But justice must be done even to Parker before handing him over to the Tormentor. What were his positions? He was a coarse-fibred, essentially irreligious fellow, the accredited author of the reply to the question "What is the best body of Divinity?" "That which would help a man to keep a Coach and six horses," but he is a lucid and vigorous writer, knowing very well that he had to steer his ship through a narrow and dangerous channel, avoiding Hobbism on the one side and tender consciences on the other. Each generation of State Churchmen has the same task. The channel remains to-day just as it ever did, with Scylla and Charybdis presiding over their rocks as of old. Hobbes's Leviathan appeared in 1651, and in 1670 both his philosophy and his statecraft were fashionable doctrine. All really pious people called Hobbes an Atheist. Technically he was nothing of the sort, but it matters little what he was technically, since no plain man who can read can doubt that Hobbes's enthronement of the State was the dethronement of God:—

"Seeing then that in every Christian commonwealth the civil sovereign is the supreme factor to whose charge the whole flock of his subjects is commuted, and consequently that it is by his authority that all other pastors are made and have power to teach and perform all other pastoral offices, it followeth also that it is from the civil sovereign that all other pastors derive their right of teaching, preaching and other functions pertaining to that office, and that they are but his ministers in the same way as the magistrates of towns, judges in Court of Justice and commanders of assizes are all but ministers of him that is the magistrate of the whole commonwealth, judge of all causes and commander of the whole militia, which is always the Civil Sovereign. And the reason hereof is not because they that teach, but because they that are to learn, are his subjects."—(The Leviathan, Hobbes's English Works (Molesworth's Edition), vol. iii. p. 539.)

Hobbes shirks nothing, and asks himself the question, What if a king, or a senate or other sovereign person forbid us to believe in Christ? The answer given is, "such forbidding is of no effect; because belief and unbelief never follow men's commands." But suppose "we be commanded by our lawful prince to say with our tongue we believe not, must we obey such command?" Here Hobbes a little hesitates to say outright "Yes, you must"; but he does say "whatsoever a subject is compelled to do in obedience to his own Sovereign, and doth it not in order to his own mind, but in order to the laws of his country, that action is not his, but his Sovereign's—nor is it that he in this case denieth Christ before men, but his Governor and the law of his country." Hobbes then puts the case of a Mahomedan subject of a Christian Commonwealth who is required under pain of death to be present at the Divine Service of the Christian Church—what is he to do? If, says Hobbes, you say he ought to die, then you authorise all private men to disobey their princes in maintenance of their religion, true or false, and if you say the Mahomedan ought to obey, you admit Hobbes's proposition and ought to consent to be yourself bound by it. (See Hobbes's English Works, iii. 493.)

The Church of England, though anxious both to support the king and suppress the Dissenters, could not stomach Hobbes; but if it could not, how was it to deal with Hobbes's question, "if it is ever right to disobey your lawful prince, who is to determine when it is right?"

Parker seeks to grapple with this difficulty. He disowns Hobbes.

"When men have once swallowed this principle, that Mankind is free from all obligations antecedent to the laws of the Commonwealth, and that the Will of the Sovereign Power is the only measure of Good and Evil, they proceed suitably to its consequences to believe that no Religion can obtain the force of law till it is established as such by supreme authority, that the Holy Scriptures were not laws to any man till they were enjoyn'd by the Christian Magistrate, and that if the Sovereign Power would declare the Alcoran to be Canonical Scripture, it would be as much the Word of God as the Four Gospels. (See Hobbes, vol. iii. p. 366.) So that all Religions are in reality nothing but Cheats and impostures to awe the common people to obedience. And therefore although Princes may wisely make use of the foibles of Religion to serve their own turns upon the silly multitude, yet 'tis below their wisdom to be seriously concerned themselves for such fooleries." (Parker's Ecc. Politie, p. 137.)

As against this fashionable Hobbism, Parker pleads Conscience.

"When anything that is apparently and intrinsically evil is the Matter of a Human Law, whether it be of a Civil or Ecclesiastical concern, here God is to be obeyed rather than Man."

He forcibly adds:—

"Those who would take off from the Consciences of Men all obligations antecedent to those of Human Laws, instead of making the power of Princes Supreme, Absolute and Uncontrollable, they utterly enervate all their authority, and set their subjects at perfect liberty from all their commands. For if we once remove all the antecedent obligations of Conscience and Religion, Men will no further be bound to submit to their laws than only as themselves shall see convenient, and if they are under no other restraint it will be their wisdom to rebel as oft as it is their interest." (Ecc. Politie, pp. 112-113.)

But though when dealing with Hobbes, Parker thinks fit to assert the claims of conscience so strongly, when he has to grapple with those who, like the immortal author of The Pilgrim's Progress, "devilishly and perniciously abstained from coming to Church," and upheld "unlawful Meetings and Conventicles," his tone alters, and it is hard to distinguish his position from that of the philosopher of Malmesbury.

Parker's argument briefly stated, and as much as possible in his own vigorous language, comes to this:

There is and always must be a competition between the prerogative of the Prince or State and that of Conscience, which on this occasion is defined as "every private man's own judgment and persuasion of things." "Do subjects rebel against their Sovereign? 'Tis Conscience that takes up arms. Do they murder Kings? 'Tis under the conduct of Conscience. Do they separate from the communion of the Church? 'Tis Conscience that is the Schismatick. Everything that a man has a mind to is his Conscience." (Ecc. Politie, p. 6.)

How is this competition to be resolved? Parker answers in exact language which would have met with John Austin's warm approval.

"The Supreme Government of every Commonwealth, wherever it is lodged, must of necessity be universal, absolute and uncontrollable. For if it be limited, it may be controlled, but 'tis a thick and palpable contradiction to call such a power supreme in that whatever controls it must as to that case be its Superior. And therefore affairs of Religion being so strongly influential upon affairs of State, they must be as uncontrollably subject to the Supreme Power as all other Civil concerns." (Ecc. Politie, p. 27.)

If the magistrate may make penal laws against swearing and blasphemy, why not as to rites and ceremonies of public worship? (39.) Devotion towards God is a virtue akin to gratitude to man; religion is a branch of morality. The Puritans' talk about grace is a mere imposture, (76) which extracts from Parker vehement language. What is there to make such a fuss about? he cries. Why cannot you come to Church? You are left free to think what you like. Your secret thoughts are your own, but living as you do in society, and knowing as you must how, unless the law interferes, "every opinion must make a sect, and every sect a faction, and every faction when it is able, a war, and every war is the cause of God, and the cause of God can never be prosecuted with too much violence" (16), why cannot you conform to a form of worship which, though it does not profess to be prescribed in all particulars, contains nothing actually forbidden in the Scriptures? What authority have Dissenters for singing psalms in metre? "Where has our Saviour or his Apostles enjoined a directory for public worship? What Scripture command is there for the three significant ceremonies of the Solemn League and Covenant, viz. that the whole congregation should take it (1) uncovered, (2) standing, (3) with their right hand lift up bare" (184), and so on.

In answer to the objection that the civil magistrate might establish a worship in its own nature sinful and sensual, Parker replies it is not in the least likely, and the risk must be run. "Our enquiry is to find out the best way of settling the world that the state of things admit of—if indeed mankind were infallible, this controversy were at an end, but seeing that all men are liable to errors and mistakes, and seeing that there is an absolute necessity of a supreme power in all public affairs, our question (I say) is, What is the most prudent and expedient way of settling them, not that possibly might be, but that really is. And this (as I have already sufficiently proved) is to devolve their management on the supreme civil power which, though it may be imperfect and liable to errors and mistakes, yet 'tis the least so, and is a much better way to attain public peace and tranquillity than if they were left to the ignorance and folly of every private man" (212).

I now feel that at least I have done Parker full justice, but as so far I have hardly given an example of his familiar style, I must find room for two or three final quotations. The thing Parker hated most in the world was a Tender Conscience. He protests against the weakness which is content with passing penal laws, but does not see them carried out for fear of wounding these trumpery tender consciences. "Most men's minds or consciences are weak, silly and ignorant things, acted by fond and absurd principles and imposed upon by their vices and their passions." (7.) "However, if the obligation of laws must yield to that of a tender conscience, how impregnably is every man that has a mind to disobey armed against all the commands of his superiors. No authority shall be able to govern him farther than he himself pleases, and if he dislike the law he is sufficiently excused (268). A weak conscience is the product of a weak understanding, and he is a very subtil man that can find the difference between a tender head and a tender conscience (269). It is a glorious thing to suffer for a tender conscience, and therefore it is easy and natural for some people to affect some little scruples against the commands of authority, thereby to make themselves obnoxious to some little penalties, and then what godly men are they that are so ready to be punished for a good conscience" (278). "The voice of the publick law cannot but drown the uncertain whispers of a tender conscience; all its scruples are hushed and silenced by the commands of authority. It dares not whimper when that forbids, and the nod of a prince awes it into silence and submission. But if they dare to murmur, and their proud stomachs will swell against the rebukes of their superiors, then there is no remedy but the rod and correction. They must be chastised out of their peevishness and lashed into obedience (305). The doctor concludes his treatise with the words always dear to men of fluctuating opinions, 'What I have written, I have written'" (326).

Whilst Parker was writing this book in his snug quarters in the Archbishop's palace at Lambeth, Bunyan was in prison in Bedford for refusing to take the communion on his knees in his parish church; and Dr. Manton, who had been offered the Deanery of Rochester, was in the Gate House Prison under the Five Mile Act.

The first part of The Rehearsal Transprosed, though its sub-title is "Animadversions upon a late book intituled a Preface shewing what grounds there are of Fears and Jealousies of Popery," deals after Marvell's own fashion with all three of Parker's books, the Ecclesiastical Politie, the Bramhall Preface, and the Defence of the Ecclesiastical Politie. It is by no means so easy to give a fair notion of the Rehearsal Transprosed in a short compass, as it was of Parker's line of argument. The parson wrote more closely than the Member of Parliament. I cannot give a better description of Marvell's method than in Parker's own words in his preface to his Reproof to the Rehearsal Transprosed, which appeared in 1673 and gave rise to Marvell's second part:—

"When," writes Parker, "I first condemned myself to the drudgery of this Reply, I intended nothing but a serious prosecution of my Argument, and to let the World see that it is not reading Histories or Plays or Gazettes, nor going on pilgrimage to Geneva, nor learning French and Italian, nor passing the Alps, nor being a cunning Gamester that can qualify a man to discourse of Conscience and Ecclesiastical Policy; in that it is not capping our Argument with a story that will answer it, nor clapping an apothegm upon an assertion that will prove it, nor stringing up Proverbs and Similitudes upon one another that will make up a Coherent Discourse."

Allowing for bias this is no unfair account of Marvell's method, and it was just because this was Marvell's method that he succeeded so well in amusing the king and in pleasing the town, and that he may still be read by those who love reading with a fair measure of interest and enjoyment.

Witty and humorous men are always at a disadvantage except on the stage. The hum-drum is the style for Englishmen. Bishop Burnet calls Marvell "a droll," Parker, who was to be a bishop, calls him "a buffoon." Marvell is occasionally humorous and not infrequently carries a jest beyond the limits of becoming mirth; but he is more often grave. Yet when he is, his gravity was treated either as one of his feebler jokes or as an impertinence. But as it is his wit alone that has kept him alive he need not be pitied overmuch.

The substance of Marvell's reply to Parker, apart altogether from its by-play, is to be found in passages like the following:—

"Here it is that after so great an excess of wit, he thinks fit to take a julep and re-settle his brain and the government. He grows as serious as 'tis possible for a madman, and pretends to sum-up the whole state of the controversy with the Nonconformists. And to be sure he will make the story as plausible for himself as he may; but therefore it was that I have before so particularly quoted and bound him up with his own words as fast as such a Proteus could be pinion'd. For he is as waxen as the first matter, and no form comes amiss to him. Every change of posture does either alter his opinion or vary the expression by which we should judge of it; and sitting he is of one mind, and standing of another. Therefore I take myself the less concern'd to fight with a windmill like Quixote; or to whip a gig as boyes do; or with the lacqueys at Charing-Cross or Lincoln's-Inn-Fields to play at the Wheel of Fortune; lest I should fall into the hands of my Lord Chief-Justice, or Sir Edmond Godfrey. The truth is, in short, and let Bayes make more or less of it if he can, Bayes had at first built-up such a stupendous magistrate as never was of God's making. He had put all princes upon the rack to stretch them to his dimension. And as a straight line continued grows a circle, he had given them so infinite a power, that it was extended unto impotency. For though he found it not till it was too late in the cause, yet he felt it all along (which is the understanding of brutes) in the effect. For hence it is that he so often complains that princes know not aright that supremacy over consciences, to which they were so lately, since their deserting the Church of Rome, restored; that in most Nations government was not rightly understood, and many expressions of that nature: whereas indeed the matter is, that princes have always found that uncontroulable government over conscience to be both unsafe and impracticable. He had run himself here to a stand, and perceived that there was a God, there was Scripture; the magistrate himself had a conscience, and must 'take care that he did not enjoyn things apparently evil.' But after all, he finds himself again at the same stand here, and is run up to the wall by an angel. God, and Scripture, and conscience will not let him go further; but he owns, that if the magistrate enjoyns things apparently evil, the subject may have liberty to remonstrate. What shall he do, then? for it is too glorious an enterprize to be abandoned at the first rebuffe. Why, he gives us a new translation of the Bible, and a new commentary! He saith, that tenderness of conscience might be allowed in a Church to be constituted, not in a Church constituted already. That tenderness of conscience and scandal are ignorance, pride, and obstinacy. He saith, the Nonconformists should communicate with him till they have clear evidence that it is evil. This is a civil way indeed of gaining the question, to perswade men that are unsatisfied, to be satisfied till they be dissatisfied. He threatens, he rails, he jeers them, if it were possible, out of all their consciences and honesty; and finding that will not do, he calls out the magistrate, tells him these men are not fit to live; there can be no security of government while they are in being. Bring out the pillories, whipping-posts, gallies (=galleys), rods, and axes (which are ratio ultima cleri, a clergyman's last argument, ay and his first too), and pull in pieces all the Trading Corporations, those nests of Faction and Sedition. This is a faithful account of the sum and intention of all his undertaking, for which, I confess, he was as pick'd a man as could have been employed or found out in a whole kingdome; but it is so much too hard a task for any man to atchieve, that no goose but would grow giddy with it."[165:1]

In reply to what Parker had written about the unreasonable fuss made by the Dissenters over the "two or three symbolical ceremonies" called sacraments, Marvell says:—

"They (the Nonconformists) complain that these things should be imposed on them with so high a penalty as want nothing of a sacramental nature but divine institution. And because a human institution is herein made of equal force to a divine institution therefore it is that they are aggrieved.... For without the sign of the Cross our Church will not receive any one in Baptism; as also without kneeling no man is suffered to come to the Communion.... But here, I say, then is their (the Nonconformists') main exception that things indifferent and that have no proper signature or significancy to that purpose should by command be made conditions of Church-communion. I have many times wished for peaceableness' sake that they had a greater latitude, but if, unless they should stretch their consciences till they tear again, they cannot conform, what remedy? For I must confess that Christians have a better right and title to the Church and to the ordinances of God there, than the Author hath to his surplice.... Bishop Bramhall saith, 'I do profess to all the world that the transforming of indifferent opinions into necessary articles of faith hath been that insana laurus or cursed bay tree, the cause of all our brawling and contention.' That which he saw in matter of doctrine, he would not discern in discipline.... It is true and very piously done that our Church doth declare that the kneeling at the Lord's Supper is not enjoined for adoration of those elements and concerning the other ceremonies as before. But the Romanists (from whom we have them and who said of old we would come to feed on their meat as well as eat of their porridge) do offer us here many a fair declaration and distinction in very weighty matters to which nevertheless the conscience of our Church hath not complyed. But in this particular matter of kneeling which came in first with the doctrine of transubstantiation, the Romish Church do reproach us with flat idolatry, in that we, not believing the real presence in the bread and wine, yet do pay to something or other the same adoration. Suppose the ancient pagans had declared to the primitive Christians that the offerings of some grains of incense was only to perfume the room—do you think the Christians would have palliated so far and colluded with their consciences? Therefore although the Church do consider herself so much as not to alter her mode unto the fashion of others, yet I cannot see why she ought to exclude those from communion whose weaker consciences cannot, for fear of scandal, step further."[166:1]

With Parker's thunders and threats of the authority of princes and states, Marvell deals more in the mood of a statesman than of a philosopher, more as a man of affairs than as a jurist. He deplores the ferocity of Parker's tone and that of a certain number of the clergy.

"Why is it," he asks, "that this kind of clergy should always be and have been for the most precipitate, brutish, and sanguinary counsels? The former Civil War cannot make them wise, nor his Majesty's happy return good-natured, but they are still for running things up unto the same extremes. The softness of the Universities where they have been bred, the gentleness of Christianity, in which they have been nurtured, hath but exasperated their nature, and they seem to have contracted no idea of wisdom but what they learnt at school—the pedantry of Whipping. For whether it be or no that the clergy are not so well fitted by education as others for political affairs I know not, though I should rather think they have advantage above others, and even if they would but keep to their Bibles, might make the best Ministers of State in the world; yet it is generally observed that things miscarry under their government. If there be any council more precipitate, more violent, more extreme than other, it is theirs. Truly, I think the reason that God does not bless them in affairs of State is because he never intended them for that employment."[167:1]

Of Archbishop Laud and Charles the First, Marvell says:—

"I am confident the Bishop studied to do both God and his Majesty good service; but alas, how utterly was he mistaken. Though so learned, so pious, so wise a man, he seem'd to know nothing beyond Ceremonies, Armenianism, and Mainwaring. With that he begun, with that ended, and thereby deform'd the whole reign of the best prince that ever wielded the English sceptre. For his late Majesty, being a prince truly pious and religious, was therefore the more inclined to esteem and favour the clergy. And thence, though himself of a most exquisite understanding, yet he could not trust it better than in their treatment. Whereas every man is best at his own post, and so the preacher in the pulpit."[167:2]

Kings, Marvell points out to Parker, must take wider views than parsons.

"'Tis not with them as with you. You have but one cure of souls, or perhaps two as being a nobleman's chaplain, to look after, and if you made conscience of discharging them as you ought, you would find you had work sufficient without writing your 'Ecclesiastical Policies.' But they are the incumbents of whole kingdoms, and the rectorship of the common people, the nobility, and even of the clergy. The care I say of all this rests on them, so that they are fain to condescend to many things for peace sake and the quiet of mankind that your proud heart would break before it would bend to. They do not think fit to require any thing that is impossible, unnecessary or wanton of their people, but are fain to consider the very temper of the climate in which they live, the constitution and laws under which they have been formerly bred, and upon all occasions to give them good words and humour them like children. They reflect upon the histories of former times and the present transactions to regulate themselves by in every circumstance.... They (Kings) do not think fit to command things unnecessary."[168:1]

These extracts, however fatal to Marvell's traditional reputation in the eighteenth century as a Puritan and a Republican, call for no apology.

An example of Marvell's Interludes ought to be given. There are many to choose from.

"There was a worthy divine, not many years dead, who in his younger time, being of a facetious and unlucky humour, was commonly known by the name of Tom Triplet; he was brought up at Paul's school under a severe master, Dr. Gill, and from thence he went to the University. There he took liberty (as 'tis usual with those that are emancipated from School) to tel tales and make the discipline ridiculous under which he was bred. But not suspecting the doctor's intelligence, coming once to town he went in full school to give him a visite and expected no less than to get a play day for his former acquaintances. But instead of that he found himself hors'd up in a trice, though he appeal'd in vain to the priviledges of the University, pleaded adultus and invoked the mercy of the spectators. Nor was he let down till the master had planted a grove of birch in his back-side for the terrour and publick example of all waggs that divulge the secrets of Priscian and make merry with their teachers. This stuck so with Triplet that all his life-time he never forgave the doctor, but sent him every New Year's tide an anniversary ballad to a new tune, and so in his turn avenged himself of his jerking pedagogue."[168:2]

Marvell's game of picquet with a parson plays such a part in Parker's Reproof to the Rehearsal Transprosed that it deserves to be mentioned:—

"'Tis not very many years ago that I used to play at picket; there was a gentleman of your robe, a dignitory of Lincoln, very well known and remembered in the ordinaries, but being not long since dead, I will save his name. Now I used to play pieces, and this gentleman would always go half-a-crown with me; and so all the while he sate on my hand he very honestly 'gave the sign' so that I was always sure to lose. I afterwards discovered it, but of all the money that ever I was cheated of in my life, none ever vexed me so as what I lost by his occasion."[169:1]

There is no need to pursue the controversy further. It is still unsettled.

Parker's Reproof, published in 1673, is less argumentative and naturally enough more personal than the Ecclesiastical Politie. Any use I now make of it will be purely biographical. Let us see Andrew Marvell depicted by an angry parson—not in passages of mere abuse, as e.g. "Thou dastard Craven, thou Swad, thou Mushroom, thou coward in heart, word and deed, thou Judas, thou Crocodile"; for epithets such as these are of no use to a biographer—but in places where Marvell is at least made to sit for the portrait, however ill-natured.

"And if I would study revenge I could easily have requited you with the Novels of a certain Jack Gentleman, that was born of pure parents and bred among cabin-boys, and sent from school to the University and from the University to the Gaming Ordinaries, but the young man, being easily rooked by the old Gamesters, he was sent abroad to gain courage and experience, and beyond sea saw the Bears of Berne and the large race of Capons at Geneva, and a great many fine sights beside, and so returned home as accomplished as he went out, tries his fortune once more at the Ordinaries, plays too high for a gentleman of his private condition, and so is at length cheated of all at Picquet." ... "And now to conclude; is it not a sad thing that a well-bred and fashionable gentleman that has frequented Ordinaries, that has worn Perukes and Muffs and Pantaloons and was once Master of a Watch, that has travelled abroad and seen as many men and countries as the famous Vertuosi, Sorbier and Coriat, that has heard the City Lions roar, that has past the Alps and seen all the Tredescin rarities and old stones of Italy, that has sat in the Porphyric Chair at Rome, that can describe the methods of the Elections of Popes and tell stories of the tricks of Cardinals, that has been employed in Embassies abroad and acquainted with Intrigues of State at home, that has read Plays and Histories and Gazettes; that I say a Gentleman thus accomplished and embellished within and without and all over, should ever live to that unhappy dotage as at last to dishonour his grey hairs and his venerable age with such childish and impotent endeavours at wit and buffoonery."—(Reproof, pp. 270, 274-5.)[170:1]

Marvell was very little over fifty years of his age at this time, nor is Parker's portrait to be regarded as truthful in any other particular—yet something of a man's character may be discovered by noticing the way he is abused by those who want to abuse him.

Marvell, though no orator, or even debater, was the stuff of which controversialists are made. In a letter, printed in the Duke of Portland's papers, and dated May 3, 1673, he writes:—

"Dr. Parker will be out the next week. I have seen it—already three hundred and thirty pages and it will be much more. (It was five hundred twenty-eight pages.) I perceive by what I have read that it is the rudest book, one or other, that ever was published, I may say since the first invention of printing. Although it handles me so roughly, yet I am not at all amated by it. But I must desire the advice of some few friends to tell me whether it will be proper for me and in what way to answer it. However I will for mine own private satisfaction forthwith draw up an answer that shall have as much of spirit and solidity in it as my ability will afford and the age we live in will endure. I am, if I may say it with reverence, drawn in I hope by a good Providence to intermeddle on a noble and high argument. But I desire that all the discourse of my friends may run as if no answer ought to be expected to so scurrilous a book."—(Hist. MSS. Comm., Portland Papers, iii. 337.)

The title-page of the Second Part of the Rehearsal Transprosed is a curiosity:—

THE REHEARSALL TRANSPROS'D:

* * * * *

THE SECOND PART.

* * * * *

Occasioned by Two Letters: The first Printed by a nameless Author, Intituled, A Reproof, etc.

The Second Letter left for me at a Friends House, Dated Nov. 3, 1673. Subscribed J.G. and concluding with these words; If thou darest to Print or Publish any Lie or Libel against Doctor Parker, By the Eternal God I will cut thy Throat.

* * * * *

Answered by ANDREW MARVEL.

* * * * *

LONDON,

Printed for Nathaniel Ponder at the Peacock in Chancery Lane near Fleet-Street, 1673.

The Second Part is an exceedingly witty though too lengthy a performance. Marvell's "companion picture" of Parker is full of matter, and of the very spirit of the times. Some of it must be given:—

"But though he came of a good mother, he had a very ill sire. He was a man bred toward the Law, and betook himself, as his best practice, to be a sub-committee-man, or, as the stile ran, one of the Assistant Committee in Northamptonshire. In the rapine of that employment, and what he got by picking the teeth of his masters, he sustain'd himself till he had raked together some little estate. And then, being a man for the purpose, and that had begun his fortune out of the sequestration of the estates of the King's Party, he, to perfect it the more, proceeded to take away their lives; not in the hot and military way (which diminishes always the offence), but in the cooler blood and sedentary execution of an High Court of Justice. Accordingly he was preferr'd to be one of that number that gave sentence against the three Lords, Capel, Holland, and Hamilton, who were beheaded. By this learning in the Law he became worthy of the degree of a serjeant, and sometimes to go the Circuit, till for misdemeanor he was petition'd against. But for a taste of his abilities, and the more to reingratiate himself, he printed, in the year 1650, a very remarkable Book, called 'The Government of the People of England, precedent and present the same. Ad subscribentes confirmandum, Dubitantes informandum, Opponentes convincendum; and underneath Multa videntur quae non sunt, multa sunt quae non videntur. Under that ingraven two hands joyn'd, with the motto, Ut uniamur; and beneath a sheaf of arrows, with this device, Vis unita fortior; and to conclude, Concordia parvae res crescunt discordia dilabuntur.' A most hieroglyphical title, and sufficient to have supplied the mantlings and atchievements of the family! By these parents he was sent to Oxford, with intention to breed him up to the ministry. There in a short time he enter'd himself into the company of some young students who were used to fast and pray weekly together; but for their refection fed sometimes on broth, from whence they were commonly called Grewellers; only it was observed that he was wont still to put more graves than all the rest in his porridge. And after that he pick'd acquaintance not only with the brotherhood at Wadham Colledge, but with the sisterhood too, at another old Elsibeth's, one Elizabeth Hampton's, a plain devout woman, where he train'd himself up in hearing their sermons and prayers, receiving also the Sacrament in the house, till he had gain'd such proficience, that he too began to exercise in that Meeting, and was esteem'd one of the preciousest young men in the University. But when thus, after several years' approbation, he was even ready to have taken the charge, not of an 'admiring drove or heard,' as he now calls them, but of a flock upon him, by great misfortune the King came in by the miraculous providence of God, influencing the distractions of some, the good affections of others, and the weariness of all towards that happy Restauration, after so many sufferings, to his regal crown and dignity. Nevertheless he broke not off yet from his former habitudes; and though it were now too late to obviate this inconvenience, yet he persisted as far as in him was—that is, by praying, caballing, and discoursing—to obstruct the restoring of the episcopal government, revenues, and authority. Insomuch that, finding himself discountenanced on those accounts by the then Warden of Wadham, he shifted colledges to Trinity, and, when there, went away without his degree, scrupling, forsooth, the Subscription then required. From thence he came to London, where he spent a considerable time in creeping into all corners and companies, horoscoping up and down concerning the duration of the Government; not considering anything as best, but as most lasting and most profitable. And after having many times cast a figure, he at last satisfyed himself that the Episcopal Government would endure as long as this King lived; and from thence forward cast about how to be admitted into the Church of England, and find the highway to her preferments. In order to this he daily enlarged, not only his conversation, but his conscience, and was made free of some of the town-vices; imagining, like Muleasses King of Tunis (for I take witness that on all occasions I treat him rather above his quality than otherwise), that by hiding himself among the onions, he should escape being traced by his perfumes. Ignorant and mistaken man, that thought it necessary to part with any virtue to get a living; or that the Church of England did not require and incourage more sobriety than he could ever be guilty of; whereas it hath alwayes been fruitful of men who, together with obedience to that discipline, have lived to the envy of the Nonconformists in their conversation, and without such could never either have been preserved so long, or after so long a dissipation have ever recover'd. But neither was this yet, in his opinion, sufficient; and therefore he resolv'd to try a shorter path, which some few men had trod not unsuccessfully; that is, to print a Book; if that would not do, a second; if not that, a third of an higher extraction, and so forward, to give experiment against their former party of a keen stile and a ductile judgment. His first proof-piece was in the year 1665, the Tentamina Physico-Theologica; a tedious transcript of his common-place book, wherein there is very little of his own, but the arrogance and the unparalleled censoriousness that he exercises over all other Writers. When he had cook'd up these musty collections, he makes his first invitation to his 'old acquaintance' my lord Archbishop of Canterbury, who had never seen before nor heard of him. But I must confess he furbishes-up his Grace in so glorious an Epistle, that had not my Lord been long since proof against the most spiritual flattery, the Dedication only, without ever reading the Book, might have serv'd to have fix'd him from that instant as his favourite. Yet all this I perceive did not his work, but his Grace was so unmindful, or rather so prudent, that the gentleman thought it necessary to spur-up again the next year with another new Book, to show more plainly what he would be at. This he dedicates to Doctor Bathurst; and to evidence from the very Epistle that he was ready to renounce that very education, the civility of which he is so tender of as to blame me for disordering it, he picks occasion to tell him: 'to your prevailing advice, Sir, do I owe my first rescue from the chains and fetters of an unhappy education.' But in the Book, which he calls 'A free and impartial Censure of the Platonick Philosophy' (censure 'tis sure to be, whatsoever he writes), he speaks out, and demonstrates himself ready and equipp'd to surrender not only the Cause, but betray his Party without making any conditions for them, and to appear forthwith himself in the head of the contrary interest. Which, supposing the dispute to be just, yet in him was so mercenary, that none would have descended to act his part but a divine of fortune. And even lawyers take themselves excused from being of counsel for the King himself, in a cause where they have been entertain'd and instructed by their client. But so flippant he was and forward in this book, that in despight of all chronology, he could introduce Plato to inveigh against Calvin, and from the Platoniques he could miraculously hook-in a Discourse against the Nonconformists. (Cens. Plat. Phil., pp. 26, 27, 28, etc.) After this feat of activity he was ready to leap over the moon; no scruple of conscience could stand in his way, and no preferment seemed too high for him; for about this time, I find that having taken a turn at Cambridge to qualifie himself, he was received within doors to be my Lord Archbishop's other chaplain, and into some degree of favour; which, considering the difference of their humours and ages, was somewhat surprizing. But whether indeed, in times of heat and faction, the most temperate spirits may sometimes chance to take delight in one that is spightful, and make some use of him; or whether it be that even the most grave and serious persons do for relaxation divert themselves willingly by whiles with a creature that is unlucky, inimical, and gamesome,—so it was. And thenceforward the nimble gentleman danced upon bell-ropes, vaulted from steeple to steeple, and cut capers out of one dignity to another. Having thus dexterously stuck his groat in Lambeth wainscot, it may easily be conceived he would be unwilling to lose it; and therefore he concern'd himself highly, and even to jealousie, in upholding now that palace, which, if falling, he would out of instinct be the first should leave it. His Majesty about that time labouring to effect his constant promises of Indulgence to his people, the Author therefore walking with his own shadow in the evening, took a great fright lest all were agoe. And in this conceit being resolv'd to make good his figure, and that one government should not last any longer than the other, he set himself to write those dangerous Books which I have now to do with; wherein he first makes all that he will to be Law, and then whatsoever is Law to be Divinity."[176:1]

The Second Part is not all raillery. There is much wisdom in it and a trace of Machiavelli:—

"But because you are subject to misconstrue even true English, I will explain my self as distinctly as I can, and as close as possible, what is mine own opinion in this matter of the magistrate and government; that, seeing I have blamed you where I thought you blame-worthy, you may have as fair hold of me too, if you can find where to fix your accusation.

"The power of the magistrate does most certainly issue from the divine authority. The obedience due to that power is by divine command; and subjects are bound, both as men and as Christians, to obey the magistrate actively in all things where their duty to God intercedes not, and however passively, that is, either by leaving their countrey, or if they cannot do that (the magistrate, or the reason of their own occasions hindring them), then by suffering patiently at home, without giving the least publick disturbance. But the dispute concerning the magistrate's power ought to be superfluous; for that it is certainly founded upon his commission from God, and for the most part sufficiently fortified with all humane advantages. There are few soveraign princes so abridged, but that, if they be not contented, they may envy their own fortune. But the modester question (if men will needs be medling with matters above them) would be, how far it is advisable for a prince to exert and push the rigour of that power which no man can deny him; for princes, as they derive the right of succession from their ancestors, so they inherit from that ancient and illustrious extraction a generosity that runs in the blood above the allay of the rest of mankind. And being moreover at so much ease of honour and fortune, that they are free from the gripes of avarice and twinges of ambition, they are the more disposed to an universal benignity toward their subjects. What prince that sees so many millions of men, either labouring industriously toward his revenue, or adventuring their lives in his service, and all of them performing his commands with a religious obedience, but conceives at the same time a relenting tenderness over them, whereof others out of the narrowness of their minds cannot be capable? But whoever shall cast his eye thorow the history of all ages, will find that nothing has alwayes succeeded better with princes then the clemency of government; and that those, on the contrary, who have taken the sanguinary course, have been unfortunate to themselves and the people, the consequences not being separable. For whether that royal and magnanimous gentleness spring from a propensity of their nature, or be acquired and confirmed by good and prudent consideration, it draws along with it all the effects of Policy. The wealth of a shepherd depends upon the multitude of his flock, the goodness of their pasture, and the quietness of their feeding; and princes, whose dominion over mankind resembles in some measure that of men over other creatures, cannot expect any considerable increase to themselves, if by continual terrour they amaze, shatter, and hare their people, driving them into woods, and running them upon precipices. If men do but compute how charming an efficacy one word, and more, one good action has from a superior upon those under him, it can scarce be reckon'd how powerful a magick there is in a prince who shall, by a constant tenour of humanity in government, go on daily gaining upon the affections of his people. There is not any privilege so dear, but it may be extorted from subjects by good usage, and by keeping them alwayes up in their good humour. I will not say what one prince may compass within his own time, or what a second, though surely much may be done; but it is enough if a great and durable design be accomplish'd in the third life; and supposing an hereditary succession of any three taking up still where the other left, and dealing still in that fair and tender way of management, it is impossible but that, even without reach or intention upon the prince's part, all should fall into his hand, and in so short a time the very memory or thoughts of any such thing as publick liberty would, as it were by consent, expire and be for ever extinguish'd. So that whatever the power of the magistrate be in the institution, it is much safer for them not to do that with the left hand which they may do with the right, nor by an extraordinary, what they may effect by the ordinary, way of government. A prince that goes to the top of his power is like him that shall go to the bottom of his treasure."[178:1]

And as for the "common people" he has this to say:—

"Yet neither do they want the use of reason, and perhaps their aggregated judgment discerns most truly the errours of government, forasmuch as they are the first, to be sure, that smart under them. In this only they come to be short-sighted, that though they know the diseases, they understand not the remedies; and though good patients, they are ill physicians. The magistrate only is authorized, qualified, and capable to make a just and effectual Reformation, and especially among the Ecclesiasticks. For in all experience, as far as I can remember, they have never been forward to save the prince that labour. If they had, there would have been no Wickliffe, no Husse, no Luther in history. Or at least, upon so notable an emergency as the last, the Church of Rome would then in the Council of Trent have thought of rectifying itself in good earnest, that it might have recover'd its ancient character; whereas it left the same divisions much wider, and the Christian people of the world to suffer, Protestants under Popish governors, Popish under Protestants, rather than let go any point of interested ambition."[178:2]

FOOTNOTES:

[152:1] "But the most virulent of all that writ against the sect was Parker, afterwards made Bishop of Oxford by King James: who was full of satirical vivacity and was considerably learned, but was a man of no judgment and of as little virtue, and as to religion rather impious: after he had for some years entertained the nation with several virulent books writ with much life, he was attacked by the liveliest droll of the age, who writ in a burlesque strain but with so peculiar and entertaining a conduct that from the King down to the tradesman his books were read with great pleasure, that not only humbled Parker but the whole party, for the author of the Rehearsal Transprosed had all the men of wit (or as the French phrase it all the laughers) on his side."—Burnet's History of his Own Time.

[152:2] See the dedication to A Free and Impartial Censure of the Plutonick Philosophy, by Sam Parker, A.M., Oxford 1666. Parker was a man of some taste, and I have in my small collection a beautifully bound copy of this treatise presented by the author to Seth Ward, then Bishop of Exeter, and afterwards of Salisbury.

[165:1] Grosart, vol. iii. pp. 145-8.

[166:1] Grosart, vol. iii. pp. 155-9.

[167:1] Grosart, vol. iii. pp. 170, 210-1.

[167:2] Grosart, vol. iii. p. 211.

[168:1] Grosart, vol. iii. p. 171.

[168:2] Grosart, vol. iii. p. 63.

[169:1] Grosart, vol. iii. p. 198.

[170:1] For a still more unfriendly sketch of Andrew Marvell by the same spiteful hand, see Parker's History of his Own Time, a posthumous work, first published in Latin in 1726, and in an English Translation by Thomas Newlin in 1727. This book contains an interesting enumeration of the numerous conspiracies against the life and throne of Charles the Second during the earlier part of his reign, a panegyric upon Archbishop Sheldon and plentiful abuse of Andrew Marvell. Parker died in unhappy circumstances (see Macaulay's History, vol. ii. p. 205), but he left behind him a pious nonjuring son, and his grandson founded the famous publishing firm at Oxford.

[176:1] Grosart, vol. iii. p. 284.

[178:1] Grosart, vol. iii. p. 370.

[178:2] Ibid., p. 382.



CHAPTER VI

LAST YEARS IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS

Marvell's last ten years in the House of Commons were made miserable by the passionate conviction that there existed in high quarters of the State a deep, dangerous, and well-considered plot to subvert the Protestant faith and to destroy by armed force Parliamentary Government in England. Marvell was not the victim of a delusion. Such a plot, plan, or purpose undoubtedly existed, though, as it failed, it is now easy to consider the alarm it created to have been exaggerated.

Marvell was, of all public men then living, the one most deeply imbued with the spirit of our free constitution. Its checks and balances jumped with his humour. His nature was without any taint of fanaticism, nor was he anything of the doctrinaire. He was neither a Richard Baxter nor a John Locke. He had none of the pure Erastianism of Selden, who tells us in his inimitable, cold-blooded way that "a King is a King men have made for their own sakes, for quietness' sake." "Just as in a family one man is appointed to buy the meat," and that "there is no such thing as spiritual jurisdiction; all is civil, the Church's is the same with the Lord Mayor's. The Pope he challenges jurisdiction over all; the Bishops they pretend to it as well as he; the Presbyterians they would have it to themselves, but over whom is all this, the poor layman" (see Selden's Table Talk).

This may be excellent good sense but it does not represent Marvell's way of looking at things. He thought more nobly of both church and king.

In Marvell's last book, his famous pamphlet "An Account of the Growth of Popery and Arbitrary Government in England," printed at Amsterdam and recommended to the reading of all English Protestants, 1678, which made a prodigious stir and (it is sad to think) paved the way for the "Popish Plot," Marvell sets forth his view of our constitution in language as lofty as it is precise. I know no passage in any of our institutional writers of equal merit.

"For if first we consider the State, the kings of England rule not upon the same terms with those of our neighbour nations, who, having by force or by address usurped that due share which their people had in the government, are now for some ages in the possession of an arbitrary power (which yet no prescription can make legal) and exercise it over their persons and estates in a most tyrannical manner. But here the subjects retain their proportion in the Legislature; the very meanest commoner of England is represented in Parliament, and is a party to those laws by which the Prince is sworn to govern himself and his people. No money is to be levied but by the common consent. No man is for life, limb, goods, or liberty, at the Sovereign's discretion: but we have the same right (modestly understood) in our propriety that the prince hath in his regality: and in all cases where the King is concerned, we have our just remedy as against any private person of the neighbourhood, in the Courts of Westminster Hall or in the High Court of Parliament. His very Prerogative is no more than what the Law has determined. His Broad Seal, which is the legitimate stamp of his pleasure, yet is no longer currant, than upon the trial it is found to be legal. He cannot commit any person by his particular warrant. He cannot himself be witness in any cause: the balance of publick justice being so delicate, that not the hand only but even the breath of the Prince would turn the scale. Nothing is left to the King's will, but all is subjected to his authority: by which means it follows that he can do no wrong, nor can he receive wrong; and a King of England keeping to these measures, may without arrogance, be said to remain the onely intelligent Ruler over a rational People. In recompense therefore and acknowledgment of so good a Government under his influence, his person is most sacred and inviolable; and whatsoever excesses are committed against so high a trust, nothing of them is imputed to him, as being free from the necessity or temptation; but his ministers only are accountable for all, and must answer it at their perils. He hath a vast revenue constantly arising from the hearth of the Householder, the sweat of the Labourer, the rent of the Farmer, the industry of the Merchant, and consequently out of the estate of the Gentleman: a large competence to defray the ordinary expense of the Crown, and maintain its lustre. And if any extraordinary occasion happen, or be but with any probable decency pretended, the whole Land at whatsoever season of the year does yield him a plentiful harvest. So forward are his people's affections to give even to superfluity, that a forainer (or Englishman that hath been long abroad) would think they could neither will nor chuse, but that the asking of a supply were a meer formality, it is so readily granted. He is the fountain of all honours, and has moreover the distribution of so many profitable offices of the Household, of the Revenue, of State, of Law, of Religion, of the Navy and (since his present Majestie's time) of the Army, that it seems as if the Nation could scarce furnish honest men enow to supply all those imployments. So that the Kings of England are in nothing inferiour to other Princes, save in being more abridged from injuring their own subjects: but have as large a field as any of external felicity, wherein to exercise their own virtue, and so reward and incourage it in others. In short, there is nothing that comes nearer in Government to the Divine Perfection, than where the Monarch, as with us, injoys a capacity of doing all the good imaginable to mankind, under a disability to all that is evil."[181:1]

This was the constitution which Marvell, whose means of information were great and whose curiosity was insatiable, believed to be in danger. No wonder he was agitated.

The politics in which Marvell was immersed during his last years are difficult to unravel and still more difficult to illuminate, for they had their dim origin in the secret thoughts and wavering purposes of the king.

Charles the Second, like many another Englishman guiltless of Stuart blood in his veins, was mainly governed by his dislikes, his pleasures, and his financial necessities. To suppose, as some hasty moralisers have done, that Charles cared for nothing but his women is to misread his character. He had many qualifications to be the chief magistrate of a nation of shopkeepers. He was ever alive to the supreme importance of English trade upon the high seas. His thoughts were often turned in the direction of the Indies, east and west. He took a constant, though not always an honest, interest in the navy. He hated Holland for more reasons than one, but among these reasons was his hatred of England's most formidable and malicious trade competitor. He also disliked her arid and ugly Protestantism, and blood being thicker than water, he hated Holland for what he considered her shabby treatment of his youthful nephew, whose ultimate destiny was happily hidden from Whitehall. Among Charles's many dislikes must be included the Anglican bishops, who had prevented him from keeping his word, and foiled his purpose of a wide toleration. He envied his brother of France the wide culture, the literature and art of Catholicism. He regretted the Reformation, and would have been best pleased to see the English Church in communion with Rome and in possession of "Anglican liberties" akin to those enjoyed by the Gallican Church. Charles was also jealous of Louis the Fourteenth, and in many moods had no mind to play perpetually a second fiddle. He longed for a navy to sweep the seas, for an army strong enough to keep his Parliament in check, and for liberty for himself and for all those of his subjects who were so minded, to hear Mass on Sundays. Behind, and above, and always surrounding these desires and dislikes, was an ever-present, ever-pressing need for money. Like a royal Becky Sharp, Charles might have found it easy to be a patriotic king on five millions a year.

The king was his own Foreign Minister, and being what he was, and swayed by the considerations I have imperfectly described, his foreign policy was necessarily tortuous and perplexing. As Ranke says, "Charles was capable of proposing offensive alliances to the three neighbouring powers, to the Dutch against France, to the French against Spain and Holland, to the Spaniards against France to the detriment of Holland, but in these propositions two fundamental views always recur—demands for money, and assurance of world-wide commerce for England."[183:1]

Charles first allowed Sir William Temple, a cool, prudent man, to form, in a famous five days' negotiation, the defensive treaty with Holland, which, after Sweden had joined it, became known as the Triple Alliance (1668). This alliance had for its objects mutual promises between the contracting parties to come to each other's assistance by sea and land if attacked by any power (France being here intended), to force Spain to make peace with France on the terms already offered, and to compel France to keep those terms when agreed to by Spain.

The Triple Alliance was not only very popular in England, but was good diplomacy, for it was quite within the range of practical politics that France and Holland might have combined against England; nor could it easily be maintained that the alliance was hostile to France, as it provided that Spain should be forced to accept the terms France had already proposed.

What wrecked the Triple Alliance and prepared the way for the secret Treaty of Dover (1670), was the impossibility of settling those religious difficulties which, despite the Act of Uniformity, were more rampant than ever. The king wanted to patch up peace, and to secure some working plan of comprehension or composure, under cover of which the Catholic religion should be tolerated and Presbyterianism formally recognised. But, king though he was, he could not get his way. The Church and the House of Commons, full as the latter was of his pimps and pensioners, were as obstinate as mules in this matter of toleration. They would neither favour Papists nor Dissenters, protested against Indulgences as unconstitutional, and clamoured for a rigorous administration of that penal legislation against Nonconformists which they had purchased with so many and such lavish supplies. As a matter of fact, these penal laws were very fitfully enforced. In London they were often totally disregarded, and we read of congregations numbering two thousand openly attending Presbyterian services. The Lord Mayor for the time being took his orders direct from the king.

What was Charles to do? After the fall of Clarendon, the king's favourite privy councillors, called the "Cabal," because the initial letters of their names formed a word which for some time previously had been in common use, represent only too faithfully the confusion and corruption of the times. Clifford was a zealous Roman, Arlington a cautious one, Buckingham a free-thinker and mocker, friendly to France and on good terms with the more advanced English sectaries; Ashley made no pretence to be a Christian, but favoured philosophic toleration; whilst Lauderdale, one of the most learned ministers that ever sat in council (so Ranke says[185:1]), was, as a matter of profession, a Presbyterian, but in reality a man wholly and slavishly devoted to the king's interests, and prepared at any moment to pour into the kingdom soldiers from Scotland to purge or suppress all Free Institutions.

Irritated, disgusted, thwarted, and annoyed, the king, acting, it well may be, under the influence of his accomplished sister, the beautiful and ill-fated Duchess of Orleans, struck up, to use Marvell's own words, "an invisible league with France." The negotiations were either by word of mouth or by letters which have been burnt. Dr. Lingard in his history gives an interesting account of this mysterious transaction. Two things are apparent as the objects of the Treaty of Dover. The Dutch Republic is to be destroyed, and the cause of Catholicism in England is to be promoted and maintained. It was this latter object that seems most to have excited the hopes of the Duchess of Orleans. A woman's hand is traceable throughout. Charles promised to profess himself openly a Roman Catholic at the time that should appear to be most expedient, and subsequently to that profession he was to join with Louis in making war upon the Dutch Republic. At the date of this bewildering agreement, it was high treason by statute even to say that Charles was a Roman Catholic. In case the king's public conversion should lead to disturbances, Louis promised an "aid" of two millions of livres and an armed force of six thousand men. He also agreed to pay the whole cost of the Dutch War on land, and to contribute thirty men-of-war to the English fleet. Holland once crushed, England's share of the plunder was to be Walcheren, Sluys, and Cadsand. A remarkable conversion! It is difficult to suppose that either Charles or Louis were quite serious over this part of the business. Yet there it is. The Catholic provisions of the secret Treaty of Dover were only known to Clifford, whose soul was fired by them, and to Arlington, who did not share the confident hopes of his co-religionist. Clifford thought there were thousands of Englishmen "of light and leading" among the English Catholics who would be both willing and able to assume the burdens of the State and to rally round a Catholic king. Arlington thought otherwise.

The king's public conversion never took place. No hint was given of any such impending event. Parliament met on the 24th of October 1670, and after hearing a good deal about the Triple Alliance and voting large sums of money, was prorogued in April 1671, and did not meet again till February 1673.

To pick a quarrel with the Dutch was never difficult. Marvell tells us how it was done. "A sorry yacht, but bearing the English Jack, in August 1671 sails into the midst of the Dutch fleet, singles out the Admiral, shooting twice as they call it, sharp upon him. Which must sure have appeared as ridiculous and unnatural as for a lark to dare the hobby." The Dutch admiral asking "Why," was told "because he and his whole fleet had failed to strike sail to his small craft." The Dutch commander then "civilly excused it as a matter of the first instance, and in which he could have no instruction, therefore proper to be referred to their masters, and so they parted. The yacht having thus acquitted itself, returned fraught with the quarrel she was sent for."[187:1] Surinam was a perpetual casus belli. Some offence against the law of nations was always happening there. A third matter, very full of gunpowder, was made great use of by the promoters of the war already agreed upon. A picture had been hung at Dort representing De Witt sailing up the Medway very much in the manner described in Marvell's poem. Medals also had been struck and distributed in commemoration of the same event. War was declared against Holland by England and France in March 1672. The Declaration of War was preceded by the Declaration of Indulgence, whereby, wrote Marvell, "all the penal laws against Papists for which former Parliaments had given so many supplies, and against Nonconformists for which this Parliament had paid more largely, were at one instant suspended in order to defraud the nation of all that religion which they had so dearly purchased, and for which they ought at least, the bargain being broke, to have been reimbursed."[187:2]

The unconstitutional suspension of bad laws put lovers of freedom in a predicament. Marvell was what he calls a "composure," that is a "comprehension," man. In the Growth of Popery he sorrowfully admits that it is the gravest reproach of human wisdom that no man seems able or willing to find out the due temper of Government in divine matters.

"Insomuch that it is no great adventure to say, that the world was better ordered under the ancient monarchies and commonwealths, that the number of virtuous men was then greater, and that the Christians found fairer quarter under those than among themselves, nor hath there any advantage accrued unto mankind from that most perfect and practical model of humane society, except the speculation of a better way to future happiness, concerning which the very guides disagree, and of those few that follow, it will suffer no man to pass without paying at their turnpikes." (Vol. iv. p. 280.)

The French Alliance made the war, though with Holland, unpopular. Writers had to be hired to defend it. France was supposed to look on with much composure as her two maritime competitors battered each other's fleets. At sea the honours were divided between the Dutch and the English. On land Louis had it all his own way. Besides, rumours got abroad of an uncomfortable plot to restore Popery. Jesuits seemed to abound. Roman Catholics asserted themselves, the laws being suspended. An army was collected at Blackheath. The Treasury was closed. Charles had been badly bled by the goldsmiths or bankers, who had charged him L12 per cent.; but in commercial centres Acts of Bankruptcy are seldom popular, and though the bankers were compelled to be content with L6 per cent., the closing of the Treasury brought ruin into many homes.

When Parliament met in February 1673, its temper was bad. It would have nothing to do with the Declaration of Indulgence, and though the king had told them, in the round set terms he could so well command, that he was resolved to stick to his declaration, he had to give way and to see the House busy itself with a Test Bill that drove all Roman Catholics, from the Duke of York (who had "gone over" in the spring of 1672) downwards, out of office. The only effect of Charles's policy was to mitigate the hostility of the House of Commons to Protestant Dissenters, and to drive it to concentrate its jealousy upon the Catholics. Any lurking idea of the king declaring himself a Romanist had to be abandoned. His hatred of Parliament increased. He lost all sense of shame, and frankly became a pensioner of France. In 1676 he concluded a second secret treaty, whereby both Louis and himself bound themselves to enter into no engagements with other powers without consent, and in case of rebellion within their realms to come to each other's assistance. Louis agreed to make Charles an annual allowance of a hundred thousand, afterwards increased to two hundred thousand livres. This money was largely spent in bribing the House of Commons. The French ambassador was allowed an extra grant of a thousand crowns a month to keep a table for hungry legislators.[189:1] Did not Marvell do well to be angry?

Some of Marvell's letters belonging to this gloomy period are full of interest.

To William Ramsden, Esq. "Nov. 28, 1670.

"DEAR WILL,—I need not tell you I am always thinking of you. All that has happened, which is remarkable, since I wrote, is as follows: The Lieutenancy of London, chiefly Sterlin the Mayor, and Sir J. Robinson, alarmed the King continually with the Conventicles there. So the King sent them strict and large powers. The Duke of York every Sunday would come over thence to look to the peace. To say truth, they met in numerous open assemblys, without any dread of government. But the train bands in the city, and soldiery in Southwark and suburbs, harassed and abused them continually; they wounded many, and killed some Quakers especially, while they took all patiently. Hence arose two things of great remark. The Lieutenancy, having got orders to their mind, pick out Hays and Jekill, the innocentist of the whole party, to show their power on. They offer them illegal bonds of five thousand pounds a man, which if they would not enter into, they must go to prison. So they were committed, and at last (but it is a very long story) got free. Some friends engaged for them. The other was the tryal of Pen and Mead, quakers, at the Old Baily. The jury not finding them guilty, as the Recorder and Mayor would have had them, they were kept without meat or drink some three days, till almost starved, but would not alter their verdict; so fined and imprisoned. There is a book out which relates all the passages, which were very pertinent, of the prisoners, but prodigiously barbarous by the Mayor and Recorder. The Recorder, among the rest, commended the Spanish Inquisition, saying it would never be well till we had something like it. The King had occasion for sixty thousand pounds. Sent to borrow it of the city. Sterlin, Robinson, and all the rest of that faction, were at it many a week, and could not get above ten thousand. The fanatics under persecution, served his Majesty. The other party, both in court and city, would have prevented it. But the King protested mony would be acceptable. So the King patched up, out of the Chamber, and other ways, twenty thousand pounds. The fanatics, of all sorts, forty thousand. The King, though against many of his council, would have the Parliament sit this twenty-fourth of October. He, and the Keeper spoke of nothing but to have mony. Some one million three hundred thousand pounds, to pay off the debts at interest; and eight hundred thousand for a brave navy next Spring. Both speeches forbid to be printed, for the King said very little, and the Keeper, it was thought, too much in his politic simple discourse of foreign affairs. The House was thin and obsequious. They voted at first they would supply him according to his occasions, Nemine, as it was remarked, contradicente; but few affirmatives, rather a silence as of men ashamed and unwilling. Sir R. Howard, Seymour, Temple, Car, and Hollis, openly took leave of their former party, and fell to head the King's busyness. There is like to be a terrible Act of Conventicles. The Prince of Orange here is much made of. The King owes him a great deal of mony. The Paper is full.—I am yours," etc.

The trial of William Penn and William Mead at the Old Bailey for a tumultuous assembly, written by themselves, may be read in the State Trials, vol. vi. The trial was the occasion of Penn's famous remark to the Recorder of London, who, driven wellnigh distracted by Penn's dialectics, exclaimed, "If I should suffer you to ask questions till to-morrow morning you would never be the wiser." "That," replied Penn, "would be according as the answers are."

To William Ramsden, Esq. (Undated.)

"DEAR WILL,—The Parliament are still proceeding, but not much advanced on their eight hundred thousand pounds Bill on money at interest, offices, and lands; and the Excise Bills valued at four hundred thousand pounds a year. The first for the navy, which scarce will be set out. The last to be for paying one million three hundred thousand pounds, which the King owes at interest, and perhaps may be given for four, five, or six years, as the House chances to be in humour. But an accident happened which liked to have spoiled all: Sir John Coventry having moved for an imposition on the playhouses, Sir John Berkenhead, to excuse them, sayed they had been of great service to the King. Upon which Sir John Coventry desired that gentleman to explain whether he meant the men or the women players. Hereupon it is imagined, that, the House adjourning from Tuesday before till Thursday after Christmas-day, on the very Tuesday night of the adjournment, twenty-five of the Duke of Monmouth's troop, and some few foot, layed in wait from ten at night till two in the morning, by Suffolk-street, and as he returned from the Cock, where he supped, to his own house, they threw him down, and with a knife cut off almost the end of his nose; but company coming made them fearful to finish it, so they marched off. Sir Thomas Sands, lieutenant of the troop, commanded the party; and O'Brian, the Earl of Inchequin's son, was a principal actor. The Court hereupon sometimes thought to carry it with a high hand, and question Sir John for his words, and maintain the action. Sometimes they flagged in their counsels. However, the King commanded Sir Thomas Clarges, and Sir W. Pultney, to release Wroth and Lake, who were two of the actors, and taken. But the night before the House met they surrendered them again. The House being but sullen the next day, the Court did not oppose adjourning for some days longer till it was filled. Then the House went upon Coventry's busyness, and voted that they would go upon nothing else whatever till they had passed a Bill, as they did, for Sands, O'Brian, Parry, and Reeves, to come in by the sixteenth of February, or else be condemned, and never to be pardoned, but by an express Act of Parliament, and their names therein inserted, for fear of being pardoned in some general act of grace. Farther of all such actions, for the future on any man, felony, without clergy; and who shall otherwise strike or wound any parliament-man, during his attendance, or going or coming, imprisonment for a year, treble damages, and incapacity. This Bill having in some few days been dispatched to the Lords, the House has since gone on in grand Committee upon the first eight hundred thousand pounds Bill, but are not yet half way. But now the Lords, instead of the sixteenth of February, put twenty-five days after the King's royal assent, and that registered in their journal; they disagree in several other things, but adhere in that first, which is most material. Adhere, in this place, signifies not to be retracted, and excludes a free conference. So that this week the Houses will be in danger of splitting, without much wisdom or force. For considering that Sir Thomas Sands was the very person sent to Clarges and Pultney, that O'Brian was concealed in the Duke of Monmouth's lodgings, that Wroth and Lake were bayled at the sessions by order from Mr. Attorney, and that all persons and things are perfectly discovered, that act will not be passed without great consequence. George's father obliges you much in Tangier. Prince Edgar is dying. The Court is at the highest pitch of want and luxury, and the people full of discontent, Remember me to yourselves."

To William Ramsden, Esq. (Undated.)

"DEAR WILL,—I think I have not told you that, on our Bill of Subsidy, the Lord Lucas made a fervent bold speech against our prodigality in giving, and the weak looseness of the government, the King being present; and the Lord Clare another to persuade the King that he ought not to be present. But all this had little encouragement, not being seconded. Copys going about everywhere, one of them was brought into the Lords' House, and Lord Lucas was asked whether it was his. He sayd part was, and part was not. Thereupon they took advantage, and sayed it was a libel even against Lucas himself. On this they voted it a libel, and to be burned by the hangman. Which was done; but the sport was, the hangman burned the Lords' order with it. I take the last quarrel betwixt us and the Lords to be as the ashes of that speech. Doubtless you have heard, before this time, how Monmouth, Albemarle, Dunbane, and seven or eight gentlemen, fought with the watch, and killed a poor bedle. They have all got their pardons, for Monmouth's sake; but it is an act of great scandal. The King of France is at Dunkirke. We have no fleet out, though we gave the Subsidy Bill, valued at eight hundred thousand pounds, for that purpose. I believe, indeed, he will attempt nothing on us, but leave us to dy a natural death. For indeed never had poor nation so many complicated, mortal, incurable, diseases. You know the Dutchess of York is dead. All gave her for a Papist. I think it will be my lot to go on an honest fair employment into Ireland. Some have smelt the court of Rome at that distance. There I hope I shall be out of the smell of our.... —Yours," etc.

To a Friend in Persia. "August 9, 1671.

"DEAR SIR,—I have yours of the 12th of October 1670, which was in all respects most welcome to me, except when I considered that to write it you endured some pain, for you say your hand is not yet recovered. If I could say any thing to you towards the advancement of your affairs, I could, with a better conscience, admit you should spend so much of your precious time, as you do, upon me. But you know how far those things are out of my road, tho', otherwise, most desirous in all things to be serviceable to you. God's good providence, which hath through so dangerous a disease and so many difficultys preserved and restored you, will, I doubt not, conduct you to a prosperous issue, and the perfection of your so laudable undertakings. And, under that, your own good genius, in conjunction with your brother here, will, I hope, though at the distance of England and Persia, in good time operate extraordinary effects; for the magnetism of two souls, rightly touched, works beyond all natural limits, and it would be indeed too unequal, if good nature should not have at least as large a sphere of activity, as malice, envy, and detraction, which are, it seems, part of the returns from Gombroon and Surat. All I can say to you in that matter is, that you must, seeing it will not be better, stand upon your guard; for in this world a good cause signifys little, unless it be as well defended. A man may starve at the feast of good conscience. My fencing master in Spain, after he had instructed me all he could, told me, I remember, there was yet one secret, against which there was no defence, and that was, to give the first blow. I know your maxim, Qui festinat ditescere, non erit innocens. Indeed while you preserve that mind, you will have the blessing both of God and man. In general I perceive, and am very glad of it, that by your good management, your friends here get ground, and the flint in your adversarys' hearts begins to be mollifyed. Now after my usual method, leaving to others what relates to busyness, I address myself, which is all I am good for, to be your gazettier. I am sorry to perceive that mine by the Armenian miscarryed. Tho' there was nothing material in it, the thoughts of friends are too valuable to fall into the hands of a stranger. I wrote the last February at large, and wish it a better passage. In this perhaps I may interfere something with that, chusing rather to repeat than omit. The King having, upon pretence of the great preparations of his neighbours, demanded three hundred thousand pounds for his navy (though in conclusion he hath not set out any) and that the Parliament should pay his debts, which the ministers would never particularize to the House of Commons, our House gave several bills. You see how far things were stretched, though beyond reason, there being no satisfaction how those debts were contracted, and all men foreseeing that what was given would not be applyed to discharge the debts, which I hear are at this day risen to four millions, but diverted as formerly. Nevertheless such was the number of the constant courtiers increased by the apostate patriots, who were bought off, for that turn, some at six, others ten, one at fifteen thousand pounds in money, besides what offices, lands, and reversions, to others, that it is a mercy they gave not away the whole land, and liberty, of England. The Earl of Clare made a very bold and rational harangue, the King being present, against the King's sitting among the Lords, contrary to former precedents, during their debates; but he was not seconded. The King had this April prorogued, upon the Houses cavilling, and their harsh conferences concerning some bills, the Parliament from this April till the 16th of April 1672. Sir John Coventry's Bill against Cutting Noses passed, and O'Brian and Sir Thomas Sands, not appearing at the Old Baily by the time limited, stand attainted and outlawed, without possibility of pardon. The Duke of Buckingham is again one hundred and forty thousand pounds in debt, and, by this prorogation, his creditors have time to tear all his lands in pieces. The House of Commons has run almost to the end of their line, and are grown extreme chargeable to the King, and odious to the people. Lord St. John, Marquess of Westminster's son, one of the House of Commons, Sir Robert Howard, Sir John Benet, Lord Arlington's brother, Sir William Bucknoll, the brewer, all of the House, in fellowship with some others of the city, have farmed the old customs, with the new act of Imposition upon Wines, and the Wine Licenses, at six hundred thousand pounds a year, to begin this Michaelmas. You may be sure they have covenants not to be losers. They have signed and sealed ten thousand pounds a year more to the Duchess of Cleveland, who has likewise near ten thousand pounds a year out of the new farm of the country excise of Beer and Ale, five thousand pounds a year out of the Post Office, and, they say, the reversion of all the King's leases, the reversion of places all in the Custom House, the green wax, and indeed, what not? All promotions, spiritual and temporal, pass under her cognizance. Buckingham runs out of all with the Lady Shrewsbury, by whom he believes he had a son, to whom the King stood godfather; it dyed, young Earl of Coventry, and was buryed in the sepulchre of his fathers. The King of France made a warlike progresse this summer through his conquests of Flanders, but kept the peace there, and detains still the Dutchy of Lorain, and has stired up the German Princes against the free towns. The Duke of Brunswick has taken the town of Brunswick; and now the Bishop of Cullen is attacking the city of Colen. We truckle to France in all things, to the prejudice of our honour. Barclay is still Lieutenant of Ireland; but he was forced to come over to pay ten thousand pounds rent to his Landlady Cleveland. My Lord Angier, who bought of Sir George Carteret for eleven thousand pounds, the Vice-treasurership of Ireland, worth five thousand pounds a year, is, betwixt knavery and foolery, turned out. Dutchess of York and Prince Edgar, dead. None left but daughters. One Blud, outlawed for a plot to take Dublin Castle, and who seized on the Duke of Ormond here last year, and might have killed him, a most bold, and yet sober fellow, some months ago seized the crown and sceptre in the Tower, took them away, and if he had killed the keeper, might have carried them clear off. He, being taken, astonished the King and Court, with the generosity, and wisdom, of his answers. He, and all his accomplices, for his sake, are discharged by the King, to the wonder of all.—Yours," etc.

To William Ramsden, Esq. "June 1672.

"DEAR WILL,—Affairs begin to alter, and men talk of a peace with Holland, and taking them into our protection; and it is my opinion it will be before Michaelmas, for some reasons, not fit to write. We cannot have a peace with France and Holland both. The Dutch are now brought very low; but Amsterdam, and some other provinces, are resolved to stand out till the last. De-wit is stabbed, and dead of his wounds. It was at twelve a clock at night, the 11th of this month, as he came from the council at the Hague. Four men wounded him with their swords. But his own letter next morning to the States says nothing appeared mortal. The whole Province of Utrecht is yielding up. No man can conceive the condition of the State of Holland, in this juncture, unless he can at the same time conceive an earthquake, an hurricane, and the deluge. France is potent and subtle. Here have been several fires of late. One at St. Catherine's, which burned about six score or two hundred houses, and some seven or eight ships. Another in Bishopsgate-street. Another in Crichet Fryars. Another in Southwark; and some elsewhere. You may be sure all the old talk is hereupon revived. There was the other day, though not on this occasion, a severe proclamation issued out against all who shall vent false news, or discourse ill concerning affairs of state. So that in writing to you I run the risque of making a breech in the commandment.—Yours," etc.

The following letter deals with another matter of human concern than politics, for it seeks to condole with a father who has lost an only son.