and Apostles: which revelations of God by the Spirit, whether by outward voices and appearances, dreams, or inward objective manifestations in the heart, were of old the formal object of their faith and remain yet so to be,—since the object of the Saints' faith is the same in all ages, though set forth under divers administrations." This Inner Light of the Spirit, seizing men and women at all times and places, and illuminating them in the knowledge of God, was, Barclay elsewhere explains, something altogether supernatural, something totally distinct from natural Reason. "That Man, as he is a rational creature, hath Reason as a natural faculty of his soul, we deny not; for this is a property natural and essential to him, by which he can know and learn many arts and sciences, beyond what any other animal can do by the mere animal principle. Neither do we deny that by this rational principle Man may apprehend in his brain, and in the notion, a knowledge of God and spiritual things; yet, that not being the right organ, ... it cannot profit him towards salvation, but rather hindereth." And what of the use and value of the Scriptures? "From these revelations of the Spirit of God to the saints have proceeded the Scriptures of Truth, which contain (1) A faithful historical account of the actings of God's people in divers ages, with many singular and remarkable providences attending them; (2) A prophetical account of several things, whereof some are already past and some yet to come; (3) A full and ample account of all the chief principles of the doctrine of Christ ... Nevertheless, because they are only a declaration of the fountain, and not the fountain itself, therefore they are not to be esteemed the principal ground of all Truth and Knowledge, nor yet the adequate primary rule of faith and manners. Nevertheless, as that which giveth a true and faithful testimony of the first foundation, they are and may be esteemed a secondary rule, subordinate to the Spirit, from which they have all their excellency and certainty." So much for the form of the central principle of Early Quakerism, so far as it can be expressed logically. But it was in the resolute application of the principle in practice that the Early Quakers made themselves conspicuous. They were not Speculative Voluntaries, waiting for the abolition of the National Church, and paying tithes meanwhile. They were Separatists who would at once and in every way assert their Separatism. They would pay no tithes; they called every church "a steeple-house"; and they regarded every parson as the hired performer in one of the steeple-houses. Then, in their own meetings for mutual edification and worship, all their customs were in accordance with their main principle. They had no fixed articles of congregational creed, no prescribed forms of prayer, no ordinance of baptism or of sacramental communion, no religious ceremony in sanction of marriage, and no paid or appointed preachers. The ministry was to be as the spirit moved; all equally might speak or be silent, poor as well as rich, unlearned as well as learned, women as well as men; if special teachers did spring up amongst them, it should not be professionally, or to earn a salary. Yet, with all this liberty among themselves, what unanimity in the moral purport of their teachings! Their restless dissatisfaction with the Established Church and with all known varieties of Dissent, their passion for a full reception of Christ at the fountain-head, their searchings of the Scriptures, their private raptures and meditations, their prayers and consultations in public, had resulted in a simple re-issue of the Christianity of the Sermon on the Mount. Quakerism, in its kernel, was but the revived Christian morality of meekness, piety, benevolence, purity, truthfulness, peacefulness, and passivity. There were to be no oaths: Yea or Nay was to be enough. There were to be no ceremonies of honour or courtesy-titles among men: the hat was to be taken off to no one, and all were to be addressed in the singular, as Thou and Thee. War and physical violence were unlawful, and therefore all fighting and the trade of a soldier. Injuries to oneself were to be borne with patience, but there was to be the most active energy in relieving the sufferings of others, and in seeking out suffering where it lurked. The sick and those in prison were to be visited, the insane and the outcast; and the wrongs and cruelties of law, whether in death-sentences for mere offences against property, or in brutal methods of prison-treatment, were to be exposed and condemned. For the rest, the Friends were to walk industriously and domestically through the world, honest in their dealings, wearing a plain Puritan garb, and avoiding all vanities and gaieties.—Had it been possible for such a sect to come into existence by mere natural growth, or the unconcerted association of like-minded persons in all parts of the country at once, even then, one can see, there would have been irritation between it and the rest of the community. The refusal to pay tithes, the refusal of oaths in Courts of Law or anywhere else, the objection to war and to the trade of a soldier, the Theeing and Thouing of all indiscriminately, the keeping of the hat on in any presence, would have occasioned constant feud between any little nucleus of Quakers and the society round about it. But the sect had not formed itself by any such quiet process of simultaneous grouping among people who had somehow imbibed its tenets. It had come into being, and in fact had shaped its tenets and become aware of them, through a previous fervour of itinerant Propagandism such as had hardly been known since the first Apostles and Christian missionaries had walked among the heathen. The first Quaker, the man in whose dreamings by himself, aided by scanty readings, the principles of the sect had been evolved, and in whose conduct by himself for a year or two the sect had practically originated, was the good, blunt, obstinate, opaque-brained, ecstatic, Leicestershire shoemaker, George Fox, the Boehme of England. From the year 1646, when he was two and twenty years of age, the life of Fox had been an incessant tramp through the towns and villages of the Midlands and the North, with preachings in barns, in inns, in market-places, outside courts of justice, and often inside the steeple-houses themselves, by way of interruption of the regular ministers, or correction of their doctrine after the hours of regular service. Extraordinary excitements had attended him everywhere, paroxysms of delight in him with tears and tremblings, outbreaks of rage against him with hootings and stonings. Again and again he had been brought before justices and magistrates, to whose presence indeed he naturally tended of his own accord for the purpose of lecturing them on their duties, and to whom he was always writing Biblical letters. He had been beaten and put in the stocks; he had been in Derby jail and in several other prisons, charged with riot or blasphemy; and in these prisons he had found work to his mind and had sometimes converted his jailors. And so, by the year 1654, "the man with the leather breeches," as he was called, had become a celebrity throughout England, with scattered converts and adherents everywhere, but voted a pest and terror by the public authorities, the regular steeple-house clergy whether Presbyterian or Independent, and the appointed preachers of all the old sects. By this time, however, he was by no means the sole preacher of Quakerism. Every now and then from among his converts there had started up one fitted to assist him in the work of itinerant propagandism, and the number of such had increased in 1654 to about sixty in all. Richard Farnsworth, James Nayler, William Dewsbury, Thomas Aldam, John Audland, Francis Howgill, Edward Burrough, Thomas Taylor, John Camm, Richard Hubberthorn, Miles Halhead, James Parnel, Thomas Briggs, Robert Widders, George Whitehead, Thomas Holmes, James Lancaster, Alexander Parker, William Caton, and John Stubbs, of the one sex, with Elizabeth Hooton, Anna Downer, Elizabeth Heavens, Elizabeth Fletcher, Barbara Blaugden, Catherine Evans, and Sarah Cheevers, of the other sex, were among the chief of these early Quaker preachers after Fox. They had carried the doctrines into every part of England, and also into Scotland and Ireland; some of them had even been moved to go to the Continent. Wherever they went there was the same disturbance round them as round Fox himself, and they had the same hard treatment—imprisonment, duckings, whippings. It is necessary that the reader should remember that in 1654 Quakerism was still in this first stage of its diffusion by a vehement propagandism carried on by some sixty itinerant preachers at war with established habits and customs, and had not settled down into mere individual Quietism, with associations of those who had been converted to its principles, and could be content with their own local meetings. In the chief centres, indeed, there were now fixed meetings for the resident Quakers, the main meeting place for London being the Bull and Mouth in St. Martin's-le-Grand; but Fox and most of his coadjutors were still wandering about the country.—There was already an extensive literature of Quakerism, consisting of printed letters and tracts by Fox himself, Farnsworth, Nayler, Dewsbury, Howgill, and others, and of invectives against the Quakers and their principles by Presbyterians and Independents; and some of the letters of the Quakers had been directly addressed to Cromwell. There had also, some time in 1654, been one interview between the Lord Protector and Fox. Colonel Hacker, having arrested Fox in Leicestershire, had sent him up to London. Brought to Whitehall, one morning early, when the Lord Protector was dressing, he had said, on entering, "Peace be on this House!" and had then discoursed to the Protector at some length, the Protector kindly listening, occasionally putting a question, and several times acknowledging a remark of George's by saying it was "very good," and "the truth." At parting, the Protector had taken hold of his hand, and, with tears in his eyes, said "Come again to my house! If thou and I were but an hour of the day together, we should be nearer one to another. I wish no more harm to thee than I do to my own soul." Outside, the captain on guard, informing George that he was free, had wanted him, by the Protector's orders, to stay and dine with the household; but George had stoutly declined.[1]

[Footnote 1: Sewel's History of the People called Quakers (ed. 1834), I, I—136; Rules and Discipline of the Society of Friends (1834), Introduction; Baxter, 77; Neal, IV. 31-41; Pamphlets in Thomason Collection; Robert Barclay's Apology for the Quakers (ed. 1765), pp. 4, 48, 118, 309-310. This last is a really able and impressive book—far the most reasoned exposition even yet, I believe, of the principles of early Quakerism. Though not written till twenty years after our present date, it was the first accurate and articulate expression, I believe, of the principles that had really, though rather confusedly, pervaded the Quaker teachings and writings at that date.—There are many particles of information about the early Quakers, and about other contemporary English sects, in The Inner Life of the Religious Societies of the Commonwealth, published in 1878, the posthumous work of a second Robert Barclay, two hundred years after the first. But the book, though laborious, is very chaotic, and shows hardly any knowledge of the time of which it mainly treats.]

Such were the more recent sects and heresies for which, as well as for those older and more familiar, the First Parliament of the Protectorate had been, with the help of Dr. Owen and his brother-divines, preparing a strait-jacket. Of that Parliament, however, and of all its belongings, the Commonwealth was to be rid sooner than had been expected.

It had been the astute policy of the Parliament to concentrate all their attention upon the new Constitution for the Protectorate, and to neglect and postpone other business until the Bill of the Constitution had been pushed through and presented to Cromwell for his assent. In particular they had postponed, as much as possible, all supplies for Army and Navy and for carrying on the Government. By this, as they thought, they retained Cromwell in their grasp. By the instrument under which they had been called, he could not dissolve them till they had sat five months,—which, by ordinary counting from Sept. 3, 1654, made them safe till Feb. 3, 1654-5. But, if they could contrive that it should be Cromwell's interest not to dissolve them then, there was no reason why they should not sit on a good while longer, perhaps even till near Oct. 1656, the time they had themselves fixed for the meeting of the next Parliament. To postpone supplies, therefore, till after the general Bill of the Constitution in all its sixty Articles should have received Cromwell's assent, to wrap up present supplies and the hope of future supplies as much as possible in the Bill itself, was the plan of the Anti-Oliverians. The Bill, it will be remembered, had passed the second reading on Dec. 23, had then gone into Committee for amendments, and had come back to the House with these amendments. On the 10th of January, 1654-5, when the Bill was almost ready to be engrossed, it was moved by the Oliverians that there should be a conference about it with the Protector; but the motion was lost by 107 votes to 95. Among various subsequent divisions was one on the 16th on the question whether the Bill should become Law even if the Lord Protector should refuse his assent, and the Anti-Oliverians negatived the putting of the question by eighty-six votes to fifty-five. The next day, after another division, it was resolved thus: "That this Bill entitled An Act Declaring and Settling the Government of the Commonwealth, &c., be engrossed in order to its presentment to the Lord Protector for his consideration and assent," and that, if "the Lord Protector and the Parliament shall not agree thereunto and to every Article thereof, then the Bill shall be void and of none effect." Cromwell having thus been shut up to accept all or none, the Bill passed the third and conclusive reading on Friday, Jan. 19. Then all depended on Cromwell, who would have twenty days to make up his mind. He had made up his mind already, and did not mean to wait for the parchment. The Bill included provisions striking, as he conceived, at the root of his Protectorate, e.g. one for depriving him and the Council of State of that power of interim legislation which they had hitherto exercised with so much effect, and others withholding the negative he thought his due on future Bills affecting fundamentals. He was, besides, wholly disgusted with the spirit and conduct of the Parliament. Accordingly, having bethought himself that, in the payment of the soldiers and sailors, a month was construed as twenty-eight days only, he let the Saturday and Sunday after the third reading of the Bill pass quietly by, and then, on Monday the 22nd, having summoned the House to meet him in the Painted Chamber, addressed them in what counts as the Fourth of his Speeches, told them their time was up that day, and dissolved them. Their Constitutional Bill of Sixty Articles disappeared with them; and they had not, in all the five months, sent up a single Bill to Cromwell for his assent.[1]

[Footnote 1: Commons Journals of dates; Godwin, IV. 148-157; Carlyle, III. 70-95.]



SECTION II.

BETWEEN THE PARLIAMENTS, OR THE TIME OF ARBITRARINESS: JAN. 22, 1654-55—SEPT. 17, 1656.

AVOWED "ARBITRARINESS" OF THIS STAGE OF THE PROTECTORATE, AND REASONS FOR IT.—FIRST MEETING OF CROMWELL AND HIS COUNCIL AFTER THE DISSOLUTION: MAJOR-GENERAL OVERTON IN CUSTODY: OTHER ARRESTS: SUPPRESSION OF A WIDE REPUBLICAN CONSPIRACY AND OF ROYALIST RISINGS IN YORKSHIRE AND THE WEST: REVENUE ORDINANCE AND MR. CONY'S OPPOSITION AT LAW: DEFERENCE OF FOREIGN GOVERNMENTS: BLAKE IN THE MEDITERRANEAN: MASSACRE OF THE PIEDMONTESE PROTESTANTS: DETAILS OF THE STORY AND OF CROMWELL'S PROCEEDINGS IN CONSEQUENCE: PENN IN THE SPANISH WEST INDIES: HIS REPULSE FROM HISPANIOLA AND LANDING IN JAMAICA: DECLARATION OF WAR WITH SPAIN AND ALLIANCE WITH FRANCE: SCHEME OF THE GOVERNMENT OF ENGLAND BY MAJOR-GENERALS: LIST OF THEM AND SUMMARY OF THEIR POLICE-SYSTEM: DECIMATION TAX ON THE ROYALISTS, AND OTHER MEASURES IN TERROREM: CONSOLIDATION OF THE LONDON NEWSPAPER PRESS: PROCEEDINGS OF THE COMMISSION OF EJECTORS AND OF THE COMMISSION OF TRIERS: VIEW OF CROMWELL'S ESTABLISHED CHURCH OF ENGLAND, WITH ENUMERATION OF ITS VARIOUS COMPONENTS: EXTENT OF TOLERATION OUTSIDE THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH: THE PROTECTOR'S TREATMENT OF THE ROMAN CATHOLICS, THE EPISCOPALIANS, THE ANTI-TRINITARIANS, THE QUAKERS, AND THE JEWS: STATE OF THE ENGLISH UNIVERSITIES AND SCHOOLS UNDER THE PROTECTORATE: CROMWELL'S PATRONAGE OF LEARNING: LIST OF ENGLISH MEN OF LETTERS ALIVE IN 1656, AND ACCOUNT OF THEIR DIVERSE RELATIONS TO CROMWELL: POETICAL PANEGYRICS ON HIM AND HIS PROTECTORATE.—NEW ARRANGEMENTS FOR THE GOVERNMENT OF SCOTLAND: LORD BROGHILL'S PRESIDENCY THERE FOR CROMWELL: GENERAL STATE OF THE COUNTRY: CONTINUED STRUGGLE BETWEEN THE RESOLUTIONERS AND THE PROTESTERS FOR KIRK-SUPREMACY: INDEPENDENCY AND QUAKERISM IN SCOTLAND: MORE EXTREME ANOMALIES THERE: STORY OF "JOCK OF BROAD SCOTLAND": BRISK INTERCOURSE BETWEEN SCOTLAND AND LONDON: MISSION OF MR. JAMES SHARP.—IRELAND FROM 1654 TO 1656.—GLIMPSE OF THE COLONIES.

This long stretch of twenty months was to be another period of the government of the Commonwealth by the Lord Protector and the Council of State on their own responsibility and without a Parliament. In the circumstances in which the late Parliament had left them, without supplies and without a single concluded and authoritative enactment, they could only fall back on the original Instrument of the Protectorate, amending its defects by their own ingenuity as exigencies occurred, with a suggestion now and then snatched, for the sake of quasi-Parliamentary countenance, from the wreck of the late Constitutional Bill. Hence a character of "arbitrariness" in Cromwell's government throughout this period greater perhaps than in any other of his whole Protectorate. For that, however, he was prepared. At the first meeting of the Council after the Dissolution of Parliament (Tuesday, Jan. 23, 1654-5) there were present, I find, His Highness himself, and thirteen out of the eighteen Councillors, viz.: Lord President Lawrence, the Earl of Mulgrave, Viscount Lisle, Lambert, Desborough, Fiennes, Montague, Sydenham, Strickland, Sir Charles Wolseley, Skippon, Jones, and Rous; and it was then "ordered by his Highness and the Council that Friday next be set apart for their seeking of God, and that Mr. Lockyer, Mr. Caryl, Mr. Denn, and Mr. Sterry, be desired then to give their assistance." In entering on the new period of their Government, the Protector and the Council thought a day of special prayer very fitting.[1]

[Footnote 1 Council Order Book of date.—Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, having shown Anti-Oliverian tendencies in the late Parliament, did not reappear in the Council after the Dissolution, and had virtually ceased to be a member. Colonel Mackworth had died Dec. 26, 1654. The three other members not present at the meeting of Jan. 23, 1664-5 were Fleetwood, Sir Gilbert Pickering, and Richard Mayor. Fleetwood was in Ireland; Pickering's absence was accidental, and he was in his place very regularly afterwards; Mayor did not attend steadily.]

In the Dissolution Speech Cromwell, rebuking the Parliament for their inattention to what he considered their real duty, had compared them to a tree under the shadow of which there had been a too thriving growth of other vegetation. Interpreting the parable, he had explained to them that there was at that moment a new and very complex conspiracy against the Commonwealth, that the Levellers at home had been in correspondence with the Cavaliers abroad, that their plans were laid and their manifestos ready, that commissioners from Charles Stuart had arrived and stores of arms and money had been collected, and also (worst of all) that there had been tamperings with the Army by Commonwealth men of higher note than the mere Levellers. He did not believe, he said, that any then in Parliament were in the Cavalier interest in the connexion, but he was not sure that they were all perfectly clear of the connexion on all its sides. At all events, he knew that their policy of starving the Army had given the enemy their best opportunity. Fortunately, he had already some of the chief home-conspirators in custody, and the Cavalier part of the plot might explode when it liked.[1]

[Footnote 1: Speech IV (Carlyle, III 75-81.)]

The chief of those in custody when Cromwell spoke was the Republican Major-General Overton. He had been under suspicion before, as we have seen, but had cleared himself sufficiently to Cromwell, and had been sent back to Scotland as second in command to Monk (Sept. 1654). Since then, however, he had relapsed into the Anti-Oliverian mood, and had become, it was believed, the head of the numerous Anti-Oliverians or Republicans in Monk's Army, The proposal was to seize Monk, make Overton the commander-in-chief, and march into England, But, information having been received in time, there had been the necessary arrests of the guilty officers (Dec. 1654). Most of them had been kept in Edinburgh to be dealt with by Monk; but the chiefs had been sent at once to London, and among them Overton, whose arrest had taken place at Aberdeen. He was committed to the Tower Jan. 16, 1654-5. The clue having thus been furnished, further investigation had disclosed more. In concert with the Anti-Oliverian movement in the Army of Scotland, and depending on that movement for help, there had been plottings in England, in which Harrison, Colonel Okey, Colonel Alured, Colonel Sexby, Adjutant-General Allen, Admiral Lawson, Major John Wildman, Lord Grey of Groby, Carew, and even Bradshaw, Hasilrig, and Henry Marten, were, or were said to be, more or less involved. The aim seems to have been a combination of the Anabaptist Levellers with the more eminent Republicans,—the Levellers, or some of them, quite willing to combine also with the Royalists, and indeed in confidential negotiation with them. How the scheme, or medley of schemes, would have turned out in the working, was never to be known. It was frustrated by the arrest, in January and February, of most of the suspected. The most important arrest was that of Major Wildman, the undoubted chief of the Levelling section of the conspiracy. When arrested in Wiltshire, he was found in the act of dictating a "Declaration of the Free and Well-affected People of England now in arms against the tyrant Oliver Cromwell, Esq." He was imprisoned in Chepstow Castle. Sexby, the most active man after Wildman in the Levelling or Anabaptist section of the conspiracy, escaped and went abroad. Adjutant-General Allen, and others less deeply implicated, were dismissed from their posts in the Army. Harrison was confined in the Isle of Portland, Carew in St. Mawes, in Cornwall, and Lord Grey of Groby in Windsor Castle. None of all the Republicans, higher or lower, it was remarked, suffered any punishment beyond such seclusion or dismissal from the service. Clemency on that side was always Cromwell's policy.[1]

[Footnote 1: Godwin, IV. 158-165; Carlyle, III. 66-70 and 98-99; Whitlocke, IV. 182-188 (Wildman's Proclamation); Life of Robert Blair, 319.]

Much sharper was Cromwell's method of dealing with the attempted invasion and insurrection of the Royalists independently. Hopes had risen high at the Court of the Stuarts, and the preparations had been extensive. Charles himself had gone to Middleburg, with the Marquis of Ormond and others, to be ready for a landing in England; Hull had been thought of as the likeliest landing-place; commissioned pioneers of the enterprise were already moving about in various English counties. Of all this Thurloe had procured sufficient intelligence through his foreign spies, and the precautions of the Protector and Council had been commensurate. The projected Overton revolt in Scotland and the Wildman-Sexby plot in England having been brought to nothing, the Royalists had to act for themselves. Two abortive risings in March, 1654-5, exhausted their energy. One was in Yorkshire, where Sir Henry Slingsby and Sir Richard Malevrier appeared in arms, but were immediately suppressed. The other was in the West, and was more serious. On the night of Sunday, the 11th of March, a body of 200 Cavaliers, headed by Sir Joseph Wagstaff, one of Charles's emissaries from abroad, took possession of the city of Salisbury, The assizes were to be held in the city the next day, and Chief Justice Rolle, Judge Nicholas, and the High Sheriff, had arrived and were in their beds. They were seized; and next morning Wagstaff issued orders for hanging them, but was stopped in the act by the remonstrances of Colonel John Penruddock and others. From Salisbury, finding no encouragement among the citizens, the insurgents moved westward till they reached South Molton in Devonshire, where they were overtaken on the night of Wednesday, March 14, by Captain Unton Crook. There was a brief street-fight, ending in the defeat of the Royalists, and the capture of Penruddock and about fifty more. Wagstaff escaped. Of the contemporary insurgents in the north there had meanwhile escaped Malevrier and also Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, who had come from abroad to head the Royalist insurrection generally, had gone to the north, but had not awaited the actual upshot. He lay concealed in London for a time, and got to Cologne at last. In the trials which ensued those who suffered capitally were Penruddock, beheaded at Exeter, a Captain Hugh Grove and several others at other places in the West, and two or three at York. Many of the inferior culprits, capitally convicted, had their lives spared, but were sent in servitude to Barbadoes.[1]

[Footnote 1: Clarendon, 824-827; Whitlocke, IV. 188; Godwin, IV. 167-169; Carlyle, III. 99-100.]

Revenue had been one of the first cares of the Protector and Council in resuming power after the Dissolution. By a former ordinance of theirs of June 1654 (Vol. IV. p. 562), the assessment for the Army and Navy had been renewed for three months at the rate of L120,000 per month, and for the next three months at the lowered rate of L90,000 per month. This ordinance had expired at Christmas 1654; and, though the Parliament had then passed a Bill for extending the assessment for three months more at L60,000 per month, the Bill had never been presented to Cromwell for his assent. On the 8th of February, 1654-5, therefore, a new Ordinance by his Highness and Council fixed the assessment for a certain term at L60,000 per month. This acceptance of the reduction proposed by the Parliament gave general satisfaction; and there is evidence that at this time Cromwell and the Council let themselves be driven to various shifts of economy rather than overstrain their power of ordinance-making in the unpopular particular of supplies. But, indeed, it was on the question of the validity of this power generally, all-essential as it was, that they encountered their greatest difficulties. A merchant named Cony did more to wreck the Protectorate by a suit at law than did the Cavaliers by their armed insurrection. Having refused to pay custom duty because it was levied only by an ordinance of the Lord Protector and Council of March, 1654, and not by authority of Parliament, he had been fined L500 by the Commissioners of Customs, and had been committed to prison for non-payment. On a motion for a writ of habeas corpus his case came on for trial in May 1655. Maynard and two other eminent lawyers who were his counsel pleaded so effectively that they were committed to the Tower for what was called language destructive to the Government. Cony himself then went on with the pleading, and so sturdily that Chief Justice Rolle was non-plussed, and had to confess as much to Cromwell. It was only by delay, and then by some private management of Cony, that a decision was avoided which would have enabled the whole population legally to defy every taxing ordinance of the Protectorate. Similarly the Ordinance of August 1654 for regulating the Court of Chancery, and even the Ordinance of Treason under which the late insurgents had been tried, had brought the Protectorate into collision with the consciences of Lawyers and Judges. There were such remonstrances to Cromwell on the subject that he had to re-arrange the whole Bench. He removed Rolle and two other Judges, appointing Glynne and Steele in their stead, and he deprived Whitlocke and Widdrington of their Commissionerships of the Great Seal, compensating them after a while by Commissionerships of the Treasury. For all this "arbitrariness" Cromwell avowed, in the simplest and most downright manner, the plea of absolute necessity. The very existence of his Protectorate was at peril; and that meant, he declared, the existence of the Commonwealth.[1]

[Footnote 1: Godwin, IV. 174-183; Whitlocke, through April, May, June, and July, 1655.]

For such "arbitrariness" in some of the Protector's home-proceedings there was, most people allowed, a splendid atonement in the marvels of his foreign policy. Never had there been on the throne of England a sovereign more bent upon making England the champion-nation of the world. The deference, the sycophancy, of foreign princes and potentates to him, and the proofs of the same in letters and embassies, and in presents of hawks and horses, had become a theme for jests and caricatures among foreigners themselves. Parliaments might come and go in Westminster; but there sat Cromwell, immoveable through all, the impersonation of the British Islands. His dissolution of the late Parliament, and his easy suppression of the subsequent tumult, had but increased the respect for him abroad. Whether he would finally declare himself for Spain or for France was still the momentous question. The Marquis of Leyda, Spanish Governor of Dunkirk, had come to London to assist Cardenas in the negotiations for Spain; but Mazarin was indefatigable in his offers, through M. de Bordeaux and otherwise.[1]

[Footnote 1: Council Order Books passim; Guizot, II. 203.]

While the Parliament was still sitting, Cromwell had sent out two fleets, one under the command of Blake (Oct. 1654), the other under that of Penn (Dec. 1654). There was the utmost secrecy as to the destination and objects of both, but the mystery did not last long about Blake's. He had received instructions to go into the Mediterranean, make calls there on all powers against which the Commonwealth had claims, and bring them to account. Blake fulfilled his mission with his usual precision and success. His first call of any importance was on the Grand Duke of Tuscany, formerly so much in the good graces of the Commonwealth (Vol. IV. pp. 483-485), but whom Cromwell, after looking more into matters, had found culpable. Blake's demands were for heavy money-damages on account of English ships taken by Prince Rupert in 1650, and sold in Tuscan ports, and also on account of English ships ordered out of Leghorn harbour in March 1653, so that they fell into the hands of the Dutch. There was the utmost consternation among the Tuscans, and the alarm extended even to Rome, inasmuch as some of Rupert's prizes had been sold in the Papal States. A disembarcation of the English heretics and even their march to Rome did not seem impossible; and Tuscans and Romans were greatly relieved when the Grand Duke paid L60,000 and the Pope 20,000 pistoles (L14,000), and Blake retired. His next call was at Tunis, where there were accounts with the Dey. That Mussulman having pointed to his forts, and dared Blake to do his worst, there was a tremendous bombardment on the 3rd of April, 1655, reducing the forts to ruins, followed by the burning of the Dey's entire war-squadron of nine ships. This sufficed not only for Tunis, but also for Tripoli and Algiers. All the Moorish powers of the African coast gave up their English captives, and engaged that there should be no more piracy upon English vessels. Malta, Venice, Toulon, Marseilles, and various Spanish ports were then visited for one reason or another; and in the autumn of 1655 Blake was still in the Mediterranean for ulterior purposes, understood between him and Cromwell.[1]

[Footnote 1: Guizot, II. 186-198, with, documents in Appendix; Godwin, IV. 187-188; Whitlocke. IV., 206-207.]

While Blake was in the Mediterranean, one Italian potentate did a sudden act of infamy, which resounded through Europe, and for which Cromwell would fain have clutched him by the throat in his own inland capital. This was Carlo Emanuele II., Duke of Savoy and Prince of Piedmont.

In the territories of this young prince, in the Piedmontese valleys of Luserna, Perosa, and San Martino, on the east side of the Cottian Alps, lived the remarkable people known as the Vaudois or Waldenses. From time immemorial these obscure mountaineers, speaking a peculiar Romance tongue of their own, had kept themselves distinct from the Church of Rome, maintaining doctrines and forms of worship of such a kind that, after the Lutheran Reformation, they were regarded as primitive Protestants who had never swerved from the truth through the darkest ages, and could therefore be adopted with acclamation into the general Reformed communion. The Reformation, indeed; had penetrated into their valleys, rendering them more polemical for their faith, and more fierce against the Church of Rome, than they had been before. They had experienced persecutions through their whole history, and especially after the Reformation; but, on the whole, the two last Dukes of Savoy, and also Christine, daughter of Henry IV. of France, and Duchess-Regent through the minority of her son, the present Duke, had protected them in their privileges, even while extirpating Protestantism in the rest of the Piedmontese dominions. Latterly, however, there had been a passion at Turin and at Rome for their conversion to the Catholic faith, and priests had been traversing their valleys for the purpose. The murder of one such priest, and some open insults to the Catholic worship, about Christmas 1654, are said to have occasioned what followed.

On the 25th of January, 1654-5, an edict was issued, under the authority of the Duke of Savoy, "commanding and enjoining every head of a family, with its members, of the pretended Reformed Religion, of what rank, degree, or condition soever, none excepted, inhabiting and possessing estates in the places of Luserna, Lucernetta, San Giovanni, La Torre, Bubbiana, and Fenile, Campiglione, Briccherassio, and San Secondo, within three days, to withdraw and depart, and be, with their families, withdrawn, out of the said places, and transported into the places and limits marked out for toleration by his Royal Highness during his good pleasure, namely Bobbio, Villaro, Angrogna, Rorata, and the County of Bonetti, under pain of death and confiscation of goods and houses, unless they gave evidence within twenty days of having become Catholics." Furthermore it was commanded that in every one even of the tolerated places there should be regular celebration of the Holy Mass, and that there should be no interference therewith, nor any dissuasion of any one from turning a Catholic, also on pain of death. All the places named are in the Valley of Luserna, and the object was a wholesale shifting of the Protestants of that valley out of nine of its communes and their concentration into five higher up. In vain were there remonstrances at Turin from those immediately concerned. On the 17th of April, 1655, the Marquis di Pianezza entered the doomed region with a body of troops, mainly Piedmontese, but with French and Irish among them. There was resistance, fighting, burning, pillaging, flight to the mountains, and chasing and murdering for eight days, Saturday, April 24, being the climax. The names of about three hundred of those murdered individually are on record, with the ways of the deaths of many of them. Women were ripped open, or carried about impaled on spikes; men, women, and children, were flung from precipices, hacked, tortured, roasted alive; the heads of some of the dead were boiled and the brains eaten; there are forty printed pages, and twenty-six ghastly engravings, by way of Protestant tradition of the ascertained variety of the devilry. The massacre was chiefly in the Valley of Luserna, but extended also into the other two valleys. The fugitives were huddled in crowds high among the mountains, moaning and starving; and not a few, women and infants especially, perished amid the snows. On the 27th of April some of the remaining Protestant pastors and others, gathered together somewhere, addressed a circular letter to Protestants outside the Valleys, stating the hard case of the survivors. "Our beautiful and flourishing churches," they said, "are utterly lost, and that without remedy, unless God Almighty work miracles for us. Their time is come, and our measure is full. O have pity upon the desolations of Jerusalem, and be grieved for the afflictions of poor Joseph! Shew the real effects of your compassions, and let your bowels yearn for so many thousands of poor souls who are reduced to a morsel of bread for following the Lamb whithersoever he goes."[1]

[Footnote 1: Morland's History of the Evangelical Churches of the Valleys of Piedmont, with a Relation of the Massacre (1658), 287-428; Guizot, II. 213-215.]

There was a shudder of abhorrence through Protestant Europe, but no one was so much roused as Cromwell. In the interval between the Duke of Savoy's edict and the Massacre he had been desirous that the Vaudois should publicly appeal to him rather than to the Swiss; and, when the news of the Massacre reached England, he avowed that it came "as near his heart as if his own nearest and dearest had been concerned." On Thursday the 17th of May, and for many days more, the business of the Savoy Protestants was the chief occupation of the Council. Letters, all in Milton's Latin, but signed by the Lord Protector in his own name, were despatched (May 25) to the Duke of Savoy himself, to the French King, to the States General of the United Provinces, to the Protestant Swiss Cantons, to the King of Sweden, to the King of Denmark, and to Ragotski, Prince of Transylvania. A day of humiliation was appointed for the Cities of London and Westminster, and another for all England. A Committee was appointed, consisting of all the Councillors, with Sir Christopher Pack and other eminent citizens, and also some ministers, to organize a general collection of money throughout England and Wales in behalf of the suffering Vaudois. The collection, as arranged June 1, was to take the form of a house-to-house visitation by the ministers and churchwardens in every city, town, and parish on a particular Lord's day, for the receipt of whatever sum each householder might freely give, every such sum to be noted in presence of the donor, and the aggregates, parish by parish, or city by city, to be remitted to the treasurers in London, who were to enter them duly in a general register. The subscription, which lagged for a time in some districts, produced at length a total of L38,097 7s. 3d.—equal to about L137,000 now. Of this sum L2000 (equal to about L7500 now) was Cromwell's own contribution, while London and Westminster contributed L9384 6s. 11d., and the various counties sums of various magnitudes, according to their size, wealth, and zeal, from Devonshire at the head, with L1965 0s. 3d., Yorkshire next, with L1786 14s. 5d., and Essex next, with L1512 17s. 7d., down to Merionethshire yielding L3 0s. 1d. from her eight parishes, and Radnorshire L1 14s. 4d. from her seven. Cromwell's own donation of L2000 went at once to Geneva for immediate use; and L10,000 followed on the 10th of July, as the first instalment of the general subscription. There were similar subscriptions, it ought to be added, in other Protestant countries.[1]

[Footnote 1: Letter from Thurloe to Pell at Geneva (Vaughan's Protectorate, I. 158-159); Council Order Books, May 17, 18, 22, 23, 25, June 1 and July 8, 1655; Morland, 562-596. Morland gives an interesting abstract of the Treasurer's Accounts of the Collection; but the original accounts in a large folio book, entitled Committee for Piedmont &c., are in the Record Office. The counties are arranged there alphabetically and the parishes alphabetically under each county, with the sums which the parishes individually subscribed. Some parishes seem wholly to have neglected the subscription, and there are blanks opposite their names.]

At the time of the massacre Cromwell had two agents in Switzerland, viz. Mr. JOHN PELL (Vol. IV. p. 449) and the ubiquitous JOHN DURIE. They had been sent abroad early in 1654, to cultivate the friendly intercourse already begun between the Evangelical Cantons and the Commonwealth, and also to watch the progress of a struggle which had just broken out between the Popish Cantons of the Confederacy and the Evangelical Cantons. As the Evangelical Cantons were also astir about the Vaudois, whose cause was so closely connected with their own, the services of Pell and Durie were now available for that business. Cromwell, however, had thought an express Commissioner necessary, with instructions to negotiate directly with the Duke of Savoy, and had selected for the purpose Mr, SAMUEL MORLAND, an able and ingenious man, about thirty years of age, who had been with Whitlocke in his Swedish Embassy, and had been taken into the Council office on his return as assistant to Thurloe. On the 26th of May Morland left London, carrying with him the letters addressed to Louis XIV. and the Duke of Savoy. He was at La Fere in France on the 1st of June, treating with the French King and Mazarin, and was able to despatch thence a letter from the French King to Cromwell, expressing willingness to do all that could be done for the Vaudois, and explaining that he had already conveyed his views on the subject to the Duke of Savoy. Thence Morland continued his journey to Rivoli, near Turin, where he arrived on the 21st of June. He was received most politely, was entertained and driven about both at Rivoli and at Turin itself, and was admitted to a formal audience on or about the 24th. He there made a speech in Latin to the Duke, the Duchess-mother being also present, and delivered Cromwell's letter, The speech was a very bold one. He spared no detail of horror in his picture of the massacre as he had authentically ascertained it, and added, "Were all the Neros of all times and ages alive again (I would be understood to say it with out any offence to your Highness, inasmuch as we believe that none of these things was done by any fault of yours), they would be ashamed at finding that they had contrived nothing that was not even mild and humane in comparison. Meanwhile angels are horrorstruck, mortals amazed!" The Duchess-mother, replying for her son, could hardly avoid hinting that Mr. Morland had been rather rude. She was, nevertheless, profuse in expressions of respect for the Lord Protector, who had no doubt received very exaggerated representations of what had happened, but at whose request she was sure her son would willingly pardon his rebellious subjects and restore them to their privileges. During the rest of Morland's stay in Turin or its neighbourhood the object of the Duke's counsellors, and also of the French minister, was to furnish him with what they called a more correct account of the facts, and induce him to convey to Cromwell a gentler view of the whole affair. Morland kept his own counsel; but, having had a second audience, and received the Duke's submissive but guarded answer to Cromwell, and also several other papers, he left Turin on the 19th of July and proceeded, according to his instructions, to Geneva.[1]

[Footnote 1: Morland, 563-583; and Letters between Pell and Thurloe given in Vaughan's Protectorate.]

Meanwhile Cromwell, dissatisfied with the coolness of the French King and Mazarin, and also with the shuffling and timidity of the Swiss Cantons, had been taking the affair more and more into his own hands. He had despatched, late in July, another Commissioner, Mr. GEORGE DOWNING, to meet Morland at Geneva, help Morland to infuse some energy into the Cantons, and then proceed with him to Turin to bring matters to a definite issue. He had been inquiring also about the fittest place for landing an invading force against the Duke, and had thought of Nice or Villafranca. Blake's presence in the Mediterranean was not forgotten. All which being known to Mazarin, that wily statesman saw that no time was to be lost. While Mr. Downing was still only on his way to Geneva through France, Mazarin had instructed M. Servien, the French minister at Turin, to insist, in the French King's name, on an immediate settlement of the Vaudois business. The result was a Patente di Gratia e Perdono, or "Patent of Grace and Pardon," granted by Charles Emanuel to the Vaudois Protestants, Aug. 19, in terms of a Treaty at Pignerol, in which the French Minister appeared as the real mediating party and certain Envoys from the Swiss Cantons as more or less assenting. As the Patent substantially retracted the Persecuting Edict and restored the Vaudois to all their former privileges, nothing more was to be done. Cromwell, it is true, did not conceal that he was disappointed. He had looked forward to a Treaty at Turin in which his own envoys, Morland and Downing, and D'Ommeren, as envoy from the United Provinces, would have taken the leading part, and he somewhat resented Mazarin's too rapid interference and the too easy compliance of the envoys of the Cantons. The Treaty of Pignerol contained conditions that might occasion farther trouble. Still, as things were, he thought it best to acquiesce. Downing, who had arrived at Geneva early in September, was at once recalled, leaving Morland and Pell still there, to superintend the distribution of the English subscription-money among the poor Vaudois, instalment after instalment, as they arrived. The charitable work was to detain Morland in Geneva or its neighbourhood for more than a year, nor was the great business of the Piedmontese Protestants to be wholly out of Cromwell's mind to the day of his death.[1]

[Footnote 1: Morland, 605-673; Guigot, II. 220-225; Council Order Book, July 17.]

Just at the date of the happy, though not perfect, conclusion of the Piedmontese business, came almost the only chagrin ever experienced by Cromwell in the shape of the failure of an enterprise. It was now some months since he had made up his mind in private to a rupture with Spain, intending that the fact should be first announced to the world in the actions of the fleet which he had sent with sealed orders to the West Indies under Penn's command. The instructions to Penn and to General Robert Venables, who went with him as commander of the troops, were nothing less, indeed, than that they should strike some shattering blow at that dominion of Spain in the New World which was at once her pride and the source of her wealth. It might be in one of her great West-India Islands, St. Domingo, Cuba, or Porto Rico, or it might be at Cartagena on the South-American mainland, where the treasures of Peru were amassed, for annual conveyance across the Atlantic. Much discretion was left to Penn and Venables, but on the whole St. Domingo, then called Hispaniola, was indicated for a beginning. Blake's presence in the Mediterranean with the other fleet had been timed for an assault on Spain at home when the news should arrive of the disaster to her colonies.[1]

[Footnote 1: Guizot, II. 184-186; Godwin, IV. 180-194.]

Penn and Venables together were not equal to one Blake. They opened their sealed instructions at Barbadoes, one of the two or three small Islands of the West-Indies then possessed by the English, and, after counsel and preparation, proceeded to Hispaniola. The fleet now consisted of about sixty vessels, and there were about 9000 soldiers on board, some of them veterans, but most of them recruits of bad quality. They were off St. Domingo, the capital of the Island, on the 14th of April, 1655, and from that moment there was misunderstanding and blundering. Penn, Venables, and the Chief Commissioner who had been sent out with them, differed as to the proper landing point; the wrong landing point was chosen for the main body; the men fell ill and mutinied; the Spaniards, who might have been surprised at first by a direct assault on St. Domingo, resisted bravely, and poured shot among the troops from ambuscade. Two attempts to get into St. Domingo were both foiled with heavy loss, including the death of Major-General Heane and others of the best officers. The mortality from climate and bad food being also great, the enterprise on Hispaniola was then abandoned; but, dreading a return to England with nothing accomplished, Penn and Venables bethought themselves of Jamaica. Here, where they arrived May 10, they were rather more fortunate. The Spaniards, utterly unforewarned, deserted the coast, and fled inland. There was no difficulty, therefore, in taking nominal possession of the chief town, though even that was done in a bungling manner. Then, leaving the Island in charge of a portion of the troops, under Major-General Fortescue, with Vice-Admiral Goodson to sail about it with a protecting squadron, Penn hastened back to England, Venables quickly following him. They arrived in London, within a few days of each other, early in September, and were at once committed to the Tower for having returned without orders. The news of the failure of their enterprise had preceded them, and Cromwell was profoundly angry. A bilious illness which he had about this time was attributed by the French ambassador Bordeaux to his brooding over the West-Indian mischance. He was soon himself again, however, and Penn and Venables had nothing to fear. They were released after a few weeks. After all, Jamaica was better than nothing.[1]

[Footnote 1: Godwin, IV. 195-203; Carlyle, III. 122-123; Guizot, II. 226-231; Letters of Cromwell to Vice-Admiral Goodson and Major-General Fortescue (Carlyle, III. 126-132).]

One result of the West Indian expedition was that the long-delayed alliance with France was now a settled affair. Cardenas had his pass-ports sent him, and on the 22nd of October, 1655, he left England. The Court of Madrid had already recalled him, laid an embargo on all English property in Spain, and conferred a Marquisate and pension on the Governor of Hispaniola. On the 24th of October the Treaty of Peace and Commerce between Cromwell and Louis XIV. was finally signed; and within a few days afterwards there was out in London an elaborate document entitled "Scriptum Domini Protectoris, ex consensu atque sententia Concilii sui editum, in quo hujus Reipublica causa contra Hispanos justa esse demonstratur" ("The Lord-Protector's Manifesto, published with the consent and advice of his Council, in which the justice of the Cause of this Commonwealth against the Spaniards is demonstrated"). Now, accordingly, the Commonwealth entered on a new era of her history. Cromwell and Mazarin were to be fast friends, and the Stuarts were to have no help or countenance any more from the French crown; while, on the other hand, there was to be war to the death between the Commonwealth and Spain, war in the new world and war in the old, and Spain was thus naturally to adopt the cause of Charles II., and employ exiled English Royalism everywhere as one of her agencies,—Of the consciousness of the Lord-Protector and the Council of this increased complexity of the foreign relations of the Commonwealth in consequence of the rupture with Spain there is a curious incidental illustration. "That several volumes of the book called The New Atlas be bought for the use of the Council, and that the Globe heretofore standing in the Council Chamber be again brought thither," had been one of the Council's instructions to Thurloe at their meeting of Oct. 2. Thenceforth, doubtless, both the Globe and the Atlas were to be much in request.—More important, however, than such fixed apparatus in the Council Room was the moving instrumentality of envoys and diplomatists in the chief European cities and capitals. Above all, an able ambassador in Paris was now an absolute necessity. Nor was the fit man wanting. Among the former Royalists of the Presbyterian section that had become reconciled to the Commonwealth, and attached to the Protector by strong personal loyalty, was the Scottish WILLIAM LOCKHART, member for Lanarkshire in the late Parliament. He had been trained to arms in France in his youth, and had since then served as a Colonel among the Scots. In this capacity he had been in Hamilton's Army of the Engagement, defeated by Cromwell at Preston, and in David Leslie's subsequent Army for Charles II., defeated at Dunbar. Having received some insults from Charles, of such a kind that he had declared that "no King on earth should use him in that manner," he had snapped his connexion with the Stuarts before the Battle of Worcester; and for some time after that battle he had lived moodily in Scotland, meditating a return to France for military employment. A visit to London and an interview with Cromwell had retained his talents for the service of the Protectorate, and his affection for that service had been confirmed by his marriage, in 1654, with Robina Sewster, the orphan niece of the Protector. Altogether Cromwell had judged him to be the very man to represent the Protectorate at Paris, and be even a match for Mazarin. He was now thirty-four years of age. He was nominated to the embassy in December 1655; but he did not go to his post till the following April.—Hardly a less important appointment was that, in January 1655-6, of young Edward Montague to be one of the Admirals of the Fleet. Blake, who had been cruising off Cadiz, and on whom there was the chief dependence for action against the Spaniards at sea, had felt the responsibility too great, and had applied for a colleague. Penn, being in disgrace, was out of the question; and Montague, then a member of the Protector's Council, was chosen. He had been one of Cromwell's favourites and disciples since the days of Marston Moor and Naseby, when, though hardly out of his teens, he had distinguished himself highly as a Parliamentary Colonel. Henceforth the sea was to be his chief element; and, as Admiral or General at sea, he was to become very famous.[1]

[Footnote 1: Godwin, IV, 214-217 and 298-300; Guizot, II. 231-234; Thomason copy of the Declaration against Spain, dated Nov. 9, 1655; Council Order Books, Oct. 2, 1655; Article on Lockhart in Chambers's Biographical Dictionary of Scotsmen; Carlyle, III. 309-310.]

It was just about this time of change and extension in the foreign relations of the Commonwealth that the people of England and Wales became aware that they were, and had been for some time, under an entirely new system of home-government, called Government by Major-Generals.

The difficulties of the home-government of the Protectorate were great and peculiar. The power of the Lord-Protector and his Council to pass ordinances had been called in question. Judges and lawyers were not only pretty unanimous in the opinion that resistance to payment of imposts not enacted by Parliamentary authority might be made good at law, and that the Ordinance for Chancery Reform was also legally invalid; they doubted even whether, in strict law, there could be proceedings for the preservation of the public peace, by courts and magistrates, under any Council ordinance about crimes and treasons. All this Cromwell had been meditating. How was revenue to be raised? How were Royalist and Anabaptist plottings to be suppressed? How were police regulations about public manners and morals to be enforced? How was the will of the Central Government at Whitehall, in any matter whatsoever, to be transmitted to any spot in the community and made really operative? Meditating these questions, Cromwell, as he expressed it afterwards, "did find out a little poor invention": "I say," he repeated, "there was a little thing invented."[1] The little invention consisted in a formal identification of the Protector's Chief Magistracy with his Headship of the Army. He had resolved to map out England and Wales into districts, and to plant in each district a trusty officer, with the title of Major-General, who should be nominally in command of the militia of that district, but should be really also the executive there for the Central Government in all things. A beginning had been made in the business as early as May 1655, when Desborough was appointed Major-General of the Militia in the six southwestern counties; and the districts had been all marked out and the Major-Generals chosen in August. But there had been very great secrecy about the scheme; and not till the 31st of October was there official announcement of the new organization. Only about mid-winter, 1655-6, did people fully realise what it meant. The Major-Generalcies then stood thus:—

[Footnote 1: Speech V. (Carlyle, III. 176).]

Person. District.

1. MAJOR-GENERAL PHILIP SKIPPON. London.

2. MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN BARKSTEAD. Westminster and Middlesex.

3. MAJOR-GENERAL THOMAS KELSEY. Kent and Surrey.

4. MAJOR-GENERAL WILLIAM GOFFE. Sussex, Hants, and Berks.

5. FLEETWOOD (with MAJOR-GENERAL Oxford, Bucks, Herts, HEZEKIAH HAYNES as his deputy). Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, and Cambridge.

6. MAJOR-GENERAL EDWARD WHALLEY. Lincoln, Notts, Derby, Warwick, and Leicester.

7. MAJOR-GENERAL WILLIAM BUTLER. Northampton, Bedford, Hunts, and Rutland.

8. MAJOR-GENERAL CHARLES WORSLEY Chester, Lancaster, and (succeeded by MAJOR-GENERAL Stafford. TOBIAS BRIDGES).

9. LAMBERT (with MAJOR-GENERAL York, Durham, Cumberland ROBERT TILBURNE and MAJOR-GENERAL Westmorland, CHARLES HOWARD as his deputies). and Northumberland.

10. MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN DESBOROUGH. Gloucester, Wilts, Dorset, Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall.

11. MAJOR-GENERAL JAMES BERRY. Worcester, Hereford, Salop, and North Wales.

12. MAJOR-GENERAL DAWKINS. Monmouthshire and South Wales.[1]

[Footnote 1: Council Order Books, as digested by Godwin, IV. 228-229.]

The powers intrusted to these Major-Generals and to their subordinate officers in the several counties were all but universal. They were to patrol the counties with horse and foot, but especially with horse. They were to guard against robberies and tumults and to bring criminals to punishment. They were to take charge of the public morals, and see the laws put in force against drunkenness, blasphemy, plays and interludes, profanation of the Lord's Day, and disorderliness generally. They were to keep a register of all disaffected persons, remove arms from their houses, note their changes of residence, and take security for the good behaviour of themselves, their families, and servants. All travellers and strangers were bound to appear before them, and give an account of themselves and their business. They were to arrest vagabonds and persons with no visible means of living. Above all, they were to see to the execution of a certain very severe and far-reaching measure which the Protector and the Council had determined to adopt in consequence of the late Royalist insurrection and conspiracy.

Either from information that had been received, or merely in terrorem, there had, during the past summer and autumn, been numerous arrests of persons of rank and wealth that had hitherto been allowed to live quietly in their country mansions, on the understanding that, though Royalists, they had ceased to be such, in any active sense. The Marquis of Hertford, the Earl of Lindsey, the Earl of Newport, the Earl of Northampton, the Earl of Rivers, the Earl of Peterborough, Viscount Falkland, and Lords Lovelace, St. John, Petre, Coventry, Maynard, Lucas, and Willoughby of Parham, with a great many commoners of distinction, had been thus arrested. There was a general consternation among the peaceful Royalists throughout the country. It looked as if their peacefulness was to be of no avail, as if the Act of Oblivion of Feb. 1651-2 was to be a dead letter, as if Cromwell had suddenly changed his policy of universal conciliation. In reality, Cromwell had no intention of reversing his policy of universal conciliation; but he wanted to teach the lesson that Royalist insurrections and conspiracies would fall heavily on the Royalists themselves, and he wanted particularly, at that moment, to make the Royalists pay the expenses of the police kept up on their account. Under cover of the consternation caused by the numerous arrests, he introduced, in fact, a Decimation upon the Royalists, i.e. an income tax of ten per cent, upon all Royalists possessing estates in land of L100 a year and upwards or personal property worth L1500. It was to be the main business of the Major-Generals to assess this tax within their bounds, and to collect it strictly and swiftly. It is astonishing with what ease they succeeded. It seems to have been even a relief to the Royalists to know definitely what their principles were to cost them, and to have arrest or the dread of it commuted into a fixed money payment. As soon as the tax was fairly in operation, all or most of those who had been arrested were liberated, and subsequent arrests by the Major-Generals themselves were only of vagabonds or suspicious persons. The only appeal from the Major-Generals was to his Highness himself and the Council.[1]

[Footnote 1: Godwin, 223-242; Carlyle, III. 101.]

What with the vigilance of the Major-Generals in their districts, what with the edicts of the Protector and the Council for the direction of the Major-Generals, the public order now kept over all England and Wales was wonderfully strict. At no time since the beginning of the Commonwealth had there been so much of that general decorum of external behaviour which Cromwell liked to see. Cock-fights, dancing at fairs, and other such amusements, were under ban. Indecent publications that had flourished long in the guise of weekly pamphlets disappeared; and books of the same sort were more closely looked after than they had been. But what shall we say about this Order, affecting the newspaper press especially:—"Wednesday, 5th Sept., 1655—At the Council at Whitehall, Ordered by his Highness the Lord Protector and the Council, That no person whatever do presume to publish in print any matter of public news or intelligence without leave of the Secretary of State"? The effect of the order was that not only the indecent publications purporting to be newspapers were suppressed, but also a considerable number of newspapers proper, insomuch that the London newspaper press was reduced thenceforth to two weekly prints, authorized by Thurloe, viz. Needham's Mercurius Politicus, published on Thursdays, and The Public Intelligencer, a more recent adventure, published on Mondays. Just after the order, I note, the Mercurius Politicus enlarged its size somewhat, to match with the Public Intelligencer, and in the first number of the new size (Sept. 22-Oct. 4, 1655) the Editor speaks with great approbation of the Order of Council "silencing the many pamphlets that have hitherto presumed to come abroad." Needham seems now to have assumed the editorship of both papers; and after the twenty-third number of the Intelligencer (March 3-10, 1655-6) the publisher of it, as well as of the Mercurius Politicus, was Thomas Newcome. The newspaper press of the Protectorate was thus pretty well consolidated by Mr. Thurloe. There were two papers only, under one management, or rather there was a single bi-weekly newspaper with alternative names.[1]

[Footnote 1: Council Order Books of 1655 and 1658 passim; Merc. Pol. and Public Intelligencer of dates given.]

It was part of the duty of the Major-Generals to assist, so far as might still be necessary, in the execution of the Ordinance of Aug. 1654 for the ejection of scandalous and insufficient ministers and schoolmasters (Vol. IV. p. 564 and p. 571), The County Committees of Ejectors under that Ordinance had already performed their disagreeable work in part, but were still busy. On the whole, though they turned out many, they seem not to have abused their powers. "I must needs say," is Baxter's testimony, "that in all the counties where I was acquainted, six to one at least, if not many more, that were sequestered by the Committees were, by the oaths of witnesses, proved insufficient or scandalous, or both—especially guilty of drunkenness or swearing,—and those that, being able godly preachers, were cast out for the war alone, as for their opinions' sake, were comparatively very few. This, I know, will displease that party; but this is true." Baxter admits, indeed, that there were cases in which the Committees were swayed too much by mere political feeling, and ejected men from their pulpits whom it would have been better to retain. Other authorities assert the same more strongly, but rather fail in the proof. The most notorious instance produced of a blunder on the part of any of the Committees was in Berkshire. The Rector of Childrey in this county was the learned orientalist Pocock, who had lost his Professorship of Hebrew in the University of Oxford for refusing the engagement to the Commonwealth, but still held the Arabic lectureship there, because there was no one else who knew Arabic sufficiently. Not liking his look, or not seeing what Orientalism had to do with the Gospel, the rude Berkshire Committee were on the point of turning him out of his Rectory, when Dr. Owen interfered manfully and prevented the scandal. About the same time, it is said, Thomas Fuller was in some trepidation about his living of Waltham Abbey, in Essex, but acquitted himself before the Committee handsomely.[1]

[Footnote 1: Baxter, 74; Wood's Ath. IV. 319; Godwin, IV. 40-41.]

Distinct from the County Committees of Ejectors, and forming the other great constitutional power in Cromwell's Church-Establishment, was the Central or London Committee of the Thirty-eight Triers (Vol. IV. p. 571). It was their duty to examine "all candidates for the public ministry," i.e. all persons presented to livings by the patrons of the same, and pass only those that were fit. Baxter's report of the work of these Triers, as done either by themselves in conclave, or by Sub-commissioners for them in the counties, is the more remarkable because he disowned the authority under which the Triers acted and was in controversy with most of them. "Though their authority was null," he says, "and though some few over-busy and over-rigid Independents among them, were too severe against all that were Arminians, and too particular in inquiring after evidences of sanctification in those whom they examined, and somewhat too lax in their admission of unlearned and erroneous men that favoured Antinomianism or Anabaptism, yet, to give them their due, they did abundance of good to the Church. They saved many a congregation from ignorant, ungodly, drunken teachers. That sort of men that intended no more in the ministry than to say a sermon as readers say their common prayers, and so patch up a few good words together to talk the people asleep with on Sunday, and all the rest of the week go with them to the ale-house and harden them in sin; and that sort of ministers that either preached against a holy life, or preached as men that never were acquainted with it; all those that used the ministry but as a common trade to live by, and were never likely to convert a soul:—all these they usually rejected, and in their stead admitted of any that were able serious preachers, and lived a godly life, of what tolerable opinion soever they were. So that, though they were many of them somewhat partial for the Independents, Separatists, Fifth Monarchy men, and Anabaptists, and against the Prelatists and Arminians, yet so great was the benefit above the hurt which they brought to the Church that many thousands of souls blessed God for the faithful ministers whom they let in." Royalist writers after the Restoration give, of course, a different picture. "Ignorant, bold, canting fellows," they say, "laics, mechanics, and pedlars," were brought into the Church by Cromwell's Triers. One may, in the main, trust Baxter.[1]

[Footnote 1: Baxter, 72; Noal, IV. 102-109.]

Cromwell's Established Church of England and Wales may now be imaged with tolerable accuracy. It contained two patches of completed Presbyterian organization, one in London and the other in Lancashire. The system of Presbyteries or Classes, with half-yearly Provincial Assemblies, which had been set up by the Long Parliament in these two districts, remained undisturbed. Both in London and in Lancashire, however, the system was in a languid state; and for the rest of the country, and indeed for non-Presbyterians in London and Lancashire too, the Church or Public Ministry was practically on the principle of the Independency of Congregations. Each parish had, or was to have, its regular minister, recognised by the State, and the association of ministers among themselves for consultation or mutual criticism was very much left to chance and discretion. Ministers and deacons, however, did draw up Agreements and form voluntary Associations in various counties, holding monthly or other periodical meetings; and, as it was the rule in such associations not to meddle with matters of Civil Government, they were countenanced by the Protectorate. Baxter tells us much of the Association in Worcestershire which he had helped to form in 1653, and adds that similar associations sprang up afterwards in Cumberland and Westmorland, Wilts, Dorset, Somersetshire, Hampshire, and Essex. These Associations are to be conceived as imperfect substitutes for the regular Presbyterian organization, and most of the ministers belonging to them were eclectics or quasi-Presbyterians, like Baxter himself, making the most of untoward circumstances, while the stricter Presbyterians, who sighed for the perfect model, held aloof. Perhaps the majority of the State-clergy all over the country consisted of these two classes of Presbyterians baulked of their full Presbyterianism,—the Rigid Presbyterians, who would accept nothing short of the system as exemplified in London and Lancashire, and the Eclectics or Quasi-Presbyterians grouped in voluntary Associations. But among the State-clergy collectively there were several other varieties. There were many of the old Church-of-England Rectors and Vicars, still Prelatic in sentiment, and, though obliged to disuse the Book of Common Prayer, maintaining some sweet remnant of Anglicanism. Some of these, not of the High Church school, did not scruple to join the quasi-Presbyterian Associations that were liberal enough to admit them; but most found more liberty in keeping by themselves. Then there were the Independents proper, drawn from all those various Evangelical Sects, however named separately, whose principle of Independency stopped short of absolute Voluntaryism, and therefore did not prevent them from belonging to a State-Church. The more moderate of these Independents might easily enough, in consistency with their theory of Congregationalism, join the quasi-Presbyterian Associations, and some of them did so; but not very many. The majority of them were simply ministers of the State-Church, in charge of individual parishes and congregations, and consulting each other, if at all, only in informal ways. Among the Independent Sectaries of all sorts thus officiating individually in the State-Church, the difficulty, as far as one can see, must have been chiefly, or solely, with the Baptists. How could preachers who rejected the rite of Infant Baptism, maintained the necessity of the rebaptism of adults, and thought dipping the proper form of the rite, be ministers of parishes, or be included in any way among the State-clergy? That such ministers did hold livings in Cromwell's Established Church is a fact. Mr. John Tombes, the chief of the Anti-Paedobaptists, and himself one of Cromwell's Triers, retained the vicarage of Leominster in Herefordshire, with the parsonage of Boss in the same county, and a living at Bewdley in Worcestershire; and there are other instances. Baxter's language already quoted implies nothing less, indeed, than that Anti-Paedobaptists in considerable numbers were presented to Church-livings by the patrons and passed by the Triers; and he elsewhere signifies that he did not himself greatly object to this. "Let there be no withdrawing," he says, "from the ministry and church of that place [i.e. a parish of mixed Paedobaptists and Anti-Paedobaptists] upon the mere ground of Baptism. If the minister be an Anabaptist, let not us withdraw from him on that ground; and, if he be a Paedobaptist, let not them withdraw from us." He even suggests that the pastor of a church might openly record his opinion on the Baptism subject, if it were contrary to that of the majority of the members, and then proceed in his pastorate all the same, and that, on the other hand, private members might publicly enter their dissent from their pastor's opinion, and yet abide with him lovingly and obediently in all other things. How far, and in how many places, this method of leaving Paedo-baptism an open question was actually in operation in the Established Church of the Protectorate, and whether Infant Baptism thus fell into complete abeyance in some parishes where Anabaptists of eminence were settled, or whether the Paedobaptist parishioners in such eases quietly avoided that result by having their children baptized by other ministers, are points of some obscurity. On the whole, the difficulty can have been felt but exceptionally and here and there, for it was obviated on the great scale by the fact that most of the real Anabaptists, preachers and people alike, were Voluntaries, disowning the State-Church altogether, and meeting only in separate congregations. Even for such, however, in localities where they were pretty numerous, there seems to have been a desire to make some provision. Thus on March 13, 1655-56, it was ordered by His Highness and the Council "that it be referred to General Desborough, Major-General for the County of Devon, to take care that the Church under the form of Baptism at Exeter have such one of the public meeting-places assigned to them for their place of worship as is best in repair, and may with most conveniency be spared and set apart for that use." The Exeter Baptists may have thought it not inconsistent with their principles to accept so much of State favour. Not the public buildings, so much as the Tithes and Lay Patronage with which they were connected, were the abominations of the State-Church in the eyes of the Anabaptist Voluntaries. For let it not be forgotten that Cromwell's ardent passion for a Church-Establishment under his Protectorate had come more and more to involve, in his reasonings, the preservation of the Tithe-system and the continuance of lay Patronage. The legal patrons of livings retained their right of nominating to vacancies; the Triers only checked that right by examination of nominees and the rejection of the unfit. Cromwell himself combined in his own person, to a most extraordinary extent, the functions both of Patron and Trier. "It is observable that, his Highness having near one half of the livings in England, one way or other, in his own immediate disposal by presentation, he seldom bestoweth one of them upon any man whom himself doth not first examine and make trial of in person, save only that, at such times as his great affairs happen to be more urgent than ordinary, he useth to appoint some other to do it in his behalf; which is so rare an example of piety that the like is not to be found in the stories of Princes." We have not exaggerated, it will be seen, Cromwell's personal anxiety about his Established Church. That, indeed, is farther proved, in a very interesting manner, by certain entries in the Order Books of his Council which become more and more frequent in this middle section of his Protectorate. They refer to "augmentations of ministers' stipends." Thus, in December 1655, there is an order for the augmentation of the stipends of seventy-five ministers in different counties, all in one batch; and succeeding entries in 1656 show the steady progress of the same work by repeated orders for other augmentations, batch after batch. Clearly Cromwell had resolved that there should be a systematic increase of the salaries of the parochial clergy all over England, beginning with those who needed it most. The details of the business were managed by that body of "Trustees for maintenance of ministers" which had been appointed by Ordinance in Sept. 1654 (Vol. IV. p. 564); but the final Orders for Augmentations came from the Protector and Council, and there was no part of his work in which the Protector seemed to have more pleasure.[1]

[Footnote 1: Baxter, 96-97 and 180-188; Wood's Ath. III. 1083; Council Order Books of dates; Neal, IV. Chap. 3; Marchamont Needham's Book against John Goodwin, entitled The Great Accuser Cast Down, published in July 1657. The information about Cromwell's practice in his patronage of livings is from the last. The book was dedicated to Cromwell.]

But what of that Toleration of Dissent from the Established Church which he professed to be equally dear to him? That Cromwell was faithful still to the principle of Liberty of Conscience, to the fullest extent of his past professions, there can be no doubt. It may be more doubtful whether his past professions pledged him to a theory of Toleration as absolute as that which had been advocated eleven or twelve years before by Roger Williams and John Goodwin, and then adopted by the Army Independents generally, and which was still upheld by the main body of the Anabaptists. The evidence, however, rather favours the idea that he had already been in sympathy even with this extreme theory of Toleration, and so that now, though he had bitterly disappointed his old Anabaptist associates by declaring himself for the Civil Magistrate's Authority in matters of Religion, he still cherished the extreme theory of Toleration as it might be applied round about his Established Church. In his heart, I believe, he was for persecuting nobody whatsoever, troubling nobody whatsoever, for mere religious heresy, even of the kinds he himself most abhorred. But, though this might be his private ideal, his difficulties publicly and practically were enormous. The other unlimited Tolerationists in England were Anabaptists and the like, detesting his Established Church as incompatible with true Toleration, and in league for battering it down. Through the rest of the community there was but little voice for Toleration. The frantic and idiotic stringency of the Presbyterians of 1644-6 was now, indeed, rather out of fashion, and a certain mild babble about a Limited Toleration was common in the public mouth. But the old leaven was at work in many quarters; occasional pamphlets from the Presbyterian camp still wailed lamentably about "the effects of the present Toleration, especially as to the increase of Blasphemy and Damnable Errors;" and some Presbyterian booksellers had recently published A Second Beacon Fired, in which they insidiously tried to work upon the Lord Protector's new Conservative and State-Church instincts; by denouncing the books of some leading Anabaptists and other heretics, hostile to his Government, and humbly adjuring him to "do what might be expected from Christian magistrates" in such flagrant cases. In the late Parliament there had been much of this Presbyterian spirit, and it had been proved abundantly that the Protector's idea of Toleration would have been voted down by the national representatives. Then what a harassing definition of proper Christian Toleration had come even from Cromwell's favourite Independents, Messrs. Owen and the rest, with their twenty fundamentals! Add the difficulties arising from the nature of some of the current heresies themselves, as tending directly to the defamation of his government, the subversion of laws and institutions, and the disturbance of the peace.[1]

[Footnote 1: Various Thomason Pamphlets of 1654-1656. The Second Beacon Fired was published in Oct. 1654 by six London booksellers—Luke Fawne, John Rothwell, Samuel Gellibrand, Thomas Underhill, Joshua Kirton, and Nathaniel Webb. Two of them, Rothwell and Underhill, had published for Milton in former days. The heretics chiefly denounced are Biddle, Dell, Farnworth, Norwood, Braine, John Webster, and Feake. John Goodwin replied to the booksellers in A fresh Discovery of the High Presbyterian Spirit, or the Quenching of "The Second Beacon Fired," published in Jan. 1654-5, and so found himself in a new quarrel. There was a reply called An Apology for the Six Booksellers.]

A very fair amount of Liberty of the Press, though not to newspapers, nor to publications clearly immoral, seems to have been allowed by Cromwell. Through 1655 and 1656 there were books and pamphlets of the most various kinds, and advocating the most various opinions. There were Episcopalian books and Anabaptist books, arguments for Tithes and arguments against Tithes, Fifth Monarchy tracts, Quaker Tracts and Anti-Quaker Tracts, in extraordinary profusion. Prynne would publish one day The Quakers unmasked and clearly detected to be but the spawn of Romish frogs, Jesuits and Franciscan Friars, sent from Rome to seduce the intoxicated giddy-headed English nation, and George Fox would print the next day The Unmasking and Discovery of Antichrist, with all the False Prophets, by the true light which comes from Christ Jesus. Nor, of course, was there, any interference with the religious meetings of any of the ordinary Puritan sects, Baptists or whatever else, that chose to form separatist congregations. Even those who so far passed the bounds that they were called Ranters or Fanatics were quite safe in their own conventicles; and altogether one has to conclude that much that went by the still worse names of Blasphemy, Atheism, Infidelity, and Anti-Christianism, had as quiet a life under the Protectorate as in any later time. Practically, all that is of interest in the enquiry as to the amount of Religious Toleration under Cromwell's Government lies in what is known of his dealings with five denominations of Dissenters from his Established Church—the Papists, the Episcopalians, the Socinians or Anti-Trinitarians, the Quakers, and the Jews.

(1) The Papists. Papists might be Papists under Cromwell's government in the sense that there was no positive compulsion on them to abjure their creed and profess another. The question, however, is as to open liberty of Roman Catholic worship. This question had passed through Cromwell's mind, and the results of his ruminations upon it appear most succinctly in one of his letters to Mazarin. After the Treaty made with France, the Cardinal very naturally pressed the subject of a toleration for Catholics in England, the rather as Cromwell was always so energetic for a toleration of Protestants in Catholic countries. "Although I have this set home to my spirit," Cromwell wrote in reply, "I may not (shall I tell you I cannot?) at this juncture of time, and as the face of my affairs now stands, answer your call for Toleration. I say I cannot, as to a public declaration of my sense in that point; although I believe that under my government your Eminency, in behalf of Catholics, has less reason for complaint, as to rigour on men's consciences, than under the Parliament. For I have of some, and those very many, had compassion; making a difference. Truly I have (and I may speak it with cheerfulness in the presence of God, who is a witness within me to the truth of what I affirm) made a difference; and, as Jude speaks, 'plucked many out of the fire,'—the raging fire of persecution, which did tyrannise over their consciences, and encroached by an arbitrariness of power upon their estates. And herein it is my purpose, as soon as I can remove impediments, and some weights that press me down, to make a farther progress, and discharge my promise to your Eminency in relation to that."[1]