 |
* Lord Lansdowne's Defence of General Monk.
His conduct in all other particulars was full of the same reserve and prudence; and no less was requisite for effecting the difficult work which he had undertaken. All the officers in his army of whom he entertained any suspicion, he immediately cashiered; Cobbet, who had been sent by the committee of safety, under pretence of communicating their resolutions to Monk, but really with a view of debauching his army, he committed to custody: he drew together the several scattered regiments: he summoned an assembly somewhat resembling a convention of states; and having communicated to them his resolution of marching into England, he received a seasonable, though no great supply of money.
Hearing that Lambert was advancing northward with his army, Monk sent Cloberry and two other commissioners to London, with large professions of his inclination to peace, and with offers of terms for an accommodation. His chief aim was to gain time, and relax the preparations of his enemies. The committee of safety fell into the snare. A treaty was signed by Monk's commissioners; but he refused to ratify it, and complained that they had exceeded their powers. He desired, however, to enter into a new negotiation at Newcastle. The committee willingly accepted this fallacious offer.
Meanwhile these military sovereigns found themselves surrounded on all hands with inextricable difficulties. The nation had fallen into total anarchy; and by refusing the payment of all taxes, reduced the army to the greatest necessities. While Lambert's forces were assembling at Newcastle, Hazelrig and Morley took possession of Portsmouth, and declared for the parliament. A party, sent to suppress them, was persuaded by their commander to join in the same declaration. The city apprentices rose in a tumult, and demanded a free parliament. Though they were suppressed by Colonel Hewson, a man who from the profession of a cobbler had risen to a high rank in the army, the city still discovered symptoms of the most dangerous discontent. It even established a kind of separate government, and assumed the supreme authority within itself. Admiral Lawson with his squadron came into the river, and declared for the parliament. Hazelrig and Morley, hearing of this important event, left Portsmouth, and advanced towards London. The regiments near that city, being solicited by their old officers, who had been cashiered by the committee of safety, revolted again to the parliament. Desborow's regiment, being sent by Lambert to support his friends, no sooner arrived at St. Albans, than it declared for the same assembly.
Fleetwood's hand was found too weak and unstable to support this ill-founded fabric, which every where around him was falling into ruins. When he received intelligence of any murmurs among the soldiers, he would prostrate himself in prayer, and could hardly be prevailed with to join the troops. Even when among them, he would, in the midst of any discourse, invite them all to prayer, and put himself on his knees before them. If any of his friends exhorted him to more vigor, they could get no other answer than, that God had spitten in his face, and would not hear him. Men now ceased to wonder why Lambert had promoted him to the office of general, and had contented himself with the second command in the army.
Lenthal, the speaker, being invited by the officers, again assumed authority, and summoned together the parliament, which twice before had been expelled with so much reproach and ignominy. As soon as assembled, they repealed their act against the payment of excise and customs; they appointed commissioners for assigning quarters to the army; and, without taking any notice of Lambert, they sent orders to the forces under his command immediately to repair to those quarters which were appointed them.
{1660.} Lambert was now in a very disconsolate condition. Monk, he saw, had passed the Tweed at Coldstream, and was advancing upon him. His own soldiers deserted him in great multitudes, and joined the enemy. Lord Fairfax, too, he heard, had raised forces behind him, and had possessed himself of York, without declaring his purpose. The last orders of the parliament so entirely stripped him of his army, that there remained not with him above a hundred horse: all the rest went to their quarters with quietness and resignation; and he himself was, some time after, arrested and committed to the Tower. The other officers, who had formerly been cashiered by the parliament, and who had resumed their commands that they might subdue that assembly, were again cashiered and confined to their houses. Sir Harry Vane and some members who had concurred with the committee of safety, were ordered into a like confinement. And the parliament now seemed to be again possessed of more absolute authority than ever, and to be without any danger of opposition or control.
The republican party was at this time guided by two men, Hazelrig and Vane, who were of opposite characters, and mortally hated each other. Hazelrig, who possessed greater authority in the parliament, was haughty, imperious, precipitate, vainglorious; without civility, without prudence; qualified only by his noisy, pertinacious obstinacy to acquire an ascendant in public assemblies. Vane was noted in all civil transactions for temper, insinuation, address, and a profound judgment; in all religious speculations, for folly and extravagance. He was a perfect enthusiast; and fancying that he was certainly favored with inspiration, he deemed himself, to speak in the language of the times, to be a man above ordinances, and, by reason of his perfection, to be unlimited and unrestrained by any rules which govern inferior mortals. These whimseys, mingling with pride, had so corrupted his excellent understanding, that sometimes he thought himself the person deputed to reign on earth for a thousand years over the whole congregation of the faithful.[*]
* Clarendon.
Monk, though informed of the restoration of the parliament, from whom he received no orders, still advanced with his army, which was near six thousand men: the scattered forces in England were above five times more numerous. Fairfax, who had resolved to declare for the king, not being able to make the general open his intentions, retired to his own house in Yorkshire. In all counties through which Monk passed, the prime gentry flocked to him with addresses, expressing their earnest desire that he would be instrumental in restoring the nation to peace and tranquillity, and to the enjoyment of those liberties which by law were their birthright, but of which, during so many years, they had been fatally bereaved; and that, in order to this salutary purpose, he would prevail, either for the restoring of those members who had been secluded before the king's death, or for the election of a new parliament, who might legally and by general consent again govern the nation. Though Monk pretended not to favor these addresses, that ray of hope which the knowledge of his character and situation afforded, mightily animated all men. The tyranny and the anarchy which now equally oppressed the kingdom; the experience of past distractions, the dread of future convulsions, the indignation against military usurpation, against sanctified hypocrisy; all these motives had united every party, except the most desperate, into ardent wishes for the king's restoration, the only remedy for all these fatal evils.
Scot and Robinson were sent as deputies by the parliament, under pretence of congratulating the general, but in reality to serve as spies upon him. The city despatched four of their principal citizens to perform like compliments; and at the same time to confirm the general in his inclination to a free parliament, the object of all men's prayers and endeavors. The authority of Monk could scarcely secure the parliamentary deputies from those insults which the general hatred and contempt towards their masters drew from men of every rank and denomination.
Monk continued his march with few interruptions till he reached St. Albans. He there sent a message to the parliament, desiring them to remove from London those regiments which, though they now professed to return to their duty, had so lately offered violence to that assembly. This message was unexpected, and exceedingly perplexed the house. Their fate, they found, must still depend on a mercenary army; and they were as distant as ever from their imaginary sovereignty. However, they found it necessary to comply. The soldiers made more difficulty. A mutiny arose among them. One regiment in particular, quartered in Somerset House, expressly refused to yield their place to the northern army. But those officers who would gladly on such an occasion have inflamed the quarrel, were absent or in confinement; and for want of leaders, the soldiers were at last, with great reluctance, obliged to submit. Monk with his army took quarters in Westminster.
The general was introduced to the House; and thanks were given him by Lenthal, for the eminent services which he had done his country. Monk was a prudent, not an eloquent speaker. He told the house, that the services which he had been enabled to perform were no more than his duty, and merited not such praises as those with which they were pleased to honor him: that among many persons of greater worth who bore their commission, he had been employed as the instrument of Providence for effecting their restoration; but he considered this service as a step only to more important services, which it was their part to render to the nation: that while on his march, he observed all ranks of men, in all places, to be in earnest expectation of a settlement, after the violent convulsions to which they had been exposed; and to have no prospect of that blessing but from the dissolution of the present parliament, and from the summoning of a new one, free and full, who, meeting without oaths or engagements, might finally give contentment to the nation: that applications had been made to him for that purpose; but that he, sensible of his duty, had still told the petitioners, that the parliament itself, which was now free, and would soon be full, was the best judge of all these measures; and that the whole community ought to acquiesce in their determination: that though he expressed himself in this manner to the people, he must now freely inform the house, that the fewer engagements were exacted, the more comprehensive would their plan prove, and the more satisfaction would it give to the nation: and that it was sufficient for public security, if the fanatical party and the royalists were excluded; since the principles of these factions were destructive either of government or of liberty.
This speech, containing matter which was both agreeable and disagreeable to the house, as well as to the nation, still kept every one in suspense, and upheld that uncertainty in which it seemed the general's interest to retain the public. But it was impossible for the kingdom to remain long in this doubtful situation: the people, as well as the parliament, pushed matters to a decision. During the late convulsions, the payment of taxes had been interrupted; and though the parliament, upon their assembling, renewed the ordinances for impositions, yet so little reverence did the people pay to those legislators, that they gave very slow and unwilling obedience to their commands. The common council of London flatly refused to submit to an assessment required of them; and declared that, till a free and lawful parliament imposed taxes, they never should deem it their duty to make any payment. This resolution, if yielded to, would immediately have put an end to the dominion of the parliament: they were determined, therefore, upon this occasion, to make at once a full experiment of their own power, and of their general's obedience.
Monk received orders to march into the city; to seize twelve persons, the most obnoxious to the parliament; to remove the posts and chains from all the streets; and to take down and break the portcullises and gates of the city; and very few hours were allowed him to deliberate upon the execution of these violent orders. To the great surprise and consternation of all men, Monk prepared himself for obedience. Neglecting the entreaties of his friends, the remonstrances of his officers, the cries of the people, he entered the city in a military manner; he apprehended as many as he could of the proscribed persons, whom he sent to the Tower; with all the circumstances of contempt, he broke the gates and portcullises; and having exposed the city to the scorn and derision of all who hated it, he returned in triumph to his quarters in Westminster.
No sooner had the general leisure to reflect, than he found that this last measure, instead of being a continuation of that cautious ambiguity which he had hitherto maintained, was taking party without reserve, and laying himself, as well as the nation, at the mercy of that tyrannical parliament, whose power and long been odious, as their persons contemptible, to all men. He resolved, therefore, before it were too late, to repair the dangerous mistake into which he had been betrayed, and to show the whole world, still more without reserve, that he meant no longer to be the minister of violence and usurpation. After complaining of the odious service in which ha had been employed, he wrote a letter to the house, reproaching them, as well with the new cabals which they had formed with Vane and Lambert, as with the encouragement given to a fanatical petition presented by Praise-God Barebone; and he required them, in the name of the citizens, soldiers, and whole commonwealth, to issue writs within a week, for the filling of their house, and to fix the time for their own dissolution and the assembling of a new parliament. Having despatched this letter, which might be regarded, he thought, as an undoubted pledge of his sincerity, he marched with his army into the city, and desired Allen, the mayor, to summon a common council at Guildhall. He there made many apologies for the indignity which two days before he had been obliged to put upon them; assured them of his perseverance in the measures which he had adopted; and desired that they might mutually plight their faith for a strict union between city and army, in every enterprise for the happiness and settlement of the commonwealth.
It would be difficult to describe the joy and exultation which displayed itself throughout the city, as soon as intelligence was conveyed of this happy measure embraced by the general. The prospect of peace, concord, liberty, justice, broke forth at once from amidst the deepest darkness in which the nation had ever been involved. The view of past calamities no longer presented dismal prognostics of the future: it tended only to enhance the general exultation for those scenes of happiness and tranquillity which all men now confidently promised themselves. The royalists, the Presbyterians, forgetting all animosities, mingled in common joy and transport, and vowed never more to gratify the ambition of false and factious tyrants by their calamitous divisions. The populace more outrageous in their festivity, made the air resound with acclamations, and illuminated every street with signals of jollity and triumph. Applauses of the general were every where intermingled with detestation against the parliament The most ridiculous inventions were adopted, in order to express this latter passion. At every bonfire rumps were roasted; and where these could no longer be found, pieces of flesh were cut into that shape; and the funeral of the parliament (the populace exclaimed) was celebrated by these symbols of hatred and derision.
The parliament, though in the agonies of despair, made still one effort for the recovery of their dominion. They sent a committee with offers to gain the general. He refused to hear them, except in the presence of some of the secluded members. Though several persons, desperate from guilt and fanaticism, promised to invest him with the dignity of supreme magistrate, and to support his government, he would not hearken to such wild proposals. Having fixed a close correspondence with the city, and established its militia in hands whose fidelity could be relied on, he returned with his army to Westminster, and pursued every proper measure for the settlement of the nation. While he still pretended to maintain republican principles, he was taking large steps towards the reestablishment of the ancient monarchy.
The secluded members, upon the general's invitation, went to the house, and finding no longer any obstruction, they entered, and immediately appeared to be the majority: most of the Independents left the place. The restored members first repealed all the ordinances by which they had been excluded: they gave Sir George Booth and his party their liberty and estates: they renewed the general's commission, and enlarged his powers: they fixed an assessment for the support of the fleet and army: and having passed these votes for the present composure of the kingdom, they dissolved themselves, and issued writs for the immediate assembling of a new parliament. This last measure had been previously concerted with the general, who knew that all men, however different in affections, expectations, and designs, united in their detestation of the long parliament.
A council of state was established, consisting of men of character and moderation; most of whom, during the civil wars, had made a great figure among the Presbyterians. The militia of the kingdom was put into such hands as would promote order and settlement. These, conjoined with Monk's army, which lay united at London, were esteemed a sufficient check on the more numerous, though dispersed army, of whose inclinations there was still much reason to be diffident Monk, however, was every day removing the more obnoxious officers, and bringing the troops to a state of discipline and obedience.
Overton, governor of Hull, had declared his resolution to keep possession of that fortress till the coming of King Jesus, but when Alured produced the authority of parliament for his delivering the place to Colonel Fairfax, he thought proper to comply.
Montague, who commanded the fleet in the Baltic, had entered into the conspiracy with Sir George Booth; and pretending want of provisions, had sailed from the Sound towards the coast of England, with an intention of supporting that insurrection of the royalists. On his arrival, he received the news of Booth's defeat, and the total failure of the enterprise. The great difficulties to which the parliament was then reduced, allowed them no leisure to examine strictly the reasons which he gave for quitting his station; and they allowed him to retire peaceably to his country house. The council of state now conferred on him, in conjunction with Monk, the command of the fleet; and secured the naval, as well as military force, in hands favorable to the public settlement.
Notwithstanding all these steps which were taking towards the reestablishment of monarchy, Monk still maintained the appearance of zeal for a commonwealth, and hitherto allowed no canal of correspondence between himself and the king to be opened. To call a free parliament, and to restore the royal family, were visibly, in the present disposition of the kingdom, one and the same measure: yet would not the general declare, otherwise than by his actions, that he had adopted the king's interests; and nothing but necessity extorted at last the confession from him. His silence in the commencement of his enterprise ought to be no objection to his sincerity; since he maintained the same reserve at a time when, consistent with common sense, he could have entertained no other purpose.[*] [27]
* See note AA, at the end of the volume.
There was one Morrice, a gentleman of Devonshire, of a sedentary, studious disposition, nearly related to Monk, and one who had always maintained the strictest intimacy with him. With this friend alone did Monk deliberate concerning that great enterprise which he had projected. Sir John Granville, who had a commission from the king, applied to Morrice for access to the general; but received for answer, that the general desired him to communicate his business to Morrice. Granville, though importunately urged, twice refused to deliver his message to any but Monk himself; and this cautious politician, finding him now a person whose secrecy could be safely trusted, admitted him to his presence, and opened to him his whole intentions. Still he scrupled to commit any thing to writing: he delivered only a verbal message by Granville assuring the king of his services, giving advice for his conduct, and exhorting him instantly to leave the Spanish territories, and retire into Holland. He was apprehensive lest Spain might detain him as a pledge for the recovery of Dunkirk and Jamaica. Charles followed these directions, and very narrowly escaped to Breda. Had he protracted his journey a few hours, he had certainly, under pretence of honor and respect, been arrested by the Spaniards.[*]
Lockhart, who was governor of Dunkirk, and nowise averse to the king's service, was applied to on this occasion. The state of England was set before him, the certainty of the restoration represented, and the prospect of great favor displayed, if he would anticipate the vows of the kingdom, and receive the king into his fortress. Lockhart still replied, that his commission was derived from an English parliament, and he would not open his gates but in obedience to the same authority.[**] This scruple, though in the present emergence it approaches towards superstition, it is difficult for us entirely to condemn.
* Lansdowne, Clarendon.
** Burnet.
The elections for the new parliament went every where in favor of the king's party. This was one of those popular torrents, where the most indifferent, or even the most averse, are transported with the general passion, and zealously adopt the sentiments of the community to which they belong. The enthusiasts themselves seemed to be disarmed of their fury; and, between despair and astonishment, gave way to those measures which they found it would be impossible for them, by their utmost efforts, to withstand. The Presbyterians and the royalists, being united, formed the voice of the nation, which, without noise, but with infinite ardor, called for the king's restoration. The kingdom was almost entirely in the hands of the former party; and some zealous leaders among them began to renew the demand of those conditions which had been required of the late king in the treaty of Newport: but the general opinion seemed to condemn all those rigorous and jealous capitulations with their sovereign. Harassed with convulsions and disorders, men ardently longed for repose; and were terrified at the mention of negotiations or delays, which might afford opportunity to the seditious army still to breed new confusion. The passion too for liberty, having been carried to such violent extremes, and having produced such bloody commotions, began, by a natural movement, to give place to a spirit of loyalty and obedience; and the public was less zealous in a cause which was become odious, on account of the calamities which had so long attended it. After the legal concessions made by the late king, the constitution seemed to be sufficiently secured; and the additional conditions insisted on, as they had been framed during the greatest ardor of the contest, amounted rather to annihilation than a limitation of monarchy. Above all, the general was averse to the mention of conditions; and resolved, that the crown, which he intended to restore, should be conferred on the king entirely free and unencumbered. Without further scruple, therefore, or jealousy, the people gave their voice in elections for such as they knew to entertain sentiments favorable to monarchy; and all paid court to a party, which they foresaw was soon to govern the nation. Though the parliament had voted, that no one should be elected who had himself, or whose father, had borne arms for the late king, little regard was any where paid to this ordinance. The leaders of the Presbyterians, the earl of Manchester, Lord Fairfax, Lord Robarts, Hollis, Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, Annesley, Lewis, were determined to atone for past transgressions by their present zeal for the royal interests; and from former merits, successes, and sufferings, they had acquired with their party the highest credit and authority.
The affairs of Ireland were in a condition no less favorable to the king. As soon as Monk declared against the English army, he despatched emissaries into Ireland, and engaged the officers in that kingdom to concur with him in the same measures. Lord Broghill, president of Munster, and Sir Charles Coote, president of Connaught, went so far as to enter into a correspondence with the king, and to promise their assistance for his restoration. In conjunction with Sir Theophilus Jones and other officers, they took possession of the government, and excluded Ludlow, who was zealous for the rump parliament, but whom they, pretended to be in a confederacy with the committee of safety. They kept themselves in readiness to serve the king; but made no declarations, till they should see the turn which affairs took in England.
But all these promising views had almost been blasted by an untoward accident. Upon the admission of the secluded members, the republican party, particularly the late king's judges, were seized with the justest despair, and endeavored to infuse the same sentiment into the army. By themselves or their emissaries, they represented to the soldiers, that all those brave actions which had been performed during the war, and which were so meritorious in the eyes of the parliament, would, no doubt, be regarded as the deepest crimes by the royalists, and would expose the army to the severest vengeance: that in vain did that party make professions of moderation and lenity; the king's death, the execution of so many of the nobility and gentry, the sequestration and imprisonment of the rest, were in their eyes crimes so deep, and offences so personal, as must be prosecuted with the most implacable resentment: that the loss of all arrears, and the cashiering of every officer and soldier, were the lightest punishment which must be expected; after the dispersion of the army, no further protection remained to them, either for life or property, but the clemency of enraged victors: and that, even if the most perfect security could be obtained, it were inglorious to be reduced by treachery and deceit to subjection under a foe, who, in the open field, had so often yielded to their superior valor.
After these suggestions had been infused into the army, Lambert suddenly made his escape from the Tower, and threw Monk and the council of state into great consternation. They knew Lambert's vigor and activity; they were acquainted with his popularity in the army; they were sensible that, though the soldiers had lately deserted him, they sufficiently expressed their remorse, and their detestation of those who, by false professions, they found had so egregiously deceived them. It seemed necessary, therefore, to employ the greatest celerity in suppressing so dangerous a foe: Colonel Ingoldsby, who had been one of the late king's judges, but who was now entirely engaged in the royal cause, was despatched after him. He overtook him at Daventry, while he had yet assembled but four troops of horse. One of them deserted him. Another quickly followed the example. He himself, endeavoring to make his escape, was seized by Ingoldsby, to whom he made submissions not suitable to his former character of spirit and valor. Okey, Axtel, Cobbet, Crede, and other officers of that party, were taken prisoners with him. All the roads were full of soldiers hastening to join them. In a few days, they had been formidable. And it was thought, that it might prove dangerous for Monk himself to have assembled any considerable body of his republican army for their suppression: so that nothing could be more happy than the sudden extinction of this rising flame.
When the parliament met, they chose Sir Harbottle Grimstone speaker, a man who, though he had for some time concurred with the late parliament, had long been esteemed affectionate to the king's service. The great dangers incurred during former usurpations, joined to the extreme caution of the general, kept every one in awe; and none dared for some days to make any mention of the king. The members exerted their spirit chiefly in bitter invectives against the memory of Cromwell, and in execrations against the inhuman murder of their late sovereign. At last, the general, having sufficiently sounded their inclinations, gave directions to Annesley, president of the council, to inform them, that one Sir John Granville, a servant of the king's, had been sent over by his majesty, and was now at the door with a letter to the commons. The loudest acclamations were excited by this intelligence. Granville was called in; the letter, accompanied with a declaration, greedily read: without one moment's delay, and without a contradictory vote, a committee was appointed to prepare an answer: and in order to spread the same satisfaction throughout the kingdom, it was voted that the letter and declaration should immediately be published.
The people, freed from the state of suspense in which they had so long been held, now changed their anxious hope for the unmixed effusions of joy; and displayed a social triumph and exultation, which no private prosperity, even the greatest, is ever able fully to inspire. Traditions remain of men, particularly of Oughtred, the mathematician, who died of pleasure, when informed of this happy and surprising event. The King's declaration was well calculated to uphold the satisfaction inspired by the prospect of public settlement. It offered a general amnesty to all persons whatsoever: and that without any exceptions but such as should afterwards be made by parliament: it promised liberty of conscience; and a concurrence in any act of parliament which, upon mature deliberation, should be offered, for insuring that indulgence: it submitted to the arbitration of the same assembly, the inquiry into all grants, purchases, and alienations; and it assured the soldiers of all their arrears, and promised them, for the future, the same pay which they then enjoyed.
The lords, perceiving the spirit by which the kingdom as well as the commons was animated, hastened to reinstate themselves in their ancient authority, and to take their share in the settlement of the nation. They found the doors of their house open; and all were admitted, even such as had formerly been excluded on account of their pretended delinquency.
The two houses attended; while the king was proclaimed, with great solemnity, in Palace Yard, at Whitehall, and at Temple Bar. The commons voted five hundred pounds to buy a jewel for Granville, who had brought them the king's gracious messages: a present of fifty thousand pounds was conferred on the king, ten thousand pounds on the duke of York, five thousand pounds on the duke of Gloucester. A committee of lords and commons was despatched to invite his majesty to return and take possession of the government. The rapidity with which all these events were conducted was marvellous, and discovered the passionate zeal and entire unanimity of the nation. Such an impatience appeared, and such an emulation, in lords, and commons, and city, who should make the most lively expressions of their joy and duty, that, as the noble historian expresses it, a man could not but wonder where those people dwelt who had done all the mischief, and kept the king so many years from enjoying the comfort and support of such excellent subjects. The king himself said, that it must surely have been his own fault, that he had not sooner taken possession of the throne; since he found every body so zealous in promoting his happy restoration.
The respect of foreign powers soon followed the submission of the king's subjects. Spain invited him to return to the Low Countries, and embark in some of her maritime towns. France made protestations of affection and regard, and offered Calais for the same purpose. The states general sent deputies with a like friendly invitation. The king resolved to accept of this last offer. The people of the republic bore him a cordial affection; and politics no longer restrained their magistrates from promoting and expressing that sentiment. As he passed from Breda to the Hague, he was attended by numerous crowds, and was received with the loudest acclamations; as if themselves, not their rivals in power and commerce, were now restored to peace and security. The states general in a body, and afterwards the states of Holland apart, performed their compliments with the greatest solemnity: every person of distinction was ambitious of being introduced to his majesty; all ambassadors and public ministers of kings, princes, or states, repaired to him, and professed the joy of their masters in his behalf; so that one would have thought, that from the united efforts of Christendom had been derived this revolution, which diffused every where such universal satisfaction.
The English fleet came in sight of Scheveling. Montague had not waited for orders from the parliament; but had persuaded the officers of themselves to tender their duty to his majesty. The duke of York immediately went on board, and took the command of the fleet as high admiral.
When the king disembarked at Dover, he was met by the general, whom he cordially embraced. Never subject in fact, probably in his intentions, had deserved better of his king and country. In the space of a few months, without effusion of blood, by his cautious and disinterested conduct alone, he had bestowed settlement on three kingdoms, which had long been torn with the most violent convulsions; and having obstinately refused the most inviting conditions offered him by the king, as well as by every party in the kingdom, he freely restored his injured master to the vacant throne. The king entered London on the twenty-ninth of May, which was also his birthday. The fond imaginations of men interpreted as a happy omen the concurrence of two such joyful periods.
At this era, it may be proper to stop a moment, and take a general survey of the age, so far as regards manners, finances, arms, commerce, arts, and sciences. The chief use of history is, that it affords materials for disquisitions of this nature; and it seems the duty of an historian to point out the proper inferences and conclusions.
No people could undergo a change more sudden and entire in their manners, than did the English nation during this period. From tranquillity, concord, submission, sobriety, they passed in an instant to a state of faction, fanaticism, rebellion, and almost frenzy. The violence of the English parties exceeded any thing which we can now imagine: had they continued but a little longer, there was just reason to dread all the horrors of the ancient massacres and proscriptions. The military usurpers, whose authority was founded on palpable injustice, and was supported by no national party, would have been impelled by rage and despair into such sanguinary measures; and if these furious expedients had been employed on one side, revenge would naturally have pushed the other party, after a return of power, to retaliate upon their enemies. No social intercourse was maintained between the parties; no marriages or alliances contracted. The royalists, though oppressed, harassed, persecuted, disdained all affinity with their masters. The more they were reduced to subjection, the greater superiority did they affect above those usurpers, who, by violence and injustice, had acquired an ascendant over them.
The manners of the two factions were as opposite as those of the most distant nations. "Your friends, the cavaliers," said a parliamentarian to a royalist, "are very dissolute and debauched." "True," replied the royalist, "they have the infirmities of men; but your friends, the roundheads, have the vices of devils—tyranny, rebellion, and spiritual pride."[*] Riot and disorder, it is certain, notwithstanding the good example set them by Charles I., prevailed very much among his partisans. Being commonly men of birth and fortune, to whom excesses are less pernicious than to the vulgar, they were too apt to indulge themselves in all pleasures, particularly those of the table. Opposition to the rigid preciseness of their antagonists increased their inclination to good fellow-ship; and the character of a man of pleasure was affected among them, as a sure pledge of attachment to the church and monarchy. Even when ruined by confiscations and sequestrations, they endeavored to maintain the appearance of a careless and social jollity. "As much as hope is superior to fear," said a poor and merry cavalier, "so much is our situation preferable to that of our enemies. We laugh while they tremble."
* Sir Philip Warwick.
The gloomy enthusiasm which prevailed among the parliamentary party, is surely the most curious spectacle presented by any history; and the most instructive, as well as entertaining, to a philosophical mind. All recreations were in a manner suspended by the rigid severity of the Presbyterians and Independents. Horse-races and cock-matches were prohibited as the greatest enormities.[*]
* Killing no Murder
Even bear-baiting was esteemed heathenish and unchristian: the sport of it, not the inhumanity, gave offence. Colonel Hewson, from his pious zeal, marched with his regiment into London, and destroyed all the bears which were kept there for the diversion of the citizens. This adventure seems to have given birth to the fiction of Hudibras. Though the English nation be naturally candid and sincere, hypocrisy prevailed among them beyond any example in ancient or modern times. The religious hypocrisy, it may be remarked, is of a peculiar nature; and being generally unknown to the person himself, though more dangerous, it implies less falsehood than any other species of insincerity. The Old Testament, preferably to the New, was the favorite of all the sectaries. The Eastern poetical style of that composition made it more easily susceptible of a turn which was agreeable to them.
We have had occasion, in the course of this work, to speak of the many sects which prevailed in England: to enumerate them all would be impossible. The Quakers, however, are so considerable, at least so singular, as to merit some attention; and as they renounced by principle the use of arms, they never made such a figure in public transactions as to enter into any part of our narrative.
The religion of the Quakers, like most others, began with the lowest vulgar, and, in its progress, came at last to comprehend people of better quality and fashion. George Fox, born at Drayton, in Lancashire, in 1624, was the founder of this sect. He was the son of a weaver, and was himself bound apprentice to a shoemaker. Feeling a stronger impulse towards spiritual contemplations than towards that mechanical profession, he left his master, and went about the country clothed in a leathern doublet, a dress which he long affected, as well for its singularity as its cheapness. That he might wean himself from sublunary objects, he broke off all connections with his friends and family, and never dwelt a moment in one place; lest habit should beget new connections, and depress the sublimity of his aerial meditations. He frequently wandered into the woods, and passed whole days in hollow trees without company, or any other amusement than his Bible. Having reached that pitch of perfection as to need no other book, he soon advanced to another state of spiritual progress, and began to pay less regard even to that divine composition itself. His own breast, he imagined, was full of the same inspiration which had guided the prophets and apostles themselves; and by this inward light must every spiritual obscurity be cleared, by this living spirit must the dead letter be animated.
When he had been sufficiently consecrated in his own imagination, he felt that the fumes of self-applause soon dissipate, if not continually supplied by the admiration of others; and he began to seek proselytes. Proselytes were easily gained, at a time when all men's affections were turned towards religion, and when the most extravagant modes of it were sure to be most popular. All the forms of ceremony, invented by pride and ostentation, Fox and his disciples, from a superior pride and ostentation, carefully rejected: even the ordinary rites of civility were shunned, as the nourishment of carnal vanity and self-conceit. They would bestow no titles, of distinction: the name of "friend" was the only salutation, with which they indiscriminately accosted every one. To no person would they make a bow, or move their hat, or give any signs of reverence. Instead of that affected adulation introduced into modern tongues, of speaking to individuals as if they were a multitude, they returned to the simplicity of ancient languages; and "thou" and "thee" were the only expressions which, on any consideration, they could be brought to employ.
Dress too, a material circumstance, distinguished the members of this sect. Every superfluity and ornament was carefully retrenched: no plaits to their coat, no buttons to their sleeves; no lace, no ruffles, no embroidery. Even a button to the hat, though sometimes useful, yet not being always so, was universally rejected by them with horror and detestation.
The violent enthusiasm of this sect, like all high passions, being too strong for the weak nerves to sustain, threw the preachers into convulsions, and shakings, and distortions in their limbs; and they thence receded the appellation of "Quakers." Amidst the great toleration which was then granted to all sects, and even encouragement given to all innovations, this sect alone suffered persecution. From the fervor of their zeal, the Quakers broke into churches, disturbed public worship, and harassed the minister and audience with railing and reproaches. When carried before a magistrate, they refused him all reverence, and treated him with the same familiarity as if he had been their equal. Sometimes they were thrown into mad-houses, sometimes into prisons; sometimes whipped, sometimes pilloried. The patience and fortitude with which they suffered, begat compassion, admiration, esteem.[*] A supernatural spirit was believed to support them under those sufferings, which the ordinary state of humanity, freed from the illusions of passion, is unable to sustain.
* The following story is told by Whitlocke, p. 599. Some Quakers at Hasington, in Northumberland, coming to the minister on the Sabbath day, and speaking to him, the people fell upon the Quakers, and almost killed one or two of them, who, going out, fell on their knees, and prayed God to pardon the people, who knew not what they did; and afterwards speaking to the people, so convinced them of the evil they had done in beating them, that the country people fell a quarrelling, and beat one another more than they had before beaten the Quakers.
The Quakers crept into the army; but as they preached universal peace, they seduced the military zealots from their profession, and would soon, had they been suffered, have put an end, without any defeat or calamity, to the dominion of the saints. These attempts became a fresh ground of persecution, and a new reason for their progress among the people.
Morals with this sect were carried, or affected to be carried to the same degree of extravagance as religion. Give a Quaker a blow on one cheek, he held up the other: ask his cloak, he gave you his coat also; the greatest interest could not engage him, in any court of judicature, to swear even to the truth: he never asked more for his wares than the precise sum which he was determined to accept. This last maxim is laudable, and continues still to be religiously observed by the sect.
No fanatics ever carried further the hatred to ceremonies forms, orders, rites, and positive institutions. Even baptism and the Lord's supper, by all other sects believed to be interwoven with the very vitals of Christianity, were disdainfully rejected by them. The very Sabbath they profaned. The holiness of churches they derided; and they would give to these sacred edifices no other appellation than that of shops or steeplehouses. No priests were admitted in their sect: every one had received from immediate illumination a character much superior to the sacerdotal. When they met for divine worship, each rose up in his place, and delivered the extemporary inspirations of the Holy Ghost: women also were admitted to teach the brethren, and were considered as proper vehicles to convey the dictates of the spirit. Sometimes a great many preachers were moved to speak at once sometimes a total silence prevailed in their congregations.
Some Quakers attempted to fast forty days, in imitation of Christ; and one of them bravely perished in the experiment.[*] A female Quaker came naked into the church where the protector sat; being moved by the spirit, as she said, to appeal as a sign to the people. A number of them fancied, that the renovation of all things had commenced, and that clothes were to be rejected, together with other superfluities. The sufferings which followed the practice of this doctrine, were a species of persecution not well calculated for promoting it.
James Naylor was a Quaker, noted for blasphemy, or rather madness, in the time of the protectorship. He fancied, that he himself was transformed into Christ, and was become the real savior of the world; and in consequence of this frenzy, he endeavored to imitate many actions of the Messiah related in the evangelists. As he bore a resemblance to the common pictures of Christ, he allowed his beard to grow in a like form: he raised a person from the dead:[**] he was ministered unto by women:[***] he entered Bristol mounted on a horse, (I suppose, from the difficulty in that place of finding an ass:) his disciples spread their garments before him, and cried, "Hosanna to the highest; holy, holy is the Lord God of Sabaoth." When carried before the magistrate, he would give no other answer to all questions than "Thou hast said it." What is remarkable, the parliament thought that the matter deserved their attention. Near ten days they spent in inquiries and debates about him.[****]
* Whitlocke, p. 624.
** Harleian Miscellany, vol. vi. p. 399. One Dorcas Barberry made oath before a magistrate, that she had been dead two days, and that Naylor had brought her to life.
*** Harleian Miscellany, vol. vi. p. 399
**** Thurloe, vol v. p. 708.
They condemned him to be pilloried, whipped, burned in the face, and to have his tongue bored through with a red-hot iron. All these severities he bore with the usual patience. So far his delusion supported him. But the sequel spoiled all. He was sent to Bridewell, confined to hard labor, fed on bread and water, and debarred from all his disciples, male and female. His illusions dissipated; and after some time, he was contented to come out an ordinary man, and return to his usual occupations.
The chief taxes in England, during the time of the commonwealth, were the monthly assessments, the excise, and the customs. The assessments were levied on personal estates as well as on land;[*] and commissioners were appointed in each county for rating the individuals. The highest assessment amounted to one hundred and twenty thousand pounds a month in England; the lowest was thirty-five thousand. The assessments in Scotland were sometimes ten thousand pounds a month;[**] commonly six thousand. Those on Ireland nine thousand. At a medium, this tax might have afforded about a million a year. The excise, during the civil wars, was levied on bread, flesh-meat, as well as beer, ale, strong waters and many other commodities. After the king was subdued bread and flesh-meat were exempted from excise. The customs on exportation were lowered in 1656.[***] In 1650, commissioners were appointed to levy both customs and excises. Cromwell, in 1657, returned to the old practice of farming. Eleven hundred thousand pounds were then offered, both for customs and excise, a greater sum than had ever been levied by the commissioners:[****] the whole of the taxes during that period might at a medium amount to above two millions a year; a sum which, though moderate, much exceeded the revenue of any former king.[v] Sequestrations, compositions, sale of crown and church lands, and of the lands of delinquents, yielded also considerable sums, but very difficult to be estimated. Church lands are said to have been sold for a million.v None of these were ever valued at above ten or eleven years' purchase.[v**] The estates of delinquents amounted to above two hundred thousand pounds a year.[**] Cromwell died more than two millions in debt;[v***] though the parliament had left him in the treasury above five hundred thousand pounds; and in stores, the value of seven hundred thousand pounds.[v****]
* Scobel, p. 419.
** Thurloe, vol. ii. p. 476.
*** Scobel, p. 376.
**** Thurloe, vol. vi. p. 425.
v It appears that the late king's revenue, from 1637 to the meeting of the long parliament, was only nine hundred thousand pounds of which two hundred thousand may be esteemed illegal.
v* Dr Walker, p. 14.
v** Thurloe, vol. i. p. 753.
v*** Thurloe, vol. ii. p. 414.
v**** Thurloe, vol. vii. p. 667.
The committee of danger, in April, 1648, voted to raise the army to forty thousand men.[*] The same year, the pay of the army was estimated at eighty thousand pounds a month.[**] The establishment of the army, in 1652, was, in Scotland, fifteen thousand foot, two thousand five hundred and eighty horse, five hundred and sixty dragoons; in England, four thousand seven hundred foot, two thousand five hundred and twenty horse, garrisons six thousand one hundred and fifty-four. In all, thirty one thousand five hundred and fourteen, besides officers.[***] The army in Scotland was afterwards considerably reduced. The army in Ireland was not much short of twenty thousand men; so that, upon the whole, the commonwealth maintained, in 1652, a standing army of more than fifty thousand men. Its pay amounted to a yearly sum of one million forty-seven thousand seven hundred and fifteen pounds.[****] Afterwards the protector reduced the establishment to thirty thousand men; as appears by the "instrument of government and humble petition and advice." His frequent enterprises obliged him from time to time to augment them. Richard had on foot in England an army of thirteen thousand two hundred and fifty-eight men, in Scotland nine thousand five hundred and six, in Ireland about ten thousand men.[v] The foot soldiers had commonly a shilling a day.v The horse had two shillings and sixpence; so that many gentlemen and younger brothers of good family enlisted in the protector's cavalry.[v**] No wonder that such men were averse from the reestablishment of civil government, by which, they well knew, they must be deprived of so gainful a profession.
At the time of the battle of Worcester the parliament had on foot about eighty thousand men, partly militia, partly regular forces. The vigor of the commonwealth, and the great capacity of those members who had assumed the government, never at any time appeared so conspicuous.[v***]
* Whitlocke, p. 298.
** Whitlocke, p. 378.
*** Journal, 2d December, 1652.
**** Journal, 2d December, 1652.
v Journal, 6th of April, 1659.
v* Thurloe, vol. i. p. 395; vol. ii. p. 414.
v** Gumble's Life of Monk.
v*** Whitlocke, p. 477.
The whole revenue of the public during the protectorship of Richard was estimated at one million eight hundred and sixty-eight thousand seven hundred and seventeen pounds; his annual expenses at two millions two hundred and one thousand five hundred and forty pounds. An additional revenue was demanded from parliament.[*]
The commerce and industry of England increased extremely during the peaceable period of Charles's reign: the trade to the East Indies and to Guinea became considerable. The English possessed almost the sole trade with Spain. Twenty thousand cloths were annually sent to Turkey.[**] Commerce met with interruption, no doubt, from the civil wars and convulsions which afterwards prevailed; though it soon recovered after the establishment of the commonwealth. The war with the Dutch, by distressing the commerce of so formidable a rival, served to encourage trade in England; the Spanish war was to an equal degree pernicious. All the effects of the English merchants, to an immense value, were confiscated in Spain. The prevalence of democratical principles engaged the country gentlemen to bind their sons apprentices to merchants;[***] and commerce has ever since been more honorable in England than in any other European kingdom. The exclusive companies, which formerly confined trade, were never expressly abolished by any ordinance of parliament during the commonwealth; but as men paid no regard to the prerogative whence the charters of these companies were derived, the monopoly was gradually invaded, and commerce increased by the increase of liberty. Interest in 1650 was reduced to six per cent.
The customs in England, before the civil wars, are said to have amounted to five hundred thousand pounds a year;[****] a sum ten times greater than during the best period in Queen Elizabeth's reign: but there is probably some exaggeration in this matter.
The post-house, in 1653, was farmed at ten thousand pounds a year, which was deemed a considerable sum for the three kingdoms. Letters paid only about half the present postage.
From 1619 to 1638, there had been coined six millions nine hundred thousand and forty-two pounds. From 1638 to 1657, the coinage amounted to seven millions seven hundred and thirty-three thousand five hundred and twenty-one pounds.[v]
* Journal, 7th April, 1659.
** Strafford's Letters, vol. i. p. 421, 423, 430, 467.
*** Clarendon.
**** Lewis Roberts's Treasure of Traffick.
v Happy Future State of England
Dr. Davenant has told us, from the registers of the mint, that, between 1558 and 1659, there had been coined nineteen millions eight hundred and thirty-two thousand four hundred and seventy-six pounds in gold and silver.
The first mention of tea, coffee, and chocolate, is about 1660.[*] Asparagus, artichokes, cauliflower, and a variety of salads, were about the same time introduced into England.[**]
The colony of New England increased by means of the Puritans, who fled thither in order to free themselves from the constraint which Laud and the church party had imposed upon them; and, before the commencement of the civil wars, it is supposed to have contained twenty-five thousand souls.[***] For a like reason, the Catholics, afterwards, who found themselves exposed to many hardships, and dreaded still worse treatment went over to America in great numbers, and settled the colony of Maryland.
Before the civil wars, learning and the fine arts were favored at court, and a good taste began to prevail in the nation. The king loved pictures, sometimes handled the pencil himself, and was a good judge of the art. The pieces of foreign masters were bought up at a vast price; and the value of pictures doubled in Europe by the emulation between Charles and Philip IV. of Spain, who were touched with the same elegant passion. Vandyke was caressed and enriched at court. Inigo Jones was master of the king's buildings; though afterwards persecuted by the parliament, on account of the part which he had in rebuilding St. Paul's, and for obeying some orders of council, by which he was directed to pull down houses, in order to make room for that edifice. Laws, who had not been surpassed by any musician before him, was much beloved by the king, who called him the father of music. Charles was a good judge of writing, and was thought by some more anxious with regard to purity of style than became a monarch.[****]
* Anderson, vol. ii. p. 111.
** Anderson, vol. ii. p. 111.
*** British Empire in America, vol. i. p. 372.
**** Purnet.
Notwithstanding his narrow revenue, and his freedom from all vanity, he lived in such magnificence, that he possessed four and twenty palaces, all of them elegantly and completely furnished; insomuch that, when he removed from one to another, he was not obliged to transport any thing along with him.
Cromwell, though himself a barbarian was not insensible to literary merit. Usher, notwithstanding his being a bishop, received a pension from him. Marvel and Milton were in his service. Waller, who was his relation, was caressed by him. That poet always said, that the protector himself was not so wholly illiterate as was commonly imagined. He gave a hundred pounds a year to the divinity professor at Oxford; and an historian mentions this bounty as an instance of his love of literature.[*] He intended to have erected a college at Durham for the benefit of the northern counties.
Civil wars, especially when founded on principles of liberty are not commonly unfavorable to the arts of elocution and composition; or rather, by presenting nobler and more interesting objects, they amply compensate that tranquillity of which they bereave the muses. The speeches of the parliamentary orators, during this period, are of a strain much superior to what any former age had produced in England; and the force and compass of our tongue were then first put to trial. It must, however, be confessed, that the wretched fanaticism, which so much infected the parliamentary party, was no less destructive of taste and science, than of all law and order. Gayety and wit were proscribed; human learning despised; freedom of inquiry detested; cant and hypocrisy alone encouraged. It was an article positively insisted on in the preliminaries to the treaty of Uxbridge, that all play-houses should forever be abolished. Sir John Davenant, says Whitlocke,[**] speaking of the year 1658, published an opera, notwithstanding the nicety of the times. All the king's furniture was put to sale: his pictures, disposed of at very low prices, enriched all the collections in Europe: the cartoons, when complete, were only appraised at three hundred pounds, though the whole collection of the king's curiosities was sold at above fifty thousand,[***]
* Neale's History of the Puritans, vol. iv. p. 123.
** Page 639.
*** Parl. Hist. vol. xix. p. 83.
Even the royal palaces were pulled in pieces, and the materials of them sold. The very library and medals at St. James's were intended by the generals to be brought to auction, in order to pay the arrears of some regiments of cavalry quartered near London; but, Seiden, apprehensive of the loss, engaged his friend Whitlocke, then lord-keeper for the commonwealth, to apply for the office of librarian. This expedient saved that valuable collection.
It is, however, remarkable, that the greatest genius by far that shone out in England during this period, was deeply engaged with these fanatics, and even prostituted his pen in theological controversy, in factious disputes, and in justifying the most violent measures of the party. This was John Milton, whose poems are admirable, though liable to some objections; his prose writings disagreeable, though not altogether defective in genius. Nor are all his poems equal: his Paradise Lost, his Comus, and a few others, shine out amidst some flat and insipid compositions. Even in the Paradise Lost, his capital performance, there are very long passages, amounting to near a third of the work, almost wholly destitute of harmony and elegance, nay, of all vigor of imagination. This natural inequality in Milton's genius was much increased by the inequalities in his subject; of which some parts are of themselves the most lofty that can enter into human conception; others would have required the most labored elegance of composition to support them. It is certain that this author, when in a happy mood, and employed on a noble subject, is the most wonderfully sublime of any poet in any language, Homer, and Lucretius, and Tasso not excepted. More concise than Homer, more simple than Tasso, more nervous than Lucretius, had he lived in a later age, and learned to polish some rudeness in his verses; had he enjoyed better fortune, and possessed leisure to watch the returns of genius in himself; he had attained the pinnacle of perfection, and borne away the palm of epic poetry.
It is well known, that Milton never enjoyed in his lifetime the reputation which he deserved. His Paradise Lost was long neglected: prejudices against an apologist for the regicides, and against a work not wholly purged from the cant of former times, kept the ignorant world from perceiving the prodigious merit of that performance. Lord Somers, by encouraging a good edition of it, about twenty years after the author's death, first brought it into request; and Tonson, in his dedication of a smaller edition, speaks of it as a work just beginning to be known. Even during the prevalence of Milton's party, he seems never to have been much regarded, and Whitlocke talks of one Milton, as he calls him, a blind man, who was employed in translating a treaty with Sweden into Latin. These forms of expression are amusing to posterity, who consider how obscure Whitlocke himself though lord-keeper and ambassador, and indeed a man of great abilities and merit, has become in comparison of Milton.
It is not strange that Milton received no encouragement after the restoration: it is more to be admired that he escaped with his life. Many of the cavaliers blamed extremely that lenity towards him, which was so honorable in the king, and so advantageous to posterity. It is said, that he had saved Davenant's life during the protectorship; and Davenant in return afforded him like protection after the restoration; being sensible that men of letters ought always to regard their sympathy of taste as a more powerful band of union, than any difference of party or opinion as a source of animosity. It was during a state of poverty, blindness, disgrace, danger, and old age, that Milton composed his wonderful poem, which not only surpassed all the performances of his contemporaries, but all the compositions which had flowed from his pen during the vigor of his age and the height of his prosperity. This circumstance is not the least remarkable of all those which attend that great genius. He died in 1674, aged sixty-six.
Waller was the first refiner of English poetry, at least of English rhyme; but his performances still abound with many faults, and, what is more material, they contain but feeble and superficial beauties. Gayety, wit, and ingenuity are their ruling character: they aspire not to the sublime; still less to the pathetic. They treat of love, without making us feel any tenderness; and abound in panegyric, without exciting admiration. The panegyric, however, on Cromwell, contains more force than we should expect, from the other compositions of this poet.
Waller was born to an ample fortune, was early introduced to the court, and lived in the best company. He possessed talents for eloquence as well as poetry; and till his death, which happened in a good old age, he was the delight of the house of commons. The errors of his life proceeded more from want of courage, than of honor or integrity. He died in 1687, aged eighty-two.
Cowley is an author extremely corrupted by the bad taste of his age; but had he lived even in the purest times of Greece nor Rome, he must always have been a very indifferent poet. He had no ear for harmony; and his verses are only known to be such by the rhyme which terminates them. In his rugged untenable numbers are conveyed sentiments the most strained and distorted; long-spun allegories, distant allusions, and forced conceits. Great ingenuity, however, and vigor of thought, sometimes break out amidst those unnatural conceptions: a few anacreontics surprise us by their ease and gayety: his prose writings please by the honesty and goodness which they express, and even by their spleen and melancholy. This author was much more praised and admired during his lifetime, and celebrated after his death, than the great Milton. He died in 1667, aged forty-nine.
Sir John Denham, in his Cooper's Hill, (for none of his other poems merit attention,) has a loftiness and vigor which had not before him been attained by any English poet who wrote in rhyme. The mechanical difficulties of that measure retarded its improvement. Shakspeare, whose tragic scenes are sometimes so wonderfully forcible and expressive, is a very indifferent poet when he attempts to rhyme. Precision and neatness are chiefly wanting in Denham. He died in 1688, aged seventy-three.
No English author in that age was more celebrated, both abroad and at home, than Hobbes: in our time, he is much neglected; a lively instance how precarious all reputations founded on reasoning and philosophy. A pleasant comedy, which paints the manners of the age, and exposes a faithful picture of nature, is a durable work, and is transmitted to the latest posterity. But a system, whether physical or metaphysical, commonly owes its success to its novelty; and is no sooner canvassed with impartiality than its weakness is discovered. Hobbes's politics are fitted only to promote tyranny, and his ethics to encourage licentiousness. Though an enemy to religion, he partakes nothing of the spirit of scepticism; but is as positive and dogmatical as if human reason, and his reason in particular, could attain a thorough conviction in these subjects. Clearness and propriety of style are the chief excellencies of Hobbes's writings. In his own person, he is represented to have been a man of virtue; a character nowise surprising, notwithstanding his libertine system of ethics. Timidity is the principal fault with which he is reproached; he lived to an extreme old age, yet could never reconcile himself to the thoughts of death. The boldness of his opinions and sentiments form a remarkable contrast to this part of his character. He died in 1679, aged ninety-one.
Harrington's Oceana was well adapted to that age, when the plans of imaginary republics were the daily subjects of debate and conversation; and even in our time, it is justly admired as a work of genius and invention. The idea however, of a perfect and immortal commonwealth, will always be found as chimerical as that of a perfect and immortal man. The style of this author wants ease and fluency; but the good matter which his work contains, makes compensation. He died in 1677, aged sixty-six.
Harvey is entitled to the glory of having made, by reasoning alone, without any mixture of accident, a capital discovery in one of the most important branches of science. He had also the happiness of establishing at once his theory on the most solid and convincing proofs; and posterity has added little to the arguments suggested by his industry and ingenuity. His treatise of the circulation of the blood is further embellished by that warmth and spirit which so naturally accompany the genius of invention. This great man was much favored by Charles I., who gave him the liberty of using all the deer in the royal forests for perfecting his discoveries on the generation of animals. It was remarked, that no physician in Europe, who had reached forty years of age, ever, to the end of his life, adopted Harvey's doctrine of the circulation of the blood; and that his practice in London diminished extremely, from the reproach drawn upon him by that great and signal discovery. So slow is the progress of truth in every science, even when not opposed by factious or superstitious prejudices. He died in 1657, aged seventy-nine.
This age affords great materials for history; but did not produce any accomplished historian. Clarendon, however, will always be esteemed an entertaining writer, even independent of our curiosity to know the facts which he relates. His style is prolix and redundant, and suffocates us by the length of its periods: but it discovers imagination and sentiment, and pleases us at the same time that we disapprove of it. He is more partial in appearance than in reality for he seems perpetually anxious to apologize for the king; but his apologies are often well grounded. He is less partial in his relation of facts, than in his account of characters: he was too honest a man to falsify the former; his affections were easily capable, unknown to himself, of disguising the latter. An air of probity and goodness runs through the whole work; as these qualities did in reality embellish the whole life of the author. He died in 1674, aged sixty-six.
These are the chief performances which engage the attention of posterity. Those numberless productions with which the press then abounded; the cant of the pulpit, the declamations of party, the subtilties of theology, all these have long ago sunk in silence and oblivion. Even a writer such as Selden, whose learning was his chief excellency, or Chillingworth, an acute disputant against the Papists, will scarcely be ranked among the classics of our language or country.
NOTES
[Footnote 1: NOTE A, p. 15. By a speech of Sir Simon D'Ewes, in the first year of the long parliament, it clearly appears, that the nation never had, even to that time, been rightly informed concerning the transactions of the Spanish negotiation, and still believed the court of Madrid to have been altogether insincere in their professions. What reason, upon that supposition, had they to blame either the prince or Buckingham for their conduct, or for the narrative delivered to the parliament? This is a capital fact, and ought to be well attended to. D'Ewes's speech is in Nalson, vol. ii. p. 368. No author or historian of that age mentions the discovery of Buckingham's impostures as a cause of disgust in the parliament. Whitlocke (p. 1) only says, that the commons began to suspect, that it had been spleen in Buckingham, not zeal for public good, which had induced him to break the Spanish match; a clear proof that his falsehood was not suspected. Wilson (p. 780) says, that Buckingham lost his popularity after Bristol arrived, not because that nobleman discovered to the world the falsehood of his narrative, but because he proved that Buckingham, while in Spain, had professed himself a Papist; which is false, and which was never said by Bristol. In all the debates which remain, not the least hint is ever given that any falsehood was suspected in the narrative. I shall further add, that even if the parliament had discovered the deceit in Buckingham's narrative, this ought not to have altered their political measures, or made them refuse supply to the king. They had supposed it practicable to wrest the Palatinate by arms from the house of Austria; they had represented it as prudent to expend the blood and treasure of the nation in such an enterprise; they had believed that the king of Spain never had any sincere intention of restoring that principality. It is certain that he had not now any such intention; and though there was reason to suspect, that this alteration in his views had proceeded from the ill conduct of Buckingham, yet past errors could not be retrieved; and the nation was undoubtedly in the same situation which the parliament had ever supposed, when they so much harassed their sovereign by their impatient, importunate, and even undutiful solicitations. To which we may add, that Charles himself was certainly deceived by Buckingham when he corroborated his favorite's narrative by his testimony. Party historians are somewhat inconsistent in their representations of these transactions. They represent the Spaniards as totally insincere, that they may reproach James with credulity in being so long deceived by them. They represent them as sincere, that they may reproach the king, the prince, and the duke with falsehood in their narrative to the parliament. The truth is, they were insincere at first; but the reasons, proceeding from bigotry, were not suspected by James, and were at last overcome, They became sincere; but the prince, deceived by the many unavoidable causes of delay, believed that they were still deceiving him.]
[Footnote 2: NOTE B, p. 42. This petition is of so great importance, that we shall here give it at length: Humbly show unto our sovereign lord the king, the lords spiritual and temporal, and commons in parliament assembled, That, whereas it is declared and enacted, by a statute made in the time of the reign of King Edward I., commonly called Statutum de Tallagio non concedendo, That no tallage or aid shall be levied by the king or his heirs in this realm, without the good will and assent of the archbishops, bishops, earls, barons, knights, burgesses, and other the freemen of the commonalty of this realm; and, by authority of parliament holden in the five and twentieth year of the reign of King Edward III., it is declared and enacted, That, from thenceforth, no person shall be compelled to make any loans to the king against his will, because such loans were against reason, and the franchise of the land; and, by other laws of this realm, it is provided, That none should be charged by any charge or imposition called a benevolence, or by such like charge; by which the statutes before mentioned, and other the good laws and statutes of this realm, your subjects have inherited this freedom, that they should not be compelled to contribute to any tax, tallage, aid, or other like charge, not set by common consent in parliament.
II. Yet, nevertheless, of late divers commissions, directed to sundry commissioners in several counties, with instructions, have issued; by means whereof your people have been in divers places assembled, and required to lend certain sums of money unto your majesty; and many of them, upon their refusal to do so, have had an oath administered unto them not warrantable by the laws or statutes of this realm, and have been constrained to become bound to make appearance and give attendance before your privy council, and in other places; and others of them have been therefore imprisoned, confined, and sundry other ways molested and disquieted; and divers other charges have been laid and levied upon your people, in several counties, by lord lieutenants, deputy lieutenants, commissioners for musters, justices of peace, and others, by command or direction from your majesty, or your privy council, against the laws and free customs of this realm.
III. And whereas also, by the statute called the Great Charter of the liberties of England, it is declared and enacted, That no freeman may be taken or imprisoned, or be disseized of his freehold or liberties, or his free customs, or be outlawed or exiled, or in any manner destroyed, but by the lawful judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land.
IV. And, in the eight and twentieth year of the reign of King Edward III., it was declared and enacted, by authority of parliament, That no man, of what estate or condition that he be, should be put out of his land or tenements, nor taken, nor imprisoned, nor dispirited, nor put to death, without being brought to answer by due process of law.
V. Nevertheless, against the tenor of the said statutes, and other the good laws and statutes of your realm to that end provided, divers of your subjects have of late been imprisoned without any cause showed; and when, for their deliverance, they were brought before justice, by your majesty's writs of habeas corpus there to undergo and receive as the court should order, and their keepers commanded to certify the causes of their detainer, no cause was certified, but that they were detained by your majesty's special command, signified by the lords of your privy council, and yet were returned back to several prisons, without being charged with any thing to which they might make answer according to the law.
VI. And whereas of late great companies of soldiers and mariners have been dispersed into divers counties of the realm, and the inhabitants, against their wills, have been compelled to receive them into their houses, and there to suffer them to sojourn, against the laws and customs of this realm, and to the great grievance and vexation of the people.
VII. And whereas also, by authority of parliament, in the five and twentieth year of the reign of King Edward III., it is declared and enacted, That no man should be forejudged of life or limb, against the form of the Great Charter and law of the land; and, by the said Great Charter, and other the laws and statutes of this your realm, no man ought to be judged to death but by the laws established in this your realm, either by the customs of the same realm, or by acts of parliament; and whereas no offender, of what kind soever, is exempted from the proceedings to be used, and punishments to be inflicted by the laws and statutes of this your realm; nevertheless, of late divers commissions, under your majesty's great seal, have issued forth, by which certain persons have been assigned and appointed commissioners, with power and authority to proceed within the land, according to the justice of martial law, against such soldiers and mariners, or other dissolute persons joining with them, as should commit any murther, robbery, felony, mutiny, or other outrage or misdemeanor whatsoever, and by such summary course and order as is agreeable to martial law, and as is used in armies in time of war, to proceed to the trial and condemnation of such offenders, and them to cause to be executed and put to death according to the law martial.
VIII. By pretext whereof, some of your majesty's subjects have been by some of the said commissioners put to death, when and where, if by the laws and statutes of the land they had deserved death, by the same laws and statutes also they might, and by no other ought, to have been judged and executed.
IX. And also sundry grievous offenders, by color thereof claiming an exemption, have escaped the punishments due to them by the laws and statutes of this your realm, by reason that divers of your officers and ministers of justice have unjustly refused or forborne to proceed against such offenders, according to the same laws and statutes, upon pretence that the said offenders were punishable only by martial law, and by authority of such commissions as aforesaid; which commissions, and all other of like nature, are wholly and directly contrary to the said laws and statutes of this your realm.
X. They do therefore humbly pray your most excellent majesty That no man hereafter be compelled to make or yield any gift, loan, benevolence, tax, or such like charge, without common consent, by act of parliament; and that none be called to make answer, or take such oath, or to give attendance, or be confined, or otherways molested or disquieted concerning the same, or for refusal thereof; and that no freeman, in any such manner as is before mentioned, be imprisoned or detained; and that your majesty would be pleased to remove the said soldiers and mariners, and that people may not be so burdened in time to come; and that the aforesaid commissions, for proceeding by martial law, may be revoked and annulled; and that hereafter no commissions of like nature may issue forth, to any person or persons whatsoever, to be executed as aforesaid, lest, by color of them, any of your majesty's subjects be destroyed, or put to death, contrary to the laws and franchise of the land.
XL All which they most humbly pray of your most excellent majesty, as their rights and liberties, according to the laws and statutes of this realm; and that your majesty would also vouchsafe to declare, That the awards, doings, and proceedings to the prejudice of your people, in any of the premises, shall not be drawn hereafter into consequence or example; and that your majesty would be also graciously pleased, for the further comfort and safety of your people, to declare your royal will and pleasure, that in the things aforesaid, all your officers and ministers shall serve you according to the laws and statutes of this realm, as they tender the honor of your majesty, and the prosperity of this kingdom. Stat. 17 Car. cap. 14.]
[Footnote 3: NOTE C, p. 52. The reason assigned by Sir Philip Warwick (p. 2) for this unusual measure of the commons, is, that they intended to deprive the crown of the prerogative which it had assumed, of varying the rates of the impositions, and at the same time were resolved to cut off the new rates fixed by James. These were considerable diminutions both of revenue and prerogative; and whether they would have there stopped, considering their present disposition, may be much doubted. The king, it seems, and the lords were resolved not to trust them; nor to render a revenue once precarious, which perhaps they might never afterwards be able to get reestablished on the old footing.]
[Footnote 4: NOTE D, p. 80. Here is a passage of Sir John Davis's Question concerning Impositions, (p. 131.) "This power of laying on arbitrarily new impositions being a prerogative in point of government, as well as in point of profit, it cannot be restrained or bound by act of parliament; it can not be limited by any certain or fixt rule of law, no more than the course of a pilot upon the sea, who must turn the helm or bear higher or lower sail, according to the wind or weather; and therefore it may be properly said, that the king's prerogative, in this point, is as strong as Samson; it cannot be bound; for though an act of parliament be made to restrain it, and the king doth give his consent unto it, as Samson was bound with his own consent; yet if the Philistines come, that is, if any just or important occasion do arise, it cannot hold or restrain the prerogative; it will be as thread, and broken as easy as the bonds of Samson. The king's prerogatives are the sunbeams of the crown, and as inseparable from it as the sunbeams from the sun. The king's crown must be taken from him; Samson's hair must be cut off, before his courage can be any jot abated. Hence it is that neither the king's act, nor any act of parliament, can give away his prerogative."]
[Footnote 5: NOTE E, p. 121. We shall here make use of the liberty allowed in a note to expatiate a little on the present subject. It must be confessed, that the king in this declaration touched upon that circumstance in the English constitution which it is most difficult, or rather altogether impossible, to regulate by laws, and which must be governed by certain delicate ideas of propriety and decency, rather than by any exact rule or prescription. To deny the parliament all right of remonstrating against what they esteem grievances, were to reduce that assembly to a total insignificancy, and to deprive the people of every advantage which they could reap from popular councils. To complain of the parliament's employing the power of taxation as the means of extorting concessions from their sovereign, were to expect that they would entirely disarm themselves, and renounce the sole expedient provided by the constitution for insuring to the kingdom a just and legal administration. In different periods of English story, there occur instances of their remonstrating with their princes in the freest manner, and sometimes of their refusing supply when disgusted with any circumstance of public conduct. It is, however, certain, that this power, though essential to parliaments, may easily be abused, as well by the frequency and minuteness of their remonstrances, as by their intrusion into every part of the king's counsels and determinations. Under color of advice, they may give disguised orders; and in complaining of grievances, they may draw to themselves every power of government. Whatever measure is embraced without consulting them, may be pronounced an oppression of the people; and, till corrected, they may refuse the most necessary supplies to their indigent sovereign. From the very nature of this parliamentary liberty, it is evident that it must be left unbounded by law; for who can foretell how frequently grievances may occur, or what part of administration may be affected by them? From the nature, too, of the human frame, it may be expected, that this liberty would be exerted in its full extent, and no branch of authority be allowed to remain unmolested in the hands of the prince; for will the weak limitations of respect and decorum be sufficient to restrain human ambition, which so frequently breaks through all the prescriptions of law and justice?
But here it is observable, that the wisdom of the English constitution, or rather the concurrence of accidents, has provided, in different periods, certain irregular checks to this privilege of parliament and thereby maintained, in some tolerable measure, the dignity and authority of the crown.
In the ancient constitution, before the beginning of the seventeenth century, the meetings of parliament were precarious, and were not frequent. The sessions were short, and the members had no leisure either to get acquainted with each other, or with public business. The ignorance of the age made men more submissive to that authority which governed them. And above all, the large demesnes of the crown, with the small expense of government during that period, rendered the prince almost independent, and taught the parliament to preserve great submission and duty towards him.
In our present constitution, many accidents which have rendered governments every where, as well as in Great Britain, much more burdensome than formerly, have thrown into the hands of the crown the disposal of a large revenue, and have enabled the king, by the private interest and ambition of the members, to restrain the public interest and ambition of the body. While the opposition (for we must still have an opposition, open or disguised,) endeavors to draw every branch of administration under the cognizance of parliament, the courtiers reserve a part to the disposal of the crown; and the royal prerogative, though deprived of its ancient powers, still maintains a due weight in the balance of the constitution.
It was the fate of the house of Stuart to govern England at a period when the former source of authority was already much diminished, and before the latter began to flow in any tolerable abundance. Without a regular and fixed foundation, the throne perpetually tottered; and the prince sat upon it anxiously and precariously. Every expedient used by James and Charles in order to support their dignity, we have seen attended with sensible inconveniencies. The majesty of the crown, derived from ancient powers and prerogatives, procured respect, and checked the approaches of insolent intruders. But it begat in the king so high an idea of his own rank and station, as made him incapable of stooping to popular courses, or submitting, in any degree, to the control of parliament. The alliance with the hierarchy strengthened law by the sanction of religion; but it enraged the Puritanical party, and exposed the prince to the attacks of enemies, numerous, violent, and implacable. The memory, too, of these two kings, from like causes, has been attended, in some degree, with the same infelicity which pursued them during the whole course of their lives. Though it must be confessed, that their skill in government was not proportioned to the extreme delicacy of their situation, a sufficient indulgence has not been given them, and all the blame, by several historians, has been unjustly thrown on their side. Their violations of law, particularly those of Charles, are, in some few instances, transgressions of a plain limit which was marked out to loyal authority. But the encroachments of the commons, though in the beginning less positive and determinate, are no less discernible by good judges, and were equally capable of destroying the just balance of the constitution. While they exercised the powers transmitted to them in a manner more independent, and less compliant, than had ever before been practised, the kings were, perhaps imprudently, but as they imagined, from necessity, tempted to assume powers which had scarcely ever been exercised, or had been exercised in a different manner by the crown. And from the shock of these opposite pretensions, together with religious controversy, arose all the factions, convulsions, and disorders which attended that period.
"This footnote was in the first editions a part of the text.]
[Footnote 6: NOTE F, p. 166. Mr. Carte, in his Life of the duke of Ormond, has given us some evidence to prove that this letter was entirely a forgery of the popular leaders, in order to induce the king to sacrifice Strafford. He tells us, that Strafford said so to his son the night before his execution, But there are some reasons why I adhere to the common way of telling this story. 1. The account of the forgery comes through several hands, and from men of characters not fully known to the public; a circumstance which weakens every evidence. It is a hearsay of a hearsay. 2. It seems impossible but young Lord Strafford must inform the king, who would not have failed to trace the forgery, and expose his enemies to their merited infamy. 3. It is not to be conceived but Clarendon and Whitlocke, not to mention others, must have heard of the matter. 4. Sir George Ratcliffe, in his Life of Strafford, tells the story the same way that Clarendon and Whitlocke do. Would he also, who was Strafford's intimate friend, never have heard of the forgery? It is remarkable, that this Life is dedicated or addressed to young Strafford. Would not he have put Sir George right in so material and interesting a fact?]
[Footnote 7: NOTE G, p. 167. What made this bill appear of less consequence was, that the parliament voted tonnage and poundage for no longer a period than two months; and as that branch was more than half of the revenue, and the government could not possibly subsist without it, it seemed indirectly in the power of the parliament to continue themselves as long as they pleased. This indeed was true in the ordinary administration of government; but on the approaches towards a civil war, which was not then foreseen, it had been of great consequence to the king to have reserved the right of dissolution, and to have endured any extremity rather than allow the continuance of the parliament.] |
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