command was gone from them, and that Cromwell with the army must either become arbiters between the king and parliament, or crush the remaining authority of both.1 There are few circumstances in our history which have caused more perplexity to inquirers than the con-Mysterious duct of Cromwell and his friends towards the king conduct of in the year 1647.

Those who look only at the Cromwell ambitious and dissembling character of that leader, or at the fierce republicanism imputed to Ireton, will hardly believe that either of them could harbor anything like sincere designs of restoring him even to that remnant of sovereignty which the parliament would have spared. Yet, when we consider attentively the public documents and private meduress. Yet the presbyterians were so p. 206, persuaded against his will by strong in the commons, that a resolution Haslerig to go to the army. Manchester to annul all proceedings during the indeed had more courage and honor; but speaker’s absence was lost by 97 to 95, he was not of much capacity, and his parafter his return; and it was only voted liamentary conduct was not systematic. to repeal them. A motion to declare But upon the whole it is obvious, on that the houses, from 26th July to 6th reading the list of names (Parl. Hist. 757), August, had been under a force, was also that the king’s friends were rather among lost by 78 to 75. Journals, 9th and 17th those who stayed behind, especially in the August. The lords, however, passed an lords, than among those who went to the ordinance to this effect; and, after once army. Seven of eight peers who continued more rejecting it, the commons agreed on to sit from 26th July to 6th of August, August 20, with a proviso that no one 1647, were;npeached for it afterwards should be called in question for what had (Parl. Hist. 764), and they were all of the been done. most moderate party. If the king had 1 These transactions are best read in any previous connection with the city, he the Commons’ Journals and the Parlia-acted very disingenuously in his letter to mentary History, and next to those in Fairfax. Aug. 3. while the contest was still Whitelock. Hollis relates them with pending; wherein he condemns the tu. great passion; and Clarendon, as he does mult, and declares his unwillingness that everything else that passed in London, his friends should join with the city very imperfectly. He accounts for the against the army, whose proposals he had earl of Manchester and the speaker Len-rejected the day before with an impruthal’s retiring to the army by their perdence of which he was now sensible. This suasion that the chief officers had nearly letter, as actually sent to Fairfax, is in concluded a treaty with the king, and rethe Parliamentary History, 734, and may solved to have their shares Jn it.

This is be compared with a rough draft of the a very unnecessary surmise.

Lenthal was same, preserved in Clarendon Papers, 878, a poor-spirited man, always influenced from which it materially differs, being oy those whom he thought the strongest, much sharper against the nity. and in this instance, according to Ludlow,

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202 IMPRUDENT HOPES OF THE KING. CHAP. X. moirs of that period, it does appear probable that their first intentions towards the king were not unfavorable, and so far sincere that it was their project to make use of his name rather than totally to set him aside. But whether by gratifying Cromwell and his associates with honors, and throwing the whole administration into their hands, Charles would have long contrived to keep a tarnished crown on his head, must be very problematical. The new jailers of this unfortunate prince began by treatImprudent ing him with unusual indulgence, especially in perhopes of mitting his episcopal chaplains to attend him. This the king. was deemed a pledge of what he thought an invaluable advantage in dealing with the army, that they would not insist upon the covenant, which in fact was nearly as odious to them as to the royalists, though for very different reasons. Charles, naturally sanguine, and utterly incapable in every part of his life of taking a just view of affairs, was extravagantly elated by these equivocal testimonials of goodwill. He blindly listened to private insinuations from rash or treacherous friends, that the soldiers were with him, just after his seizure by Joyce. “I would have you to know, sir,” he said to Fairfax, “
that I have as good an interest in the army as yourself;” an opinion as injudiciously uttered as it was absurdly conceived.1 These strange expectations 1 Fairfax’s Memoirs in Maseres’s Collec-people, after he could no longer uphold tion of Tracts, vol. i. p. 447. ” By this,” his own violent will; but upon some dissays Fairfax, who had for once found a courses with him, the king uttering these man less discerning of the times than him-words to him,’ I shall play my game as self, “I plainly saw the broken reed he well as I can,’ Ireton replied,‘If your leaned on. The agitators had brought majesty have a game, you must give us the king into an opinion that the army also the liberty to play ours.’ Colonel was for him.” Ireton said plainly to the Hutchinson privately discoursing with king, “1 Sir, you have an intention to be his cousin about the communications he the arbitrator between the parliament had had with the king, Ireton’s expresand us; and we mean to be so between sions were these:-‘ He gave us words, yourmajestyand the parliament.” Berk-and we paid him in his own coin, when ley’s Memoirs. Ibid. p. 360. we found he had no real intention to the This folly of the king. if Mrs. Hutch-people’s good, but to prevail, by our facinson is well informed, alienated Ireton, tions, to regain by art what he had lost who had been more inclined to trust him in fight.’ ” P. 274. than is commonly believed.

“Cromwell,” It must be said for the king that he she says, ” was at that time so incorrup-was by no means more sanguine or more tibly faithful to his trustand the people’s blind than his distinguished historian and interest, that he could not be drawn in to minister. Clarendon’s private letters are practise even his own usual and natural full of strange and absurd expectations. dissimulation on this occasion. His son-Even so late as October, 1647, he writes in-law Ireton, that was as faithful as he, to Berkley in high hopes from the army, was not so fully of the opinion, till he had and presses him to make no concessions tried it and found to the contrary, but except as to persons. *’ If they see you that the king might have been managed will not yield, they must; for sure they to comply with the public good of his have as much or more need of the king

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CHA. I.-1642-49. PROPOSALS OF THE ARMY. 203 account for the ill reception which in the hasty irritation of disappointment he gave to the proposals of the Herejects army, when they were actually tendered to him at the proposals of the Hampton Court, and which seems to have eventu-army. ally cost him his life. These proposals appear to have been drawn up by Ireton, a lawyer by education, and a man of much courage and capacity. He had been supposed, like a large proportion of the officers, to aim at a settlement of the nation under a democratical polity. But the army, even if their wishes in general went so far, which is hardly evident, were not yet so decidedly masters as to dictate a form of government uncongenial to the ancient laws and fixed prejudices of the people. Something of this tendency is discoverable in the propositions made to the king, which had never appeared in those of the parliament. It was proposed that parliaments should be biennial; that they should never sit less than a hundred and twenty days, nor more than two hundred and forty; that the representation of the commons should be reformed, by abolishing small boroughs and increasing the number of members for counties, so as to render the house of commons, as near as might be, an equal representation of the whole. In respect of the militia and some other points, they either followed the parliamentary propositions of Newcastle, or modified them favorably for the king. They excepted a very small number of the king’s adherents from the privilege of paying a composition for their estates, and set that of the rest considerably lower than had been fixed by the parliament. They stipulated that the royalists should not sit in the next parliament. As to religion, they provided for liberty of conscience, declared against the imposition of the covenant, and, by insisting on the retrenchment than he of them.” P. 879. The whole that Providence would interfere to suptenor, indeed, of Clarendon’s correspond-port what seems to them the best, that is, ence demonstrates, that, notwithstanding their own cause. The following passage the fine remarks occasionally scattered is a specimen: - ” Truly I am so unfit to through his History, he was no practical bear a part in carrying on this new constatesman, nor had any just conception, tention [by negotiation and concession], at the time, of the course of affairs. He that I would not, to preserve myself, wife, never flinched from one principle, not and children from the lingering death of very practicable or rational in the cir-want by famine (for a sudden death would cumstances of the king - that nothing require no courage), consent to the les. was to be receded from which had ever sening any part which I take to be in the been demanded. This may be called function of a bishop, or the taking away magnanimity; but no foreign or domestic the smallest prebendary in the church, dissension could be settled if all mnen or to be bound not to endeavour to alter were to act upon it, or if all men, like any such alteration.” Id. vol. iii. p. 2.

Charles and Clarendon, were to expect Feb. 4, 1648.

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204 CHARLES REJECTS THE CHAP. X. of the coercive jurisdiction of bishops and the abrogation of penalties for not reading the common prayer, left it to be implied that both might continue established.’ The whole tenor of these propositions was in a style far more respectful to the king, and lenient towards his adherents, than had ever been adopted since the beginning of the war. The sincerity indeed of these overtures might be very questionable if Cromwell had been concerned in them; but they proceeded from those elective tribunes called Agitators, who had been established in every regiment to superintend the interests of the army.2

And the terms were surely as good as Charles had any reason to hope. The severities against his party were mitigated. The grand obstacles to all accommodation, the covenant and presbyterian establishment, were at once removed; or, if some difficulty might occur as to the latter, in consequence of the actual possession of benefices by the presbyterian clergy, it seemed not absolutely insuperable. For the changes projected in the constitution of parliament, they were not necessarily injurious to the monarchy. That parliament should not be dissolved until it had sat a certain time was so salutary a provision, that the triennial act was hardly complete without it. It is however probable, from the king’s extreme tenaciousness of his prerogative, that these were the conditions that he found it most difficult to endure. Having obtained, through sir John Berkley, a sight of the propositions before they were openly made, he expressed much displeasure; and said that, if the army were inclined to close with him, they would never have demanded such hard terms. He seems to have principally objected, at least in words, to the exception of seven unnamed persons from pardon, to the exclusion of 1 Parl. Hist. 738.

Clarendon talks of nominal chief of an aristocratical or a these proposals as worse than any the democratical republic. In a well-written king had ever received from the parlia-tract, called Vox Militaris, containing a ment; and Hollis says they ” dissolved defence of the army’s proceedings and the whol3 frame of the monarchy.” It intentions and published apparently in is hard to see, however, that they did so July, 1647, their desire to preserve the in a greater degree than those which he king’s rights, according to their notion had himself endeavored to obtain as a of them and the general laws of the commissioner at Uxbridge. As to the realm, is strongly asserted. church, they were manifestly the best 2 The precise meaning of this word that Charles had ever seen. As to his seems obscure. Some have supposed it prerogative and the power of the mon-to be a corruption cf adjutators, as if archy, he was so thoroughly beaten, the modern terms adjutant meant the that no treaty could do him any essential same thing. But I find agitator always service; and he had, in truth, only to so spelled in the pamphlets of the make his election, whether to be the time.

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CHA. I. -1642-49. PROPOSALS OF THE ARMY. 205 his party from the next parliament, and to the want of any articles in favor of the church.

Berkley endeavored to show him that it was not likely that the army, if meaning sincerely, would ask less than this. But the king, still tampering with the Scots, and keeping his eyes fixed on the city and parlianent, at that moment came to an open breach with the army, disdainfully refused the propositions when publicly tendered to him, with such expressions of misplaced resentment and preposterous confidence as convinced the officers that they could neither conciliate nor trust him.1 This unexpected haughtiness lost him all chance with those proud and republican spirits; and as they succeeded about the same time in bridling the presbyterian party in parliament, there seemed no necessity for an agreement with the king, and their former determinations of altering the frame of government returned with more revengeful fury against his person.2 1 Berkley’s Memoirs, 866. He told spies, who was of thek ing’s bedchamlord Capel about this time that he ex-ber, gave them information of a letter pected a war between Scotland and Eng-from his majesty to the queen, sewed up land: that the Scots hoped for the assistin the skirt of a saddle, and directing ance of the presbyterians; and that he them to an inn where it might be found. wished his own party to rise in arms on They obtained the letter accordingly, in a proper conjuncture, without which he which the king said that he was courted could not hope for Illuch benefit from the by both factions, the Scots presbyterians others. Clarendon, v. 476. and the army; that those which bade 2 Berkley, 368, &c. Compare the let-fairest for him should have him; but he ter of Ashburnham, published in 1648, thought he should rather close with the and reprinted in 1764; also the memoirs Scots than the other. Upon this, findof Hollis, Huntingdon, and Fairfax, ing themselves unlikely to get good which are all in Maseres’s Collection; terms from the king, they from that also Ludlow, Hutchinson, Clarendon, time vowed his destruction. Carte’s Burnet’s Memoirs of Hamilton, and Ormond, ii. 12. some despatches in 1647 and 1648, from A second anecdote is alluded to by a royalist in London, printed in the Ap-some earlier writers, but is particularly pendix to the second volume of the Clar-told in the following words by Richard. endon Papers.

This correspondent of son, the painter, author of some anecsecretary Nicholas believes Cromwell and dotes of Pope, edited by Spence: - Ireton to have all along planned the ” Lord Bolingbroke told us, June 12 king’s destruction, and set the levellers 1742 (Mr. Pope, lord Marchmont, and on, till they proceeded so violently that myself), that the second earl of Oxford they were forced to restrain them. This had often told him that he had seen, also is the conclusion of major Hunting-and had in his hands, an original letter don, in his Reasons for laying down his that Charles the First wrote to his queen, Commission. But the contrary appears in answer to one of hers that had been to me more probable. intercepted, and then forwarded to him, Two anecdotes, well known to those wherein she had reproached him for hav. conversant in English history, are too ing made those villains too great conces. remarkable to be omitted. It is said by sions, viz., that Cromwell should be lordthe editor of lord Orrery’s Memoirs, as a lieutenant of Ireland for life without relation which he had heard from that account; that that kingdom should be noble person, that, in a conversation with in the hands of the party, with an army Cromwell concerning the king’s death, there kept which should know no head the latter told him he and his friends but the lieutenant; that Cromwell had once a mind to have closed with the should have a garter, &c. That in this king, fearing that the Scots and presby-letter of the king’s it was said that she terians might do so, when one of their should leave him to manage, who was

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206 ESCAPE OF CHARLES. CHAP. X. Charles’s continuance at Hampton Court, there can be His flight little doubt, would have exposed him to such fromHamp-imminent risk that, in escaping from thence, he ton Court. acted on a reasonable principle of self-preserva. tion. He might probably, with due precautions, have reached France or Jersey. But the hastiness of his retreat from Hampton Court giving no time, he fell again into the toils through the helplessness of his situation and the unfortunate counsels of one whom he trusted.l The fortitude of his own mind sustained him in this state of captivity and entire seclusion from his friends. No one, however sensible to the infirmities of Charles’s disposition and the defects of his understanding, can refuse admiration to that patient firmness and unaided acuteness which he displayed throughout the last and most melancholy year of his life. He had now abandoned all expectation of obtaining any present terms for the church or crown. He proposed, therefore, what he had privately empowered Murray to offer the year before, to confirm the presbyterian government for three years, and to give up the militia during his whole life, with other concessions of importance.2 To preserve the church lands from sale, to shield his friends from proscription, to obtain a legal security better informed of all circumstances the parliament in that month. Herbert than she could be; but she might be mentions an intercepted letter of the entirely easy as to whatever concessions queen (Memoirs, 60); and even his story he should make them; for that he should proves that Cromwell and his party broke know in due time how to deal with the off with Charles from a conviction of his rogues, who, instead of a silken garter, dissimulation. See Laing’s note, iii. 562; should be fitted with a hempen cord. and the note by Strype, therein referred So the letter ended; which answer as to, on Kennet’s Complete Hist. of Engthey waited for so they intercepted ac-land, iii. 170, which speaks of a “concordingly, and it determined his fate. stant tradition” about this story, and is This letter lord Oxford said he had of-more worthy of notice, because it was fered 5001. for.”

written before the publication of lord The authenticity of this latter story has Orrery’s Memoirs, or of the Richardsonbeen constantly rejected by Hume and iana. the advocates of Charles in general; and 1 Ashburnham gives us to understand for one reason among others, that it looks that the king had made choice of the like a misrepresentation of that told by Isle of Wight previously to his leaving lord Orrery, which both stands on good Hampton Court, but probably at his authority, and is perfectly conformable own suggestion. This seems confirmed to all the memoirs of the time. I have, by the king’s letter in Burnet’s Mem. of however, been informed that a memoran-Dukes of Hamilton, 326. Clarendon’s dum nearly conformable to Richardson’s account is a romance, with a little mixanecdote is extant, in the handwriting of ture, probably. of truth. But Ashburnlord Oxford. ham’s Narrative, published in 1830, It is possible that this letter is the same proves that he suggested the Isle of with that mentioned by lord Orrery; Wight in consequence of the king’s and in that case was written in the being forced to abandon a design he had month of October. Cromwell seems to formed of going to London, the Scots have been in treaty with the king as late commissioners retracting their engageas September; and advised him, accord-ment to support him. Ing to Berkley, to reject the proposals of 2 Parl. Hist. 799.

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CHA. I.-1642-49. VOTES AGAINST HIM. 207 for the restoration of the monarchy in his son, were from henceforth the main objects of all his efforts. It was, however, far too late, even for these moderate conditions of peace. Upon his declining to pass four bills tendered to him as preliminaries of a treaty, which, on that very account, besides his objections to part of their contents, he justly considered as unfair, the parliament voted that no more addresses should be made to him, and that they would re-Alarming ceive no more messages.1 He was placed in close votes and solitary confinement; and at a meeting of the against him principal officers at Windsor it was concluded to bring him to trial, and avenge the blood shed in the war by an awful example of punishment; Cromwell and Ireton, if either of them had been ever favorable to the king, acceded at this time to the severity of the rest. Yet, in the midst of this peril and seeming abandonment, his affairs were really less desperate than they had been; and a few rays of light broke for a time through the clouds that enveloped him. From the hour that the Scots delivered him up at Newcastle they seem to have felt the discredit of such an action, and longed for the opportunity of redeeming their public name.

They perceived more and more that a well-disciplined army, under a subtle chief inveterately hostile to them, were rapidly becoming masters of England. Instead of that covenanted alliance, that unity in church and state they had expected, they were to look for all the jealousy and dissension that a complete discordance in civil and spiritual polity could inspire. Their commissioners therefore in England, the earl of Lanark, always a moderate royalist, and the earl of Lauderdale, a warm presbyterian, had kept 1 Jan. 15. This vote was carried by Sidney and Evelyn tellers for the ayes, 141 to 92. Id. 831; and see Append. to Martin and Morley for the noes. The 2d vol. of Clar. State Papers. Cromwell increase of the minority is remarkable, was now vehement against the king, and shows how much the king’s refusal though he had voted in his favor on of the terms offered him in September, Sept. 22. Journals; and Berkley, 372. and his escape from Hampton Court, A proof that the king was meant to be had swollen the commonwealth party; wholly rejected is, that at this time, in to which, by the way, colonel Sidney at the list of the navy, tlr expression ” his this time seems not to have belonged. majesty’s ship” was changed to ” the Ludlow says, that party hoped the king parliament’s ship ” Whitelock, 291. would not grant the four bills: i. 224. The four bills were founded on four The commons published a declaration of propositions (for which I refer to Hume their reasons for making no further ador the Parliamentary History, not to dresses to the king, wherein they more Clarendon, who has misstated them) sent than insinuate his participation in the down from the lords. The lower house murder of his father by Buckingham voted to agree with them by 115 to 106; Parl. Hist. 847.

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208 ASCENDENCY OF THE PRESBYTERIANS. CHAP. X. up a secret intercourse with the king at Hampton Court. Scots in-After his detention at Carisbrook, they openly devasion. dared themselves against the four bills proposed by the English parliament, and at length concluded a private treaty with him, by which, on certain terms quite as favorable as he could justly expect, they bound themselves to enter England with an army in order to restore him to his freedom and dignity.1 This invasion was to be combined with risings in various parts of the country: the presbyterian and royalist, though still retaining much of animosity towards each other, concurring at least in abhorrence of military usurpation; and the common people having very generally returned to that affectionate respect for the king’s person, which sympathy for his sufferings, and a sense how little they had been gainers by the change of government, must naturally have excited.2

The unfortunate issue of the Scots expedition under the duke of Hamilton, and of the various insurrections throughout England, quelled by the vigilance and good conduct of Fairfax and Cromwell, is well known. But these formidable manifestations of the public byterians sentiment in favor of peace with the king on honregain the orable conditions, wherein the city of London, ruled by the presbyterian ministers, took a share, compelled the house of commons to retract its measures. They came to a vote, by 165 to 99, that they would not alter the fundamental government by king, lords, and commons;8 they abandoned their impeachment against seven peers, the most moderate of the upper house, and the most obnoxious 1 Clarendon, whose aversion to the July 25, 1648, the commons gave as a Scots warps his judgment, says that this reason for insisting on the king’s surtreaty contained many things dishonor-render of the militia as a preliminary to able to the English nation. Hist. v. 532. a treaty, that such was the disaffection The king lost a good deal in the eyes of to the parliament on all sides that withthis uncompromising statesman by the out the militia they could never be seconcessions he made in the Isle of cure.

Rush. Abr. vi. 444. ” The chief Wight. State Papers, 887. I cannot, citizens of London,” says May, 122, “and for my own part, see anything deroga-others called presbyterians, though the tory to England in the treaty; for the presbyterian Scots abominated this army, temporary occupation of a few fortified wished good success to these Scots no towns in the north can hardly be called less than the malignants did. Whence so.

Charles, there is some reason to let the reader judge of the times.” The think, had on a former occasion made fugitive sheets of this year, such as the offers to the Scots far more inconsistent Mercurius Aulicus, bear witness to the with his duty to this kingdom. exulting and insolent tone of the royal2 Clarendon. May, Breviate of the ists. They chuckle over Fairfax and Hist. of the Parliament, in Maseres’s Cromwell as if they had caught a couple Tracts, i. 113; Whitelock. 307, 317, &c. of rats in a trap. In a conference between the two houses, 8 April 28, 1648. Parl.

Hist. 888.

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CHA. I.- 1642-49. TREATY OF NEWPORT. 209 to the army;1 they restored the eleven members to their seats;2 they revoked their resolution against a personal treaty with the king, and even that which required his assent by certain preliminary articles.8 In a word, the party for distinction’s sake called presbyterian, but now rather to be denominated constitutional, regained its ascendency. This change in the councils of parliament brought on the treaty of Newport. The treaty of Newport was set on foot and managed by those politicians of the house of lords who, having Treaty of long suspected no danger to themselves but from Newport. the power of the king, had discovered, somewhat of the latest, that the crown itself was at stake, and that their own privileges were set on the same cast. Nothing was more remote from the intentions of the earl of Northumberland or lord Say than to see themselves pushed from their seats by such upstarts as Ireton and Harrison; and their present mortification afforded a proof how men reckoned wise in their generation become the dupes of their own selfish, crafty, and pusillanimous policy. They now grew anxious to see a treaty concluded with the king. Sensible that it was necessary to anticipate, if possible, the return of Cromwell from the north, they implored him to comply at once with all the propositions of parliament, or at least to yield in the first instance as far as he meant to go.4 They had not, however, 1 June 6. These peers were the earls appear from the following short review of of Suffolk, Middlesex, and Lincoln, lords what had been done. 1. At Newmarket, Willoughby of Parham, Berkley, Huns-in June, 1642, he absolutely refused the don, and Maynard. They were impeached nineteen propositions tendered to him by for sitting in the house during the tu-the lords and commons. 2. In the treaty mults from 26th of July to 6th of August, of Oxford, March, 1648, he seems to have 1647. The earl of Pembroke, who had made no concessions, not even promising also continued to sit, merely because he an amnesty to those he had already exwas too stupid to discover which party eluded from pardon.

8. In the treaty of was likely to prevail, escaped by truck-Uxbridge no mention was made on his ling to the new powers. side of exclusion from pardon; he offered 2 June 8. to vest the militia for seven years in com8

See Parl. Hist. 823, 892, 904. 921, 924, missioners jointly appointed by himself 969, 996, for the different votes on this and parliament, so that it should aftersubject, wherein the presbyterians grad-wards return to him, and to limit the ually beat the independent or republican jurisdiction of the bishops. 4. In the party, but with very small and precarious winter of 1645 he not only offered to dismajorities. band his forces, but to let the militia be 4 Clarendon, vi. 155. He is very absurd vested for seven years in commissioners in imagining that any of the parliamen-to be appointed by the two houses, and tary commissioners would have been afterwards to be settled by bill; also to satisfied with “an act of indemnity and give the nomination of officers of state oblivion.” and judges pro h&c vice to the houses. 6. That the parliament had some reason to He went no farther in substance till May, expect the king’s firmness of purpose to 1647; when he offered the militia for ten give way in spite of all his haggling will years, as well as great limitations of episVOL. II.

14

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210 TREATY OF NEWPORT. CHAP. X mitigated in any degree the rigorous conditions so often’proposed; nor did the king during this treaty obtain any reciprocal concession worth mentioning in return for his surrender of almost all that could be demanded. Did the positive adherence of the parliament to all these propositions, in circumstances so perilous to themselves, display less unreasonable pertinacity than that so often imputed to Charles? Or if, as was the fact, the majority which the presbyterians had obtained was so precarious that they dared not hazard it by suggesting any more moderate counsels, what rational security would the treaty have afforded him, had he even come at once into all their requisitions? His real error was to have entered upon any treaty, and still more to have drawn it out by tardy and ineffectual capitulations.

There had long been only one course either for safety or for honor, the abdication of his royal office; now probably too late to preserve his life, copacy, and the continuance of presby-agreed to give up the government of Ire. terian government for three years; the land for twenty years to the parliament. whole matter to be afterwards settled by In his letter sent from Holmby in May, bill on the advice of the assembly of di-1647, he had declared that he would give vines, and twenty more of his own nomi-full satisfaction with respect to Ireland. nation. 6. In his letter from Carisbrook, But he thus explains himself to the Nov. 1647, he gave up the militia for his queen:-” I have so couched that life. This was in effect to sacrifice almost article that, if the Irish give me cause, everything as to immediate power; but I may interpret it enough to their adhe struggled to save the church lands vantage. For I only say that I will give from confiscation, which would have them (the two houses) full satisfaction as rendered it hardly practicable to restore to the management of the war, nor do I episcopacy in future. His future con-promise to continue the war; so that, if cessions in the treaty of Newport. though I find reason to make a good peace there, very slowly extorted, were comparatively my engagement is at an end. Wherefore trifling. make this my interpretation known to What Clarendon thought of the treaty the Irish.” What reliance,” says Mr. of Newport may be imagined. “You Laing, from whom I transcribe this pasmay easily conclude,”

he writes to Digby, sage (which I cannot find in the Claren”’ how fit a counsellor I am like to be, don State Papers quoted by him), “could when the best that is proposed is that parliament place at the beginning of the which I would not consent unto to pre-dispute, or at any subsequent period, on serve the kingdom from ashes. I can tell the word or moderation of a prince whose you worse of myself than this; which is, solemn and written declarations were so that there may be some reasonable ex-full of equivocation?” Hist. of Scotpedients which possibly might in truth land, iii. 409. It may here be added restore and preserve all, in which I could that, though Charles had given his bear no part.” P. 459. See also pp. 351
parole to colonel Hammond, and had the and 416. I do not divine what he means sentinels removed in consequence, he by this unless it were the king’s abdica-was engaged during most part of his tion. But what he could not have ap-stay at Carisbrook in schemes for an proved was, that the king had no escape. See Col. Cooke’s Narrative thoughts of dealing sincerely with the printed with Herbert’s Memoirs; and parliament in this treaty, and gave Or-in Rush. Abr. vi. 634. But his enemies mond directions to obey all his wife’s were apprised of this intention, and even commands, but not to obey any further of an attempt to escape by removing a bar orders he might send, nor to be-startled of his window, as appears by the letters at his great concessions respecting Ire-from the committee of Derby House, land, for they would come to nothing. Cromwell and others, to col. Hammond, Carte’s Papers, i. 186. See Mr. Brodie’s published in 1664. remarks on this, iv. 143-146. He had

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CHA. I.-164249. SCHEMES OF PARLIAMENT-MEN. 211 but still more honorable than the treaty of Newport. Yet though he was desirous to make his escape to France, I have not observed any hint that he had thoughts of resigning the crown; whether from any mistaken sense of obligation, or from an apprehension that it might affect the succession of his son. There can be no more erroneous opinion than that of such as believe that the desire of overturning the monarchy produced the civil war, rather than that the civil war brought on the former. In a peaceful and ancient kingdom like England the thought of change could not spontaneously arise. A very few speculative men, by the study of antiquity, or by observation of the prosperity of Venice and Holland, might be led to an abstract preference of republican politics; some fanatics might aspire to a Jewish theocracy; but at the meeting of the long parliament we have not the slightest cause to suppose that any party, or any number of persons among its members, had formed what must then have appeared so extravagant a conception.l The insuperable distrust of the king’s designs, the irritation excited by the sufferings of the war, the impracticability, which every attempt at negotiation displayed, of obtaining his acquiescence to terms deemed indispensable, gradually created a powerful faction, whose chief bond of union was a determination to set him aside.2 What further scheme they had planned is uncertain: none probably in which any number were agreed: some looked to the prince of Wales, others, perhaps, at one time to the elector palatine;8 but necessity 1 Clarendon mentions an expression these exceptions, I know not that we can that dropped from Henry Martin in con-fix on any individual member of parliaversation, not long after the meeting of ment the charge of an intention to sub’ the parliament:’ I do not think one man vert the constitution till 1646 or 1647. wise enough to govern us all.” This may 2 Pamphlets may be found as early as doubtless be taken in a sense perfectly 1643 which breathe this spirit; but they compatible with our limited monarchy. are certainly rare till 1646 and 1646. But Martin’s republicanism was soon Such are “Plain English,” 1643; “The apparent: he was sent to the Tower in Character of an Anti-malignant,” 1646; August, 1643, for language reflecting on ” Last Warning to all the Inhabitants of the king. Parl. Hist. 161. A Mr. Chil-London,” 1647. lingworth had before incurred the same 8 Charles Louis, elector palatine, eldei punishment for a like offence, December brother of the princes Rupert and Mau1, 1641. Nelson, ii. 714. Sir Henry Lud-rice, gave cause to suspect that he was low, father of the regicide, was also cen-looking towards the throne. He left the sured on the same account. As the op-king’s quarters, where he had been at the posite faction grew stronger, Martin was commencement of the war, and retired to not only restored to his seat, but the vote Holland; whence he wrote, as well as his against him was expunged. Vane, I pre-mother, the queen of Bohemia, to the sume, took up republican principles pret-parliament, disclaiming and renouncing ty early; perhaps also Haslerig. With prince Rupert, and begging their own

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212 PROGRESS OF REPUBLICAN PARTY. CHAP. X. itself must have suggested to many the idea of a republican settlement. In the newmodelled army of 1645, composed of independents and enthusiasts of every denomination, a fervid eagerness for changes in the civil polity, as well as in religion, was soon found to predominate. Not checked, like the two houses, by attachment to forms, and by the influence of lawyers, they launched forth into varied projects of reform, sometimes judicious, or at least plausible, sometimes wildly fanatical. They reckoned the king a tyrant, whom, as they might fight against, they might also put to death, and whom it were folly to provoke if he were again to become their master. Elated with their victories, they began already in imagination to carve out the kingdom for themselves; and remembered that saying so congenial to a revolutionary army, “that the first of monarchs was a successful leader, the first of nobles were his followers.” 1 The knowledge of this innovating spirit in the army gave confidence to the violent party in parliament, and progress of increased its numbers by the accession of some of a repub-those to whom nature has given a fine sense for n pary.

discerning their own advantage. It was doubtless swollen through the publication of the king’s letters, and his pensions might be paid. He came over more than all their discourses of destroyto London in August, 1644, took the cov-ing monarchy; and that towards this end enant, and courted the parliament. They they find assistance from those who from showed, however, at first, a good deal of their hearts abhor their confusions.” P.

jealousy of him; and intimated that his 808. These expressions seem more apaffairs would prosper better by his leaving plicable by far to the elector than to the kingdom. Whitelock, 101. Rush. Cromwell. But the former was not danAbr. iv. 359. He did not take this hint, gerous to the parliament, though it was and obtained next year an allowance of deemed fit to treat him with respect. In 8001. per annum. Id. 145. Lady Rane-March, 1647, we find a committee of both lagh, in a letter to Hyde, March, 1644, houses appointed to receive some intelcpnjuring him, by his regard for lord ligence which the prince elector desired to Falkland’s memory, to use all his influ-communicate to the parliament of great ence to procure a message from the king importance to the protestant religion. for a treaty, adds, “Methinks what I Whitelock, 241. Nothing further appears have informed my sister, and what she about this intelligence; which looks as if will inform you, of the posture the he were merely afraid of being forgotten. prince elector’s affairs are in here, should He left England in 1649. and died in 1680. be a motive to hasten away this message.” i Baxter’s Life, 60. He ascribes the Clar. State Papers, ii. 167. Clarendon increase of enthusiasm in the army to himself, in a letter to Nicholas, Dec. 12, the loss of its presbyterian chaplains, 1646 (where he gives his opinion that the who left it for their benefices, on the reindependents look more to a, change of duction of the king’s party and the newthe king and his line than of the monar-modelling of the troops. The officers chy itself, and would restore the full pre-then took on them to act as preachers. rogative of the crown to one of their own Id. 54; and Neal, 188. I conceive that choice), proceeds in these remarkable the year 1646
is that to which we must words: “And I pray God they have not refer the appearance of a republican such a nose of wax ready for their im-party in considerable numbers, though pression. This it is makes me tremble not yet among the house of commons.

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CHA. I. -1642-49. PROGRESS OF REPUBLICAN PARTY. 213 pertinacity in clinging to his prerogative. And the complexion of the house of commons was materially altered by the introduction at once of a large body of fresh members, They had at the beginning abstained from issuing writs to replace those whose death or expulsion had left their seats vacant. These vacancies, by the disabling votes against all the king’s party,1 became so numerous that it seemed a glaring violation of the popular principles to which they appealed to carry on the public business with so maimed a representation of the people. It was, however, plainly impossible to have elections in many parts of the kingdom while the royal army was in strength; and the change, by filling up nearly two hundred vacancies at once, was likely to become so important, that some feared that the cavaliers, others that the independents and republicans, might find their advantage in it.2 The latter party were generally earnest for new elections; and carried their point against the presbyterians in September, 1645, when new writs were ordered for all the places which were left deficient of one or both representatives.8 The result of these elections, though a few persons rather friendly to the king came into the house, was on the whole very favorable to the army. The self-denying ordinance no longer being in operation, the principal officers were elected on every side; and, with not many exceptions, recruited the ranks of that small body which had already been marked by implacable dislike of the king, and by zeal for a total newmodelling of the government.4 In the summer of 1646 this party had so far obtained the upper hand, that, according to one of our best authorities, the Scots com1 These passed against the royalist 4 That the house of commons in Demembers separately, and for the most cember, 1645, entertained no views of part in the first months of the war.

altering the fundamental constitution, 2 ” The best friends of the parliament appears from some of their resolutions as were not without fears what the issue of to conditions of peace: ” That Fairfax the new elections might be; for though should have an earldom, with 50001. the people durst not choose such as were a-year; Cromwell and Waller baronies, open enemies to them, yet probably they with half that estate; Essex, North. would such as were most likely to be for umberland, and two more, be made a peace on any terms, corruptly prefer-dukes; Manchester and Salisbury marring the fruition of their estates and quises; and other peers of their party sensual enjoyments before the public be elevated to higher ranks; Haslerig, interest,” &c. Ludlow, i. 168. This is Stapylton, and Skipton to have pen, a fiir confession how little the common-sions.”

Parl. Hist. 403. Whitelock, 182. wealth party had the support of the These votes do not speak much for the nation. magnanimity and disinterestedness of 8 C. Journals. Whitelock, 168. The that assembly, though it may suit politborough of Southwark had just before ical romancers to declaim about it. petitioned for a new writ, its member being dead or disabled.

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214 PROGRESS OF REPUBLICAN PARTY. CHAP. X. missioners had all imaginable difficulty to prevent his deposition. In the course of the year 1647 more overt proofs of a design to change the established constitution were given by a party out of doors. A petition was addressed “to the supreme authority of this nation, the commons assembled in parliament.” It was voted upon a division that the house dislikes this petition, and cannot approve of its being delivered; and afterwards, by a majority of only 94
to 86, that it was seditious and insolent, and should be burnt by the hangman.1 Yet the first decisive proof, perhaps, which the journals of parliament afford of the existence of a republican party, was the vote of 22d September, 1647, that they would once again make application to the king for those things which they judged necessary for the welfare and safety of the kingdom. This was carried by 70 to 23.2 Their subsequent resolution of January 4, 1648, against any further addresses to the king, which passed by a majority of 141 to 91, was a virtual renunciation of allegiance. The lords, after a warm debate, concurred in this vote. And the army had in November, 1647, before the king’s escape from Hampton Court, published a declaration of their design for the settlement of the nation under a sovereign representative assembly, which should possess authority to make or repeal laws, and to call magistrates to account. We are not certainly to conclude that all who, in 1648, had made up their minds against the king’s restoration, were equally averse to all regal government. The prince of Wales 1 Commons’ Journals, May 4 and 18, the minority. I suppose it is from some 1647. This minority were not, in gen-of these divisions that baron Maseres has eral, republican; but were unwilling to reckoned the republican party in the increase the irritation of the army by so house not to exceed thirty. strong a vote. It was resolved on Nov. 6, 1647, that 2 Commons’ Journals. Whitelock, 271. the king of England, for the time being Parl. Hist. 781. They had just been ex-was bound, in justice and by the duty of asperated by his evasion of their propo-his office, to give his assent to all such sitions. Id. 778.

By the smallness of the laws as by the lords and commons in parnumbers, and the names of the tellers, it liament shall be adjudged to be for the seems as if the presbyterian party had good of the kingdom, and by them tenbeen almost entirely absent; which may dered unto him for his assent.

But the be also inferred from other parts of the previous question was carried on the folJournals. See October 9, for a long list lowing addition:’” And in case the laws of absentees. Haslerig and Evelyn, both so offered unto him shall not thereupon of the army faction, told the ayes, Mar-be assented unto by him, that neverthetin and sir Peter Wentworth the noes. less they are as valid to all intents and The house had divided the day before on purposes as if his assent had been therethe question for going into a committee unto had and obtained, which they do to take this matter into consideration, 84 insist upon as an undoubted right.” to 84; Cromwell and Evelyn telling the Commons’ Journals.

majority, Wentworth and Rainsborough

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CHA. I. 1642-49. SCHEME FOR TRIAL OF CHARLES. 215 had taken so active, and, for a moment, so successful a share in the war of that year, that his father’s enemies were become his own. Meetings however were held, where the military and parliamentary chiefs discussed the schemes of raising the duke of York, or his younger brother the duke of Glocester, to the throne.

Cromwell especially wavered, or pretended to waver, as to the settlement of the nation; nor is there any evidence, so far as I know, that he had ever professed himself averse to monarchy, till, dexterously mounting on the wave which he could not stem, he led on those zealots who had resolved to celebrate the inauguration of their new commonwealth with the blood of a victim king.1 It was about the end of 1647, as I have said, that the principal officers took the determination, which Scheme had been already menaced by some of the agi-among the tators, of bringing the king, as the first and great-bringing Charles to est delinquent, to public justice.2

Too stern trial. 1 Ludlow says that Cromwell,’” finding confinement at Carisbrook; and this with the king’s friends grow strong in 1648, be-so much particularity of circumstance gan to court the commonwealth’s party.

that, if we reject his account, we must set The latter told him he knew how to cajole aside the whole of his memoirs at the and give them good words when he had same time. Maseres’ Tracts, i. 388. But occasion to make use of them; whereat, it is fully confirmed by an independent breaking out into a rage, he said they testimony, William Allen, himself one of were a proud sort of people, and only the council of officers and adjutant-genconsiderable in their own conceits.” P. eral of the army, who, in a letter ad240. Does this look as if he had been dressed to Fleetwood, and published in reckoned one of them? 1659, declares that, after much consulta2 Clarendon says that there were many tion and prayer at Windsor Castle, in the consultations among the officers about the beginning of 1648, they had ” come to a best mode of disposing of the king; some very clear and joint resolution that it were for deposing him, others for poison was their duty to call Charles Stuart, that or assassination, which, he fancies, would man of blood, to an account for the blood have been put in practice if they could he had shed, and mischief he had done to have prevailed on Hammond. But this his utmost against the Lord’s cause and is not warranted by our better authori-people in these poor nations.”

This is to ties. be found in Somers’ Tracts, vi. 499. The It is hard to say at what time the first only discrepancy, if it is one, between him bold man dared to talk of bringing the and Berkley, is as to the precise time, king to justice. But in a letter of Baillie which the other seems to place in the end to Alexander Henderson, May 19, 1646, of 1647. But this might be lapse of he says, “If God have hardened him, so memory in either party; nor is it clear, far as I can perceive, this people will on looking attentively at Berkley’s narrastrive to have him in their power, and tion, that he determines the time. Ashmake an example of him; lIabhor to think burnham says, “For some days before what they speak of execution;” ii. 20; the king’s remove from Hampton Court, published also in Dalrymple’s Memorials there was scarcely a day in which several of Charles I., p. 166.

Proofs may also be alarms were not brought him by and brought from pamphlets by Lilburne and from several considerable persons, both others in 1647, especially towards the end well-affected to him and likely to know of that year; and the remonstrance of the much of what was then in agitation, of Scots parliament, dated Aug. 13, alludes the resolution which a violent party in to such language. Rush. Abr. vi. 245. the army had to take away his life. And Berkley indeed positively assures us that that such a design there was, there were the resolution was taken at Windsor, in strong insinuations to persuade.” Seo a council of officers, soon after the king’s also his Narrative, published in 1830

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216 WHICH IS FINALLY DETERMINED. CHAP. X. and haughty, too confident of the righteousness of their actions, to think of private assassination, they sought to gratify their pride by the solemnity and notoriousness, by the very infamy and eventual danger, of an act unprecedented in the history of nations. Throughout the year 1648, this This is design, though suspended, became familiar to the finally de-people’s expectation.1 The commonwealth’s men termined. and the levellers, the various sectaries (admitting a few exceptions), grew clamorous for the king’s death.

Petitions were presented to the commons, praying for justice on all delinquents, from the highest to the lowest.2 And not long afterwards the general officers of the army came forward with a long remonstrance against any treaty, and insisting that the capital and grand author of their troubles be speedily brought to justice, for the treason, blood, and mischief whereof he had been guilty.8 This was soon followed by the vote of the presbyterian party, that the answers of the king to the propositions of both houses are a ground for the house to proceed upon for the settlement of the peace of the kingSeclusion of dom,4 by the violent expulsion, or, as it was called, presbyterian seclusion, of all the presbyterian members from embers. the house, and the ordinance of a minority, constituting the high court of justice for the trial of the king.6 A very small number among those who sat in this strange tribunal upon Charles I. were undoubtedly capable of taking statesmanlike views of the interests of their party, and might consider his death a politic expedient for consolidating the new settlement. It seemed to involve the army, which had openly abetted the act, and even the nation by its passive consent, in such inexpiable guilt towards the royal family, that neither common prudence nor a sense of shame would permit them to suffer its restoration. But by far the greater part of the regicides such considerations were either overlooked or kept in the background. Their more powerful 1 Somers’ Tracts, v. 160, 162. ble that this remonstrance itself is rather 2 Sept. 11. Parl. Hist. 1077. May’s against the king than absolutely against Breviate in Maseres’ Tracts, vol. i. p. 127. all monarchy; for one of the proposals Whitelock 365. contained in it is that kings should be 3 Nov. 17. Parl. Hist. 1077. White-chosen by the people, and have no negalock, p. 855. A motion, Nov. 80, that tive voice. the house do now proceed on the remon-4 The division was on the previous strance of the army was lost by 125 to question, which was lost by 129 to 83. 68 (printed 53 in Parl. Hist.). Com-5 No division took place on any of the mons’ Journals. So weak was still the votes respecting the king’s trial. republican party. It is indeed remarka

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CHA. 1.-1642-49. MOTIVES OF THE KING’S JUDGES. 217 motive was that fierce fanatical hatred of the king, the natural fruit of long civil dissension, inflamed by preachers more dark and sanguinary than those they addressed, and by a perverted study of the Jewish scriptures. They had been wrought to believe, not that his execution would be justified by state necessity or any such feeble grounds of human reasoning, but that it was a bounden duty, which with a safe conscience they could not neglect. Such was the persuasion of Ludlow and Hutchinson, the most respectable names among the regicides; both of them free from all suspicion of interestedness or hypocrisy, and less intoxicated Motives than the rest by fanaticism. “I was fully per-some of suaded,” says the former, ” that an accommodation the king’s with the king was unsafe to the people of England, and unjust and wicked in the nature of it. The former, besides that it was obvious to all men, the king himself had proved, by the duplicity of his dealing with the parliament, which manifestly appeared in his own papers, taken at the battle of Naseby and elsewhere. Of the latter I was convinced by the express words of God’s law:‘that blood defileth the land, and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed it.’ (Numbers, c. xxxv. v. 33.) And therefore I could not consent to leave the guilt of so much blood on the nation, and thereby to draw down the just vengeance of God upon us all, when it was most evident that the war had been occasioned by the invasion of our rights and open breach of our laws and constitution on the king’s part.” 1 “As for Mr.

Hutchinson,” says his high-souled consort, “although he was very much confirmed in his judgment concerning the cause, yet, being here called to an extraordinary action, whereof many were of several minds, he addressed himself to God by prayer, desiring the Lord that, if through any human frailty he were led into any error or false opinion in those great transactions, he would open his eyes, and not suffer him to proceed, but that he would confirm his spirit in the truth, and lead him by a right-enlightened conscience; and finding no check, but a confirmation in his conscience that it was his duty to act as he did, he, upon serious debate, both privately and in his addresses to God, and in conferences with conscientious, upright, unbiased persons, proceeded to sign the sen1

Ludlow, i. 267.

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218 QUESTION OF CHARLES’S EXECUTION. CHAP. X. tence against the king.

Although he did not then believe but it might one day come to be again disputed among men, yet both he and others thought they could not refuse it without giving up the people of God, whom they had led forth and engaged themselves unto by the oath of God, into the hands of God’s and their enemies; and therefore he cast himself upon God’s protection, acting according to the dictates of a conscience which he had sought the law to guide; and accordingly the Lord did signalize his favor afterward to him.”

1 The execution of Charles I. has been mentioned in later uestion of ages by a few with unlimited praise -by some his execu-with faint and ambiguous censure - by most with tion se-vehement reprobation. My own judgment will cussed. possibly be anticipated by the reader of the preceding pages. I shall certainly not rest it on the imaginary sacredness and divine origin of royalty, nor even on the irresponsibility with which the law of almost every country invests the person of its sovereign. Far be it from me to contend that no cases may be conceived, that no instances may be found in history, wherein the sympathy of mankind and the sound principles of political justice would approve a public judicial sentence as the due reward of tyranny and perfidiousness. But we may confidently deny that Charles I. was thus to be singled out as a warning to tyrants.

His offences were not, in the worst interpretation, of that atrocious character which calls down the vengeance of insulted humanity, regardless of positive law. His government had been very arbitrary; but it may well be doubted whether any, even of his ministers, could have suffered death for their share in it, without introducing a principle of barbarous vindictiveness. Far from the sanguinary misanthropy of some monarchs, or the revengeful fury of others, he had in no instance displayed, nor does the minutest scrutiny since made into his character entitle us to suppose, any malevolent dispositions beyond some proneness to anger, and a considerable degree of harshness in his demeanor.2 As for the 1

Hutchinson, p. 803. He once forgot himself so far as to cane 2 The king’s manners were not good. the younger sir Henry Vane for coming He spoke and behaved to ladies with into a room of the palace reserved for indelicacy in public. See Warburton’s persons of higher rank. Carte’s OrNotes on Clarendon, vii. 629; and a mond, i. 356, where other instances are passage in Milton’s Defensio pro Populo mentioned by that friendly writer. He Anglicano, quoted by Harris and Brodie. had in truth none who loved him, till his

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CHA. I. -1642-49. WHO THE FIRST AGGRESSOR. 219 charge of having caused the bloodshed of the war, upon which, and not on any former misgovernment, his condemnation was grounded, it was as ill-established as it would have been insufficient. Well might the earl of Northumberland say, when the ordinance for the king’s trial was before the lords, that the greatest part of the people of England were not yet satisfied whether the king levied war first against the houses, or the houses against him.1 The fact, in my opinion, was entirely otherwise. It is quite another question whether the parliament were justified in their resistance to the king’s legal authority. But we may contend that, when Hotham, by their command, shut the gates of Hull against his sovereign, when the militia was called out in different counties by an ordinance of the two houses, both of which preceded by several weeks any levying of forces for the king, the bonds of our constitutional law were by them and their servants snapped asunder; and it would be the mere pedantry and chicane of political casuistry to inquire, even if the fact could be better ascertained, whether at Edgehill, or in the minor skirmishes that preceded, the first carbine was discharged by a cavalier or a roundhead. The aggressor in a war is not the first who uses force, but the first who renders force necessary. But, whether we may think this war to have originated in the king’s or the parliament’s aggression, it is still evident that the former had a fair cause with the nation, a cause which it was no plain violation of justice to defend. He was supported by the greater part of the peers, by full one third of the commons, by the principal body of the gentry, misfortune softened his temper and ex-mixon, Hist. of the Stuarts, p. 140. It cited sympathy. was brought forward on Burnet’s auAn anecdote, strongly intimating the thority, and also on that of the duke of violence of Charles’s temper, has been Hamilton, killed in 1712, by Dr. Birch, rejected by his advocates. It is said no incompetent judge of historical evithat Burnet, in searching the Hamilton dence: it seems confirmed by an intimapapers, found that the king, on discover-tion given by Burnet himself in his Meing the celebrated letter of the Scots moirs of the duke of Hamilton, p. 161. covenanting lords to the king of France, It is also mentioned by Scott of Scotswas so incensed that he sent an order to tarvet, a contemporary writer. Harris, sir William Balfour, lieutenant-governor p. 350, quotes other authorities, earlier of the Tower, to cut off the head of his than the anecdote told of Burnet; and prisoner, lord Loudon; but that the upon the whole I think the story deservmarquis of Hamilton, to whom Balfour ing credit, and by no means so much to immediately communicated this, urged be slighted as the Oxford editor of Burso strongly on the king that the city net has thought fit to do. would be up in arms on this violence, 1 Clement Walker, Hist. of Indepenthat with reluctance he withdrew the dency, part ii. p. 65.

warrant. This story is told by Old

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220 CHARLES’S CHARACTER. CHAP. X. and a large proportion of other classes.

If his adherents did not form, as I think they did not, the majority of the people, they were at least more numerous, beyond comparison, than those who demanded or approved of his death. The steady deliberate perseverance of so considerable a body in any cause takes away the right of punishment from the conquerors, beyond what their own safety or reasonable indemnification may require. The vanquished are to be judged by the rules of national, not of municipal law. Hence, if Charles, after having by a course of victories or the defection of the people prostrated all opposition, had abused his triumph by the execution of Essex or Hampden, Fairfax or Cromwell, I think that later ages would have disapproved of their deaths as positively, though not quite as vehemently, as they have of his own. The line is not easily drawn, in abstract reasoning, between the treason which is justly punished, and the social schism which is beyond the proper boundaries of law; but the civil war of England seems plainly to fall within the latter description. These objections strike me as unanswerable, even if the trial of Charles had been sanctioned by the voice of the nation through its legitimate representatives, or at least such a fair and full convention as might, in great necessity, supply the place of lawful authority. But it was, as we all know, the act of a bold but very small minority, who, having forcibly expelled their colleagues from parliament, had usurped, under the protection of a military force, that power which all England reckoned illegal. I cannot perceive what there was in the imagined solemnity of this proceeding, in that insolent mockery of the forms of justice, accompanied by all unfairness and inhumanity in its circumstances, which can alleviate the guilt of the transaction; and if it be alleged that many of the regicides were firmly persuaded in their consciences of the right and duty of condemning the king, we may surely remember that private murderers have often had the same apology. In discussing each particular transaction in the life of is char-Charles, as of any other sovereign, it is required actr. by the truth of history to spare no just animadversion upon his faults; especially where much art has been employed by the writers most in repute to carry the stream *f public prejudice in an opposite direction. But when we

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CHA. I.-1642-49. CHARLES’S CHARACTER. 221 come tot a general estimate of his character, we should act unfairly not to give their full weight to those peculiar circumstances of his condition in this worldly scene which tend to account for and extenuate his failings. The station of kings is, in a moral sense, so unfavorable, that those who are least prone to servile admiration should be on their guard against the opposite error of an uncandid severity. There seems no fairer method of estimating the intrinsic worth of a sovereign than to treat him as a subject, and to judge, so far as the history of his life enables us, what he would have been in that more private and happier condition from which the chance of birth has excluded him. Tried by this test, we cannot doubt that Charles I. would have been not altogether an amiable man, but one deserving of general esteem; his firm and conscientious virtues the same, his deviations from right far less frequent than upon the throne. It is to be pleaded for this prince, that his youth had breathed but the contaminated air of a profligate and servile court - that he had imbibed the lessons of arbitrary power from all who surrounded him - that he had been betrayed by a father’s culpable blindness into the dangerous society of an ambitious, unprincipled favorite. To have maintained so much correctness of morality as his enemies confess, was a proof of Charles’s virtuous dispositions; but his advocates are compelled also to own that he did not escape as little injured by the poisonous adulation to which he had listened. Of a temper by nature, and by want of restraint, too passionate, though not vindictive, and, though not cruel, certainly deficient in gentleness and humanity, he was entirely unfit for the very difficult station of royalty, and especially for that of a constitutional king. It is impossible to excuse his violations of liberty on the score of ignorance, especially after the Petition of Right; because his impatience of opposition from his council made it unsafe to give him any advice that thwarted his determination. His other great fault was want of sincerity - a fault that appeared in all parts of his life, and from which no one who has paid the subject any attention will pretend to exculpate him. Those indeed who know nothing but what they find in Hume may believe, on Hume’s authority, that the king’s contemporaries never deemed of imputing to him any deviation from good faith; as if the whole conduct of the parliament nad not been evidently

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222 ICON BASILIKt. CHAP. X. founded upon a distrust which on many occasions they very explicitly declared. But, so far as this insincerity was shown in the course of his troubles, it was a failing which untoward circumstances are apt to produce, and which the extreme hypocrisy of many among his adversaries might sometimes palliate. Few personages in history, we should recollect, have had so much of their actions revealed, and commented upon, as Charles; it is perhaps a mortifying truth that those who have stood highest with posterity have seldom been those who have been most accurately known. The turn of his mind was rather peculiar, and laid him open with some justice to very opposite censures - for an extreme obstinacy in retaining his opinion, and for an excessive facility in adopting that of others. But the apparent incongruity ceases, when we observe that he was tenacious of ends and irresolute as to means; better fitted to reason than to act; never swerving from a few main principles, but diffident of his own judgment in its application to the course of affairs. His chief talent was an acuteness in dispute; a talent not usually much exercised by kings, but which the strange events of his life called into action. He had, unfortunately for himself, gone into the study most fashionable in that age, of polemical theology; and, though not at all learned, had read enough of the English divines to maintain their side of the current controversies with much dexterity. But this unkingly talent was a poor compensation for the continual mistakes of his judgment in the art of government and the conduct of his affairs.1 It seems natural not to leave untouched in this place the Icon famous problem of the Icon Basilikd, which has Basilik6. been deemed an irrefragable evidence both of the virtues and the talents of Charles. But the authenticity of this work can hardly be any longer a question among judicious 1 Clarendon, Collier, and the high-losopher, who said he had no shame in church writers in general, are very proud yielding to the master of fifty legions. of the superiority they fancy the king But those who take the trouble to read to have obtained in a long argumenta-these papers will probably not think one tion held at Newcastle with Henderson, party so much the stronger as to shorten a Scots minister, on church authority and the other’s days.

They show that Charles government. This was conducted in held those extravagant tenets about the writing, and the papers afterwards pub-authority of the church and of the lished. They may be read in the king’s fathers, which are irreconcilable with Works, and in Collier, p. 842. It is protestantism in any country where it is more than insinuated that Henderson not established, and are likely to drive it died of mortification at his defeat. He out where it is so. certainly had not the excuse of the phi

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CHA. I.-1642-49. THE KING’S LETTERS. 223 men. We have letters from Gauden and his family asserting it as his own in the most express terms, and making it the ground of a claim for reward. We know that the king’s sons were both convinced that it was not their father’s composition, and that Clarendon was satisfied of the same. If Gauden not only set up a false claim to so famous a work, but persuaded those nearest to the king to surrender that precious record, as it had been reckoned, of his dying sentiments, it was an instance of successful impudence which has hardly a parallel. But I should be content to rest the case on that internal evidence which has been so often alleged for its authenticity. The Icon has, to my judgment, all the air of a fictitious composition. Cold, stiff, elaborate, without a single allusion that bespeaks the superior knowledge of facts which the king must have possessed, it contains little but those rhetorical commonplaces which would suggest themselves to any forger. The prejudices of party, which exercise a strange influence in matters of taste, have caused this book to be extravagantly praised. It has doubtless a certain air of grave dignity, and the periods are more artificially constructed than was usual in that age (a circumstance not in favor of its authenticity); but the style is encumbered with frigid metaphors, as is said to be the case in Gauden’s acknowledged writings; and the thoughts are neither beautiful nor always exempt from affectation. The king’s letters during his imprisonment, preserved in the Clarendon State Papers, and especially one to his son, from which an extract is given in the History of the Rebellion, are more satisfactory proofs of his integrity than the labored self-panegyrics of the Icon Basilike.1 I The note on this passage, which, on connected with the general objects of this account of its length, was placed at the work. It is needless to add that the end of the volume in the two first edi-author entertains not the smallest doubt tions, Is withdrawn in this, as relating to about the justness of the arguments he a matte-of literary controversy, little had employed. - Note to the 8d edit.

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224 ABOLITION OF THE’MONARCHY. CHA,. X. PART II, Abolition of the Monarchy-and of the House of Lords - Commonwealth - Schemes of Cromwell His Conversations with Whitelock - Unpopularity of the Parliament-Their Fall - Little Parliament - Instrument of GovernmentParliament called by Cromwell -Dissolved by him-Intrigues of the King and his Party-Insurrectionary Movements in 1665 -Rigorous Measures of Cromwell - His Arbitrary Government - He summons another Parliament - Designs to take the Crown - The Project fails - but his Authority as Protector is augmented -

He aims at forming a new House of Lords - His Death - and Character -

Richard, his Son, succeeds him - is supported by some prudent Men - but opposed by a Coalition - Calls a Parliament - The Army overthrow both -

Long Parliament restored - Expelled again - and again restored -

Impossibility of establishing a Republic - Intrigues of the Royalists -

They unite with the Presbyterians - Conspiracy of 1659 - Interference of Monk - His Dissimulation - Secluded Members return to their Seats -

Difficulties about the Restoration - New Parliament - King restored -

Whether previous Conditions required - Plan of reviving the Treaty of Newport inexpedient - Difficulty of framing Conditions - Conduct of the Convention about this not blamable - except in Respect of the Militia -

Conduct of Monk. THE death of Charles I. was pressed forward rather Abolition through personal hatred and superstition than out of the of any notion of its necessity to secure a republimonarchy, can administration.

That party was still so weak that the commons came more slowly, and with more difference of judgment, than might be expected, to an absolute renunciation of monarchy. They voted, indeed, that the people are, under God, the original of all just power; and that whatever is enacted by the commons in parliament hath the force of law, although the consent and concurrence of the king or house of peers be not had thereto; terms manifestly not exclusive of the nominal continuance of the two latter.

They altered the public style from the king’s name to that of the parliament, and gave other indications of their intentions; but the vote for the abolition of monarchy did not pass till the 7th of February, after a debate, according to Whitelock, but without a division. None of that clamorous fanaticism showed itself which, within the memory of many,1
produced, from a far more numerous assembly, an instantaneous decision against monarchy. Wise men might easily perceive that the regal power was only suspended through the force of cir1 1827.

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COMMONWEALTH. AND OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS. 225 cumstances, not abrogated by any real change in public opinion. The house of lords, still less able than the crown to withstand the inroads of democracy, fell by a vote of and of the the commons at the same time. It had continued house of during the whole progress of the war to keep up lords as much dignity as the state of affairs would permit; tenacious of small privileges and offering much temporary opposition in higher matters, though always receding in the end from a contention wherein it could not be successful. The commons, in return, gave them respectful language, and discountenanced the rude innovators who talked against the rights of the peerage. They voted, on occasion of some rumors, that they held themselves obliged, by the fundamental laws of the kingdom and their covenant, to preserve the peerage with the rights and privileges belonging to the house of peers, equally with their own.1 Yet this was with a secret reserve that the lords should be of the same mind as themselves. For, the upper house having resented some words dropped from sir John Evelyn, at a conference concerning the removal of the king to Warwick castle, importing that the commons might be compelled to act without them, the commons, vindicating their member as if his words did not bear that interpretation, yet added, in the same breath, a plain hint that it was not beyond their own views of what might be done: “hoping that their lordships did not intend by their inference upon the words, even in the sense they took the same, so to bind up this house to one way of proceeding as that in no case whatsoever, though never so extraordinary, though never so much importing the honor and interest of the kingdom, the commons of England might not do their duty, for the good and safety of the kingdom, in such a way as they may, if they cannot do it in such a way as they would and most desire.” 2 After the violent seclusion of the constitutional party from the house of commons, on the 6th of December, 1648, very few, not generally more than five, peers continued to meet. Their number was suddenly increased to twelve on the 2d of January, when the vote of the commons, that it is high1 Parl. Hist. 349. The council of war and sir William Waller’s Vindication, more than once, in the year 1647, de-192. lared their intention of preserving the 2 Commons’ Journal, 18th ands 19th rights of the peerage. Whitelock, 288; May, 1646. VOL. I. 15

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226 MEETING OF PEERS. CHAP. X. treason in the king of England for the time being to levy war against parliament, and the ordinance constituting the high court of justice, were sent up for their concurrence. These were unanimously rejected with more spirit than some, at least, of their number might be expected to display. Yet, as if apprehensive of giving too much umbrage, they voted at their next meeting to prepare an ordinance, making it treasonable for any future king of England to levy war against the parliament - a measure quite as unconstitutional as that they had rejected. They continued to linger on the verge of annihilation during the month, making petty orders about writs of error, from four to six being present; they even met on the 30th of January. On the 1st of February, six peers forming the house, it was moved, “that they would take into consideration the settlement of the government of England and Ireland, in this present conjuncture of things, upon the death of the king;” and ordered that these lords following (naming those present and three more) be appointed to join with a proportionable number of the house of commons for that purpose. Soon after, their speaker acquainted the house that he had that morning received a letter from the earl of Northumberland, “with a paper enclosed, of very great concernment;” and for the present the house ordered that it should be sealed up with the speaker’s seal. This probably related to the impending dissolution of their house, for they found next day that their messengers sent to the commons had not been admitted. They persisted, however, in meeting till the 6th, when they made a trifling order, and adjourned ” till ten o’clock tomorrow./’ That morrow was the 25th April, 1660. For the commons having the same day rejected, by a majority of forty-four to twenty-nine, a motion that they would take the advice of the house of lords in the exercise of the legislative power, resolved that the house of peers was useless and dangerous, and ought to be abolished.2 It should be noticed I Lords’ Journals. thirty-one to eighteen that “a message 2 Commons’ Journals. It had been from the lords should be received;” proposed to continue the house of lords Cromwell strongly supporting the moas a court of judicature, or as a court of tion and being a teller for it; and again consultation, or in some way or other to on Jan. 18, when, the opposite party prekeep it up. The majority, it will be ob-vailing, it was negatived by twenty-five served, was not very great; so far was the to eighteen to ask their assent to the vote democratic scheme from being universal of the 4th instant, that the sovereignty even within the house. Whitelock, 877. resides in the commons; which, doubtTwo divisions had already taken place: less, if true, could not require the lords’ one on Jan. 9, when it was carried by concurrence.

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COM0IONWEA:LTH. COMM1ONWEALTH. 227 that there was no intention of taking away the dignity of peerage; the lords, throughout the whole duration of the commonwealth, retained their titles, not only in common usage, but in all legal and parliamentary documents. The earl of Pembroke, basest among the base, condescended to sit in the house of commons as knight for the county of Berks, and was received, notwithstanding his proverbial meanness and stupidity, with such excessive honor as displayed the character of those low-minded upstarts who formed a sufficiently numerous portion of the house to give their tone to its proceedings.1 Thus by military force, with the approbation of an inconceivably small proportion of the people, the king commonwas put to death, the ancient fundamental laws wealthwere overthrown, and a mutilated house of commons, wherein very seldom more than seventy or eighty sat, was invested with the supreme authority. So little countenance had these late proceedings, even from those who seemed of the ruling faction, that, when the executive council of state, consisting of forty-one, had been nominated, and a test was proposed to them, declaring their approbation of all that had been done about the king and the kingly office and about the house of lords, only nineteen would subscribe it, though there were fourteen regicides on the list.2 It was agreed at length that they should subscribe it only as to the future proceedings of the commons. With such dissatisfaction at head-quarters there was little to hope from the body of the nation.8 Hence, when an engagement was tendered to all civil officers and beneficial clergy, containing only a promise to live faithful to the commonwealth, as it was established without a king or house of lords (though the slightest test of allegiance that any government could require), it was taken with infinite reluctance, and, in fact, refused by very many, the presbyterian 1

Whitelock, 896. They voted that out two of the former list, besides those Pembroke, as well as Salisbury and How-who were dead. Whitelock, 441. In ard of Escrick, who followed the ignomin-1651 the change was more considerable. lous example, should be added to all Id. 488. committees. 8

Six judges agreed to hold on their 2 Commons’ Journals. Whitelock. It commissions six refused. Whitelock, had been referred to a committee of five who makes a poor figure at this time on members, Lisle, Holland, Robinson, Scott, his own showing, consented to act still as and Ludlow, to recommend thirty-fivefor commissioner of the great seal. Those a council of state; to whose nominations who remained in office affected to stiputhe house agreed, and added their own. late that the fundamental laws should Ludlow, i. 288. They were appointed for not be abolished; and the house passed a a year; but in 1650 the house only left vote to this effect.

Whitelock, 378

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228 SCHEMES OF CROMWELL. CHAP. X. ministers especially showing a determined averseness to the new republican organization.1 This, however, was established (such is the dominion of the sword) far beyond the control of any national sentiment. Thirty thousand veteran soldiers guaranteed the mock parliament they had permitted to reign. The sectaries, a numerous body, and still more active than numerous, possessed, under the name of committees for various purposes appointed by the house of commons, the principal local authorities, and restrained by a vigilant scrutiny the murmurs of a disaffected majority. Love, an eminent presbyterian minister, lost his head for a conspiracy by the sentence of a high court of justice, a tribunal that superseded trial by jury.2 His death struck horror and consternation into that arrogant priesthood who had begun to fancy themselves almost beyond the scope of criminal law. The cavaliers were prostrate in the dust, and, anxious to retrieve something from the wreck of their long-sequestered estates, had generally little appetite to embark afresh in a hopeless cause; besides that the mutual animosities between their party and the presbyterians were still too irreconcilable to admit of any sincere cooperation. Hence neither made any considerable effort in behalf of Charles on his march, or rather flight, into England: a measure, indeed, too palpably desperate for prudent men who had learned the strength of their adversaries, and the great victory of Worcester consummated the triumph of the infant commonwealth, or rather of its future master. A train of favoring events, more than any deep-laid policy, Schemes of had now brought sovereignty within the reach of Cromwell.

Cromwell. His first schemes of ambition may probably have extended no farther than a title and estate, with a great civil and military command in the king’s name. Power had fallen into his hands because they alone were fit to wield it; he was taught by every succeeding event his own undeniable superiority over his contemporaries in mar1 Whitelock, 444, et alibi. Baxter’s the device of those who rule in revoluLife, 64. A committee was appointed, tions. Clarendon speaks, on the contraApril, 1649, to inquire about ministers ry, of Love’s execution triumphantly. who asperse the proceedings of parliament He had been distinguished by a violent in their pulpits. Whitelock, 395. sermon during the treaty of Uxbridge, for 2 State Trials, v. 48. Baxter says that which the parliament, on the complaint Love’s death hurt the new commonwealth of the king’s commissioners, put him in more than would be easily believed, and confinement. Thurloe, i. 66; State Trials, made it odious to all the religious party 201. Though the noble historian, as in the land. except the sectaries. Life of usual, represents this otherwise. He also B., 67.

But ” oderint dum metuant” is misstates Love’s dying speech.

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COMMONWEALTH. DISCOURSE WITH VWHITELOCK. 229 tial renown, in civil prudence, in decision of character, and in the public esteem which naturally attached to these qualities. Perhaps it was not till after the battle of Worcester that he began to fix his thoughts, if not on the dignity of royalty, yet on an equivalent right of command. Two remarkable conversations, in which Whitelock bore His cona part, seem to place beyond controversy the nature verations of his designs. About the end of 1651, Whitelock with himself, St. John, Widdrington, Lenthall, Harrison, Desborough, Fleetwood, and Whalley, met Cromwell, at hi own request, to consider the settlement of the nation. The four former were in favor of monarchy, Whitelock inclining to Charles, Widdrington and others to the duke of Gloucester; Desborough and Whalley were against a single person’s government, and Fleetwood uncertain. Cromwell, who had evidently procured this conference in order to sift the inclinations of so many leading men, and to give some intimation of his own, broke it up with remarking that, if it might be done with safety and preservation of their rights as Englishmen and Christians, a settlement of somewhat with. monarchical power in it would be very effectual.1 The observation he here made of a disposition among the lawyers to elect the duke of Gloucester, as being exempt by his youth from the prepossessions of the two elder brothers, may, perhaps, have put Cromwell on releasing him from confinement, and sending him to join his family beyond sea.2 Twelve months after this time, in a more confidential discourse with Whitelock alone, the general took occasion to complain both of the chief officers of the army and of the parliament; the first, as inclined to factious murmurings, and the second, as engrossing all offices to themselves, divided into parties, delaying business, guilty of gross injustice and partiality, and designing to perpetuate their own authority. 1 Whitelock, 516. idea that they might one day make use 2 The parliament had resolved, 24th of him, is hard to say.

Clarendon menJuly, 1650, that Henry Stuart, son of the tions the scheme of making the duke of late king, and the lady Elizabeth, daugh-Gloucester king, in one of his letters (iii. ter of the late king, be removed forthwith 38, 11th Nov. 1651); but says, ” Truly I beyond the seas out of the limits of this do believe that Cromwell might as easily commonwealth.

Yet this intention seems procure himself to be chosen king as the to have been soon changed; for it is re-duke of Gloucester; for, as none of the, solved, Sept. 11, to give the duke of king’s party would assist the last, so I Gloucester 15001. per annum for his am persuaded both presbyterians and maintenance so long as he should behave independents would have much sooner himself inoffensively. Whether this pro-the former than any of the race of him ceeded from liberality, or from a vague whom they have murthered.”

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230 UNPOPULARITY OF THE PARLIAMENT. CHAP. X Whitelock, confessing part of this, urged that, having taken commissions from them as the supreme power, it would be difficult to find means to restrain them. ” What,” said Cromwell, “if a man should take upon him to be king?” “I think,” answered Whitelock, “that remedy would be worse than the disease.” ” Why,” rejoined the other, “do you think so? ” He then pointed out that the statute of Henry VII. gave a security to those who acted under a king which no other government could furnish; and that the reverence paid by the people to that title would serve to curb the extravagancies of those now in power.

Whitelock replied, that their friends having engaged in a persuasion, though erroneous, that their rights and liberties would be better preserved under a commonwealth than a monarchy, this state of the question would be wholly changed by Cromwell’s assumption of the title, and it would become a private controversy between his family and that of the Stuarts. Finally, on the other’s encouragement to speak fully his thoughts, he told him “that no expedient seemed so desirable as a private treaty with the king, in which he might not only provide for the security of his friends and the greatness of his family, but set limits to monarchical power, keeping the command of the militia in his own hands.”

Cromwell merely said ” that such a step would require great consideration;” but broke off with marks of displeasure, and consulted Whitelock much less for some years afterwards.1 These projects of usurpation could not deceive the watchfulness of those whom Cromwell pretended to serve. He had on several occasions thrown off enough of his habitual dissimulation to show the commonwealth’s men that he was theirs only by accident, with none of their fondness for reUnpopu. publican polity. The parliament in its present larity of the wreck contained few leaders of superior ability, parliament. but a natural instinct would dictate to such an assembly the distrust of a popular general, even if there had been less to alarm them in his behavior.2 They had no 1 Id. p.

648. Lord Orrery told Burnet certain, however, that such a compromise that he had once mentioned to Cromwell would have been dishonorable for one a report that he was to bring in the king, party, and infamous for the other. who should marry his daughter, and ob-2 Cromwell, in his letter to the parserved that he saw no better expedient. liament, after the battle of Worcester, Cromwell, without expressing any dis-called it a crowning mercy. This, pleasure, said, “The king cannot forgive though a very intelligible expression, his father’s blood,” which the other at-was taken in an invidious sense by the tempted to answer. Burnet, i. 95. It is republicans.

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COMMONWEALTH. STATE OF PARTIES. 231 means, however, to withstand him. The creatures themselves of military force, their pretensions to direct or control the army could only move scorn or resentment. Their claim to a legal authority, and to the name of representatives of a people who rejected and abhorred them, was perfectly impudent. When the house was fullest their numbers did not much exceed one hundred; but the ordinary divisions, even on subjects of the highest moment, show an attendance of but fifty or sixty members. They had retained in their hands, notwithstanding the appointment of a council of state, most of whom were from their own body, a great part of the executive government, especially the disposal of offices.1 These they largely shared among themselves or their dependants; and in many of their votes gave occasion to such charges of injustice and partiality as, whether true or false, will attach to a body of men so obviously self-interested.2 It seems to be a pretty general opinion that a popular assembly is still more frequently influenced by corrupt and dishonest motives in the distribution of favors or the decision of private affairs than a ministry of state; whether it be that it is more probable that a man of disinterestedness and integrity may in the course of events rise to the conduct of government than that such virtues should belong to a majority; or that the clandestine management of court corruption renders it less scanda1 Journals, passim. one Josiah Primatt, who seems to have 2 One of their most scandalous acts been connected with Lilburne, Wildman, was the sale of the earl of Craven’s and the levellers, having presented a estate. He had been out of England petition complaining that sir Arthur during the war, and could not therefore Haslerig had violently dispossessed him be reckoned a delinquent. But evidence of some collieries, the house, after voting was offered that he had seen the king in every part of the petition to be false, Holland; and upon this charge, though adjudged him to pay a fine of 30001. to he petitioned to be heard, and, as is said, the commonwealth, 20001. to Haslerig, indicted the informer for perjury, where-and 20001.

more to the commissioners of he was convicted, they voted by 33 to for compositions. Journals, 15th Jan. 81 that his lands should be sold; Has-1651-2. There had been a project of lerig, the most savage zealot of the whole erecting an university at Durham, in faction, being a teller for the ayes, Vane favor of which a committee reported for the noes. Journals, 6th March, (18th June, 1651), and for which the 1651, and 22d June, 1652; State Trials, chapter-lands would have made a comv. 323. On the 20th of July in the same petent endowment. Haslerig, however, year it was referred to a committee to got most of them into his own hands, select thirty delinquents whose estates and thus frustrated, perhaps, a design should be sold for the use of the navy. of great importance to education and; Thus, long after the cessation of hos-literature in this country. For had an tility, the royalists continued to stand university once been established, it is in jeopardy, not only collectively but just possible, though not very likely, personally, from this arbitrary and vin-that the estates would not have reverted, dictive faction. Nor were these qualities on the king’s restoration, to their former,. displayed against the royalists alone; but much less useful, possessors.

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232 STATE OF PARTIES. CHAP. X. lous and more easily varnished than the shamelessness of parliamentary iniquity. The republican interest in the nation was almost wholly composed of two parties, both offshoots deriving strength from the great stock of the army; the levellers, of whom Lilburne and Wildman are the most known, and the anabaptists, fifthmonarchy men, and other fanatical sectaries, headed by Harrison, Hewson, Overton, and a great number of officers. Though the sectaries seemed to build their revolutionary schemes more on their own religious views than the levellers, they coincided in most of their objects and demands.1 An equal representation of the people in short parliaments, an extensive alteration of the common law, the abolition of tithes, and indeed of all regular stipends to the ministry, a full toleration of religious worship, were reformations which they concurred in requiring as the only substantial fruits of their arduous struggle.2 Some among the wilder sects dreamed of overthrowing all civil institutions. These factions were not without friends in the commons. But the greater part were not inclined to gratify them by taking away the provision of the church, and much less to divest themselves of their own authority. They voted indeed that tithes should cease as soon as a competent maintenance should be otherwise provided for the clergy.8 They appointed a commission to consider the reformation of the law, in consequence of repeated petitions against many of its inconveniences and abuses; who, though taxed of course with dilatoriness by the ardent innovators, suggested many useful improvements, sev1 Mrs.

Hutchinson speaks very favor-pious, and public spirit which they proably of the levellers, as they appeared fessed, owned them and protected them about 1647, declaring against the fac-as far as he had power. These were they tions of the presbyterians and indepen-who first began to discover the ambition dents, and the ambitious views of their of lieut.-gen.

Cromwell and his idolaters, leaders, and especially against the unrea-and to suspect and dislike it.” P. 285. sonable privileges claimed by the houses 2 Whitelock, 399, 401. The levellers of parliament collectively and personally. rose in arms at Banbury and othex ” Indeed, as all virtues are mediums and places, but were soon put down, chiefly have their extremes, there rose up after through the energy of Cromwell, and;in that house a people who endeavored their ringleaders shot. the levelling of all estates and qualities, 8 It was referred to a committee, 29th which those sober levelers were never April, 1642, to consider how a convenient guilty of desiring; but were men of just and competent maintenance for a godly and sober principles, of honest and relig-and able ministry may be settled, in lieu’ous ends, and were therefore hated by of tithes. A proposed addition, that all the designing self-interested men of tithes be paid as before, till such mainboth factions. Colonel Hutchinson had tenance be settled, was carried by 27 to a great intimacy with many of these; and 17.,so far as they acted according to the just,

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COMMONWEALTH. FALL OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT. 233 eral of which have been adopted in more regular times, though with too cautious delay.1 They proceeded rather slowly and reluctantly to frame a scheme for future parliaments; and resolved that they should consist of 400, to be chosen in due proportion by the several counties, nearly upon the model suggested by Lilburne, and afterwards carried into effect by Cromwell.2 It was with much delay and difficulty, amidst the loud murmurs of their adherents, that they could be brought to any vote in regard to their own dissolu-Their fall. tion. It passed on November 17,1651, after some very close divisions, that they should cease to exist as a parliament on November 3, 1654.8 The republicans out of doors, who deemed annual, or at least biennial, parliaments essential to their definition of liberty, were indignant at so unreasonable a prolongation. Thus they forfeited the goodwill of the only party on whom they could have relied. Cromwell dexterously aggravated their faults: he complained of their delaying the settlement of the nation; he persuaded the fanatics of his concurrence in their own schemes; the parliament, in turn, conspired against his power, and, as the conspiracies of so many can never be secret, let it be seen that one or other must be destroyed-thus giving his forcible expulsion of them the pretext of self-defence. They fell with no regret, or rather with much joy of the nation, except a few who 1 Journals, 19th Jan. 1652. Hale was till Oct. 11th, when the committee was the first named on this commission, and ordered to meet next day, and so de die took an active part; but he was associ-in diem, and to give an account thereof ated with some furious levellers, Desbo-to the house on Tuesday come fortnight; rough, Tomlinson, and Hugh Peters, so all that came to have voices, but the that it is hard to know bow far he con-special care thereof commended to sir curred in the alterations suggested. Henry Vane, colonel Ludlow, and Mr. Many of them, however, seem to bear Robinson. We find nothing further till marks of his hand. Whitelock, 475, Jan. 8d, 1650, when the committee is 617, 519, 820 et alibi. There had been ordered to make its report the next previously a committee for the same Wednesday. This is done accordingly, purpose in 1650. See a list of the acts Jan. 9, when sir H. Vane reports the prepared by them in Somers Tracts, vi. resolutions of the committee, one of 177; several of them are worthy of at-which was, that the number in future tention. Ludlow, indeed, blames the parliaments should be 400. This was commission for slowness; but their delay carried, after negativing the previous seems to have been very justifiable, and question in a committee of the whole their suggestions highly valuable. It house. They proceeded several days even appears that they drew up a book afterwards on the same business. See containing a regular digest or code, also Ludlow, pp. 313, 435. which was ordered to be printed. Jour-8 Two divisions had taken place, Nov. hals, 20th.lan. 1653. 14 (the first on the previous question), 2 A committee was named, 15th May, on a motion that it is convenient to de1649, to take into consideration the set-dare a certain time for the continuance tling of the succession of future parlia-of this parliament, 50 to 46, and 49 to 47 ments and regulating their elections. On the last division Cromwell and St Nothing more appears to have been done John were tellers for the ayes.

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234 THE LITTLE PARLIAMENT. CHAP. X. dreaded more from the alternative of military usurpation or anarchy than from an assembly which still retained the names and forms so precious in the eyes of those who adhere to the ancient institutions of their country.1 It was now the deep policy of Cromwell to render himself Little par-the sole refuge of those who valued the laws, or liament. the regular ecclesiastical ministry, or their own estates, all in peril from the mad enthusiasts who were in hopes to prevail.2 These he had admitted into that motley convention of one hundred and twenty persons, sometimes called Barebone’s parliament, but more commonly the little Instrument parliament, on whom his council of officers preof govern-tended to devolve the government, mingling them ment. with a sufficient proportion of a superior class whom he could direct.8 This assembly took care to avoid the censure which their predecessors had incurred, by passing a good many bills, and applying themselves with a vigorous hand to the reformation of what their party deemed the most essential grievances, those of the law and of the church. They voted the abolition of the court of chancery, a measure provoked by its insufferable delay, its engrossing 1 Whitelock was one of these; and, and possess it.”

Ludlow argued against being at that time out of Cromwell’s him; but what was argument to such a favor, inveighs much against this de-head? Mem. of Ludlow, p. 665. Not struction of the power from which he many months after, Cromwell sent his had taken his commission. P. 552, 554. coadjutor to Carisbrook castle. St. John appears to have concurred in 8 Hume speaks of this assembly as the measure. In fact there had so long chiefly composed of the lowest mechanics. been an end of law that one usurpation But this was not the case. Some persons might seem as rightful as another.

But of inferior rank there were, but a large while any house of commons remained proportion of the members were men of there was a stock left from which the an-good family, or, at least, military distinccient constitution might possibly germi-tion, as the list of the names in the Parnate. Mrs. Macaulay, whose lamenta-lia-mentary History is sufficient to prove; tions over the Rump did not certainly and Whitelock remarks, “It was much proceed from this cause, thus vents her wondered at by some that these gentlewrath on the English nation: “An ac-men, many of them being persons of quiescence thus universal in the insult fortune and knowledge, would at this committsd on the guardians of the infant summons, and from those hands, take republic, and the first step towards the upon them the supreme authority of this usurpation of Cromwell, fixes an indelible nation.” P. 559. With respect to this. it stain on the character of the English, as may be observed that those who have a people basely and incorrigibly attached lived in revolutions find it almost necesto the sovereignty of individuals, and of sary, whether their own interests or those natures too ignoble to endure an empire of their country are their aim, to comply of equal laws.” Vol. v. p. 112. with all changes, and take a greater part 2 Harrison, when Ludlow asked him in supporting them than men of inflexwhy he had joined Cromwell to turn out ible consciences can approve. No one the parliament, said, he thought Crom-felt this more than Whitelock; and his well would own and favor a set of men remark in this place is a satire upon all who acted on higher principles than those his conduct. He was at the moment disof civil liberty; and quoted from Daniel, satisfied, and out of Cromwell’s favor, but’ that the saints shall take the kingdom lost no time in regaining it.

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COMMONWEALTH. CROMWELL PROTECTOR. 235 of almost all suits, and the uncertainty of its decisions. They appointed a committee to consider of a new body of the law, without naming any lawyer upon it.’ They nominated a set of commissioners to preside in courts of justice, among whom they with difficulty admitted two of that profession;3 they irritated the clergy by enacting that marriages should be solemnized before justices of the peace; they alarmed them still more by manifesting a determination to take away their tithes, without security for an equivalent maintenance.4 Thus, having united against itself these two powerful bodies, whom neither kings nor parliaments in England have in general offended with impunity, this little synod of legislators was ripe for destruction. Their last vote was to negative a report of their own committee, recommending that such as should be approved as preachers of the gospel should enjoy the maintenance already settled by law; and that the payment of tithes, as a just property, should be enforced by the magistrates. The house having, by the majority of two, disagreed with this report,6 the speaker, two days after, having secured a majority of those present, proposed the surrender of their power into the hands of Cromwell, who put an end to the opposition of the rest by turning them out of doors. It can admit of no doubt that the despotism of a wise man is more tolerable than that of political or religious fanatics; and it rarely happens that there is any better remedy in revolutions which have given the latter an ascendant. Cromwell’s assumption, therefore, of the title of protector was a necessary and wholesome usurpation, however he may have 1 Journals, August 19. This was car-mission for amendment of the law apried by 46 to 88 against Cromwell’s party, pointed in the long parliament. The great Yet Cromwell, two years afterwards, pub-number of dissenters from the established lished an ordinance for regulating and religion rendered it a very reasonable limiting the jurisdiction of chancery, measure. which offended Whitelock so much that 4 Thurloe, i. 869; iii. 132. he resigned the great seal, not having 5 Journals, 2d and 10th Dec. 1653. been consulted in framing the regula-Whitelock. See the sixth volume of the tions. This is a rare instance in his life; Somers Tracts (p. 266) for a long and and he vaunts much of his conscience rather able vindication of this parliament accordingly, but thankfully accepted the by one of its members. Ludlow also office of commissioner of the treasury in-speaks pretty well of it, p. 471; and stead. P. 621, 625. He does not seem, says truly enough that Cromwell frightby his own account, to have given much ened the lawyers and clergy, by showing satisfaction to suitors in equity (p. 548); what the parliament meant to do with yet the fault may have been theirs, or them, which made them in a hurry to the system’s. have it destroyed. See also Parl. Hist. s 4th October. 1412, 1414. 8 This had been proposed by the com

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236 MODE OF HIS ASCENT. CHAP. X caused the necessity; it secured the nation from the mischievous lunacy of the anabaptists, and from the more coolblooded tyranny of that little oligarchy which arrogated to itself the name of commonwealth’s men. Though a gross and glaring evidence of the omnipotence of the army, the instrument under which he took his title accorded to him no unnecessary executive authority. The sovereignty still resided in the parliament; he had no negative voice on their laws. Until the meeting of the next parliament a power was given him of making temporary ordinances; but this was not, as Hume, on the authority of Clarendon and Warwick, has supposed, and as his conduct, if that were any proof of the law, might lead us to infer, designed to exist in future intervals of the legislature.l It would be scarcely worth while, however, to pay much attention to a form of government which was so little regarded, except as it marks the jealousy of royal power, which those most attached to Cromwell, and least capable of any proper notions of liberty, continued to entertain. In the ascent of this bold usurper to greatness he had successively employed and thrown away several of the powerful factions who distracted the nation. He had encouraged the levellers and persecuted them; he had flattered the long parliament and betrayed it; be had made use of the sectaries to crush the commonwealth; he had spurned the sectaries in his last advance to power. These, with the royalists and the presbyterians, forming in effect the whole people, though too disunited for such a coalition as must have overthrown him, were the perpetual, irreconcilable enemies of his administration. Master of his army, which he well knew how to manage, surrounded by a few deep and experienced counsellors, furnished by his spies with the completest intelligence of all designs against him, he had no great cause of 1 See the instrument of government before (id. 691), besides many other ordiin Whitelock, p. 671; or Somers Tracts, nances of a legislative nature. ” I am vi. 257. Ludlow says that some of the very glad,” says Fleetwood (Feb. 1655, officers opposed this; but Lambert forced Thurloe, iii. 183), ” to hear his highness it down their throats: p. 276. Cromwell has declined the legislative power, which made good use of this temporary power. by the instrument of government, in my The union of Scotland with England was opinion, he could not exercise after this by one of these ordinances, April 12 last parliament’s meeting.” And the par(Whitelock, 586); and he imposed an liament of 1656, at the protectors desire, assessment of 120,0001. monthly, for three confirmed all ordinances made since the months, and 90,0001. for the next three, dissolution of the long parliament. Thurinstead of 70,0001. which had been paid loe, vi. 243.

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COMMONWEALTH. PARLIAMENT CALLED BY CROMWELL. 237 alarm from open resistance. But he was bound by the instrument of government to call a parliament; and Parliament in any parliament his adversaries must be formi-called by dable. He adopted in both those which he sum-romwe.

moned the reformed model already determined; limiting the number of representatives to 400, to be chosen partly in the counties, according to their wealth or supposed population, by electors possessing either freeholds or any real or movable property to the value of 2001.; partly by the more considerable boroughs, in whose various rights of election no change appears to have been made.1 This alteration, comformable to the equalizing principles of the age, did not produce so considerable a difference in the persons returned as it perhaps might at present.2 The court party, as those subservient to him were called, were powerful through the subjection of the electors to the army. But they were not able to exclude the presbyterian and republican interests; the latter, headed by Bradshaw, Haslerig, and Scott, eager to thwart the power which they were compelled to obey.8 Hence they began by taking into consideration the whole instrument of government; and even resolved themselves into a committee to debate its leading article, the protector’s authority.

Cromwell, his supporters having lost this question on a division of 141 to 136, thought it time to interfere. He gave them to understand that the government by a single person and a parliament was a fundamental principle, not subject to their discussion; and obliged every member to a recognition of it, solemnly promising neither to attempt nor to concur in any alteration of that article.4 The commons voted, however, that this recognition should not extend to the entire instrument, consisting of forty-two articles; and went Dissolved on to discuss them with such heat and prolixity by him. 1 I infer this from the report of a cor-judge what the authority of the lord mittee of privileges on the election for protector will be in this parliament. Lynn Oct. 20,1656. See also Journals, However it was observed that as often wov. 26,1654. as he spoke in his speech of liberty or 2 It is remarkable that Clarendon religion, the members did seem to rejoice seems to approve this model of a parlia-with acclamations of joy.” Thurloe, V. ment, saying, “it was then generally 588. But the election of Lenthall appears looked upon as an alteration fit to be by Guibbon Goddard’s Journal, lately more warrantably made, and in a better published in the Introduction to Burtime.” ton’s Diary, to have been unanimous. 8 Bourdeaux, the French ambassador, 4

Journals, 14th and 18th Sept. Parl. says, Some were for Bradshawas speak-Hist. 1446, 1469. Whitelock, 605 &ca er, but the protector’s party carried it Ludlow, 499. Goddard’s Journal, 82. for Lenthall. By this beginning one may

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238 ROYALIST INTRIGUES. CHAP. X. that, after five months, the limited term of their session, the protector, having obtained the ratification of his new scheme neither so fully nor so willingly as he desired, particularly having been disappointed by the great majority of 200 to 60, which voted the protectorate to be elective, not hereditary, dissolved the parliament with no small marks of dissatisfaction.1 The banished king, meanwhile, began to recover a little of Intrigues of that political importance which the battle of Worthe king and cester had seemed almost to extinguish. So ill-suphis party. ported by his English adherents on that occasion so incapable, with a better army than he had any prospect of ever raising again, to make a stand against the genius and fortune of the usurper, it was vain to expect that he could be restored by any domestic insurrection, until the disunion of the prevailing factions should offer some more favorable opportunity. But this was too distant a prospect for his court of starving followers. He had from the beginning looked around for foreign assistance. But France was distracted by her own troubles; Spain deemed it better policy to cultivate the new commonwealth; and even Holland, though engaged in a dangerous war with England, did not think it worth while to accept his offer of joining her fleet, in order to try his influence with the English seamen.2 Totally unscrupulous as to the means by which he might reign, even at the moment that t This division is not recorded in the calendar. Hume has adopted this noJournals, in consequence, I suppose, of tion; but it is groundless, the month in its having been resolved in a committee law being always of twenty-eight days, of the whole house. But it is impossible unless the contrary be expressed. Whiteto doubt the fact, which is referred to, lock says that Cromwell’s dissolution of Oct. 19, by a letter of Bourdeaux, the the parliament, because he found them French ambassador (Thurloe, ii. 681), not so pliable to his purposes as he exwho observes, “Hereby it is easily dispected, caused much discontent in them cerned that the nation is nowise affected and others; but that he valued it not, to his family, nor much to himself. esteeming himself above those things: p. Without doubt he will strengthen his 618. He gave out that the parliament army, and keep that in a good posture.” were concerned in the conspiracy to It is also alluded to by Whitelock, 609. bring in the king.

They resolved to keep the militia in the 2 Exiles are seldom scrupulous: we power of the parliament, and that the find that Charles was willing to propose protector’s negative should extend only to the States, in return for their acknowlto such bills as might alter the instru-edging his title, ” such present and ment; and in other cases, if he did not lasting advantages to them by this allipass bills within twenty days, they were ance as may appear most considerable to to become laws without his consent, that nation and to their posterity, and a Journals, Nov. 10,1654.

Whitelock, 608, valuable compensation for whatever presThis was carried against the court by ent advantages the king can receive by 109 to 85.

Ludlow insinuates that this it.” Clarendon State Papers, iii. 90.

parliament did not sit out its legal term These intrigues would have justly made of five months; Cromwell having inter-him odious in England.

preted the months to be lunar instead of

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COMMONWEALTH. ROYALIST INTRIGUES. 239 he was treating to become the covenanted king of Scotland, with every solemn renunciation of popery, Charles had recourse to a very delicate negotiation, which deserves remark, as having led, after a long course of time, but by gradual steps, to the final downfall of his family. With the advice of Ormond, and with the concurrence of Hyde, he attempted to interest the pope (Innocent X.) on his side, as the most powerful intercessor with the catholic princes of Europe.1 For this purpose it was necessary to promise toleration at least to the catholics. The king’s ambassadors to Spain in 1650, Cottington and Hyde, and other agents despatched to Rome at the same time, were empowered to offer an entire repeal of the penal laws.2 The king himself, some time afterwards, wrote a letter to the pope, wherein he repeated this assurance. That court, however, well aware of the hereditary duplicity of the Stuarts, received his overtures with haughty contempt. The pope returned no answer to the king’s letter; but one was received after many months from the general of the jesuits, requiring that Charles should declare himself a catholic, since the goods of the church could not be lavished for the support of an heretical prince.8 Even after this insolent refusal, the wretched exiles still clung at times to the vain hope of succor which as protestants and Englishmen they could not honorably demand.4 But many of them remarked too clearly the conditions on which assistance might be obtained; the court of Charles, openly or in secret, began to pass over to the catholic church; and the contagion soon spread to the highest places. 1 Ormond wrote strongly to this effect, have been made in the prejudice of cathafter the battle of Worcester, convinced olics, and to put them into the same conthat nothing but foreign assistance could dition as his other subjects.” Cottington restore the king. “Amongst protestants to Father Bapthorpe. Id. 641. These nethere is none that hath the power and gotiations with Rome were soon known; amongst the catholics it is visible.’” and a tract was published, by the parliaCarte’s Letters, i. 461. ment’s authority, containing the docu2

Clarendon State Papers, ii. 481, et ments. Notwithstanding the delirium saepe alibi. The protestant zeal of Hyde of the Restoration, this had made an had surely aeserted him; and his veracity impression which was not afterwards in one letter gave way also: see vol. iii. effaced. p. 158 But the great criminality of all 3 Clarendon State Papers, iii. 181. these negotiations lay in this, that 4’The pope very well knows,” says Charles was by them soliciting such a Hyde to Clement, an agent at the court measure of foreign aid as would make of Rome, 2d April, 1656, “how far the him at once the tyrant of England and king is from thoughts of severity against the vassal of Spain; since no free parlia-his catholic subjects; nay, that he doth ment, however royalist, was likely to re-desire to put them into the same conpeal all the laws against popery. ” That dition with his other subjects, and that which the king will be ready and willing no man shall suffer in any consideration to do is to give his consent for the repeal for being a Roman catholic.” Id 291. of all the penal laws and statutes which

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240 ROYALIST INTRIGUES. ClAP. X. In the year 1654 the royalist intrigues in England began to grow more active and formidable through the accession of many discontented republicans.l Though there could be no coalition, properly speaking, between such irreconcilable factions, they came into a sort of tacit agreement, as is not unusual, to act in concert for the only purpose they entertained alike, the destruction of their common enemy.

Major Wildman, a name not very familiar to the general reader, but which occurs perpetually, for almost half a century, when we look into more secret history, one of those dark and restless spirits who delight in the deep game of conspiracy against every government, seems to have been the first mover of this unnatural combination. He had been early engaged in the schemes of the levellers, and was exposed to the jealous observation of the ruling powers. It appears most probable that his views were to establish a commonwealth, and to make the royalists his dupes. In his correspondence, however, with Brussels, he engaged to restore the king.

Both parties were to rise in arms against the new tyranny; and the nation’s temper was tried by clandestine intrigues in almost every county.2 Greater reliance however was placed on the project of assassinating Cromwell. Neither party were by any means scrupulous on this score: if we have not positive evidence of Charles’s concurrence in this scheme, it would be preposterous to suppose that he would have been withheld by any moral hesitation. It is frequently mentioned without any disapprobation by Clarendon in his private letters; 8 and, as the royalists certainly justified the murders of Ascham and Dorislaus, they could not in common sense or consistency have scrupled one so incomparably more capable of defence.4 A Mr. Gerard suf1 Clarendon’s Iistory of the Rebellion, 8 p. 815, 824, 843. Thurloe, i. 860, 610. b. 14. State Papers, iii. 265, 800, &c. In the same volume (p. 248) we find even Whitelock observes at this time, ” Many a declaration from the king, dated at sober and faithful patriots did begin to Paris, 3d May, 1664, offering 6001. per incline to the king’s restoration; ” and annum to any one who should kill Cromhints that this was his opinion, which well, and pardon to any one who should excited Cromwell’s jealousy of him. leave that party, except Bradshaw, LenP. 620. thall, and Haslerig. But this seems un2 Clarendon’s History, vii. 129. State likely to be authentic: Charles would Papers, iii. 265, &c. These levellers were not have avowed a design of assassinavery hostile to the interference of Hyde tion so openly: and it is strange that and Ormond, judging them too inflexibly Lenthall and Haslerig, especially the attached to the ancient constitution; but former, should be thus exempted from this hostility recommended them to pardon, rather than so many regicides. others of the banished king’s court who 4

See what Clarendon says of Ascham’s showed the same sentiments. death.

State Papers, ii. 642. In another

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4JOMMONWEALTH. MEASURES OF CROMWELL. 241 fered death for one of these plots to kill Cromwell; justly sentenced, though by an illegal tribunal.1

PIn the year 1655, Penruddock, a Wiltshire gentleman, with a very trifling force, entered Salisbury at the time of the assizes; and, declaring for the king, tionary seized the judge and the sheriff.2 This little re-imovment1 bellion, meeting with no resistance from the people, but a supineness equally fatal, was soon quelled. It roused Cromwell to secure himself by an unprecedented exercise of power. In possession of all the secrets of his enemies, he knew that want of concert or courage had alone prevented a general rising, towards which indeed there had been some movements in the midland counties.8 He was aware of his own unpopularity, and the national bias towards the exiled king. Juries did not willingly convict the sharers in Penruddock’s rebellion.4 To govern according to law may sometimes be an usurper’s wish, but can seldom be in his power. The protector abandoned all thought of it. Dividing the kingdom into districts, he placed at Rigorous the head of each a majorgeneral as a sort of measuresof military magistrate, responsible for the subjection romw. of his prefecture. These were eleven in number, men bitterly hostile to the royalist party, and insolent towards all civil authority.5 They were employed to secure the payplace he observes, ” It is a worse and a of the royalist schemes. The “sealed baser thing that any man should appear knot” of the king’s friends in London in any part beyond sea under the charac-is mentioned as frequently as we find it ter of an agent from the rebels, and not in the Clarendon Papers at the same have his throat cut.” Id. iii. 144. time. 1 State Trials, 518. Thurloe, ii. 416. 4

Thurloe, iii. 871, &c. “Penruddock Some of the malecontent commonwealth-and Grove,” Ludlow says, “could not men were also eager to get rid of Crom-have been justly condemned, if they had well by assassination; Wildman, Saxby, as sure a foundation in what they deTitus. Syndercome’s story is well known; lared for, as what they declared against. he was connected in the conspiracy with But certainly it can never be esteemed those already mentioned. The famous by a wise man to be worth the scratch of pamphlet by Titus, Killing no Murder, a finger to remove a single person acting was printed in 1657. Clarendon State by an arbitrary power, in order to set Papers, 815, 324, 843. up another with the same unlimited s A very reprehensible passage occurs authority:” p. 518. This is a just and in Clarendon’s account of this transaction, manly sentiment. Woe to those who do vol. vii. p. 140; where he blames and not recognize it! But is it fair to say derides the insurgents for not putting that the royalists were contending to set chief-justice Rolle and others to death, upan unlimited authority? which would have been a detestable and 5 They were originally ten Lambert, useless murder. Desborough. Whalley, Goffe, Fleetwood, 8 Whitelock, 618, 620. Ludlow, 518 Skippon, Kelsey, Butler Worseley, and Thurloe, iii. 264, and through more than Berry. Thurloe, iii..1. Barkstead half the volume, passim. In the pre-was afterwards added. ” The majorceding volume we have abundant proofs generals,” says Ludlow, ” carried things how completely master Cromwell was with unheard-of insolence in their several VOL. II. 16

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242 ARBITRARY GOVERNMENT CHAP. X. ment of a tax of ten per cent., imposed by Cromwell’s arbitrary will on those who had ever sided with the king during the late wars, where their estates exceeded 1001. per annum. The majorgenerals, in their correspondence printed among Thurloe’s papers, display a rapacity and oppression beyond their master’s. They complain that the number of those exempted is too great; they press for harsher measures; they incline to the unfavorable construction in every doubtful case; they dwell on the growth of malignancy and the general disaffection.1 It was not indeed likely to be mitigated by this unparalleled tyranny. All illusion was now gone as to the pretended benefits of the civil war. It had ended in a despotism, compared to which all the illegal practices of former kings, all that had cost Charles his life and crown, appeared as dust in the balance. For what was shipmoney, a general burden, by the side of the present decimation of a single class, whose offence had long been expiated by a composition and effaced by an act of indemnity? or were the excessive punishments of the starchamber so odious as the capital executions inflicted without trial by peers, whenever it suited the usurper to erect his high court of justice? A sense of present evils not only excited a burning desire to live again under the ancient monarchy, but obliterated, especially in the new generation, that had no distinct remembrance of them, the apprehension of its former abuses.2 precincts, decimating to extremity whom with comfort appeal to God, and dare they pleased, and interrupted the pro-also to their own consciences, whether ceedings at law upon petitions of those this way of proceeding with them hath who pretended themselves aggrieved; been the matter of our choice, or that threatening such as would not yield a which we have sought an occasion for; ready submission to their orders with or whether, contrary to our own inclitransportation to Jamaica, or some other nations and the constant course of our plantation in the West Indies,” &c.

P. carriage towards them, which hath been 559. to oblige them by kindness to forsake 1 Thurloe, vol. iv. passim. The un-their former principles, which God hath popularity of Cromwell’s government ap-so often and so eminently bore witness pears strongly in the letters of this col-against, we have not been constrained lection. Duckinfield, a Cheshire gentle-and necessitated hereunto, and without man, writes,-” Charles Stuart hath the doing whereof we should have been 600 friends in these adjacent counties for wanting to our duty to God and these every one friend to you amongst them.” nations. Vol. iii. 294. ” That character of difference between 2 It may be fair towards Cromwell to them and the rest of the people which is give his own apology for the decimation now put upon them is occasioned by of the royalists, in a declaration pub-themselves, not by us. There is nothing lished 1655. “It is a trouble to us to they have more industriously labored in be still rubbing upon the old sore, dis-than this - to keep themselves distinobliging those whom we hope time and guished from the well-affected of this patience might make friends; but we can nation: to which end they have kept

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COMMONWEALTH. OF CROMWELL. 243 If this decimation of the royalists could pass for an act of severity towards a proscribed faction, in which His arbitrary the rest of the nation might fancy themselves not government.

interested, Cromwell did not fail to show that he designed to exert an equally despotic command over every man’s property. With the advice of the council, he had imposed, or as I conceive (for it is not clearly explained) continued, a duty on merchandise beyond the time limited by law. A Mr. George Cony having refused to pay this tax, it was enforced from him, on which he sued the collector. Cromwell sent his counsel, Maynard, Twisden, and Wyndham, to the Tower, who soon petitioned for liberty, and abandoned their client. Rolle, the chief-justice, when the cause came on, dared not give judgment against the protector; yet, not caring to decide in his favor, postponed the case till the next term, and meanwhile retired from the bench. Glyn, who succeeded him upon it, took care to have this business accommodated with Cony, who, at some loss of public reputation, withdrew his suit. Sir Peter Wentworth, having brought a similar action, was summoned before the council, and asked if he would give it up. “If you command me,” he replied to Cromwell, “I must submit;”

which the protector did, and the action was withdrawn.l Though it cannot be said that such an interference with the privileges of advocates or the integrity of judges was without precedents in the times of the Stuarts, yet it had never been done in so public or shameless a manner. Several other instances wherein the usurper diverted justice from its course, or violated the known securities of Englishmen, will be found in most general histories; not to dwell on that most flagrant of all, the erection of his high court of justice, by which Gerard and Vowel in 1654, Slingsby and their conversation apart; as if they interest from it, gives us ground to judge would avoid the very beginnings of that theyhave separated themselves from union, have bred and educated their the body of the nation; and therefore we children by the sequestered and ejected leave it to all mankind to judge whether clergy, and very much confined their we ought not to be timely jealous of marriages and alliances within their own that separation, and to proceed so against party, as if they meant to entail their them as they may be at the charge of quarrel, and prevent the means to recon-those remedies which are required against cile posterity, which with the great pains the dangers they have bred.” they take upon all occasions to lessen 1 Ludlow, 528. Clarendon, &c. Clarand suppress the esteem and honor of endon relates the same story, with addi. the English nation in all their actions tional circumstances of Cromwell’s auda. and undertakings abroad, striving withal cious contempt for the courts of justice, to make other nations distinguish their and for the very name of magna charta.

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244 PARLIAMENT OF 1656. CHAP. X. Hewit in 1658, were brought to the scaffold.1 I cannot therefore agree in the praises which have been showered upon Cromwell for the just administration of the laws under his dominion. That, between party and party, the ordinary civil rights of men were fairly dealt with, is no extraordinary praise; and it may be admitted that he filled the benches of justice with able lawyers, though not so considerable as those of the reign of Charles II.; but it is manifest that, so far as his own authority was concerned, no hereditary despot, proud in the crimes of a hundred ancestors, could more have spurned at every limitation than this soldier of a commonwealth.2 Amidst so general a hatred, trusting to the effect of an fesummons equally general terror, the protector ventured to anotherpar-summon a parliament in 1656. Besides the comlamxent. mon necessities for money, he had doubtless in his head that remarkable scheme which was developed during its session.8 Even the despotic influence of his majorgenerals, and the political annihilation of the most considerable body of the gentry, then laboring under the imputation of delinquency for their attachment to the late king, did not enable him to obtain a secure majority in the assembly; and he was driven to the audacious measure of excluding above ninety members, duly returned by their constituents, from taking their seats. Their colleagues wanted courage to resist this 1 State Trials, vi. Whiteloek advised the bench.

And it is to be remembered the protector to proceed according to law that Hale fell under the usurper’s dis. against Hewit and Slingsby; “but his pleasure for administering justice with an highness was too much in love with the impartiality that did not suit his governnew way.” P. 673. ment; and ceased to go the circuit be. I The late editor of the State Trials, v.

cause the criminal law was not allowed 985, has introduced a sort of episodical to have its course. dissertation on the administration of jus-s Thurloe writes to Montague (Carte’s tiee during the commonwealth, with the Letters, ii. 110) that he cannot give him ierw, as far as appears, of setting Crom-the reasons for calling this parliament, well in a favorable light. For this pur-except in cipher. He says in the same pose he quotes several passages of vague place of the committal of Ludlow, Vane.

commendation fronm different authors, and others, “There was a necessity not and among others one from Burke, writ-only for peace’ sake to do this, but to ten in haste, to serve an immediate pur-let the nation see those that govern are pose and evidently from a very superin good earnest, and intend not tc quit flcial recollection of our history. It has the government wholly into the hands of been said that Cromwell sought out men the parliament, as some would needs of character from the party most opposite make the world believe:” p. 112. His to his designs. The proof given is the ap-first direct allusion to the projected pointment of Hale to be a puisne judge. change is in writing to Henry Cromwell, But Hale had not been a royalist, that is, 9th Dec. 1666. Thurloe Papers, v. 194. an adherent of Charles, and had taken The influence exerted by his legates, the the engagement as well as the covenant. majorgenerals, appears in Thurloe, v. It was no great effort of virtue to place 299, et post. But they complained of the an eminent lawyer and worthy man on elections. Id.

802, 841, 871.

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COMMONWEALTH. CROMWELL’S DESIGN TO BE KING. 245 violation of all privilege; and, after referring them to the council for approbation, resolved to proceed with public business. The excluded members, consisting partly of the republican, partly of the presbyterian factions, published a remonstrance in a very high strain, but obtained no redress.l Cromwell, like so many other usurpers, felt his position too precarious, or his vanity ungratified, without Desgn to the name which mankind have agreed to worship. take the He had, as evidently appears from the conversa-crow tions recorded by Whitelock, long since aspired to this titular, as well as to the real, preeminence; and the banished king’s friends had contemplated the probability of his obtaining it with dismay.2

Affectionate towards his family, he wished to assure the stability of his son’s succession, and perhaps to please the vanity of his daughters. It was indeed a very reasonable object with one who had already advanced so far. His assumption of the crown was desirable to many different classes; to the lawyers, who, besides their regard for the established constitution, knew that an ancient statute would protect those who served a de facto king in case of a restoration of the exiled family; to the nobility, who perceived that their legislative right must immediately revive; to the clergy, who judged the regular ministry more likely to be secure under a monarchy; to the people, who hoped for any settlement that would put an end to perpetual changes; to all of every rank and profession who dreaded the continuance of military despotism, and demanded only the just rights and privileges of their country. A king of 1 Whitelock, 660.

Parl. Hist. 1486. On of good conversation, that the council, in a letter to the speaker from the members pursuance of their duty, and according to who had been refused admittance at the the trust reposed in them, have examined! door of the lobby, Sept. 18, the house the said returns, and have not refused to ordered the clerk of the commonwealth approve any who have appeared to them to attend next day with all the inden-to be persons of integrity, fearing God, tures. The deputy clerk came accord-and of good conversation; and those who ingly, with an excuse for his principal, are not approved, his highness hath given and brought the indentures; but on being order to some persons to take care that asked why the names of certain members they do not come into the house. Upon were not returned to the house, answered, this answer, an adjournment was prothat he had no certificate of approbation posed, but lost by 115 to 80: and it being for them. The house on this sent to in-moved that the persons who have been quire of the council why these members returned from the several counties, eities, had not been approved. They returned and boroughs to serve in this parliament for answer, that, whereas it is ordained and have not been approved, be referred by a clause in the instrument of govern-to the council for approbation, and that ment that the persons who shall be the house do proceed with the great affairs elected to serve in parliament shall be of the nation, the question was carxied by such and no other than such as are per-125 to 29. Journals, Sept. 22. sons of known integrity, fearing God, and 2 Olar. State Papers, iii. 201, &o.

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246 CROMWELL’S DESIGN TO BE KING. CAP. X. England could succeed only to a bounded prerogative, and must govern by the known laws; a protector, as the nation had well felt, with less nominal authority, had all the sword could confer. And, though there might be little chance that Oliver would abate one jot of a despotism for which not the times of the Tudors could furnish a precedent, yet his life was far worn, and under a successor it was to be expected that future parliaments might assert again all those liberties for which they had contended against Charles.1 A few of the royalists might perhaps fancy that the restoration of the royal title would lead to that of the lawful heir; but a greater number were content to abandon a nearly desperate cause, if they could but see the more valuable object of their concern, the form itself of polity, reestablished.2 There can be, as it appears to me, little room for doubt, that, if Cromwell had overcome the resistance of his generals, he would have transmitted the sceptre to his descendants with the acquiescence and tacit approbation of the kingdom. Had we been living ever since under the rule of his dynasty, what tone would our historians have taken as to his character and that of the house of Stuart? The scheme, however, of founding a new royal line failed I The whole conference that took place ment. Cromwell’s indistinct and evasive at Whitehall, between Cromwell and the style in his share of this debate betrays committee of parliament, on this subject, the secret inclinations of his heart. He was published by authority, and may be kept his ultimate intentions, however, read in the Somers Tracts, vi. 349. It is very secret; for Thurloe professes his very interesting. The lawyers did not ignorance of them, even in writing to hesitate to support the proposition, on Henry Cromwell, vol. vi. p. 219, et post. the ground of the more definite and legal This correspondence shows that the prucharacter of a king’s authority. The dent secretary was uneasy at the posture “king’s prerogative,” says Glyn, “is of affairs, and the manifest dissatisfaction known by law; he (king Charles) did ex-of Fleetwood and Desborough, which had patiate beyond the duty; that’s the evil a dangerous influence on others less of the man: but in Westminster-hall the bound to the present family: yet he had king’s prerogative was under the courts set his heart on this mode of settlement, of justice, and is bounded as well as any and was much disappointed at his masacre of land, or anything a man hath, as ter’s ultimate refusal. much as any controversy between party 2 Clarendon’s Hist. vii. 194. It appears and party; and therefore, the office being by Clarendon’s private letters that he had lawful in its nature, known to the nation, expected to see Cromwell assume the certain in itself, and confined and regu-title of king from the year 1654. Vol. lated by the law, and the other office not iii. pp. 201, 228, 224. If we may trust being so, that was a great ground of the what is here called an intercepted letter reason why the parliament did so much (p. 328), Mazarin had told Cromwell that insist upon this office and title, not as France would enter into a strict league circumstantial, but as essential.” P. 359. with him, if he could settle himself in See also what Lenthall says, p. 856, the throne, and make it hereditary; to against the indefiniteness of the protec-which he answered that he designed tor’s authority. shortly to take the crown, restore the Those passages were evidently implied two houses, and govern by the ancient censures of the late course of govern-laws. But this may be apocryphal.

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COMMONWEALTH. THE PROJECT FAILS. 247 of accomplishment, as is well known, through his own caution, which deterred him from encountering the decided oppo sition of his army. Some of his contemporaries The project seem to have deemed this abandonment, or more fails. properly suspension, of so splendid a design rather derogatory to his firmness.1 But few men were better judges than Cromwell of what might be achieved by daring. It is certainly not impossible that, by arresting Lambert, Whalley, and some other generals, he might have crushed for the moment any tendency to open resistance. But the experiment would have been infinitely hazardous. He had gone too far in the path of violence to recover the high road of law by any short cut. King or protector, he must have-intimidated every parliament, or sunk under its encroachments. A newmodelled army might have served his turn; but there would have been great difficulties in its formation. It had from the beginning been the misfortune of his government that it rested on a basis too narrow for its safety. For two years he had reigned with no support but the independent sectaries and the army. The army or its commanders becoming odious to the people, he had sacrificed them to the hope of popularity, by abolishing the civil prefectures of the majorgenerals,2 and permitting a bill for again decimating the royalists to be thrown out of the house.8 Their disgust 1 Clar. vii. 203. him by their interest in the army, the 2 Ludlow, p. 581. The majorgenerals, more of force upholds his highness living, or at least many of them, joined the op-the greater when he is dead will be the position to Cromwell’s royalty. Id. p. hopes and advantages for such a one to 686. Clar. State Papers, 332. effect his aim who desires to succeed him. 3 This appears from the following pas-Lambert is much for decimations.” Thursage in a curious letter of Mr. Vincent loe, vi. 20. He writes again,” I am conGookin to Henry Cromlvell, 27th Jan. fident it is judged by some that the in1657. “Tomorrow the bill for decimat-terest of the godly cannot be preserved ing the cavaliers comes again into debate. but by the dissolution of this, if not all It is debated with much heat by the parliaments; and their endeavors in it majorgenerals, and as hotly almost by have been plainly discovered to the party the anti-decimators. I believe the bill most concerned to know them; which will be thrown out of the house. In my will, I believe, suddenly occasion a reducopinion those that speak against the bill ing of the government to kingship, to have much to say in point of moral jus-which his highness is not averse.

Piertice and prudence; but that which makes point and St. John have been often, but me fear the passing of the bill is, that secretly, at Whitehall, I know, to advise thereby his highness’ government will be thereof.” P. 37. Thurloe again, to the more founded in force, and more removed same Henry Cromwell, on February 3, from that natural foundation which the that the decimation bill was thrown out people in parliament are desirous to give by a majority of forty: - ” Some gentlehim; supposing that he will become more men do think themselves much trampled theirs than now he is, and will in time upon by this vote, and are extremely senfind the safety and peace of the nation to sible thereof; and the truth is, it hath be as well maintained by the laws of the wrought such a heat in the house, that I land as by the sword. And truly, sir, if fear little will be done for the future.” any others have pretensions to succeed Id. p. 38. No such bill appears, eo nom

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248 CROMWELL’S AUTHORITY CHAP. X. and resentment, excited by an artful intriguer, Lambert, who aspired at least to the succession of the protectorship, found scope in the new project of monarchy, naturally obnoxious to the prejudices of true fanatics, who still fancied themselves to have contended for a republican liberty. We find that even Fleetwood, allied by marriage to Cromwell, and not involved in the discontent of the majorgenerals, in all the sincerity of his clouded understanding, revolted from the invidious title, and would have retired from service had it been assumed. There seems therefore reason to think that Cromwell’s refusal of the crown was an inevitable mortification. But he undoubtedly did not lose sight of the object for the short remainder of his life.1 The fundamental charter of the English commonwealth, under the protectorship of Cromwell, had been ity as pro-the instrument of government, drawn up by the ector ise council of officers in December, 1653, and approved with modifications by the parliament of the next year. It was now changed to the ” Petition and Advice,” tendered to him by the present parliament in May, 1657, which made very essential innovations in the frame of polity.

Though he bore, as formerly, the name of lord-pro tector, we may say, speaking according to theoretical classification, and without reference to his actual exercise of power, which was nearly the same as before, that the English government in the first period should be ranged in the order of republics, though with a chief magistrate at its head; but that from 1657 it became substantially a monarchy, and ought to be placed in that class, notwithstanding the differ, ence in the style of its sovereign. The Petition and Advice ine, in the Journals. But a bill for reg-of the commonwealth’s men, and fearing ulating the militia forces was thrown a mutiny and defection of a great part of out, Jan. 29, by 124 to 88, col.

Cromwell the army, in case he should assume that (Oliver’s cousin) being a teller for the title and office, his mind changed, and majority. Probably there was some clause many of the officers of the army gave out in this renewing the decimation of the great threatenings against him in ease he royalists. should do it; he therefore thought it best 1 Whitelock, who was consulted by to attend some better season and opporCromwell on this business, and took an tunity in this business, and refused it at active part as one of the committee of this timewith great seemingearnestness.”

conference appointed by the house of P. 656. The chief advisers with Cromcommons, intimates that the project was well on this occasion, besides Whitelock, not really laid aside. ” He was satisfied were lord Broghill, Pierpoint, ThurIoe, in his private judgment that it was fit and sir Charles Wolseley. Many passafor him to take upon him the title of ges in Thurloe, vol. vii., show that Cromking, and matters were prepared in order well preserved to the last his views on thereunto; but afterwards by solicitation royalty.

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COMMONWEALTH. AUGMENTED. 249 had been compiled with a constant respect to that article which conferred the royal dignity on the protector;1 and when this was withdrawn at his request, the rest of the instrument was preserved with all its implied attributions of sovereignty. The style is that of subjects addressing a monarch; the powers it bestows, the privileges it claims, are supposed, according to the expressions employed, the one to be already his own, the other to emanate from his will. The necessity of his consent to laws, though nowhere mentioned, seems to have been taken for granted. An unlimited power of appointing a successor, unknown even to constitutional kingdoms, was vested in the protector. He was inaugurated with solemnities applicable to monarchs; and what of itself is a sufficient test of the monarchical and republican species of government, an oath of allegiance was taken by every member of parliament to the protector singly, without any mention of the commonwealth.2 It is surely, therefore, no paradox to assert that Oliver Cromwell was de facto sovereign of England during the interval from June, 1657, to his death in September, 1658. The zealous opponents of royalty could not be insensible that they had seen it revive in everything except a title, which was not likely to remain long behind.8 It was too late, however, to oppose the first magistrate’s personal authority. But there remained one important point of contention, which the new constitution had not fully settled. It was therein provided that the parliament should consist of two 1

Whitelock, 657. It had been agreed, longing; and to exercise the same acin discussing the Petition and Advice in cording to the laws of these nations.” parliament, to postpone the first article On Cromwell’s first demurring to the requesting the protector to assume the proposal, it was resolved to adhere to the title of king, till the rest of the charter Petition and Advice by the small major(to use a modern but not inapplicable ity of 78 to 65. This was perhaps a suffiword) had bren gone through. One of cientwarning that he should not proceed. the subsequent articles, fixing the rev-2 Journals, 21st June. This oath, which enue at 1,800,0001. per annum, provides effectually declared the parliament to be that no part thereof should be raised by the protector’s subjects, was only earried a land-tax, ” and this not to be altered by 63 to 55. Lambert refused it, and was without the consent of the three estates dismissed the army in consequence, with in parliament.” A division took place, a pension of 20001. per annum, instead of in consequence, no doubt, of this insidi-his pay, 101. a-day: so well did they eater ous expression, which was preserved by for themselves. Ludlow, 593. Broderick 97 to 50. Journals, 13th March. The wrote to Hyde, June 30 1657, that there first article was carried after much de-was a general tranquillity in England, bate, on March 24, by 12 to 62. It stood all parties seeming satisfied with the thus: ” Resolved, That your highness compromise; Fleetwood and Desborough will be pleased to assume the name, style, more absolutely Cromwell’s friends than dignity, and office of king of England, before, and Lambert very silent. Olar. Scotland, and Ireland, and the respective State Papers, 849. dominions and territories thereunto be-8 Thurloe, vi. 310.

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250 NEW HOUSE OF LORDS. CAP. X. houses; namely, the commons, and what they always termed, with an awkward generality, the other house. This was to consist of not more than seventy, nor less than forty persons, to be nominated by the protector, and, as it stood at first, to be approved by the commons. But, before the close of the session, the court party prevailed so far as to procure the rea peal of this last condition; and Cromwell accordforming a ingly issued writs of summons to persons of vanew house rious parties, a few of the ancient peers, a few of his adversaries, whom he hoped to gain over, or at least to exclude from the commons, and of course a majority of his steady adherents. To all these he gave the title of lords, and in the next session their assembly denominated itself the lords’ house.2 This measure encountered considerable difficulty. The republican party, almost as much attached to that vote which had declared the house of lords useless as to that which had abolished the monarchy, and well aware of the intimate connection between the two, resisted the assumption of this aristocratic title, instead of that of the other house, which the Petition and Advice had sanctioned. The real peers feared to compromise their hereditary right by sitting in an assembly where the tenure was only during life; and disdained some of their colleagues, such as Pride and Hewson, low-born and insolent men, whom Cromwell had rather injudiciously bribed with this new nobility; though, with these few exceptions, his house of lords was respectably composed. Hence, in the short session of January, 1658, wherein the late excluded members were permitted to take their seats, so many difficulties were made about acknowledging the lords’ house by that denomination, that the protector hastily and angrily dissolved the parliament.8 It is a singular part of Cromwell’s system of policy that he would neither reign with parliaments nor without them; impatient of an opposition which he was sure to experience, he still never seems to have meditated the attainment of a 1

Compare Journals, 11th March with mentioned by Thurloe, vi. 107, &c., and 24th June. Ludlow, 697. Not one of the true peers, 2 Whitelock, 666. They were to have except lord Eure, took his seat in this a judicial power much like that of the house; and Haslerig, who had been nomreal house.of lords.

Journals, March. inated merely to weaken his influence, 8 Whitelock; Parl.

Hist. The former chose to retain his place in the commons. says this was done against his advice. The list of these pretended lords in ThurThese debates about the other house are loe, vi 668, is not quite the same as that to be traced in the Journals; and are in Whitelock.

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COMMONWEALTH. DEATH OF CROMWELL. 251 naked and avowed despotism. This was probably due to his observation of the ruinous consequences that Charles had brought on himself by that course, and his knowledge of the temper of the English, never content without the exterior forms of liberty, as well as to the suggestions of counsellors who were not destitute of concern for the laws. He had also his great design yet to accomplish, which could only be safely done under the sanction of a parliament. A very short time, accordingly, before his death, we find that he had not only resolved to meet once more the representatives of the nation, but was tampering with several of the leading officers to obtain their consent to an hereditary succession. The majority however of a council of nine, to whom he referred this suggestion, would only consent that the protector for the time being should have the power of nominating his successor; a vain attempt to escape from that regal form of government which they had been taught to abhor.’ But a sudden illness, of a nature seldom fatal except to a constitution already shattered by fatigue and anxiety, rendered abortive all these projects of Cromwell’s ambition. He left a fame behind him proportioned to his extraordinary fortunes and the great qualities which sus-His death tained them; still more perhaps the admiration of and charstrangers than of his country, because that senti-acter ment was less alloyed by hatred, which seeks to extenuate the glory that irritates it.

The nation itself forgave much to one who had brought back the renown of her ancient story, the traditions of Elizabeth’s age, after the ignominious reigns of her successors. This contrast with James and Charles in their foreign policy gave additional lustre to the era of the 1 This junto of nine debated how they major part voted that succession in the might be secure against the cavaliers, government was indifferent whether it One scheme was an oath of abjuration; were by election or hereditary; but afterbut this it was thought they would all wards some would needs add that it was take: another was to lay a heavy tax on desirable to have it continued elective; them; ” a moiety of their estates was that is, that the chief magistrate should spoken of; but this, I suppose, will not always name his successor, and that of go down with all the nine, and least of hereditary avoided; and I fear the word all will it be swallowed by the parlia-‘desirable’ will be made’necessary,’ if ment, who will not be persuaded to ever it come upon the trial. His highpunish both nocent and innocent with-ness, finding he can have no advice from out distinction.” 22d June: Thurloe, those he most expected it from, saith he vol. vii. p. 198. And again, p. 269: ” I will take his own resolutions, and that believe we are out of danger of our he can no longer satisfy himself to sit junto, and I think also of ever having still, and make himself guilty of the loss such another. As I take it, the report of all the honest party and of the nation was made to his highness upon Thurs-itself.” day. After much consideration the

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252 HIS CHARACTER. CHAr. X. protectorate. There could not but be a sense of national pride to see an Englishman, but yesterday raised above the many, without one drop of blood-in his veins which the princes of the earth could challenge as their own, receive the homage of those who acknowledge no right to power, and hardly any title to respect, except that of prescription. The sluggish pride of the court of Spain, the mean-spirited cunning of Mazarin, the irregular imagination of Christina, sought with emulous ardor the friendship of our usurper.’ He had the advantage of reaping the harvest which he had not sown, by an honorable treaty with Holland, the fruit of victories achieved under the parliament.

But he still employed the great energies of Blake in the service for which he was so eminently fitted; and it is just to say that the maritime glory of England may first be traced from the era of the’ commonwealth in a track of continuous light. The oppressed protestants in catholic kingdoms, disgusted at the lukewarmness and half-apostasy of the Stuarts, looked up to him as their patron and mediator.2 Courted by the two rival monarchies of Europe, he seemed to threaten both with his hostility; and when he declared against Spain, and attacked her West India possessions, with little pretence certainly of justice, but not by any means, as I conceive, with the impolicy sometimes charged against him, so auspicious was his star that the very failure and disappointment of that expedition obtained a more advantageous possession for England than all the triumphs of her former kings. Notwithstanding this external splendor, which has deceived some of our own and most foreign writers, it is evident that 1 Harris, p.

348, has collected some ever, that he was very far from having curious instances of the servility of any thought to draw them from their crowned heads to Cromwell. obedience, as had been imputed to him. 2 See Clarendon, vii. 297. He saved and that he would arm against them if Nismes from military execution on ac-they should offer, frivolously and withcount of a riot, wherein the Huguenots out a cause, to disturb the peace of seem to have been much to blame. In France. Thurloe, iii. 6. In fact, the tha treaty between England and France, French protestants were in the habit of 1654, the French, in agreeing to the writing to Thurloe, as this collection tessecret article about the exclusion of the tifles, whenever they thought themselves royalists, endeavored to make it recipro-injured, which happened frequently cal, that the commissioners of rebels in enough Cromwell’s noble zeal in beFrance should not be admitted in Eng-half of the Vaudois is well known. See land. This did not seem very outrageous this volume of Thurloe, p. 412, &c. -but Cromwell objected that the French Mazarin and the catholic powers in genprotestants would be thus excluded from eral endeavored to lie down that masImploring the assistance of England if sacre; but the usurper had too much they were persecuted; protesting, how-protestant spirit to believe tbem. Id. 686.

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COMMONWEALTH. CROMWELL AND NAPOLEON. 258 the submission of the people to Cromwell was far from peaceable or voluntary. His strong and skilful grasp kept down a nation of enemies that must naturally, to judge from their numbers and inveteracy, have overwhelmed him. It required a dexterous management to play with the army, and without the army he could not have existed as sovereign for a day. Yet it seems improbable that, had Cromwell lived, any insurrection or conspiracy, setting aside assassination, could have overthrown a possession so fenced by systematic vigilance, by experienced caution, by the respect and terror that belonged to his name.

The royalist and republican intrigues had gone on for several years without intermission; but every part of their designs was open to him; and it appears that there was not courage or rather temerity sufficient to make any open demonstration of so prevalent a disaffection.1 The most superficial observers cannot have overlooked the general resemblances in the fortunes and character of Cromwell, and of him who, more recently and upon an ampler theatre, has struck nations with wonder and awe. But the parallel may be traced more closely than perhaps has hitherto been remarked. Both raised to power by the only merit which a revolution leaves uncontroverted and untarnished, that of military achievements, in that reflux of public sentiment when the fervid enthusiasm of democracy gives place to disgust at its excesses and a desire of firm government. The means of greatness the same to both -the extinction of a representative assembly, once national, but already mutilated by violence, and sunk by its submission to that illegal force into general contempt. In military science or the renown of their exploits we cannot certainly rank Cromwell by the side of him for whose genius and ambition all Europe seemed the appointed quarry; but it may be said that the former’s exploits were as much above the level of his contemporaries, and more the fruits of an original uneducated capacity. In civil government there can be no adequate parallel between one who had sucked only the dregs of a besotted fanaticism, and one to whom the stores of reason and philosophy were open.

But it must here be added that Cromwell, far unlike his antitype, never showed any signs of a legislative mind, or any desire to fix his renown on that noblest basis, the amelioration of social institutions. Both 1

Ludlow, 607; Thurloe, i. and ii. passim.

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254 CROMWELL AND NAPOLEON. CHAP. X. were eminent masters of human nature, and played with inferior capacities in all the security of powerful minds.

Though both, coming at the conclusion of a struggle for liberty, trampled upon her claims, and sometimes spoke disdainfully of her name, each knew how to associate the interests of those who had contended for her with his own ascenden’cy, and made himself the representative of a victorious revolution. Those who had too much philosophy or zeal for freedom to give way to popular admiration for these illustrious usurpers, were yet amused with the adulation that lawful princes showered on them, more gratuitously in one instance, with servile terror in the other. Both, too, repaid in some measure this homage of the pretended great by turning their ambition towards those honors and titles which they knew to be so little connected with high desert. A fallen race of monarchs, which had made way for the greatness of each, cherished hopes of restoration by their power, till each, by an inexpiable act of blood, manifested his determination to make no compromise with that line. Both possessed a certain coarse good-nature and affability that covered the want of conscience, honor, and humanity; quick in passion, but not vindictive, and averse to unnecessary crimes.

Their fortunes in the conclusion of life were indeed very different: one forfeited the affections of his people, which the other, in the character at least of their master, had never possessed; one furnished a moral to Europe by the continuance of his success, the other by the prodigiousness of his fall. A fresh resemblance arose afterwards, when the restoration of those royal families, whom their ascendant had kept under, revived ancient animosities, and excited new ones; those who from love of democratical liberty had borne the most deadly hatred to the apostates who had betrayed it, recovering some affection to their memory, out of aversion to a common enemy. Our English republicans have, with some exceptions, displayed a sympathy for the name of Cromwell; and I need not observe how remarkably this holds good in the case of his mighty parallel.1 1 Mrs. Macaulay, who had nothing ters, such as Neal, and in some measure of compromise or conciliation in her ter-Harris, were particularly open to this per, and breathed the entire spirit of reproach. He long continued (perhaps Vane and Ludlow, makes some vigorous the present tense is more appropriate) to and just animadversions on the favor be revered by the independents. One shown to Cromwell by some professors of who well knew the manners he paints a regard for liberty. The dissenting wri-has described the secret idolatry of that

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COMMONWEALTH. RICHARD CROMWELL PROTECTOR. 255 The death of a great man, even in the most regular course of affairs, seems always to create a sort of pause Richard, his in the movement of society; it is always a prob-son, suolem to be solved only by experiment, whether the eeds him.

mechanism of government may not be disordered by the shock, or have been deprived of some of its moving powers. But what change could be so great as that from Oliver Cromwell to his son! from one beneath the terror of whose name a nation had cowered and foreign princes grown pale, one trained in twenty eventful years of revolution, the first of his age in the field or in council, to a young man fresh from a country life, uneducated, unused to business, as little a statesman as a soldier, and endowed by nature with capacities by no means above the common. It seems to have been a mistake in Oliver, that with the projects he had long formed in his eldest son’s favor, he should have taken so little pains to fashion his mind and manners for the exercise of sovereign power, while he had placed the second in a very eminent and arduous station; or that, if he despaired of Richard’s capacity, he should have trusted him to encounter those perils of disaffection and conspiracy which it had required all his own vigilance to avert. But, whatever might be his plans, the sudden illness which carried him from the world left no time for completing them. The Petition and Advice had simply empowered him to appoint a successor, without prescribing the mode. It appeared consonant to law and reason that so important a trust should be executed in a notorious manner, and by a written instrument; or, if a verbal nomination might seem sufficient, it was at least to be expected that this should be authenticated by solemn and indisputable testisect to their hero-saint.

See Crabbe’s of 700,0001. in stores, and the army in tale of the Frank Courtship. advance of their pay (subject, however, Slingsly Bethell, an exception perhaps to a debt of near 500,0001.), the customs to the general politics of this sect, pub-and excise bringing in nearly a million lished, in 1667, a tract, entitled The annually, left a debt which, in Richard’s World’s Mistake in Oliver Cromwell, parliament, was given in at 1.900,0001., with the purpose of decrying his policy though he believes this to have been purand depreciating his genius. Harleian posely exaggerated in order to procure Miscellany, i. 280. But he who goes supplies. I cannot say how far these about to prove the world mistaken in its sums are correct; but it is to be kept in estimate of a public character has always mind that one great resource of the para difficult cause to maintain. Bethell, liament, confiscation, sequestration, comlike Mrs. Macaulay and others, labors position, could not be repeated forever.

to set up the Rump parliament against Neither of these governments, it will be the soldier who dispersed them; and found on inquiry, were economical, osasserts that Cromwell, having found pecially in respect to the emoluments of 5.000001. in ready money, with the value those concerned in them.

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256 HIS SUPPORTERS. CaP. X. mony. No proof, however, was ever given of Richard’s appointment by his father, except a recital in the proclamation of the privy council, which, whether well founded or otherwise, did not carry conviction to the minds of the people; and this, even if we call it but an informality, aggravated the numerous legal and natural deficiencies of his title to the government.1 This very difference, however, in the personal qualificaIs supported tions of the father and the son, procured the latter bysomepru-some friends whom the former had never been dent men, able to gain. Many of the presbyterian party began to see the finger of God, as they called it, in his peaceable accession, and to think they owed subjection to one who came in neither by regicide, nor hypocrisy, nor violence.2 Some cool-headed and sincere friends of liberty entertained similar opinions. Pierpoint, one of the wisest men in England, who had stood aloof from the protector’s government till the scheme of restoring monarchy came into discussion, had great hopes, as a writer of high authority informs us, of settling the nation in the enjoyment of its liberties under the young man; who was “so flexible,” says that writer, “to good counsels, that there was nothing desirable in a prince which might not have been hoped in him, but a great spirit and a just title; the first of which sometimes doth more hurt than good in a sovereign; the latter would have been supplied by the people’s deserved approbation.”

Pierpoint believed that the restoration of the ancient family could not be effected without the ruin of the people’s liberty, and of all who had been its champions; so that no royalist, he thought, who had any regard to his country, would attempt it: while this establishment of monarchy in Richard’s person might reconcile that party, and compose all differences among men 1 Whitelock, 674; Ludlow, 611, 624. dered it that the council and army hath Lord Fauconberg writes in cipher to received him with all manner of affecHenry Cromwell, on August 80, that tion. He is this day proclaimed, and ” Thurloe has seemed resolved to press hitherto there seems great face of peace; him in his intervals to such a nomination the Lord continue it.” Thurloe State (of a successor); but whether out of ap-Papers, vii. 365, 372. Lord Fauconberg prehensions to displease him if recover-afterwards confirms the fact of Riching, or others hereafter, if it should not ard’s nomination. P. 375; and see p. succeed, he has not yet done it, nor do I 415. believe will.” Thurloe, however, an-2 ” Many sober men that called his nounces on Sept. 4, that ” his highness father no better than a traitorous hypowas pleased before his death to declare crite, did begin to think that they owed my lord Richard successor. He did it him R. C. ] subjection,” &c. Baxter, on Monday; and the Lord hath so or-100.

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COMMONWEALTH. COALITION AGAINST RICHARD. 257 of weight and zeal for the public good.1 He acted accordingly on those principles; and became, as well as his friend St. John, who had been discountenanced by Oliver, a steady supporter of the young protector’s administration. These two, with Thurloe, Whitelock, lord Broghill, and a very few more, formed a small phalanx of experienced counsellors around his unstable throne. And I must confess that their course of policy in sustaining Richard’s government appears to me the most judicious that, in the actual circumstances, could have been adopted. Pregnant as the restoration of the exiled family was with incalculable dangers, the English monarchy would have revived with less lustre in the eyes of the vulgar, but with more security for peace and freedom, in the line of Cromwell. Time would have worn away the stains of ignoble birth and criminal usurpation; and the young man, whose misfortune has subjected him to rather an exaggerated charge of gross incapacity, would probably have reigned as well as most of those who are born in the purple.2 But this termination was defeated by the combination of some who knew not what they wished, and of some but opposed who wished what they could never attain. The by acoaligeneral officers who had been well content to tion make Cromwell the first of themselves, or greater than themselves by their own creation, had never forgiven his manifest design to reign over them as one of a superior order, and owing nothing to their pleasure. They had begun to cabal during his last illness. Though they did not oppose Richard’s succession, they continued to hold meetings, not quite public, but exciting intense alarm in his council. As if disdaining the command of a clownish boy, they proposed that the station of lord-general should be separated from that of protector, with the power over all commissions in the army, and conferred on Fleetwood; who, though his brother-in-law, was a certain instrument in their hands. The vain ambitious Lambert, aspiring, on the credit of some military reputation, to wield the sceptre of Cromwell, influenced this junto; while the commonwealth’s party, some of whom were, or had been, in the army, drew over several of these ignorant 1 Hutchinson, 843. She does not name commended in the correspondence of Pierpoint, but I have little doubt that he Thurloe (pp. 491, 497); and in fact he is meant. did nothing amiss during his short ad 2 Richard’s conduct is more than once ministration.

VOL. II. 17

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258 MEETING OF PARLIAMENT. CHAP. X. and fanatical soldiers. Thurloe describes the posture of affairs in Scptember and October, while all Europe was admiring the peaceable transmission of Oliver’s power, as most alarming; and it may almost be said that Richard had already fallen when he was proclaimed the lord protector of England.1 It was nec’ssary to summon a parliament on the usual calls a score of obtaining money. Lord Broghill had parliament, advised this measure immediately on Oliver’s death,2 and perhaps the delay might be rather prejudicial to the new establishment. But some of the council feared a parliament almost as much as they did the army. They called one, however, to meet Jan. 27, 1659, issuing writs in the ordinary manner to all boroughs which had been accustomed to send members, and consequently abandoning the reformed model of Cromwell. This Ludlow attributes to their expectation of greater influence among the small boroughs; but it may possibly be ascribed still more to a desire of returning by little and little to the ancient constitution, by eradicating the revolutionary innovations. The new parliament consisted of courtiers, as the Cromwell party were always denominated, of presbyterians, among whom some of cavalier principles crept in, and of republicans; the two latter nearly balancing, with their united weight, the ministerial majority.8 They began with an oath of allegiance to the protector, as presented by the late parliament, which, as usual in such cases, his enemies generally took without I Thurloe, vii.

320, et post, passim, in royalist, and might hope to bring over letters both from himself and lord Fau-his brother-in-law. conberg. Thus, immediately on Richard’s 2 Thurloe, vii. 678. accession, the former writes to Henry 8 Lord Fauconberg says, “The comCromwell, ” It hath pleased God hitherto monwealth men in the parliament werq to give his highness your brother a very very numerous, and beyond measure easy and peaceable entrance upon his bold, but more than doubly overbalanced government.

There is not a. dog that by the sober party; so that, though this wags his tongue, so grer t a calm we are make their result slow, we see no great in…. But I must needi acquaint your cause as yet to fear.” P. 612. And Dr. excellency that there are some secret Barwick, a correspondent of lord Clarmurmurings in the army, as if his high-endon, tells him the republicans were the ness were not general cK the army as his minority, but all speakers, zealous and father was,” &c. P. 374. Here was the diligent-it was likely to end in a titusecret: the officers did not like to fall lar protector without militia or negative back under the civil power, by obeying voice. P. 615. one who was not a soldier. This soon According to a letter from Allen Bro. displayed itself openly; and lord Fau-derick to Hyde (Clar. St. Pap. iii. 443), conberg thought the game was over as there were 47 republicans, from 100 to early as Sept. 28. P.

413. It is to be 140 neuters or moderates (including observed that Fauconberg was secretly a many royalists) and 170 court-lawyers or officers.

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COMMONWEALTH. RICHARD CROMWELL’S PARLIAMENT. 259 scruple.1 But upon a bill being offered for the recognition of Richard as the undoubted lord protector and chief magistrate of the commonwealth, they made a stand against the word recognize, which was carried with difficulty, and caused him the mortification of throwing out the epithet undoubted.2 They subsequently discussed his negative voice in passing bills, which had been purposely slurred over in the Petition and Advice; but now everything was disputed. The thorny question as to the powers and privileges of the other house came next into debate. It was carried by 177 to 113 to transact business with them. To this resolution an explanation was added, that it was not thereby intended to exclude such peers as had been faithful to the parliament from their privilege of being duly summoned to be members of that house. The court supporting this not impolitic, but logically absurd, proviso, which confounded the ancient and moder systems of government, carried it by the small majority of 195 to 188.8 They were stronger in rejecting an important motion, to make the approbation of the commons a preliminary to their transacting business with the persons now sitting in the other house as a house of parliament, by 183 voices to 146. But the opposition succeeded in inserting the words “during the present parliament,” which left the matter still unsettled.4 The sitting of the Scotch and Irish members was also unsuccessfully opposed. Upon the whole, the court party, notwithstanding this coalition of very heterogeneous interests against them, were sufficiently powerful to disappoint the hopes which the royalist intriguers had entertained. A strong body of lawyers, led by Maynard, adhered 1 Ludlow tells us that he contrived everything else that might tend to settle to sit in the house without taking the the government. Clar. State Papers, 411. lath, and that some others did the same. This of course was their true game. P. 619. It is said that, Richard pressing the 2 Whitelock, Parliam. History, 1680, earl of Northumberland to sit in the L641. other house, he declined, urging that, 3 The numbers are differently, but, I when the government was such as his suppose, erroneously stated in Thurloe, predecessors had served under, he would vii. 640. It is said, in a pamphlet of the serve him with his life and fortune. Id. rime, that this clause was introduced to 433. please the cavaliers, who acted with the 4 Parl. Hist. Journals, 27 Jan.; 14, court; Somers Tracts, vi. 482. Ludlow 18 Feb.; 1, 8, 21, 28, 28 March. The seems also to think that these parties names of the tellers in these divisions were united in this parliament (p. 629); show the connections of leading individbut this seems not very probable, and is uals: we find indifferently presbyterian contrary to some things we know. Clarand republican names for the minority, endon had advised that the royalists as Fairfax, Lambert, Nevll, Haslerlg, should try to get into parliament, and Townshend, Booth. there to oppose all raising of money, and

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260 WALLINGFORD HOUSE CABAL. CHAP. X to the government, which was supported also on some occasions by a part of the presbyterian interest, or, as then called, the moderate party; and Richard would probably have conThe army cluded the session with no loss of power, if either overthrow he or his parliament could have withstood the both. both more formidable cabal of Wallingford House. This knot of officers, Fleetwood, Desborough, Berry, Sydenham, being the names most known among them, formed a coalition with the republican faction, who despaired of any success in parliament.

The dissolution of that assembly was the main article of this league.

Alarmed at the notorious caballing of the officers, the commons voted that, during the sitting of the parliament, there should be no general council, or meeting of the officers of the army, without leave of the protector and of both houses.1 Such a vote could only accel1 There seems reason to believe that think to have seen the day when freeRichard would have met with more sup-born Englishmen should be sold for slaves port both in the house and among the by such an arbitrary government. There nation, if he had not been oppressed by were, it seems, not less than fifty gentlethe odium of some of his father’s coun-men sold for slaves at Barbadoes. Clarensellors. A general indignation was felt don State Papers, p. 447. The royalists at those who had condemned men to had planned to attack Thurloe for some death in illegal tribunals, whom the re-of these unjustifiable proceedings, which publicans and cavaliers were impatient would have greatly embarrassed the govto bring to justice. Hewas forced also to ernment. Ibid. 423, 428. They hoped employ and to screen from vengeance his that Richard would be better disposed wise and experienced secretary Thurloe, toward the king, if his three advisers, master of all the secret springs that had St. John, Thurloe, and Pierpoint, all immoved his father’s government, but ob-placable to their cause, could be removed. noxious from the share he had taken in But they were not strong enough in the illegal and arbitrary measures. Petitions house. If Richard, however, had conwere presented to the house from several tinued in power, he must probably have who had been committed to the Tower sacrificed Thurloe to public opinion; and upon short written orders, without any the consciousness of this may have led formal warrant or expressed cause of this minister to advise the dissolution of commitment. In the case of one of the parliament, and perhaps to betray his these, Mr. Portman, the house resolved master. from the suspicion of which he is that his apprehension, imprisonment, and not free. detention in the Tower was illegal and It ought to be remarked what an outunjust: Journals, 26 Feb. A still more rageous proof of Cromwell’s tyranny is flagrant tyranny was that frequently exhibited in this note. Many writers practised by Cromwell, of sending persons glide favorably over his administration, disaffected to him as slaves to the West or content themselves with treating it as Indies. One Mr. Thomas petitioned the an usurpation which can furnish noprechouse of commons, complaining that he edent, and consequently does not merit had been thus sold as a slave. A member particular notice; but the effect of this of the court side justified it on the score generality is, that the world forms an of his being a malignant. Majorgeneral imperfect notion of the degree of arbiBrowne, a secret royalist, replied that he trary power which he exerted; and I was nevertheless an Englishman and believe there are many who take Charles free-born. Thurloe had the presumption I., and even Charles II., for greater to say that he had not thought to live to violators of the laws than the protector. see the day when such a thing as this, Neal and Harris are full of this dishonso justly and legally done by lawful au-est bigotry. [Since this note was first thority, should be brought before parlia-printed the publication of Burton’s Diment. Vane replied that he did not ary has confirmed its truth, which had

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COMMONWEALTH. LONG PARLIAMENT RESTORED. 261 erate their own downfall.

Three days afterwards the junto of Wallingford House insisted with Richard that he should dissolve parliament; to which, according to the advice of most of his council, and perhaps by an overruling necessity, he gave his consent.1 This was immediately followed by a declaration of the council of officers, calling back the long parliament, such as it had been expelled in 1653, to those seats which had been filled meanwhile by so many transient successors.2 It is not in general difficult for an armed force to destroy a government; but something else than the sword is required to create one. The military conspirators were destitute of any leader whom they would, acknowledge, or who had capacity to go through the civil labors of sovereignty; Lambert alone excepted, who was lying in wait for another occasion. They might have gone on with Richard as a pageant of nominal authority. But their new allies, the commonwealth’s men, insisted upon restoring the long parliament.8 It seemed now the policy, as much as duty, of the officers to obey that civil power they had set up; for to rule ostensibly was, as I have just observed, an impracticable scheme. But the contempt they felt for their pretended masters, and even a sort of necessity arising out of the blindness and passion of that rashly been called in question by a pas-goldsby, lord Fauconberg, and others, sionate and prejudiced reviewer. See vol. who were suspected to be for the king.

iv. p. 253, &c.] Life of Charles II., 194. He afterwards, 1 Richard advised with Broghill, Fi-p. 203, quotes Calamy’s Life of Howe, ennes, Thurloe, and others of his council, for the assertion that Richard stood out all of whom, except Whitelock, who in-against his council, with Thurloe alone, forms us of this, were in favor of the that the parliament should not be disdissolution. This caused, he says, much solved. This is very unlikely. trouble to honest men; the cavaliers and 2 This was carried against the previous republicans rejoiced at it; many of Rich-question by 163 to 87. Journals, Abr. ard’s council were his enemies. P. 177. 111.

Some of the protector’s friends were The army at first intended to raise mon-alarmed at so high a vote against the ey by their own authority; but this was army, which did in fact bring the matter deemed impossible, and it was resolved to a crisis. Thurloe, vii. 659 et post. to recall the long parliament. Lam-8 The army, according to Ludlow, had bert and Haslerig accordingly met Len-not made up their minds how to act after thall, who was persuaded to act again the dissolution of the parliament, and as speaker; though, if Ludlow is right, some were inclined to go on with Richagainst his will, being now connected ard; but the republican party, who had with the court, and in the pretended coalesced with that faction of officers house of lords. The parliament now con-who took their denomination from Walsisted of 91 members. Parl. Hist. 1547. lingford House, their place of meeting, Harris quotes a manuscript journal of insisted on the restoration of the old parMontague, afterwards earl of Sandwich, liament; though they agreed to make wherein it is said that Richard’s great some provision for Richard. Memoirs error was to dissolve the parliament, and pp. 635-646. Accordingly it was vostd that he might have overruled the army to give him an income of 10,0001. per if he would himself have employed In-annum. Journals, July 16.

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262 IMPOSSIBILITY OF ESTABLISHING CHAP. X. little oligarchy, drove them to a step still more ruinous to Expelled their cause than that of deposing Richard, the exagain, pulsion once more of that assembly, now worn out and ridiculous in all men’s eyes, yet seeming a sort of frail protection against mere anarchy and the terror of the sword. Lambert, the chief actor in this last act of violence, and indeed many of the rest, might plead the right of self-defence. The prevailing faction in the parliament, led by Haslerig, a bold and headstrong man, perceived that, with very inferior pretensions, Lambert was aiming to tread in the steps of Cromwell; and, remembering their neglect of opportunities, as they thought, in permitting the one to overthrow them, fancied that they would anticipate the other.

Their intemperate votes cashiering Lambert, Desborough, and other officers, brought on, as every man of more prudence than Haslerig must have foreseen, an immediate revolution that crushed once more their boasted commonwealth.’ They and again revived again a few months after, not by any restored. exertion of the people, who hated alike both parties, in their behalf, but through the disunion of their real masters, the army, and vented the impotent and injudicious rage of a desperate faction on all who had not gone every length on their side, till scarce any man of eminence was left to muster under the standard of Haslerig and his little knot of associates.2 I can by no means agree with those who find in the character of the English nation some absolute incombility of patibility with a republican constitution of governestablishing ment. Under favoring circumstances, it seems to a republic. me not at all incredible that such a polity might 1 Journals, Sept. 23, et post. White-and in whom liberality seemed to be a lock, 683. Parl. Hist. 1562. Thurloe, vice. Yet, to do him justice, I must vii. 703, et post. Ludlow’s account of acknowledge that I am under no manthis period is the most interesting part ner of doubt concerning the rectitude of his Memoirs. The chief officers, it ap-and sincerity of his intentions.” P. 718. pears from his narrative, were soon dis-Ludlow gave some offence to the hotgusted with their republican allies, and headed republicans by his half compli“‘behaved with all imaginable perverse-ance with the army, and much disapness and insolence” in the council of proved the proceedings they adopted state, whenever they came there, which after their second restoration in Decemwas but seldom, scrupling the oath to ber, 1659, against Vane and others. P.

be true to the Commonwealth against 800. Yet, though nominated on the Charles Stuart or any other person. P. committee of safety, on the expulsion 657. He censures, however, the violence of the parliament in October, he never of Haslerig, “a man of a disobliging sat on it, as Vane and Whitelock did. temper, sour and morose of temper, 2 Journals, and other authorities above liable to be transported with passion, cited.

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COMMONWEALTH. A REPUBLIC. 263 have existed for many ages in great prosperity, and without violent convulsion. For the English are, as a people, little subject to those bursts of passion which inflame the more imaginative multitude of southern climates, and render them both apt for revolutions and incapable of conducting them. Nor are they again of that sluggish and stationary temper which chokes all desire of improvement, and even all zeal for freedom and justice, through which some free governments have degenerated into corrupt oligarchies. The most conspicuously successful experiment of republican institutions (and those far more democratical than, according to the general theory of politics, could be reconciled with perfect tranquillity) has taken place in a people of English original; and though much must here be ascribed to the peculiarly fortunate situation of the nation to which I allude, we can hardly avoid giving some weight to the good sense and wellbalanced temperament which have come in their inheritance with our laws and our language. But the establishment of free commonwealths depends much rather on temporary causes, the influence of persons and particular events, and all those intricacies in the course of Providence which we term accident, than on any general maxims that can become the basis of prior calculation. In the year 1659 it is manifest that no idea could be more chimerical than that of a republican settlement in England. The name, never familiar or venerable in English ears, was grown infinitely odious: it was associated with the tyranny of ten years, the selfish rapacity of the Rump, the hypocritical despotism of Cromwell, the arbitrary sequestrations of committee-men, the iniquitous decimations of military prefects, the sale of British citizens for slavery in the West Indies, the blood of some shed on the scaffold without legal trial, the tedious imprisonment of many with denial of the habeas corpus, the exclusion of the ancient gentry, the persecution of the Anglican church, the bacchanalian rant of sectaries, the morose preciseness of puritans, the.extinction of the frank and cordial joyousness of the national character. Were the people again to endure the mockery of the good old cause, as the commonwealth’s men affected to style the interests of their little faction, and be subject to Lambert’s notorious want of principle, or to Vane’s contempt of ordinances (a godly mode of expressing the same thing), or to Haslerig’s fury, or to

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264 ROYALISTS UNITE CHAP. X. Harrison’s fanaticism, or to the fancies of those lesser schemers who, in this utter confusion and abject state of their party, were amusing themselves with plans of perfect commonwealths, and debating whether there should be a senate as well as a representation; whether a fixed number should go out or not by rotation; and all those details of political mechanism so important in the eyes of theorists? 1

Every project of this description must have wanted what alone could give it either the pretext of legitimate existence or the chance of permanency, popular consent; the republican party, if we exclude those who would have had a protector, and those fanatics who expected the appearance of Jesus Christ, was incalculably small; not, perhaps, amounting in the whole nation to more than a few hundred persons. The little court of Charles at Brussels watched with Intrigues trembling hope those convulsive struggles of their of the enemies. During the protectorship of Oliver their royalists, best chance appeared to be, that some of the numerous schemes for his assassination might take effect. Their correspondence indeed, especially among the presbyterian or neutral party, became more extensive; 2 but these men were habitually cautious; and the marquis of Ormond, who went over to England in the beginning of 1658, though he reported the disaffection to be still more universal than he had expected, was forced to add that there was little prospect of a rising until foreign troops should be landed in some part of the country, an aid which Spain had frequently promised, but, with an English fleet at sea, could not very easily furnish.8 The death of their puissant enemy brightened the visions of the royalists. Though the apparent peaceableness of Richard’s government gave them some mortification, they continued to spread their toils through zealous emissaries, and found a very general willingness to restore the ancient They unite constitution under its hereditary sovereign. Bewith the sides the cavaliers, who, though numerous and terians. ardent, were impoverished and suspected, the 1 The Rota Club, as it was called, was of Ormond to Hyde about this time he composed, chiefly at least, of these seems to have seen into the king’s chardealers in new constitutions, which were acter, and speaks of him severely: “I debated in due form. Harrington was fear his immoderate delight in empty, one of the most conspicuous. effeminate, and vulgar conversations, is 2 Thurloe, vi.

679. Clarendon State become an irresistible part of his naPapers, 391, 395. ture,” &c. Clarendon State Papers, ili. 8 Carte’s Letters, ii. 118.

In a letter 387.

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COMMONWEALTH. WITH PRESBYTERIANS. 265 chief presbyterians, lords Fairfax and Willoughby, the earls of Manchester and Denbigh, sir William Waller, sir George Booth, sir Ashley Cooper, Mr. Popham of Somerset, Mr. Howe of Gloucester, sir Horatio Townshend of Norfolk, with more or less of zeal and activity, pledged themselves to the royal cause.1 Lord Fauconberg, a royalist by family, who had married a daughter of Cromwell, undertook the important office of working on his brothers-in-law, Richard and Henry, whose position, in respect to the army and republican party, was so hazardous. It seems, in fact, that Richard, even during his continuance in power, had not refused to hear the king’s agents,2 and hopes were entertained of him; yet at that time even he could not reasonably be expected to abandon his apparent interests; but soon after his fall, while his influence, or rather that of his father’s memory, was still supposed considerable with Montagu, Monk, and Lockhart, they negotiated with him to procure the accession of those persons, and of his brother Henry, for a pension of 20,0001. a year and a title.8 It soon appeared, however, that those prudent veterans of revolution would not embark under such a pilot, and that Richard was not worth purchasing on the lowest terms. Even Henry Cromwell, with whom a separate treaty had been carried on, and who is said to have determined at one time to proclaim the king at Dublin, from want of courage, or, as is more probable, of 1 Clarendon Papers, 391, 418, 460, et civil government, because they conceive post. Townshend, a young man who his principles contrary to theirs. He seems to have been much looked up to, says Thurloe governs Cromwell, and St. was not, in fact, a presbyterian, but is John and Pierpoint govern Thurloe; and reckoned among them as not being a therefore it is not likely he will think cavalier, having come of age since the himself in danger till these tell him so, war, and his family neutral. nor seek a diversion of it but by their 2

This curious fact appears for the first counsels.” Feb. 10, 1659. These illtime, I believe, in the Clarendon State grounded hopes of Richard;s accession to Papers, unless it is anywhere intimated theircause appear in several other letters, in Carte’s collection of the Ormond let-and even Hyde seems to have given in to ters. In the former collection we find them, 4342 454, &c. Broderick, another several allusions to it; the first is in a active emissary of the royalists, fancied letter from Rumbold, a royalist emissary, that the three above mentioned would to Hyde, dated Dec. 2, 1658, p. 421; from restore the king if they dared, 477; but which I collect lord Fauconberg’s share this is quite unlikely. in this intrigue; which is also confirmed 3 P. 469. This was carried on through by a letter of Mordaunt to the king, in colonel Henry Cromwell, his cousin.

It p. 423. ” The lord Falconbridge protests is said that Richard had not courage to that Cromwell is so remiss a person that sign the letters to Monk and his other he cannot play his own game, much less friends, which he afterwards repented, another man’s, and is thereby discour-491. The intrigues still went on with aged from acting in business, having also him for a little longer. This was in May, many enemies who oppose his gaining 1659. either power or interest in the army or

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266 CONSPIRACY OF 1659. CHAP. X. seriousness in what must have seemed so unnatural an undertaking, submitted quietly to the vote of parliament that deprived him of the command of Ireland.1 The conspiracy, if indeed so general a concert for the resConspiracy toration of ancient laws and liberties ought to have of 1659. so equivocal an appellation, became ripe in the summer of 1659. The royalists were to appear in arms in different quarters, several principal towns to be seized; but, as the moment grew nigh, the courage of most began to fail. Twenty years of depression and continual failure mated the spirits of the cavaliers. The shade of Cromwell seemed to hover over and protect the wreck of his greatness. Sir George Booth, almost alone, rose in Cheshire; every other scheme, intended to be executed simultaneously, failing through the increased prudence of those concerned, or the precautions taken by the government on secret intelligence of the plots; and Booth, thus deserted, made less resistance to Lambert than perhaps was in his power.2 This discomfiture, of course, damped the expectations of the king’s party. The presbyterians thought themselves illused by their new allies, though their own friends had been almost equally cautious.8 Sir Richard Willis, an old cavalier, and in all the secrets of their conspiracy, was detected in being a spy both of Cromwell and of the new government: a discovery which struck consternation into the party, who could hardly trust any one else with greater security.4 In a less favorable posture of affairs these untoward circumstances might have ruined Charles’s hopes; they served, as it was, to make it evident that he must look to some more efficacious aid than a people’s good wishes for his restoration. The royalists in England, who played so deep a stake on the king’s account, were not unnaturally desirous that he 1 Clarendon State Papers, 434, 600, et ceived that by extending the basis of the post. Thurloe, vi. 686. See also an coalition they should lose all chance of enigmatical letter to Henry Cromwell, indemnity for their own sufferings; be629, which certainly hints at his union sides which, their timidity and irresoluwith the king; and Carte’s Letters, ii. tion are manifest in all the Clarendon 293. correspondence at this period. See par2 Clar. State Papers, 552, 556, &c. ticularly 491, 520. 8 Clarendon confesses, Life, p. 20, that 4 Willis had done all in his power to the cavaliers disliked this whole intrigue obstruct the rising.

Clarendon was very with the presbyterians, which was plan-slow in believing this treachery, of which ned by Mordaunt, the most active and he had at length conclusive proofs. 662, intelligent agent that the king possessed 662. in England. The former. doubtless, per

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COMMONWEALTH. AFFAIRS OF CHARLES. 267 should risk something in the game, and continually pressed that either he or one of his brothers would land on the coast. His standard would become a rallying-point for the well-affected, and create such a demonstration of public sentiment as would overthrow the present unstable government. But Charles, not by nature of a chivalrous temper, shrunk from an enterprise which was certainly very hazardous, unless he could have obtained a greater assistance of troops from the Low Countries than was to be hoped.1 He was as little inclined to permit the duke of York’s engaging in it, on account of the differences that had existed between them, and his knowledge of an intrigue that was going forward in England, principally among the catholics, but with the mischievous talents of the duke of Buckingham at its head, to set up the duke instead of himself.2 He gave, however, fair words to his party, and continued for some time on the French coast, as if waiting for his opportunity. It was in great measure, as I suspect, to rid himself of this importunity that he set out on his long and very needless journey to the foot of the Pyrenees. Thither the two monarchs of France and Spain, wearied with twenty years of hostility without a cause and without a purpose, had sent their ministers to conclude the celebrated treaty which bears the name of those mountains. Charles had long cherished hopes that the first fruits of their reconciliation would be a joint armament to place him on the English throne; many of his adherents almost despaired of any other means of 1 Clar. Papers, 614, 530, 536, 643.

affronts from that party; but upon a 2 Clarendon Papers, 425, 427, 458, 462, finer spun design of setting up the in476, 526, 679. It is evident that the terest of the duke of York against the catholics had greater hopes from the king; in which design I fear you will duke than from the king, and considered find confederated the duke of Bucks, the former as already their own. A re-who perhaps may draw away with him markable letter of Morley to Hyde, April lord Fairfax, the presbyterians, levellers, 24, 1659, p. 458, shows the suspicions and many catholics. I am apt to think already entertained of him by the writer these things are not transacted without in point of religion; and Hyde is plainly the privity of the queen; and I pray God not free from apprehension that he might that they have not an ill influence upon favor the scheme of supplanting his your affairs in France.” 475. Buckingbrother. The intrigue might have gone ham was surmised to have been formally a great way, though we may now think reconciled to the church of Rome. 427. it probable that their alarm magnified Some supposed that he, with his friend the danger. ” Let me tell you,” says sir Wildman, were for a republic. But such Antony Ashley Cooper in a letter to men are for nothing but the intrigue of Hyde, ” that Wildman is as much an the moment. These projects of Buckenemy now to the king as he was before ingham to set up the duke of York are a seeming friend; yet not upon the ac-hinted at in a pamphlet by Shaftesbury count of a commonwealth, for his ambi-or one of his party, written about 1680
tion meets with every-day repulses and Somers Tracts, viii. 842.

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268 FLEETWOOD AND LAMBERT. CHAP. X. restoration. But Lewis de Haro was a timid statesman, and Mazarin a cunning one: there was little to expect from their generosity, and the price of assistance might probably be such as none but desperate and unscrupulous exiles would offer and the English nation would with unanimous indignation reject. It was well for Charles that he contracted no public engagement with these foreign powers, whose cooperation must either have failed of success or have placed on his head a degraded and unstable crown. The full toleration of popery in England, its establishment in Ireland, its profession by the sovereign and his family, the surrender of Jamaica, Dunkirk, and perhaps the Norman Islands, were conditions on which the people might have thought the restoration of the Stuart line too dearly obtained. It was a more desirable object for the king to bring over, if possible, some of the leaders of the commonwealth. Except Vane, accordingly, and the decided republicans, there was hardly any man of consequence whom his agents did not attempt to gain, or, at least, from whom they did not entertain hopes. Three stood at this time conspicuous above the rest, not all of them in ability, but in apparent power of serving the royal cause by their defection - Fleetwood, Lambert, and Monk. The first had discovered, as far as his understanding was capable of perceiving anything, that he had been the dupe of more crafty, men in the cabals against Richard Cromwell, whose complete fall from power he had neither designed nor foreseen. In pique and vexation he listened to the overtures of the royalist agents, and sometimes, if we believe their assertions, even promised to declare for the king.1 But his resolutions were not to be relied upon, nor was his influence likely to prove considerable; though, from his post of lieutenant-general of the army, and long-accustomed precedence, he obtained a sort of outward credit far beyond his capacity. Lambert was of a very different stamp: eager, enterprising, ambitious, but I Hyde writes to thedluke of Ormond, the honest thoughts which some time “Ipray inform the king that Fleetwood possess him,” 592 (Oct. 81), and that makes great professions of being conManchester, Popham, and others, tried verted, and of a resolution to serve the what they could do with Fleetwood; but, king upon the first opportunity.” Oct. ” though they left him with good resolu11, 1659.

Carte’s Letters, ii. 281. See tions, they were so weak as not to ccnClarendon State Papers, 551 (Sept. 2). tinue longer than the next temptation-” and 677. But it is said afterwards that 685 (Dec. 27). he had “not courage enough to follow

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COMMONWEALTH. INTERFERENCE OF MONK. 269 destitute of the qualities that inspire respect or confidence. Far from the weak enthusiasm of Fleetwood, he gave offence by displaying less show of religion than the temper of his party required, and still more by a current suspicion that his secret faith was that of the church of Rome, to which the partiality of the catholics towards him gave support.1 The crafty unfettered ambition of Lambert rendered it not unlikely that, finding his own schemes of sovereignty impracticable, he would make terms with the king; and there were not wanting those who recommended the latter to secure his services by the offer of marrying his daughter,2 but it does not appear that any actual overtures were made on either side. There remained one man of eminent military reputation, in the command of a considerable insulated army, Interference to whom the royalists anxiously looked with alter-of Monk. nate hope and despondency. Monk’s early connections were with the king’s party, among whom he had been defeated and taken prisoner by Fairfax at Namptwich. Yet even in this period of his life he had not escaped suspicions of disaffection, which he effaced by continuing in prison till the termination of the war in England. He then accepted a commission from the parliament to serve against the Irish, and now, falling entirely into his new line of politics, became strongly attached to Cromwell, by whom he was left in the military government, or rather viceroyalty, of Scotland, which he had reduced to subjection, and kept under with a vigorous hand. Charles had once, it is said, attempted to seduce him by a letter from Cologne, which he instantly transmitted to the protector.8 Upon Oliver’s death he wrote a very sensible letter to Richard Cromwell, containing his 1 Clarendon State Papers, 688. Carte’s cini, whom Charles had asked for in Letters, ii. 226. vain. 2 Lord Hatton, an old royalist. sug-3 Biogr. Brit., art. MONK. The royalgested this humiliating proposition in ists continued to entertain hopes of him. terms scarcely less so to the heir of Cerdic especially after Oliver’s death. Clarenand Fergus. ”’ The race is a very good don Papers, iii. 893, 395, 896. In a sengentleman’s family, and kings have consible letter of Colepepper to Hyde, Sept. descended to marry subjects. The lady 20, 1658, he points out Monk as able Is pretty, of an extraordinary sweetness alone to restore the king, and not abof disposition, and very virtuously and solutely averse to it, either in his priningenuously disposed; the father is a per-ciples or affections; kept hitherto by the son, set aside his unhappy engagement, vanity of adhering to his professions, and of very great parts and noble inclina-by his affection to Cromwell, the latter tions.” Clarendon State Papers, 692. whereof is dissolved both by the jealYet, after all, Miss Lambert was hardly ousies he entertained of him, and by his more a mesalliance than Hortense Man-death, &c. Id. 412.

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270 MONK’S DISSIMULATION. CHAP. X. advice for the government. Hie recommends him to obtain the affections of the moderate presbyterian ministers, who have much influence over the people, to summon to his house of lords the wisest and most faithful of the old nobility and some of the leading gentry, to diminish the number of superior officers in the army by throwing every two regiments into one, and to take into his council as his chief advisers Whitelock, St. John, lord Broghill, sir Richard Onslow, Pierpoint, and Thurloe.1 The judiciousness of this advice is the surest evidence of its sincerity, and must leave no doubt on our minds that Monk was at that time very far from harboring any thoughts of the king’s restoration. But when, through the force of circumstances and the deHis dissim-ficiencies in the young protector’s capacity, he saw ulation. the house of Cromwell forever fallen, it was for Monk to consider what course he should follow, and by what means the nation was to be rescued from the state of anarchy that seemed to menace it. That very different plans must have passed through his mind before he commenced his march from Scotland, it is easy to conjecture; but at what time his determination was finally taken we cannot certainly pronounce.2 It would be the most honorable supposition to 1 Thurloe, vii. 887. Monk wrote about an obscure point of history, which will the same time against the earl of Argyle, easily admit of different opinions. as not a friend to the government: p. 684. The story told by Locke, on lord Two years afterwards he took away his Shaftesbury’s authority, that Monk had life as being too much so. agreed with the French ambassador to 2 If the account of his chaplain, Dr. take on himself the government, wherein Price, republished in Maseres’ Tracts, he was to have the support of Mazarin, vol. ii., be worthy of trust, Monk gave so and that his wife, having overheard what much encouragement to his brother, a was going forward, sent notice to Shaftesclergyman, secretly despatched to Scot-bury, who was thus enabled to frustrate land by sir John Grenvil, his relation, the intrigue (Locke’s Works, iii. 456), in June, 1659, as to have approved sir seems to have been confirmed lately by George Booth’s insurrection, and to have Mr. D’Israeli, in an extract from the been on the point of publishing a decla-manuscript memoirs of sir Thomas ration in favor of it. P. 718. But this Browne (Curiosities of Literature, N. S., is flatly in contradiction of what Claren-vol. ii.), but in terms so nearly resemdon asserts, that the general not only bling those of Locke, that it may be sent away his brother with no hopes, but suspected of being merely an echo. It threatened to hang him if he came again is certain, as we find by Phillips’s conon such an errand. And, in fact, if any-tinuation of Baker’s Chronicle (said to thing so favorable as what Price tells us be assisted in this part by sir Thomas had occurred, the king could not fail to Clarges, Monk’s brother-in-law), that have known it. See Clarendon State Pa-Bourdeaux, the French ambassador, did pers, iii. 543. This throws some suspi-make such overtures to the general, who,ion on Price’s subsequent narrative (so absolutely refused to enter upon them; far as it professes to relate the general’s but, as the writer admits, received a visit intentions); so that I rely far less on it from the ambassador on condition that than on Monk’s own behavior, which he should propose nothing in relation to seems irreconcilable with his professions public matters. I quote from Kennet’s of republican principles. It is, however, Register, 85. But, according to my pres

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COMMONWEALTH. MONK’S DISSIMULATION. 271 believe that he was sincere in those solemn protestations of adherence to the commonwealth which he poured forth, as well during his march as after his arrival in London; till discovering, at length, the popular zeal for the king’s restoration, he concurred in a change which it would have been unwise, and perhaps impracticable, to resist. This, however, seems not easily reconcilable to Monk’s proceedings in newmodelling his army, and confiding power, both in Scotland and England, to men of known intentions towards royalty; nor did his assurances of support to the republican party become less frequent or explicit at a time when every one must believe that he had taken his resolution, and even after he had communicated with the king. I incline, therefore, upon the whole, to believe that Monk, not accustomed to respect the parliament, and incapable, both by his temperament and by the course of his life, of any enthusiasm for the name of liberty, had satisfied himself as to the expediency of the king’s restoration from the time that the Cromwells had sunk below his power to assist them, though his projects were still subservient to his own security, which he was resolved not to forfeit by any premature declaration or unsuccessful enterprise. If the coalition of cavaliers and presbyterians and the strong bent of the entire nation had not convinced this wary dissembler that he could not fail of success, he would have continued true to his professions as the general of a commonwealth, content with crushing his rival Lambert and breaking that fanatical interest which he most disliked. That he aimed at such a sovereignty as Cromwell had usurped has been the natural conjecture of many, but does not appear to me either warranted by any presumptive evidence, or consonant to the good sense and phlegmatic temper of Monk. At the moment when, with a small but veteran army of ent impression, this is more likely to house, Feb. 21; and this alleged intrigue have been the foundation ofShaftesbury’s with Mazarin could hardly have been so story, who might have heard from Mrs. early. Monk the circumstance of the visit, and It may be added that in one of the conceived suspicions upon it. which he pamphlets about the time of the exclusion afterwards turned into proofs. It was bill, written by Shaftesbury himself, or evidently not in Monk’s power to have one of his party (Somers Tracts, viii. 88) usurped the government after he had let he is hinted to have principally brought the royalist inclinations of the people about the Restoration; ” without whose show themselves; and he was by no courage and dexterity some men, the means of a rash character. He must most highly rewarded, had done otherhave taken his resolution when the se-wise than they did.” But this still deeluded members were restored to the pends on his veracity.

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272 DESIGNS OF FLEETWOOD. CHAP. X 7000 men, he took up his quarters in London, it seemed to be within his arbitrament which way the scale should preponderate. On one side were the wishes of the nation, but restrained by fear; on the other, established possession, maintained by the sword, but rendered precarious by disunion and treachery. It is certainly very possible that, by keeping close to the parliament, Monk might have retarded, at least for a considerable time, the great event which has immortalized him. But it can hardly be said that the king’s restoration was rather owing to him than to the general sentiments of the nation, and almost the necessity of circumstances, which had already made every judicious person anticipate the sole termination of our civil discord which they had prepared. Whitelock, who, incapable of refusing compliance with the ruling power, had sat in the committee of safety established in October, 1659, by the officers who had expelled the parliament, has recorded a curious anecdote, whence we may collect how little was wanting to prevent Monk from being the great mover in the restoration. He had for some time, as appears by his journal, entertained a persuasion that the general meditated nothing but the king’s return, to which he was doubtless himself well inclined, except from some apprehension for the public interest, and some also for his own. This induced him to have a private conference with Fleetwood, which he enters as of the 22d December, 1659, wherein, after pointing out the probable designs of Monk, he urged him either to take possession of the Tower and declare for a free parliament, in which he would have the assistance of the city, or to send some trusty person to Breda, who might offer to bring in the king upon such terms as should be settled. Both these propositions were intended as different methods of bringing about a revolution which he judged to be inevitable.

“By this means,” he contended, ” Fleetwood might make terms with the king for preservation of himself and his friends, and of that cause, in a good measure, in which they had been engaged; but if it were left to Monk, they and all that had been done would be left to the danger of destruction.

Fleetwood then asked me,‘if I would be willing to go myself upon this employment?’ I answered,‘that I would go if Fleetwood thought fit to send me.’ And after much other discourse to this effect Fleetwood seemed fully satisfied to

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COMMONWEALTH. RETURN OF SECLUDED MEMBERS. 273 send me to the king, and desired me to go and prepare myself forthwith for the journey; and that in the mean time Fleetwood and his friends would prepare the instructions for me, so that I might begin my journey this evening or tomorrow morning early. ” I, going away from Fleetwood, met Vane, Desborough, and Berry in the next room, coming to speak with Fleetwood, who thereupon desired me to stay a little; and I suspected what would be the issue of their consultation, and within a quarter of an hour Fleetwood came to me, and in much passion said to me,‘I cannot do it! I cannot do it!’ I desired his reason why he could not do it? He answered, Those gentlemen have remembered me, and it is true, that I am engaged not to do any such thing without my lord Lambert’s consent.’ I replied,‘that Lambert was at too great a distance to have his consent to this business, which must be instantly acted.’ Fleetwood again said,‘I cannot do it without him.’ Then I said,‘You will ruin yourself and your friends.’ He said,‘I cannot help it.’ Then I told him I must take my leave, and so we parted.“l Whatever might have been in the power of Monk by adhering to his declarations of obedience to the parliament, it would have been too late for him, members after consenting to the restoration of the secluded return to members to their seats on February 21, 1660, to withstand the settlement which it seems incredible that he should not at that time have desired. That he continued for at least six weeks afterwards in a course of astonishing dissimulation, so as to deceive in a great measure almost all the royalists, who were distrusting his intentions at the very moment when he made his first and most private tender of service to the king through Sir John Grenvil about the beginning of April, might at first seem rather to have proceeded from a sort of inability to shake off his inveterate reservedness than from consummate prudence and discretion; for any sudden risings in the king’s favor, or an intrigue in the council of state, might easily have brought about the Restoration without his concurrence; and, even as it was, the language held in the house of commons before their dissolution, the votes expunging all that appeared on their journals against the regal government and the house 1 Whitelock, 690. VOL. a. 18

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274 REASON OF MONK’S DISSIMULATION. CHP. X. of lords,l and, above all, the course of the elections for the new parliament, made it sufficiently evident that the general had delayed his assurances of loyalty till they had lost a part of their value. It is, however, a full explanation of Monk’s public conduct that he was not secure of the army, chiefly imbued with fanatical principles, and bearing an inveterate hatred towards the name of Charles Stuart. A correspondent of the king writes to him on the 28th of March, ” The army is not yet in a state to hear your name publicly.” 2 In the beginning of that month many of the officers, instigated 1 The engagement was repealed March ” The general, that noble personage to 13. This was of itself tantamount to a whom under God we do and must owe declaration in favor of the king, though all the advantages of our past and future perhaps the previous order of March 5, changes, will be as far from opposing us that the solemn league and covenant in the design, as the design is removed should be read in churches, was still more from the disadvantage of the nation. He so. Prynne was the first who had the himself is, I am confident, of the same boldness to speak for the king, declaring opinion; and if he has not yet given his opinion that the parliament was dis-notice of it to the house, it is not that he solved by the death of Charles I.; he was does not look upon it as the best expedisupported by one or two more. Clar. ent; but he only forbears to propose it, Papers, 696. Thurloe, vii. 854. Carte’s that he might not seem to necessitate us, Letters, ii. 312. Prynne wrote a pam-and by an over-early discovery of his own phlet advising the peers to meet and issue judgment be thought to take from us the writs for a new parliament, according to freedom of ours.” the provisions of the triennial act, which, In another place he says, ” That the in fact, was no bad expedient. Somers recalling of our king in this only way (for Tracts, iv. 684. composure of affairs) is already grown alA speech of sir Harbottle Grimston be-most as visible as true; and, were it but fore the close of the parliament, March, confessed of all of whom it is believed, 1660, 1 more explicit for the king’s res-I should quickly hear from the greatest toration than anything which I have seen part of this house what now it hears’ alone elsewhere; and as I do not know that it from me. Had we as little reason to fear has been printed, I will give an extract as we have too much, that, if we bring ftrom the Harleian MS, 1579. not in the king, he either already is, or He urges it as necessary to be done by shortly may be, in a capacity of coming them, and not left for the next parlia-in unsent for, methinks the very knowlment, who all men believe would restore edge of his right were enough to keep him. “This is so true and so well under-just persons, such as we would be constood, that we all believe that, whatso-ceived to be, from being accessory to his ever our thoughts are, this will be the longer absence. We are already, and but opinion of the succeeding parliament, justly, reported to have been the occasion whose concerns as well as affections will of our prince’s banishment; we may, make them active for his introduction. then, with reason and equal truth, for And I appeal, then, to your own judg-aught I know, be thought to have been ames whether it is likely that those per-the contrivers of it, unless we endeav sons, as to their particular interest more the contrary, by not suffering the misunconcerned, and probably less knowing chief to continue longer which is in our in the ffairs of the nation, can or would power to remove.”

obtain for any those terms or articles as Such passages as these, and the general we are yet in a capacity to procure both tenor of public speeches, sermons, and for them and us, I must confess sincere-pamphlets, in the spring of.1660, show ly that t would be as strange to me as a how little Monk can be justly said to miracle, did I not know that God infatu-have restored Charles II., ecept so far ates whom he designs to destroy, that we as he did not persist in preventing it so can see the king’s return so unavoidable, long as he might have done. and yet be no more studious of serving 2 Clarendon State Papers, 711, him, or at least ourselves, in the managing of his recall.

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COMMONWEALTH. HIS ACTS AS LORD-GENERAL. 275 by Haslerig and his friends, had protested to Monk against the proceedings of the house, insisting that they should abjure the king and house of lords. He repressed their mutinous spirit, and bade them obey the parliament, as he should do.1

Hence he redoubled his protestations of abhorrence of monarchy, and seemed for several weeks, in exterior demonstrations, rather the grand impediment to the king’s restoration than the one person who was to have the credit of it.2 Meanwhile he silently proceeded in displacing the officers whom he could least trust, and disposing the regiments near to the metropolis or at a distance, according tc his knowledge of their tempers; the parliament having given him a commission as lord-general of all the forces in the three kingdoms.8 The commissioners appointed by parliament for raising the militia in each county were chiefly gentlemen of the presbyterian party; and there seemed likely to be such a considerable force under their orders as might rescue the nation from its ignominious servitude to the army. In fact, some of the royalists expected that the great question would not be carried without an appeal to the sword.4 The delay of Monk in privately assuring the king of his fidelity is still not easy to be explained, but may have proceeded from a want of confidence in Charles’s secrecy, or that of his counsellors. It must be admitted that lord Clar1 Clarendon State Papers, 696. Oliver himself, who, though he manacled 2 Id. 678, et post.

He wrote a letter the citizens’ hands, yet never took away (Jan. 21) to the gentry of Devon, who the doors of the city,” and so forth. It had petitioned the speaker for the read-appears by the letters of Mordaunt and mission of the secluded members, object. Broderick to Hyde, and by those of Hyde ing to that measure as likely to bring in himself in the Olarendon Papers, that monarchy, very judicious, and with an they had no sort of confidence in Monk air of sincerity that might deceive any till near the end of March; though Barone; and after the restoration of these wick, another of his correspondents, secluded members, he made a speech to seems to have had more insight into the them (Feb. 21) strongly against mon-general’s designs (Thurloe, 862,860, 870), archy; and that so ingenuously, upon who had expressed himself to a friend such good reasons, so much without in-of the writer, probably Clobery, fully in vective or fanaticism, that the profes-favor of the king, before March 19. eional hypocrites, who were used to their 3 Clar. 699, 705. Thurloe, vii. 860, own tone of imposture, were deceived by 870. his. Cromwell was a mere bungler to 4 A correspondent of Ormond writes, him. See these in Harris’s Charles II., March 16: “This night the fatal long 296, or Somers Tracts, vi. 551. It cannot parliament hath dissolved itself. All this be wondered at that the royalists were appears well; but I believe we shall not exasperated at Monk’s behavior. They be settled upon our ancient foundations published abusive pamphlets against him without a war, for which all prepare in February, from which Kennet, in his vigorously and openly.” Carte’s Letters, Register, p. 68, gives quotations: - i. 618. It appears also, from a letter of Whereas he was the common hopes of Massey to Hyde, that a rising n differ all men, he is now the common hatred of ent counties was intended. Thurloe all men, as a traitor more detestable than 84.

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276 DIFFICULTIES ABOUT CHAP. X. endon, who has written with some minuteness and accuracy this important part of his History, has more than insinuated (especially as we now read his genuine language, which the ill-faith of his original editors had shamefully garbled) that Monk entertained no purposes in the king’s favor till the last moment; but a manifest prejudice that shows itself in all his writings against the general, derived partly from offence at his extreme reserve and caution during this period, partly from personal resentment of Monk’s behavior at the time of his own impeachment, greatly takes off from the weight of the noble historian’s judgment.1 The months of March and April, 1660, were a period of Difficulties extreme inquietude, during which every one spoke about the of the king’s restoration as imminent, ye.t none restoration, could distinctly perceive by what means it would be effected, and much less how the difficulties of such a settlement could be overcome.2 As the moment approached, 1 After giving the substance of Monk’s but it is certain he never wished well to speech to the house, recommending a their cause, and, with St. John and Piernew parliament, but insisting on con-point, had been most zealous, to the last monwealth principles, Clarendon goes on; moment that it seemed practicable, ” There was no dissimulation in this, in against the restoration. There had been, order to cover and conceal his good in-so late as February, 1660, or even aftertentions to the king; for without doubt wards, a strange plan of setting up again he had not to this hour entertained any Richard Cromwell, wherein not only purpose or thought to serve him, but these three, but Montague, Jones, and was really of the opinion he expressed in others, were thought to be concerned, erhis paper, that it was a work impossible; roneously no doubt as to Montague. Clarand desired nothing but that he might endon State Papers, 693. Carte’s Letsee a commonwealth established on such ters, ii.

310, 330. ” One of the greatest a model as Holland was, where he had reasons they alleged was, that the king’s been bred, and that himself might enjoy party, consisting altogether of indigent the authority and place which the prince men, will become powerful by little and of Orange possessed in that government.” little to force the king, whatever be his 2

The Clarendon and Thurloe Papers own disposition, to break any engagement are full of more proofs of this that can be he can now make; and since the nation quoted, and are very amusing to read, as is bent on a single person, none will coma perpetually shifting picture of hopes bine all interests so well as Richard.” and fears, and conjectures right or wrong.

This made Monk, it is said, jealous of Pepys’s Diary also, in these two months, St. John, so that he was chosen at Camstrikingly shows the prevailing uncer-bridge to exclude him. In a letter of tainty as to Monk’s intentions, as well as Thurloe to Downing at the Hague, April the general desire of having the king 6, he says ” that many of the presbytebrought in. It seems plain that, if he lans are alarmed at the prospect, and had delayed a very little longer, he would thinking how to keep the king out withhave lost the whole credit of the restora-out joining the sectaries.” vii. 887. tion. All parties began to crowd in This could hardly be achieved but by with add-esses to the king in the first setting up Richard. Yet that, as is trupart of April, before Monk was known to ly said in one of the letters quoted, was have declared himself.

Thurloe, among ridiculous. None were so conspicuous others, was full of his offers, though evi-and intrepid on the king’s side as the presdently anxious to find out whether the byterian ministers. Reynolds preached king had an interest with Monk, p. 898. before the lord mayor, Feb. 28, with The royalists had long entertained hopes, manifest allusion to the restoration; from time to time, of this deep politician; Gauden (who may be reckoned on that

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COMMONWEALTH. THE RESTORATION. 277 men turned their attention more to the obstacles and dangers that lay in their way. The restoration of a banished family, concerning whom they knew little, and what they knew not entirely to their satisfaction, with ruined, perhaps revengeful, followers; the returning ascendency of a distressed party, who had sustained losses that could not be repaired without fresh changes of property, injuries that could not be atoned without fresh severities; the conflicting pretensions of two churches - one loath to release its claim, the other to yield its possession; the unsettled dissensions between the crown and parliament, suspended only by civil war and usurpation; all seemed pregnant with such difficulties that prudent men could hardly look forward to the impending revolution without some hesitation and anxiety.’ Hence Pierpoint, one of the wisest statesmen in England, though not so far implicated in past transactions as to have much to fear, seems never to have overcome his repugnance to the recall of the king; and I am by no means convinced that the slowness of Monk himself was not in some measure owing to his sense of the embarrassments that might attend that event. The presbyterians, generally speaking, had always been on their guard against an unconditional restoration. They felt much more of hatred to the prevailing power than of attachment to the house of Stuart, and had no side, as conforming to it) on the same vindicating the late king in his war day much more explicitly. Kennet’s against the parliament, for which the Register, 69. Sharp says, in a letter to a ruling party were by no means ripe; and correspondent in Scotland, that he, Ash, having justified it before the council, was and Calamy, had a long conversation committed to the Gate-house, early in with Monk, March 11, ” and convinced April. Id.

ibid. These imprudences him a commonwealth was impracticable. occasioned the king’s declaration from and to our sense sent him off that sense Breda. Somers Tracts, vi. 662. Anothhe had hitherto maintained, and came er also was published, April 25, 1660, from him as being satisfied of the neces-signed by several peers, knights, divines, sity of dissolving this house, and calling &c., of the royalist party, disclaiming all anew parliament.” Id. p. 81. Baxter private passions and resentments. Kenthinks the presbyterian ministers, to-net’s Register. 120. Clar. vii. 471. But gether with Clarges and Morrice, turned these public professions were weak disMonk’s resolution, and induced him to guises, when belied by their current lan. declare for the king. Life, p. 2. This is guage. See Baxter, 217. Marchmont a very plausible conjecture, though I in-Needham, in a tract entitled ” Interest dine to think Monk more disposed that will not Lye,” (written in answer to an way by his own judgment or his wife’s.

artful pamphlet ascribed to Fell, afterBut she was influenced by the presbyte-wards bishop of Oxford, and reprinted in rian clergy. They evidently deserved of Maseres’s Tracts, “The Interest of EngCharles what they did not meet with. land stated ” ), endeavored to alarm all 1 The royalists began too soon with other parties, especially the presbyterians, threatening speeches, which well-nigh with representations of the violence they frustrated their object. Id. 721, 722, had to expect from that of the king. See 727. Carte’s Letters, 318. Thurloe, 887. Harris’s Charles II., 268. One Dr Griffith published a little book

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278 DIFFICULTIES ABOUT CHAP. X. disposition to relinquish, either as to church or state government, those principles for which they had fought against Charles I. Hence they began, from the very time that they entered into the coalition (that is, the spring and summer of 1659), to talk of the treaty of Newport as if all that had passed since their vote of the 5th December, 1648, that the king’s concessions were a sufficient ground whereon to proceed to the settlement of the kingdom, had been like a hideous dream, from which they had awakened to proceed exactly in their former course.1 The council of state, appointed on the 23d of February, two days after the return of the secluded members, consisted principally of this party. And there can, I conceive, be no question that, if Monk had continued his neutrality to the last, they would, in conjunction with the new parliament, have sent over propositions for the king’s acceptance.

Meetings were held of the chief presbyterian lords, Manchester, Northumberland, Bedford, Say, with Pierpoint (who, finding it too late to prevent the king’s return, endeavored to render it as little dangerous as possible), Hollis, Annesley, sir William Waller, Lewis, and other leaders of that party. Monk sometimes attended on these occasions, and always urged the most rigid limitations.2 His sincerity in this was the less suspected, that his wife, to whom he was notoriously submissive, was entirely presbyterian, though a friend to the king; and his own preference of that sect had always been declared in a more consistent and unequivocal manner than was usual to his dark temper. These projected limitations, which but a few weeks before Charles would have thankfully accepted, seemed now intolerable; so rapidly do men learn, in the course of prosperous 1 Proofs of the disposition among this recompense the delay, rendering what is party to revive the treaty of the Isle of now extremely doubtful morally certain, Wight occur perpetually in the Thurloe and establishing his throne upon the true and Clarendon Papers, and in those pub-basis, liberty and property.” July 16, lished by Carte. The king’s agents in 1659. Clar. State Papers, 627. England evidently expected nothing bet-2 Clarendon, Hist. of Rebellion, vii. ter; and were, generally speaking, much 440. State Papers, 705, 729. ” There for his accepting the propositions. ” The is so insolent a spirit among some of the presbyterian lords,” says sir Alen Brod-nobility,” says Clarendon, about the erick to Hyde, ” with many of whom I middle of February, ” that I really fear have spoken, pretend that, should the it will turn to an aristocracy; Monk inking come in upon any such insurrection, dining that way too. My opinion is abetted by those of his own party, he clear that the king ought not to part would be more absolute than his father with the church, crown, or friends’ was in the height of his prerogative. Stay lands, lest he make my lord of Northum. therefore, say they, till we are ready; berland his equal, nay, perhaps his su our numbers so added will abundantly perior.” P. 680.

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COMMOXWEALTH. THE RESTORATION. 279 fortune, to scorn what they just before hardly presumed to expect. Those seemed his friends, not who desired to restore him, but who would do so at the least sacrifice of his power and pride. Several of the council, and others in high posts, sent word that they would resist the imposition of unreasonable terms.1 Monk himself redeemed his ambiguous and dilatory behavior by taking the restoration, as it were, out of the hands of the council, and suggesting the judicious scheme of anticipating their proposals by the king’s letter to the two houses of parliament. For this purpose he had managed, with all his dissembling pretences of commonwealth principles, or, when he was (as it were) compelled to lay them aside, of insisting on rigorous limitations, to prevent any overtures from the council, who were almost entirely presbyterian, before the meeting of parliament, which would have considerably embarrassed the king’s affairs.2 The elections meantime had taken a course which the faction now in power by no means regarded with satisfaction. Though the late house of commons had passed a resolution that no person who had assisted in any war against the parliament since 1

Downing, the minister at the Hague, last drop of his blood to maintain the was one of these. His overtures to the contrary.” Extract of a letter from king were as early as Monk’s, at the be-Thurloe to Downing. Carte’s Letters, ginning of April; he declared his wish ii. 322.’” The council of state are utterto see his majesty restored on good ly ignorant of Monk’s treating with the terms, though many were desirous to king; and surely, as the present temper make him a doge of Venice. Carte’s of the council of state is now, and may Letters, ii. 820. See also a remarkable possibly be also of the parliament, by letter of the king to Monk (dated May reason of the presbyterian influence 21; but I suspect he used the new style, upon both, I should think the first therefore read May 11), intimating what chapman will not be the worst, who a service it would be to prevent the im-perhaps will not offer so good a rate in position of any terms. Clar.

745. And conjunction with the company as he may another from him to Morrice, of the same give to engross the commodity.” Clar. tenor, May 20

(N. S.), 1660, and hinting 722, April 6. This sentence is a clue to that his majesty’s friends in the house all the intrigue. It is said soon afterhad complied with the general in all wards (p. 726, April 11) that the presbythings, according to the king’s direc-terians were much troubled at the course tions, departing from their own sense, of the elections, which made some of the and restraining themselves from pursu-council of state again address themselves ing what they thought most for his to Monk for his consent to propositions service. Thurloe, vii. 912.

This per-they would send to the king; but he haps referred to the indemnity and other absolutely refused, and said he would provisions then pending in the commons, leave all to a free parliament, as he had or rather to the relay of a few days be-promised the nation. Yet, though the fore the delivery of sir John Grenvil’s elections went as well as the royalists message. could reasonably expect, Hyde was dis2 ” Monk came this day (about the satisfied that the king was not restored first week of April) to the council, and without the intervention of the new parassured them that, notwithstanding all liament; and this may have been one the appearance of a general desire of reason of his spleen against Monk. P.

kingly government, yet it was in nowise 726, 731. his sense, and that he would spend the

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280 DIFFICULTIES ABOUT CHAP. X. 1642, unless he should since have manifested his good affection towards it, should be capable of being elected, yet this, even if it had been regarded, as it was not, by the people, would have been a feeble barrier against the royalist party, composed in a great measure of young men who had grown up under the commonwealth, and of those who, living in the parliamentary counties during the civil war, had paid a reluctant obedience to its power.1 The tide ran so strongly for the king’s friends, that it was as much as the presbyterians could effect, with the weight of government in their hands, to obtain about an equality of strength with the cavaliers in the convention parliament.2 It has been a frequent reproach to the conductors of this great revolution, that the king was restored without those terms and limitations which might secure the nation against his abuse of their confidence; and this, not only by contemporaries who had suffered by the political and religious changes consequent on the Restoration, or those who, in aftertimes, have written with some prepossession against the English church and constitutional monarchy, but by the most temperate and reasonable men; so that it has become almost regular to cast on the convention parliament, and more especially on Monk, the imputation of having abandoned public liberty, and brought on, by their inconsiderate loyalty or self-interested treachery, the misgovernment of the last two Stuarts, and the necessity of their ultimate expulsion. But, as this is a very material part of our history, and those who pronounce upon it have not always a very distinct notion either of what was or what could have been done, it may be worth while to consider the matter somewhat more analytically; confining myself, it is to be observed, in the present chapter, to what took place before the king’s personal 1 A proposed resolution, that those Thurloe, 887. Clarendon, who was himwho had been on the king’s side, or their self not insensible to that kind of supersons, should be disabled from voting at stition, had fancied that anything done elections, was lost by 93 to 56, the last at Gloucester by Massey for the king’s effort of the expiring long parliament, service would make a powerful impresJournals, 18th March. The electors did sion on the people.

not think themselves bound by this ar-2 It is a curious proof of the state of bitrary exclusion of the cavaliers from public sentiment that, though Monk parliament; several of whom (though himself wrote a letter to the electors not perhaps a great number within the of Bridgenorth, recommending Thurloe, terms of the resolution) were returned. the cavalier party was so powerful, that Massey, however, having gone down to his friends did not even produce the letstand for Gloucester, was put under ter lest it should be treated with neglects arrest by order of the council of state. Thurloe, vii. 896

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COMMONWEALTH. THE RESTORATION. 281 assumption of the government on the 29th of May, 1660. The subsequent proceedings of the convention parliament fall within another period. We may remark, in the first place, that the unconditional restoration of Charles II. is sometimes spoken of in too hyperbolical language, as if he had come in as a sort of conqueror, with the laws and liberties of the people at his discretion. Yet he was restored to nothing but the bounded prerogatives of a king of England; bounded by every ancient and modern statute, including those of the long parliament, which had been enacted for the subjects’ security. If it be true, as I have elsewhere observed, that the long parliament, in the year 1641, had established, in its most essential parts, our existing constitution, it can hardly be maintained that fresh limitations and additional securities were absolutely indispensable, before the most fundamental of all its principles, the government by king, lords, and commons, could be permitted to take its regular course. Those who so vehemently reprobate the want of conditions at the Restoration would do well to point out what conditions should have been imposed, and what mischiefs they can probably trace from their omission.1 They should be able also to prove that, in the circumstances of the time; it was quite as feasible and convenient to make certain secure and obligatory provisions the terms of the king’s restoration as seems to be taken for granted. The chief presbyterians appear to have considered the treaty of Newport, if not as fit to be renewed in Plan of every article, yet at least as the basis of the com-reviving the treaty pact into which they were to enter with Charles of Newport II.2 But were the concessions wrested in this inexpedient. treaty from his father, in the hour of peril and necessity, fit to become the permanent rules of the English constitution? Turn to the articles prescribed by the long parliament in that negotiation. Not to mention the establishment of a rigorous presbytery in the church, they had insisted on the 1 “To the king’s coming in without difficult to perceive by what conditions conditions may be well imputed all the this secret intrigue could have been preerrors of his reign.” Thus says Burnet.

vented. The great political error, it so it should 2 Clarendon Papers, p.

729. They rebe termed, of his reign, was a conspiracy solved to send the articles of that treaty with the king of France and some wicked to the king, leaving out the preface. advisers at home to subvert the religion This was about the middle of April. and liberty of his subjects; and it is

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282 DIFFICULTIES OF CHAP. X. exclusive command of all forces by land and sea for twenty years, with the sole power of levying and expending the moneys necessary for their support; on the nomination of the principal officers of state and of the judges during the same period; and on the exclusion of the king’s adherents from all trust or political power. Admit even that the insincerity and arbitrary principles of Charles I. had rendered necessary such extraordinary precautions, was it to be supposed that the executive power should not revert to his successor? Better it were, beyond comparison, to maintain the perpetual exclusion of his family than to mock them with such a titular crown, the certain cause of discontent and intrigue, and to mingle premature distrust with their professions of affection. There was undoubtedly much to apprehend from the king’s restoration; but it might be expected that a steady regard for public liberty in the parliament and the nation would obviate that danger without any momentous change of the constitution; or that, if such a sentiment should prove unhappily too weak, no guarantees of treaties or statutes would afford a genuine security. If, however, we were to be convinced that the restoration Diffiulty was effected without a sufficient safeguard against of framing the future abuses of royal power, we must still conditions. allow, on looking attentively at the circumstances, that there were very great difficulties in the way of any stipulations for that purpose. It must be evident that any formal treaty between Charles and the English government, as it stood in April, 1660, was inconsistent with their common principle. That government was, by its’own declarations, only de facto, only temporary; the return of the secluded members to their seats, and the votes they subsequently passed, held forth to the people that everything done since the force put on the house in December, 1648, was by an usurpation; the restoration of the ancient monarchy was implied in all recent measures, and was considered as out of all doubt by the whole kingdom. But between a king of England and his subjects no treaty, as such, could be binding; there was no possibility of entering into stipulations with Charles, though in exile, to which a court of justice would pay the slightest attention, except by means of acts of parliament.

It was doubtless possible that the council of state might have entered into a secret agreement with him on cer

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COMMONWEALTH. THE GOVERNMENT. 283 tain terms, to be incorporated afterwards into bills, as at the treaty of Newport. But at that treaty his father, though in prison, was the acknowledged sovereign of England; and it is manifest that the king’s recognition must precede the enactment of any law. It is equally obvious that the contracting parties would no longer be the same, and that the conditions that seemed indispensable to the council of state might not meet with the approbation of parliament. It might occur to an impatient people that the former were not invested with such legal or permanent authority as could give them any pretext for bargaining with the king, even in behalf of public liberty. But, if the council of state or even the parliament on its first meeting, had resolved to tender any hard propositions to the king, as the terms, if not of his recognition, yet of his being permitted to exercise the royal functions, was there not a possibility that he might demur about their acceptance, that a negotiation might ensue to procure some abatement, that, in the interchange of couriers between London and Brussels, some weeks at least might be whiled away? Clarendon, we are sure, inflexible and uncompromising as to his master’s honor, would have dissuaded such enormous sacrifices as had been exacted from the late king. And during this delay, while no legal authority would have subsisted, so that no officer could have collected the taxes or executed process without liability to punishment, in what a precarious state would the parliament have stood! On the one hand, the nation, almost maddened with the intoxication of reviving loyalty, and rather prone to cast at the king’s feet the privileges and liberties it possessed than to demand fresh security for them, might insist upon his immediate return, and impair the authority of parliament. On the other hand, the army, desperately irreconcilable to the name of Stuart, and sullenly resenting the hypocrisy that had deluded them, though they knew no longer where to seek a leader, were accessible to the furious commonwealth’s men, who, rushing as it were with lighted torches along their ranks, endeavored to rekindle a fanaticism that had not quite consumed its fuel.l The escape of Lambert from the Tower had struck a panic into all the kingdom; some such accident might again furnish a rallying-point for the disaffected, and plunge the country into an unfathom1 Life of Clarendon, p. 10.

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284 CONDUCT OF THE CONVENTION. CHAP. X. able abyss of confusion. Hence the motion of sir Matthew Hale, in the convention parliament, to appoint a committee who should draw up propositions to be sent over for the king’s acceptance, does not appear to me well-timed and expedient; nor can I censure Monk for having objected to it.1 The business in hand required greater despatch. If the king’s restoration was an essential blessing, it was not to be thrown away in the debates of a committee. A wary, scrupulous, conscientious English lawyer, like Hale, is always wanting in the rapidity and decision necessary for revolutions, though he may be highly useful in preventing them from going too far. It is, I confess, more probable that the king would have Conduct of accepted almost any conditions tendered to him; the conven-such at least would have been the advice of most tion about this not of his counsellors; and his own conduct in Scotblamable, land was sufficient to show how little any sense of honor or dignity would have stood in his way. But on what grounds did his English friends, nay, some of the presbyterians themselves, advise his submission to the dictates of that party? It was in the expectation that the next free parliament, summoned by his own writ, would undo all this work of stipulation, and restore him to an unfettered prerogative. And this expectation there was every ground, from the temper of the nation, to entertain. Unless the convention parliament had bargained for its own perpetuity, or the privy council had been made immovable, or a military force independent of the crown had been kept up to overawe the people (all of them most unconstitutional and abominable usurpations), there was no possibility of maintaining the conditions, whatever they might have been, from the want of which so much mischief is fancied to have sprung. Evils did take place, dangers did arise, the liberties of England were once more impaired; but these are far less to be ascribed to the actors in the restoration than to the next parliament, and to the nation who chose it. I must once more request the reader to take notice that I am not here concerned with the proceedings of the convention parliament after the king’s return to England, which in 1 This,” says Burnet, somewhat in-self, the tide ran so strong, that he only vidiously, “was the great service that went into it dexterously enough to get Monk did; for as to the restoration it-much praise and great rewards.” P. 123.

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COMMONWEALTH. ACTS OF CONVENTION PARLIAMENT. 285 some respects appear to me censurable; but discussing the question, whether they were guilty of any fault in not tendering bills of limitation on the prerogative, as preliminary conditions of his restoration to the exercise of his lawful authority. And it will be found, upon a review of what took place in that interregnum from their meeting together on the 25th of April, 1660, to Charles’s arrival in London on the 29th of May, that they were less unmindful than has been sometimes supposed of provisions to secure the king. dom against the perils which had seemed to threaten it in the restoration. On the 25th of April the commons met and elected Grimston, a moderate presbyterian, as their speaker, somewhat against the secret wish of the cavaliers, who, elated by their success in the elections, were beginning to aim at superiority, and to show a jealousy of their late allies.1 On the same day the doors of the house of lords were found open; and ten peers, all of whom had sat in 1648, took their places as if nothing more than a common adjournment had passed in the interval.2 There was, however, a very delicate and embarrassing question that had been much discussed in their private meetings. The object of these, as I have mentioned, was to impose terms on the king, and maintain the presbyterian ascendency. But the peers of this party were far from numerous, and must be outvoted, if all the other lawful members of the house should be admitted to their privileges. Of these there were three classes. The first was of the peers who had come to their titles since the conclusion of the civil war, and whom there was no color of justice, nor any vote of the house, to exclude. To some of these accordingly they caused letters to be directed, and the others took their seats without objection on the 26th and 27th of April, on the latter of which days thirty-eight peers were present.8 The second class was of those who had joined Charles I., and had been excluded from sitting in the house by votes of the long parliament.

These it had been in contemplation among the presbyterian junto to keep out; but the glaring inconsist1 Grimston was proposed by Pierpoint, 2

These were the earls of Manchester, and conducted to the chair by him, Monk, Northumberland, Lincoln, Denbigh, and and Hollis. Journals, Parl.

-Hist. The Suffolk; lords Say, Wharton, Hunsdon, cavaliers complained that this was done Grey, Maynard. Lords’ Journals, April before they came into the house, and 26. that he was partial. Mordaunt to Hyde, 8 Clarendon State Papers, 784. Lords April 27. Clarendon State Papers, 734. Journals.

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286 ACTS OF CONVENTION PARLIAMENT. CHA. X. ency of such a measure with the popular sentiment, and the strength that the first class had given to the royalist interest among the aristocracy, prevented them from insisting on it. A third class consisted of those who had been created since the great seal was taken to York in 1642; some by the late king, others by the present in exile; and these, according to the fundamental principle of the parliamentary side, were incapable of sitting in the house. It was probably one of the conditions on which some meant to insist, conformably to the articles of the treaty of Newport, that the new peers should be perpetually incapable, or even that none should in future have the right of voting without the concurrence of both houses of parliament. An order was made therefore on May 4, that no lords created since 1642 should sit.

This was vacated by a subsequent resolution of May 31. A message was sent down to the commons on April 27, desiring a conference on the great affairs of the kingdom. This was the first time that word had been used for more than eleven years. But the commons, in returning an answer to this message, still employed the word nation. It was determined that the conference should take place on the ensuing Tuesday, the first of May.1 In this conference there can be no doubt that the question of further securities against the power of the crown would have been discussed. But Monk, whether from conviction of their inexpedience or to atone for his ambiguous delay, had determined to pre. vent any encroachment on the prerogative. He caused the king’s letter to the council of state and to the two houses of parliament to be delivered on that very day. A burst of enthusiastic joy testified their long-repressed wishes; and, I ( It was this day (April 27) moved in appear for the king, the affections of the the house of commons to call in the king; people are so high for him, that no other but it was deferred till Tuesday next by authority can oppose him.” H. Coventry the king’s friends’ consent, and then it is to Marquis of Ormond. Carte’s Letters, generally believed something will be done ii.

328. Mordaunt confirms this. Those in it. The calling in of the king is now who moved for the king were colonel not doubted; but there is a party among King and Mr. Finch, both decided cavathe old secluded members that would liers. It must have been postponed by have the treaty grounded upon the Isle the policy of Monk. What could Claren. of Wight propositions; and the old lords don mean by saying (History of Rebellion, are thought generally of that design. vii. 478) that “none had the courage, But it is believed the house of commons how loyal soever their wishes were, to will use the king more gently. The gen-mention his majesty”? This strange eral hath been highly complimented by way of speaking has misled Hume, who both houses, and, without doubt, the copies it. The king was as generally giving the king easy or hard conditions talked of as if he were on the throne. dependeth totally upon him; for, if he

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COMMONWEALTH. THE MILITIA QUESTION. 287 when the conference took place the earl of Manchester was instructed to let the commons know that the lords “
do own and declare that, according to the ancient and fundamental laws of this kingdom, the government is and ought to be by king, lords, and commons.” On the same day the commons resolved to agree in this vote, and appointed a committee to report what pretended acts and ordinances were inconsistent with it.1 It is, however, so far from being true that this convention gave itself up to a blind confidence in the king, that their journals during the month of May bear witness to a considerable activity in furthering provisions which the circumstances appeared to require. They appointed a committee on May 3d to consider of the king’s letter and declaration, both holding forth, it will be remembered, all promises of indemnity, and everything that could tranquillize apprehension, and to propose bills accordingly, especially for taking away military tenures.

One bill was brought into the house to secure lands purchased from the trustees of the late parliament; another, to establish ministers already settled in benefices; a third, for a general -indemnity; a fourth, to take away tenures in chivalry and wardship; a fifth, to make void all grants of honor or estate made by the late or present king since May, 1642. Finally, on the very 29th of May, we find a bill read twice and committed, for the confirmation of privilege of parliament, Magna Charta, the Petition of Right, and other great constitutional statutes.2 These measures, though some of them were never completed, proved that the restoration was not carried forward with so thoughtless a precipitancy and neglect of liberty as has been asserted. There was undoubtedly one very important matter of past controversy which they may seem to have avoided, except in the power over the militia. They silently gave respectof up that momentous question.

Yet it was become, the militia in a practical sense, incomparably more important that the representatives of the commons should retain a control over the land forces of the nation than it had been at the commencement of the controversy. War and usurpation had sown the dragon’s teeth in our fields; and, instead of the 1 Lords’ and Commons’ Journals. Parl. 2

Commons’ Journals. Hist. iv. 24.

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288 CONDUCT OF MONK. CHA. X, peaceable trained bands of former ages, the citizen soldiers who could not be marched beyond their counties, we had a veteran army accustomed to tread upon the civil authority at the bidding of their superiors, and used alike to govern and obey. It seemed prodigiously dangerous to give up this weapon into the hands of our new sovereign. The experience of other countries as well as our own demonstrated that the public liberty could never be secure if a large standing army should be kept on foot, or any standing army without consent of parliament. But this salutary restriction the convention parliament did not think fit to propose; and in this respect I certainly consider them as having stopped short of adequate security. It is probable that the necessity of humoring Monk, whom it was their first vote to constitute general of all the forces in the three kingdoms,1 with the hope, which proved not vain, that the king himself would disband the present army, whereon he could so little rely, prevented any endeavor to establish the control of parliament over the military power till it was too late to withstand the violence of the cavaliers, who considered the absolute prerogative of the crown in that point the most fundamental article of their creed. Of Monk himself it may, I think, be said that, if his conConductof duct in this revolution was not that of a highMonk. minded patriot, it did not deserve all the reproach that has been so frequently thrown on it. No one can, without forfeiting all pretensions to have his own word believed, excuse his incomparable deceit and perjury; a masterpiece, no doubt, as it ought to be reckoned by those who set at nought the obligations of veracity in public transactions, of that wisdom which is not from above. But, in seconding the public wish for the king’s restoration, a step which few perhaps can be so much in love with fanatical and tyrannous usurpation as to condemn, he seems to have used what influence he possessed - an influence by no means commanding - to render the new settlement as little injurious as possible to public and private interests. If he frustrated the scheme of throwing the executive authority into the hands of a I Lords’ Journals, May 2. Upon the commons were requested to appoint a same day the house went into considera-proportionate number to join therein. tion how to settle the militia of this But no bill was brought in till after the kingdom. A committee of twelve lords king’s return. was appointed for this purpose, and the

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COMMONWEALTH. CONDUCT OF MONK. 289 presbyterian oligarchy, 1, for one, can see no great cause for censure; nor is it quite reasonable to expect that a soldier of fortune, inured to the exercise of arbitrary power, and exempt from the prevailing religious fanaticism which must be felt or despised, should have partaken a fervent zeal for liberty, as little congenial to his temperament as it was to his profession. He certainly did not satisfy the king, even in his first promises of support, when he advised an absolute indemnity, and the preservation of actual interests in the lands of the crown and church. In the first debates on the bill of indemnity, when the case of the regicides came into discussion, he pressed for the smallest number of exceptions from pardon; and, though his conduct after the king’s return displayed his accustomed prudence, it is evident that, if he had retained great influence in the council, which he assuredly did not, he would have maintained as much as possible of the existing settlement in the church. The deepest stain on his memory is the production of Argyle’s private letters on his trial in Scotland; nor indeed can Monk be regarded, upon the whole, as an estimable man, though his prudence and success may entitle him, in the common acceptation of the word, to be reckoned a great one. toL vL 19

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O290 JOY AT THE RESTORATION. CAP. XI. CHAPTER XI. FROM THE RESTORATION OF

CHARLES THE SECOND TO THE FALL OF THE CABAL ADMINISTRATION. Popular Joy at the Restoration - Proceedings of the Convention Parliament - Act of Indemnity-Exclusion of the Regicides and others-Discussions between the Houses on it - Execution of Regicides - Restitution of Crown and Church Lands -Discontent of the Royalists -Settlement of the Revenue -Abolition of Military Tenures - Excise granted instead -Army disbanded - Clergy restored to their Benefices - Hopes of the Presbyterians from the King-Projects for a Compromise - King’s Declaration in Favor of it - Convention Parliament dissolved - Different Complexion of the next - Condemnation of Vane - Its Injustice-Acts replacing the Crown in its Prerogatives -

Corporation Act - Repeal of Triennial Act-Star-chamber not restored-Presbyterians deceived by the King -Savoy Conference - Act of Uniformity -

Ejection of Non-conformist Clergy -Hopes of the Catholics - Bias of the King towards them - Resisted by Clarendon and the Parliament-Declaration for Indulgence-Objected to by the Commons -Act against Conventicles -

Another of the same kind - Remarks on them - Dissatisfaction increases -

Private Life of the King - Opposition in Parliament - Appropriation of Supplies  Commission of Public Accounts-Decline of Clarendon’s Power-Loss of the King’s Favor - Coalition against him - His ImpeachmentSome Articles of it not unfounded-Illegal Imprisonments - Sale of Dunkirk - Solicitation of French Money-His Faults as a Minister-His pusillanimous Plight-And consequent Banishment - Cabal Ministry - Scheme of Comprehension and Indulgence-Triple Alliance - Intrigue with France-King’s Desire to be Absolute - Secret Treaty of 1670-Its Objects -

Differences between Charles and Louis as to the Mode of its Execution -

Fresh Severities against Dissenters - Dutch War-Declaration of Indulgence -Opposed by Parliament-And with drawn-Test Act-Fall of Shaftesbury and his Colleagues. IT is universally acknowledged that no measure was ever more national, or has ever produced more testimonies of public approbation, than the restoration of Charles II. Nor Popular joy can this be attributed to the usual fickleness of the at the res-multitude. For the late government, whether untoration. der the parliament or the protector, had never obtained the sanction of popular consent, nor could have subsisted for a day without the support of the army. The king’s return seemed to the people the harbinger of a real liberty, instead of that bastard commonwealth which had insulted them with its name-a liberty secure from enormous assessments, which, even when lawfully imposed, the English had always paid with reluctance, and from the insolent despotism of the soldiery. The young and lively looked forward to a release from the rigors of fanaticism, and were too ready to exchange that hypocritical austerity of the late times for a

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CHA. II.- 1660-73. ACT OF INDEMNITY. 291 licentiousness and impiety that became characteristic of the present. In this tumult of exulting hope and joy there was much to excite anxious forebodings in calmer men; and it was by no means safe to pronounce that a change so generally demanded, and in most respects so expedient, could be effected without very serious sacrifices of public and particular interests. Four subjects of great importance, and some of them very difficult, occupied the convention parliament from the time of the king’s return till their dissolu-of the con tion in the following December: a general indem-ventiorntp nity and legal oblivion of all that had been done amiss in the late interruption of government; an adjustment of the claims for reparation which the crown, the church, and private royalists had to prefer; a provision for the king’s revenue, consistent with the abolition of military tenures; and the settlement of the church. These were in effect the articles of a sort of treaty between the king and the nation, without some legislative provisions as to which, no stable or tranquil course of law could be expected. The king, in his well-known declaration from Breda, dated the 14th of April, had laid down, as it were, cer-Act of tain bases of his restoration, as to some points indemnity. which he knew to excite much apprehension in England. One of these was a free and general pardon to all his subjects, saving only such as should be excepted by parliament. It had always been the king’s expectation, or at least that of his chancellor, that all who had been immediately concerned in his father’s death should be delivered up to punish-Exclusion of ment; and, in the most unpropitious state of his the regicides fortunes, while making all professions of pardon and others. and favor to different parties, he had constantly excepted the regicides.2 Monk, however, had advised, in his first messages to the king, that none, or at most not above four, should be excepted on this account;8 and the commons voted that not 1 Life of Clarendon, p. 69. first against any exceptions, and after2 Clar. State Papers, iii. 427 629. In wards prevailed on the house to limit fact, very few of them were likely to be them to seven: p. 16. Though Ludlow of use; and the exception made his gen-was not in England, this seems very era offers appear more sincere. probable, and is confirmed by other s Clar.

Hist. of Rebellion, vii. 447. authority as to Monk. Fairfax, who had Ludlow says that Fairfax and Northum-sat one day himself on the king’s trial, berland were positively against the pun-could hardly with doeecy coneur In the ishment of the regicides; vol. iii. p. 10; punishment of those wo went on. and that Monk vehemently declared at

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292 EXCLUSION OF REGICIDES CHAP. Xl. more that seven persons should lose the benefit of the indemnity both as to life and estate.1 Yet, after having named seven of the late king’s judges, they proceeded in a few days to add several more, who had been concerned in managing his trial, or otherwise forward in promoting his death.2 They went on to pitch upon twenty persons, whom, on account of their deep concern in the transactions of the last twelve years, they determined to affect with penalties not extending to death, and to be determined by some future act of parliament.8 As their passions grew warmer, and the wishes of the court became better known, they came to except from all benefit of the indemnity such of the king’s judges as had not rendered themselves to justice according to the late proclamation.4 In this state the bill of indemnity and oblivion was sent up to the lords.6 But in that house the old royalists had a more decisive preponderance than among the commons. They voted to except all who had signed the death-warrant against Charles I., or sat when sentence was pronounced, and five others by name, Hacker, Vane, Lambert, Haslerig, and Axtell. They struck out, on the other hand, the clause reserving Lenthall and the rest of the same class for future penalties. They made other alterations in the bill to render it more severe; 6 and with these, after a pretty long delay, 1 Journals, May 14.

deserved hanging. Parl. Hist. p. 162. 2 June 5, 6, 7. The first seven were Lenthall had taken some share in the Scott, Holland, Lisle, Barkstead, Harri-restoration, and entered into correspondson, Say, Jones. They went on to add ence with the king’s advisers a little be. Coke, Broughton, Dendy. fore. Clar. State Papers, iii. 711, 720. 3 These were Lenthall, Vane, Burton, Kennet’s Register, 762. But the royalists Keble, St. John, Ireton, Haslerig. Syden-never could forgive his having put the ham, Desborough, Axtell, Lambert, Pack, question to the vote on the ordinance for Blackwell, Fleetwood, Pyne, Dean, Creed, trying the late king. Nye, Goodwin, and Cobbet: some of them 4 June 80. This was carried without rather insignificant names. Upon the a division. Eleven were afterwards exwords that ” twenty and no more ” be so cepted by name as not having rendered excepted, two divisions took place, 160 to themselves: July 9.

181, and 158 to 135; the presbyterians 6 July 11. being the majority: June 8. Two other 6 The worst and most odious of their divisions took place on the names of Len-proceedings, quite unworthy of a Christhall, carried by 216 to 126, and of Whitetian and civilized assembly, was to give lock, lost by 175 to 134. Another motion the next relations of the four peers who was made afterwards against Whitelock had been executed under the commonby Prynne. Milton was ordered to be wealth, Hamilton, Holland, Capel and prosecuted separately from the twenty; Derby, the privilege of naming each one so that they already broke their resolu-person (among the regicides) to be exetion. He was put in custody of the cuted. This was done in the three last sergeantat-arms, and released, December instances; but lord Denbigh, as Hamil. 17. Andrew Marvell, his friend, soon ton’s kinsman, nominated one who was afterwards complained that fees of the dead; and, on this being pointed out to amount of 150 pounds had been extorted him, refused to fix on another. Journal, from him; but Finch answered that Mil-Aug. 7. Ludlow, iii. 84. ton had been Cromwell’s secretary, and

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CHA. II.-1660-73. FROM THE ACT OF INDEMNITY. 293 and a positive message from the king, requesting them to hasten their proceedings (an irregularity to which they took no exception, and which in the eyes of the nation was justified by the circumstances), they returned the bill to the commons. The vindictive spirit displayed by the upper house was not agreeable to the better temper of the commons, where the presbyterian or moderate party retained great influence. Though the king’s judges (such at least as had signed the death-warrant) were equally guilty, it was consonant to the practice of all humane governments to make a selection for capital penalties; and to put forty or fifty persons to death for that offence seemed a very sanguinary course of proceedq ing, and not likely to promote the conciliation and oblivion so much cried up. But there was a yet stronger objection to this severity. The king had published a proclamation, in a few days after his landing, commanding his father’s judges to render themselves up within fourteen days, on pain of being excepted from any pardon or indemnity, either as to their lives or estates. Many had voluntarily come in, having put an obvious construction on this proclamation. It seems to admit of little question that the king’s faith was pledged to those persons, and that no advantage could be taken of any ambiguity in the proclamation, without as real perfidiousness as if the words had been more express. They were at least entitled to be set at liberty, and to have a reasonable time allowed for making their escape, if it were deter-Discussions mined to exclude them from the indemnity.1 The between the commons were more mindful of the king’s honor houses on it.

and their own than his nearest advisers.2 But the violent 1 Lord Southampton, according to Lud-king’s shoulders, but puts the case of low, actually moved this in the house of those who obeyed the proclamation on a.ords, but was opposed by Finch: iii. 43. very different footing. The king, he pre2 Clarendon uses some shameful chi-tends, had always expected that none of canery about this (Life, p. 69); and with the regicides should be spared. But that inaccuracy, to say the least, so ha-why did he publish such a proclamation? bitual to him, says, ” the parliament had Clarendon, however, seems to have been published a proclamation, that all who against the other exceptions from the did not render themselves by a day bill of indemnity, as contrary to some named should be judged as guilty, and expressions in the declaration from Breda, attainted of treason.” The proclamation which had been inserted by Monk’s adwas published by the king, on the sug-vice; and thus wisely and honorably got gestion indeed of the lords and commons. rid of the twenty exceptions, which had and the expressions were what I have been sent up from the commons, p. 183. stated in the text. State Trials, v. 959. The lower house resolved to agree with Somers Tracts, vii. 437. It is obvious the lords as to those twenty persons or that by this misrepresentation he not rather sixteen of them, by 197 to 102, only throws the blame of ill faith off the Hollis and Morrice telling the ayes.

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294 EXECUTION OF REGICIDES. CHAP. XI. royalists were gaining ground among them, and it ended in a compromise. They left Hacker and Axtell, who had been prominently concerned in the king’s death, to their fate. They even admitted the exceptions of Vane and Lambert, contenting themselves with a joint address of both houses to the king, that, if they should be attainted, execution as to their lives might be remitted. Haslerig was saved on a division of 141 to 116, partly through the intercession of Monk, who had pledged his word to him. Most of the king’s judges were entirely excepted; but with a proviso in favor of such as had surrendered according to the proclamation, that the sentence should not be executed without a special act of parliament.1 Others were reserved for penalties not extending to life, to be inflicted by a future act. About twenty enumerated persons, as well as those who had pronounced sentence of death in any of the late illegal high courts of justice, were rendered incapable of any civil or military office. Thus, after three months’ delay, which had given room to distrust the boasted clemency and forgiveness of the victorious royalists, the act of indemnity was finally passed. Ten persons suffered death soon afterwards for the murExecution der of Charles I.; and three more who had been of regicides seized in Holland, after a considerable lapse of time.2 There can be no reasonable ground for censuring either the king or the parliament for their punishment, except that Hugh Peters, though a very odious fanatic, was not so directly implicated in the king’s death as many who escaped, and the execution of Scrope, who had surrendered under the proclamation, was an inexcusable breach of faith.8 1 Stat. 12 Car. II. c. 11. 8 It is remarkable that Scrope had 2 These were, in the first instance, been so particularly favored by the conHarrison, Scott, Scrope, Jones, Clement, vention parliament, as to be exempted, Carew all of whom had signed the war-together with Hutchinson and Lascelles, rant, Cook, the solicitor at the high court from any penalty or forfeiture by a speof justice, Hacker and Axtell, who com-ciaI resolution: June 9. But the lords manded the guard on that occasion, and put in his name again, though they peters. Two years afterwards, Downing, pointedly excepted Hutchinson; and the ambassador in Holland, prevailed on the commons, after first resolving that he states to give up Barkstead, Corbet, and should only pay a fine of one year’s value Okey. They all died with great con-of his estate, came at last to agree in exstancy, and an enthusiastic persuasion cepting him from the indemnity as to of the righteousness of their cause. State life. It appears that some private conTrials. versation of Scrope had been betrayed, Pepys says in his Diary, 18th October, wherein he spoke of the king’s death as 1660, of Harrison, whose execution he he thought. witnessed, that “he looked as cheerful As to Hutchinson, he had certainly as any man could do in that condition.” concurred in the restoration, having an

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CHa. IL - 1660-73. RESTITUTIONS. 295 But nothing can be more sophistical than to pretend that such men as Hollis and Annesley, who had been expelled from parliament by the violence of the same faction who put the king to death, were not to vote for their punishment, or to sit in judgment on them, because they had sided with the commons in the civil war.1 It is mentioned by many writers, and in the Journals, that when Mr.

Lenthall, son of the late speaker, in the very first days of the convention parliament, was led to say that those who had levied war against the king were as blamable as those who had cut off his head, he received a reprimand from the chair, which the folly and dangerous consequence of his position well deserved; for such language, though it seems to have been used by him in extenuation of the regicides, was quite in the tone of the violent royalists.2 A question apparently far more difficult was that of restitution and redress. The crown lands, those of the church, the estates in certain instances of eminent of croiwn royalists, had been sold by the authority of the and church late usurpers, and that not at very low rates, con-lands sidering the precariousness of the title. This naturally seemed a material obstacle to the restoration of ancient rights, especially in the case of ecclesiastical corporations, whom men are commonly less disposed to favor than private persons. The clergy themselves had never expected that their estates would revert to them in full propriety, and would probably have been contented, at the moment of the king’s return, to grant easy leases to the purchasers. Nor extreme dislike to the party who had haps itmay be thought that men of more turned out the parliament in Oct. 1659, delicate sentiments than either of these especially Lambert. This may be inferred possessed would not have sat upon the from his conduct as well as by what trial of those with whom they had long Ludlow says, and Kennet in his Register. professed to act in concert, though inp. 169. His wife puts a speech into his nocent of their crime. mouth as to his share in the king’s death, 2 Commons’

Journals, May 12, 1660. not absolutely justifying it, but, I sus- [Yet the balance of parties in the conpect, stronger than he ventured to use.

vention parliament was so equal, that on At least, the commons voted that he a resolution that receivers and collectors should be not excepted from the indem-of public money should be accountable nity, “on account of his signal repent-to the king for all moneys received by ance,” which could hardly be predicated them since Jan. 80, 1648-9, an amendof the language she ascribes to him. ment to substitute the year 1642-8 was Compare Mrs.

Hutchinson’s Memoirs, p. carried against the presbyterians by 166 867, with Commons’ Journals, June 9. to 150. It was not designed that those 1

Horace Walpole, in his Catalogue of who had accounted to the parliament Noble Authors, has thought fit to censure should actually refund what they had both these persons for their pretended received, but to declare, indirectly, the inconsistency. The case is however dif-illegality of the parliamentary authority ferent as to Monk and Cooper; and per-Commons’

Journals, June 2. -1846.]

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296 RESTITUTIONS. CHAP. XL were the house of commons, many of whom were interested in these sales, inclined to let in the former owners without conditions. A bill was accordingly brought into the house at the beginning of the session to confirm sales, or to give indemnity to the purchasers. I do not find its provisions more particularly stated. The zeal of the royalists soon caused the crown lands to be excepted.1 But the house adhered to the principle of composition as to ecclesiastical property, and kept the bill a long time in debate. At the adjournment in September the chancellor told them his majesty had thought much upon the business, and done much for the accommodation of many particular persons, and doubted not but that, before they met again, a good progress would be made, so that the persons concerned would be much to blame if they received not full satisfaction, promising also to advise with some of the commons as to that settlement.2 These expressions indicate a design to take the matter out of the hands of parliament. For it was Hyde’s firm resolution to replace the church in the whole of its property, without any other regard to the actual possessors than the right owners should severally think it equitable to display. And this, as may be supposed, proved very small. No further steps were taken on the meeting of parliament after the adjournment; and by the dissolution the parties were left to the common course of law. The church, the crown, the dispossessed royalists, reentered triumphantly on their lands: there were no means of repelling the owners’ claim, nor any satisfaction to be looked for by the purchasers under so defective a title. It must be owned that the facility with which this was accomplished is a striking testimony to the strength of the new government and the concurrence of the nation. This is the more remarkable, if it be true, as Ludlow informs us, that the chapter lands had been sold by the trustees appointed by parliament at the clear income of fifteen or seventeen years’ purchase.8 The great body, however, of the suffering cavaliers, who had compounded for their delinquency under the ordinances 1

Parl. Hist. iv. 80. tent to give leases of their lands: p. 620, 2 Id. 129.

723. Hyde, however, was convinced s Memoirs, p. 229. It appears by some that the church would be either totally passages in the Clarendon Papers that ruined, or restored to a great lustre; the church had not expected to come off and herein he was right, as it turned so brilliantly; and, while the restoration out. P. 614. was yet unsettled, would have been con

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CHA. II.- 1660-73. SETTLEMENT OF THE REVENUE. 297 of the long parliament, or whose estates had been for a time in sequestration, found no remedy for these Discontent losses by any process of law. The act of indem-of the nity put a stop to any suits they might have insti-royalists. tuted against persons concerned in carrying these illegal ordinances into execution. They were compelled to put up with their poverty, having the additional mortification of seeing one class, namely, the clergy, who had been engaged in the same cause, not alike in their fortune, and many even of the vanquished republicans undisturbed in wealth which, directly or indirectly, they deemed acquired at their own expense.l They called the statute an act of indemnity for the king’s enemies, and of oblivion for his friends. They murmured at the ingratitude of Charles, as if he were bound to forfeit his honor and risk his throne for their sakes. They conceived a deep hatred of Clarendon, whose steady adherence to the great principles of the act of indemnity is the most honorable act of his public life. And the discontent engendered by their disappointed hopes led to some part of the opposition afterwards experienced by the king, and still more certainly to the coalition against the minister. No one cause had so eminently contributed to the dissensions between the crown and parliament, in the Settlement two last reigns, as the disproportion between the of the public revenues under a rapidly-increasing depre-revenue. elation in the value of money, and the exigencies, at least on some occasions, of the administration. There could be no apology for the parsimonious reluctance of the commons to grant supplies, except the constitutional necessity of rendering them the condition of redress of grievances; and in the present circumstances, satisfied, as they seemed at least to be, with the securities they had obtained, and enamored of their new sovereign, it was reasonable to make some further provision for the current expenditure. Yet this was to be 1 Life of Clarendon, 99. L’Estrange, while those who stood up for the laws in a pamphlet printed before the end of were abandoned to the comfort of an 1660, complains that the cavaliers were irreparable but honorable ruin.” He neglected, the king betrayed, the creat-reviles the presbyterian ministers still ures of Cromwell, Bradshaw, and St. in possession, and tells the king that John, laden with offices and honors.

Of misplaced lenity was his father’s ruin. the indemnity he says, ” That act made Kennet’s Register, p. 233. See, too, in the enemies to the constitution masters Somers Tracts, vii. 617. “The Humble in effect of the booty of three nations, Representation of the Sad Condition of bating the crown and church lands, all the King’s Party.” Also p. 557. which they might now call their own;

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298 EXCISE IN LIEU OF CHAP. XI. meted out with such prudence as not to place him beyond the necessity of frequent recurrence to their aid. A committee was accordingly appointed “to consider of settling such a revenue on his majesty as may maintain the splendor and grandeur of his kingly office, and preserve the crown from want and from being undervalued by his neighbors.” By their report it appeared that the revenue of Charles I. from 1637 to 1641 had amounted on an average to about 900,0001., of which full 200,0001. arose from sources either not warranted by law or no longer available.1 The house resolved to raise the present king’s income to 1,200,0001. per annum, a sum perhaps sufficient in those times for the ordinary charges of government. But the funds assigned to produce his revenue soon fell short of the parliament’s calculation.2 One ancient fountain that had poured its stream into the Abolition royal treasury it was now determined to close up of military forever. The feudal tenures had brought with nxcuses. them at the Conquest, or not long after, those incigranted dents, as they were usually called, or emoluments instead. of seigniory, which remained after the military character of fiefs had been nearly effaced, especially the right of detaining the estates of minors holding in chivalry without accounting for the profits. This galling burden, incomparably more ruinous to the tenant than beneficial to the lord, it had long been determined to remove. Charles, at the treaty of Newport, had consented to give it up for a fixed revenue of 100,0001.; and this was almost the only part of that ineffectual compact which the present parliament were anxious to complete. The king, though likely to lose much patronage and influence, and what passed with lawyers for a high attribute of his prerogative, could not decently refuse a commutation so evidently advantageous to the aristocracy. No great difference of opinion subsisting as to the expediency of taking away military tenures, it remained only to decide from what resources the commutation revenue should spring. 1 [Commons’ Journals, Sept. 4. 1660; 1,200,0001. voted by parliament. See which I quote from “Letter to the Rev. his Diary, March 1, 1664. Ralph, howT. Carte” (in 1749), p. 44. This seems ever, says, the income in 1662 was to have been exclusive of shipmoney. - 1,120,598., though the expenditure was 1845.] 1,439.0001.: p. 88. It appears probable 2 Commons’ Journals, September 4, that the hereditary excise did not yet 1660. Sir Philip Warwick, chancellor of produce much beyond its estimate.

Id the exchequer, assured Pepys that the p. 20. revenue fell short by a fourth of the

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CnA. In.- 1660-73. MILITARY TENURES. 299 Two schemes were suggested; the one, a permanent tax on lands held in chivalry (which, as distinguished from those in socage, were alone liable to the feudal burdens); the other an excise on beer and some other liquors. It is evident that the former was founded on a just principle, while the latter transferred a particular burden to the community. But the self-interest which so unhappily predominates even in representative assemblies, with the aid of the courtiers, who knew that an excise increasing with the riches of the country was far more desirable for the crown than a fixed land-tax, caused the former to be carried, though by the very small majority of two voices.1 Yet even thus, if the impoverishment of the gentry, and dilapidation of their estates through the detestable abuses of wardship, was, as cannot be doubted, very mischievous to the inferior classes, the whole community must be reckoned gainers by the arrangement, thought it might have been conducted in a more equitable manner. The statute 12 Car.

II. c. 24, takes away the court of wards, with all wardships and forfeitures for marriage by reason of tenure, all primer seisins and fines for alienation, aids, escuages, homages, and tenures by chivalry without exception, save the honorary services of grand sergeanty; converting all such tenures into common socage. The same statute abolishes those famous rights of purveyance and preemption, the fruitful theme of so many complaining parliaments; and this relief of the people from a general burden may serve in some measure as an apology for the imposition of the excise. This act may be said to have wrought an important change in the spirit of our constitution, by reducing what is emphatically called the prerogative of the crown, and which, by its practical exhibition in these two vexatious exercises of power wardship and purveyance! kept up in the minds of the people a more distinct perception, as well as more awe, of the monarchy, than could be felt in later periods, when it has become, as it were, merged in the common course of law, and blended with the very complex mechanism of our institutions. This great innovation, however, is properly to be referred to the revolution of 1641, which put an end to the court of star chamber, and suspended the feudal superiorities. Henca 1

Nov. 21, 1660, 151 to 149. Parl. of what already was paid by virtue o Hist. [It is to be observed, as some ex-ordinances under the commonwealth - cuse for the commons, that the heredi-1846.1 tary excise thus granted was one moiety

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300 ARMY DISBANDED. CHAP. XI. with all the misconduct of the two last Stuarts, and all the tendency towards arbitrary power that their government often displayed, we must perceive that the constitution had put on, in a very great degree, its modern character during that period; the boundaries of prerogative were better understood; its pretensions, at least in public, were less enormous; and not so many violent and oppressive, certainly not so many illegal, acts were committed towards individuals as under the two first of their family. In fixing upon 1,200,0001. as a competent revenue for ihe Army dis-crown, the commons tacitly gave it to be underbanded. stood that a regular military force was not among the necessities for which they meant to provide. They looked upon the army, notwithstanding its recent services, with that apprehension and jealousy which became an English house of commons. They were still supporting it by monthly assessments of 70,0001., and could gain no relief by the king’s restoration till that charge came to an end. A bill therefore was sent up to the lords before their adjournment in September, providing money for disbanding the land forces. This was done during the recess: the soldiers received their arrears with many fair words of praise, and the nation saw itself, with delight and thankfulness to the king, released from its heavy burdens and the dread of servitude.1 Yet Charles had too much knowledge of foreign countries, where monarchy flourished in all its plenitude of sovereign power under the guardian sword of a standing army, to part readily with so favorite an instrument of kings. Some of his counsellors, and especially the duke of York, dissuaded him from disbanding the army, or at least advised his supplying its place by another. The unsettled state of the kingdom after so momentous a revolution, the dangerous audacity of the fanatical party, whose enterprises were the more to be guarded against because they were founded on no such calculation as reasonable men would form, and of which the insurrection of Venner in November, 1660, furnished an example, did undoubtedly appear a very plausible excuse for something more of a military protection to the government than yeomen of the guard and gentlemen pensioners. Gent The troops disbanded were fourteen in Scotland, besides garrisons. Journals, regiments of horse and eighteen of foot Nov.

7. in England; one of horse and four of foot

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CHA. II.- 1660-73. THE CLERGY RESTORED. 301 eral Monk’s regiment, called the Coldstream, and one other of horse, were accordingly retained by the king in his service; another was formed out of troops brought from Dunkirk; and thus began, under the name of guards, the present regular army of Great Britain.’ In 1662 these amounted to about 5000 men; a petty force according to our present notions, or to the practice of other European monarchies in that age, yet sufficient to establish an alarming precedent, and to open a new source of contention between the supporters of power and those of freedom. So little essential innovation had been effected by twenty years’ interruption of the regular government in the common law or course of judicial proceedings, that, when the king and house of lords were restored to their places, little more seemed to be requisite than a change of names. But what was true of the state could not be applied to the church. The revolution there had gone much farther, and the questions of restoration and compromise were far more difficult. It will be remembered that such of the clergy as steadily adhered to the episcopal constitution had been ex-le pelled from their benefices by the long parliament restored under various pretexts, and chiefly for refusing to thir take the covenant. The new establishment was nominally presbyterian. But the presbyterian discipline and synodical government were very partially introduced; and, upon the whole, the church, during the suspension of the ancient laws, was rather an assemblage of congregations than a compact body, having little more unity than resulted from their common dependency on the temporal magistrate. In the time of Cromwell, who favored the independent sectaries, some of that denomination obtained livings; but very few, I believe, comparatively, who had not received either episcopal or presbyterian ordination. The right of private patronage to benefices, and that of tithes, though continually menaced by the more violent party, subsisted without alteration. Meanwhile the episcopal ministers, though excluded from Vegal toleration along with papists, by the instrument of government under which Cromwell professed to hold his power, obtained, in general, a sufficient indulgence for the exercise of their function.2 Once, indeed, on discovery of the royalist 1

Ralph, 85; Life of James, 447; Grose’s 2 Neal, 429, 444. Military Antiquities, i. 61.

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302 HOPES OF PRESBYTERIANS CHAP. XI. conspiracy in 1655, he published a severe ordinance, forbidding every ejected minister or fellow of a college to act as domestic chaplain or schoolmaster. But this was coupled with a promise to show as much tenderness as might consist with the safety of the nation towards such of the said persons as should give testimony of their good affection to the government; and, in point of fact, this ordinance was so far from being rigorously observed, that episcopalian conventicles were openly kept in London.1 Cromwell was of a really tolerant disposition, and there had perhaps, on the whole, been no period of equal duration wherein the catholics themselves suffered so little molestation as under the protectorate.2 It is well known that he permitted the settlement of Jews in England, after an exclusion of nearly three centuries, in spite of the denunciations of some bigoted churchmen and lawyers. The presbyterian clergy, though cooperating in the king’s restoration, experienced very just apprehensions Hopesreby-of the church they had supplanted; and this was teriansfrom in fact one great motive of the restrictions that the king party was so anxious to impose on him. His character and sentiments were yet very imperfectly known in England; and much pains were taken on both sides, by short pamphlets, panegyrical or defamatory, to represent him as the best Englishman and best protestant of the age, or as one given up to profligacy and popery.8 The caricature 1

Neal, 471. Pepys’s Diary, ad init. lock tells us he opposed it, 625. It was Even in Oxford, about 300 episcopalians not acted upon. used to meet every Sunday with the con-8 Several of these appear in Somers’s nivance of Dr. Owen, dean of Christ Tracts, vol. vii. The king’s nearestfriends Church. Orme’s Life of Owen, 188. It were of course not backward in praising Is somewhat bold in Anglican writers to him, though a little at the expense of complain, as they now and then do, of their consciences.

“In a word,” says the persecution they suffered at this pe-Hyde to a correspondent in 1659, ” if riod, when we consider what had been being the best protestant and the best the conduct of the bishops before, and Englishman of the nation can do the king what it was afterwards. I do not know good at home, he must prosper with and that any member of the church of Eng-by his own subjects.” Clar. State Papers, land was imprisoned under the common-541. Morley says he had been to see wealth, except for some political reason; judge Hale, who asked him questions certain it is that the jails were not filled about the king’s character and firmness with them. in the protestant religion. Id. 786. Mor2 The penal laws were comparatively ley’s exertions to dispossess men of the dormant, though two priests suffered notion that the king and his brother were death, one of them before the protector-inclined to popery are also mentioned by ate.

Butler’s Mem. of Catholics, ii. 18. Kennet in his Register, 818; a book conBut in 1655 Cromwell issued a proclama-taining very copious information as to tion for the execution of these statutes; this particular period. Yet Morley could which seems to have been provoked by hardly have been without strong suspithe persecution of the Vaudois.

White-cions as to both of them.

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CHA. I.- 1660-73. FROM THE KING. 303 likeness was, we must now acknowledge, more true than the other; but at that time it was fair and natural to dwell on the more pleasing picture. The presbyterians remembered that he was what they called a covenanted king; that is, that, for the sake of the assistance of the Scots, he had submitted to all the obligations, and taken all the oaths, they thought fit to impose.1 But it was well known that, on the failure of those prospects, he had returned to the church of England, and that he was surrounded by its zealous adherents. Charles, in his declaration from Breda, promised to grant liberty of conscience, so that no man should be disquieted or called in question for differences of opinion in matters of religion which do not disturb the peace of the kingdom, and to consent to such acts of parliament as should be offered to him for confirming that indulgence. But he was silent as to the church establishment; and the presbyterian ministers, who went over to present the congratulations of their body, met with civil language, but no sort of encouragement to expect any personal compliance on the king’s part with their mode of worship.2 The moderate party in the convention parliament, though not absolutely of the presbyterian interest, saw Projects the danger of permitting an oppressed body offoracomchurchmen to regain their superiority without promise. some restraint. The actual incumbents of benefices were on the whole a respectable and even exemplary class, most of whom could not be reckoned answerable for the legal defects of their title. But the ejected ministers of the Anglican church, who had endured for their attachment to its discipline and to the crown so many years of poverty and privation, stood in a still more favorable light, and had an evident claim to restoration.

The commons accordingly, 1 He had written in cipher to secretary “I see clearly,” he writes on June 10, Nicholas, from St. Johnston’s, Sept. 3, “the general will not stand by the pres1650, the day of the battle of Dunbar. byterians; they talk of closing with mod” Nothing could have confirmed me more erate episcopacy for fear of worse.” And to the church of England than being here, on June 23, “AlL is wrong here as to seeing their hypocrisy.” Supplement to church affairs. Episcopacy will’be setEvelyn’s Diary, 133. The whole letter tled here to the height; their lands will shows that he was on the point of giving be all restored. None of the presbytehis new friends the slip; as indeed he rian way here oppose this, but mourn attempted soon after, in what was called in secret.” ”’

The generality of the peothe Start. Laing, iii. 463. pie are doting after prelacy and the ser2 [Several letters of Sharp, then in vice-book.” He found to his cost thst London, are published in Wodrow’s it was much otherwise in Scotland.  ” History of the Church of Scotland,” 1846.]

which I quote from Kennet’s Register.

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304 PROJECTS FOR CHAP. XI. before the king’s return, prepared a bill for confirming and restoring ministers, with the twofold object of replacing in their benefices, but without their legal right to the intermediate profits, the episcopal clergy who by ejection or forced surrender had made way for intruders, and at the same time of establishing the possession, though originally usurped, of those against whom there was no claimant living to dispute it, as well as of those who had been presented on legal vacancies.1 This act did not pass without opposition from the cavaliers, who panted to retaliate the persecution that had afflicted their church.2

This legal security, however, for the enjoyment of their livings gave no satisfaction to the scruples of conscientious men. The episcopal discipline, the Anglican liturgy and ceremonies, having never been abrogated by law, revived of course with the constitutional monarchy; and brought with them all the penalties that the act of uniformity and other statutes had inflicted. The nonconforming clergy threw themselves on the king’s compassion, or gratitude, or policy, for relief. The independents, too irreconcilable to the established church for any scheme of comprehension, looked only to that liberty of conscience which the king’s declaration from Breda had held forth.8 But the presbyterians soothed themselves with hopes of retaining their benefices by some compromise with their adversaries. They had never, generally speaking, embraced the rigid principles of the Scottish clergy, and were willing to admit what they 1

12 Car. II. c. 17. It is quite clear acts of parliament might not grow into that an usurped possession was confirmed disuse. Many got the additional security by this act, where the lawful incumbent of such patents; which proved of service was dead [though Burnet intimates that, to them, when the next parliament did this statute not having been confirmed not think fit to confirm this important by the next parliament, those who had statute. Baxter says, p. 241, some got originally come in by an unlawful title, letters-patent to turn out the possessors, were expelled by course of law. This I where the former incumbents were dead.

am inclined to doubt, as such a proceed-These must have been to benefices in the ing would have assumed the invalidity gift of the crown; in other cases lettersof the laws enacted in the convention patent could have been of no effect. I parliament. But we find by a case re-have found this confirmed by the Jourported in 1 Ventris, that the judges would nals, Aug.

27, 1660. [But compare the not suffer these acts to be disputed. -
preceding note, which leaves some doubt 1846.] on the facts of the case.]

2 Parl. Hist. 94. The chancellor, in 3 Upon Venner’s insurrection, though his speech to the houses at their adjourn-the sectaries, and especially the indepenment in September, gave them to underdents, published a declaration of their stand that this bill was not quite satis-abhorrence of it, a pretext was found factory to the court, who preferred the for issuing a proclamation to shut up confirmation of ministers by particular the conventicles of the anabaptists and letters-patent under the great seal; that quakers, and so worded as to reach all the king’s prerogative of dispensing with others. Kennet’s Register, 857.

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CHA. II.-1660-73. A COMPROMISE. 305 called a moderate episcopacy. They offered, accordingly, on the king’s request to know their terms, a middle scheme, usually denominated Bishop Usher’s Model; not as altogether approving it, but because they could not hope for anything nearer to their own views. This consisted, first, in the appointment of a suffragan bishop for each rural deanery, holding a monthly synod of the presbyters within his district; and, secondly, in an annual diocesan synod of suffragans and representatives of the presbyters, under the presidency of the bishop, and deciding upon all matters before them by plurality of suffrages.1 This is, I believe, considered by most competent judges s as approaching more nearly than our own system to the usage of the primitive church, which gave considerable influence and superiority of rank to the bishop, without destroying the aristocratical character and coordinate jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical senate.2 It lessened also the inconveniences supposed to result from the great extent of some English dioceses. But, though such a system was inconsistent with that parity which the rigid presbyterians maintained to be indispensable, and those who espoused it are reckoned, in a theological division, 1 Collier, 869, 871; Baxter, 232, 238. one of their own number for a chief or The bishops said, in their answer to the president; 3. That there is no reason to presbyterians’ proposals, that the objec-consider any part of the apostolical discitions against a single person’s adminis-pline as an invariable model for future tration in the church were equally appli-ages, and that much of our own ecclesicable to the state. Collier, 872. But astical polity cannot any way pretend to this was false, as they well knew, and primitive authority; 4.

That this has designed only to produce an effect at been the opinion of all the most eminent court; for the objections were not theologians at home and abroad; 6. grounded on reasoning, but on a pre-That it would be expedient to introduce sumed positive institution. Besides various modifications, not on the whole which, the argument cut against them-much different from the scheme of Usher. selves: for, if the English constitution, Stillingfleet, whose work is a remarkable or something analogous to it, had been instance of extensive learning and maestablished in the church, their adver-ture judgment at the age of about saries would have had all they now twenty-three, thought fit afterwards to asked.

retract it in a certain degree; and tows Stillingfieet’s Irenicum. King’s In-ards the latter part of his life gave in to quiry into the Constitution of the Primi-more high-church politics. It is true tive Church. The former work was pub-that the Irenicum must have been comlished at this time, with a view to mod-posed with almost unparalleled rapidity erate the pretensions of the Anglican for such a work; but it shows, as far as I party, to which the author belonged, by can judge, no marks of precipitancy. showing: 1. That there are no sufficient The biographical writers put its publidata for determining with certainty the cation in 1659; but this must be a misform of church government in the apos-take; it could not have passed the press tolical age, or that which immediately on the 24th of March, 1660, the latest followed it; 2. That, as far as we may day which could, according to the old probably conjecture, the primitive style, have admitted the date of 1659, church was framed on the model of as it contains allusions to the kin’s the synagogue; that is, a synod of restoration. priests in every congregation, having VOL. II. 20

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306 CHARLES DECLARES IN ITS FAVOR. CHAP. XI. among episcopalians, it was in the eyes of equally rigid churchmen little better than a disguised presbytery, and a real subversion of the Anglican hierarchy.1 The presbyterian ministers, or rather a few eminent persons of that class, proceeded to solicit a revision of the liturgy, and a consideration of the numerous objections which they made to certain passages, while they admitted the lawfulness of a prescribed form. They implored the king also to abolish, or at least not to enjoin as necessary, some of those ceremonies which they scrupled to use, and which in fact had been the original cause of their schism; the surplice, the cross in baptism, the practice of kneeling at the communion, and one or two more. A tone of humble supplication pervades all their language, which some might invidiously contrast with their unbending haughtiness in prosperity. The bishops and other Anglican divines, to whom their propositions were referred, met the offer of capitulation with a scornful and vindictive smile. They held out not the least overture towards a compromise. The king, however, deemed it expedient, during the oontinuance of a parliament the majority of whom were desirous of union in the church, and had given some indications of their disposition,2 to keep up the delusion a little longer and prevent the possible consequences of despair. He had already appointed several presbyterian ministers his chaplains, and given them frequent audiences. But during the recess of parliament he published a declaration, wherein, after some compliments to the ministers of the presbyterian opinion, and an artful expression of satisfaction that he had found them no enemies to episcopacy or a liturgy, as they had been reported to be, he announces his intendecgration tion to appoint a sufficient number of suffragan in favor bishops in the larger dioceses; he promises that of it. no bishop should ordain or exercise any part of his spiritual jurisdiction without advice and assistance of his 1 Baxter’s Life. Neal. [The episco-churches. But those few, “by their palians, according to Baxter, were of parts and interest in the nobility and two kinds, ” the old common moderate gentry, did carry it at last against the sort,” who took episcopacy to be good, other party.” Baxter’s Life, part 2, p. but not necessary, and owned the other 149. -1845.] reformed to be true churches; and those 2 They addressed the king to call such who followed Dr. Hammond, and were divines as he should think fit, to advise very few their notion was that presby-with concerning matters of religion ters in Scripture meant bishops exclu-July 20, 1660. Journals and Pad.

sively, and they set aside the reformed Hist.

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CHA. II.- 1660-73. ILL-FAITH OF THE KING. 307 presbyters; that no chancellors or officials of the bishops should use any jurisdiction over the ministry, nor any archdeacon without the advice of a council of his clergy; that the dean and chapter of the diocese, together with an equal number of presbyters, annually chosen by the clergy, should be always advising and assisting at all ordinations, church censures, and other important acts of spiritual jurisdiction. He declared also that he would appoint an equal number of divines of both persuasions to revise the liturgy; desiring that in the mean time none would wholly lay it aside, yet promising that no one should be molested for not using it till it should be reviewed and reformed. With regard to ceremonies, he declared that none should be compelled to receive the sacrament kneeling, nor to use the cross in baptism, nor to bow at the name of Jesus, nor to wear the surplice except in the royal chapel and in cathedrals, nor should subscription to articles not doctrinal be required. He renewed also his declaration from Breda, that no man should be called in question for differences of religious opinion not disturbing the peace of the kingdom.1

Though many of the presbyterian party deemed this modification of Anglican episcopacy a departure from their notions of an apostolic church, and inconsistent with their covenant, the majority would doubtless have acquiesced in so extensive a concession from the ruling power. If faithfully executed according to its apparent meaning, it does not seem that the declaration falls very short of their own proposal, the scheme of Usher.2 The high-churchmen, indeed, would 1 Parl. Hist. Neal, Baxter, Collier if they disagreed, lords Anglesea and &c. Burnet says that Clarendon had Hollis to decide. made the king publish this declaration; 2The chief objection made by the 4 but the bishops did not approve of presbyterians, as far as we learn from this; and, after the service they did that Baxter. was2 that the consent of presbylord in the duke of York’s marriage, ters to the bishops’ acts was not promised he would not put any hardship on by the declaration, but only their advice; those who had so signally obliged him.” a distinction apparently not very maThis is very invidious. I know no evi-terial in practice, where the advice was dence that the declaration was published apparently made obligatory, but bearing at Clarendon’s suggestion, except indeed perhaps on the great point of controthat he was the great adviser of the versy, whether the difference between crown; yet in some things, especially the two were in order or in degree. The of this nature, the king seems to have king would not come into the scheme of acted without his concurrence. He cer-consent; though they pressed him with tainly speaks of the declaration as if he a passage out of the Icon Basilik,; where did not wholly relish it (Life, 75), and his father allowed of it. Life of Baxter, does not state it fairly. In State Trials, 276. Some alterations, however, were vi. 11, it is said to have been drawn up made in consequence of their Suggesby Morley and Henchman for thechurch, tions. Reynolds and Oalamy for the dissenters;

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308 CONVENTION PARLIAMENT DISSOLVED. CHAP. XI have murmured had it been made effectual. But such as were nearest the king’s councils well knew that nothing else was intended by it than to scatter dust in men’s eyes, and to prevent the interference of parliament. This was soon rendered manifest, when a bill to render the king’s declaration effectual was vigorously opposed by the courtiers, and rejected on a second reading by 183 to 157.1 Nothing could more forcibly demonstrate an intention of breaking faith with the presbyterians than this vote. For the king’s declaration was repugnant to the act of uniformity and many other statutes, so that it could not be carried into effect without the authority of parliament, unless by means of such a general dispensing power as no parliament would endure.2 And it is impossible to question that a bill for confirming it would have easily passed through this house of commons had it not been for the resistance of the government. Charles now dissolved the convention parliament, having Convention obtained from it what was immediately necessary, parliament but well aware that he could better accomplish his dissolved, objects with another.8 It was studiously inculcated by the royalist lawyers, that, as this assembly had not been summoned by the king’s writ, none of its acts could have any real validity, except by the confirmation of a true parliament.4 This doctrine, being applicable to the act of 1 Parl. Hist. 141, 152. Clarendon, 76, houses. His speech is long and eloquent. most strangely observes on this, ” Some expressive of nothing but satisfaction of the leaders brought a bill into the and recommending harmony to all classhouse for the making that declaration a es. One passage is eloquent enough to law, which was suitable to their other be extracted: “They are too much in acts of ingenuity to keep the church for-love with England, too partial to it, who ever under the same indulgence and believe it the best country in the world; without any settlement; which being there is a better earth, and a better air, quickly perceived, there was no further and better, that is, a warmer sun in progress in it.” The bill was brought in other countries; but we are no more by sir Matthew Hale. than just when we say that England is 2 Collier, who of course thinks this an enclosure of the best people in the declaration an encroachment on the world, when they are well informed and church, as well as on the legislative instructed; a people, in sobriety of conpower, says, ” For this reason it was science, the most devoted to God Aloverlooked at the assizes and sessions in mighty; in the integrity of their affecseveral places in the country, where the tions, the most dutiful to the king; in dissenting ministers were indicted for not their good manners and inclinations, conforming pursuant to the laws in most regardful and loving to the nobility; force: ” p. 876. Neal confirms this, 586, no nobility in Europe so entirely beloved and Kennet’s Register 874. by the people; there may be more awe 3 [After the king had concluded his and fear of them, but no such respect own speech by giving the royal assent to towards them as in England. I beseech many bills at the prorogation of the con-your lordships do not undervalue this vention parliament, the lord chancellor love,” &c. Parl. Hist. iv. 170. -1846.]

Hyde (not then a peer) requested his 4 Life of Clarendon, 74. A plausible majesty’s permission to address the two and somewhat dangerous attack had been

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CHA. II. 1660-73. THE NEW PARLIAMENT. 309 indemnity, left the kingdom in a precarious condition till an undeniable security could be obtained, and rendered the dis. solution almost necessary. Another parliament was called, of very different composition from the last. Possession and the standing ordinances against royalists had enabled the secluded members of 1648, that is, the adherents of the long parliament, to stem with some degree of success the impetuous tide of loyalty in the last elections, and put them almost upon an equality with the court. But in the new assembly cavaliers and the sons of cavaliers entirely predominated; the great families, the ancient gentry, the episcopal clergy, resumed their influence; the presbyterians and sectarians feared to have their offences remembered; so that we may rather be surprised that about fifty or sixty who had belonged to the opposite side found places in such a parliament, than that its general complexion should be decidedly royalist. The presbyterian faction seemed to lie prostrate at the feet of those over whom they had so long triumphed, without any force of arms or civil convulsion, as if the king had been brought in against their will. Nor did the cavaliers fail to treat them as enemies to monarchy, though it was notorious that the restoration was chiefly owing to their endeavors.’ The new parliament gave the first proofs of their disposition by voting that all their members should receive the sacrament on a certain day according to complexion the rites of the church of England; and that the of the new solemn league and covenant should be burned by parliament. made on the authority of this parliament general. Nothing more, probably, took from an opposite quarter, in a pamphlet place. Parl. Hist. 146,167. This was in written by one Drake, under the name November and December 1660: but of Thomas Philips, entitled ” The Long Drake’s book seems still to have been Parliament Revived,” and intended to in considerable circulation; at least I prove that by the act of the late king, have two editions of it, both bearing the providing that they should not be dis-date of 1661. The argument it contains solved but by the concurrence of the is purely legal; but the aim must have whole legislature, they were still in ex-been to serve the presbyterian or parliaistence; and that the king’s demise, mentarian cause. [The next parliament which legally puts an end to a parlia-never give their predecessors any other ment, could not affect one that was de-name in the Journals than ” the last asclared permanent by so direct an enact-sembly.” ] ment. This argument seems by no 1 Complaints of insults on the presbymeans inconsiderable; but the times terian clergy were made to the late parwere not such as to admit of technical liament.

Parl. Hist. 160. The Anglicans reasoning. The convention parliament, inveighed grossly against them on the after questioning Drake, finally sent up score of their past conduct, notwitharticles of impeachment against him; standing the act of indemnity. Kennet’s but the lords, after hearing him in his Register, 156. See, as a specimen, South’s defence, when he confessed his fault, left Sermons, passim. him to be prosecuted by the attorney

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810 CONDEMNATION OF VANE. CHAP. XI. the common hangman.1 They excited still more serious alarm by an evident reluctance to confirm the late act of indemnity, which the king at the opening of the session had pressed upon their attention. Those who had suffered the sequestrations and other losses of a vanquished party could not endure to abandon what they reckoned a just reparation. But Clarendon adhered with equal integrity and prudence to this fundamental principle of the Restoration; apd, after a strong message from the king on the subject, the commons were content to let the bill pass with no new exceptions.2 They gave, indeed, some relief to the ruined cavaliers by voting 60,0001. to be distributed among that class; but so inadequate a compensation did not assuage their discontents.

It has been mentioned above that the late house of comCondemna-mons had consented to the exception of Vane and tionofVane. Lambert from indemnity on the king’s promise that they should not suffer death. They had lain in the Tower accordingly, without being brought to trial. The regicides who had come in under the proclamation were saved from capital punishment by the former act of indemnity. But the present parliament abhorred this lukewarm lenity. A bill was brought in for the execution of the king’s judges in the Tower; and the attorney-general was re1 Journals, 17th of May, 1661. The in Lancashire a tablet is placed to cornprevious question was moved on this memerate the ingratitude of Charles II. vote, but lost by 228 to 103; Morice, the in having refused the royal assent to a secretary of state, being one of the tellers bill which bad passed both houses for refor the minority. Monk, I believe, to storing the son of the earl of Derby, who whom Morice owed his elevation, did had lost his life in the royal cause, to his what he could to prevent violent meas-family estate. * This has been so often ures against the presbyterians. Alder-reprinted by tourists and novelists that it man Love was suspended from sitting in passes currently for a just reproach on the the house, July 3, for not having taken king’s memory. It was, however, in fact, the sacrament. I suppose that he after-one of his most honorable actions. The wards conformed; for he became an ac-truth is, that the cavalier faction carried tive member of the opposition. through parliament a bill to make void 2 Journals, June 14, &c.; Parl. Hist. the conveyances of some manors which 209; Life of Clarendon, 71; Burnet, 230. lord Derby had voluntarily sold before A bill discharging the loyalists from all the restoration, in the very face of the act interest exceeding three per cent. on of indemnity, and against all law and debts contracted before the wars passed justice. Clarendon, who, together with the commons, but was dropped in the some very respectable peers, had protestother house. The great discontent of ed against this measure in the upper this party at the indemnity continued to house, thought it his duty to recommend show itself in subsequent sessions. Clar-the king to refuse his assent. Lords’ endon mentions, with much censure, that Journals, Feb. 6 and May 14,1662. There many private bills passed about 1662, is so much to blame in both the minister annulling conveyances of lands made and his master, that it is but fair to give during the troubles: p. 162, 163. One them credit for that which the pardonremarkable instance ought to be noticed able prejudices of the family interested as having been greatly misrepresented.

have led it to misstate. At the earl of Derby’s seat of Knowsley

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CHA. I. -1660-73. ITS INJUSTICE. 311 quested to proceed against Vane and Lambert.1 The former was dropped in the house of lords; but those formidable chiefs of the commonwealth were brought to trial. Their indictments alleged as overt acts of high-treason against Charles II.

their exercise of civil and military functions under the usurping government; though not, as far as appears, expressly directed against the king’s authority, and certainly not against his person. Under such an accusation many who had been the most earnest in the king’s restoration might have stood at the bar. Thousands might apply to themselves, in the case of Vane, the beautiful expression of Mrs. Hutchinson, as to her husband’s feelings at the death of the regicides, that “he looked on himself as judged in their judgment, and executed in their execution.” The stroke fell upon one, the reproach upon many. The condemnation of sir Henry Vane was very questionable, even according to the letter of the law.

It Its inwas plainly repugnant to its spirit. An excellent justice.

statute enacted under Henry VII., and deemed by some great writers to be only declaratory of the common law, but occasioned, no doubt, by some harsh judgments of treason which had been pronounced during the late competition of the houses of York and Lancaster, assured a perfect indemnity to all persons obeying a king for the time being, however defective his title might come to be considered when another claimant should gain possession of the throne. It established the duty of allegiance, to the existing govern-. ment upon a general principle; but in its terms it certainly presumed that government to be a monarchy. This furnished the. judges upon the trial of Vane with a distinction of which they willingly availed themselves. They pro1 Commons’ Journals, 1st July, 1661. Dec. 4, on the motion of colonel Titus, A division took place, November 26, on to be disinterred and hanged on a gibbet. a motion to lay this bill aside, in consid-The lords concurred in this’order; but eration of the king’s proclamation: which the mode of address to the king would was lost by 124 to 109: lord Cornbury have been more regular. Parl. Hist.

151. fClarendon’s son) being a teller for the [These bodies had been previously reNoe;. The bill was sent up to the lords moved from Westminster Abbey, and Jan. 27, 1662. See also Parl. Hist. 217, “cast together into a pit at the back door 225. Some of their proceedings trespassed of the prebendaries’ lodgings.” The body upon the executive power, and infringed of Blake was the same day, Sept. 12,1660,. the prerogative they labored to exalt. taken up and ” buried in St.

Margaret’s; But long interruption of the due course of churchyard.” It appears to have been, the constitution had made its boundaries done’by an order of the king to the indistinct. Thus. in the convention par-dean of Westminster. Kenhet’a Registr,. liament, the bodies of Cromwell, Brad-p.

636.] shaw, Ireton, and others, were ordered

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312 VIOLATION OF CHARLES’S PROMISE. CHAP. XI. ceeded, however, beyond all bounds of constitutional precedents and of common sense when they determined that Charles II. had been king de facto as well as de jure from the moment of his father’s death, though, in the words of their senseless sophistry, “kept out of the exercise of his royal authority by traitors and rebels.” He had indeed assumed the title during his exile, and had granted letters patent for different purposes, which it was thought proper to hold good after his restoration; thus presenting the strange anomaly, and as it were contradiction in terms, of a king who began to govern in the twelfth year of his reign. But this had not been the usage of former times. Edward IV., Richard III., Henry VII., had dated their instruments either from their proclamation or at least from some act of possession.

The question was not whether a right to the crown descended according to the laws of inheritance, but whether such a right, divested of possession, could challenge allegiance as a bounden duty by the law of England. This is expressly determined in the negative by lord Coke in his Third Institute, who maintains a king ” that hath right, and is out of possession,” not to be within the statute of treasons. He asserts also that a pardon granted by him would be void; which by parity of reasoning must extend to all his patents.1 We may consider, therefore, the execution of Vane as one of the most reprehensible actions of this bad reign. It not only violated the assurance of indemnity, but introduced a principle of sanguinary proscription, which would render the return of what is called legitimate government, under any circumstances, an intolerable curse to a nation.2 The king violated his promise by the execution of Vane, as much as the judges strained the law by his conviction. He had assured the last parliament, in answer to their address, that, if Vane and Lambert should be attainted by law, he would not suffer the sentence to be executed.

Though the present parliament had urged the attorney-general to bring these delinquents to trial, they had never, by an address to the king, given him a color for retracting his promise of mercy. It is worthy of notice that Clarendon does not say a syllable about Vane’s trial; which affords a 1 8 Inst. 7. This appears to have been 2 Foster, in his Discourse on High;held in Bagot’s case, 9 Edw. 4. See also Treason, evidently intimates that he Iiigden’s View of the English Constitu-thought the conviction of Vane unjustition, 1709. fiable.

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CHA. I. 1660-73. CROWN’S PREROGATIVES RESTORED. 313 strong presumption that he thought it a breach of the act of indemnity. But we have on record a remarkable letter of the king to his minister, wherein he expresses his resentment at Vane’s bold demeanor during his trial, and intimates a wish for his death, though with some doubts whether it could be honorably done.1 Doubts of such a nature never lasted long with this prince; and Vane suffered the week after. Lambert, whose submissive behavior had furnished a contrast with that of Vane, was sent to Guernsey, and remained a prisoner for thirty years. The royalists have spoken of Vane with extreme dislike; yet it should be remembered that he was not only incorrupt, but disinterested, inflexible in conforming his public conduct to his principles, and averse to every sanguinary or oppressive measure; qualities not very common in revolutionary chiefs, and which honorably distinguished him from the Lamberts and Haslerigs of his party.2 No time was lost, as might be expected from the temper of the commons, in replacing the throne on its Actsreconstitutional basis after the rude encroachments placing the crown in of the long parliament. They declared that there its prerogwas no legislative power in either or both houses atives. without the king; that the league and covenant was unlawfully imposed; that the sole supreme command of the militia, and of all forces by sea and land, had ever been by the laws of England the undoubted right of the crown; that neither house of parliament could pretend to it, nor could lawfully levy any war offensive or defensive against his majesty.8

These last words appeared to go to a dangerous length, and to sanction the suicidal doctrine of absolute non-resistance. They made the law of high-treason more strict during the king’s life in pursuance of a precedent in the reign of Eliza1 ” The relation that has been made to endon’s hand, ” The king, June 7,1662.” me of sir II. Vane’s carriage yesterday in Vane was beheaded June 14. Burnet the Hall is the occasion of this letter, (note in Oxford edition), p. 164. Harwhich, if I am rightly informed, was so ris’s Lives, v. 32. insolent as to justify all he had done; ac-2 Vane gave up the profits of his place knowledging no supreme power in Eng-as treasurer of the navy, which, accordland but a parliament, and many things ing to his patent, would have amounted to that purpose. You have had a true to 30.0001. per annum, if we may rely on account of all; and if he has given new on Harris’s Life of Cromwell, p.

260. occasion to be hanged, certainly he is too 3 13 Car. 2, c. 1 & 6. A bill for setdangerous a man to let live, if we can tling the militia had been much opposed honestly put him out of the way. Think in the convention parliament, as tending of this, and give me some account of it to bring in martial law. Parl. Hist. iv. tomorrow; till when, I have no more to 145.

It seems to have dropped say to you. C.” Indorsed in lord Clar

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314 CORPORATION ACT. CHAP. XL beth.l They restored the bishops to their seats in the house of lords; a step which the last parliament would never have been induced to take, but which met with little opposition from the present.2 The violence that had attended their exclusion seemed a sufficient motive for rescinding a statute so improperly obtained, even if the policy of maintaining the spiritual peers were somewhat doubtful. The remembrance of those tumultuous assemblages which had overawed their predecessors in the winter of 1641, and at other times, produced a law against disorderly petitions. This statute provides that no petition or address shall be presented to the king or either house of parliament by more than ten persons; nor shall any one procure above twenty persons to consent or set their hands to any petition for alteration of matters established by law in church or state, unless with ihe previous order of three justices of the county, or the major part of the grand jury.8 Thus far the new parliament might be said to have acted Corporation chiefly on a principle of repairing the breaches act. recently made in our constitution, and of reestablishing the just boundaries of the executive power; nor would much objection have been offered to their measures, had they gone no farther in the same course. The act for regulating corporations is much more questionable, and displayed a determination to exclude a considerable portion of the community from their civil rights.

It enjoined all magistrates and persons bearing offices of trust in corporations to swear that they believed it unlawful, on any pretence whatever, to take arms against the king, and that they abhorred the traitorous position of bearing arms by his authority against his person, or against those that are commissioned by him. They were also to renounce all obligation arising out of the oath called the solemn league and covenant; in case of refusal, to be immediately removed from office. Those elected in future were, in addition to the same oaths, to have received the sacrament within one year before their election according to the rites of the English church.4 These proC.1. 0. 6. 2 C. 2. The only opposition made to 4 13 Car. 2, sess. 2, o. 1. This bill did this was in the house of lords by the earl not pass without strong opposition in of Bristol and some of the Roman catholic the commons. It was carried at last by party, who thought the bishops would 182 to 77; Journals, July 6; but on a not be brought into a toleration of their previous division for its commitment the religion Life of Clarendon, p. 138. numbers were 185 to 136. June 20.

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CHA. II. -1660-73. THE TRIENNIAL ACT. 315 visions struck at the heart of the presbyterian party, whose strength lay in the little oligarchies of corporate towns, which directly or indirectly returned to parliament a very large proportion of its members. Yet it rarely happens that a political faction is crushed by the terrors of an oath. Many of the more rigid presbyterians refused the conditions imposed by this act; but the majority found pretexts for qualifying themselves. It could not yet be said that this loyal assembly had meddled with those safeguards of public liberty which Repeal of had been erected by their great predecessors in the tren1641. The laws that Falkland and Hampden nialact. had combined to provide, those bulwarks against the ancient exorbitance of prerogative, stood unscathed; threatened from afar, but not yet betrayed by the garrison. But one of these, the bill for triennial parliaments, wounded the pride of royalty, and gave scandal to its worshippers; not so much on account of its object, as of the securities provided against its violation. If the king did not summon a fresh parliament within three years after a dissolution, the peers were to meet and issue writs of their own accord; if they did not within a certain time perform this duty, the sheriffs of every county were to take it on themselves; and, in default of all constituted authorities, the electors might assemble without any regular summons to choose representatives. It was manifest that the king must have taken a fixed resolution to trample on a fundamental law, before these irregular tumultuous modes of redress could be called into action; and that the existence of such provisions could not in any degree weaken or endanger the legal and limited monarchy. But the doctrine of passive obedience had now crept from the homilies into the statute-book; the parliament had not scrupled to declare the unlawfulness of defensive war against the king’s person; and it was but one step more to take away all direct means of counteracting his pleasure. Bills were accordingly more than once ordered to be brought in for repealing the triennial act; but no further steps were taken till the king thought it at length necessary in the year 1664 to give them an intimation of his desires.1 A vague notion had partially Prynne was afterwards reprimanded by submissive apology, though the censure the speaker for publishing a pamphlet was pronounced in a very harsh manner. against this act, July 16; but his courage 1

Journals, 8d April, 1662; 10th March, had now forsaken him; and he made a 1663.

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316 REPEAL OF THE TRIENNIAL ACT. CHAP. XI. gained ground that no parliament, by virtue of that bill, could sit for more than three years.

In allusion to this, he told them, on opening the session of 1664, that he “had often read over that bill; and, though there was no color for the fhncy of the determination of the parliament, yet he would not deny that he had always expected them to consider the wonderful clauses in that bill, which passed in a time very uncareful for the dignity of the crown or the security of the people. He requested them to look again at it. For himself, he loved parliaments; he was much beholden to them; he did not think the crown could ever be happy without frequent parliaments; “but assure yourselves,” he concluded, “if I should think otherwise, I would never suffer a parliament to come together by the means prescribed by that bill.” 1 So audacious a declaration, equivalent to an avowed design, in certain circumstances, of preventing the execution of the laws by force of arms, was never before heard from the lips of an English king; and would in any other times have awakened a storm of indignation from the commons.

They were, however, sufficiently compliant to pass a bill for the repeal of that which had been enacted with unanimous consent in 1641, and had been hailed as the great palladium of constitutional monarchy. The preamble recites the said act to have been “in derogation of his majesty’s just rights and prerogative inherent in the imperial crown of this realm for the calling and assembling of parliaments.” The bill then repeals and annuls every clause and article in the fullest manner; yet, with an inconsistency not unusual in our statutes, adds a provision that parliaments shall not in future be intermitted for above three years at the most. This clause is evidently framed in a different spirit from the original bill, and may be attributed to the influence of that party in the house which had begun to oppose the court, and already showed itself in considerable strength. Thus the effect of this compromise was that the law of the long parliament subsisted as to its principle, without those unusual 1 Parl. Hist. 289. Clarendon speaks during the passage of this bill, and very unjustly of the triennial act, for-though, as far as appears, on subordinate getting that he had himself concurred in points, yet probably springing from an it. P. 221. opposition to its principle.

March 28, 2 16 Car. II. c. 1. We find by the 1664. There was by this time a regular Journals that some divisions took place party formed against the court.

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CHA. II. -1660-73. CLARENDON’S PRINCIPLES. 317 clauses which had been enacted to render its observance secure. The king assured them, in giving his assent to the repeal, that he would not be a day more without a parliament on that account. But the necessity of those securities, and the mischiefs of that false and servile loyalty which abrogated them, became manifest at the close of the present reign; nearly four years having elapsed between the dissolution of Charles’s last parliament and his death. Clarendon, the principal adviser, as yet, of the king since his restoration (for Southampton rather gave reputation to the administration than took that superior influence which belonged to his place of treasurer), has thought fit to stigmatize the triennial bill with the epithet of infamous. So wholly had he divested himself of the sentiments he entertained at the beginning of the long parliament, that he sought nothing more ardently than to place the crown again in a condition to run into those abuses and excesses against which he had once so much inveighed. ” He did never dissemble,” he says, ” from the time of his return with the king, that the late rebellion could never be extirpated and pulled up by the roots, till the king’s regal and inherent power and prerogative should be fully avowed and vindicated, and till the usurpations in both houses of parliament, since the year 1640, were disclaimed and made odious; and many other excesses, which had been affected by both before that time under the name of privileges, should be restrained or explained. For all which reformation the kingdom in general was very well disposed, when it pleased God to restore the king to it. The present parliament had done much, and would willingly have prosecuted the same method, if they had had the same advice and encouragement.” I can only understand these words to mean that they might have been led to repeal other statutes of the long parliament, besides the triennial act, and that excluding the bishops from the house of peers; but, more especially, to restore the two great levers of prerogative, the courts of starchamber and highcommission. This would indeed have pulled up by the roots the work of the long parliament, which, in spite of such general reproach, still continued to shackle the revived monarchy. There had been some serious attempts at this in the house of lords during the session of 1661-2. We 1 p. 388

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318 CHARACTERISTIC OF THE PARLIAMENT. CIAP. XLI read in the Journalsl that a committee was appointed to prepare a bill for repealing all acts made in the parliament begun the 3d day of November, 1640, and for reenacting such of them as should be thought fit. This committee some time after 2
reported their opinion, ” that it was fit for the good of the nation that there be a court of like nature to the late court called the starchamber; but desired the advice and directions of the house in these particulars following: Who should be judges? What matters should they be judges of? By what manner of proceedings should they act?” The house, it is added, thought it not fit to give Starchamber any particular directions therein, but left it to the not restored. committee to proceed as they would. It does not appear that anything farther was done in this session; but we find the bill of repeal revived next year.8 It is, however, only once mentioned. Perhaps it may be questionable whether, even amidst the fervid loyalty of 1661, the house of commons would have concurred in reestablishing the starchamber. They had taken marked precautions in passing an act for the restoration of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, that it should not be construed to restore the highcommission court, or to give validity to the canons of 1640, or to enlarge in any manner the ancient authority of the church.4’A tribunal still more formidable and obnoxious would hardly have found favor with a body of men who, as their behavior shortly demonstrated, might rather be taxed with passion and vindictiveness towards a hostile faction, than a deliberate willingness to abandon their English rights and privileges. The striking characteristic of this parliament was a zealous and intolerant attachment to the established church, not losing an atom of their aversion to popery in their abhorrence of protestant dissent. In every former parliament since the Reformation the country party (if I may use such a word, by anticipation, for those gentlemen of landed estates who owed their seats to their provincial importance, as distinguished from courtiers, lawyers, and dependants on the nobility) had incurred with rigid churchmen the reproach of puritanical affections. They were implacable against 1 Lord’s Journals, 28d and 24th Jan. 8 19th March, 1668. 1662. 4 13 Car. II, c. 12.

2 12th Feb.

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CHA. II. -1660-73. DECEIT OF THE KING. 319 popery, but disposed to far more indulgence with respect to nonconformity than the very different maxims of Elizabeth and her successors would permit. Yet it is obvious that the puritan commons of James I. and the high-church commons of Charles II. were composed, in a great measure, of the same families, and entirely of the same classes. But, as the arrogance of the prelates had excited indignation, and the sufferings of the scrupulous clergy begotten sympathy in one age, so the reversed scenes of the last twenty years had given to the former, or their adherents, the advantage of enduring oppression with humility and fortitude, and displayed in the latter, or at least many of their number, those odious and malevolent qualities which adversity had either concealed or rendered less dangerous. The gentry, connected for the most part by birth or education with the episcopal clergy, could not for an instant hesitate between the ancient establishment and one composed of men whose eloquence in preaching was chiefly directed towards the common people, and presupposed a degree of enthusiasm in the hearer which the higher classes rarely possessed. They dreaded the wilder sectaries, foes to property, or at least to its political influence, as much as to the regal constitution; and not unnaturally, though without perfect fairness, confounded the presbyterian or moderate non-conformist in the motley crowd of fanatics, to many of whose tenets he at least more approximated than the church of England minister. There is every reason to presume, as I have already remarked, that the king had no intention but to deceive the presbyterians and their friends in the convention Presbyparliament by his declaration of October, 1660.1 terians He proceeded, after the dissolution of that assem-by the bly to fill up the number of bishops, who had been king. reduced to nine, but with no further mention of suffragans, 1 Clarendon, in his Life, p.

149, says Charles, as his minister well knew, could that the king ” had received the presby-not read a common Latin book (Clarenterian ministers with grace; and did be-don State Papers, iii. 567), and had no lieve that he should work upon them by manner of acquaintance with theological persuasions, having been well acquainted learning, unless the popular argument with their common arguments by the in favor of popery is so to be called; yet conversation he had had in Scotland, and he was very able to confute men who had was very able to confute them.” This is passed their lives in study, on a subject one of the strange absurdities into which involving a considerable knowledge of Clarendon’s prejudices hurry him in al-Scripture and the early writers in their most every page of his writings, and more original languages! especially in this continuation of his Life.

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320 SAVOY CONFERENCE. CHAP. XI. or of the council of presbyters, which had been announced in that declaration.1 It does indeed appear highly probable that the scheme of Usher would have been found inconvenient and even impracticable; and reflecting men would perhaps be apt to say that the usage of primitive antiquity, upon which all parties laid so much stress, was rather a presumptive argument against the adoption of any system of churchgovernment, in circumstances so widely different, than in favor of it. But inconvenient and impracticable provisions carry with them their own remedy; and the king might have respected his own word, and the wishes of a large part of the church, without any formidable danger to episcopal authority. It would have been, however, too flagrant a breach of promise (and yet hardly greater than that just mentioned) if some show had not been made of desiring a reconciliation on the subordinate details of religious cereSavoy con-monies and the liturgy. This produced a conferference. ence held at the Savoy, in May, 1661, between twenty-one Anglican and as many presbyterian divines: the latter were called upon to propose their objections: it being the part of the others to defend. They brought forward so long a list as seemed to raise little hope of agreement. Some of these objections to the service, as may be imagined, were rather captious and hypercritical; yet in many cases they pointed out real defects. As to ceremonies, they dwelt on the same scruples as had from the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign produced so unhappy a discordance, and had become inveterate by so much persecution. The conference was 1

Clarendon admits that this could not Blackburn, a non-conformist] did give me have been done till the former parliament many stories of the affronts which the was dissolved: 97. This means, of course, clergy receive in all parts of England on the supposition that the king’s word from the gentry and ordinary persons was to be broken. The malignity tow-of the parish.”

November 9, 1663. The ards the church,” he says, ” seemed in-opposite party had recourse to the old creasing, and to be greater than at the weapons of pious fraud. I have a tract coming in of the king.” Pepys, in his containing twenty-seven instances of reDiary, has several sharp remarks on the markable judgments, all between June, misconduct and unpopularity of the bish-1660, and April, 1661, which befell divers ops, though himself an episcopalian even persons for reading the common prayer before the restoration. “The clergy are or reviling godly ministers. This is enso high that all people I meet with do titled Annus Mirabilis; and, besides the protest against their practice.” August above twenty-seven, attests so many 31, 1660. ”’ I am convinced in my judg-prodigies, that the name is by no means ment that the present clergy will never misapplied. The bishops made large forheartily go down with the generality of tunes by filling up leases. Burnet, 260. the commons of England; they have been And Clarendon admits them to have been so used to liberty and freedom, and they too rapacious, though he tries to extenare so acquainted with the pride and de-rate. P. 48. bauchery of the present clergy. He [Mr.

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CHA. II. -1660-73. SAVOY CONFERENCE. 321 managed with great mutual bitterness and recrimination; the one party stimulated by vindictive hatred and the natural arrogance of power; the other irritated by the manifest design of breaking the king’s faith, and probably by a sense of their own improvidence in ruining themselves by his restoration. The chief blame, it cannot be dissembled, ought to fall on the churchmen. An opportunity was afforded of healing, in a very great measure, that schism and separation which, if they are to be believed, is one of the worst evils that can befall a Christian community. They had it in their power to retain, or to expel, a vast number of worthy and laborious ministers of the gospel, with whom they had, in their own estimation, no essential ground of difference. They knew the king, and consequently themselves, to have been restored with (I might almost say by) the strenuous cooperation of those very men who were now at their mercy. To judge by the rules of moral wisdom, or of the spirit of Christianity (to which, notwithstanding what might be satirically said of experience, it is difficult not to think we have a right to expect that a body of ecclesiastics should pay some attention), there can be no justification for the Anglican party on this occasion. They have certainly one apology, the best very frequently that can be offered for human infirmity; they had sustained a long and unjust exclusion from the emoluments of their profession, which begot a natural dislike towards the members of the sect that had profited at their expense, though not, in general, personally responsible for their misfortunes.1 l The fullest account of this conference, serve to display the spirit with which-the and of all that passed as to the compre-Anglicans came to the conference. Upon hension of the presbyterians, is to be read Baxter saying that their proceedings in Baxter, whom Neal has abridged. would alienate a great part of the naSome allowance must, of course, be made tion, Stearne, bishop of Carlisle, observed for the resentment of Baxter; but his to his associates, ” He will not say kingknown integrity makes it impossible to dom. lest he should acknowledge a king.” discredit the main part of his narration. Baxter, p. 838. This was a very maligNor is it necessary to rest on the evidence nant reflection on a man who was well of those who may be supposed to have known never to have been of the repubthe prejudices of dissenters. For bishop lican party. It is true that Baxter seems Burnet admits that all the concern which to have thought, in 1659, that Richard seemed to employ the prelates’ minds was Cromwell would have served the turn not only to make no alteration on the better than Charles Stuart; and, as a presbyterians’ account, but to straiten presbyterian, he thought very rightly. the terms of conformity far more than See p. 207, and part iii.

p. 71. But, before the war. Those, however, who preaching before the parliament, April would see what can be said by writers 30, 1660, he said it was none of our difof high-church principles, may consult ferences whether we should be loyal to Kennet’s History of Charles II. p. 252, or our king; on that all were agreed. P Collier, p. 878. One little anecdote may 217. VOL. II. 21

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322 RESULTS OF SAVOY CONFERENCE. CHAP. XI. The Savoy conference broke up in anger, each party more exasperated and more irreconcilable than before.

This indeed has been the usual consequence of attempts to bring men to an understanding on religious differences by explanation or compromise. The public was apt to expect too much from these discussions; unwilling to believe either that those who have a reputation for piety can be wanting in desire to find the truth, or that those who are esteemed for ability can miss it. And this expectation is heightened by the language rather too strongly held by moderate and peaceable divines, that little more is required than an understanding of each other’s meaning, to unite conflicting sects in a common faith. But as it generally happens that the disputes of theologians, though far from being so important as they appear to the narrow prejudices and heated passions of the combatants, are not wholly nominal, or capable of being reduced to a common form of words, the hopes of union and settlement vanish upon that closer inquiry which conferences and schemes of agreement produce. And though this may seem rather applicable to speculative controversies than to such matters as were debated between the church and the presbyterians at the Savoy conference, and which are in their nature more capable of compromise than articles of doctrine, yet the consequence of exhibiting the incompatibility and reciprocal alienation of the two parties in a clearer light was nearly the same. A determination having been taken to admit of no extensive comprehension, it was debated by the government whether to make a few alterations in the liturgy, or to restore the ancient service in every particular. The former advice prevailed, though with no desire or expectation of conciliating any scrupulous persons by the amendments introduced.1 These were by no means numerous, and in some 1 Life of Clarendon, 147. He observes legend of Bel and the Dragon, for no that the alterations made did not reduce other purpose than to show contempt of one of the opposite party to the obedience their scruples. The alterations may be of the church. Now, in the first place, seen in Kennet’s Register, 585.

The he could not know this; and, in the next, most important was the restoration of a he conceals from the reader that, on the rubric inserted in the communion serwhole matter, the changes made in the vice under Edward VI., but left out by liturgy were more likely to disgust than Elizabeth, declaring against any corporal to conciliate. Thus, the puritans having presence in the Lord’s supper. This always objected to the number of saints’ gave offence to some of those who had days, the bishops added a few more; and adopted that opinion, especially the duke the former having given very plausible of York, and perhaps tended to complete reasons against the apocryphal lessons in his alienation from the Anglican church. the daily service, the others inserted the Burnett i. 188.

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CHA. II. - 1660-73. EPISCOPAL ORDINATION. 323 instances rather chosen in order to irritate and mock the opposite party than from any compliance with their prejudices. It is indeed very probable, from the temper of the new parliament, that they would not have come into more tolerant and healing measures. When the act of Act of uniformity was brought into the house of lords, it uniformity. was found not only to restore all the ceremonies and other matters to which objection had been taken, but to contain fresh clauses more intolerable than the rest to the presbyterian clergy. One of these enacted that not only every beneficed minister, but fellow of a college, or even schoolmaster, should declare his unfeigned assent and consent to all and everything contained in the book of common prayer.l These words, however capable of being eluded and explained away, as such subscriptions always are, seemed to amount, in common use of language, to a complete approbation of an entire volume, such as a man of sense hardly gives to any book, and which, at a time when scrupulous persons were with great difficulty endeavoring to reconcile themselves to submission, placed a new stumbling-block in their way, which, without abandoning their integrity, they found it impossible to surmount. The temper of those who chiefly managed church affairs at this period displayed itself in another innovation tending to the same end. It had been not unusual from the very beginnings of our Reformation to admit ministers ordained in foreign protestant churches to benefices in England.

No reordination had ever been practised with respect to those who had received the imposition of hands in a regular church; and hence it appears that the church of England, whatever tenets might latterly have been broached in controversy, did not consider the ordination of presbyters invalid. Though such ordinations as had taken place during the late troubles, and by virtue of which a great part of the actual clergy were in possession, were evidently irregular, on the supposition that the English episcopal church was then in existence, yet, if the argument from such great convenience as men call necessity was to prevail, it was surely worth while to suffer them to pass without question for the present, enacting provisions, if such were required, for the future. But this did not fall in with the passion and policy of the bishops, i 18 8 14 Car.

II., c. iv. i 8.

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324 EJECTION OF CHAP. XI. who found a pretext for their worldly motives of action in the supposed divine right and necessity of episcopal succession; a theory naturally more agreeable to arrogant and dogmatical ecclesiastics than that of Cranmer, who saw no intrinsic difference between bishops and priests; or of Hooker, who thought ecclesiastical superiorities, like civil, subject to variation: or of Stillingfleet, who had lately pointed out the impossibility of ascertaining with clearness the real constitution of the apostolical church from the inconclusive testimonies that either Scripture or antiquity furnishes. It was therefore enacted in the statute for uniformity that no person should hold any preferment in England without having received episcopal ordination. There seems to be little or no objection to this provision, if ordination be considered as a ceremony of admission into a particular society; but, according to the theories which both parties had embraced in that age, it conferred a sort of mysterious indelible character, which rendered its repetition improper.1

The new act of uniformity succeeded to the utmost wishes Enjection of its promoters. It provided that every minister of non-should, before the feast of St. Bartholomew, 1662, confrgyst publicly declare his assent and consent to everything contained in the book of common prayer, on pain of being ipso facto deprived of his benefice.2 Though even the long parliament had reserved a fifth of the profits to those who were rejected for refusing the covenant, no 1 Life of Clarendon, 152. Burnet, 256.

pointed for the former ejectment, when Morley, afterwards bishop of Winchester, four times as many of the loyal clergy was engaged just before the restoration were deprived for fidelity to their soverin negotiating with the presbyterians. eign.” Southey’s Hist. of the Church, They stuck out for the negative voice of ii. 467. That the day was chosen in the council of presbyters and for the va-order to deprive the incumbent of a lidity of their ordinations. Clar. State whole year’s tithes, Mr. Southey has Papers. 727. He had two schemes to get learned from Burnet; and it aggravates over the difficulty: one to pass them the cruelty of the proceeding-but over sub silentio; the other, a hypothet-where has he found his precedent? The ical reordination, on the supposition Anglican clergy were rejected for refusing that something might have been wanting the covenant at no one definite period, before, as the church of Rome practises as, on recollection Mr. S. would be about rebaptization. The former is a aware; nor can I fid any one parliacurious expedient for those who pretend mentary ordinance in Husband’s Colto think presbyterian ordinations really lection that mentions St. Bartholomew’s null. Id. 788.

day. There was a precedent indeed in 2 The day fixed upon suggested a com-that case, which the government of parison which, though severe, was obvi-Charles did not choose to follow. One ous. A modern writer has observed on fifth of the income had been reserved for this, ” They were careful not to remem-the dispossessed incumbents: but it is ber that the same day, and for the same said that they often did not get them. reason, because the tithes were com-Kennet’s Register, 392. monly due at Michaelmas, had been ap

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CHA. II.- 1660-73. ItON-CONFORMIST CLERGY. 325 mercy could be obtained from the still greater bigotry of the present; and a motion to make that allowance to nonconforming ministers was lost by 94 to 87.1 The lords had shown a more temperate spirit, and made several alterations of a conciliating nature. They objected to extending the subscription required by the act to schoolmasters. But the commons urged in a conference the force of education, which made it necessary to take care for the youth.

The upper house even inserted a proviso, allowing the king to dispense with the surplice and the sign of the cross; but the commons resolutely withstanding this and every other alteration, they were all given up.2

Yet, next year, when it was found necessary to pass an act for the relief of those who had been prevented involuntarily from subscribing the declaration in due time, a clause was introduced declaring that the assent and consent to the book of common prayer required by the said act should be understood only as to practice and obedience, and not otherwise. The duke of York and twelve lay peers protested against this clause, as destructive to the church of England as now established; and the commons vehemently objecting to it, the partisans of moderate counsels gave way as before.8 When the day of St. Bartholomew came, about 2000 persons resigned their preferments rather than stain their consciences by compliance - an act to which the more liberal Anglicans, after the bitterness of immediate passions had passed away, have accorded that praise which is due to heroic virtue ia an enemy. It may justly be said that the episcopal clergy had set an example of similar magnanimity in refusing to take the covenant.

Yet, as that was partly of a political nature, and those who were ejected for not taking it might hope to be restored through the success of the king’s arms, I do not know that it was altogether so eminent an act of self-devotion as the presbyterian clergy displayed on St. Bartholomew’s day. Both of them afford striking contrasts to the pliancy of the English church in the greater question of the preceding century, and bear witness to a remarkable integrity and consistency of principle.4 1 Journals, April 26. This may per-Journals, 7th May, is altogether rather haps have given rise to a mistake we find curious. in Neal, 624, that the act of uniformity 3 Lords’ Journals, 25th and 27th July, only passed by 186 to 180. There was 1663. Ralph, 58. no division at all upon the bill except 4

Neal, 625-636. Baxter told Burnet, that I have mentioned. as the latter says, p. 185. that not above 2 The report of the conference, Lords’ 800
would have resigned had the terms

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326 HOPES OF THE CATHOLICS. CHAP. XI No one who has any sense of honesty and plain dealing can pretend that Charles did not violate the spirit of his declarations, both that from Breda and that which he published in October, 1660. It is idle to say that those declarations wer3 subject to the decision of parliament, as if the crown had no sort of influence in that assembly, nor even any means of making its inclinations known. He had urged them to confirm the act of indemnity, wherein he thought his honor and security concerned; was it less easy to obtain, or at least to ask for, their concurrence in a comprehension or toleration of the presbyterian clergy? Yet, after mocking those persons with pretended favor, and even offering bishoprics to some of their number by way of purchasing their defection, the king made no effort to mitigate the provisions of the act of uniformity; and Clarendon strenuously supported them through both houses of parliament.1 This behavior in tie minister sprang from real bigotry and dislike of the presbyterians; But Charles was influenced by a very different motive, which had become the secret spring of all his policy. This requires to be fully explained. Charles, during his misfortunes, had made repeated promHopes of ises to the pope and the great catholic princes of the cath-relaxing the penal laws against his subjects of that olics. religion - promises which he well knew to be the necessary condition of their assistance. And, though he never received any succor which could demand the performance of these assurances, his desire to stand well with France and Spain, as well as a sense of what was really due to the English catholics, would have disposed him to grant every indulgence which the temper of his people should permit. of the king’s declaration been adhered 2257 names. Kennet, however (Register, to. The blame, he goes on, fell chiefly 807), notices great mistakes of Calamy on Sheldon. But Clarendon was charged in respect only to one diocese, that of with entertaining the presbyterians with Peterborough. Probably both in this good words, while he was giving way to collection and in that of Walker on the the bishops. See also p. 268. Baxter other side, as in all matyrologies there puts the number of the deprived at 1800 are abundant errors; but enough will or 2000. Life, 384. And it has generally remain to afford memorable examples of been reckoned about 2000; though Bur-conscientious suffering; and we cannot net says it has been much controverted. read without indignation Kennet’s enIf indeed we can rely on Calamy’s ac-deavors, in the conclusion of this volume, count of the ejected ministers, abridged to extenuate the praise of the deprived by Palmer under the title of the Non-presbyterians by captious and unfair arconformist s Memorial, the number must guments. have been full 2400.

including fellows of 1 See Clarendon’s feeble attempt tc colleges, though not in orders. Palmer vindicate the king from the charge of says that a manuscript catalogue gives breach of faith, 157.

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GHA. II.- 1660-73 THEIR CONDUCT. 327 The laws were highly severe, in some cases sanguinary; they were enacted in very different times, from plausible motives of distrust, which it would be now both absurd and ungrateful to retain. The catholics had been the most strenuous of the late king’s adherents, the greatest sufferers for their loyalty. Out of about five hundred gentlemen who lost their lives in the royal cause, one third, it has been said, were of that religion.1 Their estates had been selected for confiscation when others had been admitted to compound. It is, however, certain that after the conclusion of the war, and especially during the usurpation of Cromwell, they declined in general to provoke a government which showed a good deal of connivance towards their religion, by keeping up any connection with the exiled family.2 They had, as was surely very natural, one paramount object in their political conduct, the enjoyment of religious liberty; whatever debt of gratitude they might have owed to Charles I. had been amply paid; and perhaps they might reflect that he never scrupled, in his various negotiations with the parliament, to acquiesce in any proscriptive measures suggested against popery. This apparent abandonment, however, of the royal interests excited the displeasure of Clarendon, which was increased by a tendency some of the catholics showed to unite with Lambert, who was understood to be privately of their religion, and by an intrigue carried on in 1659, by the machinations of Buckingham with some priests, to set up the duke of York for the crown. But the king retained no resentment of the general conduct of this party; and was desirous to give them a testimony of his confidence by mitigating the penal laws against their religion. Some steps were taken towards this by the house of lords in the session of 1661; and there seems little doubt that the statutes at least inflicting capital punishments would have been repealed without difficulty, if the catholics had not lost the favorable moment by some disunion among themselves, which the never-ceasing intrigues of the Jesuits contrived to produce.8 1 A list of these, published in 1660, post. We find a letter from him to crom contains more than 170 names. Neal, well in 1656 (Thurloe, iv. 591), with great 690. protestations of duty. 2 Sir Kenelm Digby was supposed to a See Lords’ Journals, June and July, be deep in a scheme that the catholics, in 1661, or extracts from them in Kennet’s 1649, should support the commonwealth Register, 469, &c., 620, &c., and 798, with all their power, in return for liberty where are several other particulars wor-. of religion. Carte’s Letters, i. 216, et thy of notice. Clarendon, 148, explains

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328 KING’S BIAS TO ROMANISTS. CHAP. XI There can be no sort of doubt that the king’s natural facilBias of the ity, and exemption from all prejudice in favor of kingtowards established laws, would have led him to afford them. every indulgence that could be demanded to his catholic subjects, many of whom were his companions or his counsellors, without any propensity towards their religion. But it is morally certain that during the period of his banishment he had imbibed, as deeply and seriously as the character of his mind would permit, a persuasion that, if any scheme of Christianity were true, it could only be found in the bosom of an infallible church; though he was never reconciled, according to the formal profession which she exacts, till the last hours of his life. The secret, however, of his inclinations, though disguised to the world by the appearance, and probably sometimes more than the appearance, of carelessness and infidelity, could not be wholly concealed from his court.

It appears the most natural mode of accounting for the sudden conversion of the earl of Bristol to popery, which is generally agreed to have been insincere. An ambitious intriguer, holding the post of secretary of state, would not have ventured such a step without some grounds of confidence in his master’s wishes; though his characteristic precipitancy hurried him forward to destroy his own hopes. Nor are there wanting proofs that the protestantism of both the brothers was greatly suspected in England before the Restoration.1 These suspicions acquired strength after’ the king’s return, through his manifest intention not to marry a protestant; and still more through the presumptuous demeanor of the oppothe failure of this attempt at a partial ration, so as to alarm his emissaries: toleration ( for it was only meant as to ” Your master,” Mordaunt writes to Orthe exercise of religious rites in private mond, Nov. 10, 1659, ” is utterly ruined houses) by the persevering opposition of as to his interest here in whatever party, the Jesuits to the oath of allegiance, to if this be true.” Carte’s Letters, ii. 264, which the lay catholics, and generally the and Clar. State Papers, iii. 602. But an secular priests, had long ceased to make anecdote related in Carte’s Life of Orobjection. The house had voted that the mond, ii. 256, and Harris’s Lives, v. 54, indulgence should not extend to Jesuits, which has obtained some credit, proves, and that they would not alter the oaths if true, that he had embraced the Roman of allegiance or supremacy. The Jesu-catholic religion as early as 1659, so as its complained of the distinction taken even to attend mass.

This cannot be against them; and asserted, in a printed reckoned out of question; but the tentract (Kennet, ubi supra), that since 1616 dency of the king’s mind before his rethey had been inhibited by their supe-turn to England is to be inferred from riors from maintaining the pope’s right all his behavior. Kennet (Complete Hist. to depose sovereigns. See also Butler’s of England, iii. 237) plainly insinuates Mem. of Catholics, ii.

27. iv. 142; and that the project for restoring popery beBurnet, i. 194.

gan at the treaty of the Pyrenees; and 1 The suspicions against Charles were see his Register, p. 852.,very strong in England before the resto

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CHA II.-1660-73. HIS INDIRECT POLICY. 329 site party, which seemed to indicate some surer grounds of confidence than were yet manifest. The new parliament in its first session had made it penal to say that the king was a papist or popishly affected; whence the prevalence of that scandal may be inferred.1 Charles had no assistance to expect, in his scheme of granting a full toleration to the Roman faith, from his chief adviser Clarendon. A repeal of the Clarendoa sanguinary laws, a reasonable connivance, perhaps and the in some cases a dispensation -to these favors he parliament would have acceded. But in his creed of policy the legal allowance of any but the established religion was inconsistent with public order, and with the king’s ecclesiastical prerogative. This was also a fixed principle with the parliament, whose implacable resentment towards the secretaries had not inclined them to abate in the least of their abhorrence and apprehension of popery. The church of England, distinctly and exclusively, was their rallying-point; the crown itself stood only second in their affections. The king, therefore, had recourse to a more subtle and indirect policy. If the terms of conformity had been so far relaxed as to suffer the continuance of the presbyterian clergy in their benefices, there was every reason to expect, from their known disposition, a determined hostility to all approaches towards popery, and even to its toleration. It was therefore the policy of those who had the interests of that cause at heart to permit no deviation from the act of uniformity, to resist all endeavors at a comprehension of dissenters within the pale of the church, and to make them look up to the king for indulgence in their separate way of worship. They were to be taught that, amenable to the same laws as the Romanists, exposed to the oppression of the same enemies, they must act in concert for a common benefit.2 The presbyterian ministers, disheartened at the violence of the parliament, had recourse to Charles, whose affability and fair promises they were loath to distrust, and implored his dispensation for their nonconformity. The king, naturally irresolute, and doubtless sensible that he had made a bad return to those who had contributed so much towards his restoration, was induced, at the strong solicitation of lord Manchester, to promise that he would issue a declaration suspending the execution of the 1 18 Car. 2, c. 1. 2 Burnet.

i. 179.

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830 DECLARATION FOR INDULGENCE. CHAP. XI. statute for three months.

-Clarendon, though he had been averse to some of the rigorous clauses inserted in the act of uniformity, was of opinion that, once passed, it ought to be enforced without any connivance; and told the king, likewise, that it was not in his power to preserve those who did not comply with it ftrom deprivation. Yet, as the king’s word had been given, he advised him rather to issue such a declaration than to break his promise. But, the bishops vehemently remonstrating against it, and intimating that they would not be parties to a violation of the law by refusing to institute a clerk presented by the patron on an avoidance for want of conformity in the incumbent, the king gave way, and resolved to make no kind of concession. It is remarkable that the noble historian does not seem struck at the enormous and unconstitutional prerogative which a proclamation suspending the statute would have assumed.1 Instead of this very objectionable measure the king adopted Declaration one less arbitrary, and more consonant to his own for indul-secret policy. He published a declaration in favor gence. of liberty of conscience, for which no; provision had been made, so as to redeem the promises he had held forth at his accession. Adverting to these, he declared that, ” as in the first place he had been zealous to settle the uniformity of the church of England in discipline, ceremony, and government, and should ever constantly maintain it, so, as for what concerns the penalties upon those who, living peaceably, do not conform themselves thereto, he should make it his special care, so far as in him lay without invading the freedom of parliament, to incline their wisdom next approaching sessions to concur with him in making some such act for that purpose as may enable him to exercise with a more universal satisfaction that power of dispensing which he conceived to be inherent in him.” 2 The aim of this declaration was to obtain from parliament a mitigation at least of all penal statutes in matters of religion but more to serve the interests of catholic than of protestant nonconformity.8 Except, however, the allusion to the dis1 Life of Clarendon, 159. He intimates 8 Baxter intimates, 429, that some disthat this begot a coldness in the bishops agreement arose between the presbytetoward himself, which was never fully re-rians and independents as to the toleramoved. Yet he had no reason to com-tion of popery, or rather, as he puts it, plain of them on his trial. See, too, as to the active concurrence of the protPepys’s Diary, Sept. 3, 1662. estant dissenters in accepting such a tol2 Parl. Hist. 257. eration as should include popery. The lat

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CHA. IL.-1660-73. OPPOSED BY COMMONS. 831 pensing power, which yet is very moderately alleged, there was nothing in it, according to our present opinions, that should have created offence. But the commons, Objeted on their meeting in February, 1663, presented an to by the address denying that any obligation lay on the common king by virtue of his declaration from Breda, which must be understood to depend on the advice of parliament, and slightly intimating that he possessed no such dispensing prerogative as was suggested. They strongly objected to the whole scheme of indulgence, as the means of increasing sectaries, and rather likely to occasion disturbance than to promote peace.1 They remonstrated, in another address, against the release of Calamy, an eminent dissenter, who, having been imprisoned for transgressing the act of uniformity, was irregularly set at liberty by the king’s personal order.2 The king, undeceived as to the disposition of this loyal assembly to concur in his projects of religious liberty, was driven to more tedious and indirect courses in order to compass his end. He had the mortification of finding that the house of commons had imbibed, partly perhaps in consequence of this declaration, that jealous apprehension of popery which had caused so much of his father’s ill-fortune. On this topic the watchfulness of an English parliament could never be long at rest. The notorious insolence of the Romish priests, who, proud of the court’s favor, disdained to respect the laws enough to disguise themselves, provoked an address to the king that they might be sent out of the kingdom; and bills were brought in to prevent the further growth of popery.8 ter, conformably to their general princi-from the king, and that the opposition to ples, were favorable to it; but the former it in the house was chiefly made by the would not make themselves parties to friends of Clarendon. The latter tells any relaxation of the penal laws against us in his Life, 189, that the king was disthe church of Rome, leaving the king pleased at the insolence of the Romish to act as he thought fit. By this stiff-party, and gave the judges general orders ness it is very probable that they pro-to convict recusants. The minister and voked a good deal of persecution from historian either was or pretended to be the court, which they might have avoid-his master’s dupe; and, if he had any ed by falling into its views of a general suspicions of what was meant as to religindulgence. ion (as he must surely have had), is far 1 Parl. Hist. 260. An adjournment too loyal to hint them. Yet the one cirhad been moved and lost by 161 to 119.

cumstance he mentions soon after, that Journals, 25th Feb. the countess of Castlemaine suddenly de2 19 Feb. Baxter, p. 429. dared herself a catholic, was enough to a Journals, 17th and 28th March, 16u3. open his eyes and those of the world. Parl. Hist. 264. Burnet, 274, says the The Romish partisans assumed the tons declaration of indulgence was usually as-of high loyalty, as exclusively charac cribed to Bristol, but in fact proceeded teristic of their religion; but affected,

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832 ACT AGAINST CONVENTICLES. CHAO. XI. Meanwhile, the same remedy, so infallible in the eyes of legislators, was not forgotten to be applied to the opposite disease of protestant dissent. Some had believed, of whom Clarendon seems to have been, that, all scruples of tender conscience in the presbyterian clergy being faction and hypocrisy, they would submit very quietly to the law, when they found all their clamor unavailing to obtain a dispensation from it. The resignation of 2000 beneficed ministers at once, instead of extorting praise, rather inflamed the resentment of their bigoted enemies; especially when they perceived that a public and perpetual toleration of separate worship was favored by part of the court.

Rumors of conspiracy and insurrection, sometimes false, but gaining credit from the notorious discontent both of the old commonwealth’s party, and of many who had never been on that side, were sedulously propagated, in order to keep up the animosity of Act against parliament against the ejected clergy; and these conventicles. are recited as the pretext of an act passed in 1664, for suppressing seditious conventicles (the epithet being in this place wantonly and unjustly insulting), which inflicted on all persons above the age of sixteen, present at any religious meeting in other manner than is allowed by the practice of the church of England, where five or more persons besides the household should be present, a penalty of three months’ imprisonment for the first offence, of six for the second, and of seven years’ transportation for the third, on conviction before a single justice of peace.2 This at this time, to use great civility towards the duke of Ormond, where he says - the church of England. A book, entitled ” The country was in greater readiness to Philanax Anglicus, published under the prevent the disorders than perhaps were name of Bellamy, the second edition of to be wished; but it being the effect of which is in 1663, after a most flattering their own care, rather than his majesty’s dedication to Sheldon, launches into viru-commands, it is the less to be censured.” lent abuse of the presbyterians and of the Clarendon, 218, speaks of this as an imreformation in general, as founded on portant and extensive conspiracy; and principles adverse to monarchy.

This, the king dwelt on it in his next speech to indeed, was common with the ultra or the parliament. Parl. Hist. 289. high-church party; but the work in ques-2 16 Car II. c. 4. A similar bill had tion, though it purports to be written passed the commons in July, 1663, but by a clergyman, is manifestly a shaft hung some time in the upper house, and from the concealed bow of the Roman was much debated; the commons sent Apollo. up a message (an irregular practice of 1 See proofs of this in Ralph, 53. Ra-those times) to request their lordships pin, p. 78. There was in 1663 a trifling would expedite this and some other bills.

insurrection in Yorkshire, which the The king seems to have been displeased government wished to have been more at this delay; for he told them at their serious, so as to afford a better pretext prorogation that he had expected some for strong measures; as may be collected bills against conventicles and distempers from a passage in a letter of Bennet to in religion, as well as the growth of

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CHA. II. - 1660-73. ANOTHER RESTRICTIVE ACT. 333 act, says Clarendon, if it had been vigorously executed, would no doubt have produced a thorough reformation.1 Such is ever the language of the supporters of tyranny; when oppression does not succeed, it is because there has been too little of it. But those who suffered under this statute report very differently as to its vigorous execution. The jails were filled, not only with ministers who had borne the brunt of former persecutions, but with the laity who attended them; and the hardship was the more grievous, that, the act being ambiguously worded, its construction was left to a single magistrate, generally very adverse to the accused. It is the natural consequence of restrictive laws to aggravate the disaffection which has served as theirAnother of pretext; and thus to create a necessity for a legis-the same lature that will not retrace its steps to pass still kind. onward in the course of severity. In the next session accordingly, held at Oxford in 1665, on account of the plague that ravaged the capital, we find a new and more inevitable blow aimed at the fallen church of Calvin. It was enacted that all persons in holy orders, who had not subscribed the act of uniformity, should swear that it is not lawful, upon any pretence whatsoever, to take arms against the king; and that they did abhor that traitorous position of taking arms by his authority against his person, or against those that are commissioned by him, and would not at any time endeavor any alteration of government in church or state. Those who refused this oath were not only made incapable of teaching in schools, but prohibited from coming within five miles of any city, corporate town, or borough sending members to parliament.2 This persecuting statute did not pass without the opposition of the earl of Southampton, lord treasurer, Remarks and other peers. But archbishop Sheldon, and on them. several bishops, strongly supported the bill, which had undoubtedly the sanction also of Clarendon’s authority.8 In the commons I do not find that any division took place; but an unsuccessful attempt was made to insert the word ” legally ” before commissioned; the lawyers, however, declared popery, and should himself present some principles of the English constitution: at their next meeting. Parl. Hist. 288. 286. Burnet observes, that to empower a jus-1 P. 221. a 17 Car. 2, c. 2. tice of peace to convict without a jury 8 Burnet. Baxter, part iii. p. 2. Neal, was thought a great breach on the p. 652.

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334 MOTIVES OF TOLERATION. CHAP. XI. that this word must be understood.1

Some of the nonconforming clergy took the oath upon this construction.

But the far greater number refused. Even if they could have borne the solemn assertion of the principles of passive obedience in all possible cases, their scrupulous consciences revolted from a pledge to endeavor at no kind of alteration in church and state; an engagement, in its extended sense, irreconcilable with their own principles in religion, and with the civil duties of Englishmen. Yet to quit the town where they had long been connected, and where alone they had friends and disciples, for a residence in country villages, was an exclusion from the ordinary means of subsistence. The church of England had doubtless her provocations; but she made the retaliation much more than commensurate to the injury. No severity, comparable to this cold-blooded persecution, had been inflicted by the late powers, even in the ferment and fury of a civil war.

Encouraged by this easy triumph, the violent party in the house of commons thought it a good opportunity to give the same test a more sweeping application. A bill was brought in imposing this oath upon the whole nation; that is, I presume (for I do not know that its precise nature is anywhere explained), on all persons in any public or municipal trust.

This, however, was lost on a division by a small majority.2 It has been remarked that there is no other instance in history, where men have suffered persecution on account of differences which were admitted by those who inflicted it to be of such small moment. But, supposing this to be true, it only proves, what may perhaps be alleged as a sort of extenuation of these severe laws against non-conformists, that they were merely political, and did not spring from any theological bigotry.

Sheldon, indeed, their great promoter, was so free from an intolerant zeal that he is represented as a man who considered religion chiefly as an engine of policy The principles of religious toleration had already gained considerable ground over mere bigotry; but were still obnoxious to the arbitrary temper of some politicians, and wanted per1 Burnet. Baxter. by three votes, and mentions the persons. 2 Mr. Locke, in the “Letter from a But the numbers in the Journals, OctoPerson of Quality to his Friend in the ber 27, 1666, appear to be 67 to 61. Country,” printed in 1675 (see it in his Probably he meant that those persons Works, or in Parliamentary History, vol. might have been expected to vote the iv. Appendix, No. 6), says it was lost other way.

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CHA. II.-1660-73. DISSATISFACTION INCREASES. 335 haps experimental proof of their safety to recommend them to the caution of others. There can be no doubt that all laws against dissent and separation from an established church, those even of the inquisition, have proceeded in a greater or less degree from political motives; and these appear to me far less odious than the disinterested rancor of superstition. The latter is very common among the populace, and sometimes among the clergy. Thus the presbyterians exclaimed against the toleration of popery, not as dangerous to the protestant establishment, but as a sinful compromise with idolatry; language which, after the first heat of the Reformation had abated, was never so current in the Anglican church.1 In the case of these statutes against non-conformists under Charles II., revenge and fear seem to have been the unmixed passions that excited the church party against those whose former superiority they remembered, and whose disaffection and hostility it was impossible to doubt.2 A joy so excessive and indiscriminating had accompanied the king’s restoration, that no prudence or virtueDissati in his government could have averted that reac-faction tion of popular sentiment which inevitably follows increases. the disappointment of unreasonable hope. Those who lay their account upon blessings which no course of political administration can bestow, live, according to the poet’s com1 A pamphlet, with Baxter’s name subtion to the degree, quality, and ability scribed, called Fair Warning, or XXV of the delinquent; that so the penalty Reasons against Toleration and Indul-may be of force sufficient to conquer the gence of Popery, 1663, is a pleasant speci-obstinacy of the non-conformists.” Wilmen of this argumenltum ab inferno kins’s Concilia, iv. 680. Letters from ” Being there is but one safe way to sal-Sheldon to the commissary of the diocese vation, do you think that the protestant of Canterbury, in 1669 and 1670, occur way is that way, or is it not? If it be in the same collection, pp.

588, 689, not, why do you live in it? If it be, directing him to inquire about convenhow can you find in your heart to give tides; and if they cannot be restrained your subjects liberty to go another way? by ecclesiastical authority, to apply to Can you, in your conscience, give them the next justice of the peace in order to leave to go on in that course in which, in put them down. A proclamation appears your conscience, you think you could not also from the king, enjoining magistrates be saved? ” Baxter, however, does not to do this. In 1673 the archbishop writes mention this little book in his Life; nor a circular to his suffragans, directing does he there speak violently about the them to proceed against such as keep toleration of Romanists. schools without license. P. 693. 2 The clergy had petitioned the house See in the Somers Tracts, vii. 686, a of commons in 1664, inter alia, “That “true and faithful narrative ” of the for the better observation of the Lord’s severities practised against non-conformday, and for the promoting of conformity, ists about this time. Baxter’s Life is also you would be pleased to advance the full of proofs of persecution; but the pecuniary mulct of twelve pence foraeach most complete register is in Calamy’s aca~bsence from divine service, in propor-count of the ejected clergy.

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336 INCREASE OF DISCONTENT. CHAP. XI. parison, like the sick man, perpetually changing posture in search of the rest which nature denies; the dupes of successive revolutions, sanguine as children in all the novelties of politics, a new constitution, a new sovereign, a new minister, and as angry with the playthings when they fall short of their desires. What then was the discontent that must have ensued upon the restoration of Charles II.? The neglected cavalier, the persecuted presbyterian, the disbanded officer, had each his grievance; and felt that he was either in a worse situation than he had formerly been, or at least than he had expected to be. Though there were not the violent acts of military power which had struck every man’s eyes under Cromwell, it cannot be said that personal liberty was secure, or that the magistrates had not considerable power of oppression, and that pretty unsparingly exercised towards those suspected of disaffection. The religious persecution was not only far more severe than it was ever during the commonwealth, but perhaps more extensively felt than under Charles I. Though the monthly assessments for the support of the army ceased soon after the restoration, several large grants were made by parliament, especially during the Dutch war; and it appears that in the first seven years of Charles II. the nation paid a far greater sum in taxes than in any preceding period of the same duration.1 If then the people compared the national fruits of their expenditure, what a contrast they found, how deplorable a falling off in public honor and dignity since the days of the magnanimous usurper! 2 They saw with indignation that Dunkirk, acquired by Cromwell, had been chaffered away by Charles (a transaction justifiable perhaps on the mere balance of profit and loss, but certainly derogatory to the pride of a great nation); that a war, needlessly commenced, had been carried on with much display of bravery in our seamen and their commanders, but no sort of good conduct in the government; and that a petty northern potentate, who would 1 [Bishop Parker, certainly no enemy us, in raising money; ” the nation’s exto the administration of Charles II., owns treme necessity makes us exceedingly that nothing did the king so much harm tender whereupon to fasten our resoluas the immense grant of 2,500.0001. in tions.” Marvell’s Letters (in his Works), 1674, to be levied in three years; from Nov. 6. -1845.] which time he thought that he should 2 Pepys observes, 12th July, 1667, never want money, and put no restraint ” how everybody now-a-days reflect upon on his expenses. Hist. of his own Time, Oliver and commend him, what brave p. 245. In the session of 1666 great things he did, and made all the neighbor difficulties were found, as Marvell tells princes fear him.”

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CHA. II. -1660-73. KING’S PRIVATE LIFE. 337 have trembled at the name of the commonwealth, had broken his faith towards us out of mere contempt of our inefficiency.1 These discontents were heightened by the private conduct of Charles, if the life of a king can in any sense Private life be private, by a dissoluteness and contempt of of theking. moral opinion, which a nation, still in the main grave and religious, could not endure.

The austere character of the last king had repressed to a considerable degree the common vices of a court which had gone to a scandalous excess under James. But the cavaliers in general affected a profligacy of manners, as their distinction from the fanatical party, which gained ground among those who followed the king’s fortunes in exile, and became more flagrant after the restoration.2 Anecdotes of court excesses, which required not the aid of exaggeration, were in daily circulation through the coffee-houses; those who cared least about the vice not failing to inveigh against the scandal. It is in the nature of a limited monarchy that men should censure very freely the private lives of their princes, as being more exempt from that immoral servility which blinds itself to the distinctions of right and wrong in elevated rank. And as a voluptuous court will always appear prodigal, because all expense in vice is needless, they had the mortification of believing that the public revenues were wasted on the vilest associates of the king’s debauchery. We are, however, much indebted to the memory of Barbara duchess of Cleveland, Louisa duchess of Portsmouth, and Mrs. Eleanor Gwyn. We owe a tribute 1

[Clarendon, while he admits these Introduction, p. 78. On the other hand, discontents, and complaints of the decay sir Josiah Child asserts that there were of trade, asserts them to be unfounded. more men on change worth 10,0001. in No estate could be put up to sale any-1680 than there were in 1660 worth 10001., where but a purchaser was found for it: and that a hundred coaches were kept for vol. ii. p. 364. The main question, how-one formerly. Lands yielded twenty ever, is at what rate he would purchase. years’ purchase which, when he was Rents, he owns, had suddenly fallen 25 young, were not worth above eight or per cent., which caused a clamor against ten. See Macpherson’s Annals of Corn taxes, presumed to be the cause of it. merce, ad A.D. 1660.-1845.] But the truth is that wheat, which had 2 [Life of Clarendon, p. 34. Perhaps been at a very high price for a few years he lays too much the blame of this on just before and after the restoration, fell the sectaries; yet we may suspect that about 1663; and there is no doubt that the enthusiastic and antinomian conceits the reign of Charles II. was not favor-of these men had relaxed the old bonds able to the landed interest. Lady Sunder-of morality, and paved the way for the land tells us, in a letter of 1681, that more glaring licentiousness of the resto”the manor of Worme-Leighton, which, ration.

See, too, Pepys’s Diary, Aug. 81, when I was married [1662], was let for 1660, for the rapid increase of dissolute32001., is now let for 23001.”

Sidney’s ness about the court.  1845.] Diary, edited by Blencowe, 1843, vol. i. VOL. II. 22

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338 OPPOSITION IN PARLIAMENT. CHAP. XI. of gratitude to the Mays, the Killigrews, the Chiffinches, and the Grammonts. They played a serviceable part in ridding the kingdom of its besotted loyalty. They saved our forefathers from the starchamber and the highcommission court; they labored in their vocation against standing armies and corruption; they pressed forward the great ultimate security of English freedom, the expulsion of the house of Stuart.l Among the ardent loyalists who formed the bulk of the Opposition present parliament, a certain number of a differin parlia-ent class had been returned, not sufficient of themment.

selves to constitute a very effective minority, but of considerable importance as a nucleus, round which the lesser factions that circumstances should produce might be gathered. Long sessions, and a long continuance of the same parliament, have an inevitable tendency to generate a systematic opposition to the measures of the crown, which it requires all vigilance and management to hinder from becoming too powerful. The sense of personal importance, the desire of occupation in business (a very characteristic propensity of the English gentry), the various inducements of private passion and interest, bring forward so many active spirits, that it was, even in that age, as reasonable to expect that the ocean should always be tranquil as that a house of commons should continue long to do the king’s bidding with any kind of unanimity or submission. Nothing can more demonstrate the incompatibility of the tory system, which would place the virtual and effective, as well as nominal, administration of the executive government in the sole hands of the crown, with the existence of a representative assembly, than the history of this long parliament of Charles 11.2 1 The M6moires de Grammont are (such, sometimes, as we might otherwise known to everybody, and are almost almost blush to peruse) we have before unique in their kind, not only for the us the handwriting on the wall. the wingrace of their style and the vivacity of ter whirlwind hushed in its grim repose their pictures, but for the happy igno-and expecting its prey, the vengeance of rance in which the author seems to have an oppressed people and long-forbearing lived that any one of his readers could Deity. No such retribution fell on the imagine that there are such things as courtiers of Charles II., but they earned virtue and principle in the world. In in their own age, what has descended to the delirium of thoughtless voluptuous-posterity, though possibly very indifferent ness they resemble some of the memoirs to themselves, the disgust and aversion about the end of Louis XV.‘s reign, and of all that was respectable among mansomewhat later; though, I think, even in kind. these there is generally some effort, here 2 [Aubrey relates a saying of Harringand there, at moral censure, or some ton, just before the restoration, which affectation of sensibility. They, indeed, shows his sagacity. ” Well! the king have always an awful moral; and in the will come in. Let him come in and call light portraits of the court of Versailles a parliament of the greatest cavaliers in

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CHA. II.-1660-73. APPROPRIATION OF SUPPLIES. 339 None has ever been elected in circumstances so favorable for the crown, none ever brought with it such high notions of prerogative; yet in this assembly a party soon grew up, and gained strength in every successive year, which the king could neither direct nor subdue. The methods of bribery, to which the court had largely recourse, though they certainly diverted some of the measures, and destroyed the character, of this opposition, proved in the end like those dangerous medicines which palliate the instant symptoms of a disease that they aggravate. The leaders of this parliament were, in general, very corrupt men; but they knew better than to quit the power which made them worth purchase. Thus the house of commons matured and extended those rights of inquiring into and controlling the management of public affairs, which had caused so much dispute in former times; and, as the exercise of these functions became more habitual, and passed with little or no open resistance from the crown, the people learned to reckon them unquestionable or even fundamental; and were prepared for that more perfect settlement of the constitution on a more republican basis, which took place after the revolution. The reign of Charles II., though displaying some stretches of arbitrary power, and threatening a great deal more, was, in fact, the transitional state between the ancient and modern schemes of the English constitution; between that course of government where the executive power, so far as executive, was very little bounded except by the laws, and that where it can only be carried on, even within its own province, by the consent and cooperation, in a great measure, of the parliament. The commons took advantage of the pressure which the war with Holland brought on the administration, Appropriato establish two very important principles on the tion of basis of their sole right of taxation.

The first of supplies. these was the appropriation of supplies to limited purposes. This, indeed, was so far from an absolute novelty, that it found precedents in the reigns of Richard II. and Henry IV.; a period when the authority of the house of commons was at a very high pitch. No subsequent instance, I believe, England, so they be men of estates, and leian, vol.

ii. p. 878. By commonwealth’s let them sit but seven years, and they men he probably meant only men who will all turncommonwealth’s men.” Let-would stand up for public liberty against ters of Aubrey and others, from the Bod-the crown. 1845.]

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340 APPROPRIATION OF SUPPLIES. CHAP. XI was on record till the year 1624, when the last parliament of James I., at the king’s own suggestion, directed their supply for the relief of the Palatinate to be paid into the hands of commissioners named by themselves. There were cases of a similar nature in the year 1641, which, though of course they could no longer be upheld as precedents, had accustomed the house to the idea that they had something more to do than simply to grant money, without any security or provision for its application. In the session of 1665, accordingly, an enormous supply, as it then appeared, of 1,250,0001., after one of double that amount in the preceding year, having been voted for the Dutch war, Sir George Downing, one of the tellers of the exchequer, introduced into the subsidy bill a proviso that the money raised by virtue of that act should be applicable only to the purposes of the war.’ Clarendon inveighed with fury against this, as an innovation derogatory to the honor of the crown; but the king himself, having listened to some who persuaded him that the money would be advanced more easily by the bankers, in anticipation of the revenue, upon this better security for speedy repayment, insisted that it should not be thrown out.2 That supplies, granted by parliament, are only to be expended for particular objects specified by itself, became, from this time, an undisputed principle, recognized by frequent and at length constant practice. It drew with it the necessity of estimates regularly laid before the house of commons; and, by exposing the management of the public revenues, has given to parliament, not only a real and effective control over an essential branch of the executive administration, but, in some measure, rendered them partakers in it.8 It was a consequence of this right of appropriation that iThis was carried on a division by men. They were a tribe that had risen 172 to 102. Journals, 25th November, and grown up in Cromwell’s time, and 1665. It was to be raised ” in a regulat-never were heard of before the late ed subsidiary way, reducing the same to trouble, till when the whole trade of a certainty in all counties, so as no per-money had passed through the hands of son, for his real or personal estate, be ex-the scriveners. They were, for the most empted.” They seem to have had some part, goldsmiths -men known to be so difficulty in raising this vast subsidy. rich, and of so good reputation, that all Parliamentary History, 305. the money of the kingdom would be 2 17 Car. 2, c. 1. The same. clause trusted or deposited in their hands.” is repeated next year, and has become Life of Clarendon, vol. iii. p. 7.-1845.] regular. [ ” The bankers did not consist 3 Life of Clarendon, p. 815. Hatsell’s of above the number of five or six men, Precedents, iii. 80. The principle of apsome whereof were aldermen and had propriation was not carried into full been lord-mayors of London, and all the effect till after the Revolution. Id.

179, rest were aldermen or had fined for alder-484.

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CHA. II.-1660-73. COMMISSION OF ACCOUNTS. 341 the house of commons should be able to satisfy itself as to the expenditure of their moneys in the services Commission for which they were voted. But they might claim of public a more extensive function, as naturally derived a”count from their power of opening and closing the public purse, that of investigating the wisdom, faithfulness, and economy with which their grants had been expended. For this, too, there was some show of precedents in the ancient days of Henry IV.; but what undoubtedly had most influence was the recollection that during the late civil war, and in the times of the commonwealth, the house had superintended, through its committees, the whole receipts and issues of the national treasury. This had not been much practised since the restoration. But in the year 1666, the large cost and indifferent success of the Dutch war begetting vehement suspicions, not only of profuseness but of diversion of the public money from its proper purposes, the house appointed a committee to inspect the accounts of the officers of the navy, ordnance, and stores, which were laid before them, as it appears, by the king’s direction. This committee, after some time, having been probably found deficient in powers, and particularly being incompetent to administer an oath, the house determined to proceed in a more novel and vigorous manner; and sent up a bill, nominating commissioners to inspect the public accounts, who were to possess full powers of inquiry, and to report with respect to such persons as they should find to have broken their trust. The immediate object of this inquiry, so far as appears from lord Clarendon’s mention of it, was rather to discover whether the treasurers had not issued money without legal warrant than to enter upon the details of its expenditure. But that minister, bigoted to his tory creed of prerogative, thought it the highest presumption for a parliament to intermeddle with the course of government.

He spoke of this bill as an encroachment and usurpation that had no limits, and pressed the king to be firm in his resolution never to consent to it.1 Nor was the king less averse to a parliamentary commission of this nature, as well from a jealousy of its interference with his prerogative as from a consciousness, which Clarendon himself suggests, that great sums had been issued by his orders 1 Life of Clarendon, p. 368. Burnet observes, it was looked upon at the time aa a great innovation: p. 335.

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842 COMMISSION OF ACCOUNTS. CHAP. XI. which could not be put in any public account; that is (for we can give no other interpretation), that the moneys granted for the war, and appropriated by statute to that service, had been diverted to supply his wasteful and debauched course of pleasures.1 It was the suspicion, or rather private knowledge, of this criminal breach of trust, which had led to the bill in question. But such a slave was Clarendon to his narrow prepossessions, that he would rather see the dissolute excesses which he abhorred suck nourishment from that revenue which had been allotted to maintain the national honor and interests, and which, by its deficiencies thus aggravated, had caused even in this very year the navy to be laid up, and the coasts to be left defenceless, than suffer them to be restrained by the only power to which thoughtless luxury would submit. He opposed the bill, therefore, in the house of lords, as he confesses, with much of that intemperate warmth which distinguished him, and with a contempt of the lower house and its authority, as imprudent in respect to his own interests as it was unbecoming and unconstitutional. The king prorogued parliament while the measure was depending; but in hopes to pacify the house of commons, promised to issue a commission under the great seal for the examination of public accountants;2 an expedient which was not likely to bring more to light than suited his purpose. But it does not appear that this royal commission, though actually prepared and sealed, was ever carried 1

Pepys’s Diary has lately furnished perceive they did doubt what his answer some things worthy to be extracted. could be.” September 23, 1666.-The “

Mr. W. and I by water to Whitehall, money granted the king for the war he and there at sir George Carteret’s lodg-afterwards reckons at 5,590,0001., and the ings sir William Coventry met; and we debt at 900,0001. The charge stated only did debate the whole business of our ac-at 3,200,0001. ” So what is become of counts to the parliament; where it ap-all this sum, 2,390,0001.! ” He mentions pears to us that the charge of the war afterwards, Oct. 8, the proviso in the pollfrom Sept. 1, 1664, to this Michaelmas, tax bill, that there shall be a committee will have been but 8,200,0001., and of nine persons to have the inspection we have paid in that time somewhat on oath of all the accounts of the money about 2,200,0001., so that we owe about given and spent for the war, “which 9000,000.: but our method of accounting, makes the king and court mad; the king though it cannot, I believe, be far wide having given order to my lord chamberfrom the mark, yet will not abide a strict lain to send to the playhouses and brothexamination, if the parliament should be els, to bid all the parliament-men that troublesome. Here happened a pretty were there to go to the parliament presquestion of sir William Coventry, wheth-ently; but it was carried against the er this account of ours will not put my court by thirty or forty voices.” It was lord treasurer to a difficulty to tell what thought, he says, Dec. 12, that above is become of all the money the parliament 400,0001. had gone into the privy purse have given in this time for the war, which since the war. hath amounted to about 4.000,0001., 2 Life of Clarendon, p.,892. which nobody there could answer; but I

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CIA. II. -1660-73. DECLINE OF CLARENDON’S POWER. 343 into effect; for in the ensuing session, the great minister’s downfall having occurred in the mean time, the house of commons brought forward again their bill, which passed into a law. It invested the commissioners therein nominated with very extensive and extraordinary powers, both as to auditing public accounts and investigating the frauds that had taken place in the expenditure of money and employment of stores. They were to examine upon oath, to summon inquests if they thought fit, to commit persons disobeying their orders to prison without bail, to determine finally on the charge and discharge of all accountants; the barons of the exchequer, upon a certificate of their judgment, were to issue process for recovering money to the king’s use, as if there had been an immediate judgment of their own court. Reports were to be made of the commissioners’ proceedings from time to time to the king and to both houses of parliament. None of the commissioners were members of either house. The king, as may be supposed, gave way very reluctantly to this interference with his expenses. It brought to light a great deal of abuse and misapplication of the public revenues, and contributed doubtless in no small degree to destroy the house’s confidence in the integrity of government, and to promote a more jealous watchfulness of the king’s designs.1 At the next meeting of parliament, in October, 1669, sir George Carteret, treasurer of the navy, was expelled the house for issuing money without legal warrant. Sir Edward Hyde, whose influence had been almost annihilated in the last years of Charles I. through the inveterate hatred of the queen and those who surrounded her, acquired by degrees the entire confidence of the young Decline of king, and baffled all the intrigues of his enemies. Clarendon’s Guided by him, in all serious matters, during the power. latter years of his exile, Charles followed his counsels almost implicitly in the difficult crisis of the restoration. The office of chancellor and the title of earl of Clarendon were the proofs of the king’s favor; but in effect, through the indolence and ill health of Southampton, as well as their mutual 1 19 & 20 Car. II. c. 1. Burnet, p. 374. acted with more technical rigor than They reported unaccounted balances of equity, surcharging the accountants for 1,509,1611., besides much that was ques-all sums not expended since the war betionable in the payments. But, according gan, though actually expended for the to Ralph, p. 177, the commissioners had purposes of preparation.

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344 DECLINE OF CLARENDON’S POWER. CHAP. XI. friendship, he was the real minister of the crown.1 By the clandestine marriage of his daughter with the duke of York, he changed one brother from an enemy to a sincere and zealous friend, without forfeiting the esteem and favor of the other. And though he was wise enough to dread the invidiousness of such an elevation, yet for several years it by no means seemed to render his influence less secure.2 1 Burnet, p. 130. Southampton left rather his daughter should be the duke’s all the business of the treasury, accord-whore than his wife: in the former case. ing to Burnet, p. 131, in the hands of sir nobody could blame him for the resoluPhilip Warwick, ” a weak but incorrupt tion he had taken, for he was not obliged man.” The king, he says, chose to put to keep a whore for the greatest prince up with his contradiction rather than alive; and the indignity to himself he make him popular by dismissing him. would submit to the good pleasure of But in fact, as we see by Clarendon’s in-God. But, if there were any reason to stance, the king retained his ministers suspect the other, he was ready to give long after he was displeased with them. a positive judgment, in which he hoped Southampton’s remissness and slowness, their lordships would concur with him, notwithstanding his integrity, Pepys that the king should immediately cause says, was the cause of undoing the nation the woman to be sent to the Tower and as much as anything; “yet, if I knew cast into the dungeon, under so strict a all the difficulties he has lain under, and guard that no person living should be his instrument sir Philip Warwick, I admitted to come to her; and then that might be of another mind.” May 16, an act of parliament should be imme1667.-He was willing to have done diately passed for cutting off her head, something, Clarendon tells us, p. 415, to to which he would not only give his congratify the presbyterians; on which ac-sent, but would very willingly be the first count the bishops thought him not man that should propose it. And whoenough affected to the church.

His ever knew the man will believe that he friend endeavors to extenuate this hei-said all this very heartily.” Lord Southnous sin of tolerant principles. ampton, he proceeds to inform us, on the 2 The behavior of lord Clarendon on king’s entering the room at the time, said this occasion was so extraordinary, that very naturally that the chancellor was no credit could have been given to any mad, and had proposed such extravagant other account than his own. The duke things that he was no more to be con of York, he says, informed the king of suited with. This, however, did not the affection and friendship that had bring him to his senses; for he repeated long been between him and the young his strange proposal of “
sending her lady; that they had been long con-presently to the Tower, and the rest;” tracted, and that she was with child; imploring the king to take this course. and therefore requested his majesty’s as the only expedient that could free him leave that he might publicly marry her. from the evils that this business would The marquis of Ormond by the king’s otherwise bring upon him. order communicated this to the chan-That any man of sane intellect should cellor, who ” broke out into an immod-fall into such an extravagance of passion erate passion against the wickedness of is sufficiently wonderful: that he should his daughter; and said, with all imagin-sit down in cool blood several years afterable earnestness, that as soon as he came wards to relate it is still more so; and home he would turn her out of his house perhaps we shall carry our candor to an as a strumpet to shift for herself, and excess, if we do not set down the whole would never see her again. They told of this scene to overacted hypocrisy. him that his passion was too violent to Charles II., we may be very sure, could administer good counsel to him; that see it in no other light. And here I must they thought that the duke was married take notice, by the way, of the singular to his daughter; and that there were observation the worthy editor of Burnet other measures to be taken than those has made:-‘ King Charles’s conduct in which the disorder he was in had sug-this business was excellent throughout: gested to him. Whereupon he fell into that of Clarendon worthy an ancient Ronew commotions; and said, If that were man.” We have indeed a Roman pretrue, he was well prepared to advise what cedent for subduing the sentiments of was to be done; that he had much nature, rather then permitting a daughter

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CHA. II. - 1660-73. CLARENDON. 345 Both in their characters, however, and turn of thinking, there was so little conformity between Clarendon and his master, that the continuance of his ascendency can only be to incur disgrace through the passions of ” though, when he asked the king for the great; but I think Virginius would his leave, he refused and dissuaded him not quite have understood the feelings from it, yet at last he opposed it no more, of Clarendon. Such virtue was more and the duke married her privately, and like what Montesquieu calls ” l’heroisme owned it some time after.” His biogra de l’esclavage,” and was just fit for the pher, writing from James’s own manucourt of Gondar. But with all this vio-script, adds, “It may well be supposed lence that he records of himself, he that my lord chancellor did his part, but deviates greatly from the truth: “The with great caution and circumspection, king ” (he says) ” afterwards spoke every to soften the king in that matter which day about it, and told the chancellor in every respect seemed so much for his that he must behave himself wisely, for own advantage.” Life of James, 387. that the thing was remediless, and that And Pepys inserts in his Diary, Feb. 23, his majesty knew that they were mar-1661, “Mr. H. t.ld me how my lord ried; which would quickly appear to all chancellor had lately got the duke of men who knew that nothing could be York and duchess, and her woman, done upon it.

In this time the chancel-my lord Ossory and a doctor, to make lor had conferred with his daughter, oath before most of the judges of the without anything of indulgence, and not kingdom, concerning all the circumonly discovered that they were unques-stances of their marriage. And, in fine, tionably married, but by whom, and who it is confessed that they were not fully were present at it, who would be ready to married till about a month or two before avow it; which pleased him not, though she was brought to bed; but that they it diverted him from using some of that were contracted long before, and [were rigor which he intended. And he saw married] time enough for the child to be no other remedy could be applied but legitimate. But I do not hear that it that which he had proposed to the king, was put to the judges to determine that who thought of nothing like it.” Life it was so or not.” There was no quesof Clarendon, 29, et post.

tion to put about the child’s legitimacy, Every one would conclude from this which was beyond all doubt. He had that a marriage had been solemnized, if said before that lord Sandwich told him, not before their arrival in England, yet 17th Oct. 1660, ” the king wanted him before the chancellor had this conference [the duke] to marry her, but he would with his daughter. It appears, however, not.” This seems at first sight inconfrom the duke of York’s declaration in sistent with what James says himself. the books of the privy council, quoted But at this time, though the private by Ralph, p. 40, that he was contracted marriage had really taken place, he had to Ann Hyde on the 24th of November, been persuaded by a most infamous con1659, at Breda; and after that time lived spiracy of some profligate courtiers that with her as his wife, though very se-the lady was of a licentious character, cretly; he married her 3d Sept. 1660, and that Berkeley, afterwards lord Falaccording to the English ritual, lord mouth, had enjoyed her favors. Life of Ossory giving her away. The first child Clarendon, 83. It must be presumed was born Oct. 22, 1660.

Now, whether that those men knew only of a contract the contract were sufficient to constitute which they thought he could break. a valid marriages will depend on +wo Hamilton, in the Memoirs of Grammont, things; first, upon the law existing at speaks of this transaction with his usual Breda; secondly, upon the applicability levity, though the parties showed themof what is commonly called the rule of selves as destitute of spirit as of honor the lex loci to a marriage between such and humanity.

Clarendon, we must bepersons according to the received notions lieve (and the most favorable hypothesis of English lawyers in that age. But, for him is to give up his veracity), would even admitting all this, it is still man-not permit his daughter to be made the ifest that Clarendon’s expressions point victim of a few perjured debauchees, and to an actual celebration, and are conse-of her husband’s fickleness or credulity.

quently intended to mislead the reader. [Upon reconsidering this note, I think Certain it is, that at the time the con-it probable that Clarendon’s conversation tract seems to have been reckoned only with his daughter, when he ascertained an honorary obligation. James tells us her marriage, was subsequent to the 3d himself (Macpherson’s Extracts, p. 17) of September. It is always difficult to that he promised to marry her; and make out his dates. -1845.]

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346 CLARENDON. CHAP. XI. attributed to the power of early habit over the most thoughtless tempers. But it rarely happens that kings do not ultimately shake off these fetters, and release themselves from the sort of subjection which they feel in acting always by the same advisers.

Charles, acute himself and cool-headed, could not fail to discover the passions and prejudices of his minister, even if he had wanted the suggestion of others who, without reasoning on such broad principles as Clarendon, were perhaps his superiors in judging of temporary business. He wished, too, as is common, to depreciate a wisdom, and to suspect a virtue, which seemed to reproach his own vice and folly. Nor had Clarendon spared those remonstrances against the king’s course of life which are seldom borne without impatience or resentment. He was strongly suspected by the king as well as his courtiers (though, according to his own account, without any reason) of having promoted the marriage of Miss Stewart with the duke of Richmond.1 But above all he stood in the way of projects which, though still probably unsettled, were floating in the king’s mind. No one was more zealous to uphold the prerogative at a height where it must overtop and chill with its shadow the privileges of the people. No one was more vigilant to limit the functions of parliament, or more desirous to see them confiding and submissive. But there were landmarks which he could never be brought to transgress. He would prepare the road for absolute monarchy, but not introduce it; he would assist to batter down the walls, but not to march into the town. His notions of what the English constitution ought to be appear evidently to have been derived from the times of Elizabeth and James I., to which he frequently refers with approbation. In the history of that age he found much that could not be reconciled to any liberal principles of government. But there were two things which he certainly did not find -a revenue capable of meeting an extraordinary demand without parliamentary supply, and a standing army.

Hence he took no pains, if he did not even, as is asserted by Burnet, discourage the proposal of others, to obtain such a fixed annual revenue for the king on the restoration as would have ren1 Hamilton mentions this as the cur-any acquaintance with the parties. Be rent rumor of the court, and Burnet has wrote in too humble a strain to the king done the same. But Clarendon himself on the subject. Life of Clar. p. 464. denies that he had any concercn in it, or

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CHA. II.- 1660-73. CLARENDON. 347 dered it very rarely necessary to have recourse to parliament,l and did not advise the keeping up any part of the army. That a few troops were retained was owing to the duke of York. Nor did he go the length that was expected in procuring the repeal of all the laws that had been enacted in the long parliament.2 These omissions sank deep in Charles’s heart, especially when he found that he had to deal with an unmanageable house of commons, and must fight the battle for arbitrary power; which might have been achieved, he thought, without a struggle by his minister. There was still less hope of obtaining any concurrence from Clarendon in the king’s designs as to religion. Though he does not once hint at it in his writings, there can be little doubt that he must have suspected his master’s inclinations towards the church of Rome. The duke of York considered this as the most likely cause of his remissness in not sufficiently advancing the prerogative.8 He was always opposed to the various schemes of a general indulgence towards popery, not only from his strongly protestant principles and his dislike of all toleration, but from a prejudice against the body of the English catholics, whom he thought to arrogate more on the ground of merit than they could claim. That interest, so powerful at court, was decidedly hostile to the chancellor; for the duke of York, who strictly adhered to him, if he had not kept his change of religion i Burnet says that Southampton had they were awhile willing to grant all the come into a scheme of obtaining 2,000,0001. king desired, did press for its being done; as the annual revenue; which was pre-and so it was, and the king from that vented by Clarendon, lest it should put time able to do nothing with the parliathe king out of need of parliaments. ment almost.” March 20, 1669. Rari This the king found out, and hated him quippe boni! Neither Southampton nor mortally for it. P.

223. It is the fashion Coventry make the figure in this extract to discredit all that Burnet says. But we should wish to find; yet who were observe what we may read in Pepys: their superiors for integrity and patriot ” Sir W. Coventry did tell me it as the ism under Charles II,?

Perhaps Pepys, wisest thing that was ever said to the like most gossiping men, was not always king by any statesman of his time; and correct. it was by my lord-treasurer that is dead, 2 Macpherson’s Extracts from Life of whom, I find, he takes for a very great James, 17, 18. Compare Innes’s Life of statesman, that, when the king did show James, published by Clarke, i. 891, 393. himself forward for passing the act of In the former work it is said that Clar. indemnity, he did advise the king that endon, upon Venner’s insurrection, adhe would hold his hand in doing it, till vised that the guards should not be dishe had got his power restored that had banded. But this seems to be a mistake been diminished by the late times, and in copying: for Clarendon, read the duke his revenue settled in such a manner as of York. Pepys, however, who heard all he might depend upon himself without the gossip of the town, mentions the year resting upon parliaments, and then pass after that the chancellor thought of raisit. But my lord chancellor, who thought ing an army, with the duke as general. he could have the command of parlia-Dec. 22, 1661. ments forever, because for the king’s sake s Ibid.

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348 COALITION AGAINST CLARENDON. CHAP. XI. wholly secret, does not seem to have hitherto formed any avowed connection with the popish party.1 This estrangement of the king’s favor is sufficient to acLoss of the count for Clarendon’s loss of power; but his entire king’s favor, ruin was rather accomplished by a strange coaliCoalition against tion of enemies, which his virtues, or his errors Clarendon. and infirmities, had brought into union. The cavaliers hated him on account of the act of indemnity, and the presbyterians for that of uniformity. Yet the latter were not in general so eager in his prosecution as the others.2 But he owed great part of the severity with which he was treated to his own pride and ungovernable passionateness, by which he 1 The earl of Bristol, with all his con-son.

Maynard stood up for the opposite stitutional precipitancy, made a violent doctrine. Waller and Vaughan argued attack on Clarendon, by exhibiting arti-that the sale of Dunkirk was treason, but cles of treason against him in the house the article passed without declaring it to of lords in 1663; believing, no doubt, that be so; nor would the word have appeared the schemes of the intriguers were more probably in the impeachment, if a young mature. and the king more alienated, lord, Vaughan, had not asserted that he than was really the case, and thus dis-could prove Clarendon to have betrayed graced himself at court instead of his en-the king’s councils, on which an article emy. Parl. Hist. 276. Life of Clar. 209. to that effect was carried by 161 to 89. Before this time Pepys had heard that the Garraway and Littleton were forward chancellor had lost the king’s favor, and against the chancellor; but Coventry that Bristol, with Buckingham and two seems to have taken no great part. See or three more, ruled him. May 15, 1663. Pepys’s Diary, Dec. 3d and 6th, 1667. 2 A motion to refer the heads of charge Baxter also says that the presbyterians against Clarendon to a committee was lost were by no means strenuous against Clarby 194 to 128; Seymour and Osborne eudon, but rather the contrary, fearing telling the noes. Birch and Clarges the that worse might come for the country, ayes. Commons’ Journals, Nov. 6, 1667. as giving him credit for having kept off These names show how parties ran; Sey-military government. Baxter’s Life, part mour and Osborne being high-flying cav-iii. 21. This is very highly to the honor aliers, and Birch a presbyterian. A mo-of that party whom he had so much option that he be impeached for treason on pressed, if not betrayed. ” It was a nothe first article was lost by 172 to 103, table providence of God,” he says, ” that the two former being tellers for the ayes: this man, who had been the great instruNov. 9. In the Harleian MS. 881, we ment of state, and done almost all, and have a copious account of the debates on had dealt so cruelly with the non-conthis occasion, and a transcript in No. 1218.

formists, should thus by his own friends Sir Heneage Finch spoke much against be cast out and banished; while those the charge of treason; Maynard seems to that he had persecuted were the most havy done the same.

A charge of secret moderate in his cause, and many for him. correspond3nce with Cromwell was in-And it was a great ease that befell the troduced merely ad invidiam, the prose-good people throughout the land by his cutors admitting that it was pardoned by dejection. For his way was to decoy men the act of indemnity, but wishing to into conspiracies or to pretend plots, and make the chancellor plead that: Maynard upon the rumor of a plot the innocent and Hampden opposed it, and it was giv-people of many countries were laid in en up out of shame without a vote. prison, so that no man knew when he Vaughan, afterwards chief-justice, argued was safe. Whereas since then, though that counselling the king to govern by a laws have been made more and more sestanding army was treason at common vere, yet a man knoweth a little better law, and seems to dispute what Finch laid what he is to expect when it is by a law down most broadly, that there can be no that he is to be tried.” Sham plots there such thing as a common-law treason; re-seem to have been; but it is not reasonlying on a passage in Glanvill, where se-able to charge Clarendon with inventing ductio domini regis ” is said to be trea-them. Ralph, 122.

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CHA. II.-1660-73. HIS IMPEACHMENT. 349 had rendered very eminent men in the house of commons implacable, and to the language he had used as to the dignity and privileges of the house itself.1 A sense of this eminent person’s great talents as well as general integrity and conscientiousness on the one hand, an indignation at the king’s ingratitude and the profligate counsels of those who supplanted him on the other, have led most writers to overlook his faults in administration, and to treat all the articles of accusation against him as frivolous or unsupported. It is doubtless impossible to justify the charge of high-is impeachtreason on which he was impeached; but there are ment;some matters that never were or could be disproved; and it not unour own knowledge enables us to add such grave founded. accusations as must show Clarendon’s unfitness for the government of a free country.2 1. It is the fourth article of his impeachment that he “advised and procured divers of his majesty’s subjects llegal imto be imprisoned against law, in remote islands, prisonments.

garrisons, and other places, thereby to prevent them from the benefit of the law, and to produce precedents for the imprisoning any other of his majesty’s subjects in like manner.” This was undoubtedly true. There was some ground for apprehension on the part of the government from those 1 In his wrath against the proviso in-to compass anything, though never so serted by sir George Downing, as above good for the kingdom, unless approved mentioned, in the bill of supply, Clar-of by the chancellor; he managing all endon told him, as he confesses, that the things with that greatness which now king could never be well served while will be removed, that the king may have fellows of his condition were admitted to the benefit of others’ advice.” Sept. 2, speak as much as they had a mind; and 1667. His own memoirs are full of proofs that in the best times such presumptions of this haughtiness and intemperance. had been punished with imprisonment by He set himself against Sir William Coventhe lords of the council, without the king’s try, and speaks of a man as able and virtaking notice of it: 321. The king was tuous as himself with marked aversion.

naturally displeased at this insolent lan-See, too, Life of James, 898.

Coventry, guage towards one of his servants, a man according to this writer, 431, was the who had filled an eminent station, and chief actor in Clarendon’s impeachment, done services, for a suggestion intended but this seems to be a mistake; though to benefit the revenue. And it was a he was certainly desirous of getting him still more flagrant affront to the house of out of place. commons, of which Downing was a mem-The king, Clarendon tells us (438), preber, and where he had proposed this tended that the anger of parliament was clause, and induced the house to adopt such, and their power too, as it was not it. in his power to save him. The fallen Coventry told Pepys “‘many things minister desired him not to fear the about the chancellor’s dismissal not fit power of parliament, ” which was more to be spoken; and yet not any unfaith-or less. or nothing, as he pleased to make fulness to the king, but instar omnium, it.” So preposterous as well as uncon that he was so great at the councilboard stitutional a way of talking could not and in the administration of matters but aggravate his unpopularity with that there was no room for anybody to pro-great body he pretended to contemn. pose any remedy for what was amiss, or 2 State Trials, vi. 318. Parl. Hist.

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850 IMPEACHMENT OF CLARENDON. CHAP. XL bold spirits who had been accustomed to revolutions, and drew encouragement from the vices of the court and the embarrassments of the nation. Ludlow and Algernon Sidney, about the year 1665, had projected an insurrection, the latter soliciting Louis XIV. and the pensionary of Holland for aid.1 Many officers of the old army, Wildman, Creed, and others, suspected, perhaps justly, of such conspiracies, had been illegally detained in prison for several years, and only recovered their liberty on Clarendon’s dismissal.2 He had too much encouraged the hateful race of informers, though he admits that it had grown a trade by which men got money, and that many were committed on slight grounds.8 Thus colonel Hutchinson died in the close confinement of a remote prison, far more probably on account of his share in the death of Charles I., from which the act of indemnity had discharged him, than any just pretext of treason.4 It was difficult to obtain a habeas corpus from some of the judges in this reign. But to elude that provision by removing men out of the kingdom was such an offence against the constitution as may be thought enough to justify the impeachment of any minister. 2. The first article, and certainly the most momentous, asserts, ” That the earl of Clarendon hath designed a standing army to be raised, and to govern the kingdom thereby, and advised the king to dissolve this present parliament, to lay aside all thoughts of parliaments for the future, to govern by a military power, and to maintain the same by free quarter and contribution.” This was prodigiously exaggerated; yet there was some foundation for a part of it. In the disastrous summer of 1667, when the Dutch fleet had insulted our coasts and burned our ships in the Medway, the exchequer being empty, it was proposed in council to call together immediately the parliament, which then stood prorogued to a day at the distance of some months. Clarendon, who feared the hostility of the house of commons towards himself, and had pressed the king to dissolve it, maintained that they could not legally be summoned before the day 1

Ludlow, iii. 118, 165, et post. Clar-78, et post; Harris’s Lives, v. 182, for the endon’s Life, 290. Burnet, 226.’ (uvres proofs of this. de Louis XIV. ii. 204. 4 Mem. of Hutchinson, 803. It seems, 2 Harris’s Lives, v.

28. Biogr. Brit. however, that he was suspected of some art. HARRINGTON.

Life of James, 396. concern with an intended rising in 1663, Somers Tracts, vii. 530, 534. though nothing was proved against him. s See Kennet’s Register, 757; Ralph, Miscellanea Aulica, 319.

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CHA. II.-1660-73. IMPEACHMENT OF CLARENDON. 351 fixed; and, with a strange inconsistency, attaching more im. portance to the formalities of law than to its essence, advised that the counties where the troops were quartered should be called upon to send in provisions, and those where there were no troops to contribute money, which should be abated out of the next taxes.

And he admits that he might have used the expression of raising contributions, as in the late civil war. This unguarded and unwarrantable language, thrown out at the council-table where some of his enemies were sitting, soon reached the ears of the commons, and, mingled up with the usual misrepresentations of faction, was magnified into a charge of high-treason.1 3. The eleventh article charged lord Clarendon with having advised and effected the sale of Dunkirk to Sale of the French king, being part of his majesty’s do-Dunkirk. minions, for no greater value than the ammunition, artillery, and stores were worth. The latter part is generally asserted to be false. The sum received is deemed the utmost that Louis would have given, who thought he had made a close bargain. But it is very difficult to reconcile what Clarendon asserts in his defence, and much more at length in his Life (that the business of Dunkirk was entirely decided, before he had anything to do in it, by the advice of Albemarle and Sandwich), with the letters of d’Estrades, the negotiator in this transaction on the part of France. In these letters, written at the time of Louis XIV., Clarendon certainly appears not only as the person chiefly concerned, but as representing himself almost the only one of the council favorable to the measure, and having to overcome the decided repugnance of Southampton, Sandwich, and Albemarle.2 I i Life of Clarendon, 424. Pepys says which certainly does not tally with some the parliament was called together other authorities, that Dunkirk had been ” against the duke of York’s mind flatly, so great an object with Cromwell, that it who did rather advise the king to raise was the stipulated price of the English money as he pleased; and against the alliance. Louis, however, was vexed at chancellor, who told the king that queen this, and determined to recover it at any Elizabeth did do all her business in 1588 price: il est certain que je ne pouvois without calling a parliament, and so trop donner pour racheter Dunkerque might he do for anything he saw.” June He sent d’Estrades accordingly to Eng 26, 1667. He probably got this from his land in 1661, directing him to make this friend sir W. Coventry. his great object. Charles told the am a Ralph, 78, &c. The overture came bassador that Spain had made him great from Clarendon, the French having no offers, but he would rather treat with expectation of it. The worst was that, France. Louis was delighted at this; just before, he had dwelt in a speech to and though the sum asked was considerparliament on the importance of Dun-able, 5,000,000 livres, he would not break. kirk. This was on May 19, 1662. It off, but finally concluded the treaty for appears by Louis XIV.‘s own account, 4,000,000, payable in three years; nay,

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352 IMPEACHMENT OF CLARENDON. CIHAP. XI. cannot indeed see any other explanation than that he magnified the obstacles in the way of this treaty, in order to obtain better terms; a management not very unusual in diplomatical dealing, but, in the degree at least to which he carried it, scarcely reconcilable with the good faith we should expect from this minister. For the transaction itself, we can hardly deem it honorable or politic. The expense of keeping up Dunkirk, though not trifling, would have been willingly defrayed by parliament; and could not well be pleaded by a government which had just encumbered itself with the useless burden of Tangier. That its possession was of no great direct value to England must be confessed; but it was another question whether it ought to have been surrendered into the hands of France. 4. This close connection with France is indeed a great reproach to Clarendon’s policy, and was the spring of mischiefs to which he contributed, and which he ought to have foreseen. What were the motives of these strong professions of attachment to the interests of Louis XIV. which he makes in some of his letters it is difficult to say, since he had undoubtedly an ancient prejudice against that nation and its government. I should incline to conjecture that his knowledge of the king’s unsoundness in religion led him to keep at a distance from the court of Spain, as being far more zealous in its popery, and more connected with the Jesuit faction, than that of France; and this possibly influenced him also with respect to the Portuguese match, wherein, though not the first adviser, he certainly took much interest; an alliance as little judicious in the outset as it proved eventSolicitation ually fortunate.’ But the capital misdemeanor of French that he committed in this relation with France money. was the clandestine solicitation of pecuniary aid for the king. He first taught a lavish prince to seek the wages of dependence in a foreign power, to elude the control saved 500,000
without its being found gether correct, the king of Francs did out by the English, for, a banker having not fancy he had made so bad a bargain; offered them prompt payment at this dis-and indeed, with his projects, if he had count, they gladly accepted it; but this the money to spare, he could not think banker was a person employed by Louis so. Compare the Memoires d’Estrades, himself, who had the money ready. He and the supplement to the third volume had the greatest anxiety about this affair; of Clarendon State Papers. The histofor the city of London deputed the lord-rians are of no value, except as they copy mayor to offer any sum so that Dun-from some of these original testimonies. kirk might not be alienated. (Euvres 1 Life of Clarendon, 78. Life of James, de Louis XIV.

i. 167. If this be alto-393.

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CHA. II.- 1660-73. HIS FAULTS AS A MINISTER. 353 of parliament by the help of French money.1 The purpose for which this aid was asked, the succor of Portugal, might be fair and laudable; but the precedent was most base, dangerous, and abominable. A king who had once tasted the sweets of dishonest and clandestine lucre would, in the words of the poet, be no more capable afterwards of abstaining from it than a dog from his greasy offal. These are the errors of Clarendon’s political life; which, besides his notorious concurrence in all measures Clarendon’ of severity and restraint towards the nonconform- faults as a ists, tend to diminish our respect for his memory, minister. and to exclude his name from that list of great and wise ministers where some are willing to place him near the head. If I may seem to my readers less favorable to so eminent a person than common history might warrant, it is at least to be said that I have formed my decision from his own recorded sentiments, or from equally indisputable sources of authority. The publication of his Life, that is, of the history of his administration, has not contributed to his honor. We find in it little or nothing of that attachment to the constitution for which he had acquired credit, and some things which we must struggle hard to reconcile with his veracity, even if the suppression of truth is not to be reckoned an impeachment of it in an historian.2 But the manifest profliI See supplement to third volume of from the great duties of an historian as a Clarendon State Papers for abundant moral blemish in his character. He dares evidence of the close connection between very frequently to say what is not true, the courts of France and England. The and what he must have known to be othformer offered bribes to lord Clarendon erwise; he does not dare to say what is so frequently and unceremoniously, that true. And it is almost an aggravation one is disposed to think he did not show of this reproach that he aimed to deceive so much indignation at the first overture posterity, and poisoned at the fountain a as he ought to have done. See p. 1, 4, stream from which another generation 18. The aim of Louis was to effect the was to drink. No defence has ever been match with Catherine. Spain would have set up for the fidelity of Clarendon’s Hisgiven a great portion with any protestant tory; nor can men who have sifted the princess, in order to break it.

Claren-authentic materials entertain much difdon asked, on his master’s account, for ference of judgment in this respect; 50,0001. to avoid application to parlia-though, as a monument of powerful abiliuent: p. 4.

The French offered a se-ity and impressive eloquence, it will alcret loan, orsubsidy perhaps, of 2,000,000 ways be read with that delight which we livres for the succor of Portugal. This receive from many great historians, es was accepted by Clarendon - p. 15; but pecially the ancient, independent of any I do not find anything more about it.

confidence in their veracity. 2 As no one who regards with attach-One more instance, before we quit lord ment the present system of the English Clarendon forever, may here be menconstitution can look upon lord Claren-tioned of his disregard for truth. The don as an excellent minister, or a friend strange tale of a fruitless search after the to the soundest principles of civil and re-restoration for the body of Charles I. is ligious liberty, so no man whatever can well known. Lords Southampton and avoid considering his incessant deviations Lindsey. he tells us, who had assisted at VOL. II. 23

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354 CLARENDON’S FLIGHT CHAP. XI. gacy of those who contributed most to his ruin, and the measures which the court took soon afterwards, have rendered his administration comparatively honorable, and attached veneration to his memory. We are unwilling to believe that there was anything to censure in a minister whom Buckingham persecuted, and against whom Arlington intrigued.1 An eminent characteristic of Clarendon had been his firnis pusil-ness, called indeed by most pride and obstinacy, lanimous which no circumstances, no perils, seemed likely fight, to bend. But his spirit sunk all at once with his fortune. Clinging too long to office, and cheating himself against all probability with a hope of his master’s kindness when he had lost his confidence, he forgot that dignified philosophy which ennobles a voluntary retirement, that stern courage which innocence ought to inspire; and, hearkening to the king’s treacherous counsels, fled before his enemies into a foreign country. Though the impeachment, at least their master’s obsequies in St. George’s sign for a monument, which is in All chapel at Windsor, were so overcome Souls’

College: but no further steps were with grief that they could not recognize taken. Ellis’s Letters, 1st series, vol. iii. the place of interment; and after several p. 329. It seems very unlikely that the vain attempts the search was abandoned king ever got the money which had been in despair. Hist. of Rebellion, vi. 244. voted, and the next parliaments were Whatever motive the noble historian may not in a temper to repeat the offer. - have had for this story, it is absolutely 1845.] incredible that any such ineffectual I The tenor of Clarendon’s life and search was ever made. Nothing could writings almost forbids any surmise of have been more easy than to have taken pecuniary corruption. Yet this is insinuup the pavement of the choir. But this ated by Pepys, on the authority of Evelyn, was unnecessary. Some at least of April 27, and May 16, 1667. But the the workmen employed must have re-one was gossiping, though shrewd; and inembered the place of the vault. Nor did the other feeble, though accomplished. it depend on them; for sir Thomas Her-Lord Dartmouth, who lived in the next bert, who was present, had made at the age, and whose splenetic humor makes time a note of the spot, “just opposite the him no good witness against anybody, eleventh stall on the king’s side.” Her-charges him with receiving bribes from bert Memoirs, 142. And we find from the main instruments and promoters of Pepys’s Diary, Feb. 26,1666, that”

he was the late troubles, and those who had shown at Windsor where the late king plundered the royalists, which enabled was buried, and king Henry VIII., and him to build his great mansion in Pioeau my lady Seymour.” In which spot, as is dilly; asserting that it was full of picwell known, the royal body has twice tures belonging to families who had been been found, once in the reign of Anne, despoiled of them. “And whoever had and again in 1813. [It has been some-a mind to see what great families had times suggested that Charles II., having been plundered during the civil war might received a large sum of money from par-find some remains either at Clarendonliament towards his father’s funeral, house or at Cornbury.” Noe on Burnet, chose to have it believed that the body 88. could not be found. But the vote of The character of Clarendon as a min70,0001. by the commons for this purpose ister is fairly and judiciously drawn by was on Jan. 30, 1678, long after the pre-Macpherson, Hist. of England, 98; a tended search which Clarendon has men-work by no means so full of a tory spirit tioned. Wren was directed to make a de-as has been supposed.

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CHA. II.- 1660-73. AND BANISHMENT. 355 in the point of high-treason, cannot be defended, it is impossible to deny that the act of banishment, under the and consecircumstances of his flight, was capable, in the quent banmain, of full justification. In an ordinary criminal ishment. suit, a process of outlawry goes against the accused who flies from justice; and his neglect to appear within a given time is equivalent, in cases of treason or felony, to a conviction of the offence; can it be complained of, that a minister of state, who dares not confront a parliamentary impeachment, should be visited with an analogous penalty? But, whatever injustice and violence may be found in this prosecution, it established forever the right of impeachment, which the discredit into which the long parliament had fallen exposed to some hazard; the strong abettors of prerogative, such as Clarendon himself, being inclined to dispute this responsibility of the king’s advisers to parliament. The commons had, in the preceding session, sent up an impeachment against lord Mordaunt, upon charges of so little public moment, that they may be suspected of having chiefly had in view the assertion of this important privilege.1 It was never called in question from this time; and indeed they took care during the remainder of this reign that it should not again be endangered by a paucity of precedents.2 Parl. Hist. 347. regard to the liberty of the subject; and 2 The lords refused to commit the earl from this time we do not find the vague of Clarendon on a general impeachment and unintelligible accusations, whether of high-treason; and, in a conference of treason or misdemeanor, so usual in with the lower house, denied the author-former proceedings of parliament. Parl. ity of the precedent in Strafford’s case, Hist. 387. A protest was signed by Buckwhich was pressed upon them. It is re-ingham, Albemarle, Bristol, Arlington, markable that the managers of this con-and others of their party, including ference for the commons vindicated the three bishops(Cosins, Croft,and another), first proceedings of the long parliament, against the refusal of their house to comwhich shows a considerable change in mit Clarendon upon the general charge. their tone since 1661. They do not, how-A few, on the 6ther hand, of whom Hollis ever, seem to have urged - what is an is the only remarkable name, protested apparent distinction between the two against the bill of banishment. precedents-that the commitment of “The most fatal blow” (says James) Ntrafford was on a verbal request of Pym ” the king gave himself to’his power and in the name of the commons, without al-prerogative was when he sought aid from leging any special matter of treason, and the house of commons to destroy the earl consequently irregular and illegal; while of Clarendon: by that he put that house the 16th article of Clarendon’s impeach-again in mind of their impeaching priviment charges him with betraying the lege, which had been wrested out of their king’s counsels to his enemies; which, hands by the restoration; and when minhowever untrue, evidently amounted to isters found they were like to be left to treason within the statute of Edward the censure of parliament, it made them III.; so that the objection of the lords have a greater attention to court an laextended to committing any one for terest there than to pursue that of their treason upon impeachment without all princes, from whom they hbced not for the particularity required in an indict-so sure a support.” Life of aes, 593. inent. This showed a very commendable The king, it is said, came rather slowly

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356 CABAL MINISTRY. CHAP. XI. The period between the fall of Clarendon in 1667 and the commencement of lord Danby’s administration in 1673 is generally reckoned one of the most disgraceful in the annals Cabal of our monarchy. This was the age of what is ministry. usually denominated the Cabal administration, from the five initial letters of sir Thomas Clifford, first commissioner of the treasury, afterwards lord Clifford and high-treasurer; the earl of Arlington, secretary of state; the duke of Buckingham; lord Ashley, chancellor of the exchequer, afterwards earl of Shaftesbury and lord chancellor; and, lastly, the duke of Lauderdale. Yet, though Scheme the counsels of these persons soon became excomprehen-tremely pernicious and dishonorable, it must be sion and admitted that the first measures after the banishindulgence. ment of Clarendon, both in domestic and foreign policy, were highly praiseworthy. Bridgeman, who succeeded the late chancellor in the custody of the great seal, with the assistance of chief baron Hale and bishop Wilkins, and at the instigation of Buckingham, who, careless about every religion, was from humanity or politic motives friendly to the indulgence of all, laid the foundations of a treaty with the non-conformists, on the basis of a comprehension for the presbyterians, and a toleration for the rest.1 They had nearly come, it is said, to terms of agreement, so that it was thought time to intimate their design in a speech from the throne. But the spirit of 1662 was still too powerful in the commons; and the friends of Clarendon, whose administration this change of counsels seemed to reproach, taking a warm part against all indulgence, a motion, that the king be desired to send for such persons as he should think fit to make proposals to him in order to the uniting of his protestant subjects, was negatived by 176 to 70.2

They proceeded, into the measure of impeachment; but their support of Clarendon. Burnet, ibid. became afterwards so eager as to give the Pepys’s Diary, 21st Dec. 1667. And he attorney-general, Finch, positive orders had also deeper motives. to be active in it, observing him to be 2 Parl. Hist.

421. Ralph, 170. Carte’s silent. Carte’s Ormond, ii. 853. Buck-Life of Ormond, ii. 862. Sir Thomas Litingham had made the king great prom-tieton spoke in favor of the comprehenises of what the commons would do, in sion, as did Seymour and Waller; all of case he would sacrifice Clarendon. them enemies of Clarendon, and probably 1 Kennet, 293, 800. Burnet. Baxter, connected with the Buckingham faction: 28. The design was to act on the prin-but the church party was much too strong ciple of the declaration of 1600, so that for them. Pepys says the commons were presbyterian ordinations should pass sub furious against the project; it was said modo.

Tillotson and Stillingfleet were that whoever proposed new laws about concerned in it. The king was at this religion must do it with a rope about his time exasperated against the bishops for neck. Jan. 10, 1668.

This is the first

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CHA. II.-1660-73. TRIPLE ALLIANCE. 357 by almost an equal majority, to continue the bill of 1664, for suppressing seditious conventicles; which failed, however, for the present, in consequence of the sudden prorogation.1 But whatever difference of opinion might at that time prevail with respect to this tolerant disposition of Triple the new government, there was none as to their alliance. great measure in external policy, the triple alliance with Holland and Sweden. A considerable and pretty sudden change had taken place in the temper of the English people towards France. Though the discordance of national character, and the dislike that seems natural to neighbors, as well as in some measure the recollections of their ancient hostility, had at all times kept up a certain ill-will between the two, it is manifest that before the reign of Charles II. there was not that antipathy and inveterate enmity towards the French in general which it has since been deemed an act of patriotism to profess. The national prejudices, from the accession of Elizabeth to the restoration, ran far more against Spain; and it is not surprising that the apprehensions of that ambitious monarchy, which had been very just in the age of Philip II., should have lasted longer than its ability or inclination to molest us. But the rapid declension of Spain after the peace of the Pyrenees, and the towering ambition of Louis XIV., master of a kingdom intrinsically so much more formidable than its rival, manifested that the balance of power in Europe, and our own immediate security, demanded a steady opposition to the aggrandizement of one monarchy, and a regard to the preservation of the other. These indeed were rather considerations for statesmen than for the people; but Louis was become unpopular both by his acquisition of Dunkirk at the expense, as it was thought, of our honor, and much more deservedly by his shuffling conduct in the Dutch war, and union in it with our adversaries. Nothing, therefore, gave greater satisfaction in England than the triple alliance, and consequent peace of Aix la Chapelle, which saved the Spanish Netherlands from absolute conquest, though not without important sacrifices.2 instance of a triumph obtained by the 1 Parl. Hist. 422.

church over the crown in the house of 2 France retained Lille, Tournay, commons. Ralph observes upon it, ” It Douay, Charleroi, and other places, by is not for nought that the words church the treaty. The allies were surprised, and state are so often coupled together, and not pleased, at the choice Spain made and that the first has so insolently of yielding these towns in order to save usurped the precedency of the last.” Ftanche Comte. Temple’s Letters, 97.

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858 INTRIGUE WITH FRANCE. CHAP. XI Charles himself meanwhile by no means partook in this Intrigue common jealousy of France. He had, from the with time of his restoration, entered into close relations France. with that power, which a short period of hostility had interrupted without leaving any resentment in his mind. It is now known that, while his minister was negotiating at the Hague for the triple alliance, he had made overtures for a clandestine treaty with Louis, through his sister the duchess of Orleans, the Duke of Buckingham, and the French ambassador Rouvigny.1 As the king of France was at first backward in meeting these advances, and the letters published in regard to them are very few, we do not find any precise object expressed beyond a close and intimate friendship. But a few words in a memorial of Rouvigny to Louis XIV. seem to let us into the secret of the real purpose. “The duke of York,” he says, “wishes much for this union; the duke of Buckingham the same: they use no art, but say that nothing else can reestablish the affairs of this court.”} Charles II. was not of a temperament to desire arbitrary King’s de-power, either through haughtiness and conceit of sire to be his station, which he did not greatly display, or absolute, through the love of taking into his own hands the direction of public affairs, about which he was in general pretty indifferent. He did not wish, as he told lord Essex, to sit like a Turkish sultan, and sentence men to the bowstring, but could not bear that a set of fellows should inquire into his conduct.8 His aim, in fact, was liberty rather than power; it was that immunity from control and censure in which men of his character place a great part of their happiness. For some years he had cared probably very little about enhancing his prerogative, content with the loyalty, though not quite with the liberality, of his parliament. And had he not been drawn, against his better judgment, into the war with Holland, this harmony might perhaps have been protracted a good deal longer. But the vast expenditure of that war, producing little or no decisive success, and coming In fact, they were not on good terms with ministers on his return from concluding that power; she had even a project, out the triple alliance: Clifford said to a friend, of spite to Holland, of giving up the Neth- “Well, for all this noise, we must yet erlands entirely to France, in exchange have another war with the Dutch before for Rousillon, but thought better of it on it be long.” Temple’s Letters, 128. cooler reflection. 2 Dalrymple, ii. 12. 1

Dalrymple, ii. 5, et post. Temple was 8 Burnet. not treated very favorably by most of the

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CHA. IL.- 1660-73. DISCONTENT OF THE KING. 359 unfortunately at a time when trade was not very thriving, and when rents had considerably fallen, exasperated all men against the prodigality of the court, to which they might justly ascribe part of their burdens, and, with the usual miscalculations, believed that much more of them was due. Hence the bill appointing commissioners of public account, so ungrateful to the king, whose personal reputation it was likely to affect, and whose favorite excesses it might tend to restrain. He was almost equally provoked by the license of his people’s tongues. A court like that of Charles is the natural topic of the idle, as well as the censorious. An administration so ill conducted could not escape the remarks of a well-conducted and intelligent city. There was one method of putting an end to these impertinent comments, or of rendering them innoxious; but it was the last which he would have adopted. Clarendon informs us that, the king one day complaining of the freedom, as to political conversation, taken in coffee-houses, he recommended either that all persons should be forbidden by proclamation to resort to them, or that spies should be placed in them to give information against seditious speakers.1 The king, he says, liked both expedients, but thought it unfair to have recourse to the latter till the former had given fair warning, and directed him to propose it to the council; but here, sir William Coventry objecting, the king was induced to abandon the measure, much to Clarendon’s disappointment, though it probably saved him an additional article in his impeachment. The unconstitutional and arbitrary tenor of this great minister’s notions of government is strongly displayed in this little anecdote. Coventry was an enlightened and, for that age, an upright man, whose enmity Clarendon brought on himself by a marked jealousy of his abilities in council. Those who stood nearest to the king were not backward to imitate his discontent at the privileges of his people and their representatives. The language of courtiers and court ladies is always intolerable to honest men, especially that of such courtiers as surrounded the throne of Charles II. It is worst of all amidst public calamities, such as pressed very closely on one another in a part of his reign - the awful pestilence of 1665, the still more ruinous fire of 1666, the 1 Life of Clarendon, 357.

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360 CHARGES AGAINST THE PAPISTS. CHAP. XI. fleet burned by the Dutch in the Medway next summer. No one could reproach the king for outward inactivity or indifference during the great fire. But there were some, as Clarendon tells us, who presumed to assure him ” that this was the greatest blessing that God had ever conferred on him, his restoration only excepted; for the walls and gates being now burned and thrown down of that rebellious city, which was always an enemy to the crown, his majesty would never suffer them to repair and build them up again, to be a bit in his mouth and a bridle upon his neck; but would keep all open, that his troops might enter upon them whenever he thought it necessary for his service, there being no other way to govern that rude multitude but by force.“1

This kind of discourse, he goes on to say, did not please the king. But here we may venture to doubt his testimony; or, if the natural good temper of Charles prevented him from taking pleasure in such atrocious congratulations, we may be sure that he was not sorry to think the city more in his power. It seems probable that this loose and profligate way of speaking gave rise, in a great degree, to the suspicion that the city had been purposely burned by those who were more enemies to religion and liberty than to the court. The papists stood ready to bear the infamy of every unproved crime; and a committee of the house of commons collected evidence enough for those who were already convinced that London had been burned by that obnoxious sect. Though the house did not proceed farther, there can be no doubt that the inquiry contributed to produce that inveterate distrust of the court, whose connections with the popish faction were half known, half conjectured, which gave from this time an entirely new complexion to the parliament. Prejudiced as the commons were, they could hardly have imagined the catholics to have burned the city out of mere malevolence, but must have attributed the crime to some far-spreading plan of subverting the established constitution.2 1 Life of Clarendon, 355. their quarters; and for this the 8d of 2 State Trials, vi.

807. One of the September following was fixed upon as a oddest things connected with this fire lucky day. This is undoubtedly to be was, that some persons of the fanatic read in the London Gazette for April 80, party had been hanged in April, for a 1666; and it is equally certain that the conspiracy to surprise the Tower, murder city was in flames on the 3d of Septemthe duke of Albemarle and others, and ber. But, though the coincidence is cuthen declare foran equal division of lands, rious, it would be very weak to think it &c. In order to effect this, the city was more than a coincidence, for the same to be fired, and the guards secured in reason as applies to the suspicion which

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CHA. II.-1660-73. FEARS CONCERNING THE ARMY. 361 The retention of the king’s guards had excited some jealousy, though no complaints seem to have been made of it in parliament; but the sudden levy of a considerable force in 1667, however founded upon a very plausible pretext from the circumstances of the war, lending credit to these dark surmises of the court’s sinister designs, gave much greater alarm. The commons, summoned together in July, instantly addressed the king to disband his army as soon as the peace should be made. We learn from the duke of York’s private memoirs, that some of those who were most respected for their ancient attachment to liberty, deemed it in jeopardy at this crisis. The earls of Northumberland and Leicester, lord Hollis, Mr. Pierpoint, and others of the old parliamentary party, met to take measures together. The first of these told the duke of York that the nation would not be satisfied with the removal of the chancellor, unless the guards were disbanded, and several other grievances redressed. The duke bade him be cautious what he said lest he should be obliged to inform the king; but Northumberland replied that it was his intention to repeat the same to the king, which he did accordingly the next day.l This change in public sentiment gave warning to Charles that he could not expect to reign with as little trouble as he had hitherto experienced; and doubtless the recollection of his father’s history did not contribute to cherish the love he sometimes pretended for parliaments.2 His brother, more reflecting, and more impatient of restraint on royal authority, saw with still greater clearness than the king that they could only keep the prerogative at its desired height by means of intimidation. A regular army was indispensable; but to keep up an army in spite of parliament, or to raise money the catholics incurred  that the mere he had done already in the matter of ac2sstruction of the city could not have counts. For if it be not necessary, it is a been the object of any party, and that king’s care and happiness to content his nothing was attempted to manifest any people. I doubt, as men will never part further design. willingly with their money, unless they 1 Macpherson’s Extracts, 38, 49. Life be well persuaded it will be employed diof James, 426. rectly to those ends for which they gave 2 [ 4 I am sorry,” says Temple, very it, so they will never be satisfied with a wisely and virtuously, ” his majesty government, unless they see men are should meet with anything he did not chosen into offices and employments by look for at the opening of this session of being fit for them, continued for disparliament; but confess I uo not see why charging them well, rewarded for ex his majesty should [not] not only con-traordinary merit, and punisbed for re sent, but encourage any inquiries or dis-markable faults.” March 2, 166. (cor quisitions they desire to make into the tenay’s Life of Temple vol 11 p. - miscarriages of the late war, as well as 1845.]

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362 DESIRE TO ADVANCE POPERY. UCHae. XI. for its support without parliament, was a very difficult undertaking. It seemed necessary to call in a more powerful arm than their own; and, by establishing the closest union with the king of France, to obtain either military or pecuniary succors from him, as circumstances might demand. But there was another and not less imperious motive for a secret treaty. The king, as has been said, though little likely, from the tenor of his life, to feel very strong and lasting impressions of religion, had at times a desire to testify publicly his adherence to the Romish communion. The duke of York had come more gradually to change the faith in which he was educated. He describes it as the result of patient and anxious inquiry; nor would it be possible therefore to fix a precise date for his conversion, which seems to have been not fully accomplished till after the restoration.1 He however continued in conformity to the church of England, till, on discovering that the catholic religion exacted an outward communion, which he had fancied not indispensable, he became more uneasy at the restraint that policy imposed on him. This led to a conversation with the king, of whose private opinions and disposition to declare them he was probably informed, and to a close union with Clifford and Arlington, from whom he had stood aloof on account of their animosity against Clarendon. The king and duke held a consultation with those two ministers, and with lord Arundel of Wardour, on the 25th of January, 1669, to discuss the ways and methods fit to be taken for the advancement of the catholic religion in these kingdoms. The king spoke earnestly, and with tears in his eyes. After a long deliberation it was agreed that there was no better way to accomplish this purpose than through France, the house of Austria being in no condition to give any assistance.2 1 He tells us himself that it began by and he was confident, he said, that who. his reading a book written by a learned soever reads those two books, with atten bishop of the church of England to clear tion and without prejudice, would be of her from schism in leaving the Roman the same opinion. Life of James, i. 629, communion, which had a contrary effect The duchess of York embraced the same on him; especially when, at the said creed as her husband, and, as he tells us, bishop’s desire, he read an answer to it. without knowledge of his sentiments, but This made him inquisitive about the one year before her death in 1670. She grounds and manner of the Reformation. left a paper at her death, containing the After his return, Heylin’s History of the reasons for her change. See it in Kennet, Reformation, and the preface to Hooker’s 820. It is plain that she, as well as the Ecclesiastical Polity, thoroughly con-duke, had been influenced by the Rovinced him that neither the church of manizing tendency of some Anglican di England, nor Calvin, nor any of the re-vines. formers, had power to do what they did; 2

Macpherson, 50. Life of James, 414

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CHA. II. 1660-73. SECRET TREATY WITH FRANCE. 363 The famous secret treaty, which, though believed on pretty good evidence not long after the time, was first Secret tsaty actually brought to light by Dalrymple about half of 1670. a century since, began to be negotiated very soon after this consultation.1 We find allusions to the king’s projects in one of his letters to the duchess of Orleans, dated 22d March, 1669.2 In another, of June 6, the methods he was adopting to secure himself in this perilous Itsobjec juncture appear. He was to fortify Plymouth, Hull, and Portsmouth, and to place them in trusty hands. The fleet was under the duke, as lord admiral; the guards and their officers were thought in general well affected; 8 but his great reliance was on the most Christian king. He stipulated for 200,0001. annually, and for the aid of 6000 French troops.4 In return for such important succor, Charles undertook to serve his ally’s ambition and wounded pride against the United Provinces. These, when conquered by the French arms, with the cooperation of an English navy, were already shared by the -royal conspirators. A part of Zealand fell to the lot of England, the remainder of the Seven Provinces to France, with an understanding that some compensation should be made to the prince of Orange. In the event of 1 De Witt was apprised of the intrigue (Euvres de Louis XIV., vi. 476. It is sinbetween France and England as early as gular that Hume should have slighted so April, 1669, through a Swedish agent at well-authenticated a fact, even before Paris. Temple, 179

Temple himself, in Dalrymple’s publication of the treaty; the course of that year, became convinced but I suppose he had never heard of Prithat the king’s views were not those of mi’s book. [Yet it had been quoted by his people, and reflects severely on his Bolingbroke, Dissertation on Parties, Letconduct in a letter, December 24, 1669, ter iv., who alludes also to ” other proofs, p. 208. In September, 1670, on his sud-which have not seen the light.” And, in den recall from the Hague, De Witt told the’Letters on the Study of History,’ him his suspicions of a clandestine treaty: Lett. vii., he is rather more explicit about 241. He was received on his return “the private relations I have read forcoldly by Arlington, and almost with merly, drawn up by those who were no rudeness by Clifford: 244. They knew enemies to such designs, and on the auhe would never concur in the new proj-thority of those who were parties to ects. But in 1682, during one of the them.”] The original treaty has lately intervals when Charles was playing false been published by Dr. Lingard, from lord with his brother Louis, the latter, in re-Clifford’s cabinet. [Dalrymple had only venge, let an abb6 Primi, in a history of given a rough draught from the depot at the Dutch war, publish an account of the Versailles, drawn by sir Richard Bealing whole secret treaty, under the name of for the French court. The variations are Count de St, Majolo. This book was im-not very material.] mediately suppressed at the instance of 2 Dalrymple, ii. 22.

the English ambassador; and Primi was 3 Dalrymple, 23. Life of James, 442.

sent for a short time to the Bastile. But 4 The tenor of the article leads me to a pamphlet, published in London, just conclude that these troops were to be after the revolution, contains extracts landed in England at all events, in order from it. Dalrymple, ii. 80. Somers to secure the public tranquillity, without Tracts, viii. 13. State Tracts, temp. W.

waiting for any disturbance. III., vol. i. p. 1. Harl. Misc., ii. 387.

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364 DIFFERENCES AS TO EXECUTION CHAP. XI. any new rights to the Spanish monarchy accruing to the most Christian king, as it is worded (that is, on the death of the king of Spain, a sickly child), it was agreed that England should assist him with all her force by sea and land, but at his own expense; and should obtain not only Ostend and Minorca, but, as far as the king of France could contribute to it, such parts of Spanish America as she should choose to conquer.1 So strange a scheme of partitioning that vast inheritance was never, I believe, suspected till the publication of the treaty, though Bolingbroke had alluded to a previous treaty of partition between Louis and the emperor Leopold, the complete discovery of which has been but lately made.2 Each conspirator, in his coalition against the protestant Differen faith and liberties of Europe, had splendid objects between in view; but those of Louis seemed by far the Charles and more probable of the two and less liable to be deLouis as to the mode of feated. The full completion of their scheme would its execution. have reunited a great kingdom to the catholic religion, and turned a powerful neighbor into a dependent pensioner. But should this fail (and Louis was too sagacious not to discern the chances of failure), he had pledged to him the assistance of an ally in subjugating the republic of Holland, which, according to all human calculation could not withstand their united efforts; nay, even in those ulterior projects which his restless and sanguine ambition had ever in view, and the success of which would have realized, not indeed the chimera of an universal monarchy, but a supremacy and dictatorship over Europe. Charles, on the other 1 P. 49. Austrian cabinet understood this; and 2 Bolingbroke has a remarkable pas-proposed that they should exchange their sage as to this in his Letters on History shares. Finally, however, it was con(Letter vii.): it may be also alluded to eluded on the king’s terms, except that by others. The full details, however, as he was to take Sicily instead of Milan. well as more authentic proofs, were re-One article of this treaty was, that Louis served, as I believe, for the publication should keep what he had conquered in of (Euvres de Louis XIV., where they Flanders; in other words, the terms of will be found in vol. ii. 408. The pro-the treaty of Aix la Chapelle. The ratiposal of Louis to the emperor, in 1667, fications were exchanged 29th Feb. 1668. was, that France should have the Pays Louis represents himself as more induced Bas, Franche Comtd, Milan, Naples, the by this prospect than by any fear of the ports of Tuscany, Navarre, and the Phil-triple alliance, of which he speaks slightIppine Islands; Leopold taking all the ingly, to conclude the peace of Aix la rest. The obvious drift of this was, that Chapelle. He thought that he should France should put herself in possession acquire a character for moderation which of an enormous increase of power and might be serviceable to him “dans les’territory, leaving Leopold to fight as he grands accroissemens que ma fortune could for Spain and America, which were pourroit recevoir.” Vol. ii. p. 869. not likely to submit peaceably. The

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CHA. II.  1660-73. OF SECRET TREATY. 365 hand, besides that he had no other return to make for the necessary protection of France, was impelled by a personal hatred of the Dutch, and by the consciousness that their commonwealth was the standing reproach of arbitrary power, to join readily in the plan for its subversion. But, looking first to his own objects, and perhaps a little distrustful of his ally, he pressed that his profession of the Roman catholic religion should be the first measure in prosecution of the treaty; and that he should immediately receive the stipulated 200,0001., or at least a part of the money. Louis insisted that the declaration of war against Holland should precede. This difference occasioned considerable delay; and it was chiefly with a view of bringing round her brother on this point that the duchess of Orleans took her famous journey to Dover in the spring of 1670. Yet, notwithstanding her influence, which passed for irresistible, he persisted in adhering to the right reserved to him in the draft of the treaty of choosing his own time for the declaration of his religion; and it was concluded on this footing at Dover, by Clifford, Arundel, and Arlington, on the 22d of May, 1670, during the visit of the duchess of Orleans.1 A mutual distrust, however, retarded the further progress of this scheme, one party unwilling to commit himself till he should receive money, the other too cautious to run the risk of throwing it away. There can be no question but that the king of France was right in urging the conquest of Holland as a preliminary of the more delicate business they were to 1 Dalrymple, 81-57. James gives a have been if the private treaty first different account of this; and intimates agreed on had not been altered.” The that Henrietta, whose visit to Dover he French court, however, was evidently had for this reason been much against, right in thinking that. till the conquest prevailed on the king to change his reso-of Holland should be achieved, the declution, and to begin with the war. He laration of the king’s religion would only gained over Arlington and Clifford. The weaken him at home. It is gratifying to duke told them it would quite defeat the find the heroic character of our glorious catholic design, because the king must deliverer displaying itself among these run in debt, and be at the mercy of his foul conspiracies. The prince of Orange parliament. They answered that, if the came over to England in 1670. He was war succeeded, it was not much matter then very young; and his uncle, who was what people suspected. P. 450.

This really attached to him, would have gladly shows that they looked on force as neces-associated him in the design; indeed it sary to compass the design, and that had been agreed that he was to possess the noble resistance of the Dutch, under part of the United Provinces in sovprthe prince of Orange, was that which eignty. But Colbert writes that the frustrated the whole conspiracy. ” The king had found him so zealous a Dutchduke,” it is again said, p. 458, ” was in man and protestant, that he could not his own judgment against entering into trust him with any part of the secret. this war before his majesty’s power and He let him know, however, as we learn authority in England had been better from Burnet, 882, that he had himself fixed and less precarious, as it would embraced the Romish faith

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366 SECRET TREATY WITH FRANCE. CHA. XI. manage in England; and, from Charles’s subsequent behavior, as well as his general fickleness and love of ease, there seems reason to believe that he would gladly have receded from an undertaking of which he must every day have more strongly perceived the difficulties. He confessed, in fact, to Louis’s ambassador, that he was almost the only man in his kingdom who liked a French alliance.1 The change of religion, on a nearer view, appeared dangerous for himself and impracticable as a national measure. He had not dared to intrust any of his protestant ministers, even Buckingham, whose indifference in such points was notorious, with this great secret; and, to keep them the better in the dark, a mock negotiation was set on foot with France, and a pretended treaty actually signed, the exact counterpart of the other except as to religion. Buckingham, Shaftesbury, and Lauderdale were concerned in this simulated treaty, the negotiation for which did not commence till after the original convention had been signed at Dover.2 The court of France, having yielded to Charles the point about which he had seemed so anxious, had soon the mortification to discover that he would take no steps to effect it. They now urged that immediate declaration of his religion which they had for very wise reasons not long before dissuaded. The king of England hung back, and tried so many excuses that they had reason to suspect his sincerity; not that in fact he had played a feigned part from the beginning, but, his zeal for popery having given way to the seductions of a voluptuous and indolent life, he had been led, with the good sense he naturally possessed, to form a better estimate of his resources and of the opposition he must encounter. Meanwhile the eagerness of his ministers had plunged the nation into war with Holland, and Louis, having attained his principal end, ceased to trouble the king on the subject of religion. He received large sums from France during the Dutch war.8 This memorable transaction explains and justifies the strenuous opposition made in parliament to the king and duke of York, and may be reckoned the first act of a drama which 1 Dalrymple, 67. with Buckingham.

But Dalrymple’s 2 P. 68. Life of James, 444. In this authority seems far better in this inwork it is said that even the duchess of stance. Orleans had no knowledge of the real 8 Dalrymple, 84, &c. treaty; and that the other originated

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CHA. II.-1660-73. DESIGN TO REESTABLISH POPERY. 367 ended in the revolution. It is true that the precise terms of this treaty were not authentically known: but there can be no doubt that those who from this time displayed an insuperable jealousy of one brother, and a determined enmity to the other, had proofs enough for moral conviction of their deep conspiracy with France against religion and liberty. This suspicion is implied in all the conduct of that parliamentary opposition, and is the apology of much that seems violence and faction, especially in the business of the popish plot and the bill of exclusion. It is of importance also to observe that James II. was not misled and betrayed by false or foolish counsellors, as some would suggest, in his endeavors to subvert the laws, but acted on a plan long since concerted and in which he had taken a principal share. It must be admitted that neither in the treaty itself, nor in the few letters which have been published by Dalrymple, do we find any explicit declaration either that the catholic religion was to be established as the national church or arbitrary power introduced in England. But there are not wanting strong presumptions of this design. The king speaks, in a letter to his sister, of finding means to put the proprietors of church lands out of apprehension.1 He uses the expression, “r6tablir la religion catholique;” which, though not quite unequivocal, seems to convey more than a bare toleration or a personal profession by the sovereign.2 He talks of a negotiation with the court of Rome to obtain the permission of having mass in the vulgar tongue and communion in both kinds as terms that would render his conversion agreeable to his subjects.8 He tells the French ambassador that not only his conscience, but the confusion he saw every day increasing in his kingdom to the diminution of his authority, impelled him to declare himself a catholic; which, besides the spiritual advantage, he believed to be the only means of rest ring the monarchy. These passages, as well as the precautions taken in expectation of a vigorous resistance from a part of the nation, appear to intimate a formal reestablishment of the catholic church; a measure connected, in the king’s apprehension, if not strictly with arbitrary power, yet with a very 1 Dalrymple, 28. religion, towards which he had always 2 P. 62. The reluctance to let the been disposed, and which was hardly a duke of Buckingham into the secret secret at court. seems to prove that more was meant 3 Pp. 62, 84 than a toleration of the Roman catholic

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863 FRESH SEVERITIES CHiP. XI material enhancement of his prerogative. For the profession of an obnoxious faith by the king, as an insulated person, would, instead of strengthening his authority, prove the greatest obstacle to it, as, in the next reign, turned out to be the case. Charles, however, and the duke of York deceived themselves into a confidence that the transition could be effected with no extraordinary difficulty. The king knew the prevailing laxity of religious principles in many about his court, and thought he had reason to rely on others as secretly catholic.

Sunderland is mentioned as a young man of talent, inclined to adopt that religion.1 Even the earl of Orrery is spoken of as a catholic in his heart.2 The duke, who conversed more among divines, was led to hope, from the strange language of the high-church party, that they might readily be persuaded to make what seemed no long step, and come into easy terms of union.8 It was the constant policy of the Romish priests to extenuate the differences between the two churches, and to throw the main odium of the schism on the Calvinistic sects. And many of the Anglicans, in their abhorrence of protestant non-conformists, played into the hands of the common enemy. The court, however, entertained great hopes from the deresh pressed condition of the dissenters, whom it was.verities intended to bribe with that toleration under a against catholic regimen which they could so little expect from the church of England. Hence the duke of York was always strenuous against schemes of comprehension, which would invigorate the protestant interest and promote conciliation. With the opposite view of rendering a union among protestants impracticable, the rigorous episcopalians were encouraged underhand to prosecute the non-conformists.4 The duke of York took pains to assure Owen, an eminent divine of the independent persuasion, that he looked on all persecution as an unchristian thing, and altogether against his conscience.5 Yet the court promoted a renewal of the temporary act passed in 1664 against conventicles, which was reinforced by the addition of an extraordinary 1

Dalrymple, p. 81. religion to choose, and went to church 2 P. 33. for company’s sake.” Life of James, p. s’ The generality of the church of 442.

England men was not at that time very 4 Life of James, p. 442. averse to the catholic religion; many 6 Macpherson’s Extracts, p. 61. that went under that name had their

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CHA. II.- 1660-73. AGAINST DISSENTERS. 869 proviso, “That all clauses in the act should be construed most largely and beneficially for suppressing conventicles, and for the justification and encouragement of all persons to be employed in the execution thereof.1 Wilkins, the most honest of the bishops, opposed this act in the house of lords, notwithstanding the king’s personal request that he would be silent.2 Sheldon, and others who, like him, disgraced the church of England by their unprincipled policy or their passions, not only gave it their earnest support at the time, but did all in their power to enforce its execution.8 As the king’s temper was naturally tolerant, his cooperation in this severe measure would not easily be understood without the explanation that a knowledge of his secret policy enables us to give. In no long course of time the persecution was relaxed, the imprisoned ministers set at liberty, some of the leading dissenters received pensions, and the king’s declaration of a general indulgence held forth an asylum from the law under the banner of prerogative.4 Though this is said to have proceeded from the advice of Shaftesbury, who had no concern in the original secret treaty with France, it was completely in the spirit of that compact, and must have been acceptable to the king. But the factious, fanatical, republican party (such were the usual epithets of the court at the time, such have ever since been applied by the advocates or apologists of the Stuarts) had gradually led away by their delusions that parliament of cavaliers; or, in other words, the glaring vices of the king, and the manifestation of designs against religion and liberty, 1 22 Car. 2. c. 1. Kennet, p. 806.

The own time, wherein he largely commemseal in the commons against popery orates the archbishop’s zeal in molesttended to aggravate this persecution of ing the dissenters, and praises him for the dissenters. They had been led by defeating the scheme of comprehension. some furious clergymen to believe the P. 25. I observe, that the late excellent absurdity that there was a good under-editor of Burnet has endeavored to slide standing between the two parties. in a word for the primate (note on vol. i. 2

Burnet, p. 272. p. 243), on the authority of that history S Baxter, pp.

74, 86. Kennet, p. 811. by bishop Parker, and of Sheldon’s Life See a letter of Sheldon, written at this in the Biographia Britannica. It is lamtime, to the bishops of his province, entable to rest on such proofs. I should urging them to persecute the non-con- certainly not have expected that, in Magformists. Harris’s Life of Charles II., dalen college, of all places, the name of p. 106. Proofs also are given by this Parker would have been held in honor; author of the manner in which some, and as to the Biographia, laudatory as it such as Lamplugh and Ward, responded is of primates in general (save Tillotson, to their primate’s wishes. whom it depreciates), I find, on referSheldon found a panegyrist quite ence, that its praise of Sheldon’s virtues worthy of him in his chaplain Parker, is grounded on the authority of his epi. afterwards bishop of Oxford. This nota-taph in Croydon church. ble person has left a Latin history of his 4

Baxter, 87. VOL. II 24

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870 DUTCH WAR. CHAP. XL had dispossessed them of a confiding loyalty which, though highly dangerous from its excess, had always been rather ardent than servile. The sessions had been short, and the intervals of repeated prorogations much longer than usual: a policy not well calculated for that age, where the growing discontents and suspicions of the people acquired strength by the stoppage of the regular channel of complaint. Yet the house of commons, during this period, though unmanageable on the one point of toleration, had displayed no want of confidence in the king nor any animosity towards his administration; notwithstanding the flagrant abuses in the expenditure which the parliamentary commission of public accounts had brought to light, and the outrageous assault on sir John Coventry, a crime notoriously perpetrated by persons employed by the court, and probably by the king’s direct order.1 The war with Holland at the beginning of 1672, so repugDutch war. nant to English interests, so unwarranted by any provocation, so infamously piratical in its commencement, so ominous of further schemes still more dark and dangerous, finally opened the eyes of all men of integrity. It was accompanied by the shutting up of the exchequer, an avowed bankruptcy at the moment of beginning an expensive war,2 and by the declaration of indulgence, or suspension of all penal laws in religion: an assertion of prerogative which seemed without limit. These exorbitances were the more scandalous that they happened during a very long prorogation. Hence the court so lost the confidence of the house of commons that, with all the lavish corruption of the following period, it could never regain a secure majority 1 This is asserted by Burnet, and seems but this was never paid till the latter to be acknowledged by the duke of York. part of William’s reign. It may be con. The court endeavored to mitigate the ef-sidered as the beginning of our national feet of the bill brought into the commons debt. It seems to have been intended to in consequence of Coventry’s injury; and follow the shutting up of the exchequer so far succeeded, that, instead of a par-with a still more unwarrantable stretch tial measure of protection for the mem-of power, by granting an injunction to bers of the house of commons, as origi-the creditors who were suing the bankers nallydesigned, (which seemed, I suppose, at law. According to North (Examen to carry too marked a reference to the pp. 88,47), lord-keeper Bridgman resigned particular transaction,) it was turned the great seal, rather than comply with into a general act, making it a capital this; and Shaftesbury himself, who sucfelony to wound with intention to maim ceeded him, did not venture, if I underor disfigure. But the name of the Coven-stand the passage rightly, to grant an try act has always clung to this statute. absolute injunction. The promise of inParl.

Hist. 461. terest for their money seems to have been 2 The king promised the bankers in-given instead of this more illegal and terest at six per cent., instead of the violent remedy. money due to them from the exchequer;

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CHA. II.- 1660-73. DECLARATION OF INDULGENCE. 371 on any important question. The superiority of what was called the country party is referred to the session of February, 1673, in which they compelled the king to recall his proclamation suspending the penal laws, and raised a barrier against the encroachments of popery in the test act. The king’s declaration of indulgence had been projected by Shaftesbury in order to conciliate or lull to Declaration sleep the protestant dissenters. It redounded, in of indulits immediate effect, chiefly to their benefit; the gence catholics already enjoying a connivance at the private exercise of their religion, and the declaration expressly refusing them public places of worship. The plan was most laudable in itself, could we separate the motives which prompted it, and the means by which it was pretended to be made effectual. But in the declaration the king says, “We think ourselves obliged to make use of that supreme power in ecclesiastical matters which is not only inherent in us, but hath been declared and recognized to be so by several statutes and acts of parliament.” “We do,” he says, not long afterwards, ” declare our will and pleasure to be, that the execution of all and all manner of penal laws in matters ecclesiastical, against whatsoever sort of non-conformists or recusants, be immediately suspended, and they are hereby suspended.” He mentions also his intention to license a certain number of places for the religious worship of nonconforming protestants.1,It was generally understood to be an ancient prerogative of the crown to dispense with penal statutes in favor of particular persons, and under certain restrictions. It was undeniable that the king might, by what is called a “noli prosequi,” stop any criminal prosecution commenced in his courts, though not an: action for the recovery of a pecuniary penalty, which, by many statutes, was given to the common informer. He might, of course, set at liberty, by means of a pardon, any person imprisoned, whether upon conviction or by a magistrate’s warrant. Thus the operation of penal statutes in religion might, in a great measure, be rendered ineffectual by an exercise of undisputed prerogatives; and thus, in fact, the catholics had been enabled, since the accession of the house of Stuart, to withstand the crushing severity of the laws. But a pretension, in explicit teris, to suspend a body of statutes, a command to magistrates 1 Parl. Hist. 616. Rennet, 813.

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372 DECLARATION OF INDULGENCE. CHAP. XI not to put them in execution, arrogated a sort of absolute power which no benefits of the indulgence itself (had they even been less insidiously offered) could induce a lover of constitutional privileges to endure.1 Notwithstanding the affected distinction of temporal and ecclesiastical matters, it was evident that the king’s supremacy was as much capable of being bounded by the legislature in one as in the other, and that every law in the statute-book might be repealed by a similar proclamation. The house of commons voted that the king’s prerogative in matters ecclesiastical does opposed by not extend to repeal acts of parliament, and adparliament, dressed the king to recall his declaration. Whether from a desire to protect the non-conformists in a toleration even illegally obtained, or from the influence of Buckingham among some of the leaders of opposition, it appears from the debates that many of those, who had been in general most active against the court, resisted this vote, which was carried by 168 to 116. The king, in his answer to this address, lamented that the house should question his ecclesiastical power, which had never been done before. This brought on a fresh rebuke, and, in a second address, they positively deny the king’s right to suspend any law. “The legislative power,” they say, “has always been acknowledged to reside in the king and two houses of parliament.” The king, in a speech to the house of lords, complained much of the opposition made by the commons, and found a majority of the former disposed to support him, though both houses concurred in an address against the and with-growth of popery. At length, against the advice drawn. of the bolder part of his council, but certainly with a just sense of what he most valued, his ease of mind, Charles gave way to the public voice, and withdrew his declaration.2 I Bridgman, the lord-keeper, resigned Pepys, some years before, that he feared the great seal, according to Burnet, be-some would try for extending the toleracause he would not put it to the declaration to papists; but the sober party tion of indulgence, and was succeeded by would rather be without it than have it Shaftesbury. on those terms. Pepys’s Diary, Jan.

81, s Parl. Hist. 617. The presbyterian 1668. Parl. Hist. 646, 661. Father Orparty do not appear to have supported leans says that Ormond, Arlington, and the declaration-at least Birch spoke some others, advised the king to comply; against it: Waller, Seymour, sir Robert the duke and the rest of the council urgHoward in its favor. Baxter says the ing him to adhere, and Shaftesbury, who non-conformists were divided in opinion had been the first mover of the project, as to the propriety of availing themselves pledging himself for its success: there of the declaration. P. 99 Birch told being a party for the king among the

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CHA. II.- 1660-78. TEST ACT. 373 There was, indeed, a line of policy indicated at this time which, though intolerable to the bigotry and passion of the house, would best have foiled the schemes of the ministry; a legislative repeal of all the penal statutes both against the catholic and the protestant dissenter, as far as regarded the exercise of their religion. It must be evident to any impartial man that the unrelenting harshness of parliament, from whom no abatement, even in the sanguinary laws against the priests of the Romish church, had been obtained, had naturally and almost irresistibly driven the members of that persuasion into the camp of prerogative, and even furnished a pretext for that continual intrigue and conspiracy which was carried on in the court of Charles II., as it had been in that of his father. A genuine toleration would have put an end to much of this, but, in the circumstances of that age, it could not have been safely granted without an exclusion from those public trusts which were to be conferred by a sovereign in whom no trust could be reposed. The act of supremacy in the first year of Elizabeth had imposed on all accepting temporal as well as ecclesiastical offices an oath denying the spiritual jurisdiction of the pope. But though the refusal of this oath when tendered incurred various penalties, yet it does not appear that any were attached to its neglect, or that the oath was a previous qualification for the enjoyment of office, as it was made by a subsequent act of the same reign for sitting in the house of commons. It was found also by experience that persons attached to the Roman doctrine sometimes made use of strained constructions to reconcile the oath of supremacy to their faith. Nor could that test be offered to peers, who were excepted by a special provision. Te c For these several reasons a more effectual security against popish counsellors, at least in notorious power, was created by the famous test act of 1673, which renders the reception of the sacrament according to the rites of the church of England, and a declaration renouncing the doctrine of transubstantiation, preliminary conditions without which no temporal office of trust can be enjoyed.1 In this fundamental commons, and a force on foot enough to round, provoked at the king’s want of daunt the other side. It was suspected steadiness, and especially at his giving that the women interposed, and prevailed up the point about issuing writs in the on the king to withdraw his declaration. recess of parliament. Upon this Shaftesbury turned short 1 26 Car. 2, c. 2. Burnet, p. 490.

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374 TEST ACT. CHAP. XL article of faith no compromise or equivocation would be admitted by any member of the church of Rome. And, as the obligation extended to the highest ranks, this reached the end for which it was immediately designed; compelling not only the lord-treasurer Clifford, the boldest and most dangerous of that party, to retire from public business, but the duke of York himself, whose desertion of the protestant church was hitherto not absolutely undisguised, to quit the post of lord-admiral.1 It is evident that a test might have been framed to exclude the Roman catholic as effectually as the present without bearing like this on the protestant non-conformist. But, though the preamble of the bill, and the whole history of the transaction, show that the main object was a safeguard against popery, it is probable that a majority of both houses liked it the better for this secondary effect of shutting out the presbyterians still more than had been done by previous statutes of this reign. There took place, however, a remarkable coalition between the two parties; and many who had always acted as high-churchmen and cavaliers, sensible at last of the policy of their common adversaries, renounced a good deal of the intolerance and bigotry that had characterized the present parliament. The dissenters, with much prudence;or laudable disinterestedness, gave their support to the test act. In return, a bill was brought in, and after some debate passed to the lords, repealing in a considerable degree the persecuting laws against their worship.2 The upper house, perhaps invidiously, returned it with amendments more favorable to the dissenters, and insisted upon them after a conference.8 A sudden prorogation very soon I The test act began in a resolution, chitel Grey, a member of the commons for February 28, 1673, that all who refuse thirty years; but his notes, though colto take the oaths and receive the sacra-lectively most valuable, are sometimes ment according to the rites of the church so brief and ill expressed, that it is hardly of England shall be incapable of all possible to make out their meaning. The public employments. Parl. Hist. 6656. court and church party, or rather some The court party endeavored to oppose the of them, seem to have much opposed declaration against transubstantiation, this bill for the relief of protestant disbut of course in vain. Id. 561, 692. senters.

The king had pressed his brother to 8 Commons’ Journals, 28th and 29th receive the sacrament in order to avoid March, 1673. Lords’ Journals, 24th and suspicion, which he absolutely refused; 29th March. The lords were so slow and this led he says, to the test. Life of about this bill that the lower house, James, p. 482. But his religion was long knowing an adjournment to be in conpretty well known, though he did not templation, sent a message to quicken cease to conform till 1672. themy according to a practice not unu2 Parl. Hist. 526-585. These debates sual in this reign.

Perhaps, on an attenare copied from those published by An-tive consideration of the report on the

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oHA. I.-1660-73. FALL OF THE CABAL. 375 put an end to this bill, which was as unacceptable to the court as it was to the zealots of the church of England. It had been intended to follow it up by another, excluding all who should not conform to the established church from serving in the house of commons.1 It may appear remarkable that, as if content with these provisions, the victorious country party did not remonstrate against the shutting up of the exchequer, nor even wage any direct war against the king’s advisers. They voted, on the contrary, a large supply, which, as they did not choose explicitly to recognize the Dutch war, was expressed to be granted for the king’s extraordinary occasions.2 This moderation, which ought at least to rescue them from the charges of faction and violence, has been censured by some as servile and corrupt; and would really incur censure if they had not attained the great object of breaking the court measures by other means. But the test act, and their steady Fall of protestation against the suspending prerogative, shaftesbwr crushed the projects and dispersed the members and’his colleagues. of the cabaL The king had no longer any minister on whom he could rely; and, with his indolent temper, seems from this time, if not to have abandoned all hope of declaring his change of religion, yet to have seen both that and his other favorite projects postponed without much reluctance. From a real predilection, from the prospect of gain, and partly, no doubt, from some distant views of arbitrary power and a catholic establishment, he persevered a long time in clinging secretly to the interest of France; but his active cooperation in the schemes of 1669 was at an end. In the next session, of October, 1673, the commons drove Buckingham from the king’s councils; they intimidated Arlington into a change of policy; and, though they did not succeed in removing the duke of Lauderdale, compelled him to confine himself chiefly to the affairs of Scotland.8 conference (March 29), itmay appear that the committee on the test act, that a the lords’

amendments had a tendency to clause should be introduced rendering let in popish, rather than to favor prot-non-conformists incapable of sitting in estant dissenters. Parker says that this the house of commons. This was lost by act of indulgence was defeated by his 163 to 107; but it was resolved that a great hero, archbishop Sheldon, who pro-distinct bill should be brought in for that. posed that the non-conformists should purpose. 10th March, 1673. acknowledge the war against Charles I. 2

Kennet, p. 818. So be unlawful. Bist. sui temporis, p. 8 Commons’

Journals, 20th Jan. 164.. 208 of the translation. Parl. Hist. 608, 625, 649. Burnet. 1 It was proposed, as an instruction to

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876 DANBY’S ADMINISTRATION. CHAP. XI CHAPTER XII. IEarl of Danby’s Administration-Opposition in the Commons -Frequently corrupt -Character of Lord Danby - Connection of the Popular Party with France-Its Motives on both Sides - Doubt as to their Acceptance of Money - Secret Treaties of the King with France - Fall of Danby-His Impeachment - Questions arising on it-His Commitment to the Tower - Pardon pleaded in Bar-Votes of Bishops -Abatement of Impeachments by Dissolution - Popish Plot -

Coleman’s Letters -Godfrey’s Death - Injustice of Judges on the Trials -

Parliament dissolvedExclusion of Duke of York proposed-Schemes of Shaftesbury and Monmouth - Unsteadiness of the King - Expedients to avoid the Exclusion - Names of Whig and Tory - New Council formed by Sir William Temple - Long Prorogation of ParliamentPetitions and Addresses -Violence of the Commons - Oxford Parliament-Impeachment of Commoners for Treason constitutional - Fitzharris impeached-Proceedings against Shaftesbury and his Colleagues - Triumph of the Court - Forfeiture of Charter of London -

And of other places - Projects of Lords Russell and Sidney -Their Trials -

High Tory Principles of the ClergyPassive Obedience - Some contend for Absolute Power-Filmer - Sir George Mackenzie -Decree of University of Oxford-Connection with Louis broken off -King’s Death. THE period of lord Danby’s administration, from 1673 to Earl of Dan-1678, was full of chicanery and dissimulation on b’s admin-the king’s side, of increasing suspiciousness on that istration. of the commons. Forced by the voice of parliament and the bad success of his arms into peace with Holland, Charles struggled hard against a cooperation with her in the great confederacy of Spain and the empire to resist the encroachments of France on the Netherlands. Such was in that age the strength of the barrier fortresses, and so heroic the resistance of the prince of Orange, that, notwithstanding the extreme weakness of Spain, there was no moment in that war when the sincere and strenuous intervention of England would not have compelled Louis XIV. to accept the terms of the treaty of Aix la Chapelle.

It was the treacherous attachment of Charles II. to French interests that brought the long congress of Nimeguen to an unfortunate termination; and, by surrendering so many towns of Flanders as laid the rest open to future aggression, gave rise to the tedious struggles of two more wars.1 I Temple’s Memoirs.

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CHA. HI.-1673-85. CORRUPTION OF PARLIAMENT. 377 In the behavior of the house of commons during this period, previously at least to the session of 1678, Opposition there seems nothing which can incur much repre-in the hension from those who reflect on the king’s char-commons. acter and intentions; unless it be that they granted supplies rather too largely, and did not sufficiently provide against the perils of the time. But the house of lords contained, unfortunately, an invincible majority for the court, ready to frustrate any legislative security for public liberty.

Thus the habeas corpus act, first sent up to that house in 1674, was lost there in several successive sessions. The commons, therefore, testified their sense of public grievances, and kept alive an alarm in the nation, by resolutions and addresses, which a phlegmatic reader is sometimes too apt to consider as factious or unnecessary. If they seem to have dwelt more, in some of these, on the dangers of religion, and less on those of liberty, than we may now think reasonable, it is to be remembered that the fear of popery has always been the surest string to touch for effect on the people; and that the general clamor against that religion was all covertly directed against the duke of York, the most dangerous enemy of every part of our constitution.. The real vice of corruption this parliament was not intemperance, but corrup-of the partion. Clifford, and still more Danby, were mas-liament. ters in an art practised by ministers from the time of James I. (and which indeed can never be unknown where there exists a court and a popular assembly), that of turning to their use the weapons of mercenary eloquence by office, or blunting their edge by bribery.1 Some who had been once prominent in opposition, as sir Robert Howard and sir Richard Temple, became placemen; some, like Garraway and sir Thomas Lee, while they continued to lead the country party, took money from the court for softening particular votes; 2 many, as seems to have been the case with Reresby, 1 Burnet says that Danby bribed the their pensions; but I observe no one less important members instead of the says he did not always vote with the leaders which did not answer so well.

court. Parl. Hist. 1137. North admits But he seems to have been liberal to all. that great clamor was excited by this disThe parliament has gained the name of covery; and well it might. See also Dalthe pensioned. In that ot 1679 sir Ste-rymple, ii. 92. phen Fox was called upon to produce an 2

Burnet b harges these two leaders of account of the moneys paid to many of opposition with being bribed by the court their predecessors. Those who belonged to draw the house into granting an enorto the new parliament endeavored to mous supply, as the consideration of defend themselves, and gave reasons for passing the test act; and see Pepys, Oct.

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378 CHARACTER OF DANBY. C. H. XII. were won by promises and the pretended friendship of men in power.1 On two great classes of questions, France and popery, the commons broke away from all management; nor was Danby unwilling to let his master see their indocility on these subjects. But in general, till the year 1678, by dint of the means before mentioned, and partly no doubt through the honest conviction of many that the king was not likely to employ any minister more favorable to the protestant religion and liberties of Europe, he kept his ground without any insuperable opposition from parliament.2 The earl of Danby had virtues as an English minister, Oharacter which served to extenuate some great errors and of theearl an entire want of scrupulousness in his conduct. of Danby.

Zealous against the church of Rome and the aggrandizement of France, he counteracted, while he seemed to yield to, the prepossessions of his master. If the policy of England before the peace of Nimeguen was mischievous and disgraceful, it would evidently have been far more so had the king and duke of York been abetted by this minister in their fatal predilection for France. We owe to Danby’s influence, it must ever be remembered, the marriage of princess Mary to the prince of Orange, the seed of the revolution and the act of settlement - a courageous and disinterested counsel, which ought not to have proved the source of his greatest misfortunes.8 But we cannot pretend to say 6, 1666. Sir Robert Howard and sir lished; that, if the government was in Richard Temple were said to have gone any danger, it was from those who preover to the court in 1670 through similar tended such a mighty zeal for it. On inducements.

Ralph. Roger North (Ex-finding him well disposed, Danby took amen, p.

456) gives an account of the his proselyte to the king, who assured manner in which men were brought off him of his regard for the constitution, from the opposition, though it was some-and was right loyally believed.

Reresby’s times advisable to let them nominally Memoirs, p. 36. continue in it; and mentions Lee, Garra-2 ” There were two things,” says bishway, and Meres, all very active patriots, op Parker, ” which, like Circe’s cep, beif we trust to the parliamentary debates. witched men and turned them into But, after all, neither Burnet nor Roger brutes, viz. popery and French interest. North are wholly to be relied on as to’ If men otherwise sober heard them once, particular instances; though the general it was sufficient to make them run mad. fact of an extensive corruption be India-But, when those things were laid aside, putable. their behavior to his majesty was with a 1 This cunning, self-interested man, becoming modesty.”

P. 244. Whenever who had been introduced to the house by the court seemed to fall in with the nalord Russell and lord Cavendish, and was tional Interests on the two points of France connected with the country party, tells and popery, many of the country party us that Danby sent for him in Feb. 1677, voted with them on other questions, and assured him that the jealousies of though more numerous than their own. that party were wholly without founda-Temple, p. 468. See, too, Reresby, p. 26, tion; that, to his certain knowledge, the et alibi. king meant no other than to preserve the 3 The king, according to James himself, religion and government by law estab-readily consented to the marriage of the

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CHA. II. 1673-85 HIS CONDUCT AS MINISTER. 879 that he was altogether as sound a friend to the constitution of his country as to her national dignity and interests. I do not mean that he wished to render the king absolute. But a minister, harassed and attacked in parliament, is tempted to desire the means of crushing his opponents, or at least of augmenting his own sway.. The mischievous bill that passed the.house of lords in 1675, imposing as a test to be taken by both houses of parliament, as well as all holding beneficed offices, a declaration that resistance to persons commissioned by the king was in all cases unlawful, and that they would never attempt any alteration in the government in church or state, was promoted by Danby, though it might possibly originate with others.1 It was apparently meant as a bone of contention among the country party, in which presbyterians and old parliamentarians were associated with discontented cavaliers. Besides the mischief of weakening this party, which indeed the minister could not fairly be expected to feel, nothing could have been devised more unconstitutional, or more advantageous to the court’s projects of arbitrary power. princess, when it was first suggested in were so changed that the same men had 1675; the difficulty was with her father.

no longer the same principles, and the He gave at last a reluctant consent; and house would listen to no measures against the offer was made by lords Arlington non-conformists. He propitiated, howand Ossory to the prince of Orange, who ever, the prelates, by renewing the persereceived it coolly. Life of James, 601. cution under the existing laws, which Temple’s Memoirs, p. 397. When he had been relaxed by the cabal ministry. came over to England in Oct. 1677, with Baxter. 156, 172. Kennet, 831. Neal, the intention of effecting the match, the 698. Somers Tracts, vii. 336. king and duke wished to defer it till the Meanwhile, schemes of comprehension conclusion of the treaty then in negotia-were sometimes on foot; and the prelates tion at Nimeguen; but “the obstinacy affected to be desirous of bringing about of the prince, with the assistance of the, an union; but Morley and Sheldon frus. treasurer, who from that time entered trated them all. Baxter. 156; Kennet, into the measures and interests of the 826; Parker, 25. The bishops, however prince, prevailed upon the flexibility of were not uniformly intolerant: Croft, the king to let the marriage be first agreed bishop of Hereford, published, about and concluded.” P. 508.

[If we may 1675, a tract that made some noise, entrust Reresby, which is not perhaps al-titled The Naked Truth, for the purpose ways the case, the duke of York had hopes of moderating differences. It is not writ. of marrying the princess Mary to the ten with extraordinary ability, but is Dauphin, thus rendering England a prov-very candid and well designed, though ince of France. Reresby’s Memoirs, p. conceding so much as to scandalize his 109.-1845.] brethren. Somers Tracts, vii. 268; Biogr 1

Kennet, p. 332. North’s Examen, Brit., art. CaoFT, where the bock is ex p.

61. Burnet. This test was covertly travagantly overpraised. Croft was one meant against the Romish party, as well of the few bishops who, being then very as more openly against the dissenters. old, advised his clergy to read James II.‘s Life of James, p. 499. Danby set himself declaration in 1687; thinking, I suppose, up as the patron of the church party and though in those circumstances erroneold cavaliers against the two opposing re-ously, that toleration was so good a thing, ligions, trusting that they were stronger it was better to have it irregularly than in the house of commons. But the times not at all.

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880 CONNECTION OF POPULAR PARTY CHAP. XII It is certainly possible that a minister who, aware of the dangerous intentions of his sovereign or his colleagues, remains in the cabinet to thwart and countermine them, may serve the public more effectually than by retiring from office; but he will scarcely succeed in avoiding some material sacrifices of integrity, and still less of reputation. Danby, the ostensible adviser of Charles II., took on himself the just odium of that hollow and suspicious policy which appeared to the world. We know indeed that he was concerned against his own judgment, in the king’s secret receipt of money from France, the price of neutrality, both in 1676 and 1678, the latter to his own ruin.1

Could the opposition, though not so well apprized of these transactions as we are, be censured for giving little credit to his assurances of zeal against that power; which, though sincere in him, were so little in unison with the disposition of the court? Had they no cause to dread that the great army suddenly raised in 1677, on pretence of being employed against France, might be turned to some worse purposes more congenial to the king’s temper? 2 This invincible distrust of the court is the best apology for Connection that which has given rise to so much censure, of the popu-the secret connections formed by the leaders of arartynce. opposition with Louis XIV., through his ambasIts motives sadors Barilon and Rouvigny, about the spring on both side. of 1678.8 hey well knew that the king’s designs 1 Charles received 500,000 crowns for army. It is impossible to doubt, from the long prorogation of parliament, from Barillon’s correspondence in Dalrymple, Nov. 1675 to Feb. 1677. In the begin-that the king and duke looked to this ning of the year 1676 the two kings force as the means of consolidating the bound themselves by a formal treaty (to royal authority. This was suspected at which Danby and Lauderdale, but not home, and very justly: ” Many wellCoventry or Williamson, were privy) not meaning men.” says Reresby, ” began to to enter on any treaties but by mutual fear the army now raised was rather in consent; and Charles promised, in contended to awe our own kingdom than to sideration of a pension, to prorogue or war against France, as had at first been dissolve parliament, if they should at-suggested:” p. 62. And in a former tempt to force such treaties upon him. passage, p.. 57. he positively attributes Dalrymple, p. 99. Danby tried to break the opposition to the French war in 1678 this off, but did not hesitate to press the to ” a jealousy that the king indeed inFrench cabinet for the money; and tended to raise an army, but never de200,0001. was paid. The prince of Or-signed to go on with the war; and, to ange came afterwards through Rouvig-say the truth, some of the king’s own ny to a knowledge of this secret treaty. party were not very sure of the conP. 117. trary.” 2 This army consisted of between twen-3 Dalrymple, p. 129. The immediate ty and thirty thousand men, as fine cause of those intrigues was the indignatroops as could be seen (Life of James, tion of Louis at the princess Mary’s marp. 512)-an alarming sight to those who riage. That event, which, as we know denied the lawfulness of any standing from James himself, was very suddenly

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CHA. II. - 1673-85. WITH FRANCE. 381 against their liberties had been planned in concert with France, and could hardly be rendered effectual without her aid in money, if not in arms.1 If they could draw over this dangerous ally from his side, and convince the king of France that it was not his interest to crush their power, they would at least frustrate the suspected conspiracy, and secure the disbanding of the army; though at a great sacrifice of the continental policy which they had long maintained, and which was truly important to our honor and safety. Yet there must be degrees in the scale of public utility; and, if the liberties of the people were really endangered by domestic treachery, it was ridiculous to think of saving Tournay and Valenciennes at the expense of all that was dearest at home. This is plainly the secret of that unaccountable, as it then seemed, and factious opposition, in the year 1678, which cannot be denied to have served the ends of France, and thwarted the endeavors of lord Danby and sir William Temple to urge on the uncertain and half-reluctant temper of the king into a decided course of policy.2 Louis, in fact, brought about, took the king of France 2,000,000 livres; in consideration of by surprise. Charles apologized for it to which the king of England pledged himBarillon, by saying, ” I am the only one self to prorogue parliament from Decemof my party, except my brother.” P. 125. her to April, 1678. It was in conseThis, in fact, was the secret of his ap-quence of the subsidy being stopped by parent relinquishment of French inter-Louis, in resentment of the princess ests at different times in the latter years Mary’s marriage, that parliament, which of his reign; he found it hard to kick had been already prorogued till April, constantly against the pricks, and could was suddenly assembled in February. employ no minister who went cordially Dalrymple, p. 111. It appears that Couralong with his predilections. He seems tin had employed French money to bribe too at times, as well as the duke of York, members of the commons in 1677 with to have been seriously provoked at the the knowledge of Charles, assigning as unceasing encroachments of France, a reason that Spain and the emperor which exposed him to so much vexation were distributing money on the other at Rome. side. In the course of this negotiation The connection with lords Russell and he assured Charles that the king of Hollis began in March, 1678, though France was always ready to employ all some of the opposition had been making his forces for the confirmation and augadvances to Barillon in the preceding mentation of the royal authority in EngNovember: pp. 129,131. See also ” Copies land, so that he should always be master and Extracts of some Letters written to of his subjects, and not depend upon him from the Earl of Danby,” published them. in 1716, whence it appears that Montagu 2 See what Temple says of this, p. 460. suspected the intrigues of Barillon, and The king raised 20,000 men in the spring the mission of Rouvigny, lady Russell’s of 1678, and seemed ready to go into the first-cousin, for the same purpose, as war; but all was spoiled by a vote, on early as Jan. 1678 and informed Danby Clarges’s motion, that no money should of it: pp. 50, 58, 59. be granted till satisfaction should be 1 Courtin, the French ambassador made as to religion. This irritated the who preceded Barillon, had been engaged king so much that he determined to take through great part of the year 1677 in a the money which France offered him; treaty with Charles for the prorogation and he afterwards almost compelled the or dissolution of Parliament. After a Dutch to sign the treaty; so much long chaffering, the sum was fixed at against the prince of Orange’s inclina

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382 MOTIVES OF LOUIS XIV. CHAP. XI1. had no desire to see the king of England absolute over his peopie, unless it could be done so much by his own help as to render himself the real master of both. In the estimate of kings, or of such kings as Louis XIV., all limitations of sovereignty, all coordinate authority of estates and parliaments, are not only derogatory to the royal dignity, but injurious to the state itself, of which they distract the councils and enervate the force. Great armies, prompt obedience, unlimited power over the national resources, secresy in council, rapidity in execution, belong to an energetic and. enlightened despotism: we should greatly err in supposing that Louis XIV. was led to concur in projects of subverting our constitution from any jealousy of its contributing to our prosperity. He saw, on the contrary, in the perpetual jarring of the kings and parliaments, a source of feebleness and vacillation in foreign affairs, and a field for intrigue and corruption.

It was certainly far from his design to see a republic, either in name or effect, established in England; but an unanimous loyalty, a spontaneous submission to the court, was as little consonant to his interests; and, especially if accompanied with a willing return of the majority to the catholic religion, would have put an end to his influence over the king, and still more certainly over the duke of York.1 He had long been sensible of the advantage to be reaped from a malecontent party in England. In the first years after the restoration he kept up a connection with the disappointed commonwealth’s men, while their courage was yet fresh and unsubtions, that he has often been charged, the duke, to pull down the ministers, though unjustly, with having fought and to weaken the crown.”

P. 512. the battle of St. Denis after he knew In defence of the commons it is to be that the peace was concluded. Danby urged that, if they had any strong susalso, in his Vindication (published in picion of the king’s private intrigues 1679, and again in 1710-see State with France for some years past. as in Trials, ii. 684), lays the blame of dis-all likelihood they had, common prucouraging the king from embarking in deuce would teach them to distrust his the war on this vote of the commons. pretended desire for war with her; and And the author of the Life of James II. it is, in fact, most probable that his real says very truly that the commons ” were object was to be master of a considerable in reality more jealous of the king’s army. power than of the power of France; for, 1 The memorial of Blanchard to the notwithstanding all their former warm prince of Orange, quoted by Dalrymple addresses for hindering the growth of p. 201, contains these words: ” Le roi the power of France, when the king had auroit 6te bien fach6 qu’il eft dte absnlu no army, now that he had one they dans ses 6tats; l’une de ses plus constanpassed a vote to have it immediately tes maximes depuis son retablissement disbanded; and the factious party, ayant et de le diviser d’avec son parlewhich was then prevalent among them ment, et de se servir tant8t de l’un, made it their only business to be rid of tantat de l’autre, toujours par argent pour parvenir i ses fns.”

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CHA. II.-1673-85. OF HOLLIS AND RUSSELL. 383 dued; and in the war of 1665
was very nearly exciting insurrections both in England and Ireland.1 These schemes of course were suspended as he grew into closer friendship with Charles, and saw a surer method of preserving an ascendency over the kingdom. But, as soon as the princess Mary’s marriage, contrary to the king of England’s promise, and to the plain intent of all their clandestine negotiations, displayed his faithless and uncertain character to the French cabinet. they determined to make the patriotism, the passion, and the corruption of the house of commons, minister to their resentment and ambition. The views of lord Hollis and lord Russell in this clandestine intercourse with the French ambassador were sincerely patriotic and honorable: to detach France from the king; to crush the duke of York and popish faction; to procure the disbanding of the army, the dissolution of a corrupted parliament, the dismissal of a bad minister.2

They would indeed have displayed more prudence in leaving these dark and dangerous paths of intrigue to the court which was practised in them. They were concerting measures with the natural enemy of their country, religion, honor, and liberty; whose obvious policy was to keep the kingdom disunited that it might be powerless; who had been long abetting the worst designs of our own court, and who could never be expected to act against popery and despotism, but for the temporary ends of his ambition. Yet, in the very critical circumstances of that period, it was impossible to pursue any course with security; and the dangers of excessive circumspection;and I Ralph, p. 116. (Euvres de Louis tratnS par M. le due d’York et par le XIV. ii. 204, and v. 67, where we have grand tr6sorier; mais dans le fond il a curious and characteristic letter of the aimeroit mieux que la paix le mit en king to d’Estrades in Jan. 1662, when he 6tat de demeurer en repos, et r6tablir sea had been provoked by some high lan-affaires, c’est-a-dire, un bon revenu; et guage Clarendon had held about the je crois qu’il ne se soucie pas beaucoup right of the flag. d’etre plus absolu qu’il est. Le due ot 2 The letters of Barillon in Dalrymple.

le tresorier connoissent bien:& qui ils ont pp. 134, 136, 140, are sufficient proofs of affaire, et craignent d’etre abandonnes this. He imputes to Danby in one place, par le roi d’Angleterre aux premiers obp.

142, the design of making the king stacles considerables qu’ils trouveront absolute, and says: “NM. le due d’York au dessein de relever l’autorit6
royale en se croit perdu pour sa religion, si l’occa-Angleterre.” On this passage it may be sion pr6sente ne lui sert i soumettre observed that there is reason to believe l’Angleterre; c’est une entreprise fort there was no coSperation, but rather a hardie, et dont le succes est fort dou-great distrust, at this time between the teux.” Of Charles himself he says, Le duke of York and lord Danby. But roi d’Angleterre balance encore i se Barillon had no doubt taken care to inporter i l’extr6mit6; son humeur r6-fuse into the minds of the opposition pugne fort au dessein de changer le those suspicions of that minister’s de; gouvernement. II est n&anmoins en-signs.

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384 DOUBTS AS TO ACCEPTANCE OF MONEY CHAP. XII. adherence to general rules may often be as formidable as those of temerity. The connection of the popular party with France may very probably have frustrated the sinister intentions of the king and duke, by compelling the reduction of the army, though at the price of a great sacrifice of European policy.1 Such may be, with unprejudiced men, a sufficient apology for the conduct of lord Russell and lord Hollis, the most public-spirited and high-minded characters of their age, in this extraordinary and unnatural alliance. It would have been unworthy of their virtue to have gone into so desperate an intrigue with no better aim than that of ruining lord Danby; and of this I think we may fully acquit them. The nobleness of Russell’s disposition beams forth in all that Barillon has written of their conferences. Yet, notwithstanding the plausible grounds of his conduct, we can hardly avoid wishing that he had abstained from so dangerous an intercourse, which led him to impair, in the eyes of posterity, by something more like faction than can be ascribed to any other part of his parliamentary life, the consistency and ingenuousness of his character.2 I have purposely mentioned lord Russell and lord Hollis Doubt as to apart from others who were mingled in the same the accept-intrigues of the French ambassador, both because moneyby they were among the first with whom he tampered, the popular and because they are honorably distinguished by party. their abstinence from all pecuniary remuneration, which Hollis refused, and which Barillon did not presume to offer to Russell. It appears, however, from this minister’s accounts of the money he had expended in this secret service of the French crown, that, at a later time, namely about the end of 1680, many of the leading members of opposition, sir Thomas Littleton, Mr. Garraway, Mr. Hampden, Mr. Powle, Mr. Sacheverell, Mr. Foley, received sums of 500 or 300 guineas, as testimonies of the king of France’s munificence and favor. Among others, Algernon Sidney, who, though not in parliament, was very active out of it, is more than once mentioned.

Chiefly because the name of Algernon 1 Barillon appears to have favored the 2 This delicate subject is treated with opposition rather than the duke of York, great candor as well as judgment by lord who urged the keeping up of the army. John Russell, in his Life of William Lord This was also the great object of the Russell. king, who very reluctantly disbanded it in Jan. 1679. Dalrymple, 207, &c.

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CHA. II. - 1673-85. BY POPULAR PARTY. 385 Sidney had been associated with the most stern and elevated virtue, this statement was received with great reluctance; and many have ventured to call the truth of these pecuniary gratifications in question. This is certainly a bold surmise; though Barillon is known to have been a man of luxurious and expensive habits, and his demands for more money on account of the English court, which continually occur in his correspondence with Louis, may lead to a suspicion that he would be in some measure a gainer by it. This, however, might possibly be the case without actual peculation. But it must be observed that there are two classes of those who are alleged to have received presents through his hands: one, of such as were in actual communication with himself; another, of such as sir John Baber, a secret agent, had prevailed upon to accept it. Sidney was in the first class; but as to the second, comprehending Littleton, Hampden, Sacheverell, in whom it is, for different reasons, as difficult to suspect pecuniary corruption as in him, the proof is manifestly weaker, depending only on the assertion of an intriguer that he had paid them the money. The falsehood either of Baber or Barillon would acquit these considerable men. Nor is it to be reckoned improbable that persons employed in this clandestine service should be guilty of a fraud, for which they could evidently never be made responsible. We have indeed a remarkable confession of Coleman, the famous intriguer executed for the popish plot, to this effect. He deposed in his examination before the house of commons, in November, 1678, that he had received last session of Barillon 25001. to be distributed among members of parliament, which he had converted to his own use.1 It is doubtless possible that Coleman, having actually expended this money in the manner intended, bespoke the favor of those whose secret he kept by taking the discredit of such a fraud on himself. But it is also possible that he spoke the truth. A similar uncertainty hangs over the transactions of sir John Baber. Nothing in the parliamentary conduct of the above-mentioned gentlemen in 1680 corroborates the suspicion of an intrigue with France, whatever may have been the case in 167&. I must fairly confess, however, that the decided bias of my own mind is on the affirmative side of this question; and that principally because I am not so much struck as some 1

Parl. Hist. 1036; Dalrymple, 200. VOL. ii. 25

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386 CONDUCT OF SIDNEY. CHAP. XII have been by any violent improbability in what Barillon wrote to his court on the subject. If indeed we were to read that Algernon Sidney had been bought over by Louis XIV. or Charles II. to assist in setting up absolute monarchy in England, we might fairly oppose our knowledge of his inflexible and haughty character, of his zeal, in life and death, for republican liberty. But there is, I presume, some moral distinction between the acceptance of a bribe to desert or betray our principles, and that of a trifling present for acting in conformity to them. The one is, of course, to be styled corruption; the other is repugnant to a generous and delicate mind, but too much sanctioned by the practice of an age far less scrupulous than our own, to have carried with it any great self-reproach or sense of degradation. It is truly inconceivable that men of such property as sir Thomas Littleton or Mr.

Foley should have accepted 300 or 500 guineas, the sums mentioned by Barillon, as the price of apostasy from those political principles to which they owed the esteem of their country, or of an implicit compliance with the dictates of France. It is sufficiently discreditable to the times in which they lived that they should have accepted so pitiful a gratuity; unless indeed we should in candor resort to an hypothesis which seems not absurd, that they agreed among themselves not to offend Louis, or excite his distrust, by a refusal of this money. Sidney indeed was, as there is reason to think, a distressed man; he had formerly been in connection with the court of France,1 and had persuaded himself that the countenance of that power might one day or other be afforded to his darling scheme of a commonwealth; he had contracted a dislike to the prince of Orange, and consequently to the Dutch alliance, from the same governing motive; is it strange that one so circumstanced should have 1 Louis XIV. tells us that Sidney had sessed either practical good sense or a made proposals to France in 1666 for an just appreciation of the public interests; insurrection, and asked 100,000 crowns to and his influence over the whig party effect it, which was thought too much appears to have been entirely mischievous, for an experiment. He tried to persuade though he was not only a much better the ministers that it was against the in-man than Shaftesbury, which is no high terest of France that England should praise, but than the greater number of continue a monarchy. (Euvres de Louis that faction, as they must be called, notXIV., ii. 204. [Sidney’s partiality to withstanding their services to liberty. A France displays itself in his Letters to Tract on Love by Algernon Sidney, in Saville, in 1679, published by Hollis. Somers’s Tracts, viii. 612, displays an alThey evince also a blind credulity in the most Platonic elegance and delicacy of popish plot. The whole of Sidney’s con-mind. -1845.] duct is inconsistent with his having pos

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CHA. II.- 1673-85. SECRET TREATIES WITH FRANCE. 387 accepted a small gratification from the king of France which implied no dereliction of his duty as an Englishman, or any sacrifice of political integrity? And I should be glad to be informed by the idolaters of Algernon Sidney’s name, what we know of him from authentic and contemporary sources which renders this incredible. France, in the whole course of these intrigues, held the, game in her hands. Mistress of both parties, she Secret might either embarrass the king through parlia-teatiesof ment, if he pretended to an independent course of the king policy, or cast away the latter when he should return to his former engagements. Hence, as early as May, 1678, a private treaty was set on foot between Charles and Louis, by which the former obliged himself to keep a neutrality, if the allies should not accept the terms offered by France, to recall all his troops from Flanders within two months, to disband most of his army, and not to assemble his parliament for six months: in return he was to receive 6,000,000 livres.

This was signed by the king himself on May 27; none of his ministers venturing to affix their names.1 Yet at this time he was making outward professions of an intention to carry on the war. Even in this secret treaty, so thorough was his insincerity, he meant to evade one of its articles, that of disbanding his troops. In this alone he was really opposed to the wishes of France; and her pertinacity in disarming him seems to have been the chief source of those capricious changes of his disposition which we find for three or four years at this period.2 Louis again appears not only to have mistrusted the king’s own inclinations after the prince of Orange’s marriage, and his ability to withstand the eagerness of the nation for war, but to have apprehended that he might become absolute by means of his army, without standing indebted for it to his ancient ally. In this point therefore he faithfully served the popular party. Charles used every endeavor to evade this condition; whether it were that he still entertained hopes of obtaining arbitrary power through intimidation, or that, 1 Dalrymple, 16S. or does he think that a matter to be done 2 His exclamation at Barillon’s press-with 8000 men?” Temple says, “He ing the reduction of the army to 8000 seemed at this time (May, 1678) more remen is well known. ” God’s fish! are all solved to enter into the war -than I bad the king of France’s promises to make ever before seen or thought him.” me master of my subjects come to this?

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388 FALL OF DANBY CHAP. XII. dreading the violence of the house of commons, and ascribing it rather to a republican conspiracy than to his own misconduct, he looked to a military force as his security. From this motive we may account for his strange proposal to the French king of a league in support of Sweden, by which he was to furnish fifteen ships and 10,000 men at the expense of France, during three years, receiving six millions for the first year, and four for each of the two next. Louis, as is highly probable, betrayed this project to the Dutch government, and thus frightened them into that hasty signature of the treaty of Nimeguen, which broke up the confederacy, and accomplished the immediate objects of his ambition. No longer in need of the court of England, he determined to punish it for that duplicity which none resent more in others than those who are accustomed to practise it. He refused Charles the pension stipulated by the private treaty, alleging that its conditions had not been performed; and urged on Montagu, with promises of indemnification, to betray as much as he knew of that secret, in order to ruin lord Danby.1

The ultimate cause of this minister’s fall may thus be deFanlof duced from the best action of his life; though it Danby. ensued immediately from his very culpable weakIpS iment ness in aiding the king’s inclinations towards a sordid bargaining with France. It is well known that the famous letter to Montagu, empowering him to make an offer of neutrality for the price of 6,000,000 livres, was not only written by the king’s express order, but that Charles attested this with his own signature in a postscript. This bears date five days after an act had absolutely passed to raise money for carrying on the war; a circumstance worthy of particular attention, as it both puts an end to every pretext or apology which the least scrupulous could venture to urge in behalf of this negotiation, and justifies the whig party of England in an invincible distrust, an inexpiable hatred, of so perfidious a cozener as filled the throne. But, as he was beyond their reach, they exercised a constitutional right in the impeachment of his responsible minister. For responsible he surely was; though, strangely mistaking the obligations of an English statesman, Danby seems to fancy in his printed defence that the king’s order would be sufficient warrant to justify obedience in any case not literally unlawful. “I 1 Dalrymple, 178, et post

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CHA. II.- 1673-85. HIS IMPEACHMENT. 389 believe,” he says, “there are very few subjects but what would take it ill not to be obeyed by their servants; and their servants might as justly expect their master’s protection for their obedience.” The letter to Montagu, he asserts, ” was written by the king’s command, upon the subject of peace and war, wherein his majesty alone is at all times sole judge, and ought to be obeyed not only by any of his ministers of state but by all his subjects.“1 Such were, in that age, the monarchical or tory maxims of government, which the impeachment of this minister contributed in some meas ure to overthrow. As the king’s authority for the letter to Montagu was an undeniable fact, evidenced by his own handwriting, the commons in impeaching lord Danby went a great way towards establishing the principle that no minister can shelter himself behind the throne by pleading obedience to the orders of his sovereign. He is considered, in the modern theory of the constitution, answerable for the justice, the honesty, the utility of all measures emanating from the crown, as well as for their legality; and thus the executive administration is rendered subordinate, in all great matters of policy, to the superintendence and virtual control of the two houses of parliament. It must at the same time be admitted that, through the heat of honest indignation and some less worthy passions on the one hand, through uncertain and crude principles of constitutional law on the other, this just and necessary impeachment of the earl of Danby was not so conducted as to be exempt from all reproach. The charge of high-treason for an offence manifestly amounting only to misdemeanor, with the purpose, not perhaps of taking the life of the accused, but at least of procuring some punishment beyond the law,2 with the strange mixture of articles, as to which there was no presumptive proof, or which were evidently false, such as concealment of the popish plot, gave such a character of intemperance and faction to these proceedings as may lead superficial readers to condemn them altogether.8 The compliance of Danby with the 1 Memoirs relating to the Impeachis to be remembered that they were exnment of the Earl of Danby, 1710, p. 161, asperated by the pardon he had clandes227.

State Trials, vol. xi. tinely obtained, and pleaded in bar of 2 The violence of the next house of their impeachment. commons, who refused to acquiesce in 3 The impeachment was carried by 179 Danby’s banishment, to which the lords to 116, Dec. 19. A motion, Dec. 21, to had changed their bill of attainder, may leave out the word traitorously, was lost seem to render it very doubtful whether by 179 to 141. they would have spared his life. But it

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390 QUESTIONS ON DANBY’S IMPEACHMENT. CHAP. XII. king’s corrupt policy had been highly culpable, but it was not unprecedented; it was even conformable to the court standard of duty; and as it sprang from too inordinate a desire to retain power, it would have found an appropriate and adequate chastisement in exclusion from office. We judge perhaps somewhat more favorably of lord Danby than his contemporaries at that juncture were warranted to do; but even then he was rather a minister to be pulled down than a man to be severely punished. His one great and undeniable service to the protestant and English interests should have palliated a multitude of errors. Yet this was the mainspring and first source of the intrigue that ruined him. The impeachment of lord Danby brought forward several Questions material discussions on that part of our constituarising on tional law which should not be passed over in this the impeachment. place. 1. As soon as the charges presented by Danby’s the commons at the bar of the upper house had commitment to the been read, a motion was made that the earl should Tower. withdraw; and another afterwards that he should be committed to the Tower; both of which were negatived by considerable majorities.’ This refusal to commit on a charge of treason had created a dispute between the two houses in the instance of lord Clarendon.2 In that case, however, one of the articles of impeachment did actually contain an unquestionable treason. But it was contended with much more force on the present occasion, that if the commons, by merely using the word traitorously, could alter the character of offences which, on their own showing, amounted but to misdemeanors, the boasted certainty of the law in matters of treason would be at an end; and unless it were meant that the lords should pass sentence in such a case against the received rules of law, there could be no pretext for their refusing to admit the accused to bail. Even in Strafford’s case, which was a condemned precedent, they had a general charge of high-treason upon which he was committed; while the offences alleged against Danby were stated with particularity, and upon the face of the articles could not be brought within any reasonable interpretation of the statutes 1 Lords’ Journals, December 26, 1678. 2 State Trials, vi. 851, et post. HatEighteen peers entered their protests; sell’s Precedents, iv. 176. Halifax, Essex, Shaftesbury, &c.

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CHA. I.-1673-85. COMMITMENT TO THE TOWER. 391 relating to treason. The house of commons faintly urged a remarkable clause in the act of Edward III., which provides that, in case of any doubt arising as to the nature of an offence charged to amount to treason, the judges should refer it to the sentence of parliament; and maintain that this invested the two houses with a declaratory power to extend the penalties of the law to new offences which had not been clearly provided for in its enactments. But, though something like this might possibly have been in contemplation with the framers of that statute, and precedents were not absolutely wanting to support the construction, it was so repugnant to the more equitable principles of criminal law which had begun to gain ground, that even the heat of faction did not induce the commons to insist upon it. They may be considered, however, as having carried their point; for, though the prorogation and subsequent dissolution of the present parliament ensued so quickly that nothing more was done in the matter, yet, when the next house of commons revived the impeachment, the lords voted to take Danby into custody without any further objection.’ It ought not to be inferred from hence that they were wrong in refusing to commit; nor do I conceive, notwithstanding the later precedent of lord Oxford, that any rule to the contrary is established. In any future case it ought to be open to debate whether articles of impeachment pretending to contain a charge of high-treason do substantially set forth overt acts of such a crime; and if the house of lords shall be of opinion, either by consulting the judges or otherwise, that no treason is specially alleged, they should, notwithstanding any tech. nical words, treat the offence as a misdemeanor, and admit the accused to bail.2 1 Lords’ Journals, April 16. that the lords did not intend to extend 2 ” The lord privy seal, Anglesea, in a the points of withdrawing and commitconference between the two houses,” said ting to general impeachments without “that in the transaction of this affair special matter alleged; else they did not were two great points gained by this know how many might be picked out of house of commons: the first was, that their house on a sudden.” impeachments made by the commons in Shaftesbury said, indecently enough, one parliament continued from session to that they were as willing to be rid of the session, and parliament to parliament, earl of Danby as the commons, and cavnotwithstanding prorogations or dissolu-illed at the distinction between general. tions: the other point was, that in cases and special impeachments. Commons’ of impeachments, upon special matter Journals, April 12, 1679. On the im  shown, if the modesty of the party directs peachment of Scroggs for treason, in the him not to withdraw the lords admit next parliament, it was moved to commit, that of right they ought to order him to him; but the previous question was carwithdraw, and that afterwards he ought ried, and he was admitted to bail; doubt. to be committed. But he understood less because no sufficient matter was.

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392 PARDON PLEADED IN BAR. CHAP. XII. 2. A still more important question arose as to the king’s Pardon right of pardon upon a parliamentary impeachpleaded ment. Danby, who had absconded on the unexIn bar. pected revival of these proceedings in the new parliament, finding that an act of attainder was likely to pass against him in consequence of his flight from justice, surrendered himself to the usher of the black rod; and, on being required to give in his written answer to the charges of the commons, pleaded a pardon secretly obtained from the king, in bar of the prosecution.1 The commons resolved that the pardon was illegal and void, and ought not to be pleaded in bar of the impeachment of the commons of England. They demanded judgment at the lords’ bar against Danby, as having put in a void plea. They resolved, with that culpable violence which distinguished this and the succeeding house of commons, in order to deprive the accused of the assistance of counsel, that no commoner whatsoever should presume to maintain the validity of the pardon pleaded by the earl of Danby, without their consent, on pain of being accounted a betrayer of the liberties of the commons of England.2 They denied the right of the bishops to vote on the validity of this pardon. They demanded the appointment of a committee from both houses to regulate the form and manner of proceeding on this impeachment, as well as on that of the five lords accused of participation in the popish plot. The upper house gave some signs of a vacillating and temporizing spirit, not by any means unaccountable. They acceded, after a first refusal, to the proposition of a committee, though manifestly designed to encroach on their own exclusive claim of judicature.8 But they came to a resolution that the spiritual lords had a right to sit and vote in parliament in capital cases, until judgment of death shall be pronounced.4 The commons of course protested against this vote;6 but a prorogation soon dropped the curalleged. Twenty peers protested. Lords’ 4 May 13. Twenty-one peers were Journals, Jan. 7, 1681. entered as dissentient. The commons 1 Lords’ Journals, April 25.

Parl. inquired whether it were intended by Hist. 1121, &c. this that the bishops should vote on the 2 Lords’ Journals, May 9, 1679. pardon of Danby, which the upper house 3 Lords’ Journals, May 10 and 11. declined to answer, but said they could After the former vote 50 peers, out of 107 not vote on the trial of the five popish who appear to have been present, entered lords, May 15, 17, 27. their dissent; and another, the earl of 5

See the report of a committee in Leicester, is known to have voted with Journals, May 26; or Hatsell’s Prece. the minority. This unusual strength of dents, iv. 374. opposition no doubt produced the change mext day.

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CHA. 11.- 1673-85. VOTES OF BISHOPS. 393 tain over their differences; and Danby’s impeachment was not acted upon in the next parliament. There seems to be no kind of pretence for objecting to the votes of the bishops on such preliminary votes of questions as may arise in an impeachment of bishops. treason. It is true that ancient custom has so far engrafted the provisions of the ecclesiastical law on our constitution that they are bound to withdraw when judgment of life or death is pronounced; though even in this they always did it with a protestation of their right to remain. This, once claimed as a privilege of the church, and reluctantly admitted by the state, became, in the lapse of ages, an exclusion and a badge of inferiority. In the constitutions of Clarendon under Henry II. it is enacted, that the bishops and others holding spiritual benefices “in capite” should give their attendance at trials in parliament till it come to sentence of life or member. This, although perhaps too ancient to have authority as statute law, was a sufficient evidence of the constitutional usage, where nothing so material could be alleged on the other side. And, as the original privilege was built upon nothing better than the narrow superstitions of the canon law, there was no reasonable pretext for carrying the exclusion of the spiritual lords farther than certain and constant precedents required. Though it was true, as the enemies of lord Danby urged, that by voting for the validity of his pardon they would in effect determine the whole question in his favor, yet there seemed no serious reason, considering it abstractedly fiom party views, why they should not thus indirectly be restored for once to a privilege from which the prejudices of former ages alone had shut them out. The main point in controversy, whether a general or special pardon from the king could be pleaded in answer to an impeachment of the commons, so as to prevent any further proceedings in it, never came to a regular decision. It was evident that a minister who had influence enough to obtain such an indemnity might set both houses of parliament at defiance; the pretended responsibility of the crown’s advisers, accounted the palladium of our constitution, would be an idle mockery if not only punishment could be averted but inquiry frustrated. Even if the king could remit the penalties of a guilty minister’s sentence upon impeachment,

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394 PARDON PLEADED IN BAR. CHAP. XIL it would be much that public indignation should have been excited against him, that suspicion should have been turned into proof, that shame and reproach, irremissible by the great seal, should avenge the wrongs of his country. It was always to be presumed that a sovereign, undeceived by such a judicial inquiry, or sensible to the general voice it roused, would voluntarily, or at least prudently, abandon an unworthy favorite. Though it might be admitted that long usage had established the royal prerogative of granting pardons under the great seal, even before trial, and that such pardons might be pleaded in bar (a prerogative indeed which ancient statutes, not repealed, though gone into disuse, or rather in no time acted upon, had attempted to restrain), yet we could not infer that it extended to cases of impeachment. In ordinary criminal proceedings by indictment the king was before the court as prosecutor, the suit was in his name; he might stay the process at his pleasure by entering a ” noli prosequi;” to pardon, before or after judgment, was a branch of the same prerogative; it was a great constitutional trust, to be exercised at his discretion. But in an appeal, that is, an accusation of felony, brought by the injured party or his next of blood, a proceeding wherein the king’s name did not appear, it was undoubted that he could not remit the capital sentence. The same principle seemed applicable to an impeachment at the suit of the commons of England, demanding justice from the supreme tribunal of the other house of parliament. It could not be denied that James had remitted the whole sentence upon lord Bacon. But impeachments were so unusual at that time, and the privileges of parliament so little out of dispute, that no great stress could be laid on this precedent. Such must have been the course of arguing, strong on political and specious on legal grounds, which induced the commons to resist the plea put in by lord Danby. Though this question remained in suspense on the present occasion, it was finally decided by the legislature in the act of settlement, which provides that no pardon under the great seal of England be pleadable to an impeachment of the commons in parliament.1 These expressions seem tacitly to concede the crown’s right of granting a pardon after sentence, which, though perhaps it could not well be distinguished in. point of 1 13 W. III. c. 2

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CHA. II.- 1673-85. ABATEMENT OF IMPEACHMENTS. 395 law from a pardon pleadable in bar, stands on a very different footing, as has been observed above, with respect to constitutional policy. Accordingly, upon the impeachment of the six peers who had been concerned in the rebellion of 1715, the house of lords, after sentence passed, having come to a resolution on debate that the king had a right to reprieve in cases of impeachment, addressed him to exercise that prerogative as to such of them as should deserve his mercy; and three of the number were in consequence pardoned.1 8. The impeachment of Danby first brought forward an other question of hardly less magnitude, and remarkable as one of the few great points in consti-ofimpeach. tutional law which have been discussed and finally ments by settled within the memory of the present generation: I mean the continuance of an impeachment by the commons from one parliament to another. Though this has been put at rest by a determination altogether consonant to maxims of expediency, it seems proper in this place to show briefly the grounds upon which the argument on both sides rested. In the earlier period of our parliamentary records the business of both houses, whether of a legislative or judicial nature, though often very multifarious, was despatched with the rapidity natural to comparatively rude times, by men impatient of delay, unused to doubt, and not cautious in the proof of facts or attentive to the subtleties of reasoning. The session, generally speaking, was not to terminate till the petitions in parliament for redress had been disposed of, whether decisively or by reference to some more permanent tribunal. Petitions for alteration of the law, presented by the commons and assented to by the lords, were drawn up into statutes by the king’s council just before the prorogation or dissolution. They fell naturally to the ground if the session closed before they could be submitted to the king’s pleasure. The great change that took place in the reign of Henry VI., by passing bills complete in their form through the two houses instead of petitions, while it rendered manifest to every eye that distinction between legislative and judicial proceedings which the simplicity of olden times had half 1 Parl, Hist.

vii. 283. Mr. Lechmere, a ment, had most confidently denied this very ardent whig, then solicitorgeneral, prerogative. Id. 283. and one of the managers on the impeach

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396 ABATEMENT OF IMPEACHMENTS CHA1. XII. concealed, did not affect this constitutional principle. At the close of a session every bill then in progress through parliament became a nullity, and must pass again through all its stages before it could be tendered for the royal assent. No sort of difference existed in the effect of a prorogation and a dissolution; it was even maintained that a session made a parliament. ^During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries writs of error ftrom inferior courts to the house of lords became far less usual than in the’preceding age; and when they occurred, as error could only be assigned on a point of law appearing on the record, they were quickly decided with the assistance of the judges. But, when they grew more frequent, and especially when appeals from the chancellor, requiring often a tedious examination of depositions, were brought before the lords, it was found that a sudden prorogation might often interrupt a decision; and the question arose whether writs of error, and other proceedings of a similar nature, did not, according to precedent or analogy, cease, or, in technical language, abate, at the close of a session. An order was accordingly made by the house on March 11, 1673, that ” the lords’ committees for privileges should inquire whether an appeal to this house, either by writ of error or petition, from the proceedings of any other court, being depending and not determined in one session of parliament, continue in statu quo unto the next session of parliament, without renewing the writ of error or petition or beginning all anew.” The committee reported on the 29th of March, after misreciting the order of reference to them in a very remarkable manner, by omitting some words and interpolating others, so as to make it far more extensive than it really was,’ that upon the consideration of precedents, which they specify, they came to a resolution that “businesses depending in one parliament or session of parliament have been continued to the next session of the same parliament, and the proceedings thereupon have remained in the same state in which they were left when last in agitation.” The house approved of this resolution, and ordered it accordingly.2 1 Instead of the words in the order, not in their legislative capacity.” The “from the proceedings of any other importance of this alteration as to the court,” the following are inserted, ”’ or question of impeachment is obvious, any other business wherein their lord-2 Lords’ Journals. ships act as in a court of judicature, and

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CHA. II.- 1673-85. BY DISSOLUTION. 397 This resolution was decisive as to the continuance of ordinary judicial business beyond the termination of a session. It was still open to dispute whether it might not abate by a dissolution; and the peculiar case of impeachment to which, after the dissolution of the long parliament in 1678, every one’s attention was turned, seemed to stand on different grounds. It was referred, therefore, to the committee of privileges on the 11th of March, 1679, to consider whether petitions of appeal which were presented to this house in the last parliament be still in force to be proceeded on. Next day it is referred to the same committee, on a report of the matter of fact as to the impeachments of the earl of Danby and the five popish lords in the late parliament, to consider of the state of the said impeachments and all the incidents re. lating thereto, and to report to the house. On the 18th of March lord Essex reported from the committee that, ” upon perusal of the judgment of this house of the 29th of March, 1673, they are of opinion that, in all cases of appeals and writs of error, they continue, and are to be proceeded on, in statu quo, as they stood at the dissolution of the last parliament, without beginning de novo…… And, upon consideration had of the matter referred to their lordships concerning the state of the impeachments brought up from the house of commons the last parliament, &c…… they are of opinion that the dissolution of the last parliament doth not alter the state of the impeachments brought up by the commons in that parliament. This report was taken into consideration next day by the house; and after a debate, which appears from the Journals to have lasted some time, after the previous question had been moved and lost, it was resolved to agree with the committee.1 This resolution became for some years the acknowledged law of parliament. Lord Stafford, at his trial in 1680, having requested that his council might be heard as to the point whether impeachments could go from one parliament to another, the house took no notice of this question; though they consulted the judges about another which he had put, as to the necessity of two witnesses to every overt act of treason.2 Lord Danby and chief-justice Scroggs petitioned the lords in the Oxford parliament, one to have the charges against him 1

Lords’ Journals. Seventy-eight peers 2 Id. 4th Dec. 1680. were present.

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398 ABATEMENT OF IMPEACHMENTS CHAP. XI dismissed, the other to be bailed; but neither take the objection of an intervening dissolution.1 And lord Danby, after the dissolution of three successive parliaments since that in which he was impeached, having lain for three years in the Tower, when he applied to be enlarged on bail by the court of king’s bench in 1682, was refused by the judges, on the ground of their incpmpetency to meddle in a parliamentary impeachment; though, if the prosecution were already at an end, he would have been entitled to an absolute discharge. On Jefferies becoming chief-justice of the king’s bench, Danby was admitted to bail.2

But in the parliament of 1685, the impeached lords having petitioned the house, it was resolved that the order of the 19th of March, 1679, be reversed and annulled as to impeachments; and they were consequently released from their recognizances.8 The first of these two contradictory determinations is not certainly free from that reproach which so often contaminates our precedents of parliamentary law, and renders an honest man reluctant to show them any greater deference than is strictly necessary. It passed during the violent times of the popish plot; and a contrary resolution would have set at liberty the five catholic peers committed to the Tower, and enabled them probably to quit the kingdom before a new impeachment could be preferred. It must be acknowledged, at the same time, that it was borne out in a considerable degree by the terms of the order of 1673, which seems liable to no suspicion of answering a temporary purpose; and that the court party in the house of lords were powerful enough to have withstood any flagrant innovation in the law of parliament. As for the second resolution, that of 1685, which reversed the former, it was passed in the very worst of times; and, if we may believe the protest signed by the earl of Anglesea and three other peers, with great precipitation and neglect of usual forms. It was not however annulled after the revolution; but, on the contrary, received what may seem at first sight a certain degree of confirmation from an order of the house of lords in 1690, on the petitions of lords Salis1 Lords’ Journals, March 24,1681. The bailed to appear at the lords’ bar the first very next day the commons sent a mes-day of the then next parliament.” The sage to demand judgment on the im-catholic lords were bailed the next day.

peachment against him. Cor. Journ. This proves that the impeachment was March 25. not held to be at an end. 2 Shower’s Reports, ii. 335. “He was 8

Lords’ Journals, May 22, 1685.

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CHA. II.-1673-85. BY DISSOLUTION. 399 bury and Peterborough, who had been impeached in the preceding parliament, to be discharged; which was done, after reading the resolutions of 1679 and 1685, and a long debate thereon.

But as a general pardon had come out in the mean time, by which the judges held that the offences imputed to these two lords had been discharged, and as the commons showed no disposition to follow up their impeachment against them, no parliamentary reasoning can perhaps be founded on this precedent.1 In the case of the duke of Leeds, impeached by the commons in 1695, no further proceedings were had; but the lords did not make an order for his discharge from the accusation till five years after three dissolutions had intervened, and grounded it upon the commons not proceeding with the impeachment. They did not, however, send a message to inquire if the. commons were ready to proceed, which, according to parliamentary usage, would be required in case of a pending impeachment.

The cases of lords Somers, Orford, and Halifax were similar to that of the duke of Leeds, except that so long a period did not intervene. These instances therefore rather tend to confirm the position that impeachments did not ipso facto abate by a dissolution, notwithstanding the reversal of the order of 1679. In the case of the earl of Oxford, it was formally resolved in 1717 that an impeachment does not determine by a prorogation of parliament; an authority conclusive to those who maintain that no difference exists in the law of parliament between the effects of a prorogation and a dissolution. But it is difficult to make all men consider this satisfactory. The question came finally before both houses of parliament in 1791, a dissolution having intervened during the impeachment of Mr. Hastings; an impeachment which, far unlike the rapid proceedings of former ages, had already been for three years before the house of lords, and seemed likely to run on to an almost interminable length. It must have been abandoned in despair, if the prosecution had been held to determine by the late dissolution. The general reasonings, and the force of precedents on both sides, were urged with great ability, and by the principal speakers in both houses; I Upon considering the proceedings in there can be little doubt that their rethe house of lords on this subject, Oct. 6 lease had been chiefly grounded on the and 80, 1690, and especially the protest act of grace, and not on the abandon signed by eight peers on the latter dav. ment of the impeachment.

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4C0 POPISH PLOT. CHAP. XII. the lawyers generally inclining to maintain the resolution of 1685, that impeachments abate by a dissolution, but against still greater names which were united on the opposite side. In the end, after an ample discussion, the continuance of impeachments, in spite of a dissolution, was carried by very large majorities; and this decision, so deliberately taken, and so free from all suspicion of partiality (the majority in neither house, especially the upper, bearing any prejudice against the accused person), as well as so consonant to principles of utility and constitutional policy, must forever have set at rest all dispute upon the question. The year 1678, and the last session of the parliament that had continued since 1661, were memorable for the great naPopish plot. tional delusion of the popish plot. For national it was undoubtedly to be called, and by no means confined to the whig or opposition party, either in or out of parliament, though it gave them much temporary strength. And though it was a most unhappy instance of the credulity begotten by heated passions and mistaken reasoning, yet there were circumstances, and some of them very singular in their nature, which explain and furnish an apology for the public error, and which it is more important to point out and keep in mind, than to inveigh, as is the custom in modern times, against the factiousness and bigotry of our ancestors.

For I am persuaded that we are far from being secure from similar public delusions, whenever such a concurrence of coincidences and seeming probabilities shall again arise as misled nearly the whole people of England in the popish plot.1 It is first to be remembered that there was really and truly a popish plot in being, though not that which Titus Oates and his associates pretended to reveal-not merely in the sense of Hume, who, arguing from the general spirit of proselytism in that religion, says there is a perpetual conspiracy against all governments, protestant, Mahometan, and pagan, but one alert, enterprising, effective, in direct operation against the established protestant religion in England. In this plot the king, the duke of York, and the king of France were chief conspirators; the Romish priests, and especially the Jesuits, were eager cooperators. Their ma1 Bishop Parker is not wrong in saying covery of Oates’s plot, they readily bethat the house of commons had so long lieved everything he said; for they had accustomed themselves to strange fictions long expected whatever he declared. about popery, that upon the first dis-Hist. of his own Time, p. 248.

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CHA. II.- 1673-85. COLEMAN’S LETTERS. 401 chinations and their hopes, long suspected, and in a general sense known, were divulged by the seizure and Coleman’s publication of Coleman’s letters. “We have letters here,” he says, in one of these, “a mighty work upon our hands, no less than the conversion of three kingdoms, and by that perhaps the utter subduing of a pestilent heresy, which has a long time domineered over this northern world. There were never such hopes since the death of our queen Mary as now in our days. God hath given us a prince who is become (I may say by miracle) zealous of being the author and instrument of so glorious a work; but the opposition we are sure to meet with is also like to be great, so that it imports us to get all the aid and assistance we can.” These letters were addressed to Father la Chaise, confessor of Louis XIV., and displayed an intimate connection with France for the great purpose of restoring popery. They came to light at the very period of Oates’s discovery; and, though not giving it much real confirmation, could hardly fail to make a powerful impression on men unaccustomed to estimate the value and bearings of evidence.’ The conspiracy supposed to have been concerted by the Jesuits at St. Omer, and in which so many English catholics were implicated, chiefly consisted, as is well known, in a scheme of assassinating the king. Though the obvious falsehood and absurdity of much that the witnesses deposed in relation to this plot render it absolutely incredible, and fully acquit those unfortunate victims of iniquity and prejudice, it could not appear at the time an extravagant supposition that an eager intriguing faction should have considered the king’s life a serious obstacle to their hopes. Though as much attached in heart as his nature would permit to the catholic religion, he was evidently not inclined to take any effectual measures in its favor; he was but one year older than his brother, on the contingency of whose succession all their hopes rested, since his heiress was not only brought up in the protestant faith, but united to its most strenuous defender. Nothing could have been more anxiously wished at St. Omer 1

Parl. Hist. 1024, 1035. State Trials, sage in the letters, is not deficient in vii. 1. Kennet, 327, 337, 851. North’s acuteness. In tact, this not only conExamen, 129, 177. Ralph, 386. Burnet, victed Coleman, but raised a general coni. 555. Scroggs tried Coleman with much viction of the truth of a plot-and a rudeness and partiality; but his sum-plot there was, though not Oates’s. ming up, in reference to the famous pasVOL, II.

26

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402 MURDER OF GODFREY. CHAP. XII. than the death of Charles; and it does not seem improbable that the atrocious fictions of Oates may have been originally suggested by some actual, though vague, projects of assassination, which he had heard in discourse among the ardent spirits of that college. The popular ferment which this tale, however undeserving Murder of credit, excited in a predisposed multitude, was of sir Ed-naturally wrought to a higher pitch by the very bodfrey. extraordinary circumstances of sir Edmondbury Godfrey’s death. Even at this time, although we reject the imputation thrown on the catholics, and especially on those who suffered death for that murder, it seems impossible to frame any hypothesis which can better account for the facts that seem to be authenticated. That he was murdered by those who designed to lay the charge on the papists, and aggravate the public fury, may pass with those who rely on such writers as Roger North,1 but has not the slightest corroboration from any evidence, nor does it seem to have been suggested by the contemporary libellers of the court party. That he might have had, as an active magistrate, private enemies whose revenge took away his life, which seems to be Hume’s conjecture, is hardly more satisfactory; the enemies of a magistrate are not likely to have left his person unplundered; nor is it usual for justices of the peace, merely on account of the discharge of their ordinary duties, to incur such desperate resentment. That he fell by his own hands was doubtless the suggestion of those who aimed at discrediting the plot; but it is impossible to reconcile this with the marks of violence which are so positively sworn to have appeared on his neck: and, on a later investigation of the subject in the year 1682, when the court had become very powerful, and a belief in the plot had grown almost a mark of disloyalty, an attempt made to prove the self-murder of Godfrey, in a trial before Pemberton, failed altogether; and the result of the whole evidence on that occasion was strongly to confirm the supposition that he had perished by the hands of assassins.2 His death remains at this moment a problem 1 Examen, p. 196.

to prove the truth of the fct, which, 2 R. v. Farwell and others. State though in a case of libel, Pemberton Trials, viii. 1861. They were indicted allowed. But their own witnesses proved fbr publishing some letters to prove that that Godfrey’s body had all the appear Godfrey had killed himself. They de-ance of being strangled. fended themselves by calling witnesses The Roman catholics gave out, at the

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CHA. II.- 1673-85. INJUSTICE OF JUDGES. 408 for which no tolerably satisfactory solution can be offered. But at the time it was a very natural presumption to connect it with the plot, wherein he had not only taken the deposition of Oates, a circumstance not in itself highly important, but was supposed to have received the confidential communications of Coleman.’ Another circumstance, much calculated to persuade ordinary minds of the truth of the plot, was the trial of Reading, a Romish attorney, for tampering with the witnesses against the accused catholic peers, in order to make them keep out of the way.2 As such clandestine dealing with witnesses creates a strong, and perhaps with some too strong, a presumption of guilt, where justice is sure to be uprightly administered, men did not make a fair distinction as to times when the violence of the court and jury gave no reasonable hope of escape, and when the most innocent party would much rather procure the absence of a perjured witness than trust to the chance of disproving his testimony.

There was indeed good reason to distrust the course of justice. Never were our tribunals so disgraced Injustice of by the brutal manners and iniquitous partiality of judges on the bench as in the latter years of this reign. the trials. The State Trials, none of which appear to have been published by the prisoners’ friends, bear abundant testimony to the turpitude of the judges. They explained away and softened the palpable contradictions of the witnesses for the crown, insulted and threatened those of the accused, checked all cross-examination, assumed the truth of the charge throughout the whole of every trial.8 One Whitbread, a time of Godfrey’s death, that he had times, Ralph, does not in the slightest killed himself, and hurt their own degree pretend to account for Godfrey’s cause by foolish lies. North’s Examen, death; though, in his general reflections p. 200. on the plot (p. 5665), he relies too much 1 It was deposed by a respectable wit-on the assertions of North and 1’Esness that Godfrey entertained apprehen-trange. sions on account of what he had done as 2 State Trials, vii. 269. North’s Exto the plot, and had said, ” On my con-amen, 240. science, I believe I shall be the first 8 State Trials, vol. vii. passim. On martyr.” State Trials, vii. 168. These the trial of Green, Berry, and Hill, for little additional circumstances, which Godfrey’s murder, part of the story for are suppressed by later historians, who the prosecution was, that the body was speak of the plot as unfit to impose on brought to Hill’s lodgings on the Satur, any but the most bigoted fanatics, con-day, and remained there till Monday. tributed to make up a body of presump-The prisoner called witnesses who lodged five and positive evidence from which in the same house to prove that it could human belief is rarely withheld. not have been there without their knowlIt is remarkable that the most acute edge. Wild, one of the judges, assuming, and diligent historianwe possess for those as usual, the truth of thestory as beyond

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404 INJUSTICE OF JUDGES. CHAP. XI] jesuit, having been indicted with several others, and the evidence not being sufficient, Scroggs discharged the jury of him, but ordered him to be kept in custody till more proof might come in. He was accordingly indicted again for the same offence. On his pleading that he had been already tried, Scroggs and North had the effrontery to deny that he had been ever put in jeopardy, though the witnesses of the crown had been fully heard, before the jury were most irregularly and illegally discharged of him on the former trial. North said he had often known it done, and it was the common course of law. In the course of this proceeding, Bedloe, who had deposed nothing explicit against the prisoner on the former trial, accounted for this by saying it was not then convenient; an answer with which the court and jury were content.1 It is remarkable that, although the king might be justly surmised to give little credence to the pretended plot, and the duke of York was manifestly affected in his interests by the heats it excited, yet the judges most subservient to the court, Scroggs, North, Jones, went with all violence into the popular cry, till, the witnesses beginning to attack the queen and to menace the duke, they found it was time to rein in, as far as they could, the passions they had instigated.2 Pemberton, a more honest man in political matters, showed a remarkable intemperance and unfairness in all trials relating to popery. Even in that of lord Stafford in 1680, the last, controversy, said it was very suspicious judges independent of the crown, but as that they should see or hear nothing of it brought forward those principles of it; and another, Dolben, told them it was equal and indifferent justice, which can well they were not indicted. Id. 199. never be expected to fourish but under Jones, summing up the evidence on sir the shadow of liberty. Thomas Gascoigne’s trial at York (an 1 State Trials, 119, 315. 344. aged catholic gentleman, most improba-2 Roger North, whose long account of bly accused of accession to the plot), the popish plot is, as usual with him, a ays to the jury: “

Gentlemen, you medley of truth and lies, acuteness and have the king’s witness on his oath; he absurdity, represents his brother, the that testifies against him is barely on his chief-justice, as perfectly immaculate in word, and he is a papist.” Id. 1039. the midstof this degradation of thebench. Thus deriving an argument from an The State’Trials, however, show that he iniquitous rule, which at that time pre-was as partial and unjust towards the vailed in our law, of refusing to hear prisoners as any of the rest, till the govthe prisoner’s witnesses upon oath. Gas-ernment thought it necessary to intercoigne, however, was acquitted. fere. The moment when the judges It would swell this note to an unwar-veered round was on the trial of sir rentable length were I to extract so much George Wakeman, physician to the queen. of the trials as might fully exhibit all the Scroggs, who had been infamously, partial instances of gross partiality in the conduct against the prisoners upon every former of the judges. I must, therefore, refer occasion, now treated Oates and Bedloe as my readers to the volume itself-a stand-they deserved, though to the aggravation ing monument of the necessity of the of his own disgrace. State Trials, vii. revolution; not only as it rendered the 619-686.

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CHA. II. 1673-85. PREJUDICE AGAINST PAPISTS. 405 and perhaps the worst, proceeding under this delusion, though the court had a standing majority in the house of lords, he was convicted by fifty-five peers against thirty-one; the earl of Nottingham, lord-chancellor, the duke of Lauderdale, and several others of the administration voting him guilty, while he was acquitted by the honest Hollis and the acute Halifax.’ So far was the belief in the popish plot, or the eagerness in hunting its victims to death, from being confined to the whig faction, as some writers have been willing to insinuate. None had more contributed to raise the national outcry against the accused, and create a firm persuasion of the reality of the plot, than the clergy in their sermons, even the most respectable of their order, Sancroft, Sharp, Barlow, Burnet, Tillotson, Stillingfleet; inferring its truth from Godfrey’s murder or Coleman’s letter, calling for the severest laws against catholics, and imputing to them the fire of London, nay even the death of Charles I.2 Though the duke of York was not charged with participation in the darkest schemes of the popish conspirators, it was evident that his succession was the great aim of their endeavors, and evident also that he had been engaged in the more real and undeniable intrigues of Coleman. His accession to the throne, long viewed with just apprehension, now seemed to threaten such perils to every part of the constitution as ought not supinely to be waited for, if any means could be devised to obviate them. This gave rise Exclusion of to the bold measure of the exclusion bill, too bold duke of York indeed for the spirit of the country, and the rock proposed. on which English liberty was nearly shipwrecked. In the long parliament, full as it was of pensioners and creatures of court influence, nothing so vigorous would have been suc1Lords’ Journals, 7th December; ashamed to condemn him; but it was his State Trials, 1552; Parl. Hist. 1229. misfortune to play his game worst when Stafford, though not a man of much abil-he had the best cards.” P. 637. ity, had rendered himself obnoxious as a 2 I take this from extracts out of those prominent opposer of all measures in-sermons, contained in the Roman Catholic tended to check the growth of popery.

pamphlet printed in 1687, and entitled His name appears constantly in protests Good Advice to the Pulpits. The Protupon such occasions - as, for instance, estant divines did their cause no good by March 3, 1678, against the bill for raising misrepresentation of their adversaries, money for a French war. Reresby praises and by their propensity to rudeness and his defence very highly, p. 108. The scurrility. The former fault, indeed, exduke of York, on the contrary, or his bi-isted in a much greater degree on the opographer, observes: ” Those who wished posite side, but by no means the latter lord Stafford well were of opinion that, See also a treatise by Barlow, published had he managed the advantages which in 1679, entitled Popish Principles perni were given him with dexterity, he would cious to Protestant Princes. have made the greatest part of his judges

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406 PARLIAMENT DISSOLVED. CHAP. XII. cessful. Even in the bill which excluded catholic peers from sitting in the house of lords, a proviso, exempting the duke of York from its operation, having been sent down from the other house, passed by a majority of two voices.1 Parliament But the zeal they showed against Danby induced dissolved. the king to put an end to this parliament of seventeen years’ duration; an event long ardently desired by the popular party, who foresaw their ascendency in the new elections.2 The next house of commons accordingly came together with an ardor not yet quenched by corruption; and after reviving the impeachments commenced by their predecessors, and carrying a measure long in agitation, a tests 1 Parl. Hist. 1040. course revived with greater eagerness as 2 See Marvell’s ” Seasonable Argument the danger from their infl uence grew more to persuade all the Grand Juries in Eng-apparent. A bill for this purpose passed land to petition for a new Parliament.” the commons in 1675, but was thrown out He gives very bad characters of the prin-by the peers.

Journals, May 14; Nov. 8. cipal members on the court side; but we It was brought in again in the spring of cannot take for granted all that comes 1678. Parl. Hist. 990. In the autumn of from so unscrupulous a libeller.

Sir the same year it was renewed, when the Harbottle Grimstone had first thrown lords agreed to the oath of supremacy, out, in the session of 1675, that a standing but omitted the declaration against tranparliament was as great a grievance as a substantiation, so far as their own house standing army, and that an application was affected by it. Lords’ Journals, Nov.

ought to be made to the king for a disso-20, 1678. They also excepted the duke lution. This was not seconded, and met of York from the operation of the bill; with much disapprobation from both sides which exception was carried in the comof the house. Parl. Hist. vii. 64. But mons by two voices. Parl. Hist. 1040. the country party, in two years: time, The duke of York and seven more lords had changed their views. and were be-protested. come eager for a dissolution. An address The violence of those times on all sides to that effect was moved in the house of will account for this theological declaralords, and lost by only two voices, the tion; but it is more difficult to justify duke of York voting for it. Id. 800.

This its retention at present. Whatever inis explained by a passage in Coleman’s fluence a belief in the pope’s supremacy letters, where that intriguer expresses may exercise upon men’s politics, it is his desire to see parliament dissolved, in hard to see how the doctrine of transub. the hope that another would be more stantiation can directly affect them; and favorable to the toleration of catholics. surely he who renounces the former canThis must mean that the dissenters might not be very dangerous on account of his gain an advantage over the rigorous adherence to the latter. Nor is it less church of England men, and be induced extraordinary to demand, from any of to come into a general indulgence, those who usually compose a house of 3 This test (30 Car. II. stat. 2) is the commons, the assertion that the practice declaration subscribed by members of of the church of Rome in the invocation both houses of parliament on taking their of saints is idolatrous; since, even on the seats, that there is no transubstantiation hypothesis that a country gentleman has of the elements in the Lord’s Supper; a clear notion of what is meant by idolaand that the invocation of saints, as prac-try, he is, in many cases, wholly out of tised in the church of Rome, is idolatrous. the way of knowing what the church of The oath of supremacy was already taken Rome, or any of its members, believe or by the commons, though not by the practise. The invocation of saints, as lords; and it is agreat mistake to imagine held and explained by that church in the that catholics were legally capable of council of Trent, is surely not idolatrous, sitting in the lower house before the act with whatever error it may be charged; of 1679. But it had been the aim of the but the practice at least of uneducated long parliament in 1642 to exclude them Roman catholics seems fully to justify the from the house of lords; and this was of declaration; understanding it to refer t^

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CiA. II.-1673-85. EXCLUSION OF THE DUKE OF YORK. 407 which shut the catholic peers out of parliament, went upon the exclusion bill. Their dissolution put a stop to this, and in the next parliament the lords rejected it.1 The right of excluding an unworthy heir from the succession was supported not only by the plain and fundamental principles of civil society, which establish the interest of the people to be the paramount object of political institutions, but by those of the English constitution. It had always been the better opinion among lawyers that the reigning king, with consent of parliament, was competent to make any changes in the inheritance of the crown; and this, besides the acts passed under Henry VIII. empowering him to name his successor, was expressly enacted, with heavy penalties against such as should contradict it, in the thirteenth year of Elizabeth. The contrary doctrine, indeed, if pressed to its legitimate consequences, would have shaken all the statutes that limit the prerogative; since, if the analogy of entails in private inheritances were to be resorted to, and the existing legislature should be supposed incompetent to alter the line of succession, they could as little impair as they could alienate the indefeasible rights of the heir; nor could be be bound by restrictions to which he had never given his assent. It seemed strange to maintain that the parliament could reduce a future king of England to the condition of a doge of Venice by shackling and taking away his authority, and yet could not divest him of a title which they could render little better than a mockery. Those accordingly who disputed the legislative omnipotence of parliament did not hesitate to assert that statutes infringing the prerogative were null of themselves. With the court lawyers conspired the clergy, who pretended these matters of high policy and constitutional law to be within their province, and, with hardly an exception, took a zealous part against the exclusion. It was indeed a measure repugnant to the common prejudices of mankind, who, without entering on the abstract competency of parliament, are naturally accustomed in an certain superstitions, countenanced or bill was carried.

May 21, 1679, by 207 not eradicated by their clergy. I have to 128. The debates are in Parliamentary sometimes thought that the legislator of History, 1125, et post. In the next para great nation sets off oddly by solemnly liament it was carried without a division. professing theological positions about Sir Leoline Jenkins alone seems to have which he knows nothing, and swearing to taken the high ground that ” parliament the possession of property which he does cannot disinherit the heir of the crown; not enjoy. [1827.] and that, if such an act shr uld pass, is 1 The second reading of the exclusion would he invalid in itself.”. Id. 1191.

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408 EXCLUSION OF THE DUKE OF YORK. CHAP. XII. hereditary monarchy to consider the next heir as possessed of a right, of which, except through necessity or notorious criminality, he cannot be justly divested. The mere profession of a religion different from the established does not seem, abstractedly considered, an adequate ground for unsettling the regular order of inheritance. Yet such was the narrow bigotry of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which died away almost entirely among protestants in the next, that even the trifling differences between Lutherans and Calvinists had frequently led to alternate persecutions in the German states, as a prince of one or the other denomination happened to assume the government. And the Romish religion in particular was in that age of so restless and malignant a character, that, unless the power of the crown should be far more strictly limited than had hitherto been the case, there must be a very serious danger from any sovereign of that faith; and the letters of Coleman, as well as other evidences, made it manifest that the duke of York was engaged in a scheme of general conversion, which, from his arbitrary temper and the impossibility of succeeding by fair means, it was just to apprehend, must involve the subversion of all civil liberty.

Still this was not distinctly perceived by persons at a distance from the scene, imbued, as most of the gentry were, with the principles of the old cavaliers and those which the church had inculcated. The king, though hated by the dissenters, retained much of the affections of that party, who forgave the vices they deplored, to his father’s memory and his personal affability. It appeared harsh and disloyal to force his consent to the exclusion of a brother in whom he saw no crime, and to avoid which he offered every possible expedient.1 There will always be found in the people of England a strong unwillingness to force the reluctance of their sovereign - a latent feeling, of which parties in the heat of their triumphs are seldom aware, because it does not display itself until the moment of reaction. And although, in the less settled times before the Revolution, this personal loyalty was highly dangerous, and may still, no doubt, sometimes break out so as to frustrate objects of high import to the public weal, it is on the whole a salu1 While the exclusion bill was passing it should come up; telling them, at the the commons, the king took the pains to same time. let.what would happen, he speak himself to almost every lord, to would never suffer such a villanous bill dissuade him from assenting to it when to pass. Life of James, 553.

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CHA. II.-1673-85. SHAFTESBURY AND MONMOUTH. 409 tary temper for the conservation of the monarchy, which may require such a barrier against the encroachments of factions and the fervid passions of the multitude. The bill of exclusion was drawn with as much regard to the inheritance of the duke of York’s daughters as they could reasonably demand, or as any law-Shaftesbury yer engaged for them could have shown; though and Monsomething different seems to be insinuated by Burnet. It provided that the imperial crown of England should descend to and be enjoyed by such person or persons successively during the life of the duke of York as should have inherited or enjoyed the same in case he were naturally dead. If the princess of Orange was not expressly named (which, the bishop tells us, gave a jealousy, as though it were intended to keep that matter still undetermined), this silence was evidently justified by the possible contingency of the birth of a son to the Juke, whose right there was no intention in the framers of the bill to defeat. But a large part of the opposition had unfortunately other objects in view. It had been the great error of those who withstood the arbitrary counsels of Charles II. to have admitted into their closest confidence, and in a considerable degree to the management of their party, a man so destitute of all honest principle as the earl of Shaftesbury. Under his contaminating influence their passions became more untractable, their connections more seditious and democratical, their schemes more revolutionary; and they broke away more and more from the line of national opinion, till a fatal reaction involved themselves in ruin, and exposed the cause of public liberty to its most imminent peril. The countenance and support of Shaftesbury brought forward that unconstitutional and most impolitic scheme of the duke of Monmouth’s succession. There could hardly be a greater insult to a nation used to respect its hereditary line of kings than to set up the bastard of a prostitute, without the least pretence of personal excellence or public services, against a princess of known virtue and attachment to the protestant religion. And the effrontery of this attempt was aggravated by the libels eagerly circulated to dupe the credulous populace into a belief of Monmouth’s legitimacy. The weak young man, lured on to destruction by the arts of intriguers and the applause of the multitude, gave just offence to sober-minded patriots, who

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410 UNSTEADINESS OF THE KING. CHAP. XII knew where the true hopes of public liberty were anchored, by a kind of triumphal procession through parts of the country, and by other indications of a presumptuous ambition.1 If any apology can be made for the encouragement given by some of the whig party (for it was by no means general) to the pretensions of Monmouth, it must be found in their knowledge of the king’s affection for him, which furnished a hope that he might more easily be brought in to the exclusion of his brother for the sake of so beloved a child than for the prince of Orange. And doubtless there was a period when Charles’s acquiescence in the exclusion did not appear so unattainable as, from his subsequent line of behavior, we are apt to consider it. It appears from the recently published Life of James that, in the autumn of 1680, the embarrassment of the king’s situation, and the influence of the duchess of Portsmouth, who had gone over to the excluUnsteadi-sionists, made him seriously deliberate on abanthe “kig. doning his brother.2 Whether from natural insta1 Ralph, p. 498. The atrocious libel, made use of. This artful tract is intendentitled,‘An Appeal from the Country ed to keep up the belief of Monmouth’s to the City,’ published in 1679, and usu-legitimacy, and even to graft it on the ally ascribed to Ferguson (though said, undeniable falsehood of that tale; as if in Biog. Brit., art.

L’ESTRANGE, to be it had been purposely fabricated to delude written by Charles Blount), was almost the people, by setting them on a wrong sufficient of itself to excuse the return of scent. See also another libel of the same public opinion towards the throne. State class, p. 197.

Tracts, temp. Car. II.; Ralph, i. 476.; Though Monmouth’s illegitimacy is Parl. Hist. iv. Appendix. The king is past all question, it has been observed by personally struck at in this tract with the Harris that the princess of Orange, in utmost fury; the queen is called Agrip-writing to her brother about Mrs. Waters, pina, in allusion to the infamous charges in 1655, twice names her as his wife. of Oates; Monmouth is held up as the Thurloe, i. 665, quoted in Harris’s Lives, hope of the country. ” He will stand by iv. 168. But. though this was a scandayou, therefore you ought to stand by him. lous indecency on her part, it proves no He who hath the worst title always makes more than that Charles, like other young the best king.” One Harris was tried for men in the heat of passion, was foolish publishing this pamphlet. The jury at enough to give that appellation to his first found him guilty of selling an mistress, and that his sister humored equivocal verdict, by which they probably him in it. meant to deny, or at least to disclaim, any Sidney mentions a strange piece of Monassertion of the libellous character of the mouth’s presumption. When he went publication. But Scroggs telling them it to dine with the city in October, 1680, it was their province to say guilty or not was remarked that the bar, by which the guilty, they returned a verdict of guilty.

heralds denote illegitimacy, had been State Trials, vii. 925. taken off the royal arms on his coach. Another arrow, dipped in the same Letters to Saville, p. 54. poison, was a’ Letter to a Person of Hon-2 Life of James, 592, et post; compare or concerning the Black Box.’ Somers Dalrymple, p.

265, et post. Barillon was Tracts, viii. 189. The story of a contract evidently of opinion that the king would of marriage between the king and Mrs. finally abandon his brother. Sunderland Waters, Monmouth’s mother, concealed joined the duchess of Portsmouth, and in a black box, had lately been current; was one of the thirty peers who voted and the former had taken pains to expose for the bill in November, 1680. James its falsehood by a public examination of charges Godolphin also with deserting the gentleman whose name had been him, p. 615. But his name does not ap

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CHA. II.-1673-85. DESIGNS OF THE DUKE OF YORK. 411 bility of judgment, from the steady adherence of France to the duke of York, or from observing the great strength of the tory party in the house of lords, where the bill was rejected by a majority of 63 to 30, he soon returned to his former disposition. It was long, however, before he treated James with perfect cordiality. Conscious of his own insincerity in religion, which the duke’s bold avowal of an obnoxious creed seemed to reproach, he was provoked at bearing so much of the odium and incurring so many of the difficulties which attended a profession that he had not ventured to make. He told Hyde, before the dissolution of the parliament of 1680, that it would not be in his power to protect his brother any longer, if he did not conform and go to church.’ Hyde himself, and the duke’s other friends, had never ceased to urge him on this subject. Their importunity was renewed by the king’s order, even after the dissolution of the Oxford parliament; and it seems to have been the firm persuasion of most about the court that he could only be preserved by conformity to the protestant religion. He justly apprehended the consequences of a refusal; but, inflexibly conscientious on this point, he braved whatever might arise from the timidity or disaffection of the ministers and the selfish fickleness of the king. In the apprehensions excited by the king’s unsteadiness and the defection of the duchess of Portsmouth, he deemed his fortunes so much in jeopardy as to have resolved on exciting a civil war, rather than yield to the exclusion. He had already told Barillon that the royal authority could be reestablished by no other means.2 The episcopal party in Scotland had gone such lengths that they could hardly be safe under any other king. The catholics of England were of course devoted to him. With the help of these he hoped to show himself so formidable that Charles would find it his interest to quit that cowardly line of politics to which he was sacrificing his honor and affections. Louis, never insensible to any occasion of rendering England weak and miserable, directed his ambassador to encourage the duke in this guilty project with the promise of assistance.8 It seems to have pear in the protest signed by twenty-five 1

Life of James, p. 657. peers, though that of the privy seal, Lord 2 I1 est persuade que l’autorit6 royale Anglesea, does. The duchess of Ports-ne se peut r6tablir en Angleterre que par mouth sat near the commons at Stafford’s une guerre civile. Aug. 29, 1680. Daltrial, “dispensing her sweetmeats and rymple, 265. gracious looks among them.” P. 638. 8

Dalrymple, 277. Nov. 1680.

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412 EXPEDIENTS TO AVOID CHAP. XII. been prevented by the wisdom or public spirit of Churchill, who pointed out to Barillon the absurdity of supposing that the duke could stand by himself in Scotland. This scheme of lighting up the flames of civil war in three kingdoms, for James’s private advantage, deserves to be more remarked than it has hitherto been at a time when his apologists seem to have become numerous. If the designs of Russell and Sidney for the preservation of their country’s liberty are blamed as rash and unjustifiable, what name shall we give to the project of maintaining the pretensions of an individual by means of rebellion and general bloodshed? It is well known that those who took a concern in the maintenance of religion and liberty were much divided as to the best expedients for securing them; some, who thought the exclusion too violent, dangerous, or impracticable, preferring the enactment of limitations on the prerogatives of a catholic king. This had begun, in fact, from the court, who passed a bill through the house of lords in 1677, for the security, as it was styled, of the protestant religion. This provided that a declaration and oath against transubstantiation should be tendered to every king within fourteen days after his accession; that, on his refusal to take it, the ecclesiastical benefices in the gift of the crown should vest in the bishops, except that the king should name to every vacant see one out of three persons proposed to him by the bishops of the province.

It enacted also that the children of a king refusing such a test should be educated by the archbishop and two or three more prelates. This bill dropped in the commons; and Marvell speaks of it as an insidious stratagem of the ministry.1 It is more easy, however, to give hard names to a measure originating with an obnoxious government than to prove that it did not afford a considerable security to the established church, and impose a very remarkable limitation on the prerogative. But the opposition in the house of commons had probably conceived their scheme of exclusion, and would not hearken to any 1 Marvell’s Growth of Popery, in State have been that the children of the royal Tracts, temp. Car. II., p. 98. Parl. Hist.

family were to be consigned for educa853. The second reading was carried by tion to the sole government of bishops. 127 to 88. Sergeant Maynard, who was The duke of York and thirteen other probably not in the secrets of his party, peers protested against this bill. not all seems to have been surprised at their of them from the same motives, as may opposition. An objection with Marvell, be collected from their names. Lords’ and not by any means a bad one, would Journals, 13th and 15th March, 1679

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CHA. II.- 1673-85. THE EXCLUSION. 413 compromise. As soon as the exclusion became the topic of open discussion, the king repeatedly offered to grant every security that could be demanded consistently with the lineal succession. Hollis, Halifax, and for a time Essex, as well as several eminent men in the lower house, were in favor of limitations.1 But those which they intended to insist upon were such encroachments on the constitutional xpi authority of the crown, that, except a title and rev-to avoid the enue, which Charles thought more valuable than exclusion. all the rest, a popish king would enjoy no one attribute of royalty. The king himself, on the 30th of April, 1679, before the heats on the subject had become so violent as they were the next year, offered not only to secure all ecclesiastical preferments from the control of a popish successor, but to provide that the parliament in being at a demise of the crown, or the last that had been dissolved, should immediately sit and be indissoluble for a certain time; that none of the privy council, nor judges, lord-lieutenant, deputylieutenant, nor officer of the navy, should be appointed during the reign of a catholic king, without consent of parliament. He offered at the same time most readily to consent to any further provision that could occur to the wisdom of parliament, for the security of religion and liberty consistently with the right of succession. Halifax, the eloquent and successful opponent of the exclusion, was the avowed champion of limitations. It was proposed, in addition to these offers of the king, that the duke, in case of his accession, should have no negative voice on bills; that he should dispose of no civil or military posts without the consent of parliament; that a council of forty-one, nominated by the two houses, should sit permanently during the recess or interval of parliament, with power of appointing to all vacant offices, subject to the future approbation of the lords and commons.2 These extraordinary innovations would, at leasi for the time, have changed our constitution into a republic; and justly appeared to many persons more revolutionary than an alteration in the course of succession.

The duke of York looked on them with dismay; Charles, indeed, pri1 Lords Russell and Cavendish, sir Shaftesbury, for opposite reasons, stood W.

Coventry, and sir Thomas Littleton, alone in the council against the scheme seem to have been in favor of limita-of limitations. Temple’s Memoirs. tions. Lord J. Russell, p. 42. Ralph, 2 Commons’ Journals, 23d Nov. 1680, 446. Sidney’s Letters, p. 32. Temple and 8th Jan. 1681.

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414 EXPEDIENTS TO AVOID THE EXCLUSION. CHAP. XII vately declared that he would never consent to such infringements of the prerogative.1 It is not, however, easy to perceive how he could have escaped from the necessity of adhering to his own propositions, if the house of commons would have relinquished the bill of exclusion. The prince of Orange, who was doubtless in secret not averse to the latter measure, declared strongly against the plan of restrictions, which a protestant successor might not find it practicable to shake off. Another expedient, still more ruinous to James than that of limitations, was what the court itself suggested in the Oxford parliament, that, the duke retaining the title of king, a regent should be appointed, in the person of the princess of Orange, with all the royal prerogatives; nay, that the duke, with his pageant crown on his head, should be banished from England during his life.2 This proposition, which is a great favorite with Burnet, appears liable to the same objections as were justly urged against a similar scheme at the revolution. It was certain that in either case James would attempt to obtain possession of power by force of arms; and the law of England would not treat very favorably those who should resist an acknowledged king in his natural capacity, while the statute of Henry VII. would, legally speaking, afford a security to the adherents of a de facto sovereign. Upon the whole, it is very unlikely, when we look at the general spirit and temper of the nation, its predilection for the ancient laws, its dread of commonwealth and fanatical principles, the tendency of the upper ranks to intrigue and corruption, the influence and activity of the church, the bold counsels and haughty disposition of James himself, that either the exclusion, or such extensive limitations as were suggested in lieu of it, could have been carried into effect with much hope of a durable settlement. It would, I should conceive, have been practicable to secure the independence of the judges, to exclude unnecessary placemen and notorious 1 Life of James, 634, 671. Dalrymple, termined them to persist in their former p. 307. scheme. Reresby says (p. 19), confirmed 2

Dalrymple, p. 801. Life of James, by Par. Hist. 182, it was supported by 660, 671. The duke gave himself up sir Thomas Littleton, who is said to have for lost when he heard of the clause in been originally against the bill of excluthe king’s speech declaring his readiness sion, as well as sir William Coventry. to hearken to any expedient but the ex-Sidney’s Letters, p. 82. It was opposed elusion. Birch and Hampden, he says, by Jones, Winnington, Booth, and, if were in favor of this; but Fitzharris’s the Parliamentary History be right, by business set the house in a flame, and de-Hampden and Birch.

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CHA..- 1673-85. WHIG AND TORY. 415 pensioners from the house of commons, to render the distribution of money among its members penal, to remove from the protestant dissenters, by a full toleration, all temptation to favor the court, and, above all, to put down the standing army. Though none perhaps of these provisions would have prevented the attempts of this and the next reign to introduce arbitrary power, they would have rendered them still more grossly illegal; and, above all, they would have saved that unhappy revolution of popular sentiment which gave the court encouragement and temporary success. It was in the year 1679 that the words Whig and Tory were first heard in their application to English fac-Names of tions; and, though as senseless as any cant terms whig and that could be devised, they became instantly as tory. familiar in use as they have since continued. There were then indeed questions in agitation which rendered the distinction more broad and intelligible than it has generally been in later times. One of these, and the most important, was the bill of exclusion; in which, as it was usually debated, the republican principle, that all positive institutions of society are ill order to the general good, came into collision with that of monarchy, which rests on the maintenance of a royal line, as either the end, or at least the necessary means, of lawful government. But, as the exclusion was confessedly among those extraordinary measures to which men of tory principles are sometimes compelled to resort in great emergencies, and which no rational whig espouses at any other time, we shall better perhaps discern the formation of these grand political sects in the petitions for the sitting of parliament, and in the counter addresses of the opposite party. In the spring of 1679 Charles established a new privy council, by the advice of sir William Temple, con-New council sisting in great part of those eminent men in both formed by houses of parliament who had been most prominent Sie wiia in their opposition to the late ministry.1 He pub1

Temple’s Memoirs. He says their for the king had declared he would take revenues in land or offices amounted to no measure, nor even choose any new 800,0001. per annum; whereas those of counsellor, without their consent. But the house of commons seldom exceeded the extreme disadvantage of the position 400,0001. The king objected much to in which this placed the crown rendered admitting Halifax; but himself proposed it absolutely certain that it was not subShaftesbury, much against Temple’s mitted to with sincerity. Lady Portswishes. The funds in Holland rose on mouth told Barillon the new ministry the news. Barillon was displeased, and was formed in order to get money from said it was making ” des 6tats, et non des parliament. Another motive, no doubt, conseils; ” which was not without weight, was to prevent the exclusion bill.

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416 NEW MINISTRY. CHAP. XII. licly declared his resolution to govern entirely by the advice of this council and that of parliament. The duke of York was kept in what seemed a sort of exile at Brussels.1 But the just suspicion attached to the king’s character prevented the commons from placing much confidence in this new ministry; and, as frequently happens, abated their esteem for those who, with the purest intentions, had gone into the council.2 They had soon cause to perceive that their distrust had not been excessive. The ministers were constantly beaten in the house of lords; an almost certain test, in our government, of the court’s insincerity.8 The parliament was first prorogued, then dissolved; against the advice, in the latter instance, of the majority of that council by whom the king had pledged himself to be directed. A new parliament, Long pro-after being summoned to meet in October, 1679, rogation of was prorogued for a twelvemonth without the parliament. avowed concurrence of any member of the council. Lord Russell, and others of the honester party, withdrew from a board where their presence was only asked in mockery or deceit; and the whole specious scheme of Temple came to nothing before the conclusion of the year which had seen it displayed.4 Its author, chagrined at the disappointment of his patriotism and his vanity, has sought the causes of failure in the folly of Monmouth and perverseness of Shaftesbury. He was not aware, at least in their full extent, of the king’s intrigues at this period. Charles, who had been 1 Life of James, 558. On the king’s time to Sunderland. “If he and two sudden illness, Aug.

22, 1679, the ruling more [Essex and Halifax] can well agree ministers, Halifax, Sunderland, and Es-among themselves, I believe they will sex, alarmed at the anarchy which might have the management of almost all busicome on his death, of which Shaftesbury ness, and may bring much honor to and Monmouth would profit, sent over themselves and good to our nation.” for the duke, but soon endeavored to April 21, 1679. But he writes aftermake him go into Scotland; and, after a wards, Sept. 8, that Halifax and Essex struggle against the king’s tricks to out-were become very unpopular, p. 50. wit them, succeeded in this object. Id. ” The bare being preferred,” says secre p. 570, et post. tary Coventry, ” maketh some of them 2 Temple. Reresby, p. 89. “So true suspected, though not criminal.” Lord it is,” he says, ” that there is no wearing J. Russell’s Life of Lord Russell, p. 90. the court and country livery together.” 3 See the protests in 1679, passim. Thus also Algernon Sidney, in his letters 4

Temple’s Memoirs. Life of James, to Saville, p. 16: -” The king certainly 581. [An article in the London Gazette, inclines not to be so stiff as formerly in Jan. 30, 1680, is rather amusing. ” This advancing only those that exalt preroga-evening the lord Russell, the lord Cavtive; but the earl of Essex, and some endish, sir Henry Capel, and Mr. Powle, others that are coming into play there-prayed his Majesty to give them leave to upon, cannot avoid being suspected of withdraw from the councilboard. To having intentions different from what which his Majesty was pleased to answer, they have hitherto professed.” He as-‘ With all his heart.’

“-1845.] eribed the change of ministry at this

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CHA. II. -1673-85. LONG PROROGATION. 417 induced to take those whom he most disliked into his council, with the hope of obtaining money from parliament, or of parrying the exclusion bill, and had consented to the duke of York’s quitting England, found himself inthralled by ministers whom he could neither corrupt nor deceive; Essex, the firm and temperate friend of constitutional liberty in power as he had been out of it, and Halifax, not yet led away by ambition or resentment from the cause he never ceased to approve. He had recourse therefore to his accustomed refuge, and humbly implored the aid of Louis against his own council and parliament. He conjured his patron not to lose this opportunity of making England forever dependent upon France. These are his own words, such at least as Barillon attributes to him.l In pursuance of this overture, a secret treaty was negotiated between the two kings; whereby, after a long haggling, Charles, for a pension of 1,000,000 livres annually during three years, obliged himself not to assemble parliament during that time. This negotiation was broken off through the apprehensions of Hyde and Sunderland, who had been concerned in it, about the end of November, 1679, before the long prorogation which is announced in the Gazette by a proclamation of December 11th. But, the resolution having been already taken not to permit the meeting of parliament, Charles persisted in it as the only means of escaping the bill of exclusion, even when deprived of the pecuniary assistance to which he had trusted. Though the king’s behavior on this occasion exposed the fallacy of all projects for reconciliation with the house of commons, it was very well calculated for his own ends; nor was there any part of his reign wherein he acted with so much prudence as from this time to the dissolution of the Oxford parliament. The scheme concerted by his adversaries, and already put in operation, of pouring in petitions from every part of the kingdom for the meeting of parliament, he checked in the outset by a proclamation, artfully drawn up by chief-justice North, which, while it kept clear of anything so palpably unconstitutional as a prohibition of petitions, served the purpose of manifesting the king’s dislike to them, and encouraged the magistrates to treat all attempts that way as seditious and illegal, while it drew over the neutral and lukewarm to the safer and stronger side.2 Then I Dalrymple, pp. 280, 287. 2 See Roger North’s account of thi vOL. I. 27

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418 PETITIONS AND ADDRESSES. CHAP. XII. were first ranged against each other the hosts of Whig and Tory, under their banners of liberty or loyalty; each zealous, at least in profession, to maintain the established constitution, but the one seeking its security by new maxims of government, the other by an adherence to the old. 1 It must be admitted that petitions to the king from bodies of his subjects, Petitions intended to advise or influence him in the exercise and ad-of his undoubted prerogatives, such as the time of dresses. calling parliament together, familiar as they may now have become, had no precedent, except one in the dark year 1640, and were repugnant to the ancient principles of our monarchy. The cardinal principle of toryism is, that the king ought to exercise all his lawful prerogatives without the interference, or unsolicited advice, even of parliament, much less of the people. These novel efforts therefore were met by addresses from most of the grand juries, from the magistrates at quarter sessions, and from many corporations, expressing not merely their entire confidence in the king, but their abhorrence of the petitions for the assembling of parliament; a term which, having been casually used in one address, became the watchword of the whole party.2 Some allowance must be made for the exertions made by the court, especially through the judges of assize, whose charges to grand juries were always of a political nature. Yet there can be no doubt that the strength of the tories manifested itself beyond expectation. Sluggish and silent in its fields, like the animal which it has taken.for its type, the deeprooted loyalty of the English gentry to the crown may escape a superficial observer, till some circumstance calls forth an indignant and furious energy. The temper shown in 1680 was not according to what the late elections would have led men to expect, not even to that of the next elections for the parliament at Oxford. A large majority returned on both these occasions, and that in the principal counties as much as in corporate towns, were of the whig principle. It appears that the ardent zeal against popery in the smaller freeholders court stratagem. Examen of Kennet, originated in Scotland in 1648, and was 646. The proclamation itself however, given to those violent covenanters who in the Gazette, 12th Dec. 1679, is more opposed the duke of Hamilton’s invasion strongly worded than we should expect of England in order to restore Charles I.

from North’s account of it, and is by no Somers Tracts, viii. 349. Tory was a means limited to tumultuous petitions. similar nickname for some of the wild 1 [The name of whig, meaning sour Irish in Ulster. - 184.],mllk, as is well known, is said to have 2 London Gazettes of 1680, passim.

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CHA. II.- 1673-85. VIOLENCE OF THE COMMONS. 419 must have overpowered the natural influence of the superior classes. The middling and lower orders, particularly in towns, were clamorous against the duke of York and the evil counsellors of the crown. But with the country gentlemen popery was scarce a more odious word than fanaticism; the memory of the late reign and of the usurpation was still recent, and in the violence of the commons, in the insolence of Monmouth and Shaftesbury, in the bold assaults upon hereditary right, they saw a faint image of that confusion which had once impoverished and humbled them. Meanwhile the king’s dissimulation was quite sufficient for these simple loyalists; the very delusion of the popish plot raised his name for religion in their eyes, since his death was the declared aim of the conspirators; nor did he fail to keep alive this favorable prejudice by letting that imposture take its course, and by enforcing the execution of the penal laws against some unfortunate priests.1 It is among the great advantages of a court in its contention with the assertors of popular privileges that it can employ a circumspect and dissembling policy, which is never found on the opposite side. The demagogues of Violen faction, or the aristocratic leaders of a numerous of the assembly, even if they do not feel the influence commons of the passions they excite, which is rarely the case, are urged onwards by their headstrong followers, and would both lay themselves open to the suspicion of unfaithfulness and damp the spirit of their party by a wary and temperate course of proceeding. Yet that incautious violence, to which ill-judging men are tempted by the possession of power, must in every case, and especially where the power itself is deemed an usurpation, cast them headlong. This was the fatal error of that house of commons which met in October, 1680; and to this the king’s triumph may chiefly be ascribed.

The addresses declaratory of abhorrence of petitions for the meeting of parliament were doubtless intemperate with respect to the petitioners; but it was preposterous to treat them as violations.of privilege. A few precedents, and those in times of much heat and irregularity, could not justify so flagrant I David Lewis was executed at Usk for and unjust towards these unfortunate spyinag pess,-Aug. 27i 1679. State Trials, men s than Soroggs. The king,‘as his vii. 266. Other instances occur in the brother tells us, came unwillingly into same volume; see especially pp.: 811,:889, these severities to prevents worse. Life 849, 857. Pemberton was more severe of James, 683.

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420 VIOLENCE OF THE COMMONS. CHAP. XII. an encroachment on the rights of the private subject as the commitment of men for a declaration so little affecting the constitutional rights and functions of parliament.1 The expulsion, indeed, of Withens, their own member, for promoting one of these addresses, though a violent measure, came in point of law within their acknowledged authority. But it was by no means a generally received opinion in that age that the house of commons had an unbounded juris.

diction, directly or indirectly, over their constituents. The lawyers, being chiefly on the side of prerogative, inclined at least to limit very greatly this alleged power of commitment for breach of privilege or contempt of the house. It had very rarely, in fact, been exerted, except in cases of serving legal process on members or other molestation, before the long parliament of Charles I.; a time absolutely discredited by one party, and confessed by every reasonable man to be full of innovation and violence. That the commons had no right of judicature was admitted: was it compatible, many might urge, to principles of reason and justice that they could, merely by using the words contempt or breach of privilege in a warrant, deprive the subject of that liberty which the recent statute of Habeas Corpus had secured against the highest ministers of the crown? Yet one Thompson, a clergyman at Bristol, having preached some virulent sermons, wherein he had traduced the memory of Hampden for refusing the payment of shipmoney, and spoken disrespectfully of queen Elizabeth, as well as insulted those who petitioned for the sitting of parliament, was sent for in custody of the sergeant to answer at the bar for his high misdemeanor against the privileges of that house; and was afterwards compelled to find security for his forthcoming to answer to an impeachment voted against him on these strange charges.8 Many others were brought to the bar, not only for the crime of abhorrence, but for alleged misdemeanors still less affecting the privileges of parliament, such as remissness in searching for papists. Sir Robert Cann, of Bristol, was sent for in custody of the sergeantat-arms, for publicly declaring that there was no popish, but only a presbyterian plot. A general panic, mingled with 1 Journals, passim. North’s Examen, Waller in Withens’s place for Westmin877, 561. ster. Ralph, 514. 2 They went a little too far, however, s Journals, Dec. 24, 1680. when they actually seated sir William

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CHA. II. 1673-85. OXFORD PARLIAMENT. 421 indignation, was diffused through the country, till one Stawell, a gentleman of Devonshire, had the courage to refuse compliance with the speaker’s warrant; and the commons, who hesitated at such a time to risk an appeal to the ordinary magistrates, were compelled to let this contumacy go unpunished. If, indeed, we might believe the journals of the house, Stawell was actually in custody of the sergeant, though allowed a month’s time on account of sickness. This was most probably a subterfuge to conceal the truth of the case.1 These encroachments, under the name of privilege, were exactly in the spirit of the long parliament, and revived too forcibly the recollection of that awful period. It was commonly in men’s mouths that 1641 was come about again. There appeared indeed for several months a very imminent danger of civil war. I have already mentioned the projects of the duke of York, in case his brother had given way to the exclusion bill.

There could be little reason to doubt that many of the opposite leaders were ready to try the question by arms. Reresby has related a conversation he had with lord Halifax immediately after the rejection of the bill, which shows the expectation of that able statesman that the differences about the succession would end in civil war.2 The just abhorrence good men entertain for such a calamity excites their indignation against those who conspicuously bring it on. And, however desirous some of the court might be to strengthen the prerogative by quelling a premature rebellion, the commons were, in the eyes of the nation, far more prominent in accelerating so terrible a crisis. Their votes in the session of November, in 1680, were marked by the most extravagant factiousness.8 Their con-Oxbfrd duct in the short parliament held at Oxford in parliament. 1 Parl.

Hist. i. 174. be expelled: 30th Dec. They passed res2 Reresby’s Memoirs, 106. Lord Hali-olutions against a number ~f persons fax and he agreed, he says, on considera-by name whom they suspected to have tion, that the court party were not only advised the king not to pass the bill of the most numerous, but the most active exclusion: 7th Jan. 1680. They resolved and wealthy part of the nation, unanimously (10th Jan.) that it is the 8

It was carried by 219 to 95 (17th opinion of this house that the city of Nov.) to address the king to remove lord London was burnt in the year 1666
by Halifax from his councils and presence the papists, designing thereby to introforever. They resolved, nem. con., that duce popery and arbitrary power into no member of that house should accept this kingdom. They were going on with of any office or place of profit from the more resolutions in the same spirit when crown, or any promise of one, during the usher of the black rod appeared to such time as he should continue a mem-prorogue them. Parl. Hist. her, and that all offenders herein should

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422 IMPEACHMENT OF FITZHARRIS-CHAP. XII. March, 1681, served still more to alienate the peaceable part of the community. That session of eight days was marked by the rejection of;a proposal to vest all effective power during the duke of York’s life in a regent, which, as has been already observed, was by no means a secure measure, and by a much less justifiable attempt to screen the author of a treasonable libel from punishment under the pretext of impeaching him at the bar of the upper house. It seems difficult not to suspect that the secret instigation of Barillon, and even his gold, had considerable influence on some of those who swayed the votes of this parliament. Though the impeachment of Fitzharris, to which I have Impeach-just alluded, was in itself a mere work of temmentof porary faction, it brought into discussion a conmr ton8er siderable question in our constitutional law, which constitu-deserves notice both on account of its importance na and because a popular writer has advanced an untenable proposition on the subject. The commons impeached Fitzharris this man of high-treason. The lords voted that impeached he should be proceeded against at common law. It was resolved, in consequence, by the lower house, ” that it is the undoubted right of the commons in parliament assembled to impeach before. the lords in parliament any peer or commoner for treason, or any other crime or misdemeanor: and that the refusal of the lords to proceed in parliament upon such impeachment is a denial of justice, and a, violation of the constitution of parliament.” It seems indeed difficult to justify the determination of the lords. Certainly the declaration in the case of sir Simon de Bereford, who having been accused by the king, in the fourth year of Edward III., before the lords, of participating in the treason of Roger Mortimer, that noble assembly protested, “with the assent of the king in full parliament, that, albeit they had taken upon them, as judges of the parliament, in the presence of the king, to render judgment, yet the peers who then were or should be in time to come were not bound to render judgment upon others than peers, nor had power to do so; and that the said judgment thus rendered should never be drawn to example or consequence in time to come, whereby the said peers of the land might be charged to judge others than their peers, contrary to the laws of the land;” certainly, I 1 Commons’ Journals, March 26, 1681.

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CHA. II.- 1673-85. IMPEACHMENT OF FITZHARRIS. 423 say, this declaration, even if it amounted to a statute, con. cerning which there has been some question,1 was not necessarily to be interpreted as applicable to impeachments at the suit of the commons, wherein the king is no ways a party. There were several precedents in the reign of Richard II. of such impeachments for treason. There had been more than one in that of Charles I. The objection indeed was so novel, that chief-justice Scroggs, having been impeached for treason in the last parliament, though he applied to be admitted to bail, had never insisted on so decisive a plea to the jurisdiction. And if the doctrine adopted by the lords were to be carried to its just consequences, all impeachment of commoners must be at an end; for no distinction is taken in the above declaration as to Bereford between treason and misdemeanor. The peers had indeed lost their ancient privilege in cases of misdemeanor, and were subject to the verdict of a jury; but the principle was exactly the same, and the right of judging commoners upon impeachment for corruption or embezzlement, which no one called in question, was as much an exception from the ordinary rules of law as in the more rare case of high-treason. It is hardly necessary to observe that the 29th section of Magna Charta, which establishes the right of trial by jury, is by its express language solely applicable to the suits of the crown. This very dangerous and apparently unfounded theory, broached upon the occasion of Fitzharris’s impeachment by the earl of Nottingham, never obtained reception; and was rather intimated than avowed in the vote of the lords that he should be proceeded against at common law. But, after the revolution, the commons having impeached sir Adam Blair and some others of high-treason, a committee was appointed to search for precedents on this subject; and, after full deliberation, the house of lords came to a resolution that they would proceed on the impeachments.2

The inadvertent position therefore of Blackstone,8 that a commoner cannot be impeached for high-treason, is not only difficult to be sup1 Parl.

Hist. ii. 54. Lord Hale doubted held to imply the presence and assent of whether this were a statute. But the the commons. judges, in 1689, on being consulted by 2 Hatsell’s Precedents, iv. 54, and Apthe lords, inclined to think that it was pendix, 347. State Trials, viii. 286, and.:ne; arguing, I suppose, from the words xii. 1218. in full parliament,” which have been 8 Commentaries, vol. iv. o. 19.

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424 PROSECUTION OF SHAFTESBURY. CIAP. XII. ported upon ancient authorities, but contrary to the latest determination of the supreme tribunal. No satisfactory elucidation of the strange libel for which Proceedings Fitzharris suffered death has yet been afforded. against There is much probability in the supposition that Shaftesbery it was written at the desire of some in the court, in order to cast odium on their adversaries; a very common stratagem of unscrupulous partisans.’ It caused an impression unfavorable to the whigs in the nation. The court made a dexterous use of that extreme credulity which has been supposed characteristic of the English, though it belongs at least equally to every other people. They seized into their hands the very engines of delusion that had been turned against them. Those perjured witnesses, whom Shaftesbury had hallooed on through all the infamy of the popish plot, were now arrayed in the same court to swear treason and conspiracy against him.2 Though he escaped by the resoluteness of his grand jury, who refused to find a bill of indictment on testimony which they professed themselves to disbelieve, and which was probably false, yet this extraordinary deviation from the usual practice did harm rather than otherwise to the general cause of his faction. The judges had taken care that the witnesses should be examined in open court, so that the jury’s partiality, should they reject such positive testimony, might become glaring. Doubtless it is, in ordinary cases, the duty of a grand juror to find a bill upon the direct testimony of witnesses, where they do not contradict them1 Ralph, 564, et post. State Trials, The opposite party were a little per228, 427.

North’s Examen, 274. Fitz-plexed by the necessity of refuting testiharris was an Irish papist, who had evi-mony they had relied upon. In a diadently had interviews with the king logue, entitled Ignoramus Vindicated, it throughlady Portsmouth. One Hawkins, is asked, Why were Dr.

Oates and others afterwards made dean of Chichester for believed against the papists? and the his pains, published a narrative of this best answer the case admits is given: case, full of falsehoods. “Because his and their testimony was 2 State Trials, viii. 759. Roger North’s backed by that undeniable evidence of remark on this is worthy of him:  Coleman’s papers, Godfrey’s murder, and “Having sworn false, as it is manifest a thousand other pregnant circumstances, some did before to one purpose, it is which makes the case much different from more likely they swore true to the conthat when people, of very suspected credit, trary.” Examen, p.

117. And sir Robert swear the grossest improbabilities.” But:Sawyer’s observation to the same effect the same witness, it is urged, had lateis also worthy of him. On College’s trial, ly been believed against the papists. Oates, in his examination for the prison- “What! then,” replies the advocate of ers, said that Turberville had changed Shaftesbury; “may not a man be very sides; Sawyer, as counsel for the crown, honest and credible at one time, and six answered, “Dr. Oates, Mr. Turberville months after, by necessity, subornation, has not changed sides, you have; he is malice, or twenty ways, become a nQostill a witness for the king, you are rious villain.” against him ” State Trials, viii. 639.

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CIA. 1I.-1673-85. TRIAL OF COLLEGE. 425 selves or each other, and where their evidence is not palpably incredible or contrary to his own knowledge. The oath of that inquest is forgotten, either where they render themselves, as seems too often the case, the mere conduit-pipes of accusation, putting a prisoner in jeopardy upon such slender evidence as does not call upon him for a defence; or where, as we have sometimes known in political causes, they frustrate the ends of justice by rejecting indictments which are fully substantiated by testimony. Whether the grand jury of London, in their celebrated ignoramus on the indictment preferred against Shaftesbury, had sufficient grounds for their incredulity I will not pretend to determine.1 There was probably no one man among them who had not implicitly swallowed the tales of the same witnesses in the trials for the plot. The nation, however, in general, less bigoted, or at least more honest in their bigotry, than those London citizens, was staggered by so many depositions to a traitorous conspiracy, in those who had pretended an excessive loyalty to the king’s person.2 Men unaccustomed to courts of justice are naturally prone to give credit to the positive oaths of witnesses. They were still more persuaded when, as in the trial of College at Oxford, they saw this testimony sustained by the approbation of a judge (and that judge a decent person who gave no scandal), and confirmed by the verdict of a jury. The gross iniquity practised towards the prisoner in that trial was not so generally bruited as his conviction.8 There is in 1

Roger North, and the prerogative the crown. State Trials, viii. 786. See writers in general, speak of this inquest also 827 and 835. as a scandalous piece of perjury enough 2 If we may believe James II., the popto justify the measures soon afterwards ulace hooted Shaftesbury when he was taken against the city. But Ralph. who, sent to the Tower.

Macpherson, 124; at this period of history, is very i:npar-Life of James, 688. This was an improvetial, seems to think the jury warranted ment on the odit damnatos. They reby the absurdity of the depositions. It joiced, however, much more, as he owns, is to be remembered that the petty juries at the ignoramus, p. 714. had shown themselves liable to intimi-3 See College’s case in State Trials, dation, and that the bench was sold to viii. 549; and Iawles’s remarks on it, 723. the court. In modern times, such an Ralph, 626. It is one of the worst pieces igroramus could hardly ever be justified. of judicial iniquity that we find in the T’ere is strong reason to believe that the whole collection. The written instrucrourt had recourse to subornation of tions he had given to his counsel before evidence against Shaftesbury Ralph, the trial were taken away from him, in 140, et post. And the witnesses were order to learn the grounds of his defence. chiefly low Irishmen, in whom he was North and Jones, the judges before whom not likely to have placed confidence. As he was tried, afforded him no protection. to the association found among Shaftes-But, besides this, even if the witnesses bury’s papers, it was not signed by him-had been credible, it does not appear to self, nor, as I conceive, treasonable, only me that the facts amounted to treason.

binding the associators to oppose the Roger North outdoes himself in his justiduke of York, in case of his coming to fication of the proceedings on his trial.

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426 TRIUMPH OF THE COURT. CHAP. XIL England a remarkable confidence in our judicial proceedings, in part derived from their publicity, and partly from the indiscriminate manner in which jurors are usually summoned. It must be owned that the administration of the two last Stuarts was calculated to show how easily this confiding temper might be the dupe of an insidious ambition. The king’s declaration of the reasons that induced him to Triumph of dissolve the last parliament, being a manifesto the court. against the late majority of the house of commons, was read in all churches. The clergy scarcely waited for this pretext to take a zealous part for the crown. Every one knows their influence over the nation in any cause which they make their own. They seemed to change the war against liberty into a crusade. They reechoed from every pulpit the strain of passive obedience, of indefeasible hereditary right, of the divine origin and patriarchal descent of monarchy. Now began again the loyal addresses, more numerous and ardent than in the last year, which overspread the pages of the London Gazette for many months. These effusions stigmatize the measures of the three last parliaments, dwelling especially on their arbitrary illegal votes against the personal liberty of the subject. Their language is of course not alike; yet, amidst all the ebullitions of triumphant loyalty, it is easy in many of them to perceive a lurking distrust of the majesty to which they did homage, insinuated to the reader in the marked satisfaction with which they allude to the king’s promise of calling frequent parliaments and of governing by the laws.1 The whigs, meantime, so late in the heyday of their pride, lay, like the fallen angels, prostrate upon the fiery lake. The scoffs and gibes of libellers, who had trembled before the resolutions of the commons, were showered upon their heads. They had to fear, what was much worse than the insults of these vermin, the perjuries of mercenary informers suborned by their enemies to charge false conspiracies against them, and sure of countenance from the contaminated benches of Examen, p. 687. What would this man 1

London Gazette, 1681, passim. Ralph, have been in power, when he writes thus 692, has spoken too strongly of their serin a sort of proscription twenty years vility, as if they showed a disposition to after the revolution! But in justice it give up altogether every right and privishould be observed that his portraits of lege to the crown. This may be true in North and Jones (id. 612 and 517) are a very few instances, but is by no means excellent specimens of his inimitable tal-their general tenor. They are exactly ent for Dutch painting. high-tory addresses, anl nothing more.

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CH. II.- 1673-85.. FORFEITURE OF CHARTERS. 427 justice. The court, with an artful policy, though, with detest. able wickedness, secured, itself against its only great danger, the:.uspicion of popery, by the sacrifice of Plunket, the titular archbishop of Dublin.1 The execution of this worthy and innocent person cannot. be said to have been extorted from the king in a time of great-.difficulty, like that of lord. Stafford.:HIe was coolly and deliberately permitted to suffer death, lest the. current of loyalty, still sensitive and suspicious upon the account of religion, might be somewhat checked in its course.. Yet those who heap the epithets of merciless, in human, sanguinary,.on the whig party for the impeachment of lord Stafford, in whose guilt they fully believed, seldom mention, without the characteristic distinction of “good natured,” that sovereign who permitted the execution of Plunket, of whose innocence he was assured.2 The hostility of the city of London, and of several othel towns, towards the court, degenerating no doubt into a factious and indecent violence, gave a pre-Frfeiture text for the most dangerous aggression on public charter of liberty that occurred in the present, reign. The of other power of the democracy in that age resided chiefly place. 1 State Trials, viii. 447. Chief-justice In reference, to.lord Stafford, I will Pemberton, by whom he was tried, had here notice that lord John Russell, in a strong prejudices against the papists, passage deserving very high praise, has though well enough disposed to serve the shown rather too much candor in cencourt in some respects. suring his ancestor (p. 140) on account 2 The king, James says in 1679, was of the support he gave (if in fact he did convinced of the falsehood of the plot, so, for the evidence seems weak) to the “while the’seeming necessity of his af-objection raised by the sheriffs, Bethell fairs made this unfortunate prince  for and Cornish, with respect to the mode of so he may tell be termed in this con-Stafford’s execution. The king having juncture -think he could not be safe remitted all the sentence except the bebut by consenting every day to the exe-heading, these magistrates thought fit to cution of those he knew in his heart to consult the house of commons. Hume be most,innocent; and as for that notion talks of Russell’s seconding this “barof letting the law take its course. it was barous scruple,” as he calls it, and imsuch a: piece of casuistry as had been putes it to faction. But, notwithstandfatal to the king his father,” &c. 562. ing the epithet, it is certain that the only If this was blamable in 1679, how much question was between death by the cord more in 1681! and the axe; and if Stafford had been Temple relates, that, having objected guilty, as lord Russell was convinced, of to leaving some priests to the law, as the a most atrocious treason, he could not house of commons had desired in 1679. deserve to be spared the more ignominHalifax said he would tell every one he ious punishment. The truth is, which was a papist if he did not concur; and seems to have escaped both these writers, that the plot must be treated as if it that, if the king could remit a part of were true, whether it was so or not: p. the sentence upon a parliamentary im889 (folio edit.). A vile maxim indeed! peachment, it might considerably affect But as Halifax had never showed any the question whether he could not grant want of candor or humanity, and voted a pardon, which the commons had lord -Stafford not guilty next year, we denied. may doubt whether Temple has represented this quite exactly.

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428 FORFEITURE OF CHARTERS. CHAP. XII, in the corporations. These returned, exclusively or principally, a majority of the representatives of the commons. So long as they should be actuated by that ardent spirit of protestantism and liberty which prevailed in the middling classes, there was little prospect of obtaining a parliament that would cooperate with the Stuart scheme of government. The administration of justice was very much in the hands of their magistrates, especially in Middlesex, where all juries are returned by the city sheriffs. It was suggested, therefore, by some crafty lawyers that a judgment of forfeiture obtained against the corporation of London would not only demolish that citadel of insolent rebels, but intimidate the rest of England by so striking an example. True it was that no precedent could be found for the forfeiture of corporate privileges. But general reasoning was to serve instead of precedents, and there was a considerable analogy in the surrenders of the abbeys under Henry VIII., if much authority could be allowed to that transaction. An information, as it is called, quo warranto, was accordingly brought into the court of king’s bench against the corporation. Two acts of the common council were alleged as sufficient misdemeanors to warrant a judgment of forfeiture: one, the imposition of certain tolls on goods brought into the city markets by an ordinance or by-law of their own; the other, their petition to the king in December, 1679, for the sitting of parliament, and its publication throughout the country.1 It would be foreign to the purpose of this work to inquire whether a corporation be in any case subject to forfeiture, the affirmative of which seems to have been held by courts of justice since the revolution; or whether the exaction of tolls in their markets, in consideration of erecting stalls and standings, were within the competence of the city of London; or, if not so, whether it were such an offence as could legally incur the penalty of a total forfeiture and disfranchisement; since it was manifest that the crown made use only of this additional pretext in order to punish the corporation for its address to the king. The language, indeed, of their petition had been uncourtly, and what the adherents of prerogative would call insolent; but it was at the worst rather a misdemeanor, for which the persons concerned might be responsible, than a breach of trust reposed in the corporation.

We are not, however, so 1 See this petition, Somers Tracts, viii. 144.

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CHA. II. - 1673-85. FORFEITURE OF CHARTERS. 429 much concerned to argue the matter of law in this question, as to remark the spirit in which the attack on this stronghold of popular liberty was conceived. The court of king’s bench pronounced judgment of forfeiture against the corporation; but this judgment, at the request of the attorney-general, was only recorded; the city continued in appearanee to possess its corporate franchises, but upon submission to certain regulations: namely, that no mayor, sheriff, recorder, or other chief officer, should be admitted until approved by the king; that, in the event of his twice disapproving their choice of a mayor, he should himself nominate a fit person, and the same in case of sheriffs, without waiting for a second election; that the court of aldermen, with the king’s permission, might remove any one of their body; that they should have a negative on the elections of common-councilmen, and, in case of disapproving a second choice, have themselves the nomination. The corporation submitted thus to purchase the continued enjoyment of its estates at the expense of its municipal independence; yet, even in the prostrate condition of the whig party, the question to admit these regulations was carried by no great majority in the common councils.l The city was, of course, absolutely subservient to the court from this time to the revolution. After the fall of the capital it was not to be expected that towns less capable of defence should stand out. Informations quo warranto were brought against several corporations, and a far greater number hastened to anticipate the assault by voluntary surrenders. It seemed to be recognized as law by the judgment against London that any irregularity or misuse of power in a corporation might incur a sentence of forfeiture, and few could boast that they were invulnerable at every point. The judges of assize in their circuits prostituted their influence and authority to forward this and every other encroachment of the crown. Jeffreys, on the northern circuit, in 1684, to use the language of Charles II.‘s most unblushing advocate, ” made all the charters, like the walls of Jericho, fall down before him, and returned laden with surrenders, the spoils of towns.2 They received, instead, new charters, framing the constitution of these municipalities 1 State Trials, viii. 1089-1840. Ralph, division honorable to the spirit of the 77. The majority was but 104 to 86; a citizens. 2 North’s Examen, 626.

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430 PROJECTS OF RUSSELL AND SIDNEY. CHAP.. XL. in a more oligarchical model, and reserving to the crown the first appointment of those who were to form the governing part of the corporation. These changes were gradually brought about in the last three years of Charles’s reign and in the beginning of the next. There can be nothing so destructive to the English consti. Projects of tution, not even the introduction of a military lord Russell force, as the exclusion of the electoral body from and Sidney. their franchises. The people of this country are, by our laws and constitution, bound only to obey a parliament duly chosen; and this violation of charters, in the reigns of Charles and James, appears to be the great and leading justification of that event which drove the latter from the throne. It can therefore be no matter of censure,.in a moral sense, that some men of pure and patriotic virtue, mingled, it must be owned, with others of a far inferior temper, began to hold consultations as to the best means of resisting a government which, whether to judge from these proceedings, or from the language of its partisans, was aiming without disguise at an arbitrary power. But as resistance to established authority can never be warrantable until it is expedient, we could by no means approve any schemes of insurrection that might be projected in 1682, unless we could perceive that there was a fair chance of their success.

And this we are not led, by what we read of the spirit of those times, to believe. The tide ran violently in another direction; the courage of.the whigs was broken; their adversaries were strong in numbers and in zeal.

But hence it is reasonable to infer that men like lord Essex and lord Russell, with so much to lose by failure, with such good sense, and such abhorrence of civil calamity, would not ultimately have resolved on the desperate issue of arms, though they might deem it prudent to form estimates of their strength, and to knit together a confederacy which absolute necessity might call into action. It is beyond doubt that the supposed conspirators had debated among themselves the subject of an insurrection, and poised the chances of civil war. Thus much the most jealous lawyer, I presume, will allow might be done, without risking the penalties of treason. They had, however, gone farther; and by concerting measures in different places as well as in Scotland, for a rising, though contingently, and without any fixed determination to carry it into

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Ci. II. -1673-85. TRIAL OF LORD RUSSELL. 431 effect, most probably (if the whole business had been disclosed in testimony) laid themselves open to the law, according to the construction it has frequently received. There is a considerable difficulty, after all that has been written, in stating the extent of their designs; but I may think we may assume that a wide-spreading and formidable insurrection was for several months in agitation.1 But the difficulties and hazards of the enterprise had already caused lord Russell and lord Essex to recede from the desperate counsels of Shaftesbury; and but for the unhappy detection of the conspiracy and the perfidy of lord Howard, these two noble persons, whose lives were untimely lost to their country, might have survived to join the banner and support the throne of William. It is needless to observe that the minor plot, if we may use that epithet in reference to the relative dignity of the conspirators, for assassinating the king and the duke of York, had no immediate connection with the schemes of Russell, Essex, and Sydney.2 But it is by no.means a consequence from the admission we have made that the evidence adduced on lord Theirtrial. Russell’s trial was sufficient to justify his conviction.8 It appears to me that lord Howard, and perhaps 1

Lady Russell’s opinion was that ” it obtained credit with the enemies of the was no more than what her lord confessed, court that lord Essex was murdered; talk -and it is possible that talk going and some evidence was brought forward so far as to consider, if a remedy for sup-by the zeal of one Braddon. The late posed evils might be sought, howit could editor of the State Trials seems a little be formed.” Life of Lord Russell, p. 266.

inclined to revive this report, which even It is not easy, however, to talk long in Harris (Life of Charles, p. 352) does not this manner about the how of treason venture to accredit; and I am surprised without incurring the penalties of it. to find lord John Russell observe, ” It 2

See this business well discussed by would be idle, at the present time, to the acute and indefatigable Ralph, p. 722, pretend to give any opinion on the suband by Lord John Russell, p. 253. See ject: ” p. 182. This I can by no means also State Trials, ix. 358, et post. There admit. We have, on the one side, some appears no cause for doubting the reality testimonies by children, who frequently of what is called the Rye-house Plot. invent and persist in falsehoods with no The case against Walcot, id. 519, was conceivable motive. But, on the other pretty well proved; but his own confes-hand, we are to suppose that Charles II. sion completely hanged him and his and the duke of York caused a detestfriends too. His attainder was reversed able murder to be perpetrated on one after the revolution, but only on account towards whom they had never shown of some technical errors, not essential to any hostility, and in whose death they the merits of the case. had no interest. Each of these princes s State Trials, ix.

577. Lord Essex cut had faults enough; but I may venture his throat in the Tower. He was a man to say that they were totally incapable of of the most excellent qualities, but sub-such a crime. One of the presumptive ject to constitutional melancholy, which arguments of Braddon, in a pamphlet overcame his fortitude; an event the published long afterwards, is, that the more to be deplored, as there seems to king and his brother were in the Tower have been no possibility of his being on the morning of lord Essex’s death. If convicted. A suspicion, as is well known, this leads to anything, we are to believe

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432 TRIAL OF LORD RUSSELL. CHAP. XII. Rumsey, were unwilling witnesses; and that the former, as is frequently the case with those who betray their friends in order to save their own lives, divulged no more than was extracted by his own danger. The testimony of neither witness, especially Howard, was given with any degree of that precision which is exacted in modern times; and, as we now read the trial, it is not probable that a jury in later ages would have found a verdict of guilty, or would have been advised to it by the court. But, on the other hand, if lord Howard were really able to prove more than he did, which I much suspect, a better-conducted examination would probably have elicited facts unfavorable to the prisoner which at present do not appear. It may be doubtful whether any overt act of treason is distinctly proved against lord Russell, except his concurrence in the project of a rising at Taunton, to which Rumsey deposes. But this, depending on the oath of a single witness, could not be sufficient for a conviction. Pemberton, chief-justice of the common pleas, tried this illustrious prisoner with more humanity than was usually displayed on the bench; but, aware of his precarious tenure in office, he did not venture to check the counsel for the crown, Sawyer and Jeffreys, permitting them to give a great body of hearsay evidence, with only the feeble and useless remark that it did not affect the prisoner.1 Yet he checked lord Anglesea, when he offered similar evidence for the defence. In his direction to the jury, it deserves to be remarked that he by no means advanced the general proposition which better men have held, that a conspiracy to levy war is in itself an overt act of compassing the king’s death; limiting it to cases where the king’s person might be put in danger, as, in the immediate instance, by the alleged scheme Charles II., like the tyrant in a Grub-1888. For though this may imply no street tragedy, came to kill his prisoner more than his suicide it will generally with his own hands. Any man of ordi-be construed in another sense. And nary understanding (which seems not to surely the critical judgment cannot be have been the case with Mr. Braddon) satisfied with evidence which might must perceive that the circumstance weigh, as I have heard it did, with the tends to repel suspicion rather than the pardonable prejudices of a descendant. contrary.

See the whole of this, includ- -1845.] ing Braddon’s pamphlet, in State Trials, 1 State Trials, 615. Sawyer told lord ix. 1127. [I am sorry to read in an ar-Russell, when he applied to have his trial tide of the Edinburgh Review by an elo-put off, that he would not have given the quent friend, ” Essex added a yet sadder king an hour’s notice to save his life. and more fearful story to the bloody Id. 682. Yet he could not pretend that chronicles of the Tower.” Macaulay’s the prisoner had any concern in the asEssays, iii. 93, and Edinburgh Review, sassination plot.

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CHA. II. -1673-85. TRIAL OF ALGERNON SIDNEY. 433 of seizing his guards.1

His language, indeed, as recorded in the printed trial, was such as might have produced a verdict of acquittal from a jury tolerably disposed towards the prisoner; but the sheriffs, North and Rich, who had been illegally thrust into office, being men wholly devoted to the pre.

rogative, had taken care to return a panel in whom they could confide.2

The trial of Algernon Sidney, at which Jeffreys, now raised to the post of chief-justice of the king’s bench, presided, is as familiar to all my readers as that of lord Russell.8 Their names have been always united in grateful veneration and sympathy. It is notorious that Sidney’s conviction was obtained by a most illegal distortion of the evidence. Besides lord Howard, no living witness could be produced to the conspiracy for an insurrection; and though Jeffreys permitted two others to prepossess the jury by a secondhand story, he was compelled to admit that their testimony could not directly affect the prisoner.4 The attorney-general, therefore, had recourse to a paper found in his house, which was given in evidence, either as an overt act of treason by its own nature, or as connected with the alleged conspiracy; for though it was only in the latter sense that it could be admissible at all, yet Jeffreys took care to insinuate, in his charge to the jury, that the doctrines it contained were treasonable in themselves, and without reference to other evidence. In regard to truth, and to that justice which cannot be denied to the worst men in their worst actions, I must observe that the common accusation against the court in this trial, of having admitted insufficient proof by the mere comI The act annulling lord Russell’s at-932. These two men ran away at the tainder recites him to have been “wrong-revolution; but Roger North vindicates fully convicted by partial and unjust their characters, and those who trust in constructions of law.” State Trials, ix. him may think them honest. 695. Several pamphlets were published 3 State Trials, ix. 818. after the revolution by sir Robert Atkins 4 State Trials, ix.

846. Yet in sumand sir John Hawles against the conduct ming up the evidence he repeated all of the court in this trial, and by sir West and Keeling had thus said at Bartholomew Shower in behalf of it. secondhand, without reminding the jury These are in the State Trials. But Holt, that it was not legal testimony. Id. 899. by laying down the principle of construc-It would be said by his advocates, if any tive treason in Ashton’s case, established are left, that these witnesses must have forever the legality of Pemberton’s doc-been left out of the question, since there trine, and indeed carried it a good deal could otherwise have been no dispute farther about the written paper. But they were s There seems little doubt that the undoubtedly intended to prop up Howjuries were packed through a conspiracy ard’s evidence, which had been so much of the sheriffs with Burton and Graham, shaken by his previous declaration that solicitors for the crown. State Trials, ix. he knew of no conspiracy. VOL.

II. 28

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434 CHARACTER OF SIDNEY. CHAP. XII. parison of handwriting, though alleged, not only in most of our historians, but in the act of parliament reversing Sidney’s attainder, does not appear to be well founded; the testimony to that fact, unless the printed trial is falsified in an extraordinary degree, being such as would be received at present.1 We may allow, also, that the passages from this paper, as laid in the indictment, containing very strong assertions of the right of the people to depose an unworthy king, might by possibility, if connected by other evidence with the conspiracy itself, have been admissible as presumptions for the jury to consider whether they had been written in furtherance of that design.

But when they came to be read on the trial with their context, though only with such parts of that as the attorney-general chose to produce out of a voluminous manuscript, it was clear that they belonged to a theoretical work on government, long since perhaps written, and incapable of any bearing upon the other evidence.2 The manifest iniquity of this sentence upon Algernon Sidney, as well as the high courage he displayed throughout these last scenes of his life, have inspired a sort of enthusi asm for his name, which neither what we know of his story, nor the opinion of his contemporaries, seems altogether to warrant. The crown of martyrdom should be suffered perhaps to exalt every virtue, and efface every defect, in patriots, as it has often done in saints. In the faithful mirror of history Sidney may lose something of this lustre. He possessed no doubt a powerful, active, and undaunted mind, 1 This is pointed out, perhaps for the Hayes’s case, State Trials, x. 812, though first time, in an excellent modern law-the prisoner’s handwriting to a letter book, Phillipps’s Law of Evidence. Yet was proved in the usual way by persons the act for the reversal of Sidney’s at-who had seen him write, yet this letter tainder declares in the preamble that was also shown to the jury, along with “the paper, supposed to be his handsome of his acknowledged writing, for writing, was not proved by the testimony the purpose of their comparison.

[See of any one witness to be written by him, also the trials of the seven bishops. Id. but the jury was directed to believe it xii. 295.] It is possible, therefore, that by comparing it with other writings of the same may have been done on Sidthe said Algernon.” State Trials, 997. ney’s trial, though the circumstance This does not appear to have been the does not appear. Jeffreys indeed says, case; and though Jeffreys is said to have ” Comparison of hands was allowed for garbled the manuscript trial before it good proof in Sidney’s case.” Id. 818. was printed (for all the trials at this time But I do not believe that the expression were published by authority, which was used in that age so precisely as it is makes them much better evidence at present; and it is well known to lawagainst the judges than for them), yet yers that the rules of evidence on this he can hardly have substituted so much subject have only been distinctly laid testimony without its attracting the no-down within the memory of the present tice of Atkins and Hawles, who wrote generation.

after the revolution. However, in 2 See Harris’s Lives, v. 847.

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CHA. II. 1673-85. PROSTITUTION OF JUSTICE. 435 stored with extensive reading on the topics in which he delighted. But having proposed one only object for his polite ical conduct, the establishment of a republic in England, his pride and inflexibility, though they gave a dignity to his character, rendered his views narrower and his temper unaccommodating. It was evident to every reasonable man that a republican government, being adverse to the prepossessions of a great majority of the people, could only be brought about and maintained by the force of usurpation. Yet for this idol of his speculative hours he was content to sacrifice the liberties of Europe, to plunge the country in civil war, and even to stand indebted to France for protection. He may justly be suspected of having been the chief promoter of the dangerous cabals with Barillon; nor could any tool of Charles’s court be more sedulous in representing the aggressions of Louis XIV. in the Netherlands as indifferent to our honor and safety. Sir Thomas Armstrong, who had fled to Holland on the detection of the plot, was given up by the States. A sentence of outlawry, which had passed against him in his absence, is equivalent, in cases of treason, to a conviction of the crime. But the law allows the space of one year, during which the party may surrender himself to take his trial. Armstrong, when brought before the court, insisted on this right, and demanded a trial. Nothing could be more evident, in point of law, than that he was entitled to it; but Jeffreys, with inhuman rudeness, treated his claim as wholly unfounded, and would not even suffer counsel to be heard in his behalf; He was executed accordingly without trial.1 But it would be too prolix to recapitulate all the instances of brutal injustice, or of cowardly subserviency, which degraded the English lawyers of the Stuart period, and never so infamously as in these last years of Charles II. From this prostitution of the tribunals, from the intermission of parliaments, and the steps taken to render them in future mere puppets of the crown, it was plain that all constitutional securities were at least in abeyance; and those who felt themselves most obnoxious, or whose spirit was too high to live in an enslaved country, retired to Holland as an asylum in which they might wait the occasion of better prospects, or, at the worst, breathe an air of liberty. 1 State Trials, x. 106

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436 TORYISM OF THE CLERGY. CHAP. XII Meanwhile the prejudice against the whig party, which had reached so great a height in 1681, was still further enhanced by the detection of the late conspiracy. The atrocious scheme of assassination alleged against Walcot and some others who had suffered was blended by the arts of the court and clergy, and by the blundering credulity of the gentry, with those less heinous projects ascribed to lord Russell and his associates.1 These projects, if true in their full extent, were indeed such as men honestly attached to the government of their country could not fail to disapprove. For this purpose a declaration full of malicious insinuations was ordered to be read in all churches.2 It was generally commented upon, we may make no question, in one of those loyal discourses, which, trampling on all truth, charity, and moderation, had no other scope than to inflame the hearers against nonconforming protestants, and to throw obloquy on the constitutional privileges of the subject. It is not my intention to censure, in any strong sense of the word, the Anglican clergy at this time for their assertion High-tory of absolute non-resistance, so far as it was done principles of without calumny and insolence towards those of the clergy. another way of thinking, and without self-interested adulation of the ruling power. Their error was very dangerous, and had nearly proved destructive of the whole constitution; but it was one which had come down with high recommendation, and of which they could only perhaps be undeceived, as men are best undeceived of most errors, by experience that it might hurt themselves. It was the tenet of their homilies, their canons, their most distinguished divines and casuists; it had the apparent sanction of the legislature in a statute of the present reign. Many excellent men, as was shown after the revolution, who had never made use of this doctrine as an engine of faction or private interest, could not disentangle their minds from the arguments or the authority on which it rested. But by too great a number it was eagerly brought forward to serve the purposes of arbitrary power, or at best to fix the wavering protestant1 The grand jury of Northampton-first families, as the names of Montagu, shire, in 1683, “present it as very ex-Langham, &c., show. Somers Tracts, pedient, and necessary for securing the viii. 409. peace of this country, that all ill-affected 2

Ralph, p. 768. Harris’s Lives, v. persons may give security for the peace;” 821. specifying a number of gentlemen of the

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CHA. I1.-1673-85. PASSIVE OBEDIENCE 437 ism of the court by professions of unimpeachable loyalty. To this motive, in fact, we may trace a good deal of the vehemence with which the non-resisting principle had been originally advanced by the church of England under the Tudors, and was continually urged under the Stuarts. If we look at the tracts and sermons published by both parties after the restoration, it will appear manifest that the Romish and Anglican churches bade, as it were, against each other for the favor of the two royal brothers. The one appealed to its acknowledged principle, while it denounced the pretensions of the holy see to release subjects from their allegiance, and the bold theories of popular government which Mariana and some other Jesuits had promulgated.

The other retaliated on the first movers of the Reformation, and expatiated on the usurpation of lady Jane Grey, not to say Elizabeth, and the republicanism of Knox or Calvin. From the era of the exclusion-bill especially, to the death of Charles II., a number of books were published Passive in favor of an indefeasible hereditary right of the obedience.

crown, and of absolute non-resistance. These were, however, of two very different classes. The authors of the first, who were perhaps the more numerous, did not deny the legal limitations of monarchy. They admitted that no one was bound to concur in the execution of unlawful commands.

Hence the obedience they deemed indispensable was denominated passive; an epithet, which in modern usage is little more than redundant, but at that time made a sensible distinction. If all men should confine themselves to this line of duty, and merely refuse to become the instruments of such unlawful commands, it was evident that no tyranny could be carried into effect. If some should be wicked enough to cooperate against the liberties of their country, it would still be the bounden obligation of Christians to submit. Of this, which may be reckoned the moderate party, the most eminent were Hickes, in a treatise called Jovian, and Sherlock, in his case of resistance to the supreme powers.1 To this 1 This book of Sherlock, printed in defensive, against the king, that the su1684, is the most able treatise on that preme power is in him; for he who is side. His proposition is, that ” sovereign unaccountable and irresistible is supreme. princes, or the supreme power in any There are some, he owns, who contend nation, in whomsoever placed, is in all that the higher powers mentioned by St. cases irresistible.” He infers, from the Paul meant the law, and that when statute 13 Car. 2, declaring it unlawful princes violate the laws we may defend ~under any pretence to wage war, even theirlegal authority against their personal

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438 WRITERS IN FAVOR OF CHAP. XII. also must have belonged archbishop Sancroft, and the great body of nonjuring clergy who had refused to read the declaration of indulgence under James II., and whose conduct in that respect would be utterly absurd, except on the supposition that there existed some lawful boundaries of the royal authority. But besides these men, who kept some measures with the Some con-constitution, even while, by their slavish tenets, tend for they laid it open to the assaults of more intrepid absolute enemies, another and a pretty considerable class of writers did not hesitate to avow their abhorrence of all limitations upon arbitrary power. Brady went back to the primary sources of our history, and endeavored to show that Magna Charta, as well as every other constitutional law, were but rebellious encroachments on the ancient uncontrollable imprescriptible prerogatives of the monarchy. His writings, replete with learning and acuteness, and in some respects with just remarks, though often unfair and always partial, naturally produced an effect on those who usurpations. He answers this very feebly. to resist him too, or to conspire against ” No law can come into the notion and him; then all those loyal subjects who definition of supreme and sovereign pow-refused to submit to him when he had ers; such a prince is under the direction, got the power in his hands were rebels but cannot possibly be said to be under and traitors.’ To this I answer, that the the government, of the law, because there most prosperous rebel is not the higher is no superior power to take cognizance powers, while our natural prince, to of his breach of it, and a law has no au-whom we owe obedience and subjection, thority to govern where there is no power is in being. And therefore, though such to punish: ” p. 114. “These men think,” men may get the power into their hands he says (p. 126), “that all civil authority by God’s permission yet not by God’s is bounded in consent, as if there were no ordinance; and he who resists them does natural lord of the world, or all mankind not resist the ordinance of God, but the came free and independent into the world. usurpations of men. In hereditary kingThis is a contradiction to what at other doms the king never dies, but the same times they will grant, that the institution minute that the natural person of one of civil power and authority is from God; king dies, the crown descends upon the and indeed, if it be not, I know not how next of blood; and therefore he who reany prince can justify the taking away belleth against the father, and murders the life of any man, whatever crime he him, continues a rebel in the reign of the has been guilty of. For no man has son, which commences with his father’s power of his own life, and therefore can-death. It is otherwise, indeed, where not give this power to another; which none can pretend a greater title to the proves that the power of capital punish-crown than the usurper, for there posments cannot result from mere consent, session of power seems to give a right.” but from a superior authority, which is P. 127. lord of life and death.” This is plausibly Sherlock began to preach in a very difurged, and is not refuted in a moment. ferent manner as soon as James showed He next comes to an objection, which a disposition to set up his own church. eventually he was compelled to admit, “It is no act of loyalty,” he told the with some discredit to his consistency and house of commons, May 29, 1685, to acdisinterestedness. ” Is the power of commodate or compliment away our victorious rebels and usurpers from God? religion and its legal securities.” Good Did Oliver Cromwell receive his power Advice to the Pulpits. from God? then it seems it was unlawful

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CHA. II.- 1673-85. ABSOLUTE MONARCHY. 439 had been accustomed to value the constitution rather for its presumed antiquity than its real excellence.

But the author most in vogue with the partisans of despotism was sir Robert Filmer. He had lived before the civil war, but Sir Robert his posthumous writings came to light about this Filmer. period. They contain an elaborate vindication of what was called the patriarchal scheme of government, which, rejecting with scorn that original contract whence human society had been supposed to spring, derives all legitimate authority from that of primogeniture, the next heir being king by divine right and as incapable of being restrained in his sovereignty as of being excluded from it. ” As kingly power,” he says, ” is by the law of God, so hath it no inferior power to limit it. The father of a family governs by no other law than his own will, not by the laws and wills of his sons and servants.” 1 “The direction of the law is but like the advice and direction which the king’s council gives the king, which no man says is a law to the king.” 2 ” General laws,” he observes, “made in parliament, may, upon known respects to the king, by his authority be mitigated or suspended upon causes only known to him; and by the coronation oath, he is only bound to observe good laws, of which he is the judge.” 8 ” A man is bound to obey the king’s command against law, nay, in some cases, against divine laws.” 4 In another treatise, entitled the Anarchy of a Mixed or Limited Monarchy, he inveighs, with no kind of reserve or exception, against the regular constitution; setting off with an assumption that the parliament of England was originally but an imitation of the States-general of France, which had no further power than to present requests to the king.6 These treatises of Filmer obtained a very favorable reception. We find the patriarchal origin of government frequently mentioned in the publications of this time as an undoubted truth.

Considered with respect to his celebrity rather than his talents, he was not, as some might imagine, too ignoble an adversary for Locke to have combated. Another person, far superior to Filmer in political eminence, undertook at the same time an unequivocal defence of absolute monarchy.

This was sir George Mackenzie, the famous lord-Sir George advocate of Scotland. In his Jus Regium, pub-Mackenzie. 1 p. 81. 2 p. 95. greater length, entitled the Freeholder’s 8 p. 98, 100. 4 p. 100. Grand Inquest, was published in 1679; 6 This treatise, subjoined to one of but the Patriarcha not till 1686.

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440 DECREE OF OXFORD UNIVERSITY. CHAP. XII. lished in 1684, and dedicated to the university of Oxford, he maintains that “monarchy in its nature is absolute, and consequently these pretended limitations are against the nature of monarchy.” 1 ” Whatever proves monarchy to be an excellent government, does by the same reason prove absolute monarchy to be the best government; for if monarchy be to be commended because it prevents divisions, then a limited monarchy, which allows the people a share, is not to be commended, because it occasions them; if monarchy be commended because there is more expedition, secresy, and other excellent qualities to be found in it, then absolute monarchy is to be commended above a limited one, because a limited monarch must impart his secrets to the people, and must delay the noblest designs, until malicious and factious spirits be either gained or overcome; and the same analogy of reason will hold in reflecting upon all other advantages of monarchy, the examination whereof I dare trust to every man’s own bosom.” 2 We can hardly, after this, avoid being astonished at the effrontery, even of a Scots crown lawyer, when we read in the preface to this very treatise of Mackenzie, “Under whom can we expect to be free from arbitrary government, when we were and are afraid of it under king Charles I. and king Charles II.?” It was at this time that the university of Oxford published their celebrated decree against pernicious books the univer-and damnable doctrines, enumerating as such sity of above twenty propositions, which they anathemaOxford. tized as false, seditious, and impious. The first of these is, that all civil authority is derived originally from the people; the second, that there is a compact, tacit or express, between the king and his subjects: and others follow of the same description. They do not explicitly condemn a limited monarchy, like Filmer, but evidently adopt his scheme of primogenitary right, which is, perhaps, almost incompatible with it. Nor is there the slightest intimation that the university extended their censure to such praises of despotic power as have been quoted in the last pages.8 This decree was publicly burned by an order of the house of lords in 1709; nor does there seem to have been a single dissent in that body to a step that cast such a stigma on the university.

But the disgrace of the offence was greater than that of the punishment. 1

P. 89. 2 p. 46. s Collier, 902. Somers Tracts, viii. 420.

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CHA. II.- 1673-85. RUPTURE WITH LOUIS. 441 We can frame no adequate conception of the jeopardy in which our liberties stood under the Stuarts, especially in this particular period, without attending to this spirit of servility which had been so sedulously excited. It seemed as if England was about to play the scene which Denmark had not long since exhibited, by a spontaneous surrender of its constitution. And although this loyalty were much more on the tongue than in the heart, as the next reign very amply disclosed, it served at least to deceive the court into a belief that its future steps would be almost without difficulty. It is uncertain whether Charles would have summoned another parliament. He either had the intention, or professed it in order to obtain money from France, of convoking one at Cambridge in the autumn of 1681.1 But after the scheme of newmodelling corporations began to be tried, it was his policy to wait the effects of this regeneration. It was better still, in his judgment, to dispense with the commons altogether. The period fixed by law had elapsed nearly twelve months before his death; and we have no evidence that a new parliament was in contemplation. But Louis, on the other hand, having discontinued his annual subsidy to the king in 1684, after gaining Strasburg and Luxemburg by his con-Connection nivance, or rather cooperation,2 it would not have with Louis been easy to avoid a recurrence to the only law-broken off. ful source of revenue. The king of France, it should be observed, behaved towards Charles as men usually treat the low tools by whose corruption they have obtained any end. During the whole course of their long negotiations, Louis, though never the dupe of our wretched monarch, was compelled to endure his shuffling evasions, and pay dearly for his base c(tnpliances. But when he saw himself no longer in need of them, it seems to have been in revenge that he permitted the publication of the secret treaty of 1670, and with1 Dalrymple, Appendix, 8. Life of this he offered his arbitration, and on James, 691. He pretended to come into Spain’s refusal laid the fault on her, a proposal of the Dutch for an alliance though already bribed to decide in favor with Spain and the empire against the of France. Lord Rochester was a party fresh encroachments of France, and to in all these base transactions. The accall a parliament for that purpose, but quisition of Luxemburg and Strasburg with no sincere intention, as he assured was of the utmost importance to Louis, Barillon. “Je n’ai aucune intention as they gave him a predominating influd’assembler le parlement; ces sont des ence over the four Rhenish electors, diables qui veulent ma ruine.” Dalrym-through whom he hoped to procure the pie, 15. election of the dauphin as king of the 2

He took 100,000 livres for allowing Romans. Id. 86. the French-to seize Luxemburg; after

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442 DEATH OF CHARLES H. CHAP. XIL drew his pecuniary aid. Charles deeply resented both these marks of desertion in his ally. In addition to them, he discovered the intrigues of the French ambassadors with his malecontent commons. He perceived, also, that by bringing home the duke of York from Scotland, and restoring him, in defiance of the test-act, to the privy council, he had made the presumptive heir of the throne, possessed as he was of su. perior steadiness and attention, too near a rival to himself.

These reflections appear to have depressed his mind in the latter months of his life, and to have produced that remarkable private reconciliation with the duke of Monmouth, through the influence of lord Halifax, which, had he lived, King’s would very probably have displayed one more death.

revolution in the uncertain policy of this reign.1 But a death, so sudden and inopportune as to excite suspicions of poison in some most nearly connected with him, gave a more decisive character to the system of government.2 1 Dalrymple, Appendix, 74. Burnet. son in 1715. “The duchess of PortsMazure, Hist. de la Revolution de 1688, mouth, who is at present here, gives a i. 340, 372. This is confirmed by, or great deal of offence, as I am informed, by rather confirms, the very curious notes pretending to prove that the late king found in the duke of Monmouth’s pocket-James had poisoned his brother Charles; book when he was taken after the battle it was not expected that after so many of Sedgemoor, and published in the ap-years’ retirement in France she should pendix to Welwood’s Memoirs. Though come hither to revive that vulgar report we should rather see more external evi-which at so critical a time cannot be for dence of their authenticity than, so far any good purpose.” State Trials, xv. as I know, has been produced, they have 948. It is almost needless to say that great marks of it in themselves; and it the suspicion was wholly unwarrantable.

it is not impossible that, after the revolu-I have since been informed, on the best tion, Welwood may have obtained them authority, that Mr. Fox did not derive from the Secretary of State’s Office. his authority from a tra Jition in the duke 2 It is mentioned by Mr. Fox, as a tra-of Richmond’s family, that of his own dition in the duke of Richmond’s family, mother, as his editor had very naturally that the duchess of Portsmouth believed conjectured, but from his father, the first Charles II. to have been poisoned. This lord Holland, who, while a young man I find confirmed in a letter read on the travelling in France, had become actrial of Francis Francia, indicted for trea-quainted with the duchess of Portsmouth. END OF THE SECOND VOLUME.

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Widdleton’s Editions of Choice Standard Works. DISRAELI’S WORKS. TYHE

CURIOSITIES OF LITERATURE. By ISAAC DISRAELI. With a view of the Life of the Author, by his Son. Handsomely printed on choice tinted paper, from the fourteenth corrected London edition. With a Memoir and fine steel portrait. 4 vols. crown 8vo, cloth, cut or uncut edges, $7; half calf or half Turkey morocco, $14. Each set of books in a box. ” These’ Curiosities of Literature’ have passed through a remarkable ordeal of time; they have survived a generation of rivals; they are found wherever books are bought, and they have been repeatedly reprinted at foreign presses, as well as translated. These volumes have imbued our youth with their first tastes for modem literature, have diffused a delight in critical and philosophical speculation among circles of readers who were not accustomed to literary topics; and, finally, they have been honored by eminent contemporaries, who have long consulted them, and set their stamp on the metal.” -Extract from Editor’s Preface. DISRAELI’S AMENITIES OF

LITERATURE. Consisting of Sketches and Characters of English Literature.

By ISAAC DISRAELI. Edited by his son, the Right Hon. B. DISRAELI. A new edition, on choice tinted paper, uniform with CURIOSITIES OF LITERATURE. 2
vols. crown 8vo, cloth, cut or uncut edges, $3.50; half calf or half Turkey morocco, $7. ” One of the most remarkable works ever written. The varied learning and research of the author are proverbial; and the unique title conveys a good idea os the value and interest of the book.” THE

CURIOSITIES AND AMENITIES TOGETHER. In uniform sets of 6 vols. Cloth, $IO.5o; half calf, $2I.oo. For sale at principal Bookstores throughout the country, and mailed by Publisher on receipt of price. W. J. WIDDLETON, PUBLISHER, New rork.

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Widdleton’s Editions of Choice Standard Works. DORAN’S ANNALS OF THE

STAGE. Annals of the English Stage, from Thomas Betterton to Edmund Kean: Actors, Authors, and Audiences. By Dr. DORAN, F.S.A. 2 vols. crown 8vo, cloth, $3.50; half calf or half Turkey morocco, $7. DORAN’S WORKS. 9
vols., uniform sets in box; comprising: - ANNALS OF THE STAGE, 2 vols.

TABLE TRAITS, WITH SOMETHING ON THEM, I vol. HABITS AND MEN, WITH REMNANTS

OF RECORD TOUCHING THE MAKERS OF BOTH, I vol. THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND OF THE

HOUSE OF HANOVER (THE WIVES OF THE FOUR GEORGES), 2 YOls. KNIGHTS AND

THEIR DAYS, I vol. MONARCHS RETIRED FROM BUSINESS, 2 VOls. Sets, cloth, extra, $I5; half calf or Turkey, gilt tops, $30. “Dr. Doran, F.S.A., Editor of the London’Athenaeum,’ is a charming writer, quaint, fresh, genial, correct, satisfactory, delightful. The world owes him a debt of gratitude.” - New-York Evening Post. MOORE’S LIFE OF SHERIDAN. Memoirs of the Life of the Right Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan. By THOMAS MOORE.

With steel portrait. 2 vols. crown 8vo, cloth, cut or uncut edges, $3.00; half calf or half Turkey morocco, $6. LORD MACAULAY’S SPEECHES. Complete from the standard authority, ” Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates.” Arranged in chronological order (uniform with the Essays and History of England). 2
vols. crown 8vo, cloth, extra, cut or uncut edges, $3; half calf or half Turkey morocco, $6. WIT AND WISDOM OF SYDNEY SMITH. Being Selections from his Writings, and Passages of his Letters and Table-Talk. With steel portrait, a Memoir, and Notes by E. A. DUYCKINCK. Crown 8vo, cloth, cut or uncut edges, $2.25; half calf or half Turkey mor., $4. BON GAULTIER’S BOOK

OF BALLADS. The Book of Ballads (Bon Gaultier). By W. E. AYTOUN and THEODORE MARTIN. A new edition, including ” Firmilian.” Crown 8vo, cloth, $I.75; half calf or half Turkey morocco, $3.50. LAYS OF THE SCOTTISH

CAVALIERS. By WILLIAM E. AYTOUN, Professor of Literature and BellesLettres in the University of Edinburgh, and Editor of “Blackwood’s Magazine.” I vol. crown 8vo, cloth, $1.75’ half calf or half Turkey morocco, $3.50.

P*For sale atfrixcipal Bookstores, and mailed by Publisher on Pcetzt of rsc W. J. WIDDLETON, PUBLISHER, New Tork

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Widdleton’s Editions of Choice Standard Work. Disraeli’s Complete Works THE AUTHORIZED AND COMPLETE EDITION, Edited, with Notes, by his Son, the Right Hon. B. DISRAELI, Ex-Premier of England. In 9 vols. crown 8vo. Large clear type, on fine toned paper, bound in handsome library style in extra cloth, comprising:THE CURIOSITIES OF LI’ ERATURE. 4 vols.. $7.00 THE

AMENITIES OF LITERATURE. 2 VO1s.. 3.50 THE CALAMITIES AND QUARREIS OF

AUTHORS. vols…………. 3.50 THE LITERARY CHARACTER. I vol… 2.2 Any of the works sold separately as above, or the entire set of nine volumes in a case for $15.00; half calf, $30.00. This set of books contains what may be called the cream of reading and research, from the time of Dr.

Johnson to our own, and of the superiority of this edition there is no room for question; a comparison with the English, - crowded into six volumes of small type, - decides at a glance. For sale at the principal Bookstores throughout the country, and sent by mail or express, on receipt of price by W. J. WIDDLETON, PUBLISHER, 37 Howard Street, New rorh.

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Widdleton’s Editions of Choice Standard Works. HALLAM’S WORKS. HALLAM’S

MIDDLE AGES. A view of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages. By HENRY HALLAM, LL.D., F.R.A.S. 3 vols. crown 8vo, cloth, cut or uncut edges, $5.25; half calf or half Turkey morocco, $10.50. HALLAM’S

INTRODUCTION TO THE LITERATURE OF EUROPE. An Introduction to the Literary History of Europe in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries.

By HENRY HALLAM, LL.D., F.R.A.S., Foreign Associate of the Institute of France. 4 vols. crown 8vo, cloth, cut or uncut edges, $7.00; half calf or half Turkey morocco, $14.00. HALLAM’S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND, from the Accession of Henry VII. to the Death of George II. By HENRY

HALLAM, LL.D., 3 vols. crown 8vo, cloth, cut or uncut edges, $5.25; half calf or half Turkey morocco, $o1.50. MAY’S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF

ENGLAND, since the Accession of George III. i760x860. By THOMAS ERSKINE

MAY, C.B. 2 vols. crown 8vo, cloth, cut or uncut edges, $3.50; half calf or half Turkey morocco, $7. This work is substantially a continuation of Hallam’s great work-tracing the progress and development of the British Constitution during an entire century. It gives evidence of research and impartiality, and is highly commended by Historical critics. HALLAM AND

MAY’S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND. These two works form the complete History, from the Accession of Henry VII. to x860. (In sets.) 5 vols.

cloth, cut or uncut edges, $8.75; half calf or half Turkey morocco, $I7.50. The foregoing works, together, in uniform sets, comprise HALLAM’S

COMPLETE WORKS. They are handsomely printed on toned paper, from the last London edition, revised and corrected by the author; and are conceded to be the most accurate, reliable, and elegant library edition extant.

Uniform sets, o1 vols., in box, cloth, cut or uncut edges, $17.50, half calf, $35For sale at principal Bookstores, and mailed by Publisher on receipt of price. W. J. WIDDLETON, PUBLISHER, New rork

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Widdlcton’s Editions of Choice Statdard Works Charles Lamb’s Works. The complete works of “The Gentle Elia,” corrected and revised, with a sketch of his life, by THOMAS NOON TALFORD, and a fine steel portrait. This is the most complete, and a very elegant edition of LAMB. Printed in large clear type, on choice tinted paper. 5 vols. crown 8vo., cloth, cut or uncut edges, $9.o0; half calf or half Turkey morocco, $i8. Each setof books in a box. LAMB’S ESSAYS OF ELIA. A new edition, on tinted paper. In I vol. crown 8vo, cloth, cut or uncut edges, $I.75; half calf, or half Turkey morocco, $3.50. LAMB’S ELIANA. Containing the hitherto un.

collected Writings of CHARLES LAMB. In i vol. crown 8vo, cloth, cut or uncut edges, $I.75; half calf or half Turkey morocco, $3.50. ” This gentle Lamb-Heaven be praised for ordaining him the fittest, as it Is the sweetest, of names I - was one whose daily life grew more beautiful as one came nearer to it and measured it more carefully. ” The world will be much older than it is yet, before an intelligent man ol woman can be pardoned for asking, “Who was Charles Lamb?” And yet, because we know him so well, we are the more willing to know him better; we cannot learn so much as to be content not to know more. There is no healthier sign of a sound literary taste than this tender attachment for such a writer as Lamb.

These dainty, exquisite pages-of which nothing too good can be said, and for which book-lovers cannot too heartily thank the conscientious publisherbreathe a sweetness, a fragrance, as fine as the breezes of May, and as good for the appetent soul.”- Chicago Evening yournal. For sale at principal Bookstores throughout the country, and mailed by Publisher on receipt of price. W. J. WIDDLETON, PUBLISHER, New rork,

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