m r 1 THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE Ex Libris ISAAC FOOT HISTORY CHARLES THE FIRST ENGLISH REYOLUTIOK HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST ENGLISH EEVOLUTION, FROM THE ACCESSION OP CHARLES THE FIRST TO HIS EXECUTION. *^ By M/i SONS, STAIMFOKO STUI.F.T AN1> CIIARINC CHOSS. ADVERTISEMENT NEW EDlTIOxX. TnE history of the English Revolution, its origin and consequences, extends over a period of sixty-three years, — from the accession of Charles I., in 1625, to the fall of James II., in 1688 ; and is naturally divided, by the great events which it includes, into four periods. The first of these comprehends the reign of Charles L, his conflict with the Long Parlia- ment, his defeat and death ; the second contains the history of the Commonwealth, under the Long Parliament and Cromwell ; the third is marked by the Restoration of the Monarchy, after the brief Protectorate of Richard Cromwell ; and the fourth comprises the reign of Charles II. and James II., and the final fall of the royal race of Stuart. Each of these four periods will form the subject of a special Work by M. Guizot. The first of these is now republished ; the second has also appeared ; and VI ADVERTISEMENT. the other two arc in progress. Together, the four works will constitute a complete picture of the most important epoch in our history. The present edition has been carefully revised and corrected by its illustrious author, who has also made some important additions to the Appendix. With regard to the translation, the references have, for the first time, been carefully verified ; and the quotations are given, in every instance, from the original autho- rities. This may, therefore, be fairly stated to be the only correct, complete, and authorized English edition of a work which an eminent writer in the Edinburgh Review has characterized as " The best history, both in thought and composition, of the times of Charl^is the First." Andrew R. Scoble. Lincoln's Inn, June, 1854. PREFACE. Some years since, I published a collection of original Memoirs relating to the English Revolution : I now publish its history. Until the occurrence of the French Revolution, it was the greatest event in the annals of modern Europe. I have no fear that its importance will be under- rated : the French Revolution exceeded it in magni- tude, but did not lessen its intrinsic greatness ; both victories were won in the same war, and tended to the furtherance of the same cause ; and instead of eclipsing each other, they become magnified by com- parison. I am more fearful that mistakes may be made as to their true character, and that their proper place will not be assigned to them, in the world's history. If we are to put faith in an opinion which is very prevalent at the present day, it would seem that these two Revolutions were extraordinary events, which Vlll PREFACE. emanated from unheard-of principles, and aimed at unprecedented designs ; which forced society out of its ancient and natural course ; which, like whirlwinds or earthquakes, were mysterious phenomena guided by laws unknown to men, and bursting forth suddenly, like providential coups d'etat, possibly to destroy, and possibly to revivify the earth. Both friends and enemies, panegyrists and detractors, employ the same language on this point : according to the former, these glorious crises brought truth, liberty, and justice to light, for the first time ; before their occurrence, absurdity, iniquity, and tyranny prevailed, and the human race is indebted to them alone for its deliver- ance from those evils ; according to the latter, these deplorable catastrophes interrupted a long era of wisdom, virtue, and hai)piness ; their authors pro- claimed principles, set up pretensions, and committed crimes previously unparalleled ; the two nations, in a fit of madness, deviated from their accustomed path, and an abyss opened immediately beneath their feet. Thus, whether they are extolled or deplored, blessed or execrated, all agree in forgetting every other consideration in presence of these revolutions, in isolating them completely from the past, in ren- dering them responsible for the destiny of the world, and ill loading them alone with curses or with glory. PREFACE. IX It is time to have done with such puerile and false declamations. Far from having broken off the natural course of events in Europe, neither the English nor the French Revolution asserted, attempted, or effected anything which had not been already asserted, attempted, or effected a hundred times before their occurrence. They proclaimed the illegitimacy of absolute power : but free consent to laws and taxes, and the right of armed resistance, were among the constituent prin- ciples of the feudal system ; and the Church had often repeated these words of St. Isidore, to be found in the canons of the fourth Council of Toledo : " He is king who rules his people justly ; if he does other- wise, he shall be no longer king." They attacked privilege, and laboured to introduce more equality into the social system : but, throughout all Europe, kings have done the same ; and to our own day, the pro- gress of civil equality has been based on the laws, and measured by the progress of royalty. They demanded that public employments should be thrown open to all citizens, and be bestowed on merit alone, and that the government should consent to this com- petition ; but this is the fundamental principle of the internal constitution of the Church ; and the Church has not only carried it into effect, but has openly professed it. Whether we consider the general doctrines of the two revolutions, or the applications X PREFACE. which they made of them — whether we contemplate the government of the State or civil legislation, property or persons, libertj" or power — we shall find nothing of their own invention, nothing which is not to be met with, and which did not at least originate, in more regular times. Nor is this all : the principles, designs, and efforts which are exclusively attributed to the French and English Revolutions, not only preceded them by several centuries, but are the same principles and efforts to which society in Europe is indebted for all its progress. Was it by its disorders and privileges, by its brute force, and its subjugation of other men beneath its yoke, that the feudal aristocracy con- tributed to the development of nations ? No : but it struggled against royal tyranny ; it availed itself of the right of resistance, and maintained the maxims of liberty. And why have nations blessed their kings? For their pretensions to divine right, their assumptions of absolute power, their lavish ex- penditure, or their luxurious courts ? No : but kings attacked the feudal system and aristocratic privilege ; they introduced unity into legislation and into the administration of affairs ; they promoted the development of equality. And whence have the clergy derived their strength ? In what way have they helped forward civilization ? By separating themselves from the people, by affecting to dread PREFACE. XI human reason, and by sanctioning tyranny in the name of Heaven ? No : but by assembling the great and the little, the rich and the poor, the strong and the weak, beneath the roof of the same church, and under the same law of God ; by honouring and cultivating learning, instituting schools, favouring the diffusion of knowledge, and rewarding activity of mind. Consult the history of the masters of the world; analyze the influence of the various classes that have determined its fate ; wherever any good is manifest, whenever the continued gratitude of mankind bears witness to a service rendered to humanity — a step has been taken towards the object aimed at by the French and English Revolutions ; we are in presence of one of the principles which they endeavoured to render victorious. Let us then cease to portray these revolutions as monstrous apparitions in the history of Europe ; let us hear no more of their unprecedented pretensions and infernal inventions ; they helped civilization to advance along the road which it has been pursuing for fourteen centuries ; they professed the maxims, and pushed forward the labours to which man has, in all ages, been indebted for the development of his nature and the improvement of his condition ; they did that which has in turn constituted the chief merit and glory of clergy, noliles, and kings. I do not think men can long persist in condemning Xll PREFACE. them absolutely, because they are laden with errors, calamities, and crimes : in this particular, we must make every concession to their adversaries, and even surpass them in severity, looking at their accusations only to supply their omissions, and then requiring them, in their turn, to prepare a list of the errors, crimes, and evils of those times and governments which they have taken under their patronage. I doubt whether they would accept the challenge. If it be asked in what respect these two revolutions are distinguished from every other epoch : what is the reason that, while they merely continued the common work of all ages, they deserved their name, and positively changed the face of the world ? This is my answer — Various powers have successively held swaj^ in European society, and marched in turn at the head of civilization. After the fall of the Roman Empire and the invasion of the barbarians, amidst the dissolution of all social ties and the destruction of all recognized powers, the predominance everywhere fell to daring and brutal force ; the conquering aristocracy took pos- session of everything, persons and lands, people and country. In vain did a few great men, Charlemagne in France, and Alfred in England, endeavour to reduce this chaos to the unity of a monarchical system. All unity was impossible. The feudal hierarchy was the only form which society would PREFACE. Xlll consent to accept. This hierarchy prevailed uni- versally, in the Church as well as in the State ; the bishops and abbots became barons; the king was the chief seigneur. In spite of the rude and unstable character of this organization, Europe was indebted to it for its first steps out of l)arl3arism. It was among the proprietors of fiefs — in their mutual relations, laws, customs, feelings, and ideas — that European civilization commenced. The fief-holders were a great burden on the people. The clergy alone endeavoured to claim for all a little reason, justice, and humanity. Those who had no place in the feudal hierarchy could find no asylum but the churches, and no protectors but the priests. This protection, though insufficient, was nevertheless an immense boon, for it was the only one. The priests, moreover, alone offered any sustenance for the moral nature of man, for that unconquerable necessity of thinking, knowing, hoping, and believing, which overcomes all obstacles, and survives all misfortunes. The Church soon acquired prodigious power througli- out all Europe. Royalt}'^, then in its infancy, lent it fresh strength by borrowing its assistance. The predominance passed from the hands of the conquering aristocracy into those of the clergy. With the assistance of the Church, and by its own inherent strength, the royal power increased, and raised itself above its rivals ; but the clergy had no XIV PREFACE. sooner assisted it, than they attempted to subjugate it. In this new emergency, the royal power invoked the help, sometimes of the now less formidable barons, but more frequently of the people : the townsmen, who were already strong enough to be valuable allies, though not sufficiently powerful to require a high price for their services. By their aid, the royal power triumphed in its second conflict, and became in its turn the dominant power, invested with the confidence of the nations. Such is the history of old Europe : the feudal aristocracy, the clergy, and the royal power, alter- nately possessed it, and successively presided over its destiny and progress. To their coexistence and conflict it was long indebted for all the liberty, prosperity, and enlightenment it had obtained ; in a word, for the development of its civilization. In England in the seventeenth centur}^, and in France in the eighteenth, all conflict between these three powers had ceased ; they were living together in peace and tranquillity. We might almost say that they had lost their historical character, and even their recollection of the labours which had formerly given them strength and renown. The aristocracy no longer defended public liberties, it did not even defend its own ; the royal power no longer laboured to abolish aristocratic privilege, it seemed even to have become favourable to the possessors of that PREFACE. XV jirivilege in return for their servility ; and the clergy, the spiritual power, was afraid of the human mind, and, being unable to lead it, endeavoured to arrest its progress by menaces. Meanwhile, civilization pursued its course, and daily became more general and active. Abandoned by their old leaders, surprised at their apathy and ill temper, and indignant at finding that less was done for them as their desires and strength grew greater, the people began to think that it was their duty to attend to their own interests ; and assuming the entire responsibility of their affairs, about which no one seemed any longer to care, they simultaneously demanded liberty from the crown, equality from the aristocracy, and intellectual freedom from the clergy. Then revolutions broke forth. They effected, for the benefit of a new power, a change which Europe had already witnessed on several occasions : they gave society leaders who were willing and able to guide it in its progress. On this ground alone, the aristocracy, the church, and the king, had in turn possessed the preponderance. The people now seized it in virtue of the same right, by the same means, and in the name of the same necessities. Such is the real work, the true character, of both the English and French Revolutions. After having considered them as absolutely alike, it has been said that they were similar only in appearance. The XVI PREFACE. English Revolution, wc are told, was political rather than social ; the French Revolution attempted to change both society and the government together ; — the one sought to establish liberty, the other equality ; — the one was rather religious than political, and merely substituted one set of dogmas for another, and one church for another church ; the other was pre-eminently philosophical, and asserted the complete independence of reason. The comparison is ingeni- ous, and not altogether void of truth ; but it is almost as superficial and frivolous as the opinion which it assumes to supersede. Just as great differences are visible beneath the external resemblance of the two revolutions, so an even deeper resemblance is concealed beneath their differences. From the very causes which produced its ebullition more than a century before the Revolution in France, the English Revolu- tion, it is true, retained a deeper impress of the old social condition of the country ; there, free institu- tions, born amid barbarism, had survived even the despotism which they had been unable to prevent ; the feudal aristocracy, in part, at least, had made common cause with the people. The royal power, even in the days of its predominance, had never been fully or undisturbedly absolute ; the national Church had itself commenced the work of religious reform, and stimulated the minds of the people to boldness of inquiry and speculation. Evi.ry where, in the laws. PREFACE. XVll manners, and creed of the nation, the Revolution found its work half effected; and from the govern- ment which it aspired to change, it derived, at the same time, both succour and obstruction, useful allies and powerful adversaries. Thus it presented a singular combination of elements apparently the most diverse ; it was at once aristocratic and popular, religious and philosophical, invoking laws and theories by turns ; sometimes announcing a new yoke for consciences, sometimes proclaiming their entire liberty ; now narrowly confined within the limits of fact, and now indulging in the most daring specula- tions, — it was, in a word, placed between the old and new state of society, rather as a bridge to connect than as an abyss to separate them. In the French Revolution, on the other hand, the most terrible unity prevailed ; the spirit of innovation held undivided sway over its proceedings ; the ancien regime, far from taking its proper place and part in the movement, sought only to defend itself against it, and succeeded scarcely for a moment in the attempt, for it was equally destitute of strength and virtue. On the day on which the Revolution broke out, one fact alone remained positive and influential, and that was the general civilization of the country. In this great but solitary result were concentred all the old institutions, all the old manners, beliefs, and recollections — indeed, the whole life of the nation. The many active and VOL. I. b XVIU PREFACE. glorious centuries which had elapsed had produced nothing but France. Hence arose the immensity of the results of the Eevolution, and the portentous magnitude of its errors ; — it possessed absolute power. The difference is certainly great, and well worth}'' of consideration ; it is particularly striking when we consider the two Revolutions in themselves as isolated events, when we detach them from general history, and endeavour to distinguish their peculiar phsyiog- nomy and individual character. But, if they resume their place in the course of time, — if we examine what they have done for the development of European civilization — we shall see the resemblance reappear, and rise above all diversities. Originating in the same causes, by the decay of the feudal aristocracy, the Church, and the royal power, they laboured to effect the same work, — to secure the domination of the people in public affairs They struggled for liberty against absolute power, for equality against privilege, for progressive and general interests against stationary and individual interests. Their positions were different, and their strength unequal ; what the one clearly perceived, the other saw only imperfectly; in the career which the one followed to the end, the other soon stopped short ; on the same field of battle, the one found victory and the other defeat ; the one erred from cynicism, the other from hypocrisy ; the one was marked by great PREFACE, XIX prudence, the other by great power ; but they varied only in the means they employed, and the success they achieved ; they were the same in tendency and in origin ; their desires, efforts, and progress aimed at the same object; all that the one attempted or accomplished, the other also effected or attempted. Although guilty of religious persecution, the English Revolution unfurled the banner of liberty of con- science ; in spite of its aristocratic alliances, it established the predominance of the Commons ; as its chief occupation was with civil order, it demanded a simpler legislative system, parliamentary reform, the abolition of entails and of the right of primogeniture ; and although deceived in many premature expecta- tions, it liberated English society, to an immense extent, from the monstrous inequality of the feudal regime ; — in a word, such is the analogy between the two Revolutions, that the first would never have been properly understood unless the second had occurred. In our own days, indeed, the history of the English Revolution has assumed an altered aspect. Hume' had succeeded in forming the opinion of Europe re- garding it ; and notwithstanding the support of Mira- beau, the declamations of Mrs. Macaulay^ had been ' Hume's History of England under the House of Stuart was pub- lished in 1754-6. * Mrs, Macaulay's work was to have been a History of England from the accession of James I. to that of the Brunswick line, but it termi- nates with the fall of James II. It was published in England in 1763- XX PKEFACE. unable to shake his authority. Suddenly, however, the minds of men regained their independence, and a host of works have attested not only that this epoch of English history was again becoming the object of strong sympathy, but that the narratives and opinions of Hume had ceased to satisfy the imagination and reason of the public. A great orator, Charles James Fox,^ and many distinguished writers, Laing,^ Mac- Diarmid,^ Brodie,* Lingard,^ and Godwin,® hastened to satisfy the newly-awakened curiosity. The move- ment, originating in France, could not fail to produce its effects in that country also ; M. Yillemain's His- toire de Cromwell, and M. Mazure's Histoii^e de la Revolution de 1688, evidently prove that, among our- selves, Hume has ceased to be a sufficient authority ; and I was able to publish a voluminous collection of original Memoirs^ relating to the period, without 1783. Two volumes of a translation of this work were published in France, in 1791, under the name of Mirabeau. ' Fox's History of the Early Part of the Reign of James II. was pubhshed in London in 1808. * Laing's History of Scotland, from the Union of the Crowns to the Union of the Kingdoms, in four volumes. ^ MacDiarmid's Lives of British Statesmen, in two volumes ; the second volume contains the lives of Strafford and Clarendon. "* Brodie's History of the British Empire from the Accession of Charles I. to the Restoration of Charles II., in four volumes. * Lingard's History of England ; the ninth and tenth volumes relate to the reigns of James I. and Charles I. ® Godwin's History of the Commonwealth of England, in four volumes. '' This collection consists of twenty-five volumes. PREFACE. XXI wearying the attention or exhausting the curiosity of my readers. It would ill become me, in this place, to enter upon a detailed examination of these works ; but I do not hesitate to affirm that, but for the French Revolution, but for the strong light which it has cast on the strug- gle between the house of Stuart and the people of England, they would not possess the new merits which distinguish them from previous histories. In proof of this, I need only point to the difference which is to be remarked between those works which Great Britain has produced, and those which had their origin in France. With whatever patriotic interest the au- thors of the former may be inspired by the Revolution of 1640, even when they range themselves under the standard of one particular party, historical criticism presides over their labours ; they apply themselves chiefly to an accurate investigation of facts, to a care- ful comparison and discussion of evidence ; what they relate is to them an old history with which they are well acquainted, not a drama in which they bear a part — a past era, already far distant, which they spare no pains to understand thoroughly, but in the midst of which they do not live. Mr. Brodie shares all the prejudices, suspicions, and dislikes of the sternest Puritans, on reference to Charles I. and the Cavaliers, and notices none of the faults and errors of his Puritanic friends. It would seem likely that such partiality would produce a most animated narrative, XXn PREFACE. in which the party which awakened so much sympathy in the writer's soul would be portrayed with truth and warmth. This is not the case ; notwithstanding the vehemence of his prejudices, Mr. Brodie studies but does not see, discusses but does not paint-, he admires the popular party without bringing it into bold relief, and his work is a learned and useful dis- sertation, not a moral and living history. Mr. Lin- gard shares in none of the opinions and partialities of Mr. Brodie ; he leans neither to the King nor to the Parliament ; he pleads no cause, and makes no special effort to refute the errors of his predecessors ; he boasts of not having opened Hume's history since he began his own •, he has written, he says, with the help of original documents only, placing himself always in presence of the period he had to describe, and with a firm resolution to set aside all systematic schemes. Is his history lifelike, in consequence of this impartiality ? No ; Mr. Lingard's impartiality is mere indifference ; a Catholic priest, it matters little to him whether Anglicans or Presbyterians are triumphant : his indif- ference has, therefore, proved as incapable as Mr. Brodie's passion to penetrate beyond the external and material forms of events ; and the chief merit of his work is, that he has carefully investigated facts, col- lected them with considerable completeness, and ar- ranged them with skill. Mr. Malcolm Laing has shown greater sagacity in discovering the political character of the Revolution ; lie shows very plainly, PREFACE. XXlll that, without clearly comprehending its purpose, it aspired, from the very outset, to change the seat of power, to bring it down to the House of Commons, and to substitute parliamentary for regal government ; and that, short of this result, it could not rest in peace. But the moral aspect of the period, the reli- gious enthusiasm, the popular passions, the party in- trigues, the personal rivalries, all the scenes in which human nature displays itself, unrestrained by either laws or manners, find no record in his work ; it is like a report from a clear-headed judge, who has seen only the written depositions, but before whom neither the actors nor the witnesses have appeared in person. I might thus pass in review all the works relating to this subject, with which English literature has recently been enriched ; they would all present the same cha- racter — an unmistakable revival of interest in this great crisis of the national life, a more attentive study of the facts relating to it, a stronger feeling of its merits, and a fresher appreciation of its causes and consequences : but nothing more than the ordi- nary results of meditation and study — an erudite or philosophical work. I should look in vain for that natural sympathy between the author and his sub- ject, which imparts light and life to history ; and if Hampden or Clarendon were to return to existence, I think they would find it difficult to recognize, in these works, the times in which ihey lived and acted. XXIV PREFACE. AVhen I open M. A^illcmain's Histoire de Cromwell, I find myself in presence of a very different spectacle ; it is less complete, less learned, and less accurate tlian many of those works which I have just men- tioned ; but it everywhere displa^ys a quick and lively comprehension of revolutionary opinions, passions and vicissitudes, of public tendencies, individual cha- racters, and the indomitable nature and changing forms of parties ; the reason of the historian embraces all the positions and ideas with which he has to deal ; his imagination is kindled by all real and sincere im- pressions ; his impartiality, though perhaps somewhat too sceptical, is nevertheless frequently more animated than even the passion of the exclusive advocates of one cause ; and although the Revolution appears, in his book, confined within the narrow limits of a biography, it is there portrayed more clearly and vividly than in any other work. This arises from the fact that, independently of any advantages of talent, M. Yillemain also had those of position : he considered and judged the English Re- volution from the midst of the French Revolution : in the events and men that passed before his own eyes, he found the key to those he had to describe ; he has transfused the life of his own age into the times which he wished to resuscitate. I must not pursue these observations to a greater length : I have only ventured them in order to show more clearly what a dcej) analogy there is between PREFACE. XXV the two epochs, and also to explain why a Frenchman may believe that the history of the English Revoln- tion has not yet been written in a fully satisfactory manner, and that he may be permitted to attempt to supply the deficiency. I have carefully studied nearly all the old and new books relating to the sub- ject ; I had no fear that their perusal would modify the sincerity of my impressions or the independence of my judgment ; there is, I think, excessive timidity in so readily believing that an auxiliary may become a master, or excessive pride in thus absolutely refusing all assistance. Nevertheless — and this will, I think, be at once perceived — original documents have been my chief guides. I have nothing to say, in this place, with regard to my collection of Memoirs : in the notices which I prefixed to them on their publication, I endeavoured thoroughly to explain their character and merits ; and those which I have not included in my collection, though I have referred to them in my history, do not seem to me of sufficient importance to require further comment. Collections of official acts and papers are very numerous, and though they have often been laid under contribution, still abound in unknown treasures ; I have made frequent use of the State Papers of Rushworth and Thurloe, of the Journals of both Houses, of the old Parliamentary History as well as the more recent work of Mr. Cobbett, of the State Trials, and of a great number of other works of the same kind which it would be tedious to enumerate. VOL. I. c XXVI PREFACE. 1 have also found many curious facts in contemporary pamphlets, published in France as well as in England ; for tlie French people took a far greater interest in the English Revolution than is commonly imagined ; many treatises were published on both sides, and the Frondeurs frequently availed themselves of its example to check Mazarin and the Court. I must not forget to add, as an act of justice to a man and a work now too much neglected, that I have very often consulted Rapin's History of England with great advantage, and that, notwithstanding the inferiority of the author's talent, he better understood and has more completely described the English Revolution than most of his successors. Finally, let me here give expression to my grati- tude to all those persons, both in France and England, who have bestowed their anticipatory favour on my work, and lent me the most valuable assistance. Among others, I am indebted to the kindness of Sir James Mackintosh — a kindness as inexhaustible as his genius and learning — for suggestions and counsels which no other man could have given me ; and one of my own countrymen, remarkable for his knowledge of the history and condition of England, M. Gallois, has lavished on me, with a readiness which I have some right to construe as friendship, the multifarious trea- sures of his library and conversation. GrUlZOT. CONTENTS OF THE FIEST VOLUME. Preliminary Essay on the Causes op the Success of the English Revolution Page BOOK I. Accession of Charles I. — State of Public Feeling in England — Convocation of the First Parhament — Spirit of Liberty mani- fested by it — Its Dissolution — First Attempts at Arbitrary Government — Their ill Success — Second Parliament — Impeach- ment of the Duke of Buckingham — Dissolution of the Parha- ment — Bad Administration of Buckingham — Third Parhament — Petition of Rights — Pi'orogation of the Parliament — Assassi- nation of the Duke of Buckingham — Second Session of the Third Parhament — Fresh Causes of Pubhc Dissatisfaction — The King's Anger — Dissolution of the Third Parliament . .123 BOOK II. Designs of the King and his Council — Prosecution of the Par- liamentary Leaders — Apparent Apathy of England — Struggle between the Ministers and the Court — The Queen — Strafford — Laud — Disunion and Unpopularity of the Government — Civil and Religious Tyranny — Its effects upon the various Classes »of the Nation — Trial of Prynne, Burton, and Bastwick — Trial of Hampden — Insurrection in Scotland —First War with the Scots — Peace of Berwick — Short Parliament of 1640 — Second War with the Scots — Its iU Success — Convocation of the Long Par- liament . . . . . . . . . . .176 XXVIU CONTENTS. BOOK III. Page Opening of Parliament — Its Assumj^tion of Power — State of Poli- tical and Religions Parties — Concessions made by the King — Negotiations between the King and the Parliamentary Leaders — Conspiracy in the Army — Trial and Execution of Strafford — The King's Journey to Scotland — Insurrection in Ireland — Debate on the Remonstrance — The King's return to London — Progress of the Eevolution — lUots — Afiair of the Five Mem- bers — The King leaves London — Departure of the Queen to the Continent — Aftair of the Militia— Negotiations — The King takes up his Piesidence at York — Both Parties prepare for War — The King is refused admission into Hull — Vain attempts at recon- ciliation — Formation of the two Armies ..... 258 Appendix 383 PRELIMINARY ESSAY CAUSES OF THE SUCCESS ENGLISH REVOLUTION. The English Eevoliition was successful. It succeeded t^vice. Its authors were the founders of constitutional monarchy in England ; their descendants founded, in America, the Eepubhc of the United States. These great events are now clouded by no obscurities ; they have received the elucidation, together with the sanction, of time. Sixty years ago, France entered upon the path which England opened ; and, only yes- terday as it were, Europe dashed headlong into the same course. I am desirous to explain the causes which have secured — in England to constitutional monarchy, and in America to republicanism — that solid success which France and Europe have hitherto vainly sought to obtain through those mysterious and trying revolutions, which, as they are well or ill endured, elevate or mislead nations for ages. VOL. I. B 3 PRELIMINARY ESSAY ON It was in the name of faitli and of religious liberty that, in the sixteenth century, the movement com- menced, which ever since that period, with the excep- tion of a few temporary lulls, has agitated and swayed the world. The tempest arose first in the human soul, and attacked the Church before it reached the State. It has been said that Protestantism was in reahty more a poHtical than a rehgious revolution ; an insur- rection of worldly interests against the estabhshed order of the Church, rather than the outburst of a conviction with regard to the eternal interests of man. To say this is to judge merely from appearances ; and this error has led those spiritual or temporal powers, which have allowed themselves to be misled by it? into a course of conduct fatal to their safety. Anxious to repress the revolutionary element in Protestantism, they have misunderstood its religious element. The spirit of revolt is undoubtedly very powerful ; but it is not capable of performing such mighty achievements by its own unassisted strength. It was not simply to cast off a yoke, it was also to profess and practise a faith, that the Reformation of the sixteenth century was begun and persevered in. After the lapse of tliree centuries, this is gloriously demonstrated by a sovereign, incontestable fact. England and Holland, the two most Protestant countries of Europe, are the countries in which, at the present day, the Cliristian faith possesses the greatest vitality and influence. A man must be strangely ignorant of human nature to believe that religious fervour would have thus sus- THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 6 tained and perpetuated itself, after the triumphant issue of the insurrection, if the movement had not been really and essentially religious. The German revolution, in the sixteenth century, was not political, but rehgious. The French revolu- tion in the eighteenth was not religious, but political. It was the fortune of England in the seventeenth century, to be governed by the spirit of religious faith as well as by the spirit of political hberty, and to enter upon the two revolutions at the same time. All the great passions of human nature were thus brought into duly-controlled activity ; and the hopes and aspir- ations of eternity remained to men even when they beheld the failure of all their earthly aspirations and hopes. The English reformers, especially those whose object was merely political, did not consider a revolution necessary. The laws, the traditions, the precedents, the whole past annals of their country, were dear and sacred in their eyes ; and they found in them a found- ation for their pretensions, as well as a sanction for their ideas. It was in the name of the Great Charter, and of the innumerable statutes which had been passed during four centuries in confirmation of it, that they demanded their liberties. For four centuries, not a generation of Englishmen had passed away without uttering the name, and witnessing the assemblage, of Parliament. The great barons and the people, the country gentlemen and the burgesses, met together in 1640, not to contend for new acquisitions, but to regain their common inheritance ; they came to repos- B 2 4 PRELIMINARY ESSAY ON sess themselves of their ancient and positive rights, and not to pursue the infinite and unknown combin- ations and specidations of the human mind. The rehgious reformers did not enter into the Long Parhament of Charles I. with such legal pretensions. The Episcopal Church of England, as it had been con- stituted, first by the capricious and cruel despotism of Henry YIII., and then by the clever and persevering despotism of Elizabeth, was not at all to their taste. In their eyes it was an incomplete and ineffective reform, continually menaced by the danger of a relapse into the Catholic Church, from which it was not sufficiently far removed ; and they contemplated the thorough remodelling and reconstitution of the Chris- tian Church of their country. They displayed their revolutionary spirit much more ardently and openly than the party who were intent upon mere political reform. Nevertheless the rehgious innovators them- selves did not yield altogether to the suggestions of their imaginations. They had an anchor to which they held, a compass upon which they relied. The Gospel was their Great Charter, overlaid, it is true, by their interpretations and commentaries, but anterior and superior to their will : they sincerely respected it, and humbled themselves, in spite of their pride, before the law which they had not made. To these pledges of moderation, which the two impending revolutions thus found in the dispositions of their respective partisans. Providence added yet another favour. They were not condemned, at their very outset, to the wickedness and dailger of sponta- THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 5 neously attacking, without clear and pressing neces- sity, a peaceful and inoffensive ruler. In England, in tlie seventeenth century, the royal power was the aggressor. Charles I., fall of haughty pretensions, though devoid of great ambition, and rather that he might not fall in the opinion of contemporary monarchs than from any "wish to rule his people with an iron sway, twice attempted to introduce the maxims and practices of absolute monarchy ; first, in presence of the Parliament, and under the influence of a vain and frivolous favourite,^ whose presumptuous incom- petency shocked the good sense and wounded the honour even of the most obscure citizens ; and next, by refusing to have any Parliament, and governing alone, by means of an able, energetic, ambitious, and imperious minister^ — a man who was devoted to his sovereign without being well understood or well sus- tained by him, and who learned too late, that, to save kings, it is not sufficient to sacrifice oneself nobly in their service. Against this aggressive despotism, which was more enterprising than powerful, and which attacked, in the Church as well as in the State, both the ancient rights and the new liberties demanded by the country, the people did not contemplate the employment of any- thing beyond lawful resistance, and put full trust in the Parhament. There the resistance was as unani- mous as it was legitimate. Men the most different in their origin and character — nobles, gentlemen, or bur- ' George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham. ' Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford. 6 PRELIMINARY ESSAY ON gesses, connected or unconnected with the Court, friends or enemies of the Established Church — all exclaimed with one accord against so many grievances and abuses ; and the abuses fell, and the grievances disappeared, just as the aged walls of a deserted fortress crumble away at the first strokes of an assailant. In this outbreak of the national anger and hopes, some more prudent minds, some more scrupulous con- sciences, discovered cause for uneasiness. Vengeance not only disfigures, but really perverts, justice ; and passion, proud of its rights, goes farther than it ought, and even than it intended. Strafford was justly accused and unjustly judged. The politicians, who did not desire the ruin of the Episcopal Church, allowed the bishops to be outraged and humihated, as though they were men who had fallen to rise no more. The ill-directed blows which deprived the Crown of its usurpations and illegitimate pretensions, interfered also with its just prerogatives. Grave incidents revealed, and courageous voices proclaimed, the revolutionary spirit that was concealed beneath these reforms. Rising revolutions have never failed to intimate and foreshadow their future course ; but the neces- sity and the splendour of victory banished at once the consciousness of fault and the presentiment of danger. When the work of reform was accomplished — when the grievances which had excited the unanimous repro- bation of the country were redressecL — when the powers which were the authors of these grievances, and the men THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 7 who were the instruments of these powers, were over- tlirown, — the scene changed. A new question pre- sented itself — how shall these conquests be retained ? What assurance is there that England will henceforth be governed by the laws, and according to the principles, which it has just re-established ? The political reformers began to feel perplexed. Above them was the King, who conspired against them whilst he yielded to their demands. If the King resumed, in the government, that power which was still secured to him, he would make use of it against reform and reformers. Around them were their allies — the religious innovators, Presbyterians and other sectaries — ^who were not satisfied with mere pohtical reforms, and who, in their hatred of the Esta- bhshed Church, aspired, not only to shake ofi* its yoke, but to destroy it, and bring it into subjection to them- selves. For the security of their work — for their own security — the chiefs resolved to remain in arms. If they had proposed a disarmament, their soldiers would not have permitted it. One course alone could, in their eyes, insure their safety. The Parliament must retain the sovereign power it had just assumed, and the King must be ren- dered permanently incapable of governing in opposition to the wishes of the Parliament, and of the House of Commons in the Parliament. This is the result at wliich constitutional monarchy has arrived in England ; this is the end at which its partisans have been aiming for the last two centuries. But, in the seventeenth century, they possessed neither O PRELIMINARY ESSAY ON the knowledge nor the pohtical virtues necessary for this mode of government. There is in the heart of man such a union of arro- gance and weakness that he aspires, at the same time, to all the glory and all the repose that vic- tory can impart. It is a small thing for him to sur- mount obstacles ; he wishes to suppress them altogether, that they may give him no further trouble ; and tri- umph itself does not content him, unless he can enjoy it in all the confidence of complete security. Con- stitutional monarchy does not give satisfaction to these evil tendencies of human nature. To none of the powers which it calls into being does it accord the pleasures of undivided and undisturbed dominion. On all, even on the victor, it imposes the unceasing labour of forced alHances, mutual concessions, frequent compromises, indirect influences, and an incessantly-renewed contest, with incessantly-recurring chances of success or defeat. It is at this price that constitutional monarchy defi- nitively guarantees the triumph of the interests and feeUngs of the country, which is itself bound to mode- ration in its desires, and to vigilance and patience in its efforts. Neither the King nor the ParHament of England, in the seventeenth century, understood these condi- tions of their common government, and consequently would not submit to them. The King was anxious to retain his power ; the House of Commons aimed at becoming, directly and infallibly, the sovereign ruler of the country. This alone could satisfy their pride and calm their fears. THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 9 To attain this end — to retain and exercise the sove- reign authority which it had seized — the House of Commons could be contented no longer with the refor- mation of abuses and the restoration of legal rights. It must thoroughly and radically alter the ancient laws of the land, and concentrate all powers in its own hands. When matters had reached this point, a great divi- sion took place among the reformers. Some, influenced by greater foresight or more timidity, embraced the defence of legal order and of the menaced monarchy ; others, more bold or less scrupulous, entered upon the path of revolution. At this moment originated the two great parties, which, developing themselves successively under dif- ferent names and aspects, have for two centuries swayed the destinies of England — the party devoted to the maintenance of the established order of things, and the party favourable to the progress of popular in- fluence — the Tories and the Wliigs, the Conservatives and the Innovators. In the Parliament, the struggle was severe but brief. The monarchical party attempted to organize itself aromid the King, and to govern in his name. These first attempts at constitutional government failed, almost before they had begun. They failed through the fault of the King, who was inconsistent, frivo- lous, obstinate, and as insincere to his advisers as to his enemies ; through the inexperience of his coun- sellors themselves, who were alternately too exclusive and too weak, and incessantly baffled and betrayed in 10 PRELIMINARY ESSAY ON the palace as well as in the Parliament ; and through the distrust and pretensions of the revolutionary party, who were determined not to rest so long as the abso- lute power, which they sought to destroy, had not passed into their own hands. One day, in connexion with a fresh remonstrance, which it was proposed should be presented to the King against the old grievances (as though they had not been already redressed), the numerical strength of the two parties in the House was clearly tested. The de- bate became so violent, that even vdthin the precincts of the Commons' House itself, the members were on the point of coming to blows. Eleven votes gave the vic- tory to the revolutionary party. Fifty days after this division, the King left his palace of WliitehaU as a fugitive, and re-entered it only when on his way to the scaffold. The House of Commons immediately ordered that the menaced kingdom should be placed in a state of defence without delay. The Parhamentary struggle ceased — the Civil War began. At this solemn moment, patriotic regrets and gloomy forebodings were felt by members of both parties, especially by the King's adherents, who were less confident in their strength, and perhaps, also, in the justice of their cause. But this was not the general feeling. The desire and hope of success predominated in most hearts. The spirit of resistance to illegality and oppression has been one of the most noble and salutary characteristics of the English people through- out the whole course of their history. Docile, and even favoui-able to authority, when it acts in virtue THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 11 of the law, they boldly maintain against it that which they consider to be the law of the land and their own right. In the midst of their dissensions, this same feeling animated both parties. The revolu- tionary party were struggling against the illegalities and oppressions, which, in past times, England had suffered from the King, and which she had to fear from him in the future. The monarchical party were struggling against the illegalities and oppressions, which, at that time, the Parliament was inflicting on the country. Respect for right and law, although daily misunderstood and violated, was universally felt by all minds, and concealed from their view the wrongs and evils that civil war was about to shower upon them. The habits of neither party were very repugnant to civil war. The Cavaliers were impetuous and daring, still given to that love of combat, and that taste for an appeal to force, which characterised the feudal times. The Pmitans were stern and tenacious, inspired by the passions and traditions of the He- brew people, who defended and avenged their God by punishing His enemies. Both were familiar with the sacrifice of life, and bloodshed excited in them no horror. Another more hidden cause provoked and stimu- lated the movement. The political and religious parties were not alone engaged in the struggle. Their contest concealed a social question — the struggle between the different classes for influence and power. Not that these classes were, in England, so tho- 12 PRELIMINARY ESSAY ON roughly separated and hostile to each other as they have been in other countries. The great barons had maintained the liberties of the people at the same time that they asserted their own freedom ; and the people had not forgotten it. The country gentlemen and the burgesses had sat together in Parliament, for three centuries, in the name of the Commons of England. But, during the last century, great changes had taken place in the relative strength of the different classes of society, without an analogous change having been effected in the Government. The commercial activity and religious ardour of the middle classes had given a prodigious impplse to their wealth and intelligence. It was remarked with surprise, in one of the first Parhaments of the reign of Charles I., that the House of Commons was three times as rich as the House of Lords. The high aristocracy no longer possessed, and no longer imparted to royalty, around which it still rallied, the same preponderance in the nation. The burgesses, the country gentlemen, the farmers, and the small landed proprietors (then a very numerous class), did not exercise an influence upon public affairs proportionate to their importance in the country. Their political importance had not increased with their wealth and social elevation. Hence, among them, and in the ranks beneath them, there arose a proud and powerful spirit of ambition, ready to seize upon any opportunity for developing itself. Civil war opened a wide field to their energy and hopes. At its outset, it did not present the appearance of an exclusive and jealous social classifica- THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 13 tioii; many country gentlemen, and several of the most considerable of the nobility, appeared at the head of the popular party. Nevertheless, the mass of the nobles on the one hand, and of the burgesses and people on the other, ranged themselves, the former around the Crown, the latter around the Parhament — and certain unmistakable symptoms already revealed the existence of a great social movement in the midst of a great political struggle ; and showed that the effervescence of an ascendant democracy was forcing its way through the ranks of an enfeebled and divided aristocracy. Each party found in the state of society — I might even say, in the laws of the country — natural and almost legitimate means for sustaining by arms their rights and pretensions. Ever since the reign of Queen Ehzabeth, the House of Commons had zealously ap- phed itself to the abolition of the last tottering insti- tutions of the feudal system. But there still re- mained deep traces of it ; and the habits, the feelings, and sometimes even the rules of this system, still determined the relations of the possessors of fiefs, either with the King their suzerain, or with a part of the population grouped aromid them, either in their castles or upon their estates. These people arose at their bidding, to engage in festivals or combats, just as they themselves obeyed the summons of the King, when he claimed their services. It was one of those epochs of transformation in which ancient laws, honoured though out of date, still control the actions of the men whom they no longer govern. Devotedness 14 PREiJMINARY ESSAY ON had taken the place of servitude ; the fidehty of the vassal had become the loyalty of the subject ; and the Cavaliers, rich or poor, rallied around the King, ready to fight and to die for him, and followed by a troop or a handful of servants, ready to fight and to die for them. On their side, the burgesses, the artizans, the towns- folk, had also, under other forms, their means of inde- pendent action, and even of war. Organized into municipal or trading corporations, they met together freely to discuss their affairs ; they levied taxes, called out militia, administered justice, employed police, and, in short, dehberated and acted like petty sovereigns within the circuit of their walls, or the frequently obscure limits of their charters. And the extension of trade and manufactm-es, their riches, their con- nexions, and their credit, gave to these corporations a power which they frequently employed in the service of their cause, with the boldness of new-born and inexperienced pride. Neither in the country nor in the towns did royalty possess the support of a central and undivided ad- ministration. Financial, military, and even judicial affairs, were more or less completely in the hands of local and almost independent authorities ; here, the county proprietors ; there, municipal bodies or dif- ferent corporations ; and all these appropriated to themselves the administrative power, in the interest of their political cause, sometimes to serve the central government, whether King or Parliament, sometimes to resist it. THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 15 And where these means were not sufficient — where the action extended beyond the sphere of the ancient and recognized local authorities — the traditional spirit of association, which was still powerful in the country, quickly established, between the counties and cities, between the different parts of the kingdom, or the different classes of society, practical and efficient bonds of union, in virtue of which, new, free, and extem- poraneous associations levied taxes and troops, formed committees, and elected leaders, charged to furnish and direct their quota of co-operation in the general cause they had embraced. It was in an association of this kind — that of the five eastern counties, which united in support of the Par- liament — that Cromwell gave the first indications of his strength, and laid the first foundations of his power. In a society thus organized and disposed, civil war was neither revolting nor impracticable. It soon over- spread the whole country — in some localities excited by the agents of the King or of the Parliament — in others, spontaneously entered into by the citizens ; and it was maintained by both parties with an energy frequently sorrowful, but always unliesitating, as the exercise of a right and the performance of a duty. Both parties were profoundly convinced of the justice and greatness of their cause. Both made, in its ser- vice, those efforts and sacrifices which elevate, even if they mislead, the minds of men, and which give to passion the appearance, and sometimes the merit, of virtue. Nor was virtue itself wanting to either party. 10 PRELIMINARY ESSAY ON Though violent and licentious for the most part, the Cavaliers had in their ranks some of the finest examples of the lofty and generous manners characteristic of ancient families, full of disinterested loyalty and cour- teous dignity. The Puritans, though stern and proud, rendered an inestimable service to their country, for they established the austerity of private life, and the sanctity of the domestic hearth. The two parties con- tended with each other with stubborn animosity ; but, even in the heat of the conflict, they did not renounce the sentiments which distinguish times of order and peace. There were no sanguinary riots, no judicial massacres. There was civil war, ardent, obstinate, full of violence and evil, but without cynical or barbarous excesses, and restrained, by the general manners of the people, within certain limits of justice and humanity. I hasten to do this justice to the two parties, for the virtues of parties are fragile and short-lived when they have to withstand the blast and contend against the tempests of revolutions. From day to day, in proportion as the civil war was prolonged, right was less respected, and just and generous sentiments dimi- nished in influence. The natural consequences of a state of revolution displayed themselves in both parties, in the continually-increasing disregard of the habits and ideas of law and morality. The King stood in need of money : the Cavaliers commenced an unre- strained pillage. The taxes levied by the Parhament were not sufiicient for the necessities of the war ; so it established in all the counties a system of confiscation, more or less disguised, which enabled it to take pos- THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 17 session of the revenues, and frequently of the lands, of the Malignants, as the antagonists of the Parliament were called, and thus to provide a daily source of wealth to its partisans. In this general and continuous disorder, in the midst of abuses of force and extremi- ties of misfortune, bad passions were incessantly called into exercise, and opportmiities were offered for the gratification of all evil desires. Hatred and vengeance took possession of energetic minds ; and feeble souls fell into fear and baseness. The Parhament, which pretended to act in the name of the law, and to serve the King, even while fighting against him, was con- strained, in its most violent actions, to use false and hypocritical language. Among the Eoyalists, many, mistrusting the reserve of the King, called upon to make sacrifices which exceeded their strength, and daily becoming more uncertain of the success of their cause, felt loyalty die away in their hearts, and either submitted in despair, or made good their losses by plun- der. Falsehood, violence, avarice, pusillanimity, sel- fishness under all its forms, rapidly increased amongst the men engaged in the contest ; and the people, who either took no part in it, or acted only at a distance, exposed to the detestable influence of the spectacle of a revolution, gradually lost, or else retained a dim and doubtful recollection of, their ideas of right and duty, of justice and virtue. At the same time, the people suffered severely in their material interests. War, everywhere present, and everywhere undisciplined, ravaged town and country, destroyed the subsistence, and defeated the hopes and VOL. I. c 18 PRELIMINARY ESSAY ON labours of the people. The financial measures of the Parliament, taken advantage of by local enmities and intrigues, disturbed and depreciated the value of landed property. There was no security for present business or future laboui-s. Domestic hfe was injured and overthrown, even in families the most averse to political contests. And as alarm always travels faster and further than suffering, the country, overwhehned with lamentable distress, was a prey to an anxiety even more general and deplorable than its distress. Much time did not elapse before the people made known their complaints and wishes. The war was stiU at its height, when the cry of Peace ! peace I resounded at the doors of the Parhament. Frequent petitions demanded it. Numerous assemblages presented them — assemblages so numerous and excited, that it was necessary to employ force to disperse them. In the House of Commons, notwithstanding the almost entire secession of the first Eoyahst party, a new Eoyalist party formed itself in the name of peace, and eagerly seized every opportunity for proclaiming its necessity, and for commencing negociations with the King. At- tempts at negociation were frequently made, but failed, through the intrigues of those who, in both camps, were opposed to peace, because of the concessions which it entailed, and tlu'ough the incompetency or weakness of those who, though desirous of peace, were afraid to admit its conditions. The civil war con- tinued, but the party which originated it was dismem- bered. The struggle for and against the Revolution had recommenced in the Parhament. THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 19 Out of doors, especially in the country, the people were not satisfied with asking Parliament for peace ; they tried to impose it themselves, locally at least, on both parties. Associations were formed, armed bodies put themselves in motion, declaring that they would no longer permit their lands to be ravaged, either by Parliamentarians or by Eoyahsts, and attacked indis- criminately any party of either army that they chanced to meet. This was a sort of armed neutrality in the midst of civil war ; a fatile attempt, truly, but one which showed how greatly the desperate conflicts of the two parties had already wounded the feelings, and injured the interests of the country. So long as the war was furious and its issue doubtful, these sufferings and inclinations of the people, though causing a pacific reaction, had but little effect in in- ducing them to return to their allegiance. They accused the King of obstinacy and falsehood. They complained bitterly of his secret intrigues with the Queen and the Cathohcs, who were passionately hated and feared. They ascribed to him, as much as to the ParHament, the evils and the continuance of the civil war. When the war was at an end, when the King was a prisoner in the hands of the Parliament, the pacific reaction became more decidedly and more generally Royalist. The King could do nothing, and bore his misfortunes with dignity. The Parhament could do everything, and did not put an end to the calamities of the country. On the Parliament now devolved all responsibility. To it were addressed all the discon- c 2 20 PRELIMINARY ESSAY ON tents, tlie disappointed hopes, the suspicions, the hatreds, the curses of the present, and the terrors of the future. Urged hy the national feeling, enlightened by the imminent peril, the political reformers (the first leaders of the Revolution in Parliament), and in their train a party of religious innovators (the Presbyterians, who, though enemies of the Episcopal Church, were friends to the monarchy), made a last effort to bring about peace with the King, and to terminate at once the war and the Revolution. They were sincere, even passionate in their desire, but still full of the revolutionary pretensions which had already, on several occasions, rendered peace im- possible. By the conditions which the}^ imposed on the King, they requested liim to sanction the destruction of the monarchy and of the Church ; in other words, to complete, with his own hands, the ruin of the edifice which constituted his safety and possessed his faith. They had proclaimed in principle and brought into practice the direct sovereignty of the House of Com- mons ; and constrained, in their turn, to resist the popular current, they were astonished at not finding strength and support, but meeting even with distrust and hostility, from the high aristocracy and the Churcli which they had decried and demolished. Even if they had succeeded in concluding a peace with the King, that peace would have been ineffectual. It was too late to arrest the progress of the Revolution, and too soon to bring it to its true and national end. God was only then beginning to exercise His justice. THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 21 and to teach His lessons. As soon as the first leaders of the movement essayed to repair the mischief they had done, the truly revolutionary party arose, and, treating their newly-obtained wisdom with brutal con- tempt, di'ove them from Parhament, condemned the King to death, and proclaimed the Commonwealth. Two centuries have elapsed since the English Com- monwealth put Charles T. to death, and almost immedi- ately after, fell itself upon the soil which it had stained with his blood. The French Republic more recently presented to the world a similar spectacle. And we hear it still said that these great crimes were acts of a great policy, demanded by the necessity of founding those repubHcs which scarcely survived them a day ! Thus do human folly and perversity pretend to cover themselves with the veil of greatness. Neither the truth of history nor the interest of mankind can suffer this falsehood. The spirit of faith and of religious liberty had de- generated in some sects into an arrogant and quarrel- some fanaticism, which was intractable to all authority, and found satisfaction only in unbridled independence and spiritual pride. By the civil war these sectaries had become soldiers, at once disputatious and devoted, enthusiastic and disciplined. Sprung, for the most part, from the lower classes and professions, they greedily enjoyed the pleasure of commanding and giving orders, of beheving themselves and calhng themselves the chosen and powerful instruments of the will and justice of God. By appealing sometimes to reHgious enthusiasm, sometimes to military discipline. 22 PRELIMINARY ESSAY ON and sometimes to democratic feeling, Cromwell had gained the confidence of these men, and become their leader. After having, it is said, spent his youth in the excesses of a fiery temperament, in the outbursts of an ardent and restless piety, and m the service of the interests or desires of the people among whom he lived, as soon as the field of politics and war opened before him, he dashed zealously into it, as the only career in which he could display Ms energies to his own satisfaction. The most impetuous of sectaries, the most active of revolutionists, the most able of soldiers ; equally ready and ardent to speak, to pray, to conspire, and to fight ; unreserved, with the frankness of conscious power, and, at need, a liar of such inexhaust- ible boldness as to fill even his enemies with surprise and embarrassment ; impassioned and coarse, venture- some and prudent, mystical and practical ; boundless in the flights of his imagination, unscrupulous when his necessities required ; resolved to succeed at any price ; he was more prompt than any one else to discern and seize the means of success, and inspired all, both friends and enemies, with the conviction that no one would succeed so well, or go so far as he. To such a party, led by such a man, the Common- wealth was welcome. It gave satisfaction to their passions, an opening to their hopes, and security to the interests which civil war had created for them. It delivered the country into the hands of the army by the genius of its leader, and gave the empire to Cromwell by the disciplined aid of his soldiers. The respect which I feel for their sincerity, their THE ENGLISH UEVOLTJTION. 23 genius, and their misfortunes, prevents me from ex- pressing all that I think of some celebrated men, who were also Republicans, but rather by their political system, and according to the models of antiquity, than from religious fanaticism. I refer to Sidney, Yane, Ludlow, Harrington, Hutchinson, and Milton. These were men of elevated minds and proud hearts, nobly ambitious for their country and for humanity ; but so injudicious and so foolishly arrogant, that they learned nothing either from success or from defeat. Credulous as children, obstinate as old men, incessantly blinded by their hopes to their dangers and their faults, at the very time when, by their own anarchical tyranny, they were preparing the way for a stronger and more sensible despotism, they believed they were founding the freest and most glorious of governments. Excepting those sects that were organized into regi- ments, and those cliques that formed the Parhament, no one in England was anxious for a republic. It offended the traditions, the manners, the laws, the old affections, the ancient venerations, the regular interests, the good order, the reason, and the moral sense of the country. Irritated and disquieted by this manifest aversion of the public to their designs, the sectaries and Crom- well thought that to found a government so obnoxious, it was necessary at the very outset, by a terrible and irretrievable blow, to prove its strength and affirm its right. They determined to consecrate the repubHc on the scaffold of Charles I. But even the ablest of revolutionists is shortsighted. Intoxicated by passion, or governed by the necessity 24 PRELIMINARY ESSAY ON of the moment, they never foresee that that which effects their triumph to-day, will to-morrow cause their defeat. The execution of Charles I. dehvered England, in a state of stupor, into the hands of Crom- well and the republicans. But the republicans and Cromwell, stricken to death by the same blow, were thenceforth nothing more than a violent and ephe- meral government, marked with that seal of supreme iniquity wliich devotes to certain ruin the strongest and most brilliant powers. The judges of Charles I. left no means untried to free their action from tliis fatal character, and to re- present it as a judgment of Grod, which they were commissioned to perform. Charles had aimed at absolute power, and carried on civil war. Many rights had been violated, and much blood shed, by his orders or with liis sanction. On liim was cast all the respon- sibihty of the anarchy and the war. He was called upon to account for all the liberties that had been oppressed, and all the blood that had been spilt — a nameless crime, which death alone could expiate. But the conscience of a people cannot be so far misled, even when it is under the influence of distraction and terror. Others beside the King had been guilty of oppression and bloodshed. If the King had violated the rights of his subjects, — the rights of royalty, equally ancient, equally by law established, equally necessary to the maintenance of pubhc liberty, had also been violated, attacked, and invaded. He had engaged in war ; but in his own defence. No one was ignorant that, at the time when he determined on wai', it was being THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 25 prepared against him, in order to compel him, after all his concessions, to deliver np the rights and the power which he still retained, — the last remnants of the legal government of the country. And now that the King was conquered, he was judged and condemned without law, and contrary to all law, for acts which no law had ever contemplated or characterised as crimes, which the conscience of neither King nor people had ever thought of considering as subject to the juris- diction of men, and punishable by their hands. What indignation, what universal horror, would have been felt if the meanest subject of the realm had been thus treated, and put to death for crimes defined after the execution of the sentence, by pretended judges, for- merly his enemies, now his rivals, and about to be his heirs ! And that which no one would have dared to do to the obscurest Englishman, was clone to the King of England — to the supreme head of the Church as well as of the State — to the representative and the symbol of authority, order, law, justice, — indeed, everything wliich, in human society, approaches and suggests the idea of the attributes of Gfocl ! There is no fanaticism, however blind, and no pohcy, however perverse, wliich, at the moment of their triumph, have not beheld the appearance, m the ranks of their own pai'ty, of some starthng admonition, some solemn and unexpected protest of the human conscience. Two Republicans, one of whom was on the list of the King's judges, and both of whom were amongst the most illustrious members of the national party, Vane and Sidney, from conscientious 26 PRELIMINARY ESSAY ON scruples, or from prudence, refused to take any part in the trial, and left London that they might not even witness it. And when the sovereign authority, the House of Commons, nominated the Eepublican Council of State, out of the forty-one members of whom it was composed, twenty -two absolutely refused to take the oath which contained an approval of the sentence of the King ; and the regicide Republicans, with Crom- well at their head, were obliged to accept as their col- leagues men who would not, on any terms, pass for their accomplices. The new Government met at first with only passive resistance ; but it met with this universally. Six out of the twelve principal judges absolutely refused to continue to discharge the duties of their office, and the other six only consented to sit on con- dition that they should continue to administer justice according to the ancient laws of the country. The Eepublican Parliament acceded to their conditions. Orders had been issued that the Commonwealth should be proclaimed in the City of London. The Lord Mayor refused to do so : he was dismissed and imprisoned. But, notwithstanding the election of a new Lord Mayor, three months elapsed before the proclamation was attempted; and when at length it took place, several of the aldermen absented themselves from the ceremony. Troops were called in to keep order, but even this precaution did not completely suffice to repress the insults of the populace. The Common Council of the City was reorganized ; many of the members elected refused to sit, and it was found necessary to THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 27 diminish the number which legally constituted a quorum. It was even thought that the Government would be obhged to abolish the franchises of the City. When the Republican coinage was about to be struck, the Master of the Mint declared that he would have no hand in the matter, and resigned his office. An oath of fidelity to the Commonwealth, couched in as simple and inoflfensive terms as possible, was admi- nistered to all civil functionaries and beneficed clergy- men. Thousands tlu-ew up their ofiices or livings rather than take it. More than a year after the esta- blishment of the Commonwealth, the Assembly of the Presbyterian Clergy, which met in London, formally declared that the oath ought not to be taken. It was imposed on the Universities of. Oxford and Cambridge, and the most eminent members of those corporations, both professors and heads of houses, relinquished their appointments. Orders were given throughout all England for effacing from public buildings and monuments the insignia of royalty. It was carried into effect in scarcely any locality. It was renewed several times, without any better success ; and the Eepublic, after it had existed for more than two years, found itself compelled to reiterate the same injunction in all parts of the country, and to charge the various parishes with the responsibihty and expenses of its execution. Finally, it was not until nearly two years after the condemnation of the King, that the Eepubhcan Parlia- ment dared formally to vote that the authors, judges, and executors of that action, had done their duty, 28 PRELIMINARY ESSAY ON thereby approving the whole proceeding, and ordering its insertion on the journals of the House. Never did a people, conquered by a revolutionary faction, and submitting without insurrection to its defeat, more clearly refuse to give its conquerors its adhesion and co-operation. The passive resistance of the country to the govern- ment of the Republic, was soon augmented by the attacks of its avowed enemies. The first proceeded from the Eepublicans themselves. In the seventeenth century, as in the nineteenth, this name included ideas, designs, and parties of a pro- foundly different character. Behind the political reformers came the reformers of social order, and behind them, the destroyers of all order and of all society. To the passions and pretensions of religious fanaticism and fierce democracy, which became more blind and unbridled in proportion to the meanness of the social condition of their advocates, the Republic of Sidney and of Milton was not sufficient. The Levellers arose — the Communists appeared. The Republic had hardly existed six months, and yet, in the neighbour- hood of London and the Parhament, four insurrections of sectarian soldiers, provoked and sustained by a ceaseless succession of pamphlets, sermons, and popular processions, had revealed its internal dissensions, and endangered the stability of its Government. The Royalist party was more slow to revolt. Its continual defeats, the execution of the King, the violent compression with which it was kept down, had thrown it into a state of stupor. The dissensions THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 29 of its conquerors, and tlie evident ill-will of the people towards the new Grovernment, soon restored it to life and hope. In two years, seven conspiracies and insur- rections, set on foot either by pure or by Presbyterian Royahsts, both of whom were equally hostile to the Eepublic, proved to its leaders that, in putting the King to death, they had not slain the empire of King- ship. A secret understanding was soon established between the Royalist conspirators and the Republican plotters, between the Cavaliers and the Levellers. They con- spired in concert. A common hatred sm-mounts all minor differences of opinion. And whilst England was struggling in this furious anarchy, Scotland and Ireland, both royalist, though with different motives and from different feehngs, openly rejected the Republic, proclaimed Charles Stuart king, invited and received, on their soil and at their head, the one Charles himself, the other his represen- tatives, and engaged in a war for his restoration. In this dislocation of the three kingdoms, — in the midst of these opposing, yet united, plots, which were only defeated to be revived, and which by turns raised and cast down, in every part of the country, the hopes and the fears, the ambitions and the intrigues, of all parties, — the bonds of society became relaxed, and the sinews of power speedily gave way. In county or pa- rochial administrations, in local or general finances, in public employments, in private fortunes, in all tlie relations of civil life, there was an end to order and security. On the highways, in the neighbourhood of 30 PRELIMINARY ESSAY ON towns, thieves and robbers appeared in great numbers, going about in gangs, justifying their crimes by their political passions, asking those whom they stopped, whether or not they had taken the oath of fidelity to the Republic, and maltreating or releasing them ac- cording to their answer. To disperse these marauders it was necessary to station troops at various points, and to keep several regiments of cavalry continually in motion ; and these means of repression, although ener- getically applied, succeeded only very imperfectly, for the disorganization of society gave birth to more dis- orders than the republican government was able to put down. Assailed by so many and such pressing dangers, the leaders of the republican Parliament did not relax in their exertions. They possessed the energy and the perseverance — some of faith, others of selfishness ; their noblest hopes and their most vulgar interests, their honour and existence, were staked on their enterprise. They devoted themselves to it with determined corn-age, but, to insure its triumph, they blindly employed those vicious means which may temporarily save a cause, but must eventually ruin it. From the very outset, they carried political tyranny almost to its last limits ; for they decreed that whoever, in the course of the civil war, had embraced the cause of the King, or had proved himself hostile to the Par- liament, could neither be elected a member of the Par- liament, nor occupy any office of importance in the State. And shortly afterwards, the same disability was extended to every municipal function, and even to THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 31 the simple right of voting at elections : thus placing, with a single stroke, all the adversaries of the Re- public in the condition of Helots, excluded from the possession of any rights or any political existence in their own country. The oath of fidelity had, at first, been exacted only from civil or ecclesiastical functionaries, and their refusal had entailed no other consecjuence than the loss of their offices. The great number of refusals irritated and disquieted the conquerors. To gratify their irrita- tion, and in the vain hope of freeing* themselves from thefr disquietude, they imposed the oath on every Eng- lishman of eighteen years old and upwards ; and who- ever refused to take it was no longer allowed to appear before a court of justice even in support of his own interests ; so that political dissent entailed civil disa- bility. Sequestration and confiscation of property were em- ployed against the vanquished with the most intoler- able and revolting injustice ; by no fixed or general prin- ciple, but by partial and fluctuating measures, which were alternately aggravated or extenuated, to suit the exigencies of the moment, the avidity of a powerful enemy, or some unforeseen circumstance ; and by lists of names, sometimes very extended, sometimes very limited and arbitrary ; so that none of those who felt themselves in danger could know beforehand, or with any certainty, what was his position, and what would be his fate. Since the cessation of the war, one weapon only remained to the vanquished, whether Eoyalists or 32 PRELTMINAKY ESSAY ON Levellers, — publicity l)y means of tlie press. They used it boldly, as the dominant party had previously done, during the whole course of their struggle with the King. They might reasonably think they had a right to do so ; for Mr. Mabbott, the last censor under the monarchy, had given in his resignation, through a desire to act no longer as an instrument in perpetu- ating «iuch an abuse ; and Milton, the first secretary of the republican Council of State, had eloquently asserted the liberty of the press, as an essential right of a free people, 't'he Republican Government did not appoint any new censor ; but it passed a law with regard to the use of the press, with which the most anxious vigilance might be contented. Four cities alone in England — London, York, Oxford, and Cam- bridge — were allowed the privilege of printing. No newspaper or periodical work could appear without the permission of the Government ; printers were com- pelled to find sureties ; and not only were those who had taken part in any seditious pubhcation prosecuted and punished, but every purchaser of a seditious writing incurred a fine if he did not, within twenty- four hours, give up the work to the nearest magistrate, and inform him of its dangerous character. One liberty at least, namely, liberty of conscience, might have been expected to meet with a better fate under the Commonwealth. At the very origin of the contest, the republican sectaries had inscribed it on their standard. Not only had they found it necessary to claim it for themselves, but their principles imperiously demanded it, for they rejected all general and compul- THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 33 scry government of the Church, and recognized the right of each separate congregation to govern itself. But by one of the most sad perversities of our nature, human inconsistency, in matters of conscience and faith, displays itself most fully, precisely where it is most iniquitous and offensive. The very party — the very men who, for half a century, had devoted them- selves, with admirable constancy, to the cause of religious liberty, and who looked upon this liberty as the only true basis of Cliristian society — these very men, having attained to power, absolutely deprived of all religious freedom three great classes of persons, the Catholics, the Episcopalians, and the Freethinkers. To the persecution of the Catholics no bounds were set. Their faith and worship were rigorously pro- scribed : the laymen were punished with civil disability and the confiscation of their property ; the priests with imprisonment, exile, and even death. The Protestant Episcopalian Church, which had been overthrown and dispersed by the Presbyterian Parliament, found its hardships increased under the Pepubhcan Parhament ; upon her the Sectaries had to satiate their vengeance and distrust ; and they went so far as to interdict, even in private families, the presence of her ministers, and the use of her liturgy and prayers. As for the Free- thinkers, who were more numerous at this time than is commonly imagined, — if any one were met with who, through imprudence or hatred of all hypocrisy, boldly expressed liis thoughts, he was prosecuted, imprisoned, excluded from Parliament, deprived of even the most obscure employment. The Presbyterians, as enemies VOL. I. D 34 PRELIMINAllY ESSAY ON of the Episcopalians,, enjoyed a certain kind of tolera- tion ; but it was limited, always precarious, and often disturbed by tbe suspicions or violence of tlie Sectaries, who equally disliked their ecclesiastical organization and their leaning towards monarchy. In vain did some men of generous minds, in the Republican Par- liament, strive to diminish this excessive severity : they soon felt and admitted their weakness. Religious liberty really existed, under the Commonwealth, only for those victorious and republican sects whose union in the same political cause led them to forget or tolerate their disagreements in matters of faith. To defend and maintain a pohtical tyranny of such extent and severity, a judicial tyranny was indispensable. The Republican Parhament exercised this unscrupulously. The trial of the King — that monstrous derogation from all the principles and forms of justice — became the model of political prosecutions. To punish the mutinies of the Levelling soldiers, martial law sufficed ; but when a royalist insurrection or conspiracy was discovered, a High Court of Justice, the members of which were nominated by the Parlia- ment itself, was immediately instituted — a true Special Commission, which was bound by none of the rules of the law, and afforded the accused none of its guaran- tees. Lest the perusal of its proceedings should excite the anger or the compassion of the country, their publication was absolutely interdicted. These courts were made use of, not only to condemn the important men who were brought under tlieir jurisdiction, but also to punish obscure individuals who could not well THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 35 have been tried elsewhere. Before the proclamation of the Republic, some of the Thames boatmen had demanded that peace should be made with the King. After his execution, the Parliament sent their petition, with their names, to the new High Court which had just been estabhshed for the purpose of trying five of the royalist leaders : thus striking the humble with terror, whilst it erected a scaffold for the great. Some- times these High Courts could not be employed, as they would have occasioned too much public feeling, too much ostentation, or too much delay. The Re- pubhcan Parhament itself acted as judge in such cases, inflicting, by a vote, enormous fines, the pillory, or exile, sometimes for the purpose of crushing a powerful enemy, sometimes to serve the passions or conceal the faults of one of its own leaders. Wlien no other means could be found for prosecuting and condemning men whom they feared — those early poli- tical reformers, whom the Republicans could conquer only by expelling them from Parliament — they were arbitrarily detained, and confined in remote prisons. The Cavaliers, Catholics, soldiers of fortune, and all suspected persons, were banished indiscriminately from London. And if any Royalist writer, instead of con- spiring in secret, loudly denounced to the country, by means of the press, the real or supposed misdeeds of the Repubhcan leaders, he was arrested and tlu'own into the Tower, where he was left to die untried. So much oppression, in the midst of so much anar- chy, seemed all the more odious and intolerable, because it proceeded from men who had just before D 2 36 PRELIMINARY ESSAY ON exacted so much from the King, and promised so much themselves, in the name of liberty — from men a large number of whom were previously unknown and obscm'e, who rose from those ranks of society among which the people were not accustomed to seek their rulers, and who had no other title to the empire which they so violently exercised but their personal merit — a title contested until it has raised itself above all comparison — and the physical force wliich they had at their disposal — a title which offends and ahenates even those who submit to it, so long as their conqueror has not completely subdued and debased them. Notwithstanding the double intoxication of power and of danger, many of the Republican leaders were instinctively conscious of their position, and of the feehngs of the jDublic towards them. All-powerful as they were, they felt themselves isolated, and often dis- dained. No power can tranquillize a man in isolation, or render him insensible to disdain. They ardently desired to acquire other titles to power than civil war and regicide, and to raise themselves, by some great national action, • to the level of their fortune. They privately contemplated and matured many alterations in the civil law, the administration of justice, and taxation ; but the most important, of very doubtful merit in themselves, were at once rejected by the most considerable men of the party, on the plea that, far from exalting the Republic, they would tend only to sink it yet deeper into the ranks of the Levellers and Sectaries. Evidently, no measure of internal govern- ment could serve the pui'pose of the Republican leaders. THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 37 Their attention was, therefore, turned abroad. Few efforts were needed, and no risk was incurred, in main- taining, in their relations with foreign powers, the dignity and interests of their country. The time of wars on behalf of religious belief had ended ; the period of wars in support of political ideas had not yet arrived. None of the great European Grovernments, though all detested the new Republic, thought of attacking it; all, on the contrary, sought its friendship, either to prevent it from joining their rivals, or to obtain its alliance against them. Simple neutrality assured peace to England, entire independence as regarded its internal affairs, and great influence in the affairs of the Conti- nent. The leaders of the Republican Parliament wanted more than this. They were in presence of three powerful States — France, Spain, and Holland : the first two were Catholic and Monarchical, natural enemies, more or less avowedly or secretly, of the new Republic ; the last was Protestant and Republican, drawn towards England by all the sympatliies of faith and liberty. An idea arose, and rapidly gained ground, in these bold and agitated minds. Wli}^ should not Holland and England unite in one single and great Republic, which would soon cause their common poli- tical and rehgious principles to predominate in Europe ? There was something in this to charm the most pious, and to occupy the most ambitious. What gratitude would not the English people feel towards the men who had thus increased their greatness, — who had thus gratified at once their conscience and their vanity ! At this price the monarchy would be forgotten, the Com- 38 PRELIMINARY ESSAY ON monwealtli would be lastingly established, and the Eepublican Parliament would become a Senate of Kings. The scheme was attempted. The Eepubhcan leaders entered into it most heartily ; some used indirect in- fluences to propagate the idea in every direction ; others engaged in solemn embassies, and endeavoured to lay the foundations of future miion between the two na- tions. But the dreams of revolutions are still vainer in regard to the external relations than to the internal government of the State. It pleased the Enghsh Ee- publicans to forget that, in this fusion, the Republic of Holland w^ould be absorbed by the Republic of England, and that the former would not be very hkely to consent to such an absorption. The Dutch Republicans would not even hear it hinted at. Tried by a century of laborious success, they were too proud to sacrifice their country, and too prudent to link their destiny, to this Utopia of a young and tottering Repubhc. Fui'ther, the cause of the Enghsh Royalists was viewed with favour in Holland, not only by the House of Orange, but also by a large number of the people, whose justice and good sense revolted at the murder of Charles I., and the follies committed by the Sectaries. The just pride of Holland dispelled in an instant the chimera which the ambitious pride of the Enghsh Parliament had engendered. But such attempts are not made with impunity, even if they fail of their object. From this resulted deep distrust and jealousy between the two nations, who were already naturally rivals ; and between their chiefs, wounded self-love and bitter THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 39 dislike. A war speedily ensued; so that the grand diplomatic conceptions of the Protestant and Repub- Hcan ParHament of England ended in a rupture and violent conflict with the only Protestant and Eepub- lican State among its neighbours on the Continent. Thus, abroad as well as at home, the EngHsh Ee- publicans, by the system of policy which they pursued, lamentably and effectually behed their ideas and hopes. They had promised liberty ; they practised tyranny. They had promised union and triumph to the cause of Protestantism in Em'ope ; they produced warfare amongst its adlierents. In vain did this Government continue to exist, gain battles, and overcome its enemies : it did not consolidate itself. In the midst of success and general submission, the Commonwealth and its leaders daily sank lower and loAver in pubhc estimation. A man, the principal author of the death of Charles I. and of the establishment of the Commonwealth — Crom- well — had foreseen this result, and now prepared to profit by it. The King dead, and the Repubhc pro- claimed, a prodigious, though natural, change took place in Cromwell. Actuated hitherto, by his passions as a sectary and by his ambition, to resist the ene- mies of his faith and the obstacles to his fortune, he had zealously apphed himself to their destruction. As soon as the work of destruction was consummated, another necessity presented itself to his mind. The Revolution was effected ; a government must be recon- stituted. Providence, which rarely gives to one man a double power, had qualified Cromwell for performing 40 PRELIMINARY ESSAY ON both these parts. The Eevolutionist disappeared — the Dictator took his place. At the same time that his sound and vigorous mind was struck by this pressing necessity of the new condi- tion of the country, Cromwell perceived that the government which it was proposed to estabhsh could not succeed ; that neither the institutions nor the men were suited to the times. In the institutions there was no unity, no stability, no vitality ; intestine war and permanent uncertainty would ever exist at the seat of power. The men were influenced by narrow or chimerical views, mean or blind passions ; the revo- lutionary struggle would be perpetuated between the governing power and the country. As rulers, the Re- publican Parhament and its leaders were soon measured and condemned by the good sense of Cromwell. A strong and regular government could never proceed from such a source. Thenceforward one thouo-ht filled Cromwell's mind. He was careful to associate himself neither with the policy nor the destiny of these institutions and these men ; to keep himself aloof from their faults and reverses ; to separate from the Parhament, whilst he served it. But separation was not enough ; he must increase his power whilst others grew feeble. Cromwell foresaw tlie downfal of the Parliament and of its leaders ; de- termined not to fall with them, he aspired to elevate himself in their place. Men who are great in action do not entirely de- termine on their plan of procedure by anticipation. THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 41 Tlieir genius lies in their instinct and ambition. Every day, in every circumstance, they see things as they really are. They perceive the course which cir- cumstances point out, and the opportunities which that coui'se presents. They enter upon it earnestly, and march onwards, always guided by the same light, so long as a path opens before them. Cromwell marched on to the dictatorship without clearly know- ing to what he should attain, or what it would cost ; but he still went on. He desired some occupation, which would isolate and remove him from the ruling power : such an occupation was offered him by the Parliament of its own free will. In London, Cromwell incommoded and disquieted the rulers. They requested him to take the command of the army intended for the subjugation of Ireland, which had risen up in arms for Charles Stuart, or, rather, against the Parliament. Cromwell required great pressing. Much had to be granted him : first for liis friends, his patronage of whom was zealous and munificent; then for himself, as he insisted on large and certain means of success, well-provided troops, brilliant honours^ and uncontested authority. All his wishes were gratified, so urgent were they to get rid of him. His departure was solemn and magnificent. Many sermons were preached, and prayers were ofiered to God for his success, which was predicted on all hands. Cromwell himself spoke and prayed in public, seeking and finding in the Bible allusions full of encouragement with regard to the war he was about to wage. He left London accompanied by a numerous 42 PRELIMINARY ESSAY ON retinue, and with a brilliant staff of officers. At Bristol, whence he embarked, the people flocked from the surrounding' country to see liim. He neglected nothing, and nothing was wanting, to excite the attention and engage the minds of the people, at the moment that he was withdrawing himself from their sight. His object was to gain England by vanquishing Ireland. He was there in presence of a hostile race and rehgion — the one despised, the other detested, by the Enghsh people. He carried on a war of extermi- nation, massacring, pillaging, expelling the Irish ; hesitating as little at cruelty in the camp as at false- hood in the Parliament, covering all by the plea of necessity, and wilhng to believe in its vahdity, so that he might more quickly arrive at success. The splendour of his victories and the renown of his name soon disquieted the Parhament. Cromwell was the all-absorbing theme of conversation ; the people spoke of him with unbounded admiration, and able men discussed his conduct and future career. In Scot- land, at the moment that he left to join the army in Ireland, the report spread that he intended to lead it, not against Dubhn, but against Edinburgh, and the whole population were thrown into consternation. Others affirmed that, on his return from Ireland, he intended to quit England and go to Prance — in what capacity or with what object was ahke unknown. Pamphlets were seized, entitled, *' The Character of King Cromwell." He had attained tliat point of celebrity at which the most frivolous circumstances, tlie slic^htest movements, in connexion with a man on THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 43 the way to greatness, passionately excite the curiosity of the people and the solicitude of his rivals. The Parliamentary leaders thought they could take advan- tage of his having led his army into winter quarters at Dublin to recall him to London. He did not obey, did not even answer, the summons ; but speedily resumed the campaign, pm^sued his work of destruction in Ireland, and finally consented to return to England, only when the exposure of the Commonwealth to fresh and most pressing dangers, opened to himself new prospects of independence and aggrandizement. Scotland had recalled Charles Stuart. Republicanism and Monarchy were again about to meet as foes. The Commonwealth stood in need of a tried champion against the King. The Parliament endeavoured to ob- tain two such ; Fairfax and Cromwell. Fairfax refused. The Parliament nominated Cromwell alone ; reluctant, but compelled, for the preservation of the Common- wealth, to give him another kingdom to conquer. Cromwell waged war and conducted himself in Scot- land on a totally different plan to that which he had pursued in Ireland. He was just as moderate, patient, and conciliatory towards the Scotch Protestants, as he had been violent, harsh, and unmerciful towards the Irish Catholics. On every side of the royalist party in Scotland, and even in its very ranks, there were deep dissensions ; many of the Presbyterians were more fanatical than royalist, and served the King with infi- nite distrust, and under strict conditions ; while the Sectaries were as ardent and democratic as the Eno-lish Sectaries, full of sympathy for Cromwell and his soldiers. 44 PRKEIJMINAY ESSAY ON and more disposed to assist than to figlit tliem. Crom- well took advantage of this state of things, and, while anxious to engage with the royal army, was full of consideration for the country, made separate treaties with the chiefs whom he knew were undecided or inclined towards him ; entered into correspondence, into conference, into religious controversy with the Scottish theologians, — well skilled to please, and leaving a deep and favourable impression of himself where he did not manage to convince or conciliate. He thus advanced into Scotland, gaining ground every day by his arms and his arguments, and detaching from the King counties, towns, and chieftains. Charles felt that he was hard pressed, hemmed in, and in imminent danger. With the impetuosity of youth he formed a sudden, splendid, and desperate resolution ; he put himself, with liis whole army, rapidly in march towards Eng- land, Icjaving Scotland to Cromwell, and determined to try the fortune of royalty in the heart of the Republic. Not a month had elapsed from the time when Charles and the Scottish army had first set foot upon English ground, before Cromwell, had reached, con- quered, and dispersed them at Worcester, where Charles had just been proclaimed King. Charles wandered from hiding-jDlace to hiding-place, in various disguises, seeking a ship to convey liim away from England; and Cromwell returned in triumph to London, welcomed by the members of Parliament, by the State Council, by the Common Council of the City, and by an immense crowd, who all united in proclaiming him their deliverer. THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 45 The joy which succeeds great fear suppresses for a moment all jealousy and hatred. The Parhament loaded Cromwell with favours ; voted him a large grant of land ; assigned him Hampton Court Palace for his residence ; and even the most distrustful lavished on him marks of gratitude and deference. The enthusiasm of the republican people was more sincere and more valuable. Those revolutions which have overthrown ancient dignities are always anxious and proud to create new ones. It is their security, it is their pride, to consecrate their power in glorious images ; and it seems to them that they thus make reparation to the society which they have defrauded. Hence arises that instinct which, in spite of democratic passions, urges popular parties to those pompous de- monstrations, those unmeasured flatteries, and that idolatry of language with which they delight to in- toxicate the great men whom they behold ascending upon the ruins wliich they have made. Sectaries and philosophers, citizens and soldiers, Parliament and people, — all, wiUingly or from compulsion, united to magnify Cromwell, as though they magnified them- selves with him ; and the republicans of the City of London, who came before him to harangue him on his return within their walls, rejoiced in telling him, " You were destined to bind kings with chains, and nobles with fetters of iron." Blind that they were, not to perceive that these fetters would soon be fixed upon themselves ! Cromwell received this homage and these dignities vdth a humility which, though assumed, was not alto- 40 PRELIMINARY ESSAY ON gether destitute of sincerity. " To God alone belongs the glory," said lie repeatedly : " I am only his weak and unworthy instrument." He knew how well this language was adapted to please his country and his party. He exaggerated and reiterated it over and over again, to humour the men whose confidence and devotedness he thus increased. But it was also the expression of his own deep-seated convictions. God, His power. His providence, His continual action in the affairs of the world, and upon the souls of men — these were not, in Cromwell's eyes, lifeless abstractions or antiquated traditions ; they were most earnestly beheved by Mm. His faith was not very consistent or influential, as it neither governed nor restrained his actions in the temptations of Hfe and under the neces- sities of success, but it subsisted in the inmost recesses of his soul, and inspired his words when the import- ance of an event or of his own position strongly affected him. Besides, it is not a hard task to speak humbly and to call oneself the instrument of God, when God makes His instrument the master of a nation. Neither the power nor the pride of Cromwell was at all di- minished by his humility. Thus, as he rose in importance, did his ambition increase and soar above his position. Although his language was so humble, assumptions of sovereignty sometimes appeared in his conduct. On the battle- field of Worcester he proposed, with his own hand, to confer the honour of knighthood on two of his bravest generals, Lambert and Fleetwood, and angrily aban- doned his intention on being told that this was a pre- THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 47 rogative of royalty. On the day on which he returned in triumph to London, in the midst of the acclamations of the populace, his countenance wore such an expres- sion upon the road, that Hugh Peters, the sectarian preacher, a man who knew him well, observed on seeing him pass, " Cromwell will make himself King." He had just saved the Commonwealth, and brought two kingdoms into submission to its sway. No great work remained for liim to do at a distance, and by force of arms. He remained in London, powerful and quiet, incessantly visited by his officers and soldiers, the centre of all discontents and of all hopes. The republican Parliament, on the other hand, had become a mutilated assembly, in which scarcely sixty or eighty members daily sat ; some few seriously and honestly devoted themselves to public affairs, the state of the navy, the war with Holland, and the projected reform of the laws ; but the greater part remained little in their greatness, the slaves of paltry passions and disgraceful interests, monopolizing public employments for them- selves or their relatives, rendering their power subser- vient to their fortune, their hatreds, and their paltry quarrels ; a faction which increased in egotism, iso- lation, and unpopularity — which gave to the country neither rest, nor liberty, nor settlement, but which, nevertheless, was resolved to retain the supreme power ; as if the safety of England depended upon the exist- ence of so miserable a Government. Cromwell hesitated and waited long. At the moment of his triumph, on resuming his seat in Par- liament, he had commenced the struggle. Two great 48 PRELIMINARY ESSAY ON and popular questions were his weapons of attack — a general amiiesty, which should declare that the civil war was at an end, and an electoral law which should regulate the method and fix the time for assembling a new Parhament. These two measures had been long proposed : but they had remained buried in com- mittees, and were only dragged out of their obscurity to lull popular clamour at critical seasons. By the influence of Cromwell, they were seriously brought forward and discussed. The amnesty was reluctantly voted at the end of five months, after numerous at- tempts at restrictions (especially of a pecuniary nature), which were always successfully opposed by Cromwell himself, who was too sensible to give way to any use- less animosity, and was desirous of gaining clients and personal friends in all parties. But the decisive measure, the electoral law, remained in suspense. Cromwell urged its consideration, but with no great earnestness, and rather to exhibit the stubborn ego- tism of the Parliamentary leaders than to bring it promptly to a final issue. He was himself very much perplexed. By what plausible means could he constrain the Parhament to dissolve? What would be the result of fresh elections ? And would fresh elections suffice to restore and establish the Govern- ment ? Had the experiment of the Republic succeeded ? Was not the Monarchy more in conformity with the laws, the customs, the feelings, and the permanent interests of the country? If its restoration were de- sired and needed, how should it be restored ? — and in what measure ? — and what Monarchy ? Cromwell put THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 49 these questions not only in his private conversations with a few important men, but also in the conferences in which he brought together the officers of the army and the members of Parliament. The result did not give him satisfaction : the officers persisted in remain- ing Republicans ; the politicians who were inclined to a Monarchy would admit of no other than the old one, and advised Cromwell to negociate its re-esta- blishment. He then broke off the conversation, to return to the charge at some future opportunity ; ap- parently supple, but really indomitable in his ambition ; frank even to temerity when anxious to lead men to engage in his plans ; deceitful even to effrontery when he wished to conceal them. He always derived from these intrigues the advantage of compromising the army more and more in his struggle with the Parlia- ment. The sectarian spirit was still powerful in the army, and the military spirit had become strongly developed also. The passions of the fanatic and the interests of the soldier combined with and sustained each other mutually. Cromwell was unremitting in his endeavours to excite them against the Parliament. What an iniquity it was that the wages of the con- querors should be so ill paid, and that men who had neither fought nor suffered should alone reap the fruits of victory ! Wliat an insult to God it was that the counsels of his saints were so little heeded ! Petitions, presented by the General Council of Officers, in the name of the army, haughtily demanded the payment of their arrears, the reformation of the abuses of the Government, and the satisfaction of the hopes of the VOL. I. E 50 PRELIMINARY ESSAY ON people of Grod. The threatened Parliament defended itself, became irritated, and attempted to retahate. It pressed the disbanding of a considerable portion of the army ; it put up for sale that very palace of Hampton Court which it had assigned to Cromwell for a resi- dence. This state of things continued for eighteen months. Both parties felt that a crisis was ap- proaching. Wlio would triumph ? Suddenly the Par- liament resolved on hastening that dissolution of itself which was desired. It entered into an earnest dis- cussion of, and voted, the electoral law. But this law was precisely intended to retain the supreme power in those very hands from which it ought to be with- drawn. The actual members of the EepubHcan Par- liament remained, without re-election, members of the new Parliament. The elections were intended to fill up the vacancies in the Assembly, and complete the total number fixed by the law; and that nothing might be wanting to the security of the combination, the old members alone were to form the committee appointed to investigate the new elections, and to admit or reject the elected. This was not a dissolution of the Parliament ; it was only giving it a new lease. Cromwell no longer hesi- tated. Abruptly breaking off a conference of officers assembled at his house at Whitehall, he proceeded to the House of Commons, silently took his seat in the midst of the debate, and at the moment when the electoral law was about to be put to the vote, he sud- denly rose, and, with refined brutality, profiting by the discredit into which the leaders of the Parliament had THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 51 fallen, to load them with the gi'ossest insults, and, grossly insulting them, to vilify them still more, he told them that they were no longer of any use — drove them from the Hall, as intruders too long tolerated, by a company of soldiers, and thus suddenly put an end to the Long Parliament. No one resisted, no one raised his voice in remon- strance : not but that the expelled Parliament had friends, ardent and faitliful, although few in number ; but they had against them brute force and public opinion. All other parties, whether they approved this act of Cromwell or not, rejoiced in it as an act of justice and dehverance. Intimidated or impotent, the vanquished silently submitted ; and those revolutionary leaders who had, for nine years, carried on civil war, expelled three-fourths of their colleagues from Parlia- ment, condemned their King to death, and tyrannically changed the constitution of their country, were now forced to admit that the government of a nation is an infinitely greater and more difficult task than they had imagined it to be before they themselves sank under it. The Republic had been estabhshed in the name of liberty; but, under the government of the Republican Parhament, hberty had been nought but a vain word, covering the tyranny of a faction. After the expulsion of the Parhament, the Republic, in its turn, became a vain word, retained like a falsehood which is still useful, though it has ceased to deceive, and the despotism of a single individual was, for five years, the government of England. Despotism, in a powerful nation, which has taken E 2 52 PRELTMINARY ESSAY ON refuge in it in a fit of perplexity or lassitude, can sub- sist only on two conditions — order and greatness. Cromwell, having obtained the mastery, displayed aU the resources of his genius to make these the charac- teristics of his government. A stranger to the jealous passions, the narrow and inflexible prejudices which influence the rule of faction, he was anxious that all, without distinction of origin or part}^ Cavaliers and Presbyterians as well as Republicans, provided they ab- stained from political intrigues, should find protection and security, as far as regarded the interests of civil life. The law which imposed the oath of fidelity on every English subject, under pain of civil disability, was abrogated. The administration of justice became once more regular and habitually impartial. Cromwell, as a revolutionary general, had contrived to obtain infor- mation and adherents from all parties. Cromwell, as Protector of the Commonwealth, strove to rally round his Government the higher classes of society. Too sen- sible to destroy his own power and give himself over to his enemies, a superior instinct admonished him, at the same time, that so long as the ruling power is not ac- cepted and sustained by the men who are its natural alHes, by their position, their interests, and their habits, nothing can be completely arranged or solidly esta- blished. This fiery leader of popular innovators proved himself to be full of respect for those institutions which time had consecrated. In their aversion to polite learn- ing, and aristocratic or royal foundations, the Sectaries wished to destroy the Universities of Oxford and Cam- bridge. Cromwell saved them. Great by nature, and T!IE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 53 now great by position, he speedily acquired a taste for everything that is elevated and great by tradition, by intellect, by learning, and by renown. He felt an interest in attracting such towards him, and dehghted in protecting it against mean and vulgar animosities. And in carrying out this policy — in maintaining order and the laws for the benefit of all — in universally restoring authority and respect — he employed that same army with which he had overthrown so many ancient dignities ; though its rigid discipline and entire devotedness to him hardly sufficed to repress, even imperfectly, the vehement passions of former days. In the foreign relations of England, Cromwell, free from the trammels of party, was guided by juster views with regard to the interests of his country and his own position, and obtained a much more complete success. Peace was the basis of his policy. Upon his acces- sion to power, he set to work to restore or insure it everywhere — with Holland, Portugal, and Denmark. Laying aside those dreams of Republican and Protestant fusion which he had himself so lately conceived or fomented, and forgetting all religious and party ani- mosities ; anxious to settle disputes, to adjust differ- ences ; sometimes susceptible and haughty, that he might well establish the dignity of his young govern- ment, but always sensible, making no extravagant demands, and entertaining no chimerical ambition, he sought abroad nothing that was not indispensable to his essential interest, the security and authority of his power at home. Consequently, when peace was once obtained, the 54 PRELIMINARY ESSAY ON second basis of his policy was neutrality. In Europe, it was then the crisis of the struggle between the House of Austria and the House of Bourbon — between declining Spain and rapidly-ascending France. Both made earnest and sometimes disgraceful efforts to draw Eno-land into their alliance. Cromwell listened to both, giving to each just enough hope to enable him to obtain from them what was important to his govern- ment, but embarking in neither cause. All circum- stances carefully considered, he judged that, on the side of Spain, he had less to hope, less to fear, and much more to gain. He contemplated giving to the power and commerce of England a firm foundation in the New World. He broke the neutrality ; but with so much tact and caution, that, whilst his war with Spain secured him beyond seas the conquest of Jamaica, he gained, by his alliance with France, the possession of Dunkirk, one of the keys of the European Continent, and yet did not take a sufficiently active part in the conflict between the two powers to compromise the independence of the foreign policy of his country. It was the constant character of that policy, under his government, to be neither systematic nor violent, and not to meddle with the aflairs of others more than his own really required. The Stuarts had taken refuge in France. The court treated them with favour, although timidly. The attempts at civil war made by the Fronde disturbed the kingdom. The Protestants were kept in a state of mieasiness and discontent, if not of persecution. The opportunity seemed favom-able, and the temptation was strong, for Cromwell to inter- THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 55 fere against his enemies, and in behalf of the religious and political cause which had raised him to greatness. The Prince of Conde, the leader of the insurgents, and the city of Bordeaux, their stronghold, earnestly besought him to do so ; and sent envoys to him, with urg-ent entreaties and offers, to obtain his assistance. Cromwell received them, gave them reason to hope, sent in his turn ag-ents into France to sound the inten- tions and ascertain the strength of the Protestants and Frondeurs, and thus greatly disquieted Mazarin ; then, finding that the French malcontents had no real strength, no able guidance, no chance of success, he dismissed every desire of ambition and passion, de- clined the offers he had received, quenched the hopes he had awakened, and entered into a treaty with Mazarin, turning to his own account the alarm which his previous conduct had caused that statesman. When a less tempting, though less dangerous, op- portunity presented itself elsewhere for sustaining oppressed Protestantism, Cromwell eagerly seized it. To protect against the Duke of Savoy some poor pea- sants who had been expelled from their native valleys, he multiphed declarations, embassies, subsidies of money, and threats ; called on the court of France to interfere, unless it wished that he should interfere himself; induced the United Provinces and the Swiss Cantons to unite in his proceedings ; obtained Ms end by the mere agitation he had excited ; and thus gave extraordinary satisfaction to the religious sentiments of England, without entangling it in a costly and doubtful contest. 56 PRELIMINARY ESSAY ON Whenever important, though secondary, Enghsh interests were at stake, demanding protection or repa- ration, Cromwell gave them energetic support, whilst he carefully kept them separate from general and excit- ing questions. He sent Admu-al Blake into the Medi- terranean with a strong squadron, with orders to sail wherever England had any claims or complaints to make ; and Blake presented himself successively before Leghorn, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli, arranging the various disputes that had arisen, without exaggerating their importance, and never retiring until he had ob- tained, voluntarily or forcibly, redress of the grievances of his country. So many efforts and successes were not without their fruit ; but they did not effect the real and ultimate object of the conqueror. This government, which was so active without temerity — so skilled in flattering the national passions without servility ; which abroad increased the importance of the country without compromising its safety, and maintained order at home with the soldiers of revolution, produced only this effect — Cromwell was obeyed, feared, and admired, but did not estabhsh him- self in the affections of the people. England submitted to his genius and his power, but did not accept liis do- minion. Consummate in the art of drawing men over to his side, he daily detached adherents from the old par- ties, inducing them sometimes to serve him actively, sometimes to cease acting as his enemies. He obtained, in as great a degree as it has ever been obtained by any other ruler of nations, all that support which good sense, weariness, personal interest, weakness, cowardice, THE ENGLISH REVOLUTIOIS. 57 baseness, and treason can give to power ; but the old parties still continued to exist — Cavaliers, Presbyte- rians, and Eepublicans — subdued yet vigorous, and devoid neither of hope nor activity. During the course of the five years that Cromwell ruled, and without mentioning a multitude of obscure plots, fifteen conspiracies and insurrections, originated by Eoyalists, or Eepublicans, or both, placed his govern- ment in peril or his life in danger. He repressed them energetically, without cruelty and without pity ; rigorous or merciful according to circumstances ; pro- ceeding sometimes legally and sometimes despotically ; employing juries and High Courts of Justice, an inde- fatigable poHce and a devoted army, secret arrests and pubHc executions, banishment and imprisonment ; sell- ing the vanquished insurgents for slaves in the colonies ; and resorting to every expedient that he thought likely to strike his enemies with impotence or with terror. Nothing succeeded against him ; every plot was de- feated and every insurrection quelled. The country took no part in them, and remained quiet, though it beheved neither in the rightfulness nor in the perma- nency of this ever-conquering power. Cromwell did not reign in the minds of men as a recognised and definitive sovereign. At the height of his power he was nothing more, in the opinion of the people, than an irresistible but temporary master, without a rival, but without stabihty. He himself saw this more clearly than any one else. It was the great feature of his character to see all things, even his own position, as they really were. Never was a 58 PRELIMINARY ES8AY ON great man more alive to hope and more free from illusion. Wliilst overthrowing constitutional monarchy, he had learned that it was the only form of government that was suited to England, and could permanently exist. Once master of the ruins of the edifice, a constant thought took possession of his mind — to restore the constitution, and place himself at its head. It was his desire and constant endeavour to have a Parliament which would help him to govern. He convoked four Parliaments in five years, sometimes choosing, in concert with his officers, the assembly which he hypocritically denominated by that name ; sometimes causing it to be elected according to the new system, which the republican Long ParHament was on the point of adopting when he drove it from power ; always treating these assembhes, at their com- mencement, with great solemnity and deference; using, for the purpose of obtaining a majority on his own side, the most disgraceful artifices and the most unheard-of violence ; and careful, at the very moment that he broke with them, not to give them reason to imagine that he wished to dispense with their co-operation. The enterprise itself was chimerical. The Poyalists did not enter into his Parliaments. The Presbyterians constituted a very small minority. The difiierent frac- tions of the Eepublican party formed almost the only members, and these were deeply irritated and at va- riance with one another. Cromwell's partisans were ill adapted to triumph by Parliamentary tactics and discussion. His enemies, much more skilled in this THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 59 species of warfare, displayed all their resources to do him injury. He found himself there in presence of the men whom he had dethroned, — men sincerely hostile to his tyranny, obstinate in their anarchical ideas and habits, and as ungovernable as incapable of governing. He himself furnished them, at every instant, with new grievances and fresh weapons, for he had not learnt, on becoming the absolute master, to respect rights and to endure resistance and contradiction. Taught by his great instinct, that, in his despotic isolation, he was establishing nothing, not even his own power, he summoned a Parliament to assist him in the formation of a diu'able government; but when the Parliament came together, deprived of the natural strength of the conservative party, and ruled by men who were able only to destroy, Cromwell soon could endure neither their freedom nor their foolish bhndness, and broke the instrument which he felt was necessary, but which it irritated him to find always unmanageable. Once he thought that he had at last succeeded in collecting together a Parliament that would under- stand and carry out his plans. He hastened to make known to it the idea which filled his mind, — the com- plete restoration of the Enghsh monarchy, a King and two Houses of Parliament. The proposition was made and discussed in the Parhament, and publicly negociated for more than two months between the Parliament and the Protector. Cromwell displayed in the negociation that strange amalgamation of ardour and reserve, of vast ability and gross hypocrisy, which he had derived at once from art and nature. His pru- 60 PRELIMINARY ESSAY ON dence was almost equal to liis ambition. He did not wisli to ascend the throne at the cost of a schism in his party, the already narrow and tottering basis of his government. He desired to become King without exposing the Protector to danger. Not only must the crown be offered him, but all the important men by whom he was surrounded, sectaries and politicians, officers and magistrates, must be equally decided and implicated in offering it to him. Long ago, before the institution of the Protectorate, before the expulsion of the Long Parliament, he had sounded and prepared them for this occurrence. Now that he was engaged in the final attempt, his efforts to influence them were infinite and indefatigable ; sometimes directly, some- times indirectly, he appealed in turn to their interest, their friendship, and their reason ; he strove to make them understand that the new institutions which they had created, and their positions as well as his own, must remain feeble and precarious so long as they were not grafted upon that frame of government on which all the laws of England were founded, and with which all its habits of obedience and respect were con- nected. He persuaded, or influenced, or bribed, so many persons, even among the staunchest republican officers, that he had reason to believe, and actually did believe, liimself certain of success. The proposition was carried in the Parliament. The crown was officially offered him. He deferred his answer. He wished to overcome all remaining opposition. It was in his immediate circle, among the generals who were most closely attached to his person, that lie now met with THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 01 opposition. It was insurmountable, founded on true republican feeling, on sliame at thus belying tlieir whole previous lives, and on the rancour of humi- liated rivals. Cromwell flattered himself that, after all, this was only the humour of a few men. He had determined to take no notice of it, and to place upon his head that crown which had been put into his hands, when he learned that, at that very hour, a petition, drawn up by one of his chaplains, and signed by a large number of officers, was being solemnly presented to Parhament, in the name of the army, urging them to fidelity to the good old cause, and opposing the restoration of royalty. Cromwell imme- diately summoned the Parliament to Whitehall, and, expressing surprise that a protest had thus been en- tered against his answer before it had been given, formally refused the title of King. It was in vain that, enlightened by his genius as to the inherent defects of his authority, he strove to esta- blish it on foundations consecrated by law and by anti- quity. Grod was not willing that the same man who had caused the execution of the King, and trampled under foot the liberties of the country, should receive the honours and rewards wliich would accrue from the re- establishment of Kingship and a Parliament. Power- ful to repress anarchy, CromweU, while struggling against the difficulties of his situation, constantly fell into despotism. He had restored impartiality in the administration of affairs ; and yet, pressed by the imperative necessity of supplying the expenses of his government, he subjected all the Koyalists to the 63 PRELIMINARY ESSAY ON most iniquitous exactions, and placed the whole country under the rule of military tyranny, as the only means of enforcing them. He gloried in having restored regularity and dignity to the administration of justice ; nevertheless, when illustrious advocates defended prisoners against his prosecutions, and upright magistrates refused to violate the laws by con- demning them, he maltreated, dismissed, and im- prisoned both advocates and magistrates, with an arbitrariness^ unexampled even in the worst times of despotism. To attempt to restore legal monarchy without renouncing revolutionary violence was too ambitious a design. Cromwell already enjoyed a rare privilege, — he had passed from the revolution to the Dictatorship ; but he was not permitted to trans- form the Dictatorship into a government of justice and of liberty. But his prudence in this perilous trial was not altogether lost. He had not paused until the last moment ; but he had paused then. England, which had seen him retreat, and the Eepublicans who had compelled him to do so, still needed and feared him. His position remained unaltered ; and the Protector was none the less powerful because he had failed to make himself King. He did not, however, abandon his design. He even took measures for securing the assembling of a new Parliament ; doubtless promising himself that, as he had already overcome the Parlia- ment by means of the army, so he would one day overcome the army by the Parliament. But the hand which was to overcome himself already weighed heavily THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 63 upon him. His health had been for some time im- paired. Family calamities — the death of a beloved daughter — aggravated his disease. He wasted away rapidly. He did not wish to die. All the trials he had passed through successfully, all the great things that he had already done and that he had yet to do, the neces- sity of his presence, the power of his will — every thing- combined to persuade him that he had not yet reached the end of his life. To his most intimate and con- fidential friends he said, " I am sure I shall not die to-day ; I know that Grod will not have me die yet." God had intended Cromwell to be a striking example of what a great man can do, and of what he cannot do. His destiny was accomplished. By his genius alone he had rendered himself the master of his country and of the revolution he had effected in his country : he remained, to the last moment of his life, in the full possession of his greatness ; and he died, unsuccessfully wasting his genius and his power in an attempt to restore what he had destroyed — a Parliament and a King. In the anarchy which followed his death, England enjoyed one of those rare advantages of fortune, of which it is hard to say whether they proceed from God alone, or are partly brought about by human wisdom. The anarchy had no factitious, nor incom- plete, nor precipitate conclusion. All the ambitions, all the pretensions, all the elements of chaos and political strife, which Cromwell had held in check, reappeared tumidtuously upon that scene which he alone had lately filled. His son Richard was pro- 64 PRELIMINARY ESSAY ON claimed Protector without opposition, and recognised without hesitation by the various foreign powers. But scarcely had he attempted to govern, before a crowd of councillors gathered around him, who soon became his enemies and rivals. These were the Council-General of Officers ; a new and more popular Council of the Army ; a new Parliament, which Eichard hastened to convoke ; the old mutilated Long Parlia- ment (or, as the people called it, the Rump Parlia- ment), which declared that to it alone belonged the legitimate power, because it had received from Charles I., that King whom it had put to death, the right to continue sitting until it should be dissolved by its own act ; and, lastly, the original Long Parliament, recruited by the members whom it had expelled from its body before the death of the King, and who were now forced to resume their seats. All these phantoms aspired to replace the master spirit who lately had cowed them all; and England beheld them, during more than twenty months, appear, disappear, reappear confusedly, evoking or expelling one another, coalescing and fight- ing by turns, wliile not one of them possessed for a single day the consistency and force of a government. And during tliis interregnum of twenty months, in the midst of this ridiculous contest of chimerical pretenders, that competitor alone did not appear who was, in the opinion of all England, either from hope or fear, the only one whose claims were of any importance. One or two insignificant move- ments, wliich merely demanded the convocation of a free Parliament, and in which the name of Charles THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. ()5 Stuart was not even mentioned, were attempted l)y his partisans, and immediately repressed without effort. It was the memory of Cromwell which still kept the Eoyalist party in fear and inaction. He had so frequently defeated their hopes, and so severely punished their insurrections and conspiracies, that they no longer dared to expect any success. Besides, their continued reverses had taught them good sense. They had learned not to measure their strength hy their desires ; and to understand that, if Charles Stuart were to regain the crowTi, it could only he restored to him hy the general consent and action of the people of England, and not by an insuiTection of Cavaliers. Eichard Cromwell himself desired and purposed to put an end to the general agony, as well as to his own, by treating with the King. He was wanting neither in sense nor honesty, though he possessed neither ambition nor greatness of soul. He had taken his share in the destiny of his father with feelings of sub- mission rather than of confidence. As far as he was personally concerned, he did not believe in the recur- rence of equal success, and did not feel himself capable of bearing such a burden. But, on the other hand, lie was incapable of forming a decided resolution in refer- ence to such mighty interests. He was vacillating and weak, overwhelmed .with debt, and anxious to escape from his precarious position. He remained the puppet of a fortune, the vanity of which he felt, and the instrument of men less sensible than himself. The crisis was at hand. All the powers, all the men that had either effected the Eevolution, or been VOL. I. F 6G PRELIMINARY ESSAY ON elevated by it, had been put to proof again and again. No external obstacle, no national resistance, shackled them in their attempts at government. Not one, hovv^ever, had succeeded. They had destroyed each other. They had all exhausted, in these fruitless contests, the little credit and strength they had been able to preserve. Their nullity was patent. Never- theless, England remained at their mercy. The nation had lost, in these long and lamentable alterna- tions of anarchy and despotism, the habit of ruling, and the courage to rule, its own destinies. Cromwell's army still existed, incapable of creating a Government, but overthrowing all those that did not please it. A man of the army, who stood high in the esteem and confidence of the soldiery — who was a stranger to political parties, and who had faithfully served the Parliament, Cromwell, and even Eichard Cromwell at his accession — Monk, foresaw what would be the necessary termination of this anarchy, and undertook to conduct his wearied country to the goal without a conflict or a convulsion. He was distinguished by no great quality, except good sense and courage ; he had no thirst for glory, no craving after power; he possessed no high principles, and entertained no lofty designs, either for his country or for himself ; but he had a profound aversion to disorder, and to those unrestrained iniquities which popular parties cover with fair professions. He was attached, without osten- tation, but with devotedness and modesty, to his duties as a soldier and an Englishman. He was no cliarlatan, no deckiimer, but discreet even to taciturnity. THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. G7 and absolutely indifferent to falsehood. He lied, with imperturbable audacity and patience, to bring about what he considered to be the only essential interest of England, namely, the pacific restoration of the only Grovernment that could be stable and regular. All things else were, in his eyes, doubtful questions and party disputes. He succeeded in his design. All the fractions of the great monarchical party suspended their ancient animosities, their blind impatience, and their conflicting pretensions, in order to support him. The Restoration took place as a natural and unavoidable event, without costing either victors or vanquished a drop of blood ; and Charles II., re-entering London in the midst of immense acclamations, could say with truth : " It is certainly my fault that I did not come back before, for I have seen nobody to-day who did not protest that he had always wished for my return." Never did Government, old, new, or restored, find itself in a position of greater regularity, strength, and stability. Charles II. was re-established on his throne without assistance from abroad, without a struggle at home, without any efibrt even of his own party, — by the mere reaction of the English nation, which was now at length dehvered from oppression, anarchy, and revolu- tionary fluctuations, and which expected from him alone the restoration of legal order and security. The monarchy was re-established after the complete exhaustion and the definitive ruin of its enemies and its rivals. The Commonwealth and the Protectorate had appeared and reappeared under all the forms, and F 2 6S PRELIMINARY ESSAY ON in all the combinations, that they could possibly assume. All the powers, all the institutions that had issued from the Revolution, were effete and despised. The battle-field was deserted — even the phantoms of the revolutionary combatants and pretenders had vanished. And not only was royalty again established, but, at the same time that the King reascended his throne, the great landed proprietors, the country gentlemen, and all those influential citizens who had supported the royahst cause, resumed their places in the government of the country. The Republic and Cromwell had shut them out from all share in the administration of public affairs, tlirough dislike of their persons and principles. By resuming their former stations, they filled up a great gap in the social organization of the land. It is the common error of revolutionists to beheve that they will be able to replace all that they destroy, and that they can supply all the wants of the State. The English republicans had aboHshed the House of Lords, and driven the royalist party from the political arena ; but they succeeded neither in filling their places themselves, nor in sustaining authority against the ppirit of anarchy, nor in maintaining the liberties of the nation against despotism. At the same time that it raised up hereditary monarchy, the Restoration ren- dered back their rank and influence to landed property, family traditions, and the most ancient and distin- guished portion of the territorial aristocracy of t\\e country. Authority thus regained at once its principle of stability and its natural allies ; and political societ}', which for eleven years had been flijctuating and muti- THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 69 lated, recovered all its strength, and stood once more upon its ancient foundations. The government of rehgious society, the Episcopal Church, was restored at the same time with royalty. Certainly, the origin of the Anglican Church, which was called into existence by the voice, and brought up under the shadow, of the temporal power, has been a great source of weakness to her, when compared with the purely spiritual origin and the strong indepen- dence of the Catholic Church. But from this weakness England has derived the great advantage, that all con- tests between the government of the Church and that of the State have ceased. The Anglican Church, closely united to the throne, and deriving from it her primitive strength, has been constantly and loyally devoted to it ; and, notwithstanding the stains on her origin, and the infirmities of her conduct, she has been wanting neither in fervency of faith, purity of life, nor courage and success in the accomplishment of her mission. She has had her heroes and her martyrs, unflinching on the scaffold and at the stake, though often weak and com- plaisant towards kings. When she was re-established, in 1660, together with Charles II., she had just under- gone, during a period of fifteen years, all sorts of revolutionary persecution, spoliation, the suppression of her worship, insult, imprisonment, poverty. She had endured aU with dignity and constancy ; she rose again, greeted by the ardent devotion of the royalist party, and the general respect of the people. She placed at the service of royalty an approved fidelity, and an authority increased by her misfortunes. 70 PRELIMINARY ESSAY ON The dispositions of the EngHsh people corresponded with those of the Church ; not that the sects which she had long oppressed, and which had recently oppressed her in their turn, ceased to be ardently opposed to her ; not that the odious or ridiculous excesses of fanaticism and hypocrisy everywhere gave place to a wise and true piety. A reaction of impiety, of frivolity, of licentiousness, and of cynicism, was not long in deve- loping itself. But it rarely penetrated below the higher and more superficial regions of society. In the midst of the scandals of the court and of the classes not far removed from the contagion of its example, England remained full of sincere and fervent Chris- tians : some attached or brought back to the Anglican Church by a recollection of the evils, and an aversion to the disorders, which her fall had entailed ; others belonging to the dissenting sects which the Church began again to persecute, with cruelty enough to in- flame their zeal, but not to terminate their existence. But, notwithstanding their mutual struggles and aver- sions, the Church and the Dissenters exercised a salutary influence upon each other ; they reciprocally excited or renewed within each other a respect of God and of his laws, a constant solicitude for the eternal interests of man, and greater fervour and activity of faith. Thus, in the mass of the population, there was no want of a moral foundation for the restored monarchy : and the King found about the throne, among the classes whose habits of hfe draw tliem near to power, that political support of whicli he stood in need. THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 71 Two formidable enemies, the spirit of revolution and the spirit of reaction, alone could neutralize so many propitious circumstances, and compromise the monarchy afresh. The spirit of revolution long survives its defeat, even after its impotence has been fully proved. Of the two revolutionary parties which had swayed England, the Eepublic and Cromwell, the latter disappeared so com- pletely that the sons of the Protector were able to die in peace and quietness in their own country. The republican party continued to exist, without attempting anything, almost without hoping anything, for its own cause ; but ardently mingled in all the disaffections and plots against the established Government ; and incessantly furnished insurgents and martj'^rs from among the persecuted sects, especially in Scotland. Even among the parties whose opposition was legal, and who were strangers to every republican regret and desire, revolutionary ideas and habits retained a power- ful influence ; the minds of the most enlightened were imbued with theories, and their hearts susceptible of passions, incompatible with the patient struggles and necessary compromises of constitutional monarchy : the most moderate considered the chances, and ventured to the verge of new revolutions with a facility inconsistent with all legal order and stability. The revolutionary poison, deadened, but not destroyed, still circulated in the veins of a great part of the English nation, and kept it in a state of political intemperance which was replete with obstacles and dangers to the ruling power. The spirit of reaction, that disease of conquering 72 PRELIMINARY ESSAY ON parties, lent powerful assistance to the spirit of revolu- tion ; not that we must admit all the reproaches with which history loads the Cavahers and the Church of England on this score. Revolutions which have been long unsubdued, when at length arrested m their course, have the arrogance to demand that the miquities which they have committed shall remain unchanged, and that their conquerors shall content themselves henceforth with repressing their power to do further mischief; every reparation of the evils they have caused, they call reaction. Amongst the measures adopted by Charles II. for the purpose of redressing the wrongs which the royahsts, both laymen and ecclesiastics, had suffered during the Revolution, many were merely a natural and necessary restoration of violated rights. But these restorations have limits indicated by good sense to the pohcy of governments, and to the interest of the parties themselves. Injustice cannot be repaired by injustice ; revolutions cannot be terminated by deeds of provoca- tion and vengeance. Every reparation that assumes such a character loses its justice, and become a serious danger to the cause that it pretends to serve. Under Charles II., the rehgious reaction, especially, fell into these deplorable excesses ; it was not the mere redress of the grievances and misfortunes of the Anglican Church; it was a vindictive persecution of the dis- senting sects — a breach of faith towards the most moderate of those sects, to whom the King, at the moment of his return, had solemnly promised liberty of conscience. Charles on several occasions attempted to keep his word, and to secure the Dissenters some THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 73 toleration. Persecution was repugnant to his good sense, to the kindness of his disposition, to his in- difference in matters of rehgion, and to his secret incli- nation in favour of the Catholics. But his feehle and listless desires for justice soon yielded to the obstinacy of ecclesiastical animosities, and the turbulence of popular passions. Blinded or overpowered, almost all the Eoyalist party, both in and out of Parhament, took a share in the work of persecution. After 1660 the lay reaction was brief and hmited ; the religious reaction, though temporarily restrained, soon burst forth with violence, continued increasing in severity, and caused most of the dangers and faults, and, I might add, the crimes, into which Charles II. and his Grovernment fell. But these faults and dangers, although serious and lamentable, really contained nothing that vitally menaced the security of monarchy and society in England. Taking a general view of affairs, the spirit of revolution no longer possessed, and the spirit of reaction did not govern, England. Ever since the great revolutionary crisis of 1640-1660, the English people have had this good fortime and this merit, that they have profited by experience, and never given themselves up to extreme parties. In the midst of the most ardent pohtical struggles, and even of the violences into which they have sometimes followed, and sometimes forced, their leaders, they have always, in critical and decisive circumstances, been guided by that strong good sense which consists in recognising the good things wliich it is essential to preserve, and 74 PRELIMINARY ESSAY ON invariably defending them ; in bearing the inconve- niences by which they are accompanied, or renouncing any desires which might endanger them. Ever since the reign of Charles II. this good sense, which is the political intelligence of free peoples, has presided over the destinies of England. Three great results, as yet confused and incomplete, but irrevocable and sufficient for the wishes and welfare of the English nation, survived the revolution through which it had just passed. In the first place, the King could never again sepa- rate himself from the Parliament. The cause of mo- narchy was gained ; but that of absolute monarchy was lost. Theologians and philosophers, Hke Filmer and Hobbes, might advocate the dogma, or maintain the principle, of absolute power ; and their ideas, as ex- pressed in books or private conversations, might obtain the favour or excite the anger of speculative tliinkers or pohtical partisans. In the practical opinion of the nation, the question was settled ; royahsts and revolu- tionists alike looked upon the close union and the mutual control of the Crown and the Parliament, as both right and necessary to the country. Secondly, the House of Commons was, in fact, made preponderant in the Parliament. The question of its direct sovereignty was no longer mooted, but con- demned and decried as a revolutionary principle. The Crown and the House of Lords had resumed possession of their rights and their rank ; but they had been too thoroughly conquered and humiliated to regain their ancient superiority, even after the fall of their THE ENGLISH llEVOLUTION. 75 enemies : and neither the faults nor the reverses of the House of Commons could entirely obhterate the recollection of its terrible victories. The royalist party, which now had the mastery, inherited the essential conquests of the Long ParUament, in its relations to the Crown and the administration of the State. The confusion was necessarily long, and fre- quently violent, before the different parties, Wliigs and Tories, Government and Opposition, learned to make a good use of these conquests ; to understand their real meaning and extent ; and to maintain, between the great powers of the State, that laborious harmony which is at once the merit and the diffi- culty of constitutional government. But throughout the trials of this apprenticesliip, and notwithstanding the frequent occurrence of opposing appearances or forms, the preponderant influence of the House of Commons in public affiiirs, was, from the reign of Charles II., a fact which daily became more and more evident and unmistakable. Side by side with, or rather above, these two political facts, we may place that religious fact which was con- summated by the Revolution — I mean the complete and definitive triumph of protestantism in England. Never, certainly, had the English Protestants been more fiercely at variance ; and Bossuet might reason- ably indulge m the supreme pleasure of contemplat- ing and depicting their divisions and contests. But the unity of a common faith and passion continued to animate these divergent sects : in the midst of their own quarrels, they all professed the same Gospel, and 7 6 PRELIMINAUY ESSAY ON combated Catholicism with the same zeal ; and liberty of conscience, though incessantly disregarded and sup- pressed by them and among them, was, as against the Church of Rome, equally dear to all, and inahenably acquired by all. These were, after all, the only concessions which the English nation demanded of that ancient monarchy, whose return it hailed with such transport ; for it was determined patiently to overlook the faults of any Grovernment which should preserve it from new revolutions, and secure to it these three results of the revolution through which it had just passed. But this was precisely what neither Charles II. nor James II. was able or willing to accomphsh. In politics, Charles II. was too sensible and too indifferent to assume or exercise absolute power. He cared for nothing but his pleasure, loved power only because it enabled him the better to enjoy life, and willingly consented to concessions and compromises to escape the dangers of extreme struggles, or to spare himself the annoyance of them. But in his heart, absolute monarchy alone possessed his esteem and suited his taste. He had been not only a witness, but a victim of the defect^ and inconveniences of the institutions of his country ; and he had closely con- templated the splendour of the com-t of Louis XIV., and the strength of his government. These had ob- tained his admiration and confidence ; and hence arose his proneness to fall into venal dependence upon Louis XIV., whom he regarded as the leader of the kings' party, and consequently did not feel all the THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. // shame which ought to have overwhelmed him wlien he betrayed to him for gold the policy and liberties of his country. In religion, Charles was at once a sceptic and a Catholic, believing in nothing, and as corrupt in mind as in manners ; but he thought that, after all, if there were any truth in religion, that truth was to be found in the Catholic Church, which afforded kings the greatest security against the perils of power, and most surely preserved men from those of eternity. Thus, althougli during liis Hfe he did not act as an absolute and Catholic sovereign, Charles was in his heart a Catholic and an absolutist, who sympathised with the kings of the Continent, and not with the faith and policy of the nation over which he ruled. James II. was a Catholic and an absolutist from conviction, and his conduct was consistent with his creed ; nay more, he was blindly enterprising, with all the obstinacy of a narrow and barren mind, and the harshness of a cold and insensible heart. Such were the two princes whom the Restoration bestowed on the English nation, which joyfully hailed the return of monarchy and cursed the revolution, but instinctively resolved not to surrender its great results. The history of England, during the whole course of the Restoration, is nothing but the history of the deep- seated discord which, though slowly developed, broke out at length between these two kings and their people ; and of the persevering efforts made by the English nation to escape from the consequences of this discord — namel}^ a new revolution. 78 PRELIMINARY ESSAY ON For England, during this epoch, was essentially con- servative. Ardent factions and selfish ambition agi- tated the country by their intrigues, their plots, and their insurrections; and she was more than once led by their efforts, or by her own passions, into move- ments which were apparently revolutionary. But far from seconding the men who sought to overtlirow the monarchy of the Stuarts, she paused and retreated as soon as she perceived that she was tending thither- wards. The conspirators and insurgents who appeared during the reign of Charles II. were only minorities at variance with the country, even when it seemed to favour them. As the restored monarch committed greater faults and allowed his tendencies and designs to become more clearly perceptible, the pubhc discon- tent increased, and the chances of a rupture between the prince and the country became stronger ; but the country, instead- of availing itself of those chances, struggled to evade them. To maintain the house of Stuart upon the throne, without abandoning its laws or its faith, the English nation, during a period of twenty-six years, made all the sacrifices and efforts that the most patient and persevering conservatism could require. All the phases through which the English Govern- ment passed during this epoch, the conduct and destiny of all the parties and ministries which then exercised the supreme power, were but different forms and striking proofs of tliis great fact. By the natural tendency of things, the old lloyalist party, the faithful counsellors of Charles I. THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 79 during his misfortunes, and of Charles II. in his exile, were the first who obtained possession of power. Clarendon was their leader — a man of strong, upright, and penetrating mind ; a sincere friend of legal and moral order ; courageously attached to the constitution of his country, and passionately devoted to her Church; full of respect for the written or traditional rights of the people, as well as of the monarch, but detesting the Revolution to such a degree, that he regarded every novelty with suspicion and antipathy. As Prime Mmister he was more haughty than high-minded ; he was devoid of largeness of thought and sympathetic generosity of character ; and he ostentatiously paraded his greatness, whilst he rigorously exercised his power. Towards the King, who regarded him with esteem, confidence, and some degree of attachment, he was, by turns, austere and humble ; passing from remon- strance to complaisance ; speaking and maintaining the truth like an honest man, but uneasy at having spoken it ; and seeking for support against the Court, without venturing to obtain his strength from the Par- liament. His aim was to make the Crown respect the ancient laws of the country, and to keep the House of Commons within the limits of its ancient sphere of action ; and he flattered himself that it would be possible to restrain the royal prerogative within the bounds of legality, without imposing upon it any necessary responsibility towards the Parhament. He failed in this chimerical attempt to establish, in a country just emerging from a revolution, a govern- ment which should be neither arbitrary nor limited ; so PRELIMINARY ESSAY ON and he fell, after seven years of preponderance, hated by the Commons for his monarchical arrogance, by the dissenting sects for his Episcopalian intolerance, and by the Court for his disdainful severity ; pursued by the blind anger of the people, who laid to his charge every public calamity, as well as all the abuses of power; and disgracefully abandoned by the King, who looked upon him only as an inconvenient censor and a com- promising minister. The fall of Clarendon has been attributed to the defects in his character, and to certain faults or fail- ures in his policy, both at home and abroad. To judge thus is to underrate the greatness of the causes which decide the fate of eminent men. Providence, which imposes on them a task so difficult, does not treat them with such stern severity as not to pardon them a few weaknesses ; neither does it lightly overthrow them because they have committed particular errors, and met with certain failures. Other great ministers — Richelieu, Mazarin, Walpole — have had defects, committed faults, and suff'ered defeats as grave as those of Clarendon. But they understood their time ; the views and efforts of their policy were in har- mony with its necessities, and with the general state and tendency of the public mind. Clarendon, on the contrary, misunderstood the age in which he lived ; he mistook the meaning of the great events in which he had borne a part ; he considered the occurrences of 1040-1000 as a mere revolt, after suppressing which nothing remained to be done but to re-establish order and the laws — not as a revolution wliich, b}' plunging THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 8l English society into fatal errors, had guided it into new paths and imposed new rules of conduct on the restored monarchy. Among the great results which this revolution, even though vanquished, had be- queathed to England, Clarendon accepted the necessary sanction of Parhament with sincerity, and the triumph of Protestantism with joy. But he obstinately rejected and opposed the growing influence of the House of Commons in the government of the country, and would neither recognise nor practise the means by which this new political element might be made con- ducive to the security and strength of the monarchy. This was one of those errors for which neither the rarest talents nor the most distinguished virtues can atone, and which, in the pitiless destiny of public men, give a fatal effect to faults or failures which, under other circumstances, would be of little or no importance. After the honest counsellors of the late King came the profligates of the new court, with Buckingham and Shaftesbury at their head ; the one licentious, witty, frivolous, and presumptuous ; the other ambi- tious, crafty, and bold; both equally corrupt and well versed in the art of corrupting ; both ready to go over from the Court to the multitude, and from the Government to the Opposition, whenever such conduct would replenish their coffers or gratify their vanity. They undertook to give satisfaction to the Parliament, to the Dissenters, and to all the popular feehngs which the stern and isolated pohcy of Clarendon had irritated. But a desire to please and willingness to yield are not VOL. I. G 82 PRELIMINARY ESSAY ON sufficient to insure the stability of a government. The rash and immoral successors of Clarendon had no suspicion of the embarrassments and dangers they were about to bring upon the government and on themselves, by making the House of Commons their main support. In order that a popular assembly may be an habitual means of strong and regular go- vernment, it must itself be strongly organized and governed ; and this can only be the case so long as it contains great parties united by common principles, and proceeding with order and regularity, under re- cognised leaders, towards a determinate object. Now, such parties can be formed and kept in being only when powerful interests, and firm and lasting convictions, rally and retain men together. A certain amount of faith in ideas, and of fidelity towards persons, is the vital condition of great political parties, just as great political parties are a necessary condition of free government. Nothing of this kind existed, or was Hkely to be called into existence, under Charles II., when the Ministry, called the Cabal, attempted to govern in concert with the House of Commons, and according to its wishes. After so many convulsions and miscalculations, especially in the regions which were nearest to power, men were a prey to doubt and distrust, to continual indecision, and to a spirit of personality which was sometimes shame- lessly impatient, and sometimes pusillanimously pru- dent. The House of Commons was filled with the remnants of revolutionary parties ; but it contained no political parties capable or worthy of maintaining a government. And such men as Shaftesbmy and THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 83 Buckingham were incapable and unworthy of forming such parties ; they knew only how to seek and gain partisans for themselves from all camps and by all means. Their policy was shamelessly incoherent and contradictory ; sometimes the}^ closely united England with Holland, sometimes they abandoned Holland to Louis XIV., according as they happened to need the favour of the zealous English Protestants or that of the great French King. They granted toleration to the Dissenters from an apparent respect for the rights of conscience, but in reality from complaisance to the King, who wished to j)rotect the Catholics ; and subsequently, under the pressure of the irritated House of Commons, they besought the King to sanc- tion the adoption of the most rigorous measures against both Catholics and Dissenters. Their pohcy, both at home and abroad, was a series of experiments and contradictions ; their most equitable measures were only measures of corruption and deceitfuhiess, insolently adopted or abandoned, according to circum- stances, and equally deficient in stability and sincerity. The public, both in and out of Parliament, sometimes allowed itself to be duped by these arti- fices. Nothing can equal the eagerness with which popular passions believe everything wdiich pleases them, and find excuses for all who serve them. The profligate members of the Cabal obtained some tem- porary popularity ; but it departed as quickly as it came. Their licentious lives, the well-known cor- ruption of their manners, the versatility of their con- duct, and the worthlessness of their promises, shocked G 2 84 PRELIMINARY ESSAY ON the moral sense of the country, which retained, in the midst of all these scandals and miscalculations, a solid foundation of faith and virtue. It would, most certainly, have done more than express its indignation if it had known that its King, with the connivance of his principal counsellors, had concluded secret treaties with Louis XIV., by which he engaged to declare himself a CathoHc as soon as he could do so with any safety ; whilst, in the mean time, he had sold the indej)endence of the pohcy and institutions of his kingdom for a few millions of money. England long remained ignorant of these disgraceful trans- actions ; but, when distrust is deep-rooted, public ignorance often has presentiments by which nations are frequently misled, and sometimes marvellously enlightened. Without knowing to how great a de- gree the ministers of the Cabal had degraded and betrayed their country, the House of Commons not only refused to act with them, Ijut at length violently attacked them ; and they fell under the blows of a power Avhich their self-interested flattery had aggran- dized, but without having made any progress in organizing political parties in the Parlian;ient, or in regulating their action in the Government. Their successor, Sir Thomas Osborne, Earl of Danby, possessed much more political wisdom, and exercised much more influence upon the development of the par- liamentary system of his country. Though he had en- tered public life under the auspices of the ministers of the Cabal, and had been early associated in some of their evil practices, he differed essentially from them ; for he THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION 85 came from the country, and not from the court. A simple Yorkshire gentleman, the country gentlemen were truly his party, and the House of Commons his political fatherland. He earnestly sustained the cause of the Crown and its prerogative, but he united it with, instead of isolating it from, the Parliament. He applied himself by all sorts of means, good and bad, by persuading minds and purchasing suffrages, to the formation of a compact and permanent party in the House of Commons, and to the estabhshment of that intimate connection between the administration and his party which alone can render a government strong and efficacious, by uniting its diverse elements in one set of opinions and one course of pohtical action. Further, Danby understood and shared the national feelings of England with regard to religion and foreign policy ; he was anxious to secure the safety of Pro- testantism, and a good understanding between the Enghsh Government and the States that were de- voted to that cause. He induced Charles II. first to conclude a peace, and then an alliance with Holland, and to give his niece Mary in marriage to Prince Wilham of Orange. Danby thus secured abroad a saviour of the faith and liberties of his country, whilst he commenced the solid formation at home of that great Crown and Church party, which, ever since that epoch, has given such strength to the English mo- narchy, and so powerfully contributed to its stability. And, by a happy combination of opposite conse- quences, whilst the good judgment and ability of Danby were organizing the Tory party, his faults 86 PRELIMINARY ESSAY ON occasioned an energetic and salutary development of Wliig principles. To the honour of the Whigs be it spoken, that they took their origin, and first displayed their greatness, in the defence of the liberties and the political morality of their country. Their party rose into being under the invocation of generous prm- ciples and feelings. It was in its struggles against Danby and his army of Cavaliers, transformed into Tories, that it began to assume its distinctive cha- racter and dignity. These struggles were still very disorderly and confused ; .but in them were clearly manifested two great parliamentary parties, both of which aspired to the government of the country, that they might put into practice lines of pohcy really diverse, in virtue of principles not essentially opposite, but profoundly different. After lasting four years, this struggle ended in the fall of Danby — in the dissolution of that Eoyalist Long Parliament which, for eighteen years, had up- held the cause of monarchy, with a singular mixture of devotedness, servility, and independence ; and in the formation of a great Wliig ministry, in which the leaders of the party. Temple, Kussell, Essex, HolHs, Cavendish, and Powlet, with the aid of Halifax, the leader of the wavering moderates, and of Shaftesbury, the bold renegade from the court (who had now be- come the favourite of the people), undertook to reform and conduct the government. The crisis was momentous. For the first time, and in spite of the prolonged resistance of the Crown, the Parliamentary Opposition liad obtained THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 87 possession of the supreme power, in the name of public opinion and of a majority in the House of Commons. Would they be able to retain and exercise it ? Would they give satisfaction to the real wislies of the country without shaking" the foundations of that monarchy which their accession had disturbed. The Wliigs did not succeed in solving this problem. Either through want of experience, or the influence of the false political theories with which the revolutionary Long Parliament had been imbued, their ideas with regard to the organizatiora^nd conditions of constitu- tional government were confused, unpractical, uncer- tain, and contradictory. They were actuated by monarchical as well as republican prejudices. They essayed to constitute the Cabinet on broad foundations, to make it, as it were, a sort of intermediary body, capable of restraining the Crown by means of the Parliament, and the Parliament by means of the Crown — an attempt which proved abortive at its birth. They carried the spirit of opposition into the exercise of power, and, whilst serving royalty, they were more anxious to curb than to sustain its au- thority. They lived among the remnants of the anarchical factions which had survived the Eevolution, and which never ceased their secret attacks upon the monarchy. Nearly a nonentity among the higher classes, the republican party was too weak and impotent to achieve success even amongst the masses ; but it possessed some desperate agitators and conspirators, ready to place their abilities and their lives at the 88 PRELIMINARY ESSAY ON service of any one who would afford them, either immediately or prospectively, some satisfaction of their turbulent and vindictive passions. The Whigs were constantly, if not in connivance, at least in contact, with these professional revolutionists, whom they wished to make their soldiers, but who, in their turn, hoped to convert their employers into their instru- ments, and continually compromised them, at first with the King, and then with the country, which was loyal though discontented, and decidedly opposed to all fresh revolutions. To compensate for these errors in their conduct or these vices of their position, the Whigs had a resource of which they made ample and deplorable use — con- cessions to the passions of the people. England, at this time, was possessed by a general and overpowering terror and hatred of Popery. Warned by a legitimate instinct that, in this respect, they had been betrayed by their King, the English transgressed the limits of aU reason, justice, and humanity. The political and judicial persecution of the Catholics was, during three years, the joint crime of a people who were furious in their faith, and of a King who was cowardly in his infidelity. The Whigs, as well as the Tories, shared or yielded to this frenzy. It was, moreover, their ill fortune to attain to power just when the first paroxysms of the national fury against the Cathohcs were beginning to subside, and were giving place to a reactionary movement in favour of good sense and impartial justice. They thus had to endure, in greater measure than tlieir rivals, the consequences THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 89 of this reaction, and the weight of the secret anger of the King, who took pleasure in revenging himself on them for iniquities which he had not had the courage to oppose. Their position with regard to the foreign affairs of the country was not at all less complex or more sure. Whilst they inveighed against the servile intimacy of the King with the Court of France, several of their leaders received favours and pensions from Louis XIV. ; some from corruption, for the popular party had its profligates as well as the Gourt ; others, though men of lofty patriotism and honour, in the chimerical hope of employing the means of influence which they de- rived from a foreign monarch, in securing the liber- ties of their country. It is a dangerous attempt to look abroad for means of acting secretly upon the internal affairs of a country ; even the ablest politicians run a great risk of thus serving the interests of the foreigner rather than their own ; and Louis XIV. derived much more advantage, in the prosecution of his policy, from his relations with some Whig leaders, than they did from the secret support which he afforded them in pro- curing the overthrow of Danby, and the dissolution of the Long Parliament of Cavaliers. In the midst of this embarrassing and perilous situa- tion, the Wliigs undertook to change the order of suc- cession to the thi'one, and to exclude the legitimate successor therefrom, by Act of Parliament. This was anticipating a revolution, in virtue of well-founded though remote conjectures, and before its absolute necessity had been demonstrated by actual and evident 90 PRELIMINARY ESSAY ON facts. The Whigs, doubtless, thought that, in such a matter, it was wiser to prevent than to wait ; and that it would be better to accomplish immediately, by way of legal dehberation, that which would have to be done at some future time by force, and perhaps at the cost of a civil war : — a very superficial view of the matter, which proves that they had but a sKght know- ledge of human nature, and of the great conditions of social order. It is far worse to discuss a revolution than to effect one ; and the State is much more shaken when its fmidamental laws are attacked, in the name of human reason, than when they are infringed under the pressure of necessity. The Whigs called upon the Parhament to set aside, by its mere vote, and before James II. had acceded to the tlu'one, his hereditary right to the crown ; that is, in principle, to subordinate the foundation of the monarchy to the will of the Parliament. PubHc instinct warned England that this would be to destroy the monarchy itself; the monar- chical spirit was roused immediately, and the Cabinet itself was divided. The Whigs lost all their alHes among the more moderate Tories, and found them- selves reduced to the mere strength of their own party. They also found themselves in presence of an obstacle which they had hardly expected to encounter — the con- science of Charles II. Even that egotistical Prince did not think he was entitled to dispose of the rights of his brother ; and he defended them at all risks. To the honour of the English nation, popular passion paused before respect for lawful authority ; the Bill of Exclu- sion, after having been adopted by the House of Com- THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 91 mons, was thrown out by the Lords, and no attempt was made to carry the matter further, and to triumph by other means. But the question still remained unsettled. The House of Commons, which had voted the exclusion of James II., was dissolved. In that wliicli suc- ceeded it, the bill was again proposed and carried. The two great parties which had been progressively formed in the course of the reign were determined, the Whigs to get rid of the future monarch, and the Tories to maintain the monarchy intact. Charles II. also took his resolution. He dissolved the House of Commons, dismissed the Whig ministry, formed a cabinet of Tories alone, and governed for four years without a Parhament. Gloomy years were these, which England passed in fearful anticipation of the approaching tem- pest. Having resumed the opposition, the Whigs conspired, in different degrees, and with different ends ; some to regain possession of power by legal means ; others to compel the King, if need be, by insurrection and civil war, to yield to what they considered was the right and the will of the country ; some few, the inferior and desperate adherents of the party, were anxious to get rid, at any price — even by assassination — of the King and his brother — the only obstacles to the success of their cause. These plots, sometimes exaggerated, sometimes combined by an incomplete system of pubhcity, and by trials conducted with subtle iniquity, threw the country into distracting uneasiness. The conservative party were indignant and alarmed tor tlie security of the throne and of the 92 PRELIMINARY ESSAY ON established order of things : the popular party became more and more irritated at beholding the failure of all their atten^pts, and the execution of their noblest leaders upon the scaffold. Monarchical reaction and destructive hostility increased together. The charters of the towns and other principal corporations, the last rampart of the popular party, were judicially attacked and abolished. The conspii-ators, in their impotence and peril, left the country, and went to Holland to conjure the Prince of Orange to save the Protestant faith and the liberties of England. Evidently, of those three great results of the Revolution which England was anxious to preserve, the two political results — the influence of the Parliament in the government, and the preponderance of the House of Commons in the Parliament — were not only sus- pended, but endangered ; the religious result — the predominance of Protestantism — still remained intact ; for it was the Anglican Church herself who invariably sustained the Crown, and anathematized every attempt at resistance. Strong in tliis support, the high Tories, led by Rochester, daily ralHed more closely around James, forgetting his devotion to the Catholic Church, in order that they might see in him only the lawful representative and inheritor of the mo- narchy. But a third party formed around Hahfax, opposing violent measures, demanding the convocation of a Parliament, and predicting extreme dangers if this course were not pursued. Charles hesitated and delayed, promising the high Tories to persevere resolutely in sustaining his brother's rights ; the THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 93 moderate Tories, to respect the constitution of the country ; and the Church, firmly to maintain the Protestant estabhshment. Perplexed and fatigued, he employed all his remaining address and prudence in eluding the necessity of choosing between these pro- mises. He died before events compelled him to decide; but, when he reached the end of his earthly career^ and the threshold of eternal life, the disquietude of the dying man overcame the precaution of the King ; he rejected all the entreaties of the Anglican bishops, sent for a Benedictine monk who was concealed in his palace, and died in the bosom of the Catholic Church — at his last hour confirming his country in suspicions which he had always indignantly repudiated, and strengthening his brother's resolution to remain a member of that Church, out of the pale of which, notwithstanding his sceptical indifference, Charles himself did not dare to die. During his reign of four years, James II. had no other thought. He did not aspire to absolute power from the impulses of a strong and dominant nature, or in order to satisfy a lofty ambition, but from an unintelligent and intractable fanaticism. The principle which forms the basis of the constitution of the Eomish Church, the inMlibility and in- dependence of the supreme power, was a maxim of his government as well as an article of his faith. In his rigid and narrow mind, spiritual and temporal order were blindly confounded ; and he thought himself entitled, as a king, to exact from his subjects, in the State, the same absolute submission which, as a 94 PRELIMINARY ESSAY ON Catholic, he was himself, in the Church, bound to yield. Ever since his infancy, he had beheld those who shared his faith cruelly oppressed ; and he himself had suffered persecution on account of his faith. When he became King, he looked upon the deliverance of the Catholic Church in England as his peculiar duty and mission ; and he could discover no other means of accomplishing her deliverance than by restoring her to dominion. Such is the lamentable connection of human errors and iniquities ! They evoke and engender one another. Instead of at once recognising and respecting their mutual rights, both Protestants and Catholics sought only to persecute and enslave each other in turn. Either in the sincere hope of succeeding, or in order to be able to shield himself from all future reproach, James attempted at first to govern consti- tutionally. On the very day on which he ascended the throne, he promised to maintain the estabHshed laws of the Church as well as of the State. Shortly afterwards he convoked a Parliament, and solemnly renewed to it his promises. Some important, though isolated, actions soon belied his professions. He contiaued to levy taxes which had not been voted by the Parliament : and whilst, on the one hand, to please the Anglican Church, he redoubled the severity of the enactments against the Dissenters, on the other, he began to suspend the execution of the laws against the Catholics, and to make great innova- THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 95 tions in the political and religious constitution of the State. His language caused still more disquietude than his actions. Whilst asserting the legahty of his inten- tions, he always hinted at his right to absolute power, and his resolution to exercise it, if his subjects were not grateful for, and contented with, his moderation. Attempts are made, sometimes by kings, and some- times by peoples — the former in the name of divine right, the latter in that of the sovereignty of the people —to intimidate one another by enumerating the mortal wounds wliicli each has it in its power to inflict on the other. This pretension is as insane as it is insolent ; since it enervates and endangers, sometimes the govern- ment, and sometimes the liberties, of the country. It equally befits both kings and peoples, in then- reci- procal relations, to assert only their legal rights, and to bury in profound silence the mysteries and menaces of despotic violence and popular revolutions. The promises of James, and his attempts at con- stitutional government, were received by the country with favom', almost with enthusiasm. The more lively men's fears are, the more earnest are their hopes. The Tories held sway in the ParHament. The Anglican Church strove to bind the King to the engagements which he had made towards her, by proving herself still more monarchical and devoted to his person. The Dissenters thought they perceived some likelihood of obtaining toleration and liberty. Both good and bad inchnations, both honest and disgraceful motives, concurred to assure the King of the patient and 9() PRELIMINARY ESSAY ON almost servile submission of the country. At the Court and in the Parhament, the great majority of men of importance were so sceptical and corrupt as to be ready to push their fortune by an}" conceivable sacrifice of their opinions and honour. In the nation, a strong feehng of lassitude still remained, which com- bined with monarcliical tendencies and religious disci- pHne to prevent any explosion of discontent and alarms. James was no longer young ; his daughters, the sole heiresses of the throne, were devoted to the Protestant faith ; it would be better, thought the people, to submit for a short time to evils, which could not possibly last long, than to risk any new revolution. The more violent factions, the conspirators by pro- fession, the men of desperate ambition, the proscribed refugees in Holland, were neither so resigned nor so patient. In spite of the counsels of the Prince of Orange, who protected and restrained them at the same time, they attempted two simultaneous insur- rections — one in Scotland, headed by the Earl of Argyle, the other in England, under the command of the Duke of Monmouth. The people were agi- tated by these movements : a marked sympathy for the insurgents speedily pervaded the lower classes, but did not display itself openly. The Whig party did not sustain the rebeUion ; the Tories vigorously assisted the King to suppress it. Both attempts failed ; the two leaders were publicly beheaded ; their fate excited the compassion of the people, but neither their persons nor their intentions corresponded with tlie national feeling. THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 97 But an appearance of success fs fatal to weak princes when engaged in conflict with their people. James, victorious over his enemies and obeyed by his subjects, gave free course to the vices of his na- ture. He took pleasure in the harsh and even cruel exercise of power ; and he found in Jeffreys a bold and cynical minister of his vengeance. The judicial severities practised against the partisans of Argyle and Monmouth, with a gross contempt for the guarantees of law and the feelings of humanity, excited deep indignation and disgust amongst all classes of the people, whether they approved of the rebellion or not. At the same time, James gave free course to his designs ; he attacked the Anglican Church in its vital privileges, and his most faithful Protestant servants in the inmost recesses of their consciences. The Uni- versities of Oxford and Cambridge received orders to nominate Catholics to preside over Protestant esta- blishments. Eochester was told by the King himself, that, if he did not turn Catholic, he should be deprived of all his employments. Menaces so evidently illegal and extreme met with opposition even among the Catholics themselves. Two parties, one of which was as sincere and prudent as the other was intriguing and violent, contended for influence over the King ; and with a view to restrain or excite his zeal, daily pointed out to him either the dangers into which he was rushing, or the object which he aspired to attain. Nothing was wanting to enlighten James ; neither loyalty and long patience on the part of the Protestants, nor moderation and wise counsels from the Catholics VOL. I. H 98 PRELIMINARY ESSAY ON themselves. All Mled to overcome his blind and sincere stubbornness. He officially summoned a Jesuit, Father Petre, into his Privy Council ; and he ordered the Anglican clergy to read from all the pulpits in the king- dom the declaration by which, in virtue of his kingly power alone, he abolished the Acts of Parliament against Dissenters and Catholics. The Archbishop of Canterbury and six bishops refused to execute this order, and presented a petition to the King against it ; he had them arrested, conducted to the Tower, and tried before the Coui't of King's Bench as authors of a seditious Hbel. At this very time, contrary to all expectation, and amidst the natural though unfounded suspicions of all England, a son was born to King James. The dominant party were loud in their joy, promising themselves to train and govern the son as they had the father ; and this state of things, wliich had hitherto been tolerated only because its speedy termination was expected, became likely to be prolonged for an indefinite period. No outbreak occurred ; the comitry remained quiet ; but the leaders of the country changed their resolu- tions. Driven to extremity, the Anglican Chm-ch commenced a passive resistance ; and the political parties, both Wliigs and Tories, united in taking a more decisive step. Experience had taught the Whigs that they alone could neither rally the nation nor establish a Government : their conspiracies had failed as utterly as their cabinets. They had the rare wis- dom to admit that they were not sufficient in them- THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 99 selves to cany out their plans, and that close union with their ancient adversaries could alone insure their success. The Tories, in their turn, had learned that every principle has its Hmits, every engagement its conditions, and every duty its reciprocal obligations. For forty years they had advocated the maxim of non- resistance to the Crown, and acted with scrupulous fidelity towards their kings. Called to undergo a new trial, they felt that their country also had a claim to their fidehty, and that they were not bound servilely to surrender their liberties and faith to an insensate prince, for the mere purpose of remaining consistent in their language. Glorious names, eminent men of both parties — Russell, Sidney, and Cavendish, Danby, Shrewsbury, and Lumley — concerted together, and united their forces. Halifax, the leader of the third party, when sounded by them, declined taking any active part in their plans, but did not endeavour to dissuade them from their purpose. And on the 30th of June, 1688, at the very moment when the solemn acquittal of the seven bishops filled London with joyous acclamations, Admiral Herbert, disguised as a com- mon sailor, started for Holland, bearing to the Prince of Orange, on the part and under the signature of the six leaders of the two parties, and of Compton, Bishop of London, a formal invitation to come to the assistance of the faith and laws of England, and a solemn promise to sustain him, at any risk, with all their strength. WiUiam was only waiting for this. " Now or never !" said he to his confidant, Dykevelt, when he heard of the trial of the seven bishops, and of their H 2 100 PRELIMINARY ESSAY ON bold resistance. As soon as lie received the message, with a skihul and daring mixture of frankness and reserve, he pubHcly announced his design, and pre- pared to execute it. He was not going, he said, to make a conquest and usurp a crown ; he was going, at the request of the English themselves, to interfere between them and their King, and to protect the me- naced laws of England and the endangered Protestant faith. He discussed the expediency of the enterprise with the States-Greneral of Holland, and demanded their consent and support. He not only informed the Protestant princes of his pm'pose, but also com- municated it to the Emperor of Germany and the King of Spain ; the former of whom considered liim as the champion of Protestantism, while the latter regarded him as the defender of the European balance of power. Never was such an enterprise so boldly avowed, dis- cussed, explained, and justified beforehand. All Europe knew of it, and understood it. Conspiracy and personal ambition disappeared in the greatness of the cause and of the event. And in less than four months after the arrival of the Wliig and Tory mes- sage, William left for England, at the head of a squadron and an army, bearing with him the secret approval and good wishes of nearly all the Kings of' Europe, both Protestant and Catholic, and even of Pope Innocent XL himself, who deeply resented the hauglity arrogance of Louis XIV., and heartily des- pised the foolish temerity of James II. James alone did not understand or believe his danger. In vain did lie receive from Louis XIV. THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 101 accurate information and offers of effectual assistance ; in vain did his ovrn agents, at the Hague and at Paris, make him acquainted with the progress of the preparations for the enterprise. He declined all pro- posals and refused all information. Actuated by some small remnant of EngHsh and royal pride, he deter- mined not to be publicly sustained by the soldiers of the foreign king, whose gifts he had secretly accepted without a blush. His fear he concealed in the inmost recesses of his soul ; and he discarded all thoughts of danger from a presentiment of his inability to escape fi'om it. This presentiment did not deceive him. More than six weeks elapsed between the arrival of WiUiam on the shores of England and his triumphant entrance into London ; he advanced slowly through the country, equally prepared for resistance and welcome. Resist- ance he nowhere met with ; not an effort was at- tempted, not a drop of blood was shed, in the defence of James. As abject in the presence of danger as he had lately been obstinate in refusing to provide against it, he attempted to regain by weakness what he had lost by his temerity : he retracted all that he had done, granted aU that he had refused, restored to the towns their charters, to the universities their pri- vileges, to the bishops his favour, dismissed Father Petre from his council, and attempted to negociate with WiUiam. His concessions were as vain as his temerity had been powerless. Shut up in his palace, he daily heard of some fresh defection of his generals, or of his counsellors. His daughter, the Princess 102 PRELIMINARY ESSAY ON Anne, deserted liim, and joined the Prince of Orange. Whitehall became a solitude, and threatened soon to become a prison. James fled in his turn ; but was recognized in his flight, and brought back to London by an unintelligent multitude. After passing a few- more days in useless perplexity, he fled again, and for ever. On the 18th of December, 1688, about three hours after he had left London, six English and Scotch regiments entered the town with banners displayed, in the name of the Prince of Orange. William himself^ avoiding, as much from taste as from prudence, every appearance of triumph, arrived in the evening at St. James's Palace ; and five weeks after- wards, on the 22nd of January, 1689, a Parliament — extraordinarily convoked under the name of a Con- vention — met at Westminster, to sanction and regu- late the new order of things. Then burst forth all the innumerable party diifer- ences which the common danger had hitherto re- strained. All the monarchical scruples of the Tories came to life again, and all the revolutionary tendencies of the Wliigs reappeared. The most timid of the Tories said that it would be wise to recall King James, after having obtained from him certain guarantees. The most fiery of the Whigs spoke of founding a Republic, to be governed by a Council of State, of which the Prince of Orange should be President. Between these extreme propositions floated the moderate opinions, which were also diverse and unsettled. Many Whigs, whose intentions were monarchical, but who were still imbued with the maxims of the republican Long THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 103 Parliament, wished that King James should be for- mally deposed, and that the Crown should not he offered to William until they had, by sovereign laws, organised a republican Monarchy. On their side, the Tories, who were devoted to the Church, de- manded that, whilst declaring King James incapable of governing, the foundations of the Monarchy should be respected, and that they should confine themselves to instituting a Eegency. Others, more bold, but subtly scrupulous in their monarchical principles, agreed with the Whigs in thinking that James, by his conduct and flight, had abdicated the government ; but they maintained that, by this act alone, the throne, wliich could not be vacant for a single day, reverted of right to his eldest daughter, the Princess Mary; and that all they had to do was to proclaim her Queen. As soon as these various schemes were made known, they were explained, criticised, and ardently discussed by the public at large, as well as by the Parhament; the minds of the people were excited; parties became clearly defined; ambitious men unfurled the standard under which they hoped to attain to fortune ; and divisions sprang up between the Lords and the Commons. The revolution was jeopardised almost before it was completed. But the same political good sense which had united the leaders of the different parties in resistance, directed them in the fu-st proceedings of their go- vernment. They banished all absolute theories, and practically useless questions ; reduced the acts and terms, by which the new power was to be founded, to 104 PRELIMINARY ESSAY ON what was strictly necessary to give it a solid basis ; aud made it their only endeavour to conclude their business promptly, and bring the great interests of the country to the same opinion with themselves. WiUiani seconded the wisdom of the party leaders, at first by his reserve, and afterwards by his firmness. He allowed free course to every system and every pro- ject ; exhibiting neither displeasure nor favom-, and keeping himself aloof from all debates. But when he felt that the crisis was approaching, he called together the most important members of both Houses, and declared to them, in simple, brief, and unanswerable terms, that he was full of respect for the rights and liberties of the Parliament ; but that he too had hber- ties and rights, and that he would never accept a mutilated power, nor a throne upon which his wife would sit above him. The step was decisive. The two Houses came to an agreement ; a declaration was adopted, which proclaimed at once the vacancy of the throne, the essential rights of the English people, and the elevation of William and Mary, Prince and Princess of Orange, to the tlu'one of England ; and on the 13th of February, 1689, in the principal quar- ters of London, the acclamations of the pubhc greeted the official proclamation of the Act of Parliament. It is the salvation of a nation, in the critical con- junctures of its fate, to understand and put into prac- tice, by alternate submission and action, the counsels which God has given it in the past events of its life. England had learned, from her former trials, that a revolution is in itself an immense and incalculable dis- THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 105 order, which plunges society into great calamities, great crimes, and great dangers, and which a rational people may be one day compelled to suffer, but which they ought to dread and repel, until it has become an unavoidable necessity. England remembered this in her new trials. She endured much; she long en- deavoured to escape another revolution, and only resigned herself to it at the last extremity, when she could find no other means of preserving her faith, her rights, and her honour. It is the glory of the English Eevolution of 1688 that it was an act of pure and necessary defence ; and this was the first cause of its success. Defensive in its principle, this Revolution was at the same time precise and limited in its object. In the great convulsions of society, men are sometimes attacked by a fever of universal, sovereign, impious ambition. They think they have the right and the power to lay their hands on everything, and to reform the world according to their own pleasure. Nothing can be more insensate or presumptuous than these vague impulses of the hmnan creature, who, treating as a chaos the grand system of which he forms an item, strives to make himself a creator, and succeeds only in introducing the confusion of his own dreams into everything that he touches. England, in 1688, did not fall into tliis error; she did not aspire to alter the foundations of society and the destinies of humanity ; she reclaimed and maintained the faith, law^s, and positive rights, which contained her highest pretensions and dearest 106 PRELIMINARY ESSAY ON thoughts. She accomplished a Eevolutiou which was both lofty and modest — which gave to the country new leaders and new guarantees ; but wliich, wdien this object was once attained, felt satisfied and stayed its course, wishing for nothing less and aiming at nothing more. This Revolution was accompHshed, not by popular tumults, but by organized political parties : parties organized long before the revolution, with a view to securing regular government, and not in a revolu- tionary spmt. Neither the Tory party, nor even that of the Wliigs, notwithstanding the revolutionary elements which it contained, had been formed to overthrow estabhshed institutions. They were parties occupied with legal politics, not with conspiracy and insurrection. They were led to change the govern- ment of the country; they were not called into existence for that purpose ; and they returned to the path of order without effort, after having left it for a moment, not from habit or taste, but from necessity. And the merit and burden of the Revolution must not be ascribed to one only of those great parties which had been so long opposed to each other ; they combined together and acted in concert to bring it about. It was a work of common importance and necessity which they shared between them ; and it must be considered neither as a victory nor a defeat. "Wliigs and Tories saw it approach, and received it with different feehngs ; but all admitted its urgency and took part in it. THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 107 It has often been said in France, and even in Eng- land, that the Ee volution of 1688 was essentially aris- tocratic, and not popular ; that it was brought about by the machinations and for the benefit of the higher classes, and not by the impulse, or for the advantage, of the whole people. This is a remarkable example, among many others, of the confasion of ideas, and forgetfulness of facts, wliicli so often regulate men's judgments of great events. The Revolution of 1688 brought about two of the most popidar political results which are to be found in history ; it proclaimed and guaranteed, on the one hand, the personal and universal rights of all citizens ; and, on the other, the active and decisive participation of the country in its own government. Every democracy that is ignorant that this is all that it needs or ought to claim, disregards its greatest interests, and will be able neither to establish a government, nor to preserve its own liberties. The character of the Revolution of 1688, in a moral point of view, was still more popular ; it was effected in the name and by the force of the religious con- victions of the people, with a view to insure their security and predominance. In no other country, and at no other time, has the faith of the masses exercised a greater influence over the fate of their government. But, though popular in its principle and results, the Revolution of 1688 was aristocratic in its execution; it was planned, prepared, and brought to a conclusion by men of importance, the faithful representatives of 108 PRELIMINARY ESSAY ON the interests and feelings of tlie nation. England has been favoured with this rare blessing, that strong and intimate connections were early formed, and have long subsisted, between the different classes of society. Her aristocracy and democracy have managed to live and prosper together, mutually sustaining and restraining one another. Her leaders have never been isolated from her people, and her people have never stood in need of leaders. In 1688, especially, the English nation experienced the advantages of this happy har- mony of classes in her social order. To preserve her faith, laws, and liberties, she was reduced to the formidable necessity of a revolution, and she brought it about by men friendly to order and government, and not by revolutionaries. The same influences that attempted the work also restrained it within proper bounds, and took care to establish it upon firm foundations. The great characteristic of the Revolu- tion of J G88, and the pledge of its future success, was this : — the cause of the English jDCople triumphed by the hands of the English aristocracy. The greatest possible union and power were, at this epoch, absolutely requisite ; for such is the natural vice of all revolutions, that the most necessary, legiti- mate, and potent change must cause great troubles to the society that it saves, and must long remain itself in a disturbed and precarious state. Two or three years had scarcely elapsed, before King William, the saviour of England, had become exceedingly unpopu- lar. His simple ])ut haughty demeanour, his cold silence, his manifest distaste for the habits of the THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 109 English aristocracy, the exclusive intimacy and abun- dant favours which he bestowed on some old Dutch friends, all combined to render him a foreigner, and not a very agreeable one, in the midst of his new people. He was, as regarded civil and religious liberty, much more enlightened than the Enghsh, and not at all inchned to become the instrument of the rigours of episcopal intolerance, or of the animosities of aris- tocratic parties. He had little regard for the exigen- cies of constitutional government, and but ill under- stood the working of parliamentary parties, which were still confused and imperfectly organized ; he was soon shocked at their egotism, and jealous of their sway, and he defended liis own power against them, some- times with more vigour than discernment. In his government, as well as in his thoughts, the general policy of Em*ope was his great, and almost his only consideration ; he had aspired to the tlu'one of England chiefly that he might have all her forces at his disposi- tion in his struggle against the European domination of Louis XIV. ; and the Protestant passions of the English people were fully in accordance with his design. But WiUiam compromised England in the combina- tions and wars of the Continent to a greater extent than was suited to the habits, tastes, or interests of the nation. She was weary at finding herself unceas- ingly engaged in foreign efforts and dangers by that very prince whom she had summoned to deliver her from dangers at home ; and William, in his turn, was indignant at finding in that very people, and those xery parties, whom he had delivered upon their own soil, so IK) PRELIMINARY ESSAY ON little (levotedness and ardom- for the great cause with which their safety and liberties were, in his eyes, so evidently connected. Hence arose between the King and the Parliament those misunderstandings, disao-reements, and conflicts, which disturbed and shook the new government. William knew his strength, and used it haughtily. He even went so far as to say that he would abdicate, and return again to Holland, if he were not better understood and sus- tained. When the danger became pressing, the Parha- ment, the political parties, the Church, and the people, felt how necessary William was to them, and over- whelmed him with the liveliest demonstrations of gratitude. But their mutual dishkes soon revived. The parties returned to their rivalries ; the people to their prejudices and their ignorance ; the King to his European pohcy, his war necessities, and his captious tenacity of power. The Jacobites recovered their hopes. Though defeated in Ireland and Scotland, and discovered and condemned in England, they neverthe- less renewed their attempts at civil war and conspiracy. Even in William's council King James had correspon- dents, who thought this connection with the exiled monarch might, at some future time, be of advantage. During the whole course of this reign, notwithstand- ing the easy success of the Revolution, the firm cha- racter of the King, and the sincere loyalty of the country, the government established in 1688 was con- tinually attacked and continually tottering. The same evil continued under Queen Anne. The Whigs and Tories, more and more widely disunited, THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. Ill carried on a desperate conflict for the supremacy. In the European struggle for tlie Spanish succession, the two parties at first were equally favourable to King William's policy of intervention and continental war. Carried away by a spirit of routine and by success, the Whigs wanted to push the war immeasurably beyond the bounds of necessity. The Tories espoused the cause of peace, which was earnestly longed for by the English people, and favoured by the Queen ; and, by the Treaty of Utrecht, they put an end to the critical and precarious position of Europe. But the Tories were closely connected with the Jacobites ; in spite of her fidelity to Protestantism, family feeluigs were strong in the heart of Queen Anne ; intrigues at home were mingled with complications abroad ; the banished Stuarts began to think they had yet a chance ; the Grovernment of 1688 was again jeopardized. The death of Queen Anne, and the peaceful accession of the House of Hanover, restored its stability. Under the reigns of Greorge I. and George II. the minds of men took another course ; foreign pohcy ceased to be their principal occupation ; the home government, the maintenance of peace, questions of finance, colonies, and commerce, and the development and struggles of the parhamentary system, became the dominant objects of interest to both the government and the pubHc. Questions of revolution and of dynasty, how- ever, were not extinct : the English nation did not feel any affection for German kings, who could not speak then- language and could not live comfortably amongst them ; who eagerly seized any pretext to leave 112 PRELIMINAR\ ESSAY ON the country and visit their former petty principality ; and incessantly involved their new subjects in conti- nental affairs of no importance or interest. The domestic quarrels of the royal family, and the grossly licentious manners of the Court, offended the country. The unstable dominion, the selfish rivalries, the fac- titious passions, the exaggerations and the intrigues of the parliamentary parties shocked its honesty and good sense. In Scotland, in Ireland, and even in England, Jacobite conspiracies and insurrections were of continual occurrence ; and, though always defeated, they always found zealous adherents, and no longer excited any great fear or hatred in the country. In the midst of these continual attacks upon the established order of things, indifference, inertness, a critical humour, and disaffection, became the general feelings of the country ; and the public seemed to separate itself from a power for which it no longer cared. Fifty- seven years after the national outburst wliich had placed William III. on the throne, the grandson of James II., at the head of some Scotch Higlilanders, penetrated almost unre- sisted, into the very centre of England ; and people everywhere began to ask themselves whether he would not, in a few days, enter London itself as easily as William had done when he drove out this Pretender's grandfather. But England and her government were no longer at the mercy of a fit of popular ill humour, or the defeat of a few regiments, or the daring enterprise of a few factious individuals. The same social forces which, in 1688, had caused the Revolution, THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 113 in 1745 defended and saved the government wliicli it had founded. Wlien the danger became evident, the enemies of that government were encountered by the strong organization of aristocratic parties, the good sense of a disciphned democracy, and the faith of a Clmstian people. The T\liig leaders, and many of the most eminent Tories, considered that their pohtical honour and fortune were, in a measure, bound up with this cause. The parties were faithful to their leaders. The middle classes forgot their discontents, their dis- affection, and the little personal sympathy that they felt for the government, and wholly devoted themselves to the maintenance of their own welfare, and their country's essential interests. The Church and the Dissenters appeared animated by the same devoted- ness. Before this intelligent union of the aristocracy and the people, of the political and religious feelings of the country, the success of the Jacobites vanished as rapidly as it had arisen. The greatest danger in- curred by the new monarchy of England was also the last. From that time to this, some few secret designs, some plots that were frustrated as soon as they were conceived, have occasionally shown that it still had enemies. But the government established in 1688 had to pass through seventy years of laborious and painful trials before it was able to surmount the natural vices of every revolution, to restore peace to society, and to obtain an undisputed sway. In 1760, when Greorge III. ascended the throne, this work was accomplished, by what means and at what cost I have already explained. George III. had reigned for sixteen years when, at VOL. I. I 114 I'RKLIMINARY ESSAY ON the distance of more than three thousand miles from his capital, upwards of two milhons of his suhjects broke the bond that united them to his throne, pro- claimed their independence, and undertook to found the Eepubhc of the United States of America. A struggle of seven years sufficed to induce England to recognise their independence, and treat with the new State upon equal terms. Sixty-seven years have elapsed since that time ; and without effort, mthout any extraordinary occurrences, by the simple develop- ment of their institutions and of peaceful prosperity, the United States have taken a glorious place among the great nations of the earth. Never was such speedy greatness purchased so cheaply at its origin, and disturbed so little in its progress. It is not merely to the absence of any powerful rival, and to the immense tracts of country open before them, that the United States are indebted for this rare good fortune. Causes, less fortuitous and more moral, have also contributed to the rapidity and tranquillity of their rise to greatness. They entered into Hfe under the banner of law and justice. In their case also, the revolution which commenced their history was primarily an act of defence. They claimed the recognition of guarantees and principles which were inscribed in their charters ; and which the Parliament of England, that now refused them, had already triumphantly claimed and asserted in the mother-country, with much more vio- lence and disorder than the resistance of the colonies had entailed. THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 115 Properly speaking, they did not attempt a revolu- tion. Their enterprise was undoubtedly great and perilous ; to obtain their independence, they had to carry on a war against a powerful enemy, and to found a central government, in the place of the distant power whose yoke they were casting off. But they had no revolution to effect in their local and private institutions ; each of the colonies already possessed a free government, as regarded its internal affairs ; and, on becoming a State, it had to make but few changes in the maxims and organization of its existing govern- ment. There was no old social order to be feared, detested, and destroyed ; attachment to ancient laws and customs, and affectionate respect for the past, were, on the contrary, the general feehngs of the people ; the colonial system, under the patronage of a distant monarchy, was easily transformed into a republican government, under the bond of a federal administra- tion. Of all systems of government, a RepubHc is most certainly that to which the general and spontaneous assent of the country is most necessary. We may imagine, and we have seen, monarchies founded by violence ; but to impose a Republic on a nation, to estabhsh a popular government in opposition to the instinct and wishes of a people, is repugnant to common sense and to justice. The English colonies in America had no such difficulty to sm-mount in be- coming the Republic of the United States ; they were voluntarily republican; and in adopting the repub- lican form of government, they merely accomplished I 2 IK) TRELIMINAKY KSSzVY ON the national wish, and developed, instead of abolishing, their previously-existing institutions. Their social order was disturbed no more than their political system. There was no struggle between the different classes : no violent displacement of social influences. Although the crown of England still had partisans in the colonies, the same spirit and the same intentions prevailed at every degree of the social scale. The rich and influential famihes were, generally speak- ing, most firm in their resolution to obtain independ- ence, and to found a new order of things. Tlie people followed them, and the change was effected under their cUrection. Rehgious opinions underwent no greater revolution than society had don€. The philosophical ideas of the eighteenth century, its moral scepticism and reli- gious incredulity, doubtless penetrated and became current in the United States of America ; but they did not completely imbue even those minds which they infected ; they were not fully adopted in their fundamental principles and final consequences ; the moral gravity and practical good sense of the old Puritans stiU retained their hold upon those Ame- ricans who were admirers of the French philosophers : and the mass of the American people remained faithful to simple Christianity, as mucli attached to their doctrines as to their hberties, submissive to God and to the Gospel whilst up in arms against the King and Parliament of England, and governed, whilst struggling for their independence, by that same faith which had led their ancestors to that land. THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 1 1 7 to lay the foundations upon which the new State was built. The ideas and passions wliich, under the name of democracy, agitate and disorganize society at the pre- sent day, are current and powerful in the United States of America ; there they ferment with all the conta- gious errors and destructive vices that they contain. But hitherto they have been efficiently restrained and purified by the religious faith, the excellent political traditions, and the strong habits of obedience to law, wliich govern the people. At the same time that prin- ciples of anarchy audaciously display themselves upon this vast theatre, principles of order and conservatism subsist with powerful energy, in society as well as in individuals; their presence and influence are everywhere recognised, even by that party which denominates itself the democratic party par excellence ; they moderate and regulate it, and often preserve it unconsciously from its own fiery intemperance. These are the tutelar principles which presided over the origin of the American revolution, and insured its success. May Heaven grant that, in the formidable struggle which they now have everywhere to sustain, they may con- tinue to prevail among that powerful j^eople, and remain always at hand to guard it from the preci- pices which border so closely on its path ! Three great men, Cromwell, William III., and Washington, remain m history as the leaders and representatives of those critical events which decided the fate of two mighty nations. For extent and energy of natm-al talents, Cromwell is, perhaps, the 118 PRELIMINARY ESSAY ON most remarkable of the three. His mind was marvel- lously prompt, firm, supple, inventive, and perspi- cacious ; he possessed a vigour of character which no obstacle could discourage, and no conflict could tire. He pursued his plans with an ardour as inexhaustible as his patience, sometimes taking the longest and most circuitous roads, and sometimes the shortest and most precipitous paths. He excelled equally in winning and in ruhng men in personal andfamihar in- tercourse ; and he was equally skilled in organizing and conducting an army or a party. He had the instinct of popularity and the gift of authority, and he was able, with the same boldness, to let loose or to quell factions. But born in the midst of a revolution, and carried onwards by successive convulsions to su- preme power, his genius was, from first to last, essen- tially revolutionary; he had learned to understand the necessity of order and government, but he was unable either to respect or practise moral and perma- nent laws. In consequence of the imperfection of his nature, or the viciousness of his position, he wanted regularity and calmness in the exercise of power ; had immediate recourse to extreme measures, like a man continually assailed by mortal dangers ; and perpetuated or aggravated, by the violence of his remedies, the \aolent evils that he sought to cure. The foundation of a government is a task that requires measures of a more regular character, and more in conformity to the eternal laws of moral order. Crom- well was able to conquer the revolution that he had made but he could not succeed in establishing it. THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. I I 'J Though less powerful, perhaps, than CromweD, by nature, William III. and Washington succeeded in the enterprise in which he failed ; they fixed the destiny and established the government of their respective countries. This may be accounted for by the fact that, even in the midst of revolution, they never accepted or practised a revolutionary policy ; they never were placed in the fatal situation of using anarchical vio- lence as a stepping-stone to power, and then employ- ing despotic violence to maintain it. They found themselves placed, or they placed themselves, at the very outset, in the regular ways, and under the perma- nent conditions, of government. William was an ambitious prince : it is puerile to believe that, until the appeal was made to him in 1688, he had remained free from all desire of ascending the throne of England, and ignorant of the schemes which had long been on foot for raising him to it. William followed the progress of the scheme, step by step, without taking any part in it, but without discoun- tenancing it ; giving its authors no direct encourage- ment, but affording them all the protection in his power. His ambition had also the honour of being associated with the triumjDli of a great and just cause — the cause of religious Hberty and of the balance of power in Europe. No man ever made a great poli- tical design more thoroughly the ruhng idea and ex- clusive object of his life than Wilham did. He was ardently devoted to the work which he had to ac- complish ; and he considered his own aggrandisement as merely a means to that end. In hh designs upon 120 PRELIMINARY ESSAY ON the crown of England lie did not attempt to succeed by violence or disorder ; liis mind was too lofty and too well-regulated to be ignorant of the radical vicious- ness of such success, or to submit to its yoke. But when the career was opened to him by England her- self, he gave no more heed to the scruples of the pri- vate individual ; he was anxious that his cause should prevail, and that he should win the honour of the triumph. A glorious mixture of abihty and faith, of ambition and patriotism, Washington had no private ambition ; his country had need of him ; he became great to serve her, from duty rather than from choice, and some- times even with a painful effort. His experiences of public life were bitter ; and he preferred the independ- ence of private hfe and tranquillity of mind to the exercise of power. But he unhesitatingly undertook the task imposed upon him by his comitry, and, in performing it, he allowed no concessions to be made, either towards his country or himself, for the purpose of hghtening its burden. Born to govern, though he took no pleasure in it, he told the American people what he thought was the truth, and maintained, in governing them, what he thought w^as wise, with a simple but immoveable firmness, and a sacrifice of popularity which was all the more meritorious because it was not compensated by the pleasures of domination. The servant of an infant republic, in which the demo- cratic spirit prevailed, he obtained its confidence and secured its triumph by sustaining its interests against its inclinations, and by ]:)ractising that modest and THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 121 severe, reserved and independent policy, which seems to belong only to the leader of an aristocratic senate, placed at the head of an ancient State. His success was remarkable, and does equal honour to Washington and to his country. Wliether we consider the destiny of nations, or that of great men ; whether we contemplate a monarchy or a repubhc, an aristocratic or a democratic society, the same light shines down upon us from the facts with wliich we become acquainted. Definitive success can be obtained only by holding the same principles, and pursuing the same paths. The revolutionary spirit is equally fatal to the dignities which it calls into being and to those which it overthrows. The pohcy which preserves a State is, also, the only policy that can ter- minate and consolidate a Eevolution. HISTORY CHARLES THE FIEST ENGLISH REVOLUTION. BOOK I. ACCESSION OF CHARLES I. — STATE OF PUBLIC FEELING IN ENGLAND — CONVOCATION OF THE FIEST PARLIAMENT — SPIRIT OF LIBERTY MANI- FESTED BY IT — ITS DISSOLUTION — FIRST ATTEMPTS AT ARBITRARY GOVERNMENT — THEIE ILL SUCCESS — SECOND PARLIAMENT — IMPEACH- MENT OF THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM — DISSOLUTION OF THE PARLIA- MENT — BAD ADMINISTRATION OF BUCKINGHAM — THIRD PARLIAMENT — PETITION OF RIGHTS— PROROGATION OF THE PARLIAMENT — ASSASSINA- TION OF THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM — SECOND SESSION OF THE THIRD PARLIAMENT — FRESH CAUSES OF PUBLIC DISSATISFACTION — THE KING'S ANGER — DISSOLUTION OF THE THIRD PARLIAMENT. On the 17th of March, 1625, Charles the First ascended the throne of England ; and a few days after- ward, on the 2nd of April, he convoked a Parliament. The House of Commons met on the 1 8th of June, and scarcely had it assembled, when Sir Benjamin Rudyard, a worthy man, who, during the previous reign, had been reckoned among the adversaries of the Court, rose 124 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE EIRST and moved that henceforward no pains should be spared to maintain perfect harmony between the king and his people : " For," he said, " what may we expect from him, being king? his good natural disposition, his freedom from vice, his travels abroad, and his being bred in Parliaments, promise greatly." ^ AU England, indeed, indulged in joy and hope ; — and not merely in those vague expectations, and those tumultuous rejoicings, which invariably herald the commencement of a new reign ; but in serious, general, and apparently well-founded satisfaction and anticipa- tions. Charles was a prince of grave and virtuous habits, and of acknowledged piety ; he was studious, learned, and frugal, with but little inclination to pro- digality, reserved, but not ill-tempered, and dignified without arrogance. In his household he maintained the utmost decorum and regularity ; all his actions be- tokened a lofty, upright, and justice-loving character ; his manners and deportment won him the respect of his courtiers and pleased the people ; and his virtues commanded the esteem of all good men. Tired of the ignoble conduct, the talkative and familiar pedantry, and the inert and pusillanimous policy of James I., England promised herself happiness and liberty, now that she was at length governed by a king whom she could honour. Neither Charles nor the English people were aware how far they were already estranged from each other ; nor did they know that causes had long been at work, ' June 22, 1625 ; Parliamentary History, vol. li. col. 5. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 125 and were daily becoming more active, which would soon render it impossible for them to understand or to agree with one another. At this period, two revolutions, the one visible and strikingly apparent, the other internal and unnoticed, but not the less certain, were in process of accomplish- ment — the first, in European kingship ; and the second, in the social condition and manners of the English people. On the Continent, at this time, royalty, throwing aside its ancient trammels, was everywhere becoming almost absolute. In France, in Spain, and in most of the States of the Germanic Empire, it had crushed the feudal aristocracy, and ceased to protect the liberties of the commons, as it no longer needed to oppose them to other enemies. The great nobles, as if they had even lost all consciousness of their defeat, thronged round the thrones, and seemed almost to take pride in the splendour of their conquerors. The burgher class, naturally timid and locally scattered, rejoiced in the new order of things, which was productive to them of unexampled prosperity, and laboured to obtain wealth and enlightenment, without aspiring as yet to any share in the government of the State. On all sides, the splendour of courts, the prompt despatch of ad- ministrative business, and the extent and regularity of wars, proclaimed the preponderance of the royal power. The maxims of divine right and kingly sove- reignty universally prevailed, and were feebly contested even where they were not positively admitted. In a word, the progress of civilization, literature, and the 126 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST arts, under the fostering influence of peace and internal prosperity, adorned and beautified this triumph of pure monarchy — inspiring princes with j)resumptuous confidence, and people with admiring complacency. The royal power in England had not remained unafiected by this European movement. Since the accession of the House of Tudor, in 1485, it had ceased to fear the opposition of those proud barons, who, though too weak to contend individually against theu' king, had in former times succeeded, by coahtion, either in maintaining their rights, or in forcibly ob- taining a share in the exercise of the royal authority. Mutilated, impoverished, and enfeebled by their own excesses, and most of all by the wars of the two Eoses, this aristocracy, so long indomitable, yielded almost unresistingly, first to the haughty tyranny of Henry VIIL, and afterwards to the able government of Elizabeth. On becoming the head of the Church, and the possessor of her immense estates, Henry, by distributing them Hberally among famihes, whose fortunes he founded, or whose decayed grandeur he thus restored, began the metamorphosis of his barons into courtiers. During the reign of Elizabeth, this transformation was completed. A woman and a Queen, a brilliant Court both gratified her tastes and augmented her authority. The nobihty hastened thither with enthusiasm, and without too greatly exciting public discontent ; it was a rare temptation to be able to devote themselves to the ser\dce of a popular sovereign, and to seek, by means of intrigues, and in the midst of festivities, the favour of a Queen AND 'HIE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 127 who possessed the aifection of the country. The maxims, forms, and phraseology, and frequently even the practices, of pure monarchy, were tolerated in a government which was usefal and glorious to the nation ; the love of the people screened the servihty of the courtiers ; and towards a woman, whose every peril was a public danger, unbounded devotion seemed to be a law to the gentleman, and a duty to the Protestant and citizen. The Stuarts could not fail to continue in the course which, since the accession of the House of Tudor, the monarchy of England had pursued. Of Scotch birth, and sprung from the blood of Guise, James I., both by his family recollections and the habits of liis country, was attached to Trance, and accustomed to seek his allies and models upon the Continent, where an Enghsh prince ordinarily could see none but enemies. He, therefore, soon showed that he was more deeply imbued than EHzabeth, or even Henry VIII., had been with those maxims which were then establisliing pure monarchy in Europe : he professed them with all the pride of a theologian and the complacency of a king ; and, by the pomposity of his declarations, con- tinually protested against the timidity of his actions and the Hmits set to his power. When compelled, as he sometimes was, to defend, by more direct and simple arguments, the measures of liis government, such as arbitrary imprisonments or illegal taxes, James would adduce the example of the King of France or Spain. " The King of England," said his ministers to the House of Commons, " must not be in a worse condition 128 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST than his equals."^ And such, even in England, was the influence of the revolution which had recently taken place in royal power on the Continent, that the adversaries of the Court were embarrassed by tliis language, — feeling almost convinced that the dignity of princes required that they should enjoy the same rights, and yet unable to reconcile this necessary equality among crowned heads with the liberties of their country. Brought up from childhood in these pretensions and maxims, Prince Charles, when he became a man, was exposed still more nearly to then' contagious influence. The Infemta of Spain was promised to him ; and the Duke of Buckingham suggested that he should proceed incognito to Madrid, to sue in person for her love and hand. So cliivabous an idea fired the young man's imagination : the only difficulty was to obtain the King's consent. James refused, grew angry, wept, and yielded at length to his favourite, rather than to his son." Charles arrived at Madrid, in March, 1623, and was received with great honom-s. There he saw, in all its splendour, monarchy majestic and supreme, obtaining from its servants almost idolatrous devotion, and from its subjects almost religious respect ; rarely receiving contradiction and always certain, in the end, to soar above all opposition by the simple exercise of its will. The marriage of Charles to the Infanta was broken off; but, in her stead, he married Henrietta ' Journals of the House of Commons, vol. i. pp. 467, 481, 492. 2 Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, vol. i. pp 19 — 33. THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 129 Maria, a princess of France ; ' for, beyond these two courts, his father persisted in regarding every alliance unworthy of the dignity of his throne. The influence of this union upon the English prince was in no respect different from that to which he had already been subjected in Spain ; and the royalty of Paris or Madrid became, in his e3^es, the true type of the natural and legitimate condition of a king. Thus the English monarchy — as tar at least as the monarch, his counsellors, and court, were concerned — was following the same direction as the monarchies of the Continent. Here, also, every event disclosed the symptoms and effects of the revolution which had been consummated in other countries, and which, in its most modest pretensions, allowed tlie liberties of the subject to exist only as subordinate rights — con- cessions of the sovereign's generosity. But whilst, on tlie Continent, this revolution found the people still incapable of resisting it, and perhaps even disposed to welcome it, in England, a counter- revolution, quietly pervading society, had already undermined the ground beneath the feet of pure monarchy, and prepared its ruin in the midst of its progress. When, at the accession of the Tudors, the aris- tocracy bowed and humbled themselves before the throne, the English commons were not in a position ' This marriage, though negotiated in 1024, was not definitively con- cluded until the month of May, 1625, and it was celebrated in England in the month of .Tune following. VOL. I. K 130 HISTOEY OF CHARLES THE EIRST to take their place in the struggle of liberty against power; they would not even have ventured to aspire to the lionour of the contest. In the fourteenth century, at the time when they made their most rapid progress, their ambition was limited to obtaining a recognition of their first rights, and to securing a few incomplete and unstable guarantees : their imagination never soared so high as to suppose that it was their right to participate in the sovereign power, and to interpose, in a permanent and decisive manner, in the government of the country : such lofty privileges could be possessed, they thought, by the barons alone. In the sixteenth century, when worn out and ruined, like the barons, by the civil wars, the Commons stood most of all in need of order and repose : this was secured to them by the royal power, imperfectly, it is true, but nevertheless with more certainty and regularity than they had ever known before. They accepted the benefit with eager gratitude. Separated from their ancient leaders, and left almost alone in presence of the throne and of those barons who had formerly been their alhes, their language became humble, and their conduct timid ; so that the King was justified in beheving that henceforward the people would be as submissive as the nobles. But the people in England was not, as on the Continent, an ill-assorted coalition of burghers and peasants, who had been emancipated by slow degrees, and who were still bent beneath the yoke of their ancient servitude. As early as the fourteenth ccn- AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 131 tury, the most numerous portion of the feudal aristocracy — all those possessors of small fiefs who were not rich and influential enough to share the supreme power with the great barons, but who were proud of the same origin, and long possessed the same rights — had taken their place among the Commons of England. Thus becoming the leaders of the nation, they had more than once supplied it with a strength and bold- ness which the burgher class alone would have been in- capable of manifesting. Though weakened and de- pressed, Hke aU the rest of the nation, by the lengthened disasters of civil discord, they speedily recovered their pride and importance under the reign of peace. WTnlst the chief nobility thronged to court to repair their losses, and received from the King borrowed dignities, as corrupting as they were precarious, and which, without restoring to them their former fortunes, separated them more and more widely from the country ; the simple gentlemen, the freeholders, and the citizens, whose only anxiety was to turn their lands or capital to good account, increased in wealth and credit, became daily more closely united among themselves, drew the entire people under their influence, and without noise, without political design, without even a consciousness of what they were doing, concen- trated in their own hands all those social forces which are the true sources of power. In the towns, commerce and industry were gaining rapid development. The city of London acquired immense wealth ; the King, the Court, and almost all the great nobles of the realm, became its debtors, and K 2 182 HISTORY OV CHARLES THE FIRST though always insolent, were always necessitous. The mercantile marine, the nursery of the royal navy, was numerous and active in every sea ; and the sailors fully shared in the interests and dispositions of the merchants. In the country districts, things followed the same course : property became more extensively divided. The feudal laws placed obstacles in the way of the sale and partition of fiefs : these were indu'ectly abolished, at least in part, by a statute of Henry VII. ; the nobility received this as a boon, and hastened to avail themselves of it. They alienated, in like manner' most of the vast domains distributed among them by Henry VIII. -The King encouraged these sales, in order to increase the number of possessors of eccle- siastical property ; and the courtiers were obliged to have recourse to them, for no abuses could suffice to meet their necessities. At a later period, EHzabeth, in order to avoid asking for subsidies, which are always burdensome even to the power that obtains them, sold a large quantity of the Crown lands. Nearly all these properties were purchased either by the country gentlemen who lived on their estates, by the freeholders who cultivated their patrimonial farms, or by citizens who retired from trade ; for they alone had acquired, by labour and economy, the means of paying for what the prince and his courtiers were unable to keep.^ Agriculture prospered ; the counties and towns were teeming with a rich, active, and independent population ; and the movement which ' Clarendon's History of the Relit'llion, vol. i. p. 13.3. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 133 had transferred into tlieir hands a large part of the public fortune was so rapid that, in 1628, when the Parliament opened, the House of Commons was three times as wealthy as the House of Lords. ^ In proportion as this revolution progressed the Commons bea'an again to manifest their aversion to tyranny. Now that they possessed more property, greater security became indispensable. Eights which had long been exercised by the prince without exciting complaint, and which still continued to be exercised without hindrance, now began to appear very much Hke abuses, for a much larger number of persons felt their weight. Men inquired whether the King had always possessed these rights, and whether he ought ever to have possessed them. By degrees the memory of the people reverted to thoughts of their ancient liberties, of the efforts by which the great charter had been won, and of the maxims which that charter con- secrated. The courtiers spoke disdainfully of these old times as rude and barbarous ; but the people re- garded them with respect and affection as free and bold. Their glorious achievements had become almost useless, but yet they were not utterly lost. The Par- liament had not ceased to assemble, and kings, finding it tractable and docile, had even employed it very frequently as an instrument of their power. Under '^ Hume, in his History of England, vol. iv. p. 413, quotes Sanderson and Walker, two historians of little authority, in support of this asser- tion. I have been unable to discover, in contemporary writers whose testimony merits greater confidence, any such precise valuation of the comparative wealth of the two Houses ; but we have every proof that the House of Commons was far richer than the House of Lords. 134 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST Henry VIII., Mary, and Elizabeth, juries had be- haved with complaisance, and even with servility ; but the institution still existed. The towns had retained their charters, and the corporations their franchises. Thus, though it was long since they had ventured upon resistance, the Commons possessed the means of resistance to a large extent ; they were far less de- ficient in free institutions than in the power and will to profit by them. Power was restored to them by that revolution which had so wonderfully increased their material greatness ; and that good will might not be wanting, all that was required was another revolu- tion which should impart to them moral greatness, embolden their ambition, elevate their ideas, and lead them to regard resistance as a duty and dominion as a necessity. This was accomplished by the religious Reformation. The Reformation was proclaimed in England by a despot, and inaugurated by acts of tyranny. Wliile yet in its infancy it persecuted its partisans as well as its enemies. With one hand Henry VIII. erected scaffolds for the Catholics, and with the other he heaped up faggots to burn those Protestants who refused to subscribe to the creed and approve of the constitution which the new Church had received from him. There were, therefore, from the outset, two reforma- tions — that effected by the King, and that adopted by the people ; the one uncertain and servile, caring more for its temporal interests than for matters of faith, alarmed at the movement which had given it birth, AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 135 and striving to borrow from Catholicism all that it could decently retain after separating from it; the other spontaneous and ardent, contemning worldly considerations, wiUing to accept the consequences of its principles ; in short, a true moral revolution, under- taken in the name and love of faith. Though temporarily united by common sufferings during the reign of Queen Mary, and by common joy at the accession of Elizabeth, these two reformations could not fail ere long to disagree with and attack each other. And such was their situation that the State was naturally involved in their disputes. By separating from the independent head of the universal Church, the AngHcan Church had lost all her indi- vidual strength, and her right and power became dependent upon the power and right of the Sovereign of the State. She was thus devoted to the cause of civil despotism, and compelled to profess its maxims in order to legitimate her origin, and to serve its inte- rests in order to save her own. The Nonconformists, on theu' side, when attacking their religious adver- saries, found themselves compelled also to attack their temporal sovereign, and, in order to effect the reforma- tion of the Church, to assert the Hberties of the citizen. The King had taken the place of the Pope ; the An- glican clergy, heirs of the Cathohc priesthood, acted always in the King's name ; in every ecclesiastical question, whether it related to a dogma, a ceremony, or a prayer, the erection of an altar, or the shape of a sm'pHce, the royal power was as much concerned as 136 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST the episcopal authority, and the civil government as much interested as Church discipline and faith. Before the perilous necessity of a double conflict with both Church and King, of a simultaneous re- formation of both religion and the State, the Noncon- formists at first hesitated. Popery and everything that resembled it was hateful and unlawful in their sight ; but the royal authority, even though despotic, had not yet become so. Henry VIII. had begun the Reforma- tion, Elizabeth had saved it. The boldest Puritans wavered before measuring the right and fixing the limits of a power to which they were so deeply in- debted ; and if a few ventured to advance against this sanctuary, the astonished nation was thankful to them for their hardihood, but did not follow them. The necessity was, however, pressing ; the Reforma- tion must either retrograde, or must lay hands upon the government, which alone obstructed its progress. Men's minds grew gradually bolder ; energy of con- science led to fearlessness of thought and plan ; religious faith stood in need of political rights ; and the people began to inquire why they did not enjoy them, who had usurped them, by what right they had been thus usurped, and what was to be done to recover them. The obscure citizen who, not long before, would have bowed with respect at the mere name of Elizabeth, and would never, perhaps, have looked more boldly towards the throne if he had discovered a connexion between the tyranny of the liishops -dud that of the Queen, sternly questioned them both as to AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 137 their pretensions, when compelled to do so in defence of his faith. It was especially among the country gentlemen, the freeholders, the citizens, and the com- mon people, that this determination prevailed to inves- tigate and resist abuses in the government, as well as errors of doctrine, for it was among these classes that the rehgious reformation was fermenting and struggling to advance. Caring less about their creed, the courtiers and many of the inferior nobility, had remained satis- fied with the innovations of Henry VIII. or his suc- cessors, and supported the Anglican Church from conviction, indifference, selfishness, or loyalty. Less concerned in the interests, and at the same time more exposed to the attacks of power, the English Com-, mons henceforward assumed a different attitude, and adopted other ideas, in regard to their relations with royalty. From day to day their timidity disappeared, and their ambition rose higher. The views of the citizen, of the freeholder, and even of the peasant, soared far above his actual condition. He was a Clrristian ; in his family, or among liis friends, he boldly studied the mysteries of divine power ; what earthly power, he asked, could be so high that he must abstain from considering it ? In the sacred Scriptures, he read the laws of God ; to render obedience to them, he was forced to resist other laws ; it therefore became necessary for him to ascertain where human legislation ought to terminate. But when a man seeks to learn the limits of a master's rights, he will soon extend his inquiries to their origin. Accordingly, the nature of the royal power and of all powers, their ancient limits, 138 HTSTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST their recent usurpations, and the conditions and sources of their legitimacy became, thoughout all England, a subject of examination and conversation ; of examina- tion, at first very modest, and undertaken rather from necessity than taste ; of conversations long held in secret, and which, even when introduced, no one dared at first to carry very far, but which emancipated men's minds from thraldom, and inspired them with a bokl- ness previously unknown. Elizabeth, though popular and respected, was herself conscious of the eflfects of this growing tendency,^ and vigorously resisted it, taking care, however, not to incur needless risk. Matters became far worse under the rule of James I. .A feeble and contemptible prince, he wished to be thought a despot ; but the dogmatic display of his impotent pretensions only provoked new acts of bold- ness, which he exasperated, but could not repress. The mind of the people took a free flight, whicli no assumptions could check ; the monarch was an object of ridicule, his favourites a subject of indignation. On the throne, and at Court, arrogance was destitute of power, and even of dignity ; the prevalence of the basest corruption inspired serious men with the deepest feelings of disgust, and exposed even the highest ranks to degrading insults from the people. To look such abuses in the face and calmly measure their extent was no longer the exclusive privilege of exalted minds ; such audacity now became popiJar. The opposition soon began to manifest as much haughtiness and greater confidence than the supreme power ; and it ' Sec vVppoiidix I. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 189 was not the opposition of the great barons, or of the House of Peers, but of the House of Commons — wliich was resolved to take that position in the State, and to exercise that influence over the government, to which it was justly entitled, but which it had never yet possessed. Their indifference to the pompous menaces of the sovereign, and their dignified but respectful language, made it evident that a great change had taken place, that they now thought high-mindedly, and were resolved to act with authority ; and the secret con- sciousness of this moral revolution had soon spread so widely that, in 1G21, when awaiting a Committee which the House had deputed to address to him a severe remonstrance, James said, with an irony which was assuredly less painful than it ought to have been, " Set twelve chairs ; here are twelve kings come to me."' In fact, it was almost a senate of kings, which an absolute monarch summoned around his throne, when Charles I. convoked the Parliament. Neither the prince nor the people, and especially the latter, had as yet clearly ascertained the basis, or measured the extent of their pretensions. They came together with plans and sincere hopes of union ; but, in reality, their disunion was already consummated, for both thought as sovereigns. As soon as the session was opened, the House of Commons turned its attention to the whole range of the government ; foreign and domestic affau's, negocia- tions and alliances, the use made of past subsidies, the ' Eapin's History of England, vol. viii. p. 183 ; Keunet's Complete History of England, vol. ii. p. 743. 140 HISTORY or CHARLES THE EIRST employment of future grants, the state of religion, tlie repression of Popery — nothing seemed to fall beyond their cognizance. On the 11th of August, 1G25, they complained that the royal navy afforded insufficient protection to English commerce ;^ and on the 6th of July, they censured Dr. Montague, one of the King's chaplains, for defending the Romish church, and preaching the duty of passive obedience.^ They ex- pected the redress of all their grievances from the King- alone, but manifested their determination to interfere in all matters requu'ing examination, by inquiries, petitions, and the constant expression of their opinion. They made but few complaints against the govern- ment of Charles ; it was only just beginning. How- ever, so extensive and animated an examination of public affairs could not fail to be regarded by the monarch as an encroachment on his prerogatives : so much liberty of speech offended him. On the 6th of August, 1625, a member of the Court party, Mr. Edward Clarke, attempted to complain of this in the House, saying " that there had been speeches there, with invective bitterness, and very unseasonable for the time." He was called immediately to the bar by general acclamation, and ordered to explain himself; and, as he would not withdraw his statement, the House was on the point of expelling him.^ Their speech, indeed, was bold, though conveyed in humble terms. " We do not desire, as 5 Henry IV. or 29 Henry VI., the removing from about the King ' Pai'liamentary History, ^ ol. ii. col. 35. '■^ Ibid., col. (;. ^ Il)id., col. 13. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 141 of evil counsellors. We do not request a choice by name, as 14 Edward III., 3, 5, 11 Eichard II., 8 Henry IV., or 31 Henry VI. ; nor to swear tliem in Parliament as 35 Edward I., 9 Edward II., or 5 Eichard II. ; or to line them out their directions of rule, as 43 Henry III. and 8 Henry VI. ; or desire that wliicli Henry III. did promise in his forty-second year, se acta omnia per assensum magnatum de concilio suo electorum, et sine eorum assensu nihil. We only in loyal duty offer up our humble desires that, since his Majesty hath, with advised judgment, elected so wise, rehgious, and worthy servants to attend him in that high employment, he will be pleased to advise with them together, a way of remedy for those disasters in state, led in by long security and happy peace, and not with young and single council." ' Thus spoke Sir Eobert Cotton, a man illustrious for his learning, eloquence, and moderation, on the 6th of August, 1625 ; and the House, while protesting with him that it had no intention to imitate the boldness of the ParHament of bygone days, rejoiced to hear these instances recalled to mind. The King began to feel displeased ; however, he made no complaint. Such language, though trouble- some, did not as yet appear to be dangerous. Besides, he was in want of subsidies. The last Parliament had ardently desired war with Spain ; and the present one could not reasonably refuse to carry it on. Charles insisted that the means for so doing should be fur- ' Howell's Cottoni Postliuma, p. 281 ; Parliamentary History, vol. ii. cols. 14—17. 142 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST nished him without delay ; and promised to redress all just grievances. But the House would no longer trust to promises, even when made by a King who had never yet broken liis word, and whom they regarded with esteem. Princes inherit the faults as well as the thrones of their predecessors. Charles thought that his subjects should fear nothing from him, because he had done them no harm ; the people were of opinion that all past evils should be remedied, so that they might have notliing to fear for the future. The Commons granted at first only a slender subsidy, and the cus- toms' duties were voted only for a year : this last vote appeared an insult, and the Upper House refused to sanction it. Less confidence, the Court inferred, was felt in King Charles than in his predecessors, who had always obtained the customs' duties for the entire dm*ation of their reign. And yet the King had just explained, with rare sincerity, the state of the finances of the realm ; and had refused no document, and no explanation, that had been demanded. The urgency of his necessities was evident; and there was little wisdom, thought the Lords, in so soon displeasing, with no apparent motives, a young prince who had manifested every disposition to maintain a good under- standing with the Parliament. The House of Commons did not declare that they would not grant larger subsidies ; but continued their examination of grievances, resolved (without however, announcing their resolution) to obtain, in the first in- stance, their redress. The King was indignant that AlSiD THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 143 they should venture thus to lay down the law to him, and suppose that he would either yield to force, or find himself unable to continue the government. It was neither more nor less than a usurpation of that sovereignty which belonged to himself alone, and which in no case should be compromised. The Parlia- ment was dissolved on the 12th of August. Thus, notwithstanding their mutual good will, the prince and the people had met only to come into col- hsion ; they separated, without either side feeling itself weak or beheving itself in the wrong — equally certain of the legitimacy of their pretensions, and equally determined to persist in maintaining them. The Commons protested that they were devoted to the King, but that they would not sacrifice their liberties to their devotion. The King declared that he respected the liberties of his subjects, but that he would con- trive to govern alone. He began tliis experiment at once. Orders of Coun- cil were addressed to the Lords-Lieutenants of the counties, enjoining them to raise, by way of loan, the money which the King needed.^ They were instructed to apply for it to the wealthy citizens, and to transmit to court the names of those who refused, or even de- layed, to advance the necessarj; sums. Affection and fear were thus rehed upon to produce the desired re- sult. At the same time, a fleet put to sea to attempt an expedition against Cadiz, the bay of which city was crowded with richly-freighted vessels. In the mean- while, to give some satisfaction to the people, the ' Old Parliamentary History, vol. vi. p. 407. 144 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST clergy received orders to proceed with severity against all Papists ; they were forbidden to travel more than five miles from their dwellings without special per- mission ; they were commanded to recall from the Continent their children whom they had sent thither for education ; and they were disarmed. The Com- mons had demanded their own liberties ; in return, they were allowed a Httle tyranny over their enemies. Tliis contemptible expedient did not satisfy them ; and, moreover, the very persecution of the Papists wore an equivocal and suspicious character ; for the King either sold them indulgences, or secretly granted them pardons. The loan supplied the treasury w4tli but scanty funds ; the expedition against Cadiz failed ; the people attributed this reverse to the incompetency of the admiral and the drunkenness of the troops ; and the government was accused of knowing neither how to select its commanders, nor how to preserve the disci- pline of its soldiers. Six months had scarcely elapsed before a new Parliament was judged necessary : it met on the Gth of February, 1626. Eancorous feehngs had not yet taken very deep root in the young King's heart ; and his despotism was at once confident and timid. He believed that the Commons would be de- lighted to meet again so soon ; and perhaps even he hoped that the firmness which he had displayed would be productive of greater complaisance on their part. Besides, he had taken measures to exclude the most popular speakers from the new Parliament. The Earl of Bristol, a personal enemy of the Duke of Bucking- ham, received no summons to attend. Sir Edvvard AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 145 Coke, Sir Eobert Philips, Sir Thomas Wentworth, Sir Francis Sejmioiir, and others,^ were appointed sheriffs of their counties, and could not therefore be elected as their representatives. No doubt was entertained that, in their absence, the House of Commons would prove more tractable ; for, it was said, the people loved the King, only a few factious persons led them astray. But the Commons also thought that the King was being led astray, and that, to restore him to his people, it would be enough to deprive liim of his favoui'ite. The first Parliament had confined itself to exacting from the throne, by delay in granting subsidies, the redress of public grievances ; the second Parhament resolved to attack the author of all these grievances, though he stood next to the throne. The Duke of Buckingham was impeached on the 21st of February, 1626. Buckingham was one of those men who seem born to shine in courts, and to displease nations. Hand- some, presumptuous, magnificent, daringly frivolous, sincere and warm in his attachments, frank and haughty in his enmities, equally incapable of virtue and hypocrisy, he governed with no political design, caring neither for the interests of the country, nor even for those of the ruling power, but solely intent upon increasing his own greatness, and upon the pleasure of swaying his sovereign by the brilliancy of his qualities. At one moment he had endeavoured to make himself popular, and he had succeeded in the • Seven in all ; the three others, of less celebrity, were Sir Grey Palmer, Sir William Fleetwood, and Mr. Edward Alford. VOL. I. L ]46 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST attempt ; the rupture of Charles's marriage with the Infanta of Spain had been his work. But public favour was to him only a means of using royal favour as he pleased ; so that when he became unpopular again, he scarcely perceived it, so proud was he of having preserved that ascendancy over Charles which he had so insolently exercised over James I. No talent sustained his ambition ; frivolous passions were the only object of his intrigues ; to seduce a woman, or to ruin a rival, he would compromise, with arrogant imprudence, the safety of his king or the welfare of his country. The rule of such a man was regarded, by a people who daily became more serious, as an insult as well as a calamity ; and the duke continued to appropriate to himself the highest offices in the State, ^ without appearing, even in the eyes of the mul- titude, anything more than an inglorious upstart, a rash and incapable favourite. The attack of the Commons was violent. It was difficult to prove any legal crimes against Buckingham ; so the House voted, on the 22nd of April, 1626, that " common fame was a sufficient ground to proceed ' He was Duke, Marquis, and Earl of Buckingham, Earl of Coventry, Viscount Villiers, Baron of Whaddon, Great Admiral of England and Ireland, &c.. General Governor of the Seas and Ships of the same ; Lieu tenant-General, Admiral, Captain- General, and Governor of his Majesty's Fleet and Army ; Master of the Horse ; Lord "Warden, Chan- cellor, and Admiral of the Cinque Ports ; Constable of Dover Castle, Justice in Eyre of the Forest of Cliaces on this side the Trent, Con- stable of the Castle of Windsor, Gentleman of the Bedchamber, Knight of the Garter, Privy Councillor, &c. The value of the Crown lands engrossed by him was estimated at 284,395Z. sterling, besides other ad- vantages. — Brodie's History of the BritishEmpire, vol. ii. p. .122. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 147 upon,"' and collected together aU the heads of accusa- tion suggested by public rumour. The duke vindi- cated himself from most of these charges satisfactorily, but fruitlessly. It was his bad government which the House was anxious to reform ; and though innocent of theft, assassination, or treason, Buckingham was not the less pernicious. The boldness of the Commons gave fresh courage to Court feuds. In March, 1626, the Earl of Bristol complained of not having been summoned to attend Parliament.^ Buckingham, who feared him, wished to keep him out of the way. The House of Lords acknowledged the Earl's right, and Charles sent him a summons, but, at the same time, commanded him to remain on his estates. The Earl appealed again to the House, beseeching it to examine whether the liberties of all the peers of the realm did not require that he should come and take his seat. The King immediately had him impeached of high treason.^ In self-defence, Bristol, in his turn, im- peached Buckingham,^ and Charles found his favourite pursued at once by the representatives of the people and by an old courtier. Such a state as this was too menacing to his autho- rity and too offensive to his pride. His opponents had been unable to convict Buckingham of any crime . their hostihty must therefore be directed against him as the King's friend and minister. He said to the ' Parliamentary History, vol. ii. cols. 52 — 55. * Ibid., vol. ii. cols. 72—78. ^ On the 1st of May, 1626. Ibid., vol. ii. cols. 79—86. * Ibid., vol. ii. cols. 86—88 L 2 148 HISTORY or CHARLES THE FIRST Commons : "I must let you know that I will not allow any of my servants to be questioned amongst you, much less such as are of eminent place, and near unto me. The old question was, ' Wliat shall be done to the man whom the King will honour ?' But now it hath been the labour of some to seek what may be done against him whom the King thinks fit to honour I wish you would hasten my supply, or else it will be worse for yourselves ; for, if any iU happen, I think I shall be the last that shall feel it."' At the same time he forebade the judges to answer the questions which the Upper House had submitted to them in reference to an incident in the Earl of Bristol's trial, ^ fearing that their opinion might turn in his favour. The judges were silent, but the House of Commons pursued its course. On the 3rd of May, eight of its members were appointed to manage the impeachment of Buckingham, in a conference with the Upper House. ^ When the conference was over, the King committed two of the managers, Sir Dudley Digges and Sir John Eliot, to the Tower, for insolent lan- guage." Irritated by this proceeding, the House declared that it would suspend all business until they were set at liberty.^ In vain did the friends of the court endeavour to alarm the House with regard to * Parliamentary History, vol. ii. col. 50. * Ibid., vol. ii. col. 105. ^ Journals of the House of Commons, vol. i. p. 854. These eight managers were Sir Dudley Digges, Mr. Herbert, Mr. Selden, Mr. Glan- ville, Mr. Pyne, Mr. Whitby, Mr. Wandesford, and Sir John Ehot. •* Parliamentary History, vol. ii. col. 103. * Ibid., vol ii. col. 119. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 149 the fate of the ParHament itself;' their menace ap- peared only an insult, and they were obliged to apolo- gise for having insinuated that the King might pro- bably be tempted to govern alone, like the princes of the Continent. The two prisoners were quickly dis- charged from the Tower. ^ On its part the House of Peers demanded the hber- ation of Lord Arundel, whom the King had impri- soned during the session, and Charles yielded in this case also.^ Tired of finding himself defeated by adversaries whom he had called together and might at any time disperse ; urged by his anxious favourite ; after having tried a few acts of complaisance, wliicli were always welcomed with delight, but which prevented no movement of reform ; and hearing at length that the House of Commons was preparing a general remon- strance — Charles determined to deliver himself from a position which humiliated him in the eyes of Europe and in his own opinion. The report spread that the Parliament was soon to be dissolved. The Upper House, which w^as beginning to seek for popular favour, hastened to address a petition to the King to divert him from this design, and all the peers accom- panied the committee which had been appointed to present it. " No, not a minute !" exclaimed Charles, in reply to their request for a longer sitting.* The ' May 13, 1626. Parliamentary History, vol. ii, col. 120. * Ibid., vol. ii. col. 122, 124. 3 June 8, 1626. Ibid., vol. ii. cols. 125—132. ■* June 15, 1626. Ibid., vol. ii. col. 193. 15U HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST dissolution of Parliament was immediately pronounced, and the reasons for it set forth in a royal declaration. The projected remonstrance of the Commons was pubhcly burnt, and all who possessed copies of it were ordered to commit them to the flames.^ Lord Arundel was placed under arrest again in his own house ; Lord Bristol was sent to the Tower -^ the Duke of Buck- ingham thought himself saved ; and Charles felt him- self a King. His joy was as short-lived as his foresight had been limited; for absolute power has also its necessities. Engaged in a ruinous war against Spain and Austria, Charles had not an army at his disposal which he could employ to vanquish his enemies and his subjects at the same time. His land troops were few in number, ill- disciphned, and exceedingly expensive ; Puritanism prevailed among the sailors ; and he did not dare to rely upon the militia, who were more under the in- fluence of the citizens and county gentlemen than under that of the King. He had put his opponents out of the way, but not his embarrassments and obsta- cles; and the reckless pride of Buckingham now plunged him into fresh difficulties. To revenge himself upon Cardinal Richelieu, who would not allow him to return to Paris to follow up his daring successes with Anne of Austria, he induced his master to enter into a war with France. The interests of Protestantism served as his pretext -. it was indispensable to raise the siege of La Rochelle, and to prevent the ruin of the ' Parliamentary History, vol. ii. col. 207. '' Ibid., vol. ii. col. 193. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 151 French reformers. It was hoped that, in such a cause as this, the people would arm with passionate zeal, or at least allow themselves to be easily oppressed. A general loan was ordered, of the same amount as the subsidies which the Parliament had promised, but not voted. The commissioners were instructed to in- terrogate all recalcitrants regarding the reasons of their refusal ; and to learn who had induced them to refuse, what arguments had been used to persuade them to do so, and what was the object in view. This was at once an attack upon the fortunes, and an inqui- sition into the opinions, of the people. Regiments were sent into the counties, and quartered upon the inhabitants. The ports and maritime districts received orders to furnish ships fully armed and equipped for war ; tliis was the first attempt at ship-money. Twenty were demanded of the City of London : the citizens replied that Queen Elizabeth had not required so many to repel the invincible Armada of Philip II. ; but they were told in answer that " the precedents in former times were obedience and not direction."^ To justify this language, passive obedience was preached in every dhection. The Archbishop of Canterbury, George Abbot, a popular prelate, refused to authorise the sale of such sermons in his diocese ; he was suspended and exiled.^ The King had presumed too much upon the passions of the people ; but they would not allow themselves to be persuaded to forget their liberty in the service * Whitelocke's Memorials, p. 7. ^ Ibid., p. 8. 152 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST of their faith. Moreover, they greatly distrusted the sincerity of this sudden zeal ; if they were left free, and if the Parliament were called together, they were willing to grant much more vigorous help to the Pro- testants on the Continent. Many citizens refused to take any part in the loan : those of the recusants who were obscure and weak were forced to enlist into the army or the fleet ; the others were either cast into prisons, or despatched on distant missions which it was impossible to decline. The public discontent, though it did not break out into sedition, was not satisfied with mere murmurs of complaint. Five gen- tlemen, who had been imprisoned by virtue of an order in council, claimed of the Court of King's Bench, as the right of every Englishman, to be dis- charged on bail.^ An imperious King and an irritated people were equally anxious that the case should be decided. The King required that the judges should lay it down as a principle, that no man arrested by his order should be admitted to bail ; the people desired to know whether the defenders of their hberties were to be deprived of all security. The Court rejected the application of the prisoners, on the 28th of November, 1627, and sent them back to prison, but without laying down the general principle which the King demanded.^ Thus already the magistrates, under the influence of a double fear, dared not prove themselves either servile ^ Their names were Sir Thomas Darnel, Sir John Corbet, Sir Walter Earle, Sir John Heveningham, and Sir Edmund Hampden. This last- named gentleman must not be mistaken for his cousin, John Hampden, afterwards so celebrated. ^ Cobbett's State Trials, vol. iii. cols. 1 — 59. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 153 or just; and to escape from their dilemma, they re- fused their sanction to despotism, and to hberty their support. In their jealous ardour for the maintenance of all their rights, the people took under their protection even the soldiers who acted as the instruments of tyranny. Complaints were made of their excesses on every side, and martial law was brought into operation to repress them. It was immediately thought improper that such arbitrary power should be exercised without the con- sent of Parliament, and that Englishmen, whether soldiers or otherwise, whether employed in harassing or in protecting their follow-citizens, should be de- prived of the securities furnished by law. In the midst of this still impotent but increasingly aggressive irritation, news arrived that the expedition wliich had been sent to succour La Rochelle, and which Buckingham commanded in person, had altogether failed on the 28th of October, 1627. The incompe- tency of the general had occasioned this reverse. He had been able neither to take possession of the isle of Rhe, nor to re-embark without losing the flower of his troops, both officers and men. It was long since England had paid so dearly for so much shame. ^ In both town and country a multitude of families, be- loved and respected by the people, were in mourning. The popular indignation knew no bounds. The hus- bandman left his fields, and the apprentice his work- ' This disaster is described with great energy in a letter from HoUis to Sir Thomas Wentworth, on the 19th of November, 1627. Strafford's Letters and Despatches, vol. i. pp. 41, 42. 154 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST shop, to inquire whether his employer, gentleman or citizen, had not lost a son or a brother, and he re- turned to relate to his neighbours the disasters which had taken place, and the grief which he had witnessed, cursing Buckingham and accusing the King. Losses of another nature served still more to exasperate the public mind ; the enemy's fleets disturbed and dimi- nished English commerce ; trading vessels remained in the ports ; and hosts of idle sailors talked of the reverses of the royal navy, and the causes of their own inaction. From day to day the gentr}^, the citizens, and the people became more closely united in one common feehng of angry dissatisfaction. On his return, and notwithstanding his arrogance, Buckingham felt the weight of public dislike, and the necessity of escaping from it ; and moreover it had be- come indispensable to find some expedient for extri- cating the government from its embarrassed position and procuring resources. All that could be done or devised to obtain money by tyrannical means had been tried and found unavaiHng. Sir Robert Cotton, as the most moderate of the popular leaders, was called to the councils of the King. He spoke with wdsdom and candour, insisting upon the just grievances of the nation, and the necessity of redressing them in order to obtain its support, and quoted the advice of Lord Burleigh to Queen Elizabeth : — •" Win their hearts, and you may have their hands and purses."^ He suofirested that a new Parliament should be called : and with a view to reconcile the Duke of Buckingham ' Parliamentary History, vol. ii. col. 214. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 155 with the public, it was agreed that, in the meeting of council at which this resolution was officially adopted, the proposition should be made by him. The King yielded to Sir Robert's advice. Immediately the prisons were tin-own open ; the men who had been confined in them on account of their resistance to tyranny were now abruptly liberated.^ Though insulted yesterday, they were powerful to-day. Public favour received them with transports of joy ; twenty. seven of them were elected members of the new ParHament, which met on the 17th of March, 1G28. " Grentlemen," said the King, on opening the session, "every man must now do according to his conscience; wherefore if you (which Grod forbid !) should not do your duties in contributing what the State at this time needs, I must, in discharge of my conscience, use those other means which God hath put into my hands to save that which the follies of some particular men may otherwise hazard to lose. Take not this as a threatening (for I scorn to threaten any but my equals), but an admonition from him that, both out of nature and duty, hath most care of your preservations and prosperities, and who hopes that your demeanours at this time will be such as shall not only make me approve your former counsels, but lay on me such obhgations as shall bind me, by way of thankfulness, to meet often with you."^ The Lord Keeper, speaking after the King, added : ' To the number of seventy-eight. Rushworth, vol. i. p. 473. ^ Parhameutary History, vol. ii. col. 218. 156 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST " His Majesty hath chosen this mode (of raising siip- pHes), not as the only way, but as the fittest ; not as destitute of others, but as most agreeable to the goodness of his own most gracious disposition, and to the desire and weal of his people. If this be deferred, necessity and the sword of the enemy will make way to the others. Remember His Majesty's admonition ; I say, remember it."^ Thus Charles endeavoured, by his language, to belie his position ; a haughty solicitor, bowing under the weight of his reverses and mistakes, he threatened to display that absolute and independent majesty which is superior to all faults and all defeats. He was so infatuated by this idea that he never entertained the thought that his royalty could suffer any attack ; and, full of genuine arrogance, he thought it due to his honour and his rank to reserve to himself the rights and tone of tyranny, even while he was seeking the aid of liberty. The Commons were not at all alarmed by these threats ; their minds were occupied by an idea no less lofty and no less unyielding. They were resolved solemnly to assert their liberties, to compel the ruling power to acknowledge them as primitive and inde- pendent, and no longer to suffer a right to pass for a concession, or an abuse to be termed a right. Neither leaders nor soldiers were wanting to carry out this great design. The entire people thronged around the Parliament. Within its walls, its counsels were guided by men of consummate ability and boldness. Sir ' Parliamentary History, vol. ii. col. 221. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 157 Edward Coke/ the glory of the bench, and not less illus- trious for his firmness than for his learning ; Sir Thomas Wentworth, afterwards Earl of Strafford,^ yo^^iig' ar- dent, and eloquent, born to command, and whose ambi- tion was then contented with the admiration of his country ; Denzil Hollis,^ a younger son of Lord Clare, a companion of Charles's cliildhood, but a sincere friend of liberty, and too proud to serve under a favourite ; John Pym,^ a learned lawyer, especially versed in the knowledge of the rights and usages of Parliament, a man of cool and daring character, ca- pable of proceeding with caution even when at the head of popular passions ; and many others, destined to meet with most various fates in that future which not one of them anticipated, and to serve hostile causes, though now united by common principles and aspirations. To this formidable coalition the court could only oppose the force of habit, the capricious temerity of Buckingham, and the obstinate pride of the King. The first communications between the prince and the Parhament were of a friendly character. In spite of liis menaces, Charles felt that he would have to yield; and the Commons, though determined to re- ' Born at Mileham, Norfolk, on the 1st of February, 1551 ; he was then seventy-seven years of age. - Born in Chancery Lane, London, on the 13th of April, 1593 ; he was then- thirty-five years of age. ^ Born at Haughton, Nottinghamshire, in 1597 ; he was then thirty- one years of age. •* Born in Somersetshire, in 1584 ; he was then forty-four years of age. 158 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST possess themselves of all their rights, fully intended, at the same time, to give proof of their devotedness to their sovereign. Charles took no offence at their free- dom of speech, and, indeed, their speeches were as loyal as they were free. " I humbly beseech the House," said Sir Benjamin Eudyard, on the 22nd of March, 1628, "to be curiously wary and careful to avoid all manner of contestation, personal or real. The hearts of kings are great, as are their fortunes ; then are they fitted to yield when they are yielded unto. Let us give the King a way to come off like himself; for I do verily believe that he doth, with longing, expect the occasion. Let our whole labour and endeavours be to get the King on our side, for then shall we obtain whatsoever we can reasonably expect or desire."^ All minds did not entertain such pacific thoughts ; there were sterner men who less clearly foresaw the evils of fresh rupture, and who better understood the incor- rigible nature of absolute power. All, however, ap- peared to be actuated by the same desu-es ; and the House, pursuing its investigation into the nation's grievances at the same time as its consideration of the King's necessities, unanimously voted, on the 4th of April, after a fortnight's session, subsidies of con- siderable amount, but without, however, immediately converting their vote into a law. The joy of Charles was extreme ; he at once con- voked his council,^ and informed it of the vote, of the House. " I liked Parliament at first," he said, " yet ' Parliamentary History, vol. ii. col. 23.5. ^ On the nth of April, 1628. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 159 since, I know not how, I had grown to a distaste of them ; but now I am where I was before ; for I love them, and shall rejoice to meet with my people often. This day I have gained more reputation in Christen- dom than if I had won many battles." Equal joy was manifested by the Council ; Buckingham thought himself bound, like Charles, openly to express his de- light; and he congratulated the King on his happy agreement with his Parliament. '' This," he said, " is not a gift of five subsidies alone, but the opening of a mine of subsidies that lieth in their hearts. Now, Sir, to open my heart and to ease my grief, please you to pardon me a word more. I must confess I have long lived in pain ; sleep hath given me no rest, favours and fortunes no content ; such have been my secret sorrows to be thought the man of separation, that divided the King from his people, and them from him. But I hope it shall appear they were some mistaken minds that would have made me the evil spirit that walketh be- tween a good master and loyal people, by iU offices ; whereas, by your Majesty's favour, I shall ever en- deavour to prove myself a good spirit, breathing no- thing but the best services to them all."' Cooke, the Secretary of State, reported to the House, on the 7th of April, the King's satisfaction, and the favour which he was ready in all things to show to the Parliament. The Commons were deligrhted at this ; but Cooke, with the imprudent servility of a courtier, alluded also to the Duke of Buckingham, * Parliamentary History, vol. ii. cols. 274, 275. 160 HISTORY or CHARLES THE FIRST and to his speech in the Council. At this the House was offended. " I observe," said Sir John Eliot, " in the close of Mr. Secretary's relation, mention made of another in addition to his Majesty. I know not by what fatality or infortunity it has crept in. Is it that any man conceives the mention of others, of what quahty soever, can add encouragement or affection to us, in our duties and loyalties towards his Majesty? or give them greater latitude or extent than naturally they have ? Or is it supposed that the power or in- terest of any man can add more readiness to his Ma- jesty in his gracious inclination towards us, than his own goodness gives him ? I cannot believe it. I con- fess, for my own particular, I shall readily commend, nay, thank that man whose endeavours are applied to such offices as may be advantageable for the public ; yet in this manner, so contrary to the customs of our fathers, and the honour of our times, as I cannot, with- out scandal, apprehend it, so I cannot, without some character or exception, pass it. And, therefore, I desire that such interposition may be let alone ; and that all his Majesty's regards and goodnesses towards the House may spring alone from his confidence of our loyalty and affection. Now let us proceed to those services that concern him ; which I doubt not, in the end, wiU render us so real unto him, that we shall need no other help to endear us to his favour.'" This just pride was regarded by Charles as insolence, while to Buckingham it appeared a certain presage of ' Parliamentary History, vol. ii. cols. 275, 276. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 161 fresh dangers ; but neither the one nor the other made any manifestation of their secret feelings, and tlip House pursued its labours. It had opened a conference with the Upper House to determine, in concert with it, the just rights of the subject, and to demand of the King a new and solemn ratification of those rights.' On being informed of the intentions displayed at these conferences, by the com- missioners of the Commons, Charles took great um- brage at their proceedings. On the 13th of April, the House was urged by his Ministers to hasten the defi- nitive vote of the subsidies ; and Secretary Cooke added : "I must with some grief tell you that notice is taken, as if this House pressed not only upon the abuse of power, but upon power itself. This toucheth the King, and us who are supported by that power. Let the King hear of any abuses of power ; he will willingly hear us ; and let us not bend ourselves against the extension of his royal power, but contain ourselves within those bounds, that we meddle only with pres- sures and abuses of power ; and we shall liave the best satisfaction that ever King gave,"* The House of Peers, on their part, moved by feel- ings of servility or timidity, advised the Commons to content themselves with demanding from the King a declaration stating that Magna Charta, with the sta- tutes which had been passed in confirmation of it, was still in full force ; that the liberties of the English people subsisted as in past times ; and that the King ' This conference began on the 3rd of April, 1 628. ■•^ Parhamentary History, vol. ii. cols. 278, 279. VOL. L M 162 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST would use the prerogative, inherent in his sovereignty, solely for the advantage of his subjects. These propo- sitions were laid before the Conference on the 23rd of April.^ On the 28th of April, the King assembled both Houses in a solemn sitting, and assured them that " he held the statute of Magna Charta, and the other six statutes insisted upon for the subject's liberty, to be all in force ; that he would maintain all his subjects in the just freedom of their persons, and safety of their estates ; that he would govern according to the laws and statutes of the realm ; and that they would find as much security in his royal word and promise, as in the strength of any law they could make."^ The Commons allowed themselves to be neither intimidated nor seduced ; recent abuses had defied the authority, and exceeded the provisions, of the ancient laws ; it had become necessary to obtain new and explicit securities, invested with the sanction of the entire Parliament. It was of no advantage vaguely to renew promises which had been so often violated, and statutes which had been so long for- gotten. Without any waste of words, the House, respectfully but resolutely, drew up the famous biU, known as the Petition of Right, adopted it, and trans- mitted it to the Upper House for its assent, on the 8th of May, 1628. The Lords had nothing to say against a bill which merely asserted acknowledged liberties, or repressed ' Parliamentary History, vol. ii. cols. 329, 330. - Ibid., vol. ii. col. 332. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 163 abuses which were held in universal reprobation. The King, however, returned to the charge, again demanding that they should rely upon his word, and offering to confirm Magna Charta and the ancient statutes, by a new bill. He sent advice after advice to the Lords, and message after message to the Commons ; though deeply irritated, he was prudent and moderate in his language, merely declaring his fixed resolution neither to suffer any curtailment of his prerogatives, nor ever to abuse the rights which he possessed. The perplexity of the peers was great. How could they secure the liberties of the people without depriving the King of absolute power ? This was the question at issue. An amendment was attempted ; and the bill was adopted, on the 17th of May, with this addition : — " We humbly present this Petition to yom' Majesty, not only with a care of preserving our own Hberties, but with due regard to leave entire that sovereign power wherewith your Majesty is trusted, for the protection, safety, and happiness of your people."^ When the bill thus amended came back to the Commons, — " Let us look into the records," said Mr. Alford, " and see what they are. What is ' sovereign power ? ' Bodin saith that it is free from any condi- tions. By this we shaU acknowledge a regal as well as a legal power. Let us give that to the King the law gives him, and no more." "I am not able," said ' Parliamentary History, vol. ii. col. 355. M 2 164 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST Mr. Pym, " to speak to this question, for I know not what it is. All oui- Petition is for the laws of England ; and this power seems to be another distinct power from the power of the law. I know how to add sovereign to the King's person, but not to his power ; and we cannot ' leave ' to him a ' sovereign power;' for we never were possessed of it." " If we do admit of this addition," said Sir Thomas Went- worth, " we shall leave the subject worse than we found him. Oiu* laws are not acquainted with ' sove- reign power.' We desire no new thing, nor do we offer to trench on liis Majesty's prerogative ; but we may not recede from this Petition, either in part or in whole." ^ The House of Commons maintained its ground ; the public became urgent ; and the Peers, too timid openly to demand liberty, were also too timid to give a direct sanction to tyranny. They withdrew their amendment : out of regard for them, an unmeaning- phrase was substituted in its stead ; and the Petition of Right, as adopted by both Houses, was solemnly presented to the King, who, overcome by their perse- verance, at length consented to receive it, on the 2Sth of May, 16.28. His answer, given on the 2nd of June, was vague and evasive -^ he did not sanction the bill, but merely reiterated those promises with which the House had already refused to be satisfied. ' 18th of May, 1G28 ; Parliamentary History, vol. ii. cols. 356—359. ■' Ibid., vol. ii. cols. 374—377. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 105 Victory seemed likely to escape tlie Commons. On their return to the House tlie next day/ they resumed the attack. Sir John Eliot vehemently recapitulated all the grievances of the nation ; and the serjeant was ordered to stand at the door, and prevent any member from leaving the House, on pain of being committed to the Tower. It was determined that a general remonstrance should be presented to the King ; and the committee of subsidies was directed to prepare it. Fear already filled many minds — that honest fear which is occasioned by the prospect of a great dis- turbance, and which, without stopping to inquire who is in the right, or what ought to be. done, wishes to pause as soon as it perceives any symptoms of passionate haste. Sir John Eliot was accused of being actuated by personal animosities ; Sir Thomas Wentworth was charged with imprudence : while Sir Edward Coke, it was said, had always been obstinate and factious." The King imagined that this state of feeling would furnish him with the means of delay, if not of final victory. He sent a message to the Commons, on the 5th of June, forbidding them to interfere henceforward in affairs of State. ^ The whole House was tlu'own into consternation ; this was too much to be borne ; even the most moderate regarded it as an insult. Silence prevailed for some time ; at length Sir John Ehot said : — " Our sins are so exceeding great, that unless we speedily ' Parliamentary History, vol. ii. col. 380. ' Ibid., vol, ii. col. 385. 3 Ibid., vol. ii. col. 401. 166 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST turn to God, God will remove himself further from us. Ye know with what affection and integrity we have proceeded hitherto to have gained his Majesty's heart. I doubt a misrepresentation to his Majesty hath drawn this mark of his displeasure upon us. I observe, in the message, it is said as if we cast some aspersions on his Majesty's ministers. I am confident no minister, how dear soever, can " At these words, the Speaker rose hastily from his chair, and said, with tears in his eyes : — " There is a command laid upon me to interrupt any that should go about to lay an aspersion upon the minis- ters of State." Upon this, Sir John Ehot resumed his seat. " Unless we may speak of these things in Parha- ment," said Sir Dudley Digges, " let us arise and begone, or sit still and do nothing." Hereupon a deep silence again prevailed. "We must now speak," cried Sir Nathaniel Rich, at length, " or for ever hold our peace ; for us to be silent, when King and kingdom are in this calamity, is not fit. The question is, whetlier we shall secure ourselves by silence — yea or no ? I know it is more for our own security, but it is not for the security of tliose for whom we serve : let us think on them. Some instruments desire a change ; we fear for his Majesty's safety, and the safety of the kingdom. I do not say we now see it ; and shall we now sit still and do nothing, and so be scattered ? Let us go to the Lords and show our dangers, that we may then go to the King together, with our representation thereof." AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 167 Suddenly the House passed from stupor to rage ; all the Members rose from their seats, all began to speak at once, and the utmost confusion prevailed. " The King is as good a prince as ever reigned," said Mr. Kirton ; " it is the enemies to the Commonwealth that have so prevailed with him : therefore, let us aim now to discover them ; and I doubt not but that God will send us hearts, hands, and swords, to cut all His and our enemies' throats." " It is not the King," said old Sir Edward Coke, " but the Duke that saith : 'We require you not to meddle with State-government, or the members thereof.' " A general cry arose — " 'Tis he ! 'tis he ! " The Speaker had left his chair ; the disorders continued to increase in the House, and the minds of the Members momently became more inflamed; no one attempted to calm the storm, for the prudent men had nothing to say. Anger is sometimes legitimate, even in the eyes of those who never grow angry. ^ Wliilst the House, amidst all this tumult, was meditating the most violent resolutions, the Speaker went out secretly and with all haste, to inform the King of the evil and the danger.^ Fear passed from the House to the Court. On the very next day, a milder message was sent to explain that which had caused so much irritation -^ but words could not suffice. The House continued in great agitation; mention was made of certain German troops which ' Parliamentary History, vol. ii. cols. 402 — 404. ^ Ibid., vol. ii. col. 405. 3 Ibid., vol. ii. col. 406. 168 HISTORY OP CHARLES THE FIRST had already been levied by Buckingham, and were shortly expected to disembark ; and one member asserted that, on the previous evening, twelve Grerman officers had arrived in London, and that two English vessels had received orders to bring over the soldiers.' The subsidies were still in suspense. Charles and his favourite were afraid any longer to brave an irrita- tion which daily grew more violent. They had no doubt that the full sanction of the Petition of Right would be sufficient to restore perfect tranquillity. On the 7th of June, the King repaired to the House of Peers, where the Commons had also assembled. They had been mistaken, he said, in supposing that there had been any ambiguity in his first answer, and he was now ready to give them one which would banish all suspicion. The Petition was then read over again, and Charles answered by the usual formula : — Soit droit fait comme il est desire.^ The Commons returned in triumph ; they had at length extorted a solemn recognition of the liberties of the English people. It now became necessary to give all possible publicity to this recognition ; and it was agreed that the Petition of Eight should be printed with the King's last answer, distributed all over the country, and registered, not only in both Houses of Parliament, but also in the Courts at Westminster. The bill of subsidies was finally adopted. Charles thought his trials were now at an ' Parliamentary History, vol, ii. col. 408 ; Rushworth, vol. i. p. 612. * Ibid., vol. ii. col. 4O0. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. l()9 end. " I have done my part," he said, " wherefore if this Parliament hath not a happy conclusion, the sin is yours ; I am free of it."^ But an evil of long standing cannot be so quickly cured, and the ambition of an irritated people is never satisfied with its first success. Evidently, the sanction of the Bill of Eights could not be sufficient : it con- summated merely the reform of principles, which was of no avail unless accompanied by a reform of prac- tices •; and to insure this, it was necessary to change the King's advisers. Buckingham still maintained his position, and the King continued to levy the customs' duties without the sanction of Parliament. En- lightened by experience with regard to the danger of delay, blinded by passion to the peril of too abrupt and harsh requirements, and animated as much by pride and hatred as by an instinctive feeling of the necessity of the step, the Commons resolved to lose no time in dealing their final blows. Within a week, two new remonstrances were drawn up — one against the Duke of Buckingham, on the 13th of June — the other, on the 21st, to estabhsh that tonnage and poundage, like all other taxes, could not be levied without the authority of law.^ The King lost aU patience, and, determined to obtain at least a little respite, he went down to the House of Lords, summoned the Commons to attend him, and prorogued the Parliament, on the 20th of June. ' Parliamentary History, vol. ii. col. 409. ^ Ibid., vol. ii. cols. 420, 4.31. 170 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST Two months after, on the 23rd of August, the Duke of Bucking-ham was assassinated. Sewn up in the hat of Felton, his murderer, a paper was found, in which reference was made to the last Remonstrance of the House. ^ Felton made no attempt to escape or to defend himself; he merely said that he regarded the duke as an enemy of the kingdom, shook his head when asked if he had any accomplices, and met his death with calmness ; confessing, however, that he had done wrong.^ Charles was made anxious by so great a crime, and indignant at the joy which the populace displayed at the murder. After the close of the session, he had attempted to gratify the wishes of the people by discountenancing the preachers of passive obedience, and by authorizing severe proceedings against the Papists, who were offered up as victims to promote reconciliations between the King and the country. The assassination of Buckingham, from which the people expected to gain deliverance, made the King recur to measures of tyranny. He restored to favour the opponents of the Parliament ; Dr. Montague, who had been prosecuted by the House of Commons, was promoted to the bishopric of Chichester; Dr. Man- waring, who had been condemned by the House of Peers, received a rich benefice ; and Bishop Laud,^ already famous for his passionate attachment to the ' See Appendix II. ^ Clarendon, vol. i. pp. 51—53 ; State Trials, vol. iii. pp. 3G7— 372. ^ Born at Reading, on the 7th of October, 1573. He was at this time fifty-four years of age, and filled the sec of Bath and Wells. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 171 authority of Church and Kmg, was translated to the see of London. The King's pubhc actions were in conformity with these court favours ; tonnage and poundage continued to be strictly levied, and ex- ceptional tribunals constantly suspended the regular course of law. Now that he had quietly returned to a career of despotism, Charles might even promise himself greater success than he had previously met with. He had detached from the popular party the most brilliant of its leaders, and the most eloquent of its orators. Sir Thomas Wentworth, was created a baron, and became a member of the privy council, in spite of the reproaches and even threats of his former friends. " Though you have left us, I wiU not leave you whilst your head is on your shoulders/' said Pym to him when he bade him farewell / but Wentworth, haughty and ambitious, hastened passionately forward on the path to greatness, far from foreseeing how ominous to liberty his career would one day prove. Other defections followed his \ and Charles, surrounded by new advisers, more serious, more capable, and less unpopular than Buckingham had been, awaited, without apprehension, the approach of the second session of Parhament. It met on the 20th of January, 1629. On the day following its meeting, the House of Commons desired to ascertain what effect had been given to the Bill of Eights. They learned that, in- > Rose's Biographical Dictionary, art. " Wentworth." ^ Sir Dudley Digges, Sir Edward Littleton, Noy, Wandesford, and others. 172 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST stead of the King's second answer, the first, tlie eva- sive and rejected answer, had been appended to it. The King's printer, Norton, confessed that, on tlie day following the prorogation, he had received orders to make this alteration of the legal text, and to sup- press all the copies which contained the true answer — that of which Charles had boasted, when he said, " I have done my part ; I am free of it." The Commons sent for the papers, verified the alteration, and said no more about it — feeling, as it were, ashamed to expose too pubhcly such a disgrace- ful breach of faith ; but their silence was no promise of obhvion.^ All sorts of attacks were renewed against toleration of the Papists, the favour accorded to false doctrines, the depravation of morals, the unfair distribution of dignities and employments, the proceedings of the irregular courts, and the contempt shown for the Kberty of the subject.' So great was the irritation of the House that one day^ it listened, with much silence and considerable favour, to an unknown and ill-dressed man, of coarse appearance, who, speaking for the first time, de- nounced, in furious and uncouth kinguage, the indul- gence shown by one of the bishops to an obscure preacher — a flat Papist, he said. This man was Oliver Cromwell.^ ' Parliamentary History, vol. ii. cols. 435 — 4.37. ^ Ibid., vol. ii. cols. 438, 443, 466, 473. 3 On the lltli of February, 1629. * Parliamentary History, vol. ii. col. 404 ; Warwick's Memoirs, p. 247. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 173 Charles strove in vain to extort from the Commons the concession of the customs' duties, which, to him, was the sole object of their present meeting. He em- ployed sometimes threats, and sometimes persuasion ; admitting that he enjoyed these taxes, like all others, by the pure gift of his people, and that it was the privi- lege of Parliament alone to establish them ; but insist- ing, at the same time, that they should be granted to him, as they had been to most of his predecessors, for the whole duration of his reign.' The Commons were inflexible : this was the only weapon which remained to them, by which they could defend themselves against the encroachments of absolute power. Whilst apologizmg for their delay, they persisted in it, and continued to set forth their grievances — but without any fixed aim, without asserting any clear and definite pretensions, as during the previous session — a prey to violent but vague disquietude, and agitated by the consciousness of an evil which they knew not how to cure. The King grew tired of this state of suspense ; his demands were refused without any petition having been made to him, without any application having been addressed to him, which he could either grant or reject ; the delay seemed to be originated by pure male- volence, and with no other object than to trammel his government. It was announced that he intended to adjourn both Houses. On the 2nd of March, Sir John Ehot hastily proposed a new remonstrance against the levying of tonnage and poundage. The Speaker, ' Parliamentary History, vol. ii. cols. 442, 44.3. 174 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST alleging the King's command, refused to put the mo- tion to the vote. The House insisted ; he left the chair ; but Hollis, Valentine, and several other members forced him back to his seat, notwithstanding the efforts of the Court party to deliver him from their hands. " Grod's wounds," said Hollis, " you shall sit still, till it pleases the House to rise." " I will not say I will not," cried the Speaker, " but I dare not." But passion had now lost all check, and he was compelled to resume his seat. The King, on being informed of the tumult, sent orders to the Sergeant-at-arms to withdraw with the mace, and thus legally suspend all further debate ; but the Sergeant was detained as weU as the Speaker ; the keys of the door were taken from him, and given in charge to Sir Miles Hobart, one of the members. The King sent a second messenger to pro- claim the dissolution of the Parliament ; but he found the doors locked on the inside, and could not gain admittance. Charles, in a fury, sent for the captain of his guard, and commanded him to break open the doors. But, in the meanwhile, the Commons had retired, after having adopted a protestation which rendered the levying of tonnage and poundage duties illegal, and declared all who should levy or even pay them traitors to their country.^ All reconcihation was now impossible. The King went down to the House of Lords : "I never came here," he said, "upon so unpleasing an occasion — it being for the dissolution of the Parliament. It is ' Parliamentary History, vol. ii. cols. 487—491. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 175 odIj the disobedient carriage of tlie Lower House that hath caused this dissolution at this time. Yet I must needs say that they do mistake me wonderfully that think I lay the fault equally upon all the Lower House ; for, as I know there are as many as dutiful and loyal subjects as any are in the world, so I know that it was only some vipers amongst them that had cast this mist of difference before their eyes. To con- clude, my lords ; as those evil-affected persons must look for their rewards, so you that are here of the Higher House may justly claim from me that protec- tion and favour, that a good King oweth to his loyal and faithful subjects."^ The dissolution of the Parliament was then pro- nounced. Soon after, a declaration appeared to the effect that : — " Whereas, for several ill ends, the calling again of a Parliament is divulged ; howsoever his Majesty hath showed, by his frequent meeting with his people, his love to the use of Parhament ; yet, this late abuse having for the present di-iven liis Majesty unwilling out of that course, he shall account it pre- sumption for any one to prescribe any time to his Majesty for Parliaments ; the calling, contriving and dissolving of them being always in the King's own "2 power. Charles kept his word : henceforward his only anxiety was to govern alone. • Parliamentary History, vol. ii. col. 492. * Ibid., vol. ii. col. 525. 170 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST BOOK II. DESIGNS OF THE KING AND HIS COUNCIL — PROSECUTION OF THE PAR- LIAMENTARY LEADERS — APPARENT APATHY OF ENGLAND — STRUGGLE BETWEEN THE MINISTERS AND THE COURT — THE QUEEN —STRAFFORD LAUD — DISUNION AND UNPOPULARITY OF THE GOVERNMENT — CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS TYRANNY — ITS EFFECTS UPON THE VARIOUS CLASSES OF THE NATION — TRIAL OF PRYNNE, BURTON, AND BASTWICK — TRIAL OF HAMPDEN — INSURRECTION IN SCOTLAND — FIRST WAR WITH THE SCOTS — PEACE OF BERWICK — SHORT PARLIAMENT OF 1640 — SECOND WAR WITH THE SCOTS — ITS ILL SUCCESS — CONVOCATION OF THE LONG PARLIA- MENT. Nothing is so dangerous as to take a system of govern- ment as it were on trial, and to think that it may at any time be exchanged for another, if necessity should require. Charles the First had committed this fault. He had attempted to govern in concert with the Parlia- ment ; but at the same time he had felt persuaded, and had constantly declared, that, if the Parhament were too untractable, he would easily dispense with its co-opera- tion. He entered upon a career of despotism with the same thoughtlessness, announcing his intention to follow it up, but inwardly thinking that, after all, if his necessities became too pressing, he could have recourse to Parliament whenever he pleased. This was also the opinion of his ablest advisers. Neither Charles himself, nor any one of his adherents. A'ND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 177 then entertained the slightest idea of irrevocabljr aboKshing the ancient laws, and the great national council of England. More imprudent than audacious, and more insolent than perverse, their words, and even their actions, exceeded the limits of their intentions. The King, they said to themselves, had behaved with justice and kindness towards his people ; he had conceded much, and had freely granted more. But no concessions had satisfied the House of Commons ; they had required that the King should acknowledge his dependence upon them, and place himself under their tutelage ; and this he could not do without ceasing to be King. If the prince and his Parliament could not come to an agreement, it behoved the Parliament to yield, for the prince alone was sovereign. As the House would not give way, the King must govern without its assistance : the necessity was evident ; sooner or later the people would understand it ; and then, when the Parliament had become wiser, nothing would prevent the King from calling it together again, in case of need. More short-sighted even than the council, the Court regarded the dissolution merely as a deliverance. Whilst the House of Commons was in session, the courtiers were a prey to great uneasiness ; no man dared boldly to push his fortune, or openly to enjoy his credit. The embarrassments of the supreme power trammelled the intrigues, and cast gloom over the festivities, of Wliitehall. The King was anxious, and the Queen intimidated. Wben Parliament was dis- solved, this disquietude and constraint disappeared ; VOL. J. N 178 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST frivolous grandeur recovered its magnificence, and domestic ambition regained its liberty. The Court asked for nothing more ; and cared little to inquire whether, in order to gratify its desires, a change must be effected in the government of the country. The people judged otherwise. The dissolution was, in their eyes, a certain symptom of a deep-laid plot, of a resolute determination, to abolish Parliaments. No sooner had the House of Commons been dissolved, than at Hampton Court, at Wliitehall, and wherever the court was wont to reside, the Papists, whether secret or avowed, the advocates and servants of absolute power, and the men of intrigue and pleasm-e, who pro- fessed indifference to all creeds, mutually congratu- lated themselves upon their triumph; whilst in the Tower, and in the principal prisons of London and the counties, the assertors of public rights, treated at once with contempt and severity, were confined and im- peached for what they had said or done within the inviolable sanctuary of Parliament.^ They claimed their privileges, and demanded to be released on bail ; the judges hesitated to reply ; but, in September, 1629, the King sent a message to the judges, and the requests of the prisoners were refused.^ Their courage did not fail them in these trying circumstances ; most of them refused to confess themselves guilty of any misdeed, ' The members of the House of Commons who were arrested and prosecuted were Denzil Holhs, Sir Miles Hobart, Sir John Ehot, Sir Peter Hayman, John Selden, WiUiam Coriton, Walter Long, WilUam Stroud, and Benjamin Valentine. — i^tate Trials, vol. iii. col. 236. '■^ Parliamentary History, vol. ii. cols. 515, 516. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 179 or to pay the fines to which they were condemned. Tliey preferred to remain in prison. Sir John Eliot was destined to die there. Wliile these proceedings lasted, the public anger continued to increase, and did not fear to manifest itself. It was a sort of prolongation of the Parliament, vanquished and dispersed, but still struggling, before the judges of the land, in the persons of its leaders. The firmness of the accused maintained the ardour of the people, who watched them as tliey passed and repassed from the Tower to Westminster, and accom- panied them with acclamations and good wishes. The visible anxiety of the judges seemed to justify some expectations of victory. " All is lost !" it was said ; and yet men continued to hope and fear, as in the midst of the conflict. But these great trials came to an end. Under the influence of alarm or persuasion, some of the accused paid their flnes, were condemned to live at a distance of at least ten miles from the royal residence, and retired into their counties to conceal their weakness. The noble steadfastness of the others was buried in the depths of dungeons. The people, who neither saw or heard anything further of them, became silent and passive in their turn. The royal power, meeting vdth no more opponents, believed itself master of the country from which it had just consummated its separation. Charles hastened to make peace with France (on the 14th of April, 1629), and with Spain (on the 5th of November, 1680) ; and found himself N 2 180 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST at leno-tli without rivals at home and without foes abroad. For some time, government was easy. The citizens devoted themselves entirely to the advancement of their private interests ; no great question, no violent emotion, any longer agitated the gentry in their comity meetings, the burgesses in their municipal assemblies, the sailors in the seaports, or the apprentices in their workshops. Not that the nation was languishing in apathy ; its activity had merely taken another course ; and it might be said that it was trying to forget, in the occupations of industry, the reverses which the cause of hberty had just sustained. More haughty than ardent, the despotism of Charles interfered but little with it in its new condition ; that prince medi- tated no vast designs, and felt no imperious desu'e to achieve great and perilous glory ; it was enough for him to enjoy his power and rank with befitting majesty. Peace rendered it unnecessary for him to exact heavy sacrifices from the people, and the people devoted themselves to the pursuits of agriculture, commerce, and study, without being daily impeded in their efforts, and endangered in their interests, by the interference of an ambitious and restless tyranny. Public prosperity, therefore, became rapidly developed ; order reigned throughout the nation ; and this florndsh- iiig and regular state of things gave to power the appearance of wisdom, and to the country the appear- ance of content.^ ' Clarendon's Ilistoiy of the Rebellion, vol. i. pp. 1.31 — 1-35. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 181 It was in the vicinity of the throne, and among its immediate servants, that the new troubles of the government originated. As soon as the struggle between the King and people appeared to have termi- nated, two parties began to contend for the mastery of the rising despotism ; the Queen and the ministers the Court and the council. As soon as she arrived in England, the Queen had made no attempt to conceal the ennui with which she was inspired by her new country. Its rehgion, insti- tutions, customs, and language, all displeased her ; she had even, shortly after their union, treated her husband with peevish insolence ; and Charles, driven to extremi- ties by the passionate outbursts of her ill-temper, found himself one day compelled to send back to the Continent some of the servants whom she had brought over with her.' The pleasure of reigning could alone console her for not living in France ; and she reckoned upon enjoying this pleasure to the full, as soon as she ceased to fear the opposition of Parliament. Of an agreeable and lively disposition, she soon acquired over a young King of such exceeding purity of manners as Charles, an ascendancy to which he submitted with a sort of gratitude, as if he were affected by her con- senting to acquiesce in her lot as his wife. But the happiness of domestic life, so dear to the serious cha- racter of Charles, could not satisfy the frivolous, rest- less, and ungentle disposition of Henrietta Maria ; she required an acknowledged empire, an arrogant sway, the ' In July, 16L'(). See the Appendix to Ludlow's Memoirs. 182 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST honour of being informed of everything, of regulating everything — such power, in fine, as a capricious woman longs to exercise. Around her rallied, on one side, the Papists, and on the other, all the frivolous and ambitious intriguers, and the young courtiers who had gone to Paris to learn the secret of pleasing her. All these professed to expect from her alone, the latter their fortune, and the former the triumph, or at least, the dehverance of their faith. It was in her apart- ments that the English Catholics and the emissaries of Rome met to discuss their most secret projects ; and there her favourites paraded the ideas, manners, and fashions of the Continental courts.^ Everything about her was foreign, and offensive to the faith and habits of the country ; every day her adherents revealed designs and pretensions, which could not be satisfied without recom'se to illegal measures or abusive favours. The Queen took a share in these intrigues, promised that they should succeed, exacted compliance from the King, and even required that, to honour her, as she said, in the eyes of the people, he should consult her on every occasion, and do nothing without her con- currence. If the King refused to grant her requests, she angrily accused him of knowing neither how to love her, nor how to reign ; and then Charles, delighted to find her so anxious to maintain his power, or solicitous to be assured of his love, sought only to dissipate her grief or appease her anger. Even the most servile counsellors would have found ' May's Histoiy of the Long Parliament, p. 14. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 183 it difficult to submit unresistingly to this capricious empire. Charles had two who were deficient neither in intelligence nor in independence, and who, though devoted to the preservation of his power, were never- theless desirous of serving him in a different way to that dictated by the whims of a woman and the pre- tensions of a Court. In deserting his party to attach himself to the King, Strafford^ had not been called upon to sacrifice any very settled principles, or basely to betray his con- science. Ambitious and passionate, he had been a patriot out of hatred to Buckingham, from a desire for glory, and in order to give splendid proof of his talents and powers, rather than from any deep and virtuous conviction of duty. To act, to rise, to rule, was his aim, or rather the necessity of his nature. When he entered the service of the Crown, he took its power to heart, as he had previously done the liberties of his country, seriously and proudly — as an able and unyielding minister, not as a trifling and obsequious courtier. Of a mind too vast to confine itself within the narrow cu'cle of domestic intrigues, and of a pride too headstrong to bend to the etiquette of a palace, he devoted himself to public business with ardent zeal, braving all rivalry as he crushed all resistance, eager to extend and consolidate the royal authority, now that it had become his own, but diligent at the same time to restore order, to repress abuses, to set • At this period liis title was Lord Wentwortli, for he was not created Earl of Strafford until the 12th of January, 1640. 184 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST aside those private interests which he judged ille- gitimate, and to serve those general interests of which he felt no dread. Impetuous despot though he was, all love of his country, all care for its prosperity and glory, were not extinct in his heart ; and he understood on what conditions, and by what means, absolute power must be bought. To establish an administration wliich, though arbitrary, should be powerful, consistent, and laborious, disdaining the rights of the people but attentive to promote the public welfare, exempt from all petty abuses and aU useless irregularity, subordi- nating to its will and inspiring with its views the great as well as the small, the Court as well as the nation — this was his aim, the principle which guided his conduct, and the character which he strove to im- press upon the government of the King. Archbishop Laud,' the friend of Strafford, with fewer worldly passions and more disinterested ardour, brought into the council the same aspirations and the same designs. Austere in his manners, and simple in his life, power, whether lie acted as its servant or exercised it himself, inspired him with the most fanatical devo- tion. To prescribe and to punish were in his eyes to establish order; and order always seemed to him identical with justice. His activity was unwearied, but narrow in its range, violent, and harsh. Equally incapable of conciliating interests and respecting rights, he indis- criminately attacked both liberties and abuses, oppos- ing to the latter his stern probity, and to the former a ))liiid animosity; he was abrupt aud irritable with ' He was made Arelibisliop of Cautcrlmry in August, lfj;}3. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 185 courtiers as well as citizens, seeking no friendship, an- ticipating and admitting no resistance — persuaded, in short, that power in pure hands was sufficient for every necessity, and constantly a prey to some fixed idea which swayed him with all the vehemence of passion and all the authority of duty. Such councillors were well suited to the new posi- tion of Charles. Standing aloof from the Court, they were less anxious to please it than to serve their master ; and they had neither the pompous insolence, nor the indolent pretensions of favourites. They were persevering and bold, capable both of labour and devotion. No sooner had the government of Ireland been confided to Strafford than that kingdom, which until then had only been an embarrassment and a burden to the Crown, became a source of wealth and strength. Its pubhc debts were paid ; the revenue, which had formerly been irregularly levied and shame- lessly dilapidated, was now administered in an orderly manner, and soon rose above the expenditure ; the nobles ceased to oppress the people with impunity, and aristocratic or religious factions were no longer allowed to tear each other to pieces in full liberty. The army, which Strafford had found weak, badly clothed, and worse disciplined, was recruited, thoroughly drilled, and properly paid ; so that it ceased to pillage the in- habitants. Favom-ed by order, commerce prospered, manufactures were established, and agriculture made great progress. In a word, Ireland was governed arbitrarily and harshly, often even with odious vio- lence, but in a manner conducive to the advancement 186 HISTOEY OF CHARLES THE FIRST of general civilization and of the royal j^ower — instead of being as formerly a prey to tlie rapacity of revenue officers, and subject to the domination of a selfish and ignorant aristocracy.^ Possessing in England, with regard to civil afiairs, an authority less extensive and less concentrated than that of Strafford in Ireland, and endowed moreover with less ability than his friend, Laud did not fail to pursue an analogous course of conduct. As commis- sioner of the treasury, he not only repressed all dilapi- dations, but he applied himself to gain a thorough knowledge of the different branches of the public revenue, and to devise means by which its collection might be rendered less burdensome to the people. Vexatious hindrances and serious abuses had been in- troduced into the administration of the customs, to the profit of private interests ; Laud listened to the representations of the merchants, employed liis leisure time in conversation with them, made himself ac- quainted with the general interests of commerce, and freed it from such trammels as were of no advantage to the treasury.^ In March, 1636, the office of Lord High Treasurer was given at his suggestion to Juxon,^ Bishop of London, a laborious and moderate man, who put a stop to a host of disorders from which the crown had suffered as much as the citizens. To serve, as he thought, tlie King and the Church, Laud did not ' See Appendix III. for a letter written by Strafford himself, in which the character of his administration is explained. ''■ Clarendon's Life, vol. i. pp. 22 — 30. ^ Born at Chichester, in Sussex, in the year 1582 ; died Archbishop of Canterbury, on the 4th of June, 1663. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 187 scruple to oppress the people and to give the most iniquitous advice ; but when neither King nor Church were in question, he desired to do good, sought after truth, and upheld the right, without any fear for him- self or any regard for other interests. A government of this kind, honest and diligent, but arbitrary and tyrannical if necessary, and void of all idea of responsibility, was not enough to satisfy the country ; but, on the other hand, it was a great deal too much to please the Court. With a Court, favourites have a chance of success ; though they may meet with enemies they also gain partisans, and, in the conflict of personal interests, a clever intriguer may successfully use those whom he serves as a foil to those whom he ofiends. Such had been Buckingham. But whoever desires to govern either despotically or legally, for the general advantage of either prince or people, must ex- pect to incur the hatred of aU mere com'tiers. They directed against Strafibrd and Laud an opposition as violent and more annoying than that ofiered by the nation. On Strafford's first appearance at Wliitehall,^ a mocking smile had greeted the sudden elevation and somewhat unpolished demeanour of the country gentle- man, who was best known as a leader of the opposition in Parliament. The austere manners, theological pe- dantry, and inattentive abruptness of Laud were no less disliked. Both these men were haughty, wanting in deference, and not to be tampered with ; they despised intrigues, counselled economy, and talked of many afiliirs ' Howell's Letters, No. 34 ; Strafford's Letters, vol. i. p. 7'J ; Biogra- phia Britannica, art. " Wentworth." 188 HISTORY 0¥ CHARLES THE FIRST and necessities of which a Court does not care to hear. The Queen held them in aversion, for they limited her influence over the King ; the high aristocracy hated them hecause of tlieir power ; and ere long the entire Court combined with the people to attack them, and joined in every complaint against their tyranny. Charles did not desert them ; he had full confidence in their devotedness and ability ; their ideas were quite in accordance with his own, and he entertained for the fervent piety of Laud a mingled feeling of affection and respect. But, while retaining them in his service, in spite of the Court, Charles was utterly unable to subject the Court to theu' government. Though grave in his sentiments and outward life, his character was really too frivolous and shallow to com- prehend the difficulties of absolute power, and tlie necessity of sacrificing everything to it. Such were, in his eyes, the prerogatives of royalty, that it seemed to him that nothing ought to cost him an effort. In the council, he applied himself to public business with regularity and attention, but when this duty was dis- charged, affairs of State did not occupy his mind to any great extent ; and the necessity of governing had less sway over him than the pleasure of reigning. The good or bad temper of the Queen, the habits of the Court, and the privileges of the officers of the palace, appeared to him important considerations which the political interests of his crown could not require liim to forget. He thus occasioned his ministers a con- tinual succession of petty embarrassments, from wliicli lie made no attempt to extricate them, thinking that AND THE ENGTJSH REVOLUTION. 189 he had discharged his duty towards them, and towards himself, by maintaining them in office. They were intrusted with the exercise of absolute power, and yet they became powerless, whenever they required any domestic sacrifice, or any measure contrary to the forms and usages of Whitehall. During the whole time of his government in Ireland, Strafford was obliged to be continually offering explanations and apologies ; now, he had spoken lightly of the Queen, and now, some influential family complained of his haughty bearing. He was incessantly called upon to justify his language, his manners, or liis character ; to send answers from Dublin to the opinions expressed and the reports spread about him at Whitehall, and he did not always obtain a credence which, by freeing him from anxiety with regard to these hidden dangers, would have enabled him fearlessly to display the authority which was still left him.^ Thus, notwithstanding the energy and zeal of his principal advisers, notwithstanding the tranquil state of the country, and notwithstanding the dignity of the King's bearing and the proud confidence of his language, his government was neither powerful nor respected. Eent by internal dissensions, swayed alter- nately by contrary influences, sometimes arrogantly shaking off the yoke of the laws, and sometimes yield- ing to the most trifling obstacles, its conduct was governed by no fixed plan, and it forgot, at every mo- ment, its own designs. It had abandoned the cause ' Strafford's Letters and Desjiatches, vol i. pp. 128, 1.38, 142, 144; vol. ii. pp. 42, 105, 126. 190 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST of Protestantism on the continent of Europe, and had even forbidden Lord Scudamore, the English ambas- sador at Paris, to attend divine service in the chapel of the Reformers, as it was not considered to be in sufficient conformity with the rites of the Anglican Church.' And yet, in 1631, leave was given to the Marquis of Hamilton to raise a body of six thousand men in Scotland, and to go and fight at their head beneath the banners of Grustavus Adolphus ; for it was not foreseen that they would there imbibe the opinions and creed of those very Pm'itans whom the Church of England so utterly proscribed. The faith of Charles in the reformed religion, as established by Henry YIII. and Elizabeth, was sincere ; and yet, either out of ten- derness to his wife, or from a spirit of moderation and justice, or from an instinctive consciousness of the adaptation of Eomanism to absolute power, he fre- quently granted the Catholics not only a liberty which was then illegal, but an almost openly avowed favour.^ Archbishop Laud, who was quite as sincere as his master, wrote against the Court of Eome, and even preached violent sermons against the rites practised in the Queen's chapel ; and at the same time he showed himself so favourable to the system of the E-omish Church, that the Pope thought himself justified in ofiering him a Cardinal's hat in August, 1633.^ Li the conduct of civil afiairs, the same uncertainty and inconsistency prevailed. No definite plan was to be ' Neal's History of the Pui'itans, vol. ii. p. 234. '"^ Clarendon's History of the EebelHon, vol. i, p. lOl. ^ Laud's Diary, p. 49 ; Whitelocke, p. 18. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 191 discerned — no powerfnl liand made itself felt. Des- potism was pompously paraded, and, when occasion required, rigorously exercised ; but its decisive establish- ment would have necessitated too many efforts, too much perseverance : this was not even contemplated, so that its pretensions daily grew greater than its means. The treasury was administered with order and probity ; the King was not extravagant ; but pecuniary difficulties continued, just as if the King had been guilty of the most lavish prodigality, and the treasury subject to the most extensive peculation ; just as Charles had haughtily refused to yield to Par- liament, in order to obtain from it revenues sufficient to meet his expenses, so he would have thought it a degradation to reduce his expenses to a level with his income.* To maintain the splendour of the throne, to continue the Court festivities, and to keep up the ancient usages of the Crown, were in his eyes condi- tions, rights, and almost duties of royalty ; and though he was sometimes ignorant of the abuses resorted to for the supply of these wants, yet, when he was aware of them, he had not the courage to reform them. Thus, though relieved by peace from all extraordinary burdens, he found it impossible to meet the wants of his government. The commerce of England was in a ' The j)ensions -which, during the reign of Ehzabeth, amounted to 18,000Z., rose, under James I., to 80,000^. ; and in 1626, a little more than a year after the accession of Charles I., they already amounted to 120,000L The expenses of the king's household had, in the same in- terval, increased from 45,000^. to 80,000?. ; those of the wardrobe had doubled, and those of the privy purse tripled. — Jivshnorfh's Hisforiad Collections, vol, i. p. 207. 192 HISTORY OF OHABLKS THE FIRST prosperous condition, and lier merchant Heet, wliich daily grew more numerous and active, urgently soli- cited the protection of the royal navy. Charles con- fidently promised it, and even made, from time to time, serious efforts to keep his word ;' but, generally speaking, the merchantmen sailed without convoy, because the King's vessels had no rigging, and the sailors' wages were in arrear. The Barbary pirates entered the British Channel as far even as the Straits of Dover ; they infested the coasts of Great Britain, disembarked, sacked the villages, and carried off thou- sands of captives. Captain Eainsborough, who was despatched to Morocco, in 1637, to destroy one of their haunts, found there three hundred and seventy slaves, English or Irish ; and such was the impotence or imprudence of the administration, that Strafford was obliged to fit out a ship, at his o\^^l expense, to preserve the port of Dublin itself from their ravages.^ Such glaring incapacity, and the dangers which it entailed, did not escape the observation of experienced men. The foreign ministers resident in London reported it to their masters ; and ere long, notwith- standing the well-known prosperity of England, it became the general opinion in Europe that the go- vernment of Charles was feeble, imprudent, and inse- cure. At Paris, at Madrid, and at the Hague, his ambassadors were more than once treated slightingly ' Warwick'.s Memoirs, p. 157 ; Rushworth, vol. i. part ii. pp. 257, 322. ^ Strafford's Letters, vol. i. pp. 68, 87, 90; vol. ii. pp. 80, 115,118 ; Waller's Poems. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 193 and contemptuously.' Strafford, Laud, and a few otlier members of the council, were not ignorant of the evil, and sought to remedy it. Strafford espe- cially, the boldest and ablest of them all, struggled vigorously against every obstacle : he was alarmed for the future, and was anxious that the King, by regulating liis affairs with consistency and prudence, should assure himself of a fixed revenue, well-provided arsenals, strong fortresses, and an efficient army.^ For his own part, he had not feared to convoke the Par- liament of Ireland, in 1634; and either from the terror which he inspired, or the services which he had rendered the country, he had made it the most tractable as w^ell as the most useful instrument of his power. But Charles forbade him to call it together again; both the Queen and himself dreaded the mere name of Parliament, and the fears of his master alone prevented Strafford from obtaining for tyranny the appearance and support of law. He argued the point for a time, but without success ; and at length he yielded. Energetic himself, he had to yield to weak- ness ; and his foresight was rendered unavaiHng by being placed in the service of the bhnd. Some mem- • The writings of the time — among others, the letters collected by Howell — supply numberless examples of this. I will quote one only : — When Sir Thomas Edmonds went to France, in 1629, to conclude the treaty of peace, the gentleman who was sent to meet him at St. Denis, to conduct him to Paris, said to him jeeringly, "that his Excellency must not think it strange that he had so few French gentlemen to accompany him to the court, as there had been so many killed at the Isle of Rh6," a bitterly-ironical allusion to the utter defeat of the English expedition to that island under the command of the Duke of Buckingham. — Ilmvell's Letters^, p. 225. ^ Straftbrd's Letters, vol. ii. pp. 01, 62, 66. VOL. 1. O 194 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST bers of the council even, who thought as he did, but who were either more selfish, or perceived more clearly the uselessness of their efforts, retired as soon as it became necessary to run risk in supporting him, and left him alone with Laud, exposed to all the intrigues and animosities of the court. When tyranny is thus frivolous and unskilful, it daily needs additional tyranny to maintain it. The despotism of Charles was, if not the most cruel, at least the most iniquitous and abusive that England had ever suffered. Without being able to allege in excuse any public necessity, without dazzling the minds of the people by any great results, in order merely to satisfy base cravings, and to accomplish unmeaning desires, it disregarded and offended the ancient rights as well as the new aspirations of the country — caring neither for the laws nor the opinions of the land, nor even for the concessions and promises of the King liimself ; making trial, at haphazard, and as occasion required, of all kinds of oppression — and in a word, adopting the most foolhardy resolutions and the most illegal mea- sures, not to secure the triumph of a consistent and formidable system, but to sustain, by temporary expe- dients, a power which was always in embarrassment. Shrewd lawyers, incessantly searching old registers in order to discover some instance of a forgotten iniquity, laboriously disinterred the abuses of past times, and erected them into rights of the throne. Immediately, other agents, less learned but more bold, converted these pretended rights into new and real vexations ; and if any opposition were made, servile judges were AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 195 always ready to declare that, in fact, the Crown had formerly possessed such prerogatives. Was the com- plaisance of the judges ever thought uncertain, or was it thought necessary to show a little regard for their reputation? — irregular tribunals, such as the Star Chamber, the Com-t at York,^ and a number of other jurisdictions independent of the common law, were ap- pointed to take their place; and the complicity of illegal magistrates was used in support of tyranny, whenever the servility of legal magistrates was found insufficient. Thus were re-established many taxes which had fallen into desuetude, and others were in- vented which had previously been unknown ; thus re- appeared those innumerable monopolies which had been introduced and abandoned by Elizabeth, revived and abandoned by James I., constantly rejected by Parlia- ment, and temporarily abolished by Charles himself, and which, by granting to contractors or privileged courtiers the exclusive sale of most articles of consump- tion,^ caused the people to suffer, and irritated them still more by the unjust and irregular distribution of ' Instituted by Henry VIIL, in 1537, in consequence of the troubles excited, in the northern counties, by the suppression of the lesser monasteries, for the purpose of admiiaistering justice and maintaining order in those counties, independently of the Courts at Westminster. The jurisdiction of the Northern Court, though at first rather limited, became much more extended and arbitrary during the reigns of James I. and Charles I. ^ Here is a list, though incomj)lete, of the commodities then subject to monopoly : salt, soaj), coal, iron, wine, leather, starch, feathers, cards and dice, felt, lace, tobacco, barrels, beer, distilled liquors, the weighing of hay and straw in London and Westminster, red herrings, butter, potash, linens, paper rags, hops, buttons, catgut, spectacles, combs, saltpetre, gunpowder, &c. o 2 190 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST their profits. The extension of the royal forests, that abuse against which the barons of old England had so often risen in arms, was carried on to such a degree that the forest of Rockingham alone increased from six to sixty miles in circuit ; and at the same time the slightest encroachment of private individuals were narrowly watclied, and punished by enormous fines.* Commissions were sent through the provinces to call in question, here the titles of the possessors of domains which had formerly belonged to the Crown, there the rate of the emoluments attached to certain offices, and elsewhere the right of citizens to build new houses, or that of agriculturists to change their corn-fields into meadow-land ; and their endeavour was not to reform abuses, but to sell their impunity at the highest possible price.^ Privileges and abuses of all kinds were a continual subject of disgraceful bargains between the King and those to whom he granted them. The severity of the judges was even trafficked in : on the slightest pretext, they infficted fines of unprecedented magnitude, which struck terror into those who were liable to be threatened with such prosecutions, and determined them to ransom themselves beforehand by the payment of large sums. It might have been said that the judicial tribunals had no other business than to supply the wants of the prince, or to ruin the adver- ' For an offence of this kind, Lord Salisbury was fined 20,000/. ; Lord Westmoreland 19,000/. ; Sir Christopher Hatton 12,0007. ; Lord New- port 3000/.; and Sir Lewis Watson 40o0/. See Strafford's Letters, vol. ii., p. 117, and Parliamentary History, vol. ii., col. 642. * May's History of the Long Parhament, p. 17 ; Rushworth, vol. ii. part 2, p. 91d. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 197 saries of liis power/ If discontent seemed to prevail in any particular county, so generally as to render it difficult to practise such proceedings, the militia was disarmed, and troops were sent thither, whom the in- habitants were bound, not only to lodge and feed, but also to equip. For not having paid what they did not owe, men were put into prison, and could obtain their liberty only by paying a portion of the amount, which varied according to the fortune, the credit, or the adroitness of the prisoners. Taxes, imprisonments, convictions, severities, and favours, all were arbitrary ; and this arbitrary rule extended every day, over the rich because it brought profit, and over the poor because it involved no danger. Indeed, when complaints be- came so violent as to alarm the courts the magistrates against whom they were raised, purchased impunity in their tm-n. In a fit of insensate despotism, for a few inconsiderate words, Strafibrd had caused Lord Mount- norris to be condemned to death ; and althougli the sentence had not been carried mto execution, the mere report of the trial had excited a general feeling of re- probation against him botli in England and Ireland, and even in the royal council. To appease this feeling, he sent 6000Z. to London, to be distributed among the principal councillors. " I fell upon the right way," wrote Lord Cottington, an old and practised courtier to whom he had intrusted this matter, " which was, to give the money to him that really could do the 1 By adding together the fines inflicted for the King's profit during this period, in the principal Crown prosecutions, we find a sum-total of more than 200,000/. See Appendix IV. 198 HISTORY OV CHARLES THE FIRST business, which was the King himself;"^ and Strafford obtained, at this price, not only exemption from all pursuit, but permission to divide, as he pleased, among his favourites, the spoils of the man whom, at his pleasure, he had caused to be condemned. Such was the effect of Charles's necessities : his fears carried him to far greater excesses. In spite of his presumptuous levity, he sometimes felt himself weak, and sought for support. He made some attempt to restore to the high aristocracy the strength which they had ceased to possess. Under the pretext of prevent- ing dissipation, the country gentlemen received orders to live on their estates ; for their affluence to London was greatly feared.^ The Star Chamber took under its protection the dignity of the nobles. A want of re- S23ect, an inadvertency, a joke, the most trifling acts in which the superiority of their rank and privileges seemed to be lost sight of, were punished with extreme rigour, and always by enormous fines, which were as profitable to the King as to the offended party. ^ The object was to make the courtiers a powerful and re- spected class ; but these attempts were soon given up, either because their futihty was perceived, or because recollections of the ancient barons still inspired the ' Strafford's Letters, vol. i., p. 511. * More than two hundred gentlemen were proceeded against on the same day, the 20th of March, 1035, and by the same indictment, for having disobeyed this injunction. — Ivushworth, vol. i., part ii., p. 288. •' A man named Greville was fined 4000Z. to the king, and as much in damages to Lord Suffolk, for having called him " a base lord ;" and one Pettager was fined 20001., and sentenced to be flogged, for having said the same of the Earl of Kingston. — llushworth, vol. ii., part 2, pp. 43, 72, of Ap})cndix ; Clarendon's Life, vol. i., p. 81. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 199 King with some distrust of their descendants. Several of them, in fact, ranged themselves among the malcon- tents, and these alone had any influence in the country. The simple gentry were still humihated, whenever opportunity offered, before the great lords ; but it had become necessary to seek elsewhere a body wliich, though already strong in itself, had nevertheless much to receive from the Crown, and might, by being admitted to a share of absolute power, contribute efficiently to its support. The Anglican clergy had long soKcited this mission ; they were now called to fulfil it. Originating, as it did, in the sole will of the tem- poral sovereign, the Anglican Church had thereby, as we have seen, lost all independence : it no longer had a divine mission, and had ceased to exist of its own right. Isolated from the people, who did not elect them, and separated from the Pope and the universal Church, which had formerly been their support, the bishops and superior clergy were merely the delegates of the prince, the first of his servants ; a false position for a body whose functions it is to represent that which is most independent and elevated in man — religious faith. At an early period, the Anglican Church had become sensible of tliis defect in its nature ; but the dangers to wliich it had been exposed, and its dread of the strong hands of Henry VIII. and EKzabeth, had prevented it from making any efforts to hberate itself from tlu-aldom. Attacked simultaneously by both CathoHcs and Nonconformists, and firmly established neither in its professions nor in its doctrines, it devoted itself 200 HISTOllY OF CHARLES THE FIRST unreservedly to the service of the temporal power, iickuowledging its own dependence, and admitting the absolute supremacy of the throne, which, at that time, could alone save it from its enemies. Towards the end of the reign of EHzabeth, some few weak and isolated symptoms began to betoken rather loftier pretensions on the part of the Anglican clergy. Dr. Bancroft, chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury, in a sermon preached on the 12th of January, 1588, maintained that episcopacy was not of human institution, that it had been the government of the Chui'ch ever since the apostolic times, and that the bishops held their power not of the temporal sovereign, but of God alone. ^ The new clergy were beginning to think themselves more firmly established, and were attempting a first step towards their emancipation : but the attempt, timidly ventured, was haughtily repulsed. Ehzabeth asserted the plenitude of her spiritual supremacy, repeating to the bishops that they were nothing but by her will; and the Arch- bishop of Canterbury contented himself with saying, that he wished, rather than believed, that the doctor was right. ^ The people sided heartily with the Queen ; their only desire was to carry the Reformation still further, and they well knew that, if the bishops aspired to independence, it was not in order to free faith from temporal authority, but to oppress it by their own power. No decision was arrived at under James I : that ' Neal's History of the Puritans, vol. i., p. 390. * Ibid., p. 397. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 201 selfish and wily monarch cared little to aggravate the evil, provided that he could escape from present danger. He maintained his own supremacy, but granted so much favour to the bishops, took such care to strengthen their authority, and treated their enemies so roughly, that tlieir confidence and power increased every day. While zealously proclaiming the divine right of the throne, they soon began to speak fre- quently of their own ; and the doctrine which Bancroft had timidly insinuated became an opinion openly professed by all the superior clergy, maintained in numerous treatises, and preached from the pulpit of almost every church. Bancroft himself was created Archbishop of Canterbury in December, 1604. Whenever the King made a parade of his prerogative, the clergy bowed with respect ; but after these acts of momentary humility, they resumed their pretensions, exhibiting them chiefly in their deahngs with the people so as to gain excuse more readily from the King, devoting themselves with increasing fervour to the cause of absolute monarchy, and patiently awaiting the day when they would be so necessary to it, that it would be compelled to recognize their independence in order to secure their support. When Charles, after having quarrelled with the Parliament, stood alone in the midst of his kingdom, seeking in every direction for the means of governing, the Anglican clergy believed that this day was come. They had recovered immense wealth, and held it in undisputed possession. The Papists no longer in- spired them with any alarm. The primate of the 202 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST church, Laud, possessed the entire confidence of the King, and had the undivided direction of ecclesiastical afiairs. Among the other ministers, none professed, as Lord Burleigh had done under Elizabeth, to dread and oppose the encroachments of the clergy. The court was either indifferent or secretly papistical. Learned men shed a lustre over the Church. The universities, especially that of Oxford, were devoted to her maxims. One adversary only remained — the people, who daily grew more discontented that the Reformation had been left incomplete, and more ardent to consummate it. But this adversary was also the opponent of the throne; it demanded at the same time, and in order to secure one by the other, both evangelical faith and political hberty. The same peril menaced the sovereignty of the crown and the suj^re- macy of the bishops. The King, who was sincerely pious, manifested a disposition to beheve that he was not the only potentate who held his power from God, and that the authority of the bishops had neither a less lofty origin nor a less sacred character. Never had so many favourable circumstances seemed to com- bme to place the clergy in a position to achieve independence of the crown and dominion over the people. Laud set to work with his accustomed violence. It was first of all necessary to put an end, withui the Church, to all dissent ; and to impart to its doctrine, disciphne, and worship, the force of the strictest uni- formity. He suffered no obstacle to interfere with the accomplishment of this design. Power was concen- AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 203 trated exclusively in tlie hands of the bishops. The Court of High Commission, in which they took cogni- zance of and decided ujDon all matters relating to religion, daily became more harsh and arbitrary in its jurisdiction, its formalities, and the penalties which it inflicted. The complete adoption of the Anglican canons, and the mmute observance of the hturgy or rites employed in the cathedrals, were rigorously en- forced upon all ecclesiastics. The Nonconformists held numerous livings : they were summarily ejected from them. The people thronged to hear their sermons : they were forbidden to preach.^ Driven from their churches, deprived of their incomes, they travelled from town to town teaching and preaching to the faithful, who collected around them, in taverns, private houses, or open fields; but persecution followed and reached them wherever they went. Many wealthy families among the country nobles or prosperous citizens, who held the same opinions as they did, received them into their houses as chaplains, or as tutors for their children ; but persecution penetrated even into the privacy of these families, and drove forth the chaplains or tutors whom they had chosen.^ The proscribed ministers left England, and went into France, Holland, and Grermany, to found churches in conformity with their faith ; but despotism crossed the seas, and requu^ed these churches to adopt the Anglican ritual.^ Many French, Dutch, and German manufacturers had introduced their various branches ' Neal's History of the Puritans, vol. ii., p. 179. ' Ibid., p. 179. ^ Ibid., p. 205. 204 HISTORY OV CHARLES THE FIRST of industry into England, and had obtained charters which secured to them the free exercise of their national worship : these charters were revoked, and most of the foreigners abandoned their adopted country in consequence ; the diocese of Norwich alone lost tliree thousand of these industrious immigrants.^ Thus deprived of every asylum, and stripped of every em- ployment, seeking refuge in flight or concealment, the Nonconformists still wrote to defend or propagate their doctrines : the censorship prohibited the publication of their new books, and sought after and suppressed the old ones.^ It was even absolutely forbidden to treat, either in the pulpit or elsewhere, of those questions regarding which the public mind was in the strongest agitation f for the controversy was general and deep- seated, about dogmas as well as about discipHne, on the mysteries of human destiny as well as on the pro- prieties of public worship ; and the Anglican Church would neither tolerate departure from its ceremonies, nor admit discussion of its opinions. The people grieved that they could no longer listen to the pastors whom they loved, nor hear of those things which en- grossed their thoughts. To quiet their alarms, and to save themselves from being separated from their flocks, many moderate or timid Nonconformist ministers ofiered to submit in part, and demanded in return various concessions, such as not being obliged to wear » Rushworth, part ii., vol. i., p. 272 ; May's History of the Long Par- liament, p. 81 ; Neal's History of the Puritans, vol. ii., p, 232. * Decree of the Star Chamber, 11th July, 1637 ; Ivushworth, part ii., vol. ii., p. 306 ; Neal's History of the Puritans, vol. ii., p. 165. 3 Neal's History of the Puritans, vol. ii., p. 163. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 205 a surplice, or to give to the communion-table the form or position of an altar. They were told in reply, some- times that the practices appointed were important, and it was therefore their duty to obey; and sometimes that they were insignificant, and it therefore became them to yield. Driven to extremities, they resisted absolutely, and insult awaited them, as well as con- demnation, before the Ecclesiastical Court. The treat- ment which they received from the bishops and judges was most disgraceful ; they were insultingly addressed in the second person singular, called fools, idiots, rogues and knaves, and ordered to be silent, whenever they opened their mouths to defend or excuse themselves.^ Even if they renounced preaching, writing, and ap- pearing in public, tyranny did not give up persecuting them ; it proceeded against them with an obstinacy and ingenuity which no foresight could have antici- pated, and no weakness could avert. Mr. Workman, a minister at Gloucester, had asserted that ornaments and pictures in churches were a remnant of idolatry ; he was imprisoned for the assertion. A short time before, the city of Gloucester had granted him an annuity of twenty pounds for life ; the annuity was stopped, and the mayor and other principal officers were prosecuted and condemned to pay a heavy fine for having granted it. On leaving his prison, Workman opened a httle school ; Laud ordered it to be closed. That he might have means of subsistence, the poor minister became a physician; Laud forbade him to » Rushworth, part ii., vol. i., pp. 233, 240 ; Neal's History of the Puritans, vol. i., p. 256. 206 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST practise. Workman went mad, and shortly afterwards died/ Meanwhile the pomps of Catholic worship were stored with all haste in the churches which had thus been deprived of their pastors : whilst persecution scat- tered the flock, the walls of the building were magni- ficently adorned. They were consecrated with much display -^ but in order to fill them with a congregation, it was found necessary to employ force. Laud took pleasure in minutely regulating the details of new ceremonies, sometimes borrowed from Popery, and sometimes invented by his ostentatious though austere imagination. On the part of the Nonconformists, every innovation, even the slightest derogation from the canons or liturgy, was punished as a crime ; and yet Laud was continually innovating mthout consulting anybody, supported only by the King's sanction, and sometimes even acting upon his own sole authority.^ He altered the internal arrangement of churches and the forms of worship ; imperiously prescribed practices which had previously been unknown ; nay, even made changes in that liturgy which Parhaments had sanc- tioned ; and the object, or at least the result, of all these alterations was to render the Church of England more Hke the Church of Pome. The Hberty which the Papists enjoyed, and the hopes which, either from imprudence or policy, they openly manifested, confirmed the people in their most sinister apprehen- sions. Books were published to prove that the doc- ' Neal'a History of the rmitiuis, vol. ii., p. 204. •^ Ibid., p. 190. ■■' Ibid., p. 220. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 207 trine of tlie English bishops might very easily be reconciled to that of the Church of Rome ; and these books, although not authorized, were dedicated either to the King or to Laud, and pubhcly tolerated/ Many theologians, friends of Laud, such as Bishop Montague and Dr. Cosins, professed similar views, and did so with impunity, whilst preachers who were beloved by the people, vainly exhausted all the resources of courage and concession to obtain some liberty to speak and write. Accordingly the behef in the approaching triumph of Popery daily gained credit ; and the cour- tiers, who had the best opportunities of judgmg, shared this behef with the general mass of the nation. The daughter of the Duke of Devonshire became a Catholic. Laud inquired what reasons had induced her to take this step : " I am not fond of being in a crowd," she replied ; "I see that your Grace and many others are on the way to Rome, so I wish to go there alone, and before you." The splendour and exclusive dominion of episcopacy being thus estabhshed, at least as Laud flattered him- self, his next endeavour was to secure its independence. It might have been anticipated, that in such a design he would have found the King less docile to liis coun- sels ; but this was not the case. The divine right of the bishops became, in a short time, the official doc- trine, not only of the superior clergy, but of the King himself. Dr. Hall, Bishop of Exeter, developed it in a treatise which Laud took the trouble to revise, and from which he eliminated every vague or timid plu'ase, ' Whitelocke's Memorials, p. 22. 208 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST every semblance of doubt or concession.' From books, this doctrine soon passed into acts. The bishops held their Ecclesiastical Courts no longer in the name and by- virtue of delegation from the King, but in their own name alone. The episcopal seal alone was affixed to their acts ; a direct oath of conformity was required from the srovernors of the factories abroad : and it was declared that the superintendence of the universities belonged of right to the metropolitan.^ The supremacy of the temporal prince was not formally abolished, but it might have been said that it only subsisted to serve as a veil to usurpations which must eventually destroy it. Wliile thus gradually emancipating itself from the royal control, the Church, at the same time, encroached upon civil affairs : her jurisdiction was extended at the expense of the ordinary tribunals, and never before had so many ecclesiastics held seats in the King's council, or occupied the great offices of State. Now and then the lawyers, whose personal interests were in danger, protested against these encroachments ;^ but Charles paid no attention to their complaints ; and so great was the confidence of Laud, that, when he had obtained for Bishop Juxon the white staff of Lord Treasurer, he exclaimed in a trans]3ort of joy, " Now if the Church will not hold up themselves under God, I can do no "4 more. When matters had reached this pass, the people > Neal's History of the Puritans, vol. ii., p. 292. * Ibid., vol. ii., p. 244 ; Whitelocke's Memorials, p. 22. =* Clarendon's History of the Rebelhou, vol. ii., p. 246 ; Neal's His- tory of the Puritans, vol. ii., p. 24,3. ■• Laud's Diary, p. 53 ; under date of March G, IGiJfi. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 209 were not alone in their irritation. The high nobihty, in part at least, took the alarm. ^ In the assumptions of the Church, they perceived something far worse than mere tyranny — a positive revolution, which, not content with crushing all popular reform, distorted and im- perilled that first Reformation wliich had been effected by the king and adopted by the barons. The latter had learned to proclaim the supremacy and divine right of the throne, which, at least, emancipated them from all other sway ; but now they were called upon to admit with equal readiness the divine right of the bishops, and to humble themselves in their turn before that Church whose abasement they had applauded, and in whose spoils they had shared. They were required to manifest servihty, wliich is even more jealous of its prerogatives than liberty of its rights ; whilst others, hitherto their inferiors, were permitted to assume inde- pendence. They felt that their rank, and perhaps even their property, was in danger. Arrogance on the part of the clergy was an offence to which they had long been unaccustomed ; but now they heard it said that a day would soon come when a simple clerk would be held in as much account as the proudest gentleman in the kingdom \- they saw the bishops and their crea- tures appointed to nearly all public offices, and enjoy- ing nearly all the favours of the crown ; thus usurping the only compensation which had been left to the nobihty in exchange for their ancient splendour, hberties, and power. Charles, moreover, though sincere in his devotion to the clergy, had reckoned upon gain- ' Neal's History of the Puritans, vol. ii., p. 250. ^ Ibid., p. 251. VOL. I. P 210 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST ing by their elevation, a staunch support against the ill will of the people ; but ere long, the disposition to censure the conduct and to suspect the intentions of the government became universal; discontent spread from the workshops of the City to the drawing-rooms of WhitehaU. This discontent was manifested among the higher classes, by a distaste for the court, and a freedom of mind previously unprecedented. Many of the most re- spected of the nobility retired to their estates, wishing to express their disapprobation by their removal from court. In London, and around the throne, a spu'it of independence and inquiry penetrated into societies which had hitherto been characterized only by servility or frivolousness. Since the reign of Elizabeth, a taste for literature and science had ceased to be the exclusive possession of professed students ; the society of distin- guished men of every kind, philosophers, authors, poets, or artists, and the pleasures of witty or scholarly conversation, had been sought after by the court as an additional adornment, and by men of the world as a noble pastime ; but no pohtical opposition was connected with such associations ; it was even the fashion, whether these meetings were held in a famous tavern or in a nobleman's house, to devote them to casting ridicule upon the morose humour and fanatical resistance of the rehgious Nonconformists, already known under the name of Puritans. Festivities, theatrical performances, hterary discussions, an agree- able interchange of flatteries and services, were the only thoughts which occupied the attention of a society AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 211 of which the tlirone was usually the centre, and always the protector. This ceased to be the case in the reign of Charles the First ; meetings of literary men and men of the world continued to be held, but graver questions were treated at them, and discussed far from the ken of power, which would have taken offence at their discussion. Public affairs, religious questions, and problems in moral science, formed the ordinary topics of these conversations ; they were brilliant and animated, and were eagerly attended by young men who had returned from their travels, or who were studying law in the Inns of Court, indeed, by all men of serious and active minds, whose rank or fortune allowed them sufficient leisure. Selden lavished on them the treasures of his erudition ; Chillingworth explained to them his doubts on matters of faith ; Lord Falkland, then a young man, opened to them his house, and his gardens were compared to those of the Academy.^ At these meetings neither sects nor parties were formed, but free and strong opinions. Unfettered by interest, pledged to no design, and drawn together solely by the pleasure of enlarging their ideas by communication, and of mutu- ally inspiring one another with generous sentiments, the men who thus assembled carried on their discus- sions without constraint, and cared only to seek for justice and truth. Some, specially inclining to philo- sophic meditations, busied themselves with inquiring what forms of government best respected the dignity of man ; others, lawyers by profession, allowed no illegal act of the King or his council to pass uncri- ' Clarendon's Life, vol. i., pp. 42-50. p 2 212 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE EIRST ticised ; others, theologians by calling or taste, carefuUy studied the creeds and worship of the first ages of Christianity, and compared them with those of the Church which Laud was endeavouring to establish. They were united neither by common passions and dangers, nor by any very definite principles and objects ; but all agreed and vied with one another in detesting tyranny, in despising the coui't, in regretting the Par- liament, and in longing for a reform wliich they had but sHght expectations of obtaining, but by which each, in the freedom of his mental aspirations, hoped to attain the term of all his sorrows, and the accom- plishment of all his wishes. Further from the court, among men of less elevated condition or less cultivated minds, feehngs were more stern, and ideas more narrow, but more definite. Here, opinions were bound up with interests, and passions with opinions. The anger of the inferior nobility and gentry was directed most especially agamst political tyranny. The decay of the higher aristocracy and of the feudal system had greatly diminished distinctions of rank among gentlemen ; all regarded themselves as descendants of those barons who had extorted the grant of Magna Charta, and were indignant at seeing their rights, persons, and property subjected to the caprice of the King or his advisers, when their ancestors, as they proudly affirmed, had once made war against the sovereign, and dictated to him the law. No philosophical theory, no nice distinction between democracy, aristocracy, and royalty, occupied their minds , the House of Commons alone reigned in AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 213 their thoughts ; in their eyes, it represented the nobi- lity as weU as the people, the ancient coalition of the barons as well as the entire nation ; it alone had, in bygone days, defended public liberties — it alone was capable of regaining them ; it alone was thought of when the Parliament was named, and the legitimacy and necessity of its omnipotence was the idea whicli gradually took firm hold of all minds. With regard to the Church, most of the gentry entertained no sys- tematic views or destructive designs respecting the form of its government; episcopacy inspired them with no repugnance ; but the bishops were odious to them, chiefly as the abettors and supporters of tyranny. The Reformation had proclaimed the emancipation of civil society, and had abolished the usm'pations of the spiritual power in temporal matters. The Anglican clergy wished to resume what Rome had lost. That this ambition should be repressed, that the Pope should have no successors in England, and that the bishops, excluded from the government of the State, should confine themselves to administering the reh- gious affairs of their dioceses, in accordance with the laws of the land — was the general wish of the country nobility, who were not indisposed to approve of the episcopal constitution of the Chm'ch, provided that it assumed neither political power nor divine right. In the towns, the superior class of citizens, and in the country, a very large number of gentlemen, and nearly all the small freehold proprietors, carried their irrita- tion and their views of reform, in religious matters especially, much farther than this. They were swayed 214 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST by a passionate attachment to the Reformation, by an ardent longing to adopt all the consequences of its principles, and by a profound hatred of everything that still retained any resemblance to Popery, or sug- gested recollections of it to their memory. It was beneath the usurpation of the Romish hierarchy, they said, that the primitive Church, with the simphcity of its worship and the pui-ity of its faith, had suc- cumbed. Accordingly, the master-spirits of the Re- formation, the new apostles Zwingle, Calvin, and Knox, had hastened to abohsh that tyrannical constitu- tion with its idolatrous ceremonies. They had taken the Gospel for their rule, and the primitive Church for their model. England alone persisted in walking in the ways of Popery ; was the yoke of the bishops less heavy, their conduct more evangelical, and their pride less arrogant than that of the Romish prelates ? Like them, they cared only to rule and to enrich themselves ; like them, they dreaded frequent preaching, austerity of manners, and liberty of prayer ; Hke them, they aimed at subjecting the aspirations of Christian souls to minute and unchangeable forms ; like them, they substituted the worldly splendour of rites and cere- monies, for the life-giving word of the Lord. If on the sacred day of the Sabbath, true Christians wished to devote themselves, in retirement, to pious exercises, the noise of games and dancing, and the disorders of drunkenness, in every street and square, insulted their devotion And the bishops were not satisfied with permitting the people to indulge in these profane pastimes ; they advised and almost commanded them. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 215 for fear that the people should acquire a taste for holier pleasures.^ Was there, among their flock, a man whose timorous conscience took alarm at some of the practices of the Church? they imperiously enjoined upon him the observance of its most trivial rules : was another attached to the laws? they tormented him with their continual innovations ; the humble they crushed, and they irritated the high-minded to revolt. In everything they exhibited the maxims, practices, and pretensions of the enemies of the true faith. And why was this abandonment of Gospel precepts, this oppression of the most zealous behevers ? To maintain a power which the gospel conferred on no one, and which the first behevers had not known. If the episcopate were abolished ; if the Church, resuming its proper character, were henceforth governed by ministers pos- sessing equal attributes, simple preachers of evangehc doctrines, and regulating in concert, by common deli- beration, the discipline of the Christian community, then it would be truly the Church of Christ ; then there would be no more idolatry, no more tyranny ; and the Reformation, consummated at length, would no longer have to stand in fear of Popery, which now was at the door, ready to invade the house of God, whose keeper seemed to be making ready to give it entrance.^ When the people, in whose breasts, ever since the origin of the Reformation, these thoughts had been ' Neal's History of the Puritans, vol. ii., p. 212 ; Rushworth, part ii., vol. i., pp. 191-196. ^ Rushworth, part iii., vol. i., pp. 172-188. 216 HISTORY or CHARLES THE FIRST darkly fermenting, saw them adopted by a number of rich, respected, and influential men, their own direct and natural patrons, they began to feel a confidence in them and in themselves, which, mthout breaking out into sedition, speedily changed the aspect and con- dition of the country. As early as 1582 and 1616, a few Nonconformists, separating formally from the Anglican Church, had constituted themselves, under the names, afterwards so celebrated, of Brownists and Independents, into small dissenting sects, which re- jected all general government of the Church, and proclaimed the right of each congregation of behevers to regulate its own mode of worship, upon purely republican principles.^ Since that period, several private congregations had been estabhshed on this model, but they were few in number, not rich, and almost as alien to the nation as to the Church. Ex- posed, without any means of defence, to persecution, whenever discovered, these sectaries fled the country, and generally retired to Holland. But soon regretful longings for their native land sprang up to struggle, in their hearts, with the craving for hberty ; and then, communicating by message with the friends whom they had left behind, they arranged to go together in search of a new country, in regions almost unknown, but which at least belonged to England, and wliere Englishmen were the only settlers. The more wealthy sold their property, bought a small vessel, a supply of provisions and implements of husbandry, and, under the guidance of a minister of their faith, went to rejoin ' Neal's History of the Puritans, vol. i., p. 301 ; vol. ii., pp. 42, 92. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 217 their friends in Holland, tlience to proceed with them to North America, where some attempts at colonization were just beginning to be made. It rarely happened that the vessel was large enough to carry all who desired to be passengers. All repaired to the sea-shore, to the place where the sliip lay at anchor ; and there on the sand, under the cliffs, the minister of that part of the congregation which was to remain behind preached a farewell sermon, and the pastor of those about to leave anwered by another sermon ; they prayed long together, embraced each other for the last time before embarking, and, whilst the one party set sail, the others returned sadly home to await, among an mi- sympathising people, the opportunity and means of rejoining their bretlii-en.^ Several successive expe- ditions of this kind took place without any hindrance, on account of the obscurity of the fugitives. But all at once, in 1637, the King perceived that they were becoming numerous and frequent, that wealthy citizens engaged in them, and carried away with them large sums of money ; already it was said, property to the amount of more than twelve milHons had been thus taken out of the country.^ Tyranny then weighed no longer upon a few weak and obscure sectaries alone ; their opinions had spread, and tlieu' sentiments pre- vailed among even those classes which did not share in their opinions. From various causes, the govern- ment had become so odious, that thousands of men, differing in rank, fortune, and design, quitted their ' Neal's History of the Puritans, vol. ii., pp. 110-112. ■' Ibid., p. 186. 218 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST native land. An order in council, issued on the 1st of May, 1C37, prohibited these emigrations.' At that moment, eight vessels, ready to depart, lay at anclior in the Thames : in one of these Pym, Haslerig, Hampden, and Cromwell were abeady embarked.^ They were wrong to fly from tyranny, for the people were beginning to brave it. Discontent had been succeeded by fermentation. Neither the re-establish- ment of legal order, nor even the abolition of episcopal rule, were now the limits of aU men's aims. Under the shadow of the great party which was planning this twofold reform, a host of bolder sects and more audacious opinions had sprung up. On every side, small congregations were detaching themselves from the Church, taking for their distinctive symbol some- times a particular interpretation of some dogma, some- times the rejection of some practice, and very often the destruction of all ecclesiastical government, the absolute independence of believers, and sole reliance on the inspiration of the Holy Spu-it. Passion every- where overcame fear. In spite of Laud's active inqui- sition, sectaries of all sorts met together for worship, in towns, in some cellar ; in the country, under the roof of a barn, or in the midst of a wood. The dreari- ness of the place, the danger and difficulty of meeting, all combined to excite the imagination of both preachers and hearers ; and they spent long hours, and often entire nights, together, in praying and singing, seeking ' Rushwortli, part ii., vol. i., p. 409. ■^ Neal's History of the I'uritans, vol. ii., p. 287 ; Walpole's Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors, vol. i., p. 20G. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 219 the Lord and cursing their enemies. The irrationality of their doctrines, and the small number of their partizans, were of httle importance to the safety and even to the credit of these fanatical associations ; they were sheltered and protected by the general feeling of resentment which had taken hold upon the country. Ere long, and whatever might be their names, creeds, or designs, the confidence of the Nonconformists in public favour became so great that they did not hesitate to distinguish themselves by their dress and manners ; thus professing their opinions under the very eyes of their persecutors. In their black clothes, with their hau' cropped close, and their heads covered with high-crowned and broad-brimmed hats, they were everywhere regarded with respect by the mul- titude, who gave them the name of Saints. Their credit increased to such a degree that, notwithstanding the virulence with which they were persecuted, even hypocrisy declared in their favour. Bankrupt mer- chants, workmen out of employment, men ruined by their debauchery and debts — in a word, all who were desirous to raise themselves in the esteem of the pubKc, assumed the dress, looks, and language of the saints, and at once obtained welcome and protection from the passionate creduhty of the people. "^ In pohtical matters, the effervescence, though less general and less disorderly, continued to extend. Among the inferior classes, in consequence either of their im- proved circumstances or of thek rehgious behef, notions and desires of equality, to wliich they had ' Memoirs of Mrs. Hutchinson, p. 81. 220 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST previous!}^ been strangers, were beginning to circulate. In a higher sphere of society, men of powerful and lofty mind, detesting the Court, despising the impotence of the ancient laws, and yielding with passionate eagerness to their unfettered thoughts, dreamed, in their soHtary studies or in their secret conversations, of simpler and more efficient institutions. Others, agitated by intentions less pure, destitute of all re- ligious faith, cynical in their manners, and thrown by their humour or by chance among the discontented party, aspired to any catastrophe which should give scope to their ambition, or at least emancipate them from all check. Fanaticism and hcentiousness, sin- cerity and hypocrisy, respect and contempt for old institutions, lawful wants and intemperate desires, all concurred to ferment the national anger ; all combined to attack a power whose tyranny animated all classes of men with the same feehngs of hatred, whilst its imprudence and weakness allowed activity and hope to the pettiest factions and the wildest dreams. For some time the King and liis council remained in ignorance of the progress of public indignation ; keeping aloof from the nation, and meeting with no effective resistance, the Government, in spite of its embarrassments, was haughty and self-confident. In order to justify its conduct, it frequently spoke in emphatic language of the bad spirit that was abroad ; but its momentary alarm did not awaken its prudence, and while fearing, it disdained, its enemies. Even the necessity of aggravating its oppressive policy from day to day did not enlighten it ; and it congratulated AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 221 itself on its strength, in proportion as the increasing danger compelled it to act with greater severity. Meanwhile, in 1636, England was inundated with pamphlets against the favour shown to Papists, against the disorderly lives of the courtiers, and most of all, against the tyranny of Laud and the bishops. Al- ready the Star Chamber had more than once severely punished such publications ; but they had never before been so numerous and violent, so widely diffused or so eagerly welcomed. They were distributed in the streets of towns, in the fields of the country ; bold smugglers brought thousands of copies fi'om Holland, and sold them at a great profit; they were even commented upon in the chiu'ches, which Laud had not yet succeeded in completely purging of Puritan preachers. Irritated at the inefficiency of its seve- rities, the Council resolved to act with increased rigour. A lawyer, a minister, and a physician — Prynne, Burton, and Bastvvick — were brought before the Star-Chamber at the same time. The Government wished at first to prosecute them for liigh treason, which would have entailed capital punishment ; but the judges declared that it would be impossible to strain either the law or their writings so far, and the Gro- vernment was obhged to be content with trying them for petty treason or felony.^ The iniquity of the trial was on a par with the barbarity of the sentence. The accused were required to furnish their defence without delay, or else they would be held to have admitted the facts alleged ' Rushworth, part ii., vol. i., p. 324. 222 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST against them. They replied they could not write a defence, for they had been refused paper, pens, and ink. They were supplied with these requisites, and en- joined to get their defence signed hy counsel ; but for several days, admission into the prison was refused to the counsel whom they had chosen. When at length he was admitted into their presence, he refused to sign their defence, as he feared to compromise himself with the court ; and no other barrister would under- take the case. They then requested permission to present their defence signed by themselves. The Court rejected their application, repeating that, with- out a barrister's signature, it would hold the facts to be admitted. " My lords," said Prynne, " you require impossibilities." The Court merely reiterated its former declaration. The trial opened with a brutal insult to one of the prisoners. Four years previously, for another pamplilet, Prynne had been sentenced to lose his ears. " I had thought," said Lord Finch, looking at him, " Mr. Prynne had no ears ; but me- thinks he hath ears." For the better satisfaction of the curiosity of the judges, an usher of the Court was commanded to tm-n up his hair, and show his muti- lated ears ; " upon the sight whereof the lords were displeased they had been formerly no more cut off," and burst into invectives against him. " I hope your honours will not be offended," said Prynne, "pray God give you ears to hear."' They were sentenced to the pillory, to lose their ears, to pay a fine of 5000/. a-piece, and to be im- ' State Trials, vol. iii., cols. 715-717. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 223 prisoned for life. On the clay on wliicli the sentence was executed, the 30th of June, 1637, an immense crowd thronged to the place of punislmient ; the exe- cutioner wished to keep them off; " Let them come, and spare not," said Burton, " that they may learn to suffer." The man was moved, and did not insist.^ " Sir," said a woman to Burton, " by this sermon, God may convert many unto him." He answered, " God is able to do it indeed."^ A young man turned pale as he looked at liini : " Son, son," said Biu'ton to him, " what is the matter, you look so pale ? I have as much comfort as my heart can hold, and if I had need of more, I should have it."^ Every mo- ment the crowd pressed nearer and nearer around the sufferers. Some one gave Bastwick a bunch of flowers ; a bee settled on it : " Do ye not see this poor bee," he said, " she hath found out this very place to suck sweetness from these flowers, and cannot I suck sweet- ness m this very place from Christ."^ " Had we respected our liberties," said Prynne, " we had not stood here at this time : it was for the general good and hberties of you all, that we have now thus far engaged our own liberties in this cause. For did you know how deeply they have intrenched on your liberties, if you knew but into what times you are cast, it would make you look about you, and see how far your liberty doth lawfully extend, and so maintain it. Therefore, Christian people, I beseech you all, stand firm and be zealous for the cause of God and ' state Trials, vol. iii., col. 751. ^ Ibid., col. 753. ^ Ibid., col. 762. * Ibid., col. 751. 224 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST his true religion, to the shedding of your dearest blood, otherwise you will bring yourselves and all your posterities into perpetual bondage and slavery."^ At these words, the place resounded with solemn acclamations. Several months after this, on the 18th of April, 1638, scenes of a similar character occurred around the scaffold, on which, for the same offence, Lilburne was suffering equally cruel treatment. The enthu- siasm of both the victim and the people appeared even more ardent. Tied to a cart's tail, and whipped by the hangman through the streets of Westminster, Lilburne never ceased to exhort the multitude that thronged after liim. When fastened in the pillory, he continued to speak ; he was ordered to be silent, but in vain; he was gagged, but taking pamphlets from his pockets, he threw them among the people, who seized them eagerly ; his hands were then tied. Silent and motionless, the crowd that had listened to him remained to look at him. Some of his judges were at a window, as if curious to see how far his perseverance would carry him ; it tired out their curiosity." As yet the martyrs had been only men of the people ; not one of them was distinguished either by his name, his fortune, or his talents ; several of them, indeed, before their trial, had been held of small account in their professions ; and the opinions which they had maintained were, in many respects, those of the fanatical sects which found most favour with the ' State Trials, vol. iii., cols. 748, 749. * Ibid., cols. 1315-1368. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 225 masses. Proud of their courage, they soon began to accuse the higher classes of weakness and apathy : " Honour," it was said, " that did use to reside in the head, is now, hke the gout, got into the foot."^ This was far from being the case ; the comitry gentlemen and wealthy citizens were no less irritated than the people ; but, with greater prudence and less passion, they were waiting for some great occasion and some well-founded prospect of success. The public outcry roused them to action, and inspired them with con- fidence. Tlie moment had in fact arrived, when the nation, agitated throughout its entire extent, needed nothing but well-known, serious, and influential leaders, who would head the resistance, not as mere sectaries or adventurers, but in the name of the rights and interests of the whole country. John Hampden, a gentleman of Buckinghamshire,^ gave the signal for this national resistance. Before him several had attempted it without success. They had refused to pay the tax known by the name of Ship- money, demanding that the question should be brought before the Court of King's Bench, and that they should be admitted to maintain, in solemn legal process, the unlawfulness of the tax, and the lawfulness of their refusal to pay it ; but the court had always succeeded in eluding such an investigation.^ Hampden obtained it. Although in 162G and 1628, he had sat in Parhament on the Opposition benches, he had not incurred the ' This saying is quoted in a letter from Lord Haughton to Sir Thomas Wentworth, dated May 19, 1627. StrafFord's Letters, vol. i., p. 38. ^ Born in London in the year 1594. ^ Rushworth, part ii., vol, i., pp. 323, 414. VOL. I. Q 226 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST particular suspicion of the court. Since the last dis- solution he had lived quietly, sometimes residing on liis estates, sometimes travelling in England and Scot- land ; everywhere attentively observing the state of men's minds, and forming nuriierous connections, but never making his opinions known by murmurs or complaints. The possessor of a large fortune, he made an honourable but unostentatious use of it ; grave and simple in his manners, but without any affectation of austerity, remarkable even for his affability and the serenity of his temper, he was respected by all liis neighbours, whatever might be their political views, and was regarded as a sensible man opposed to the prevalent system, but neither fanatical nor factious. The magistrates of the county, therefore, though they did not fear him, treated him with the utmost consi- deration. In 1686, on their assessment of the ship- money, they rated liim at the small sum of twenty shillings, intending doubtless to favour him, and hoping also that the moderate amount of the tax would pre- vent so prudent a man from disputing it. Hampden refused to pay, but without uproar or irritation, his sole object being to obtain, in his person, a solemn judgment upon the rights of his country. In prison, his behaviour was equally cahn and reserved, he merely requested to be brought to trial, and pointed out that the King was no less interested than himself in having such a question settled by the laws. The King, full of confidence at having recently^ obtained from the ' On the 14th of February, 1637. Rushworth^ part ii., vol. i., pp. 352-355 ; State Trials, vol. iii., cols. 825-832. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 227 judges a declaration that, in case of urgent necessity, for the safety of the kingdom, ship-money might legally be levied, allowed himself at length to be per- suaded to grant Hampden the honour of fighting the case. Hampden's counsel supported him with as much prudence as he had himself displayed, speaking of the King and his prerogatives with profound respect, avoiding all noisy declamation, and all questionable principles, and relying solely upon the laws and history of the country. One of them, Mr. Holborne, even checked himself several times, begging the Court to pardon the energy of his argument, and to inform him if he overstepped the limits prescribed by law and decorum. Tlie Crown lawyers themselves praised Mr. Hampden for his moderation.' In fine, dmdng the thirteen days that the trial lasted, and amid all the public irritation excited by the case, the fundamental laws of the country were discussed without its being possible to address any charge of passion, or to attri- bute any suspicion of seditious designs, to the de- fenders of the public Hberties.^ On the 12th of June, 1637, Hampden was con- demned ; only four judges voted in his fiwoui*.^ The ' Clarendon's History of tlie Eebellion, vol. i., p. 235. 2 State Trials, vol. iii., cols. 846-1254. 8 These were Sir Humphrey Davenport, Sir John Denham, Sir Richard Hutton, and Sir George Crooke. Contrary to the general assertion, Dr. Lingard states that five judges pronounced in favour of Hampden (History of England, vol. x., p. 33). His error evidently arises from his having counted as two votes, the two opinions given in Hampden's favour by Justice Crooke, which are both inserted in the report of the trial. State Trials, vol. iii., cols. 1127-1181. In 1645, the son of Justice Hutton lost his life at Sherborne, fighting for the royal cause. Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, vol. v., p. 21)3. q2 228 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST King congratulated himself upon this judgment, as a triumphantly decisive sanction of arbitrary power. The people took the same view of it, and hoped nothing further from either the magistrates or the laws ; but Charles was wrong to rejoice, for the people, in losing hope, had regained their courage. Discontent, which had until then been incoherent and various, now became unanimous : gentlemen, citizens, farmers, tradesmen, Presbyterians, sectaries — the whole nation felt itself stricken by this decision.^ The name of Hampden was. in all mouths ; it was uttered everywhere with affection and pride, for his destiny was the type, and his conduct the glory, of his country. The friends and servants of the Court scarcely dared to maintain the legality of their victory. The judges excused themselves, almost confessing their cowardice, in order to obtain forgiveness. Peaceful citizens were sorrow- fully silent ; men of bolder minds openly expressed their indignation, with feelings of secret joy. Ere long, both in London and in the counties, the disaf- fected had found leaders, who met together to form plans for future action. Measures were taken in every direction for acting in concert, and affording mutual support in case of need. In a word, a party sprang into existence which carefully concealed itself, but was publicly avowed by the nation. The King and his council were still rejoicing over their last triumph, when their adversaries had already found an opportu- nity and the means of action. ' Clarendon's History of the Kebellion, vol. i., p. 121 ; May's History of the Long ParHament, p. 84 ; Hacket's Life of Bishop Williams, part ii., p. 127. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 2.29 About a month after the condemnation of Hamp- den, on the 23rd of July, 1637, a violent sedition broke out at Edinburgh. It was occasioned by the arbitrary and sudden introduction of a new liturgy. Ever since his accession, in imitation of his father's example, Charles had never ceased his endeavours to destroy the repubhcan constitution which the Church of Scotland had borrowed from Calvinism, and to re- estabhsh the Scottish episcopate, some shadow of which still subsisted, in all the plenitude of its ancient autlio- rity and splendour. Fraud, severity, menace, and cor- ruption, every means had been employed to obtain success in this design. Despotism had ever proved itself phant and patient ; it had appealed sometimes to the ambition of the clergy, and sometimes to the in- terest of the small landowners, promising the latter an easy ransom from the burden of tithes, and offering to the former the high dignities of the Church and the great offices of State ; proceeding steadily towards its object, but resting satisfied with slow and tortuous progress. From time to time, the alarm of the people became more active, and the national clergy resisted ; their religious meetings were then suspended, and tlie boldest preachers banished. The Parliament, though often servile, sometimes hesitated to do the monarch's bidding ; difficulties were then thrown in the way of the elections, the debates were stifled, and even the votes were falsified.^ In all these struggles the victory invariably remained on the side of the Crown ; and the ' Burnet's History of his Own Time, vol. i., pp. 33-35 ; Malcolm Laing's History of Scotland, vol. iii., pp. 110-112. 230 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST Church of Scotland thus passed by degrees under the yoke of a hierarchy and disciphne ahiiost identical with those of the Church of England, and which gave sanc- tion equally to the absolute power and the divine right of both bishops and King. In 1636 the work seemed almost complete ; the episcopal bench had recovered their jurisdiction. Spottiswood, the Archbishop of St. Andrews, was Chancellor of the kingdom ; Maxwell, the Bishop of Eoss, was on the point of becoming High Treasurer, and of fourteen prelates, nine had seats in the Privy Council, and possessed the preponderance in that assembly.^ Charles and Laud deemed that the time had come for consummating their design by sud- denly imposing upon the Scottish Church, without consulting either the clergy or the people, a canonical code and a form of worship in accordance with its new condition. But the Reformation in Scotland had not, as in England, originated in the will of the Prince and the servility of the Court. Popular in its commencement, it had, by its own inherent strength, and in spite of all obstacles, ascended to the throne, instead of descending from it. No difference of system, posi- tion, or interests, had, from the outset, divided its partizans ; and during the course of a long struggle, they had grown accustomed not only to brave, but also to exercise power. The Scottish preachers could boast of having roused the nation to rebellion, maintained a civil war, detlironed a Queen, and ruled their King ' Clarendon's History of the Kcbellion, vol. i., pp. 152-ir;5 ; Laing's History of Scotland, vol, iii., p. 122. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 231 until the day when, called to occupy a foreign throne, he had escaped from their sway. Strong in this unity, and in the recollection of all these victories, they boldly mingled, in their sermons as in their thoughts, politics with religion, and the affairs of the country with controversies on matters of faith ; and, from the pulpit, they censured the conduct of the ministers of the crown just as freely as they blamed the peccadilloes of their own parisliioners. Under their tuition, the people had learned similar boldness of thought and language ; owing the triumph of the Reformation to themselves alone, they cherished it, not only as their creed, but as the work of their hands. They held as a fundamental maxim the spiritual inde- pendence of the Church, and not the religious supre- macy of the monarch, and beheved themselves sufficiently strong, as well as rightfully entitled, to defend against popery, royalty, and prelacy, that which their unaided efforts had established in spite of all opposition. The preponderance which their kings acquired by their elevation to the throne of England damped their courage for awhile ; and hence the success obtained by James against those Presbyterian doctrines and institutions in which, as simple King of Scotland, he had been forced to acquiesce. Kings easily allow themselves to be deceived by the apparent servility of nations. Because Scotland was intimidated, Charles believed it vanquished. By the aid of his supremacy and of prelacy, he was able, in England, to keep down the popular reformation, which had always been combated with success by his predecessors : he 232 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST thought he would be able to destroy it in Scotland, where it liad reigned supreme, where it alone was legally constituted, and where the supremacy of the throne was acknowledged by the bishops only, who liad scarcely gained a footing in the land, and who possessed no other support than that afforded them by the King. The attempt had an issue which has often, on similar occasions, struck the servants of despotism with asto- nishment and grief: it failed just when its success aj)peared to be certain. The restoration of prelacy, the abolition of ancient laws, the suspension or corruption of political or reli- gious assemblies, everything in fact which could be done out of the sight of the people, had been success- fully accomplished. But as soon as it became necessary to consummate the work by altering the form of public worship — on the very day on which, for the first time, the new liturgy was introduced in the cathedral of Edinbm'gh, — all was overthrown. In a few weeks, a sudden and universal insurrection brought to Edinburgh,' from all parts of the kingdom, an immense multitude, — landowners, farmers, citizens, artizans, and peasants — who came to protest against the innovation with which their mode of worship was threatened, and to support their protest by their presence. They thronged the houses and streets, encamped at the gates and beneath the walls of the city, besieged the hall of the privy council, who vainly sought assistance of the town-council, as it was in the ' Rushworth, part ii., vol. i., p. 404. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 233 same predicament, insulted the bishops when they appeared in pubhc, and finally drew up, in the High Street, an accusation of tyranny and idolatry against them, which was signed by numbers of ministers and gentlemen, and even by several powerful lords. ^ The King, without giving any answer to their complaints, sent orders to the petitioners to withdraw; they obeyed less from submission than from necessity ; and returned, a month afterwards, more numerous than ever. This time, no disorder occurred ; their passion was grave and silent ; the upper classes had engaged in the quarrel ; in a fortnight, a regular organization of the resistance was proposed, adopted, and com- menced operations ; a superior council, elected from the different ranks of citizens, was appointed to carry on the general enterprise, and in every county and every town, subordinate councils executed its instruc- tions. The insurrection had disappeared, but held itself in readiness to reappear at the summons of the government which it had chosen for its guidance. Charles gave an answer at length,^ but it was to confirm the litm-gy, and to forbid the petitioners to assemble, on pain of high treason. The Scottish Council was directed to keep the royal proclamation secret until the moment of its pubhcation. But before it reached Edinbm-gh, the leaders of the insurgents were already acquainted with its contents. They immediately convoked the people to support their re- ' Neal's History of the Puritans, vol. ii., p. 274 ; Laing's History of Scotland, vol. iii,, pp. 136-138. ^ Rushworth, part ii., vol. ii., p. 408. 234 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST presentatives. The Council, to anticipate them, pub- lished the proclamation without delay. At the same moment, and on the very footsteps of the King's heralds, two peers of the realm, the Lords Hume and Lindsay, published and placarded, in the name of their fellow-citizens, a protest which they had signed. Other gentlemen discharged the same office wherever the King's proclamation was read and placarded. Growing daily more excited, more menaced, and more united, the insurgents resolved at length to bind them- selves together by a solemn compact similar to those which, on several occasions since the origin of the Eeformation, Scotland had adopted for the pm-pose of openly and boldly declaring and maintaining her rights, her faith, and her desires. Alexander Henderson, the most influential among the ministers, and Archibald Jolmston, a celebrated lawyer, afterwards Lord War- ristoun, drew up this compact under the popular name of the Covenant ; and it was revised and aj^proved by the Lords Balmerino, Loudoun, and Rothes. In addi- tion to a minute and oft-repeated confession of faith, it contained a formal rejection of the new canons and the new liturgy, and an oath of national union to defend, against all perils, the sovereign, the religion, the laws and the hberties of the country. No sooner was the Covenant proposed than it was received with unani- mous feelings of joy and satisfaction. Messengers, who relieved each other from village to village, con- veyed it with inconceivable rapidity, into the remotest districts of the kingdom, just as the fiery cross used to be carried over the mountains to summon to war all AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 235 the vassals of the same chieftain.^ Gentlemen, minis- ters, citizens, labom-ers, women and children, all assembled in crowds in the public streets and in the places of worship, to swear fidelity to the Covenant. Even the Highlanders, carried away by the national enthusiasm, forgot for a moment their passionate loyalty and bitter animosities, to ally themselves with their country's cause. In less than six weeks, the whole of Scotland was confederated under the law of the Covenant. The government officers, a few thousand Catholics, and the city of Aberdeen, alone refused to take part in the movement. So much boldness astonished Charles. He had been told of insane riots by a vile rabble ; the town-council of Edinburgh had even come forward humbly to solicit his clemency, promising the prompt punisli- ' When a chieftain designed to summon his clan on any sudden and important emergency, he killed a goat, made a cross of some hght wood, seared its extremities in the fire, and then extinguished them in the blood of the animal. This cross was called the Fiery Cross or Cross of Shame, because disobedience to what the symbol implied inferred infamy. It was dehvered to a swift and trusty messenger, who ran full speed with it to the next hamlet, where he presented it to the principal person, with a single word, naming the place of rendezvous. He who received the symbol was bound to send it forward, with equal despatch, to the next village ; and thus it passed, with incredible celerity, through all the district which owed allegiance to the chief, and also among his allies and neighbours, if the danger were common to them. At sight of the fiery cross, every man, from sixteen years old to sixty, capable of bearing arms, was obliged instantly to repair, in his best arms and accoutrements, to the place of rendezvous. He who failed to appear suffered the extremities of fire and sword, which were emblematically denounced by the signal itself. During the civil war of 1745, the fiery cross often made its circuit in Scotland ; and upon one occasion, it passed through the whole district of Breadalbaue, a tract of thirty- two miles, in three houi's. This practice was in vogue among nearly all the ancient Scandinavian nations. 236 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST ment of the factious ; and his Scottish courtiers daily boasted that they should learn, from their correspond- ents, that all was quiet, or nearly so/ Indignant at the powerlessness of his will, he resolved to have re- course to force ; but no means of coercion were in readi- ness : it was therefore necessary to gain time. The Marquis of Hamilton was sent to Scotland, with orders to flatter the rebels with some slight hopes, but neither to pledge the King's word, nor come to any definite arrangement. Twenty thousand Covenanters, who had assembled at Edinburgh for a solemn fast, went out to meet Hamilton ; seven hundred ministers, in their Geneva cloaks, were standing on an eminence by the road-side, singing a psalm as he passed.^ The party were desirous of giving the Marquis an exalted idea of their strength; and Hamilton, as much with a view to save his own credit with his nation as to obey the instructions of his sovereign, was incHned to treat them with respect. But the concessions which he offered were judged insufficient and delusive : a royal Covenant, wliich he attempted to substitute for the popular one, was rejected with derision. After much useless parley, and several journeys between Edinburgh and London, he suddenly received orders from the King to grant all the demands of the insurgents, — the aboli- tion of the canons, the hturgy, and the Court of High Commission ; and to promise them an Assembly of the Kirk and a Parliament, at which all questions should be freely discussed, and in which the bishops ' Clarendon's Histoi-y of the llebellion, vol. i., p. 193. '^ May's History of the Long Parliament, p. 40. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 237 might even be impeached. The Scotch rejoiced, but their joy was mingled with surprise ; and their dis- trust was increased when they noticed the care taken to remove all pretext for the continuance of their con- federation. The General Assembly met at Glasgow : but it soon perceived that Hamilton's only object was to trammel its proceedings, and to introduce nullifying clauses into its acts. Such were, in fact, the instruc- tions which he had received from the King.^ The Assembly, however, continued its work, and was about to bring the bishops to trial when Hamilton suddenly pronounced its dissolution. At the same moment, news arrived that Charles was preparing for war, and that a body of troops, levied in Ireland by the exer- tions of Strafibrd, was on the point of embarking for Scotland.''' Hamilton returned to London ; but the Assembly refused to separate, pursued its deliberations, condemned all the royal innovations, maintained the Covenant, and abohshed episcopacy. Several noblemen who had until then remained aloof, among others the Earl of Argyle, a man of great influence and renowned for his prudence, openly embraced the national cause : Scottish traders crossed the sea to purchase arms and ammunition ; the Covenant was sent to the Scottish troops who were serving on the Continent : and one of their best officers, Alexander Lesley, was invited to return to Scotland, to take the command of the insur- gents in case of need. Finally, in the name of the Scottish people, a declaration was addressed to the * See Appendix V. 2 Strafford's Letters, vol. ii., pp. 233, 278, 279. 238 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST people of England, to acquaint them with the just grievances of their brethren in Christ, and to repel the calumnies with which then- common enemies sought to discredit their cause. The Court received this declaration with ridicule ; the insolence of the insurgents was mentioned with contempt ; and many complaints were made of the annoyance of having to fight them, — for what glory or advantage could accrue from a war with a nation so poor, uncultivated, and obscure ? ^ Although a Scotch- man himself, Charles hoped that the inveterate hatred and contempt of the English for Scotland would neu- tralize the effect of the complaints of the Covenanters upon the public mind. But when nations are united by religious faith, the territorial boundaries which separate them become speedily effaced. In the cause of the Scottish Covenanters, the English malcontents easily recognized their own cause, ■ Secret communica- tions were rapidly established between the two king- doms. The declarations of the insurgents were dis- tributed in every dii-ection ; their grievances, their proceedings, and their hopes, became the topic of popular conversations ; in a short time, they had gained friends and agents in London, in all the counties, in the army, and even at Court. As soon as it was be- lieved that they were firmly resolved to resist, and that public opinion in England appeared to lend them its support, there were not wanting Scottish, and even English, courtiers who, to injure some rival, or to revenge some slight, or to be prepared for all con- ' May's History of the Long Parliament, p. 46. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 239 tingencies, hastened secretly to render them good ser- vice, sometimes by sending them useful information, sometimes by exaggerating their numbers, extolling their discipline, and affecting great anxiety on the King's account because of difficulties or dangers which a little complaisance would easily remove. The royal army which was marching towards Scotland was met on its route by a thousand reports calculated to mti- midate or discourage it ; the general, the Earl of Essex, was advised to be on his guard, to waft for reinforce- ments ; the enemy, it was said, were far superior to him in numbers : they had been seen at such-and-such a place, near the border; they occupied every strong- hold ; even Berwick would be in their hands before he could arrive there. The Earl, a strict and faithful officer, though but little favourable to the designs of the Court, continued his march, entered Berwick with- out obstacle, and soon ascertained that the troops of the insurgents were neither so numerous nor so well prepared as had been stated. But these reports, as eagerly received as they were assiduously diffused, did not the less disturb all minds. ^ The distm-bance in- creased when the King arrived at York. He repaired tliither with extraordinary pomp, still infatuated with ideas of the irresistible ascendancy of the royal majesty, and flattering himself that he would only need to dis- play it, to make the rebels return to their duty. As if to counterbalance that international appeal which Scotland had made to England, he addressed, on his side, an appeal to the nobility of his realm, summoning » Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, vol. i., p. 204. 240 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST them, according to feudal usage, to render liim, on this occasion, the service which he was entitled to claim. The lords and a host of gentlemen flocked to York as to a festival. The city and camp presented the ap- pearance of a court and tournament, but by no means of an army and a war. The vanity of Charles was delighted by all this display ; but intrigue, disorder, and want of discipline prevailed around him.^ The Scots on the border were in familiar intercourse with his soldiers. He wished to exact from the lords an oath that, on no pretext whatever, they would have any communication with the rebels. Lord Brook and Lord Say refused to take the oath, and Charles dared do no more than order them to leave his Court. Lord Holland entered the Scottish territory; but at sight of a body of troops which Lesley had skilfully dis- posed, and which the Earl, without reconnoitring very carefully, considered more numerous than his own, he precipitately retreated.^ General and soldiers, all hesitated to engage in so unpopular a war. The Scotch, who were minutely informed of this state of things, turned it to their advantage. They wrote to the leaders of the army, to Lord Essex, Lord Arundel, and Lord Holland, in modest and flattering terms, expressing their entire confidence in the good feeling of the lords and people of England, and entreating them to intercede with the King to do them justice and restore them to his favour.^ Ere long, sure of 1 Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, vol. i., p. 206. ^ Eushworth, part ii., vol. ii., p. 935. * Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, vol. i., p. 208. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 241 being well supported, they addressed the King himself, with humble respect, though without abandoning any of their pretensions.^ Charles was embarrassed: and his natural sluggishness of disposition made him as prompt to tire of obstacles as he was careless to pre- vent them. Conferences were opened.^ The King was haughty, but anxious to end the matter : the Scots were obstinate, but not insolent. The pride of Charles was satisfied with their humility of speech ; and on the 18th of June, 1G39, by the advice of Laud himself, who was troubled, it is said, at the approach of danger, a pacification was concluded at Berwick, by the terms of which both armies were to be disbanded, and an Assembly and Scottish Parliament to be speedily convoked ; but no clear and precise treaty was made to terminate those differences which had given rise to the war. The war, however, was only deferred, and of this both parties were equally conscious. The Scots, on dismissing their troops, kept the officers on half-pay, and directed them to liold themselves in constant readiness to resume active operations.^ Charles, on his part, had scarcely disbanded his army before he began secretly to levy another. A month after the pacification, he summoned Strafibrd to London, to consult him, he said, regarding some military plans ; and he added, " I have much more, and indeed too much, cause to desire your counsel and attendance for some time ; which I think not fit to express by letter, ' Kushworth, vol. ii., part 2, p. 932. ^ Ibid., p. 940. ^ Whitelocke's Memorials, p. 30. VOL. I. R 242 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST more than this, the Scots Covenant begins to spread too far."^ Strafford hastened to obey the summons. It had long been his most ardent desire to be employed at his master's side, the only post at which his ambi- tion could hope to achieve sufficient power and glory. He returned, resolved to display all his energy against the adversaries of the Crown, speaking of the Scots with profound contempt, asserting that irresolution alone had caused failure hitherto, and yet manifesting so much confidence in the King's firmness that he anticipated to find in it irresistible support. He found the Court agitated by petty intrigues : the Earl of Essex had been treated with coolness, notwithstanding his ex- cellent conduct during the late campaign, and had retired in dudgeon ; the officers mutually accused each other of incapacity or weakness ; the Queen's favourites eagerly profited by the general embarrassment to push their fortunes and ruin their rivals ; the King was melan- choly and despondent.^ Strafford soon felt himself ill at ease, and unable to obtain the adoption of all the measures which he judged necessary, or even to secure the accomplishment of those which had been adopted. The intrigues of the courtiers were turned against him. He was unable to prevent the elevation of one of his personal enemies, Sir Harry Vane, to the rank of Secretary of State, by the Queen's influence.^ The public, who had watched his arrival with anxiety, uncertain of the use which he would make of his ' Strafford's Letters, vol. ii., pp. 281, 372. ^ Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, vol. i., p. 221. ^ Ibid., vol. i., pp. 221-223. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 243 influence, were not long in learning that he advocated the most stringent measures, and pursued him with their maledictions/ Meanwhile, the danger became pressing. A dispute had arisen between the King and the Scots as to the tenor of the treaty of Berwick, of which scarcely any part had been committed to writing, and Charles ordered the burning, by the common hangman, of a paper which, according to the Cove- nanters, expressed its true conditions ; but he was careful to pubhsh nothing himself in disproof of their statement, for, during the negociations, he had allowed them to hope for much that he had no intention of performing.^ Irritated at this breach of faith, and exhorted by their friends in England to trust to no royal professions, the Assembly and Parhament of Scot- land, far from abandoning any of their pretensions, put forward new and still bolder claims. The Parliament demanded that the King should be bound to (convoke it once in every three years, and that the independence of elections and debates should be secured, in order that political Hberty, firmly guaranteed, might watch over the maintenance of the faith.^ The phrases, " encroach- ment on prerogative," " invaded sovereignty," and so forth, now resounded more loudly than ever at Court and in Council. " Were they right served," said Straflbrd, " these fellows should be whipped home into their right wits."* War was resolved upon. But how was it to ' May's History of the Loug Parliament, p. 53. ^ Ibid., p. 52 ; Clareudon's History of the Rebellion, vol. i., p. 223 ; Rushworth, vol. ii., part 2, p. 965 ; Whitelocke, p. 31. ^ Rushworth, vol. ii., part 2, pp. 992-1015. * Strafford's Letters, vol. ii., pp. 138, 158. R 2 244 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST be supported? Wliat new and plausible motives could be given for it to the nation ? The public treasury was empty, the King's private purse was exhausted, and public opinion was already powerful enough to render it expedient, if not to follow its advice, at least to consult it. The desired pretext soon presented itself. Ever since the commencement of the troubles, Cardinal Richeheu, who was dissatisfied with the English Court, at which Spanish influence pre- vailed, had been in communication with the Scots ; he maintained an agent among them, had sent them sup- plies of money and arms, and had promised them more effectual assistance in case of need. A letter of the principal leaders of the Covenanters was intercepted, addressed, Au Roy, and evidently intended for the King of Erance, whose support they sohcited.^ Charles and his Council did not doubt that this appeal to a foreign prince, as it was high treason in the sight of the law, would inspire all England with an indigna- tion equal to their own ; it was enougli, they thought, to convince all minds of the legitimacy of the war. In this confidence, which served to veil the stern pressure of necessity, the convocation of a Parliament was deter- mined on ; and in the meantime, Strafford returned to Ireland, to obtain subsidies and soldiers from the Par- liament of that kingdom also. ' Clarendon's History of the Eebellion, vol. i., p. 228 ; Whitelocke, p. 32. Sec in particular the documents published on this subject by M. Mazure, in the Appendix to his Histoire de la Revolution de 1688, vol. iii., p. 402. They prove conclusively, in opposition to Hume, Laing, and Brodie, that this letter of the Scottish leaders was really sent to the King of France, and reached him, although Charles succeeded in intercepting a co[)y of it. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 245 At the news that a Parliament was convoked, Eng- land was astonished : it had ceased to hope for reform by legal means, and yet that was the only kind of re- form it had ever contemplated. However great its discontent may have been, all violent designs were foreign to the ideas of the nation. The sectaries, the populace in some places, and a few men who were already compromised as leaders of nascent parties, alone nourished darker passions and more extended plans. The public had approved and sustained them in their resistance, but without associating itself with their other projects — without even supposing that they entertained them. Long reverses had led many good citizens to doubt, if not the legitimacy, at least the expediency, of the ardour and obstinacy of recent Par- liaments. They called to mind, without blame, but with regret, the harshness of their language, and the violence of the scenes which had agitated them ; and they determined to use greater prudence in future. Under the influence of this general feeling, the elec- tions returned a House of Commons opposed to the Coui-t, determined to redress public grievances, and containing all the men whose opposition had made them popular, but composed for the most part of peaceable citizens, free from all party pledges, dis- trustful of political passions, secret combinations, and precipitate resolutions, and flattering themselves that they would reform all abuses, without either aHenating the King, or endangering the peace of the country. After a rather long delay, which occasioned some displeasure, the Parliament met. Charles directed the 246 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST letter of the Scots to the King of France to be read to them, enlarged upon the treasonable character of such correspondence, announced liis intention to declare war, and demanded subsidies. The House of Commons paid very httle attention to the letter, and appeared to regard it as an miimportant incident in comparison with the great interests regarding which they had to treat/ The King took offence at the backwardness of the House in resenting this affront ; and the House, on their side, complained of a certain want of respect and etiquette in the treatment of their Speaker, on the occasion of his presentation to the King.- The Coui-t, after passing eleven years without a Parliament, found it difficult to lay aside its disdainful levity ; and not- withstanding its pacific intentions, the House, on assuming its session at Westminster, had very justly assumed the dignity of a public power, wliich, after eleven years of neglect, had been recalled from motives of necessity. The difference ere long became more serious. The King desired that the House should vote subsidies before proceeding to an investigation of griev- ances, promising to allow it to sit afterwards, and to listen favourably to its representations. Long dis- cussions arose on this point ; but they were unaccom- panied with violence, although the sittings of the House were attended with zealous assiduity, and pro- longed to a much later period than usual.^ A few bitter words, wliich escaped from some comparatively ' Parliamentary History, vol. ii., cols. 534, 542, * Ibid., cols. 535, 542. ^ Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, vol. ii., p. 23b. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 247 unknown members, were instantly repressed, and the speeches of several servants of the Crown, who were esteemed for their private virtues, met with a favour- able reception.^ But the House manifested a firm resolution to discuss the grievances of the nation before granting any subsidies. In vain was it told that the war was pressing : it cared little about the war, although, out of respect for the King, it did not openly say so. Charles had recourse to the inter- vention of the House of Peers. They voted that, in their opinion, the grant of subsidies should precede the discussion of grievances, and proposed a conference with the Commons to exhort them to adopt this course of proceeding.^ The Commons agreed to the conference, but voted in their turn, on their return to their House, that the resolution of the Peers was a breach of privi- lege, as they had no right to discuss the question of subsidies until it had been settled in the Commons.^ The party leaders, Pym, Hampden, and St. John, availed themselves of this incident to irritate the House, whose intentions were more moderate than was consistent with either its principles or its position. It became agitated and impatient, restraining its strength, but determined to maintain its right. Time passed on ; the King was brought to believe that tliis Parliament would be as untractable as its pre- decessors. Already irritated, he sent a message to the House, that if it would grant him twelve subsidies, ' Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, vol. i., p. 237. ^ Parliamentary History, vol. ii., col. 560 ; Clarendon, vol. i., p. 238. ' Clarendon, vol. i., p. 238; Parliamentary History, vol. ii., col. 563. 248 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST payable in three years, he would pledge himself never again to levy ship-money without the consent of Par- liament.' The sum appeared enormous: it was more, it was said, than all the money in the kingdom. Be- sides, it was not enough that the King should give up levying ship-money : it was necessary that the ille- gality of that tax should be declared as a principle, both retrospectively and prospectively. However, the House did not wish to break with the King : it was shown that the value of the twelve subsidies did not amount to anything like the sum which had at first been mentioned ; and notwithstanding its repugnance to suspend the examination of national grievances, to prove its loyalty it took the message into consider- tion. It was on the point of deciding that subsidies should be granted, without fixmg the amount, when Sir Harry Vane, the Secretary of State, rose and said that, unless the entire message were admitted, it was not worth while to dehberate, for the King would accept nothing less than that which he had demanded. Herbert, the Solicitor-Greneral, confirmed Vane's state- ment.^ Surprise and anger took possession of the House ; even the most moderate were struck with con- sternation. It was late ; and the debate was adjom-ned to the following day. But on that day, at the moment when the Commons were about to assemble, the King summoned them to the Upper House, and, three weeks after its convocation, the Parliament was dissolved. ' Parliamentary History, vol. ii., cols. 570, 571 ; Clareudon's History of the Rebellion, vol. i. p. 239. * Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, vol. i., p. 239. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 249 An hour after tlie dissolution, Edward Hyde/ after- wards Earl of Clarendon, met St. John, a friend of Hampden, and one of the leaders of the Opposition party. Hyde was melancholy : St. John, on the con- trary, though " he had naturally a great cloud in his face, and was very seldom known to smile," then wore a most cheerful aspect. He asked Hyde, " What troubled him ?" Hyde answered, " That the same that troubled him, he believed, troubled most good men; that in such a time of confasion, so wise a Parliament, which alone could have fomid remedy for it, was so unseasonably dismissed." St. John replied, " That all was well ; and that it must be worse before it could be better ; and that that Parliament could never have done what was necessary to be done."^ On the evening of the same day, Charles was filled with regret ; the disposition of the House had, he said, been falsely represented to him, and Vane had never been authorized by him to state that, unless the twelve subsidies were granted, he would accept nothing. On the following day also, his anxiety continued ; and, calling together a few sensible men, he inquired of them whether the dissolution might not be revoked. This measure was deemed impossible : and Charles re- turned to a despotic course, a Httle more anxious, but just as reckless and haughty as he had been before his attempt to abandon it.^ The urgency of the crisis seemed to restore some ' Bom on the 16tli of February, 1608, at Dinton, in Wiltshire. ^ Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, vol. i. p. 246. ^ Ibid., vol. i., p. 247. 250 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST energy to his ministers, and some success to his mea- sures. Strafford had returned from Ireland, suffering from a violent attack of gout, threatened with a pleu- risy, and utterly unable to move.^ But he had obtained from the Irish Parliament all that he had demanded, subsidies, soldiers, offers, and promises ; and as soon as he was able to leave his bed, he set to work again with liis accustomed vigour and devotedness. In less than three weeks, voluntary contributions, suggested by his example, poured into the Exchequer more than three hundred thousand pounds sterling ; the greater part of which sum was furnished by the Papists.^ To this were added all the vexatious means then in use for raising money, such as forced loans, ship-money, and the sale of monopohes : the issue of base coin was even suggested.^ In the eyes of the King and his servants, necessity excused everything; but necessity is never the limit of tyranny. Charles now recommenced his useless habits of persecution and vengeance against unruly members of Parliament ; Sir Henry Bellasis and Sir John Hotham were imprisoned for their free- dom of speech ; the house and papers of Lord Brooke were searched ; and Mr. Carew was sent to the Tower for having refused to give up the petitions which he had received during the session, as chairman of the Committee appointed to examine them."* All the * Strafford's Letters, vol. ii., p. 403. * Neal's History of the Puritans, vol. ii., p. 290, ^ May's History of the Long Parhament, p. 62 ; Whitelocke's Me- morials, p. 34. * Parliamentary History, vol. ii., col. 584 ; Rushworth, vol. ii., part 2, p. 1196. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 251 clergy were required to swear that they would never consent to any alteration in the government of the Church; and tliis oath terminated by an &c., which occasioned many a smile of distrust and indignation.^ Never had the language of the Court been more harsh and arrogant : some gentlemen of Yorkshire had re- fused to comply with an arbitrary requisition; the Council proposed to prosecute them : "I cannot sufii- ciently wonder," said Strafford, " that my Lords should think of any other satisfaction than sending for them up, and laying them by the heels."^ He knew the extent of the evil better than any one ; but passion in him stifled alike all prudence and all fear : it seemed as though he were striving to communicate to the King, the Council, and the Court, that feverish energy which renders man blind both to liis strength and to his danger. He fell ill again, and was on the very point of death ; but liis bodily weakness only served to increase the violence of his counsels ; and though scarcely able to stand, he set out with the King to join the army which had already been collected on the borders of Scotland, and of which he was to take the command. On his way, he learned that the Scots, taking the offensive, had entered England; and, on arriving at York, he found that they had defeated at Newburn, almost without resistance, the first English troops that • The test of this paragraph is as follows : " I do swear .... that I will never give my consent to alter the government of this Church, by archbishops, bishops, deans, and archdeacons, &c." NeaPs History of the Puritans, vol. ii., p. 302 ; Rushworth, vol. ii., part 2, p. 118G. ^ Strafford's Letters, vol. ii., p. 409. 252 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST had fallen in their way. Neither of these occurrences had been brought to pass by the Scots alone. During the pacification, their commissioners in London had contracted an intimate alliance with the leaders of the disaifected, who had advised them, if the war should recommence, to invade England suddenly, and had pro- mised them the support of a numerous party. A mes- senger was even sent into Scotland, bearing in a hollow staff an engagement, at the foot of which, to inspire the Scots with greater confidence, Lord Saville, the only avowed leader of the plot, had counterfeited the signa- tures of six of the most powerful English nobles. A passionate hatred of Strafford had alone instigated Lord Saville, a man of very contemptible character, to engage in this audacious intrigue ; but there is every reason to believe that more influential and sincere patriots had also taken part in it.' They were under no mistake as to the disposition of the people. Scarcely was the Parliament dissolved, before the general aversion to the war with Scotland was publicly manifested. In London, placards roused the apprentices to rise and tear in pieces Archbishop Laud, the author of so many evils. A furious band attacked his palace, and he was obliged to fly for refuge to Whitehall. St. Paul's Cathedral, where the Court of High Commission held its sittings, was forced by another band, with shouts of " No bishops ! no High Commission !"^ In the counties, violence alone could procure recruits for the ' Burnet's History of his Own Time, vol. i. pp. 48, 49 ; Whitelocke's Memorials, p. 32 ; Hai'dwicke, State Papers, vol. ii. p. 187. ^ Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, vol. i. p. 252 ; Wlutelockc, p. 34. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 253 royal army. To escape enlistment, many maimed themselves, and some even committed suicide ;' those who obeyed unresistingly were insulted in the streets, and treated as cowards by their families and friends. On joining their regiments, they found the same feelings as they had brought. Several officers, sus- pected of Popery, were killed by their soldiers.^ Wlien the army came up with the Scots, the insubordination and murmuring increased ; they saw the Covenant written on their banners, and floating in the air ; they heard the drum calling the troops to divine worship, and the camp resounding, at sunrise, with singing and prayer. At this sight, and on hearing the accounts of the pious ardour and friendly feelings of the Scots towards the Enghsli people, they were moved by turns with sorrow and indignation, cursed the impious war, and felt themselves ah*eady con- quered, for they believed they were fighting against their brethren and their God.^ On reacliing the banks of the Tyne, the Scots, without any demon- strations of hostility, requested permission to cross the river. An English sentinel fired, a few cannon answered the signal, a slight action ensued, the English army dispersed, and Strafford took command of it only to fall back upon York ; leaving the Scots to occupy, unopposed, the country and towns which lay between that city and the frontiers of the two kingdoms.* ' Strafford's Letters, voL ii. p. 351. ^ Rushworth, vol. ii. jmrt 2, pp. 1191-119.5. ^ Heylin's Life of Laud, p. 454. ■* Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, vol. i. pp. 254 — 256 ; Rush- worth, vol. ii. part ii. p. 1236. 254 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST From this time forth, Strafford himself was con- quered. In vain did he endeavour, sometimes by kindness and sometimes by threats, to inspire the troops with other feehngs; his advances to the officers were constrained, and ill concealed his con- tempt or anger, whilst his severities irritated, but did not intimidate, the soldiers. Petitions soon arrived from several counties to beseech the King to make peace. The Lords Howard and Wharton ventured to present one : Strafford had them arrested, convoked a council of war, and proposed that they should be shot in presence of the army as abettors of the revolt. The council remained silent, but at length Hamilton asked Strafford if he was sure of the army. As if struck by a sudden revelation, Strafford turned away his head, and made no answer.' Nevertheless, his indomitable pride still sustained his hopes : " If I may have the countenance and trust of my master," he wrote, "I hope to contain the Scottish here in their due obedience, or if they should stir, to give them such a heat in their clothes, as they never had since their coming forth of Scotland. "^ But Charles, in fact, avoided him already, dreading the energy of his counsels. That unhappy prince had fallen into a state of profound despondency ; every day brought him some fresh proof of his impotence ; money was wanting, and no successful means of levying it re- mained : the soldiers mutinied or deserted in troops : the people were everywhere in agitation, impatient for the catastrophe which they felt was imminent : cor- ' Burnet's History of his Owu Time, vol. i. p. 51. '' Strafford Papers, vol. ii. pp. 325—328. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 255 respondence with the Scots was carried on around the King's person, in his camp, and even in his very household. The Scots, still prudent in their actions and humble in their language, conducted themselves with moderation in the counties which they had invaded, loaded their prisoners with attentions, and renewed on every opportunity their protestations of pacific designs, and of fidelity and devotion to the King ; sure of victory, they demanded only such a peace as could not fail to ratify it. With the word peace, that of Parliament began to be united. At this dreaded name, Charles, seized with fear, determined, by whose advice is not known, to convoke at York the great council of peers of the realm, ^ a feudal assembly which had fallen into desuetude for four centuries, but which formerly, in the days when the Commons were weak, had often alone shared the sovereign power. Without correctly understanding what this assembly was, or what it might prove, it was hoped that it would manifest greater complaisance and regard for the King's honour : and the question was mooted whether it would not be possible for it to vote subsidies without the interference of the Commons.^ But before this great council met, two petitions, one from the city of London,^ and the other signed by twelve peers eminent for their rank and influence/ ' Eushworth, vol. ii. part ii. p. 1257. ^ Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, vol. i. p. 200. ^ Riishwortli, vol. ii. part ii. p. 1263. ■* Ibid, p. 1260; the twelve peers were Lords Essex, Bedford, Hert- ford, Warwick, Bristol, Mulgrave, Say and Seal, Howard, Bolingbroke, Maudeville, Brooke, and Paget. 256 HISTORY OP CHARLES THE FIRST solicited, in express terms, the convocation of a constitutional Parliament. This was enouo-h to overcome the resistance of a King who was no longer able to do anything. In the midst of these un- certainties, Strafford, to satisfy his resentment as much as to justify the wisdom of his advice, had attacked the Scots, and gained some advantage over them ; he was blamed for having compromised the King by this conduct, and received orders to remain quiet in his quarters.^ The peers met, Charles announced to them his intention to convoke a Parliament, and merely requested their advice in treating with the Scots." Negociations were opened. Sixteen peers,^ all inclined to the popular party, were appointed to conduct them. It was at first stipulated that the two armies should remain on foot, and that the King should pay the Scottish troops as well as his own. A loan of two hundred thousand pounds was requested of the city of London for this purpose, and the peers pledged themselves, as well as the Kmg, that it should be properly expended.* After having signed the preliminary articles at Eipon, Charles, anxious to find ' Clarendon's History of the Eebellion, vol. i. p. 280. Lingard and Brodie deny this fact, in reliance on inductions from contemporary official documents ; but their reasons do not appear to me sufficient to rebut the testimony of Clarendon, whose narrative is formal and cir- cumstantial, and who had no motive for disguising the truth in this particular. * Kush worth, vol. ii. part ii. p. 1275. '■' The Lords Bedford, Hertford, Essex, Salisbury, Warwick, Bristol, Holland, Berkshire, Mandeville, Wharton, Paget, Brooke, Pawlet, Howard, Saville, and Dunsmoro. '' Kushworth, vol. ii. part ii. p. 1279. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 257 rest in the Queen's society, from all these causes of embarrassment and disgust, transferred the negociation to London,^ where the Parliament was about to meet. The Scottish Commissioners repaired thither with alacrity, certain of finding powerful allies. The elections were in progress throughout England : the nation engaged in them with the utmost ardour ; the Court, melancholy and dispirited, attempted in vain to exercise some influence over them ; its candidates were feebly sustained, and were almost everywhere rejected; it could not even succeed in procuring the election of Sir Thomas Gardiner, whom the King wished to have for Speaker.^ The meeting of Parhament was fixed for the 3rd of November. Many persons advised Laud to choose another day : that, they said, was a day of evil omen ; for, under Henry VIII., the Par- hament which met on that* day had begim by the ruin of Cardinal Wolsey, and ended by the destruction of the monasteries.^ Laud disregarded these presages, not from confidence, but as if tired of the contest, and abandoning himself, as well as his master, to the chances of a future, which all, whether victors or vanquished, were equally far from foreseeing. ' Rusliworth, vol. ii. part ii. pp. 1286 — 1305. * Clareudou'a History of the Rebellion, vol. i. p. 296 ; Whiteloote p. 36. ^ Whitelocke's Memorials, p. 36. VOL. I. 258 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST BOOK III. OPENING OF PARLIAMENT — ITS ASSUMPTION OF POWER — STATE OF POLI- TICAL AND KELIGIOUS PARTIES — CONCESSIONS MADE BY THE KINO NEGOTIATIONS BETWEEN THE KING AND THE PARLIAMENTARY LEADERS — CONSPIRACY IN THE ARMY — TRIAL AND EXECUTION OF STRAFFORD — THE king's JOURNEY TO SCOTLAND — INSURRECTION IN IRELAND — DEBATE ON THE REMONSTRANCE — THE KING'S RETURN TO LONDON PROGRESS OF THE REVOLUTION — RIOTS — AFFAIR OF THE FIVE MEM- BERS — THE KING LEAVES LONDON — DEPARTURE OF THE QUEEN TO THE CONTINENT — AFFAIR OF THE MILITIA — NEGOTIATIONS — THE KING TAKES UP HIS RESIDENCE AT YORK — BOTH PARTIES PREPARE FOR WAR — THE KING IS REFUSED ADMISSION INTO HULL — VAIN ATTEMPTS AT RECON- CILIATION — FORMATION OF THE TWO ARMIES. On the day appointed, the King opened Parliament. He proceeded to Westminster without pomp, almost without retinue, not on horseback and along the streets, as was customary, but by the Thames, in a plain barge, avoiding the public gaze, like a captive following the triumph of his conqueror. His speecli was vague and embarrassed. He promised the redress of all grievances, but persisted in calling the Scots rebels, and demanding their expulsion from the king- dom, as if the war were still unfinished. The House of Commons listened to him with cold respect. Never, at the opening of a session, had it appeared so nume- AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 259 reus ; never had the countenances of its members worn so proud an aspect in presence of their sovereign.' No sooner had the King left the House, than his servants, who were but few in number, quickly per- ceived, from the tone of the conversations of the various groups of members, that the public irritation far exceeded their utmost apprehensions. The disso- lution of the last Parliament had exasperated even the most moderate men. None now spoke of conciliation or compromise. The time had come, it was said, for putting forth the whole power of the House, and uprooting all abuses so effectually, that there would be no fear of their springing up again. Thus, with strength very unequal, plans equally aspiring found themselves in presence. For eleven years, the King and the Church had proclaimed their absolute and independent sovereignty by divine right; they had made every effort to induce the nation to acquiesce in it, voluntarily or otherwise. Unable to succeed in their purpose, and yet still professing the same maxims, they had come, in their impotence, to seek assistance from an assembly, which, without setting it up as a principle, or ostentatiously displaying it, had also a firm belief in its own sovereignty, and felt itself capable of exercising it. It began by a clear exposition of all its grievances. Each member arrived with a petition from his town or county, which he read to the House, and then, taking it at once as the text of a speech, proposed that ' Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, vol. i. pp. 295 — 298 ; Parlia- mentary History, vol. ii. col. 629. s 2 260 HISTORY or CHAKLES THE FIRST the House, until more effectual lueasures could be adopted, should at least vote that the complaints were legitimate.^ Thus, in a few days, the opinion of every part of the country was made known. Thus were rapidly recapitulated and condemned, all the acts of tyranny from which the nation suffered — monopolies, ship-money, arbitrary arrests, the usurpations of the bishops, the proceedings of the exceptional courts. No opposition was made to these resolutions -^ and, such was the unanimity of feeling on the subject, that many of them were adopted on the motion of men, who soon after became the most intimate confidants of the King.^ Lest these means should be insufficient to bring all abuses to light, more than forty committees were appointed to inquire into existing grievances, and receive the complaints of the people.^ Day after day^ townsmen and farmers came to London on horseback, and in bands, bringing petitions from their town or district.^ Such accusations were everywhere encouraged and invited ; they resounded from the pulpit, and in all places of public resort ; they were eagerly received, whatever might be the source from whence they proceeded, or the form in which they were con- veyed ; and they were admitted wdth equal confidence ' Parliamentary History, vol. ii. cols. 640 — 666 ; Clarendon's History of the Eebellion, vol. i. p. 316 ; Rushworth, part ii. vol. i. p. 21. ''■ Parliamentary History, vol. ii. col. 672. ^ Sir John Colepepper, Lord Falkland, Lord Digby, and others. ■* Rushworth, part ii. vol. i. p. 28 ; Neal's History of the Puritans, vol. ii. p. 318. ' Whitelocke's Memorials, p. 38. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 201 whether tliey arraigned tlie entire government in general terms, or mentioned individuals by name to demand their immediate punishment. The power of the committees was unlimited ; none had the right to oppose them even by silence, and the members of the Privy Council itself were bound to answer their inquiries as to the proceedings of that body.^ With this reprobation of acts was combined the general proscription of their authors. Every agent of the crown, whatever his rank, who had taken part in the execution of objectionable measures, was stig- matised by the name of Delinquent.'^ In every county a list of these delinquents was drawn up. No uniform and definitive punishment was enacted against them ; but they might, at any time, at the pleasure of the House, on the slightest pretext of increased disfavour, be called to the bar of the House, and punished by fines, imprisonment, or confiscation. In examining the elections of its own members, the House declared all who had taken part in any monopoly to be unworthy of a seat in Parliament. Four members were excluded on this ground. Many others were disqualified on some pretext of irregularity, but really without any legal motive, and merely because their opinions were distrusted. Two of the most notorious monopohsts. Sir Henry Mildmay and Mr. Whitaker, were admitted without difficulty ; for they had sworn allegiance to the new power.^ ' Clarendon's Histoiy of the Rebellion, vol. i. p. 314. * Ibid., vol. i. p. 307. ^ Parliamentary History, vol. ii. cols. 651, 656, 707 ; Clarendon's His- tory of the Rebellion, vol. i. p. 308. 262 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST At the appearance of this power — so immense, so unexpected, and so resolute — terror seized on all the servants of the crown, for each had to dread an accusa- tion or an enemy. Por them, danger was everywhere impending, and defence nowhere to be found. The sole desire of the Court was to pass into obHvion ; the King, under the mask of complete inaction, concealed liis sorrow and anxiety ; the judges, trembling for themselves, would not have dared to protect a delin- quent ; the bishops beheld their innovations abolished on every side, without attempting to oppose it ; John Bancroft, Bishop of Oxford, died suddenly from vexa- tion and fear.^ The Presbyterian preachers resumed, without any legal title, their possession of livings and pulpits ; all the dissenting sects publicly recommenced their meetings ; pamphlets of every kind circulated with full liberty ; royal and episcopal despotism, though still existing unmutilated, with its ministers, tribunals, laws and worsliip, was everywhere motionless and impotent.'* Strafford had foreseen this explosion, and besought the King to excuse him from attending Parliament. "He should not," he wrote, "be able to do his Majesty any service there, but should rather be a means to hinder his affairs ; in regard he foresaw that the great envy and ill-will of the Parliament and of the Scots would be bent against him. Whereas, if he kept out of sight, he would not be so much in their ' Rapin's History of England, vol. ix. p. 21. * Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, vol. i. p. 355 ; Neal's History of the Puritans, vol. ii. pp. 320, 342. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 263 minds, as lie should be by showing himself in Parlia- ment ; and if they should fall upon him, he being at a distance, whatsoever they should conclude against him, he might the better avoid, and retire from any danger ; having the hberty of being out of their hands, and to go to Ireland, or to some other place where he might be most serviceable to his Majesty. But if he should put himself into their power by coming up to the Parliament, it was evident that the House of Commons and the Scots, with all their party, would presently fall upon him, and prosecute his destruction." The King answered that " he could not do without his advice in the great transactions wliich were like to be in that Parliament ; and that, as he was King of England, he was able to secure him from any danger, and that the Parliament should not touch one hair of his head."' Strafford still hesitated ; but, upon a second invitation, braving the storm because he could not avoid it, he set out for London, resolved himself to accuse the principal leaders of the Commons before the Upper House, and upon proofs recently obtained, of having instigated and supported the Scottish invasion. Aware of the blow which he intended to strike, P3rm and his friends anticipated it. On the 9th of November, Strafford arrived in London ; on the 1 0th, he was con- fined to his bed by fatigue and fever ; on the 11th, the House of Commons deliberated with closed doors, and, ' Whitelocke's Memorials, p. 37. One would almost suppose that Dr. Lingard was not aware of this passage, for he says (History of Eng- land, vol. X. p. 107) that Strafford's friends alone advised him not to proceed to London, but that, for his own part, he did not hesitate a moment. 264 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST on the motion of Pym, suddenly impeached the Earl of high treason. Lord Falkland alone, although an enemy of Strafford, said that some delay and prelimi- nary inquiry seemed to him to be due both to the gravity of the case and the dignity of the House. But Pym answered that such a delay would probably blast all their hopes, for when Strafford should learn that so many of his enormities were discovered, his conscience would dictate his condemnation ; and so great was his power and credit, he would immediately procm^e the dissolution of the ParHament. " Besides," he con- tinued, " the Commons are not judges, but only accusers ; and it is the province of the peers to deter- mine whether such a complication of enormous crimes, in one person, does not amount to the highest crime known by the law." So saying, he left the House, accompanied by a great number of members, to lay the accusation before the House of Lords.' Strafford was at that time with the King. On hearing the news he hastened at once to the House, where Pym had, however, preceded him. He found the door shut, knocked loudly for admittance, and angrily chid the usher, who hesitated to admit him ; he was advancing up the hall to take his seat, when numerous voices called to him to withdraw. The Earl stopped, looked round him, and obeyed, after a few moments' hesitation. He was recalled an hour afterwards, and ordered to kneel at the bar ; and he was then informed that the Lords had admitted his ' Btate Trials, vol. iii. col. 1.383 ; Clarendon's History of the Bebellion, vol. i. J). 382. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 265 impeacliment, and decided, on the demand of the Commons, that he should be committed to the Tower, He attempted to speak, but the House refused to hear him, and the order for his imprisonment was imme- diately carried into execution.^ The impeachment of Strafford was almost imme- diately succeeded by that of Laud, a man less dreaded, but far more odious. A fanatic as sincere as stern, his conscience reproached him with no crime, and he was filled with astonishment at his prosecution. " Not one man in the House of Commons," he said, " does believe, in his heart, that I am a traitor." The Earl of Essex sharply rebuked him for this language, as insulting to the Commons, who had impeached him. Laud apologised, in great surprise, and demanded to be treated according to the ancient usage of Parlia- ment. Lord Say expressed his indignation that he should presume to dictate to them how they should act. The Archbishop, in confusion, remained silent, unable to comprehend any other passion than his own, and forgetting that he had ever spoken in a similar manner to his enemies.^ Two other ministers, the Lord Keeper Finch and the Secretary of State Windebank, had been no less active agents of the royal tyranny ; but the first, a crafty courtier, had foreseen what was coming, and for three months had applied himself, at his master's expense, to gain the indulgence of the Opposition leaders ; and the other, a man of weak character and ' State Trials, vol. iii. col. 1383. ' Ibid., vol. iv. col. 319. 266 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST mediocre talent, inspired neither fear nor hatred. The House of Commons nevertheless impeached them, but with no angry feeling, and merely in obedience to the public demand. Windebank fled the country. Lord Finch obtained permission to appear before the House, and, in humble but graceful language, made a formal apology. The Opposition party were pleased by tliis, as the first homage paid by a minister to its power : and he was allowed time to withdraw beyond sea. Many of the members were astonished at so unequal a distribution of justice ; but Pym and Hamp- den, like able leaders, did not wish to discourage base- ness on the part of their opponents.^ Accusations were also brought against two bishops, several theolo- gians, and six judges ; but Straflbrd's impeachment was the only one prosecuted with any passionate ardour. A Secret Committee, invested with immense powers, was appointed to scrutinize his whole hfe, and to search out evidence of high treason in his words and actions ; nay, even in the counsels he had given, whether the King had adopted them or not.^ A similar Committee was formed in Ireland, to act as an auxi- liary to that named by the House of Commons. The Scots joined in the work by a virulent declaration, in which they clearly intimated that their army would not leave the kingdom until justice had been done on their most cruel enemy. In the opinion of popular ' Parliamentary History, vol. ii. col. 686 ; Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, vol. i. pp. 310 — 312; May's History of the Long Parliament, pp. 83—86. ^ Clarendon's History of tlio Rebellion, vol. i. p. 336. AND TUB ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 267 hatred and alarm, it did not seem too much that three nations should be thus leagued together to crush a captive.^ Thus delivered from their adversaries, and antici- pating signal vengeance upon the only one they held in dread, the Commons took possession of the govern- ment. They voted subsidies, but of small amount, and merely sufficient to supply the daily necessities of the State.^ Commissioners selected from among their number, and nominated by the bill itself, were alone intrusted with the administration and employment of these supphes. The custom duties, in hke manner, were voted for two months only ; and renewed from time to time.^ To meet the expenditure, revenues more considerable in amount, and more quickly obtain- able, were required. The House borrowed large sums, but in its own name, and on the sole guarantee of its promise, from its partizans in the City, and even from its own members ; and thus pubHc credit originated.'* The Eling urged the dismissal of both armies, especially of the Scots, on the ground that their maintenance was a heavy burden to the northern counties ; but the House had need of them,* and felt itself justified in imposing this charge on the people. " We cannot yet spare the Scots," said Mr. Strode, plainly, in the * Clarendon's History of the Eebellion, vol. i. p. 376. The trial of Strafford forms the eighth volume of Rush worth's CoUectious, to which I here refer, once for aU * Parliamentary History, vol. ii. col. 701. ^ Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, vol. i. p. 364. * Ibid., vol. i. p. 361. * BaiUie's Letters, vol. i. p. 420. 268 iiisTor.T OF ciiart.es the first House, " the sons of Zeruiah are still too strongs for us." The King's suggestions were eluded ; and in the division of the sums allowed for the payment of the army, greater favour was shown to the Scottish than to the English troops, whose officers did not all inspire Parliament with the same confidence.^ Some of them took offence at this ; but the House paid no attention to their complaints. More than this, it voted that the Scotch had lent the English brotherly assist- ance, that they should thenceforward be called brethren, and that a sum of thirty thousand pounds should be bestowed on them, as an indemnity and reward for their services. The negociations for a definitive peace with Scotland were conducted far more really by a Committee of Parliament than by the King's Privy Council. The leaders of both Houses, especially those of the Commons, dined together every day, at their own expense, at Mr. Pym's house ; there they were joined by the Scottish Commissioners, by the authors of the principal petitions, and by the most important men in the City; and there were discussed all the affairs of both Houses and of the State. ^ Such was the concentration of all powers in the Parliament, that the advisers of the Crown, incapable o? afraid to decide the slightest question on their own authority, referred to it on all occasions, without giving it the trouble to assert its right to be thus consulted. A Catholic priest, named Goodman, had been condemned to death ; the King, who did not dare to pardon him, ' Whitclocke, p. 4.'5. * Clarendon's Life, vol. i. p. 90. AND THE ENCUSII REVOI>UTIO.V. 269 placed his life at the disposal of the Commons, as the only means of saving him ; for, notwithstanding their passionate enthusiasm, they manifested no desire to shed blood. ^ The people had imbibed a strong dis- like to the Queen's mother, Marie de Medicis, then a refugee in London ; the mob daily surrounded her house, and loaded her with insults and menaces. Ap- plication was made to the Commons as to whether she could remain in England, and what measures should be taken for her protection. They replied that it would be better for her to leave the country, and voted ten thousand pounds for her travelling expenses ; and their wish was at once complied with.^ The decrees of the law courts, pronounced and executed long pre- viously, fell under their jurisdiction, as did also the private affairs of the King and his Court. The con- demnation of Prynne, Burton, Bastwick, Leighton, and Lilburne was declared illegal, and their hberation from prison ordained,^ together with a large indem- nity, which, however, they never received ; — the com- mon fate of past merits, which are quickly effaced by new deserts and new necessities. The public joy was their sole recompense : at the news of their return, an immense crowd went out to meet them; the streets through which they passed, were hung with flags, and strewed with branches of rosemary and laurel.'* Tlie ' Parliamentary History, vol. ii. cols. 710, 713, 715; State Trials, vol. iv. cols. 59—63. ^ Parliamentary History, vol. ii. cols. 788, 793 ; May's History of the Long Parliament, p. 107. ^ Parliamentary History, vol. ii. cols. 639, 731. * May's Histor}- of the Long Parliament, p. 80; Whitelocke, p. 39. 270 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST transports of the people, and the despondency of the King, all combined to urge the Commons to assume to themselves the reins of government, — all concurred to elevate them to the supreme power. Their first attempt at the reform of popular insti- tutions proclaimed, if not their sovereignty, at least their complete independence. A bill was brought forward which prescribed the calling of a new Par- liament, at least once in every three years. If the king neglected to convoke it, twelve peers, assembled at Westminster, might summon it without his con- currence : and in default of this summons from the peers, the sheriffs and municipal ofiicers were bound to proceed to the elections. If the sheriffs did not dis- charge their duty, the citizens had a right to assemble and elect their representatives. No Parliament could be dissolved or adjourned, without the consent of both Houses, until fifty days after its meeting; and the definitive choice of their Speakers was vested in the Houses alone. ^ At the first mention of this biQ, the King broke the silence which he had until then main- tained. Summoning the two Houses to Whitehall, he thus addressed them : " I like to have often Par- liaments ; for I ingenuously confess that frequent Par- liaments are the best means to preserve that right understanding between me and my subjects, which I so earnestly desire. But to give power to sheriffs and constables, and I know not whom, to do my office — that I cannot yield unto."~ In these words, the ' Rusliworth, part iii. vol. i. p. 189. ' Parliamentary History, vol. ii. cols 710 — 712. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 271 Houses saw only a new motive for pressing the adop- tion of the bill ; none dared counsel the King to refuse it ; so he resigned himself to his fate, but thought it due to his dignity to give full expression to his dis- pleasure. ** I do not know," he said, " for what you can ask that I can hereafter make any question to yield unto you; therefore I mention this, to showmito you the sense that I have of this bill, and the obhga- tion, as I may say, that you have to me for it. Hitherto, to speak freely, I have had no great en- couragement to do it ; for you have gone on in that which concerns yourselves to amend, and not those things that merely concern the strength of this king- dom, neither for the State, nor for my own particular. You have taken the Government almost in pieces, and I may say, it is almost off its hinges. A skilful watchmaker, to make clean his watch, will take it asunder, and when it is put together again, it will go all the better, so that he leave not one pin of it. Now as I have done all on my part, you know what to do on yours."^ The Houses voted thanks to the King, and at once pursued their plans of reform by demanding, in suc- cessive motions, the abolition of the Star Chamber, of the Court of the North, of the Ecclesiastical Court of High Commission, and of all the exceptional tribunals.^ No opposition was made to these proposals ; the statement of grievances rendered even discussion un- necessary. Even the men who were beginning to fear ' Parliamentary History, vol. ii. cols. 716, 717. ' Ibid., vol. ii. cols. 717, 722, 766. 272 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST some disorderly movement, and to suspect the ulterior designs of the Opposition party, would not have ven- tured to defend powers which were rendered odious by their acts, and were really illegitimate, although several of them were invested with legal existence. Political reform was an unanimous wish, independent of all social conditions and all religious opinions ; and as yet no one cared scrupulously to estimate either its consequences or its extent. All concurred in demand- ing it, without analyzing either their intentions or their motives. Men of hold mind, or of long and per- severing foresight, or who were already seriously com- promised by proceedings which the laws condemned — Hampden, Pym, HoUis, and Stapleton — meditated de- priving the Crown of its injurious preponderance, trans- ferring the government to the House of Commons, and fixing it there irremovably. This, in their eyes, was the country's right, and the only real guarantee both to the people and to themselves. But, urged on this design even more by necessity than by any principle clearly conceived and avowed by public opinion, they advanced without proclaiming their intention. In their train, impetuous sectaries — few in number, and ob- scure as yet, though very active, Cromwell and Henry Martyn among others, — let fall, from time to time, words of more threatening import against the person of the King or the form of the Government ; but they seemed to possess, in the House at least, neither reputa- tion nor influence ; and even those who were astonished or irritated by their cynical violence, were not alarmed. Most men llaltored themselves that, after the destruc- AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 273 tion of abuses, they would return to that condition which they called that of Old England, with the supe- rior power of the King restrained within the limits of the law by the periodic power of the two Houses ; and in the meanwhile they accepted, as a temporary necessity, the almost exclusive domination of the Com- mons, which was more conformable than they them- selves believed to the somewhat confused ideas and feelings which animated them. Thus political reform, desired by all with equal ardour, though with very diiferent views and aspirations, was accomplished with the ascendancy of an irresistible unanimity. In religious matters it was otherwise. From the very outset an utter diversity of opinions and wishes on tliis subject became evident. A petition from the city of London, signed by fifteen thousand persons, demanded the entire abolition of episcopacy.* Almost at the same moment, seven hundred clergymen limited themselves to requiring a reform of the temporal power of the bishops, of their despotism in the Church, and of the mal-administration of its revenues ; and soon after, there arrived, from various counties, nine- teen petitions, signed, it is said, by more than a hun- dred thousand persons, and recommending the main- tenance of episcopal government.^ In the Parhament itself, the same dissidence was manifest. The petition from the City was admitted only with great difficulty by the Commons, after a violent debate.^ A bill was ' Rushworth, part iii. vol. i. p. 93. ' Neal's History of the Puritans, vol. ii. p. 356. ' Baillie's Letters, vol. i. p. 244 ; Clarendon's History of the Rebel- lion, vol. i. p. 356. VOL. I. T 274 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST brought forward to declare ecclesiastics incapable of discharging any civil office, thus excluding the bishops from the House of Lords ; but, in order to obtain its adoption by the Commons, the Presbyterian party were obliged to promise that it should be carried no further. On these terms only could Hampden obtain the vote of Lord Falkland ;^ but the bill, on reaching the Peers, was nevertheless rejected.^ Furious at this defeat, the Presbyterians suddenly demanded the destruction of all bishoj)rics, deaneries and chapters f but they met with such strenuous resistance, that they determined to postpone their motion. At one tune both Houses seemed agreed to repress the disorders which were introduced on all sides into the celebration of pubhc worship, and to maintain its legal forms ;^ but, two days afterwards, their dissensions broke out afresh. On their sole authority, and without even informing the Lords, the Commons sent commissioners into the counties to remove suddenly from the churches all images, altars, crucifixes, and other relics of idolatry -^ and these envoys sanctioned by their presence those popular passions whose outbreak had preceded them. The Lords, on their side, finding that the sect of Independents had publicly resumed their meetings, summoned their leaders to its bar, and rej)roved them, though but timidly.*^ No opinion, no intention, on ' Clareudou's History of the Rebellion, vol. i. p. 41.3. - Parliamentary History, vol. ii. cols. 794 — 814. ^ Ibid., vol. ii. col. 814 ; Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, vol. i. p. 416. * Ncal's History of the Puritans, vol. ii. p. 303. 5 Ibid., vol. ii. p. 343. "^ Ibid., vol. ii. p. 342. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 275 this subject, was really predominant or national. Among the partizans of episcopacy some, few in num- ber, but animated by the energy of faith or the ob- stinacy of personal interest, maintained its pretensions to Divine right ; others, regarding it as a human insti- tution, judged it an essential adjunct of monarchy, and thought the throne was compromised if the power of the bishops was seriously attacked ; while others — and these were the most numerous — would willingly have excluded the bishops from any participation in public affairs, but maintained them at the head of the Church, as tradition, the laws, and state policy seemed to require. In the opposite party, opinions were no less diverse ; some were attached to epis- copacy by habit, although their convictions were un- favourable to it. In the view of many, and those the most enlightened, no Church constitution was either based on Divine right or absolutely legitimate. It might be varied to suit times and places. The Par- liament was always competent to alter it, and the public interest ought alone to decide the fate of epis- copacy, which no great principle required them either to abolish or maintain. But the Presbyterian body and their ministers regarded the episcopal system as an idolatry condemned by the Grospel as the foster- child and precursor of Popery. They rejected, with all the indignation of ardent faith, its liturgy, the forms of its worship, and even its remotest conse- quences, and claimed for the republican constitution of the Church, the Divine right which the bishops had unlawfully usurped. x2 270 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST For some time after the first successes had been achieved in poHtical reform, these dissensions impeded the progress of ParKament. As soon as rehgious ques- tions were brought under discussion, the adversaries of the Court, who had until then been unanimous, became divided, and even violent opponents of one another ; the majority often varied ; and no party ever appeared which was on all occasions animated by the same spirit, devoted to the same objects, and able to master all opposition. P3rin and Hampden, the principal leaders of the political party, carefully humoured the Presbyterians, and supported even their boldest propo- sitions. It was, however, well known that they did not share in their fanatical passions, that they had it more at heart to reduce the temporal power of the bishops than to change the constitution of the Church,' and that, in the Upper House, among the most popular peers, episcopacy had numerous partizans. Some pru- dent men advised the King to turn these secret dis- sensions to account, and to prevent a union between the political and religious reformers, by boldly intrusting to the first the direction of the afiau's of the Crown and State. Negociations were accordingly commenced. The Mar- quis of Hamilton, ever most ready to interpose between parties, was the most active agent in the transaction. The Earl of Bedford, a moderate man, influential in the Upper House, and greatly esteemed by the public at large, took a dignified share in the matter. The leaders of both Plouses often assembled at his resi- ' Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, vol. i. p. 410. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 277 dence ; he possessed their confidence, and seemed authorized to treat in their name. The King, who was obHged to give a fuller consent than he could have wished, formed at first a new privy council :' Lords Bedford, Essex, Warwick, Saye, Kimbolton, and others of the same stamp, were appointed mem- bers of it ; all of them were popular, and some of them zealous adherents of the Opposition, but all were of high rank. The pride of Charles, wounded already by having to bend before them, could not bring itself to make a more humble confession of his defeat. But the reformers insisted ; the new councillors would not separate from their friends ; every day revealed to the King the importance of those leaders of the Commons for whom he felt such bitter disdain. They, on their side, without rejecting these overtures, showed but little anxiety to accept them ; and this was less from indifference than embarrassment. By accepting them, they would attain the principal object of their efforts ; they would enter, in the name of the country, upon the legal possession of power, would impose a ministry on the Crown, and subject it to the counsels of Parlia- ment. But they were required, on the other hand, to save Strafford and the Church ; in other words, to set at liberty their most formidable enemy, and to offend the Presbyterians, their warmest friends. On both sides the perplexity was great, and mutual distrust abeady had taken too deep root to yield so quickly to ambition or fear. More direct and precise propositions ' Clarendou's History of the Rebellion, vol. i. p. 341. 278 HISTORY or charles the first were, however, made. Pym was to be Chancellor of the Exchequer; Hampden, tutor to the Prince of Wales ; HoUis, a Secretary of State ; and St. John was at once created Solicitor-General. The Earl of Bedford, with the title of Lord Treasurer, was to be at the head of the new ministry. The men who occupied these posts had tendered or already given in their resignation.^ But during these negociations, which were pursued on both sides with but little hope, and perhaps also without any strong desire for success, other proposi- tions were made to the King, which were far better calculated to please him. Discontent was spreading in the army ; and several officers, who were members of the House of Commons, had given open expression to it. One of them. Commissary Wilmot, plainly told the House, " That if such papers of the Scots could procure moneys, he doubted not but the officers of the English would soon do the like."^ A report of the existence of this feeling soon reached the ears of the Queen ; Henry Jermyn, her favourite, connected himself with the malcontents ; by his means she was enabled to receive them at Whitehall, and expressed her deep sympathy with their condition, which, she said, was the same, though far less painful, far less perilous, than that of the King. Animated and pleasing in her manners, and resting her hopes on them alone, she had ' Clarendon's History of the Ecbellion, vol. i. pp. 369 — 372 ; Whitc- locke, p. 41 ; Sidnc}' Papers, vol. ii. ■ [>. CiG4, G66. '■' Whitelocke, p. 4fi. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 279 little difficulty in persuading them that they held in their hands the destiny of the State. Secret confer- ences were established, at which plans of all sorts were suggested ; some proposed that the army should march upon Loftdon, and without further delay, deliver the King from servitude; others, more prudent, merely proposed that it should address to both Houses a peti- tion expressing its devotedness to the King and Church, declaring its opinion that the State had been sufficiently reformed, and demanding that a stop should be put to further innovations. The question of suc- cour from abroad, of levies in France and Portugal, was also mooted ; but such absurd notions produced no result, though hazarded with the utmost confidence by frivolous men, who had probably just risen from the dinner-table, or who were certainly more anxious to push themselves forward than to gain success for their cause. These interviews were accompanied by in- trigues, more active than efficacious, in the army itself; the malcontents went and came between the camp and London ; short pamphlets were circulated in the can- tonments. The King himself at length had an inter- view with Percy, a brother of the Earl of Northumber- land, and one of the conspfrators. In accordance with Percy's advice, he deprecated all violent designs, or any attempt to bring the army to London ; but a draft of a petition was submitted to him, fully as menacing to the Parliament as those which the Commons daily received were to the Crown and Church. He approved of it liighly, and, to give additional influence to the leaders of the enterprise, allowed himself to be per- 280 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST suaded to affix to it the initial letters of his name, in token of assent.^ The plot continued, but made no progress ; the peti- tion was not presented; but nothing can escape the notice of a distrustful nation, for it looks upoft designs as actions, and upon words as designs. In the pubHc streets, and in the taverns, a host of voluntary spies had noticed the imprudent remarks of the officers. Pym, who attended to the police of his party, was speedily informed of them. Soon after, treachery sup- pHed him with further information ; Goring, one of the conspirators, revealed the whole plot to the Earl of Bedford. Nothing had been done ; but the King had listened to proposals which embodied all that the reformers had to fear. The leaders of the Commons kept silence as to their discovery, waiting for some great occasion in order to turn it to account;^ they did not even break off the negotiations, which were still pursued on the King's behalf, for their entrance into the ministry. But, from tliis day forth, all hesi- ' May's History of the Long Parliament, p. 96 ; Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, vol. i. p. 405 ; Whitelocke, p. 46 ; Rushworth, pai-t iii. vol. i. pp. 252—257. ^ Mr. Brodie denies this {History of the British Empire, vol. iii. pp. 109 — 114), and thinks that the plot was not revealed by Goring until the month of April, 1641. This, in fact, would appear to be indi- cated by the depositions and examinations published in /fiishiduVs Col- lection (pp. 195 ct scq.). But an attentive examination of this whole in- trigue, and a comjjarison of the different passages indicated in the pre- ceding note, will, I think, prove that the meetings of the officers took place as early as the beginning of the winter of 1C41, and that Pym and his friends were informed of the plot in the early part of Mai'ch. This is also the opinion of Dr. Lingard (llistor// i>f EwjlanO^ vol. x. p. 128, note 27). AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 281 tation disappeared from their councils ; they allied themselves closely with the fanatical Presbyterians, the only party whose support was certain, and whose devotion inexhaustible, because they alone had fixed principles, ardent passions, a revolution to effect, and popular force for its accomplishment. At the same time, the destruction of Strafford was irrevocably deter-. mined upon, and his trial began. The entire House of Commons determined to be present to support the impeachment. Commissioners from Scotland and Ireland sat with them, for the same purpose. Eighty peers attended as judges ; the bishops, in obedience to the urgently-expressed wish of the Commons, absented themselves, on the ground that they were forbidden by the ancient canons to assist in trials for life. Above the peers, in a close gallery, the King and Queen were seated, anxiously watching the whole proceedings, and studiously con- ceahng, the one his anguish, and the other her curi- osity. The galleries and raised scaffolds were thronged by a dense crowd of persons of both sexes, mostly of high rank, filled with emotion at once by the pomp of the spectacle, the importance of the cause, and the interest excited by the well-known character of the person accused.^ On being brought by water from the Tower to Westminster, Strafford passed through the multitude assembled at the doors of the HaU without experiencing either confusion or insult : in spite of the general ' May's History of the Long Pai'liameut, p. 90 ; State Trials, vol. iii. col. 1414; Kush worth, vol. viii.2^(ws7. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 293 take ship and return to France, and had already begun her preparations for departure.' Moved by the tears of his wife, and incapable of adopting an independent resolution, Charles first assembled a privy council, and then consulted the bishops. Juxon, the Bishop of London, alone exhorted him to obey his conscience ; all the others, and particularly the Bishop of Lincoln, an intriguing prelate, who had long been opposed to the Court, urged him to sacrifice an individual to the throne, his conscience as a man to his conscience as a King.^ He had but just left this conference, when a letter from Strafibrd was delivered to him. " Sire," wrote the Earl, " out of much sadness, I am come to a resolution of that which I take to be the best becom- ing me ; and that is, to look upon the prosperity of your sacred person and the commonwealth as infi- nitely to be preferred before any man's private inte- rest. And therefore, in few words, as I have placed myself wholly upon the honour and justice of my peers, I do most humbly beseech you, for the prevent- ing of such mischiefs as may happen by your refusal to pass this bill, by this means to remove this unfor- tmiate thing forth of the way towards that blessed agreement, which God, I trust, shall for ever establish betwixt you and your subjects. Sire, my consent herein shall acquit you more to God than all the world can do beside. To a willing man there is no ' See a letter from M. de Montreuil, the French minister, dated May 23, 1641, and pubhshed in Mazure's Histoire de la Revolution de 1688, vol. iii. pp. 422, 428. " Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, vol. i. pp. 4.50,4.51 ; Warwick's Memoirs, \). 158. 294 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST injury done ; and as, by God's grace, I forgive all the world with a calmness and meekness of infinite con- tentment to my dislodging soul, so, Sire, I can give the life of tliis world with all cheerfulness imaginable, in the just acknowledgment of your exceeding favours ; and only beg that, in your goodness, you would vouch- safe to cast your gracious regard upon my poor son and his three sisters, less or more, and no otherwise, than their unfortunate father shall appear more or less guilty of this death." ^ On the following day, Carlton, the Secretary of State, came on the part of the King, to announce to Strafford that he had given his consent to the fatal bill. Some surprise appeared in the countenance of the Earl ; and, for his only answer, raising his hands to heaven, he said : — "Nolite conjidere principibus et Jiliis hominum, quia non est solus in illis." ^ Instead of going in person, as he had promised HoUis, to ask the House for a reprieve, the King con- tented himself with sending them, by the Prince of Wales, a letter, which ended with this postscript ; — " If he must die, it were charity to reprieve him till Saturday." The House read the letter twice, and, without paying any attention to this cold request, fixed the execution for the following day.^ The Governor of the Tower, wliose duty it was to accompany Strafford to the block, advised him to take a carriage, to esca23e the violence of the populace. " No, ' State Trials, vol. iii. cols. 1516, 1517. ■^ Whitclockc, p. 46. ^ Parliamcntaiy History, vol. ii. col. 760. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 295 master lieutenant," answered the earl, " I dare look death in the face, and, I hope, the people too. Have you a care that I do not escape, and I care not how I die, whether by the hand of the executioner, or by the madness and fury of the people, if that may give them better content ; it is all one to me." And he went on foot, preceding his guards, and looking about him on all sides as proudly as if he had been a general at the head of his troops. As he passed before the prison in which Laud was confined, he stopped : on the previous evening, he had sent to request him to be at the window and bless him as he passed. " My lord," he said, raising his head, " your prayers and your blessing." The Archbishop stretched out his hands towards him ; but enfeebled by age, and less firm of heart, he fell down in a fainting fit. " Fare- well, my lord," said Strafibrd, as he moved on ; " Grod protect your innocency ! " On reaching the foot of the scaffold, he mounted it at once, accompanied by his brother, some ministers of the Church, and several of his friends ; he knelt down a moment, and then rose to address the people. " 1 wish this kingdom," he said, " all the prosperity and happiness in the world ; I did it living, and now, dying, it is still my wish. But I do most humbly recommend this to every one who hears me, and desire they would lay their hands upon their hearts, and consider seriously whether the beginning of the happiness and reformation of a kingdom should be written in letters of blood. Consider this when you are at your homes ; and let me never be so unhappy, as that the least drop of my 296 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST blood should rise up in judgment against any one of you ; but I fear you are in a wrong way." He then knelt down again, and prayed for a quarter of an hour ; then, turning towards his friends, he took leave of them all, shaking hands with each of them, and giving each some advice. " Now," he said, " I have nigh done ; one stroke will make my wife husbandless, ni}^ dear children fatherless, and my poor servants masterless, and will separate me from my dear brother and all my friends. But let God be to you and them all in all ! " As he disrobed, he added :■ — " I thank God I am not afraid of death, nor daunted with any discoui-agement rising from any fears ; but do as cheerfully put off my doublet at this time as ever I did when I went to bed." He called the executioner, forgave him, uttered a short prayer, laid his head upon the block, and gave the signal himself. His head fell ; the executioner held it up to the people, and cried, " God save the King ! " Violent acclama- tions responded ; numerous bands spread through the city, celebrating their victory with loud shouts ; others retui'ned home in silence, full of doubt and anxiety as to the justice of the wish they had just seen fulfilled.' Disturbed by this exliibition of sympathy, the House of Commons used every effort to repress it ; for nothing irritates a conqueror more than to find that a dead enemy is still dangerous. Mr. Taylor, for liaving said, in private conversation, that they had ' .state Trials, vol. iii. cols. 1521 — 1.')24 ; Warwick's Memoirs, p. 164. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 297 committed murder with the sword of justice, was sent to the Tower, expelled the House, and declared in- capable of re-election.' Lord Dighy had published his speech against the bill of attainder ; the House forbade its circulation, and ordered it to be burnt by the common hangman.^ Never had the power of the Commons seemed so great, or so firmly established ; in consenting to the death of the Earl, the King had also adopted, almost without a thought, the bill which deprived him of the right to dissolve the Parhament without its own consent. Nevertheless, the Commons wanted some better security, and the more their power increased, the more irresistibly they felt themselves urged towards tyranny. By delivering StralTord into their hands, the King had degraded himself, without inspiring them with confidence ; and their deepened animosity increased their mutual distrust. A Royalist party, different from that of the Court, began to form among them. Pym, Hampden, and HoUis, found themselves daily compelled to a closer alliance with the sectaries ; and this alliance was displeasing, even to the warmest friends of liberty. " AVhy," they said, "embarrass political reform with doubtful questions? upon matters of worship and discipline, opinions are divided ; against absolute power, England is unani- mous ; this is the only enemy which we must mercilessly do to death. "^ Sometimes this view prevailed, and the House, resuming the discussion of ' Parliamentary History, vol. ii. col. 815. " Ibid., vol. ii. cols. 754, 882. ^ May's History of the Long Parliament, pp. 112—117. 298 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST grievances, recovered its unanimity. The abolition of the Star Chamber, of the Northern Court, of the Court of High Commission, and of all arbitrary jurisdictions, was definitively decreed, and the King gave his con- sent after two days' hesitation/ Political reform, in so far at least as it had at first been desired and imagined, seemed now accomplished ; but what would it serve to have written it in the statute-book, if its main- tenance were to be suddenly confided to its enemies ? The King's hesitations, the reports of plots, and the defections which were noted or apprehended in the army and Parliament, awakened general alarm. On losing power, the leaders of the Commons knew that both they and their cause would be ruined : in order to retain it, the support of the people was necessary ; and the people, devoted to Presbyterianism, claimed in their turn a share in the triumph. All the old motions against the Church now reappeared ; the Scots even began openly to solicit the estabhshment of uniformity of worship in both nations. These attempts, however, failed ; and their failure, and the embarrassment in which the two Houses were involved by such a chaos of discordant passions and undigested plans, imparted to their proceedings an appearance of uncertainty and weariness, which some hoped was a promise of future repose. But the religious conflict only became more animated ; the sectaries grew bolder, the Church tottered daily to its fall. Even in the Upper House, in which its chief strength lay, everything ' Parliamcutary History, vol. ii. cols. 853 — 855. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 299 attested its decline : the spiritual lords were no longer, according to ancient usage, mentioned sepa- rately at the head of the bills ; while reading, the clerk of the House affected to turn liis back on the bench of bishops; and in all public ceremonies, the temporal lords assumed the precedence.^ These symptoms did not escape the observation of the Presbyterian party, who incessantly renewed their attacks, backed by the pohtical reformers, whom they maintained in the possession of power ; and, in spite of apparent reverses, advanced daily towards success. All at once, the King called to mind his project of going into Scotland, where, he said, the execution of the treaty of peace, which was, at length, near its conclusion, required his presence. It became known at the same time, that the Queen, on the pretext of ill health, was preparing to start for the Continent. The disaffected army lay on the road which the King would have to travel ; and the Queen's intrigues with continental powers had long been suspected. This double journey, abruptly and simultaneously under- taken, furnished popular distrust with the aliment it had been seeking. And the popular distrust was legitimate and well-grounded. Without either strength or influence in London, where he was surrounded by useless courtiers or terror-stricken counsellors, Charles; had turned his eyes towards the kingdom of his fathers and the absolute monarchs of Europe. In Scotland, in regard both to Church and Crown, he intended to make ' Neal's History of the Puritans, vol. ii. pp. 410, 411. 300 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST every concession, to gain in this way the good-will of the people, and to load the nobility with favours. In the army, his visit, and the language he purposed to use, could not, he thought, fail to increase the number of his partizans. With regard to the Continent, his views were less precise ; however, though as yet he neither meditated nor anticipated war, he already sought money and allies. The Commons abstained from expressing their suspicions ; but they requested that the Queen should not leave London, and that the King would defer his departure.^ Charles showed some irritation at this request, affecting to regard it as a groundless caprice. To make it seem that he attached no importance to his answer, he referred the Commons to the Queen her- self, and to the Scottish Commissioners, who, he said, were pressing him to hasten his journey. The Scots readily consented to a delay ; the Queen very graciously promised not to leave the country.^ Reassured for a moment, the Commons strongly urged the disbanding of the army, which until then had been purposely delayed. Letters from the House guaranteed the troops the speedy payment of their arrears. To provide funds for this purpose, many zealous citizens melted their plate ; new loans were ordered, and new ' The leaders of the ParHament were not mistaken in their belief that, even at this period, the King was seeking support on the Conti- nent, and that the Queen proposed to visit France for that purpose. The instructions and letters of Jean de Montreuil, then Resident Minister of France in Scotland and England, leave no room for doubt on this subject. See Appendix VI. " Parhamentary History, vol. ii. cols. 846, S.51, 852, 885, 890. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION, 301 taxes imposed.^ The disbanding, however, proceeded but slow^ly for want of money, and also from the ill-will of many of the officers.'^ The King secretly rejoiced ; the Commons relapsed into despair. The delay that had been agreed upon expired. The House requested a second postponement, but without success ;^ the King announced his intention to set forth on his journey. An attempt was made to demand the appointment of a Regent during his absence, that business might not be suspended ; but this idea was not acted upon.* The King contented himself with appointing the Earl of Essex Captain-general south of the Trent, and set out on the 10th of August, with hopes which he indicated by his language, but the motives of which men sought in vain to penetrate. The House soon perceived that it was losing its time by sitting, in uncertainty and inactivity, during the King's absence. It was far more important that it should keep a strict watch over its adversaries, and rekindle the zeal of its partizans in the provinces. After sitting for a fortnight to no purpose, it resolved to adjourn.^ Many of the members were desirous to attend to their private affairs, and to get a little rest ; but the leaders allowed themselves no repose. A ' May's History of the Long Parliament, p. 105 ; Parliamentary His- tory, vol. ii. cols. 841 — 843. The rate of interest of the loan raised at this period was fixed at ten per cent. ^ Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, vol. i. p. 480. ® Parliamentary History, vol. ii. cols. 897, 899. " Ibid., vol. ii. col. 892. ^ This adjournment was to last from the 8th of September to the 2Uth of October,— Parliamentary History, vol. ii. col. 904. 302 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST committee, under the direction of Hampden, was sent into Scotland, to remain near the King, and watch over the interests of the Parhament.^ Another com- mittee, consisting of many members^ and invested with large powers, sat at Westminster, under the presidency of Pym, during the interval between the two sessions. The House of Lords took similar measures.^ A great number of members returned to their counties, eager to diffuse their sentiments and impart their fears. Both parties, under the semblance of a truce, were seeking fresh strength from abroad, and mutually meditating new contests. In passing through the English army, which was being disbanded, and the Scottish army, which was returning home, the King did not venture to make any long stay. His attempts, however, to make friends among the troops, and particularly among the officers, were so public, that Lord Holland, who had been sent to superintend the disbanding, wrote an anxious letter on the subject to the Earl of Essex, ^ and added that, on his return to London, he would give him further particulars. On his arrival at Edinburgh, Charles granted the Church and Parliament of Scotland all the concessions they demanded; — triennial Parliaments, relinquishment of ancient prerogatives of the Crown, prosecutions of the principal opponents of the Cove- nant, intervention even of the Parliament in the ' Parliamentary History, vol. ii. col. 902. This committee was com- posed of six members — the Earl of Bedford, Lord Howard, Sir William Armyn, Sir Philip Stapleton, Nathaniel Fiennes, and John Hampden. * Parliamentary History, vol. ii. cols. 910, 911. ^ Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, vol. ii. p. 2. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 303 appointment of the Privy Council, — notliing was re- fused. The King gave his sanction to the Presby- terian form of worship, with a gravity which had none of the appearance of complaisance, was assiduous in his attendance at their frequent prayers, and an attentive hearer of their long sermons ; the Covenanting leaders, whether laymen or ecclesiastics, nobles or citizens, were treated with marked favour ; titles, offices, pen- sions, and promises were lavished upon them with no niggard hand. All at once, a report spread through the city of Edinburgh that the two most influential nobles in the Parliament, Hamilton and Argyle, had left town, accompanied by their friends, and retired to Kinneil Castle, the residence of the Earl of Lanark, Hamilton's brother, in order to escape the danger of arrest, and even of assassination. The surprise occasioned by this report was extreme ; — men asked each other, without being able to obtain a reply, what motives could have inspired the fugitives with such fears, or the King with such designs. Strange conjectures were hazarded ; — Charles haughtily complained of being subjected to such injurious surmises, as an outrage upon his royal honour, and demanded of the Parliament the exclusion of Hamilton, until his honour should be vindicated. The Parhament, firmly and prudently, refused to come to any abrupt decision, and ordered an inquiry to be instituted. Numerous witnesses were called, on whose evidence the committee grounded their report, which declared briefly, that there was no cause for the King to make reparation, or for the fugitives to entertain 304 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST any fears. Tliey returned to their places in Parlia- ment, kept silence, as did Charles, regarding what had passed, and the public learned nothing further on the subject. Neither party was willing to explain the affair, though, in political circles, it soon became well known. At the very moment when the King, in order to gain the support of Scotland against England, was making such numerous and important concessions, he had carefully planned the destruction of his enemies in both countries. Feehng persuaded that the judges could not avoid condemning, as high treason that cor- respondence between the English malcontents and the Scottish Covenanters, which had preceded, and perhaps determined, the late invasion, he had gone to Scotland to collect the necessary evidence for instituting, on his return, that impeachment of the leaders of the House of Commons, which Strafford, anticipated by their prior accusation, had been unable even to announce. A young and high-spirited gentleman, who had once been devoted to the Covenant, but now enjoyed the King's full favour and confidence, the Earl of Mont- rose,^ had undertaken to procure for him the documents he so ardently desired. In reliance on his promise, Charles had undertaken his journey ; but, before his arrival in Edinburgh, a letter in cipher, intercepted by Argyle, aroused the suspicions of the Scots, and the King found Montrose in prison. Eoused by his danger, and burning for revenge, the Earl sent to ' James Graham, Earl, and subsequently Marquis, of Montrose, was born at Edinburgh in 1G12. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 305 inform Charles that, if he could only see him, he would make him acquainted with his real enemies, and their past intrigues. By the contrivance of some trusty friends, Montrose secretly left his prison, went at night to the King's bedchamber, informed him of all he knew, accused both Hamilton and Argyle of having been partakers in the designs of the malcontents, assured the King that their papers would furnish ample proof of their guilt, and urged him instantly to secure the persons of those two leaders, and to " have them both made away," if they resisted. Ever ready to welcome rash resolutions, and without thinking of the effect which so violent an act would not fail to pro- duce on the minds of the people whom he was striving to conciliate, Charles consented to the whole scheme ; the plot was framed under the shield of concessions, and everything was ready for its execution, when the two lords, warned in time, caused its utter failure by publicly withdrawing from the capital.^ Acting upon wise counsel, the Parliament of Scot- land hushed up the affair ; it no longer feared any danger from that source, and it had no ^vish to run the risk of losing the advantages it had just gained, by pushing the contest to extremities. The King himself, to conceal his designs and their frustration, gave Hamilton a dukedom and Argyle a marquisate ; Lesley was created Earl of Leven : but Hampden and ' Hardwicke's State Papers, vol. ii. pp. 299 — 303 ; Clarendon's His- tory of the Rebellion, vol. ii. pp. 17, 18 ; Burnet's Memoirs of the Ha- miltons, pp. 184 — 187 ; Baillie's Letters, vol. i. pp. 320, 327, 330—332 ; Laing's Histoiy of Scotland, vol. iii. pp. 228 — 230 ; Brodie's History of the British Empire, vol. iii. pp. 142 — 156. VOL. I. X 306 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST the English Committee, well informed as to all that occurred, hastened to send full particulars to London, where the adjournment of the Houses was nearly expired. The alarm of their party was great ; ^ not- withstanding all their distrust, they had not yet antici- pated such dangers, and the leaders imagined that their past relations with the Scottish insurgents had heen fully amnestied, together with the rebellion itself, by the last treaty of peace. At this indication of the obsti- nately vindictive intentions of the King, men of other- wise moderate politics beheved themselves irretrievably compromised. Mr. Hyde one day met Lords Essex and Holland, talking of the news with great concern ; he bantered them on their fears, and reminded them of what they had themselves thought of Argyle and Hamilton a year previously. " The times and the Court are much altered since," they rephed.^ On the first day of its meeting, the House of Commons sent to the Earl of Essex to demand a guard, which, it was said, had become indispensable to the safety of the Parliament. It was immediately granted. At con- ferences held at the residence of Lord Holland, at Kensington, the leaders of the two Houses communi- cated to each other their information and suspicions, and discussed together the course they had best pursue ; all were anxious, and stimulated by their anxiety to dare any risk. " If there be a plot against us, on the part of the King," said Lord Newport, "his ' Evelyn's Memoirs, \ol. ii. jjp. 40, 4() ; Parliamentary History, vol. ii. cols. 914, 915. ^ Clarendon's Ilistorj' of the Rebellion, vol. ii. p. 18. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 3U7 wife and children are here ;"^ and their alarm was all the greater because they did not dare to use it to rouse the people, — for, as all was quiet in Scotland, nothing- could possibly be revealed in London. In the midst of tliis latent agitation, news sud- denly arrived that an insm-rection, as general as it was violent, had commenced a career of massacre in Ireland, and threatened the most imminent danger to the Protestant religion and the Parliament. The Irish CathoHcs, chiefs and people, had revolted in every part of the island, claiming liberty for their faith and country, invoking the name of the Queen, and even of the King himself, in support of their enterprise, displaying a commission which, they said, they had received from him, and announcing their intention to deliver themselves and the throne from the Enghsh Puritans, their common oppressors. The conspiracy, wliich had long been in preparation throughout the kingdom, had been disclosed by mere chance, at Dublin only, on the evening before its intended outbreak; and there had scarcely been time to preserve the seat of Government from its violence. Elsewhere, its explosion had met with scarcely any opposition ; in all quarters, the Protestants of Ireland, attacked unawares, were driven from their homes, pur- sued, massacred, and exposed to all the perils and tortures which rehgious and patriotic hatred could invent against heretics, foreigners, and tyrants. Hor- rible and lamentable accounts were given of their ' Parliamentary History, vol. it. col. 984 ; Clarendon, vol. ii p. 12. X 2 308 HISTORY OF I'HARLKS TllK TIRST distress ; inniuiierable murdors had been committed, \ui- paralleled sufferings endured ; and the evil was really so great that it was capable of exaggeration, to suit indi- vidual fears or designs, without either exceeding pro- bability, or tiring credulity.^ A semi-barbarous people, passionately attached to the barbarism with which they were reproached by oppressors who denied them the means of civilization, had joyfully embraced the hope of deliverance which was offered them by the dissen- sions of their tyrants. Burning to avenge, in one day, centuries of outrage and misfortune, they felt delight and pride in committing excesses, which filled their old masters with horror and dismay. The English authorities had no means of resisting their violence ; out of hatred to Strafford and the Crown, and solely occupied by the design of establishing liberty in England, the Parliament had forgotten that it was its purpose to maintain tyranny in Ireland. The treasury in that country had been exhausted, martial law abolished, the army reduced to a mere handful of men, and the royal power utterly disarmed. The Parlia- ' May, at p. 121 of his History of the Long ParUament, enumerates the naassacred Protestants at 200,000 ; and Clarendon (History of the Rebellion, vol. ii. p. 20) reduces this estimate to forty or fifty thousand. It seems probable, from the correspondence of the judges who were then at the head of affairs in Ireland, and from the inquiry made into the rebelhon in 1644, that even this latter number is exaggerated. This inquiiy, however, deserves no confidence, though Dr. Lingard considers it decisive (History of England, vol. x. pp. 463 — 469) ; it was made, not only three years after the outbreak, but at a time when the RoyaUst party was absolutely dominant in Ireland, and had just made its peace with the Catholics ; its object evidently was to extenuate, as far as pos- sible, the excesses committed by the insurgents, and the suflerings endured by tlie Protestants, and thus to excuse the alliance which the King was on the point of contracting. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 309 ment had even, in opposition to the King's wish, for- bidden the disbanded Irish soldiers to enter any foreign service ; ^ and they had accordingly become scattered all over the country, and lent their strength to the insurrection. Finally, although the Earl of Leicester had been appointed to succeed Strafford, no new- viceroy resided as yet in Ireland ; and the administra- tion of affairs there was entrusted to two judges — Sir WiUiam Parsons and Sir John Borlase — men of no capacity or influence, whose Presbyterian zeal had been their sole recommendation to this difficult office. A cry of terror and furious hatred to Popery arose throughout all England ; every Protestant thought himself in danger. The King, who had received the news in Scotland, hastened to communicate it to the two Houses ; announcing, at the same time, certain measures which, with the help of the Scots, he had already taken to repress the revolt, and leaving further interference in the affair entirely in the hands of the Parliament.^ Charles had nothing to do with the in- surrection, and the pretended commission from him produced by Sir Phelim O'Neil was a gross imposture ; but his known hatred of the Puritans, the confidence which he had more than once displayed in the Ca- tholics, the intrigues which for three months he had been carrying on in Ireland, for the purpose of secur- ing fortresses and soldiers in that country in case of need,^ and, finally, the promises of the Queen, had per- ' Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, vol. i. p. 493 ; Rushworth, part iii. vol, i. j). 381. '^ Ibid. vol. ii. p. 22. ^ Carte's Life of Ormonde, vol. i. p. L32 ; vol. iii. pp. 30, 33 ; Claren- 310 IIISTOUY OF CHARLES THE FIRST suaded the Irish that they might use his name, with- out having to fear a sincere disavowal. Ireland once m revolt, Charles flattered himself that so great a danger would render the Parhament more tractable ; and without supporting the rebels, without even con- templating a proximate alliance with them, he was not, like his people, seized with rage and terror at their insurrection ; he made no active efforts to quell it, and referred the affair to the Houses, in order to cast all the risk upon them, to avoid all suspicion of complicity, and perhaps, also, to reheve himself, in the eyes of his Catholic subjects, from the responsibihty of the seve- rities which they would have to suffer. But no cunning can avail against the passions of a people ; and those who wiU not serve them cannot de- ceive them. The leaders of the Commons, more skil- ful and in a better position, made it their endeavour to tm^n the state of public feehng to their own advantage. Their disquietude vanished, for the EngHsh people imagined they had fallen into the same danger which the reformers had themselves incurred. Eagerly seizing upon the power which was offered them by the King, notwithstanding the pomposity of their language and the violence of their threats, they made but feeble efforts to repress the rebellion ; the supplies of troops and money sent into Ireland were inadequate, tardy, don's State Papers, vol. ii. p. 337 ; Antrim's Information, in the Appendix to Clarendon's History of the Irish Rebellion. Antrim's tes- timony, especially as to the details of facts, does not, however, in my opinion, deserve the confidence i)laced in it by Lingard (History of Eng- land, vol. X. pp. 150 — 154), and Godwin (History of the Commonwealth, vol. i. pp. 220—225). AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 811 and ill-arranged : all their speeches, all their actions, were addressed to England alone, and, by a step as decisive as it was unexpected, they resolved to pledge the country irretrievably to their designs. Shortly after the opening of Parliament, a com- mittee had been appointed to prepare a general Ee- monstrance in which all the grievances of the kingdom, and the means of redressing them, should be enume- rated. But the progress of reform had been so rapid that they had neglected to give so much solemnity to their complaint ; most of the grievances, at least such as were of a political nature, had disappeared ; the committee ceased to meet, and no one seemed to think any more about it. Suddenly, however, it received directions to resume its labours, and to present its report without delay. ^ In a few days, the Remonstrance was prepared and submitted to the House. It was no longer, as originally intended, a statement of actual and pressing abuses, and of the unanimous desires of the country, but a sombre exposition of past evils, of old grievances, of all the demerits of the King, of all the deserts of the Parliament, of the obstacles which it had surmounted, the dangers it had incurred, and particularly those perils wliich still threatened it, and called for the utmost efforts of its partisans to avert ; in short, it was a sort of appeal to the people, addressed especially to the fanatical Presbyterians, and which, while fomenting the passions which the revolt of Ireland had rekindled, ' Clarendon's History of the Hebellion, vol. ii. p. 23. 312 HISTORY 0¥ CHARLES THE FIRST urged tliem to devote themselves unreservedly to the House of Commons, as it alone was able to save them from Popery, the Bishops, and the King. On the fu'st reading of the bill, many murmui's arose : an act so hostile, without any public motive, without any direct or apparent object, excited surprise and suspicion in the minds of many members, who until then had not been friendly to the Court ; they com- plained of the bitterness of its language, of its useless denunciation of grievances already redressed, of the harshness with which it treated the King, and of the hopes which it suggested to the sectaries. What could be the hidden designs, the unknown dangers, which necessitated such violent measures ? If the Re- monstrance were intended for the King alone, what advantage could be anticipated from it ? If it were addressed to the people, by what right was such an appeal made to without ? The leaders of the Opposi- tion said but little in reply, as they could not state their whole meaning ; but, in their private conversa- tions, they laboured earnestly to gain the suffrages of their colleagues, protesting that they merely desired to intimidate the Court, and to frustrate its intrigues, and that when the Remonstrance was once adopted, it should not be published. This language was not without its effect, for distrust was now so universally prevalent that men, otherwise moderate in then* views, welcomed any expression of it when conveyed in prudent and conciliator}'- language. After a few days, at the moment when the House, after a sitting of several hoiu's, was about to rise, the Opposition leaders AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 313 demanded that the Remonstrance should be put to the vote at once ; they had counted the number of their adherents, and believed themselves certain of success. But Lord Falkland, Hyde, Colepepper and Palmer opposed so hasty a proceeding, urgently insisting on the postponement of the vote until the following day, and the House readily consented to this delay. " Why would you have it put off?" said Cromwell to Lord Falkland ; " this day would quickly have determined it." " There would not have been time enough," answered Lord Falkland, " for sm-e it would take some debate." " A very sorry one," replied Cromwell, with real or affected confidence. Though opened the next day at three o'clock in the afternoon, when night arrived, the debate seemed only to have just com- menced. The Com-t was no longer pitted against the country ; for the first time, two parties were in con- flict, if not both equally national, at least both sprung from the body of the nation, both resting on public in- terests and opinions, and both reckoning many good and independent citizens among their supporters. Common hopes had once united them, opposite fears now divided them ; each sagaciously foresaw the future in store for their triumphant adversaries, and lost sight of that which their own victory would have produced. They fought with a desperateness previously unexampled, and were all the more obstinate because they were still sparing of each other, and did not dare to hazard the open accusations which their suspicions dictated. Hours passed ; fatigue drove away the waverers, the careless, and the old ; one even of the King's ministers, Secre- 314 HISTORY OF CHARLES THR FIRST tary Nicholas, left the House before the close of the debate. " This," said Sir Benjamin Rudyard, " will be the verdict of a starved jury." At length, towards midnight, the House resolved to divide ; a hundred and fifty-nine votes were given in favour of the Re- monstrance, and a hundred and forty-eight against it. Hampden immediately rose, and moved that it should be printed. " We thought as much," cried his op- ponents ; " it is an appeal to the people, and to infuse jealousies into their minds." " It hath seldom been the custom," said Mr. Hyde, " to publish any debates or determinations of the House, which have not been regularly first transmitted to the House of Peers. I believe the printing it in this manner is not lawful, and I fear it would produce mischievous effects ; and if the question be carried in the affirmitive, I desire the leave of the House to enter my protestation." " I do hkewise protest !" cried Mr. Palmer. " I protest ! I protest !" repeated their friends. It was now the turn of the other party to express astonishment and indignation ; protests, though usual with the Lords, were unused in the Commons ; Pym rose to demon- strate their illegality and danger, invectives interrupted him ; he persisted, and was answered by threats. The whole House was up, and many members, laying their hands to their swords, seemed ready to begin the civil war within the walls of Parliament itself. Two hours passed, during which the tumult was renewed at every attempt to procure the adoption of the resolution. At length, lamenting this humiliating disorder with mucli mildness and gravity, Hampden proposed that AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 315 the House should rise, and the decision be adjourned until the afternoon. This suggestion was adopted. " Well," said Lord Falkland to CromweU, as he was leaving the House, " has there been a debate?" " I'll take yom* word another time," replied Cromwell, and whispered in his ear : — " Had the Remonstrance been rejected, I would have sold all I have to-morrow morning, and never have seen England more ; and I know there are many other honest men of the same resolution." ^ The afternoon sitting was more tranquil ; the Royalists despaired of victory, and their adversaries had found themselves so near losing it that they were not at all anxious to risk a fresh contest. They had annoimced their intention to impeach those who had protested; but Mr. Hyde had many friends among them, who refused to give him up. Mr Palmer was sent to the Tower, but liberated almost immediately. After some mutual explanations, the quarrel was hushed up. A majority of twenty -three votes ordered that the Remonstrance should be printed.^ The printing was, however, delayed, as it was necessary first of all to present it to the King, who was daily expected. He returned, confident and haughty, notwithstand- ing the check which he had received in Scotland, and the knowledge he already possessed of the increased ' Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, vol. ii. pp. 40 — 49 ; Warwick's Memoirs, p. 170 ; May's History of the Long Parliament, 2)p. 134, 135 ; Whitelocke, pp. 50, 51 ; Rushwoi-th, part iii. vol. ii. pp. 425 — 428. ^ Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, vol. ii. p. 49 ; Parliamentary History, vol. ii. col. 937. 31 G HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST animosity of the Parliament. Everywhere on his journey, and particularly at York, he had been received with enthusiastic expressions of affection and delight. In many places, his concessions to the Scots had rejoiced the people ; while his secret intrigues were unknown or imperfectly understood. In the country, moreover, as well as in the Parliament, the Royalist party was organizing itself, and giving expression to its feelings. Nor did the city of London remain aloof from these proceedings. The King's friends had carried the election of the new Lord Mayor, Eichard Gourney, an active, courageous, and devoted man, who had pre- pared a most brilliant reception for his sovereign. A multitude of citizens, well armed and mounted, with the banners of the various corporations displayed, went out to meet him, and escorted him with acclamations to the palace of Wliitehall. The King, in his turn, gave them a magnificent banquet, conferred the honour of knighthood on the Lord Mayor and several of the aldermen ;^ and on the next day after his arrival, eager to intimate to the Commons that he believed himself stronger than ever, he withdrew the guard which, during his absence, the Earl of Essex had granted for their protection.^ Affairs now changed their aspect ; the unanimous en- thusiasm of the entire kingdom was succeeded by party conflict, and reform was followed by revolution. The leaders felt this, and their conduct suddenly assumed a ' Rushworth, part iii. vol. i. pp. 429 — 434 ; May's History of the Long Parliament, p. 134 ; Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, vol. ii. p. 62 ; Whitelocke, p. 50 ; Evelyn's Memoirs, Appendix, vol. ii. p. 79. '^ Parliamentary History, vol. ii. col. 940. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 317 new character. The Eemonstrance was submitted to the King ; he listened patiently whilst it was read, and then, turning to the committee, inquired : " Doth the House intend to publish this declaration ?" " We can give no answer," was the reply, " Well then," said the King, " I suppose you do not now expect an answer to so long a petition ; I shall give you one with as much speed as the weightiness of the business will permit."^ This mattered little to the leaders of the Commons ; without waiting for any communica- tion from the King, they at once brought forward measures which were not even hinted at in the lie- monstrance. They had until tlien redressed grievances, and invoked the ancient laws of the country; they now proclaimed principles, and imperiously demanded innovations. A bill was under discussion regarding levies of troops for Ireland : a clause was inserted in the preamble : " That the King hath, in no case, nor upon any occasion but invasion from a foreign power, authority to press the free-born subject ; that being- inconsistent with the freedom and liberty of his per- son. "- Another bill was brought forward, importing that the organization of the militia and the appoint- ment of its officers should in futui'e be conducted only with the concurrence and consent of Parliament.^ A few days before the King's return, by the influence of ' Parliamentary History, vol. ii. cols. 942, 943. * Clarendon's History of the Eebellion, vol. ii. pp. 69 — 73 ; Parlia- mentary History, vol. ii. col. 969 ; May's History of the Long Parlia- ment, p. 149. 3 May's History of the Long Parliament, p. 156 ; Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, vol. ii. pp. 68, 69. 318 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST the Presbyterians, the bill exckiding ecclesiastics from all civil offices had been revived and adopted ; but the Lords hesitated to pass it. The Commons angrily complained of the delay. " This House," they said, "is the representative body of the whole kingdom, and their lordships are but as particular persons, and come to Parliament in a particular capacity ; if they shall not be pleased to consent to the passing of these acts, and others necessary for the preservation and safety of the kingdom, then this House, together with such of the Lords that are more sensible of the safety of the kingdom, will join together, and represent the same unto his Majesty." And the popular Lords, the Earls of Northumberland, Essex, and Warwick, con- sented to the employment of such language.^ Out of doors, the party raUied round their leaders with equal ardour : the Remonstrance was published f the City declared that, in receiving the King with such pomp, the citizens of London had not intended to abandon their true friends, and that they would hve and die with the Parhament.^ A petition from the apprentices set forth the bad state of trade, and imputed their commercial distress to the Papists, the bishops, and the bad councillors of the King.* In the coimties, associations were formed for the defence of liberty and religion. Support flowed in to the Commons from all ' Parliamentary History, vol. ii. col. 916 ; Commons' Journals, vol. ii. p. 330. Ibid, vol. ii. col. 970. ^ May's History of the Long Parliament, p. 13(j. * Clarendon's History of the KebelHon, vol. ii. p. 70 Rushwortli, part iii. vol. i. p, 462. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 319 sides ; sinister rumours from time to time obtained for them fresh proofs of the nation's attachment : now it was said that the life of Pym was threatened, now that the rebels in Ireland were preparing an invasion ; on the strength of a mysterious visit, or a chance word heard in the street, plots were denounced, and oaths of union formally taken ; and whilst the House daily demanded the restitution of its guard, the multitude, thronging daily in greater numbers around West- minster HaU, formed an escort which loudly proclaimed their common dangers. Against pretensions so daring, and supported by such tumultuous passions, Charles, on his part, be- stirred himself to rally all his partizans — the interested servants of absolute power, the loyal defenders of their king, whatever might be his cause, and the patriots who had recently been loud in their outcries against tyranny, but who had been brought back to their allegiance to the Crown by the fear of innovations and excesses. These last formed almost exclusively the rising Royalist party in the House of Commons. Lord Falkland, Mr. Hyde, and Sir John Colepepper were at their head. Charles resolved to attach them to his cause. Already, before his journey into Scot- land, he had had secret interviews with Hj^de, and by the respectful wisdom of his advice, by his aversion to all innovation, and most of all by his devotion to the Church, Hyde had gained his confidence.' Lord Falk- land was less agreeable to him ; he despised tlie Court, ' Clarendou's Life, vol. i. pp. 93, 9i. 320 HisTOUY or chables the first had but little respect for the King, and had not even allied himself with his cause since his rupture with the innovators, whom he opposed rather to defend offended justice than to serve imperilled royalty. Charles feared liim, and felt ill at ease in his presence ; yet he was forced by necessity to make advances to him. Hyde, his most intimate friend, undertook the nego- tiation. Falkland at first refused ; his scrupulous virtue kept him aloof from the promoters of the revolution ; but his principles, his aspirations, and the flights of his somewhat dreamy imagination, incessantly urged him to combine with the friends of liberty. He alleged his antipathy to the Court, his inability to serve it, his resolution never to employ either falsehood, corruption, or spies : " They may be useful and perhaps necessary measures," he said, "but I will not sully my hands by them." Though surprised and piqued at having to solicit a subject, Charles insisted. Hyde pointed out the immense injury which would accrue to the King from such a refusal. Falkland allowed himself to be persuaded, but was disheartened beforehand, as he was the victim of a devotedness based on neither affection nor hope. He was appointed a Secretary of State. Colepepper, a far less influential man, but dis- tinguished by his boldness and mental resources in debate, was made Chancellor of the Exchequer. Hyde alone, contrary to the King's wish, obstinately refused to take office, not from fear, but from prudence, and because he thought he could serve his Majesty better by maintaining the external independence of his posi- AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 321 tion.^ The three friends undertook to manage the King's affairs in the House, and Charles promised to attempt nothing without consulting them. At the same time, other servants, less useful, but more ardent, hastened to him from all parts of the kingdom, to defend his honour and life, w^hich, they said, were threatened by the Parhament. Notwith- standing the decay of the feudal system, the feehngs to which it had given rise still animated many of the gentry. Living idly on their estates, unaccustomed to reflection and debate, they despised those prating and argumentative citizens, whose dismal creed proscribed wine-drinking, and the games and pleasures of Old England, and who aspired to govern the Ki^ng, whom their fathers had not even had the honour to serve. Proud in the recollection of their own independence, they paid but Httle heed to the new requirements of pubHc Hberty. Like the people, they had murmured against tyranny and the Court ; but after so many concessions had been made by the prince, their short- sighted loyalty kindled with indignation at the insolent obstinacy of the innovators. They arrived in London in arms, swaggered haughtily through the taverns and streets, and frequently went to Whitehall to offer the King their services, and ask some favour in return. There they were joined by other men, attracted by an even less pure and more bhnd feeling ofdevotedness, — the Reformado officers whom the disbanding of the army had left without pay or employment, most of ' Clarendon's Life, vol. i. p. 100 ; Clarendon's History of the Rebel- lion, vol. ii. pp. 93 — 98 ; Warwick's Memoirs, p. 194. VOL. I. Y 322 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST them soldiers of fortune, trained in the continental wars, dissolute, mercenary, and reckless, irritated against the Parliament because it had deprived them of their profession, despising the people, who detested their loose manners, and ready to do anything for any master who would employ them, no matter for what purpose. Young lawyers, students of the Temple, protected by the Court, or anxious to share in its pleasures, or thinking to prove their gentihty and elegance by embracing its cause, swelled the restless and presumptuous throng that daily assembled about Whitehall, declaiming against the Commons, insulting their adherents, lavish of bravado and jocularity, and eager that the King or chance should furnish them with some opportunity of pushing their fortune by exhibiting their loyalty.^ The popular party were no less impatient to give them this opportunity ; their assemblages became every day more numerous and agitated. Bands of apprentices, artizans, and women marched morning after morning from the City to Westminster, and as they passed before Whitehall, the cries of " No Bishops I No Popish Lords I" redoubled in furious vehemence. Sometimes they would halt, and one of them momiting on a post, would read to the mob the names of the " disaffected members of the House of Commons," or of the " false, evil, rotten-hearted Lords." Their audacity even went so far as to demand that the sentinel should be removed fi'om the palace gates, that ' Ludlow's Memoirs, p. K). AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 323 they might be able to see the King, at any hour, at their pleasure/ Violent quarrels soon arose ; the two parties were distinguished by the names of Cavaliers and Roundheads. The citizens at first rejected the latter name as an insult, but afterwards adopted it as a title of honour.^ The Cavaliers, in their turn, went to meet their enemies round Westminster Hall, some- times to brave their attacks, and sometimes to protect the royalists from menace and injury as they left the Parliament. The wrath of the people was especially directed against the House of Peers, by whom the bill for the exclusion of the bishops was still held in suspense. Dr. Williams, the Archbishop of York, while walking to the House, attempted to arrest with his own hand a young man who was pursuing him with insults ; but the mob fell upon him, and his friends had great difficulty in rescuing him.^ Both parties made and released prisoners by turns. Blood was shed; the Cavahers boasted derisively of having dispersed their adversaries ; but the Roundheads returned the next day, better trained and better armed. One evening, while the Lords were still sitting, the tumult without became so violent, that the Marquis of Hertford went up to the bench on which the bishops were seated, and advised them not to leave the House, ' Clarendon's History of the Eebellion, vol. ii. pp. 84 — 86 ; May's History of the Long ParUament, p. 137 ; Parliamentary History, vol. ii, col. 986. ^ Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, vol. ii. p. 93 ; Rushworth, part iii. vol. i. p. 493. ^ Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, vol. ii. p. 90 ; Rushworth, part iii. vol. i. p. 493. Y 2 324 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST " for," he said, " those people vow they will watch you at your going out, and search every coach for you with torches, so as you cannot escape." '^Must we then pass the night here ?" asked the bishops. " In all probabihty," replied, with a smile, the supporters of the bill of exclusion. They got away, however, some in the carriages of popular lords, others by private passages : but many even of their friends began to think their presence was not worth the danger which it occasioned.^ Twice did the Upper House claim the assistance of the Commons for the repression of these outrages ; but the Commons remained silent, or replied by complaints of the disorderly behaviour of the Cava- liers. " We must not discourage our friends," said the popular leaders ; " this being a time when we must make use of all friends. Grod forbid the House of Commons should proceed in any way to dishearten people to obtain their just desires !"^ The Lords applied to the magistrates, demanding that the rioters should be pro- ceeded against, according to law ; and in obedience to an order sealed with the great seal, the justices of peace ordered the constables to place guards round Westminster Hall to disperse the mob. The Commons sent for the constables, treated the order as a breach of privilege, and committed one of the justices to the Tower. ^ At the same time, the House voted that, as the King persisted in refusing them a guard, each member should have tlie right to bring one of his Parliamentary History, vol. ii. col. 991. Ibid., vol. ii. cols. 980, 987. ' Il)id., vol. ii. col. 987. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 325 servants, and station him at the door, armed as he might think fit. These riots and clamours, this continual and irre- pressible disorder, filled the King with anger and alarm. Never, even in his worst apprehensions, had he contemplated the possibility of such scenes ; he was astonished and indignant that his royal majesty should be exposed to such gross insults ; and he began to be alarmed not for his power only, but for the safety, or at least the dignity, of his life and person. The Queen, still more agitated, beset him with her terrors ; and the pride of the monarch, and the tenderness of the husband, could not endure the idea of danger or insult threatening the object of his affections, and the partner of liis throne. Looking in every direction for some support against the populace, some means of pre- venting or punishing their excesses, he resolved to remove Sir William Balfour, who was devoted to the Commons, from the lieutenancy of the Tower, and to replace him by a safe and daring man. Three thousand pounds, raised by the sale of some of the Queen's jewels, were given to Sir William, to appease his ill humour. Sir Thomas Lunsford, one of the boldest leaders of the Cavahers who were wont to assemble at Wliitehall, was appointed to succeed him.^ At the same time, the King assumed a loftier tone towards the Par- liament, attempting to intimidate it in his turn. Hyde had prepared an able and firm answer to the Remon- strance ; Charles adopted it, and ordered that it should ' Clareudou's History of the Rebellion, vol. ii, pp. 8U, 81. 326 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST be published in his own name.^ Tlie bill on the im- pressment of soldiers was still under discussion in both Houses ; before it had been presented to him, Charles went down to the House, and announced that he would not sanction it without the omission of the clause in the preamble, which deprived him of the right to order impressment.^ No progress was made with regard to Irish affairs ; he called upon the Commons to take them into immediate consideration, and offered to levy ten thousand volunteers, if the House would promise to pay them.^ The bishops, on their side, possibly with the King's consent, met to deliberate on their position. Violence awaited them at the doors of the House of Lords : they resolved, therefore, to absent themselves from it, and to explain in a protest the causes of their retirement, declaring null and void every bill that should be adopted without the con- currence of all the legitimate and necessary members of Parhament. This protest, rapidly prepared, and signed by twelve bishops,* was immediately presented to the King, who received it with eagerness : it in- spired liim with the hope of being one day able to annul, on this pretext, the acts of that fatal Parliament which he found it impossible to control. At once, and without mentioning the matter to his new coun- ' Clarendon's Life, vol. i. pp. 97 — 100; Parliamentary History, vol. ii. cols. 970—977. - Parliamentary History, vol. ii. col. 968. 3 Ibid., vol, ii. col. 991. * These were the Archbishop of York, the Bishops of Durham, Lich- field, St. Asaph, Oxford, Bath and Wells, Hereford, Ely, Gloucestci-, Peterborougli, Llandaft', and Norwich. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 327 sellers, whose advice he feared far more than he vahied their influence, he ordered the Lord Keeper to present the protest to the House of Peers that same day, and congratulated himself on his skill in contriving for himself a better future/ The surprise of the Lords' was extreme ; they could hardly believe that twelve bishops, whose parlia- mentary existence was called in question, could pre- sume thus to settle the fate of the Parliament itself, and to destroy it by withdrawing from it. The protest was communicated without delay to the Commons, and received by them with that apparent anger and secret joy which the mistakes of an enemy always inspire. The impeachment of the bishops was imme- diately proposed and resolved upon, for conspiracy against the fundamental laws of the realm, and the existence of Parliaments.^ Irritated by their impru- dence, and perhaps glad of the opportunity to abandon a ruined cause without disgrace, even their friends were silent ; one voice only rose in their favour, sug- gesting that they should be sent to Bedlam, and not before the judges.^ The Upper House sanctioned the impeachment, and committed the bishops to the Tower. Eager to avail themselves of so good an opportunity, the leaders of the Commons vigorously pushed forward all their attacks. Complaints had already been made of the King's declaration with ■ Parliamentary History, vol. ii. col. 993 ; Clarendon's History of the Eebellion, vol. ii. pp. 113 — 116. * Parliamentary History, vol. ii. cols. 994 — 996 ; Whitelocke, p. 53. ^ Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, vol. ii. pp. 117 — 121, 328 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST regard to the Impressment Bill, as destructive of the pri^'ileges of the House, which did not permit him to take notice of any bill while under discussion. It was now insisted that these privileges must be firmly secured, as they were the only anchor of safety amid impending perils. Displeasure was also expressed at the appointment to the Tower of Sir Thomas Lunsford, a man of no character, without fortune, piety, or morals, known only by his violent hostihty to the people, and capable of the most pernicious designs. Already, it was said, the alarm was so great in the City that merchants and foreigners would no longer deposit their bullion in the Mint. The appointment of a new governor was therefore demanded. Lord Digby, who had become the King's most intimate confidant, was denounced for having said that the Parliament was not free.^ And finally, reports were current that the Queen herself might probably be impeached ere long of high treason." The King appeared to yield. He took no step in favour of the bishops ; withdrew the government of the Tower from Lunsford, and gave it to Sir John Byron, a man held in general esteem for his prudence and honesty ;^ said no more about the riots ; and made no complaint about the recent debates. Secret reports and vague rumours, however, rendered the House uneasy. The Queen, though silent and re- served, seemed animated by some hope ,* Lord Digby, ' Parliamentary History, vol. ii. cols. 969, 982, 1002. " Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, vol. ii. p. 231. !■ Ibid., vol. ii. p. 82. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 329 whose presumptuous temerity was well known, had frequent interviews with her, and daily grew more intimate both with her and the King. The concourse of Cavaliers at Wliitehall increased. Without explain- ing their fears, the Commons again sent a message to demand the restoration of their guard. The King made no answer, saying that he must have their peti- tion in writing. Upon this delay, the Commons ordered arms to be brought into their place of meet- ing, as though assured of some immediate danger. Three days after, the answer arrived. It was a refusal, terminating in these words : — " We do engage unto you solemnly the word of a King, that the security of all and every one of you from violence is, and shall ever be, as much our care as the preservation of us and our children." But the House, more alarmed than ever, directed the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Com- mon Council to hold the militia of London in readi- ness, and to post strong guards at various points in the City.^ On that same day, in fact, Sir Edward Herbert, the Attorney-Greneral, went to the House of Lords, and, in the King's name, impeached of high treason Lord Kimbolton and five members of the House of Com- mons, Hampden, Pym, Hollis, Strode, and Haslerig. The grounds of accusation were, that they had at- tempted — 1, to subvert the fundamental laws of the kingdom, and to deprive the King of his regal power ; 2, to alienate the affections of the people from the ' Parliamentary History, vol. ii. cols. 1002 — 1004 ; Rushworth, partiii. vol. i. p. 471 ; Commons'' Journals, vol. ii. p. 916. 380 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST King by odious calumnies ; 3, to excite the army to revolt against the King ; 4, to encourage a foreign power, Scotland, to invade the country ; 5, to subvert the rights and very being of Parliament ; 6, to encou- rage seditious assemblages against the King and the Parliament, for the piu'pose of securing, by force and terror, success to their traitorous designs; and, 7, to levy war against the King. Sir Edward required, at the same time, that a committee should be formed to examine into the charges, and requested that the House would be pleased to secure the persons of the accused.^ The Lords remained motionless ; no one had anti- cipated any such act, and no one ventured to speak first. Lord Kimbolton rose and said that " he was ready to obey whatever the Lords should order ; but he prayed that, as he had a public charge, he might have a public clearing." And he resumed his seat amid the same silence. Lord Digby, who was sitting by liis side, whispered in his ear, " That the King was very mischievously advised, and that it should go very hard but he would know whence that counsel pro- ceeded." And he left the House at once, as if to seek the information he so greatly desired. Yet he it was, and he alone, we are assured, who had ui'ged the King to this enterprise, pledging himself, moreover, to de- mand the immediate arrest of Lord Kimbolton as soon as the Attorney-Greneral had impeached him.^ ' Eushworth, part iii. vol. i. pp. 473, 474. ^ Ibid., p. 474; Clarendon's History of the Eebellion, vol. ii. p. 125, 129. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 331 A message was immediately sent from the Lords to inform the Commons of the whole affair. They had just heard that the King's officers had gone to the houses of the five members, and placed seals on all their effects. The House instantly voted that such a proceeding was a violation of their privileges ; that it was the right of the accused persons, and the duty of every constable, to resist it ; and that the King's officers shoidd be arrested and brought to the bar as delinquents. Sir John Hotham was sent to the Lords to request a conference without delay, and had orders to declare that if the Upper House persisted in refusing to unite with the Commons in demanding a a guard from the King, they would withdraw to some safer place. Whilst they were waiting the answer of the Lords, a serjeant-at-arms made his appearance. " I am commanded," he said, "by the King's majesty, my master, upon my allegiance, that I should come and repair to the House of Commons and there require of Mr. Speaker five gentlemen, members of the House of Commons ; and these gentlemen being deli- vered, I am commanded to arrest them, in his Majes- ty's name, for high treason." He then proceeded to name them. The accused members were present, but not one of them moved from his seat. The Speaker ordered the serjeant-at-arms to withdraw. Without tumult or opposition, the House directed a committee to go, while the House was still sitting, and inform his Majesty that so important a message could not be answered until after mature deliberation. Two of the King's ministers, Lord Falkland and Sir John Cole- 332 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST pepper, were members of this committee : they had been kept in entire ignorance of the design. The con- ference with the Lords was opened : in less than an hour it resulted in an order for the removal of the seals, and in a joint demand for a guard, which was conveyed to the King, in the name of both Houses, by the Duke of Richmond, his most honest favourite. " I will send an answer to-morrow," rephed the King in his turn ; and the Commons adjourned until one o'clock on the following day, after ordering the accused members to attend in their places as usual. ^ On the following day, when the House reassem- bled, their anxiety and irritation had increased ; a presentiment of some new danger, unknown but cer- tain, agitated every mind. The Royalists sat sorrow- ful and silent. Among their adversaries, a thousand rumours, collected the previous evening, during the night, and that very morning, were in circulation. The Cavaliers had met, it was said ; the King had given them orders to hold themselves in readi- ness ; two barrels of gunpowder and a quantity of arms had been conveyed from the Tower to White- hall f the five members were surrounded by their colleagues, each of whom had some conjecture, or information, or advice to impart. They were, how- ever, better informed than any others. The French ambassador, who had long maintained a secret under- standing with them, and the Countess of Carlisle, ' Parliamentary History, vol. ii. cols. 1007 — 1008 ; Rushworth, part iii. vol. i. pp. 474 — 476. ' Rushworth, part iii. vol. i. pp. 476 — 480. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 338 who, it is said, was Pym's mistress, had informed them of the measure that was in contemplation,^ but they said nothing about it. All at once arrived Cap- tain Langrish, who had recently returned from service in France, and whose acquaintance with many of the Reformado officers enabled him to watch all that was going on. He announced that the King was ap- proaching ; that he had seen him leave Whitehall, escorted by three or four hundred men, guards. Cava- liers, and students, all armed ; and that he was coming in person to arrest the accused members. This an- nouncement produced the greatest disorder ; but the necessity of prompt resolution speedily stilled the tumult. The House urged the five members to with- draw, for many had already seized their arms, and were preparing to resist. Pym, Hampden, Hollis, and Haslerig retired at once ; Strode refused to go ; in vain was he advised and entreated. The King had already entered Palace Yard, when at length his friend, Sir Walter Earl, pushed him out by force. The remaining members took their seats. The King passed through Westminster Hall between a double file of his servants ; his guard mounted the stairs of the House with him. On reaching the door, he forbade his escort, on pain of death, to follow him any further, and entered, hat in hand, accompanied only by liis nephew, the Count Palatine. All the mem- bers rose and uncovered. The King cast a passing ' Rushworth, part iii. vol. i. p. 477 ; Whitelocke, p. 52 ; Warwick's Memoirs, p. 203; Mazure's Histoire de la Revolution de 1688, vol. iii. p. 429 ; Memoires de Madame de Motteville, vol. i. p. 266. 334 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST glance at Pym's usual seat, and not seeing him there, walked up to the Speaker. " By your leave, Mr. Speaker," he said, " I must borrow yom- chair a little." Then sitting down, he cast his eyes round the House, and thus addressed the members : — " I am sorry, gen- tlemen, for this occasion of coming unto you. Yester- day I sent a serjeant-at-arms upon a very important occasion, to apprehend some that, by my command, were accused of high treason, whereunto I did expect obedience, and not a message. And I must declare unto you here, that albeit no king that ever was in England shall be more careful of your privileges, to maintain them to the uttermost of his power, than I shall be ; yet you must know that, in cases of treason, no person hath a privilege. And therefore I am come to know if any of those persons that were accused are here ; for I must tell you, gentlemen, that so long as these persons that I have accused (for no slight crime, but for treason) are here, I cannot expect that this House will be in the right way that I do heartily wish it, and therefore I am come to tell you that I must have them wheresoever I find them. Mr. Speaker, where are they?" The Speaker fell on his knees, and replied — " May it please your Majesty, I have neither eye to see nor tongue to speak in this place, but as the House is pleased to direct me, whose servant I am here. And I humbly beg 3^our Ma- jesty's pardon that I cannot now give any other answer than this to what your Majesty is pleased to demand of me." " Well," returned the King, " since I see all the birds are flown, I do expect from you AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 335 tliat you shall send them unto me as soon as they retui-n hither. But I assure you, on the word of a Kmg, I never did intend any force, but shall proceed against them in a legal and fair way, for I never meant any other. And now, since I see I cannot do what I came for, I think this no unfit occasion to repeat what I have said formerly, that whatsoever I have done in favour and to the good of my subjects, I do mean to maintain it. I will trouble you no more, but tell you I do expect, as soon as they come to the House, you will send them to me, otherwise I must take my own course to find them." And he left the chair, still holding his hat in his hand. The House remained motionless, but, as the King withdrew, cries of " Privilege ! privilege !" burst from all sides. ^ As soon as he was gone, the House, without farther debate, and even without announcing its intentions, adjourned to the following day : all the members went out, anxious to learn how far the King's designs had been carried, and what was the popular opinion regarding them. They found outside, on the staircase, in the hall, and at the doors, among their own ser- vants who were waiting for them as well as among the assembled multitude, an emotion no less strong than their own. The insults and threats of the Cavaliers formed the general topic of conversation. " One of them," says an affidavit of the day, " drew a pistol from his pocket, and cursed and swore at the ' Rushworth, part iii. vol. i. pp. 477, 478 ; Parliamentary History, vol. ii. cols. 1009—1012 : Commons' Journals, vol. ii, pp. 366—369 ; Whitelocke, pp. 52, 53. 336 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST Parliament for prick-eared, cropt-eared rascals, and said he'd kill as many of them as he could." " What !" said a young Templar in Ludlow's hearing, " shall we suffer these fellows at Westminster to domineer thus ? Let us go into the country, and bring up our tenants to pull them out." Some even asked : " When wiU the order come ?" as though they expected some sanguinary outbreak ; and these sayings, passing rapidly from mouth to mouth, everywhere produced the same indignation.' The five members had with- drawn into the City ; the citizens suddenly took arms ; the Lord Mayor strove in vain to calm them ; strong patrols were spontaneously formed for the common safety ; and during the whole evening, bands of apprentices patrolled through the streets, crying from door to door that the Cavahers were coming to set the city on fire ; some even added that the King was to command them in person.^ The agitation was not less great at Whitehall ; the King and Queen had founded the highest hopes on tliis bold action ; for some time, it had formed the occupa- tion of all their thoughts, and the subject of all their conversations, in their secret domestic conferences with their most intimate confidants. That very morning, at the moment of his departure, the King kissed his wife, and promised her that, in an hour, he would return master at length of his kingdom ; and the Queen, watch in hand, liad counted the minutes ' Rushworth, part iii. vol. i. pp. 484 — 486 ; Ludlow's Memoirs, pp. 10, 11. '■^ Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, vol. ii. p. 1:30. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 337 until his reappearance.' All had failed, and although the King still persisted in his design, it was without hoping to gain anything by it, or even knowing how to accomplish it. Offended and grieved, his wisest friends, Falkland, Hyde and Colepepper, kept them- selves aloof, and would give him no advice. A pro- clamation was pubHshed, ordaining that the ports should be closed, and forbidding all persons to receive or harbour the accused members ;^ but no one, even at the Court, was under any delusion as to the force of such orders ; it was well known that the five members were together in a house in the City,^ and no one had any fear for their safety. Lord Digby alone was wilHng to expiate, by his audacity, the imprudence of the advice he had given, and his own weakness in the House of Lords at the moment of the accusation. He offered to go in person, with Lunsford and a few Cavaliers, to seize upon the offenders in their retreat, and bring them to the King, dead or alive. But Charles, either from some remnant of respect for the laws, or because he was as timid as rash in character, rejected the proposal, and resolved, on the following day, to go in person into the City, and solemnly demand of the Common Council to dehver up the accused members ; hoping by his presence and gra- ciousness of speech to win the obedience of the people, whose anger he had not had the wisdom to foresee.^ ' Memoirs of Madame de Motteville, vol. i. p. 265. * Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, vol. ii. pp. 129, 130. ^ Ibid., vol. ii. p. 135. The house was in Coleman Street. * Ibid., vol. ii. p. 131 VOL. I. Z 338 IT [STORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST At about ten o'clock in the morning, he left Wliitehall, without guards, in order to show his entire confidence in the affection of his subjects. The streets through which he passed were thronged by a sullen and gloomy crowd, who tumultuously exhorted him to agree with his Parliament.' In some places, more menacing cries were heard : the words Privilege ! Privilege I resounded on all sides, and a man named Walker flung into his carriage a pamplilet entitled " To your tents, Israel !" — the cry of revolt of the ten tribes of Israel, when they renounced allegiance to Eehoboam.^ On his arrival at Guildhall, Charles demanded the five members, in afiable and temperate language ; declaring at the same time his devotedness to the Protestant religion, and his sincerity in the concessions he had made, and promising to act in all things according to the laws. No applause greeted his speech ; like the people, the Common Council were grave and sad. The King turned to one of the sherifis, who, it is said, was an ardent Presbyterian, and told him he would dine with him. The sherifli' bowed, and, when the Council had broken up, received the King at his house with great pomp and respect. But, as he went back to Wliitehall, Charles met with no better reception from the crowd than he had done in the morning, and he returned to his palace, irritated and despondent.^ * Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, vol. ii. p. 131 ; Whitelocke, p. 53. * Rushworth, part iii. vol. i. p. 479. ^ Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, vol. ii. p. 131 ; Rushworth part iii. vol. i. pp. 479, 480. The correspondence of the Marquis de la AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 339 On the same day, the House had met, and resolved that, after so enormous a violation of its privileges, so long as reparation was not made, and a trusty guard appointed to secure it from such perils in future, it could not sit freely ; and it had therefore adjourned for six days. But, though it had then adjourned, it did not cease to act. A Committee,^ invested with ample powers, was appointed to sit morning and evening in the City, for the purpose of making an inquiry into the late breach of privilege, and of investigating the general state of the kingdom, and particularly of Ireland, in concert with the citizens, the faithfid fi-iends of the Parliament. This Committee was installed at Guildhall, with great pomp ; a strong guard was assigned to them ; a deputation from the Common Council waited on them, and placed at their disposal all the forces and services of the citizens.^ Their sittings were as active as those of the House itself; every member was entitled to be present at them ; the house which served as an asylum to the five culprits was close at hand ; and nothing was done without their knowledge or against their advice.^ More than once even they attended the Committee in Ferte-Imbault, then Ambassador of France in London, gives some curious details regarding tlie internal condition of the Court of Charles I. at this time, and the hostile intrigues of France and Spain, which served to complicate and embitter the parliamentary conflicts. See Appendix VII. ' It was composed of twenty-five members, including two of the King's ministers, Lord Falkland and Sir John Colepepper.— Rushworth, part iii. vol. i. p. 479. ^ Clarendon's History of the Eebellion, vol. ii. pp. 132—135. * Clarendon's History of the RebelHon,vol.ii. p. 134; Whitelocke, p. 64. z 2 340 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST person, and the people cheered them as they passed, proud to possess and guard such representatives. In the midst of their victory, skilful intrigues, framed to augment their zeal, maintained their alarm. Every day, the House of Commons and the City contracted a closer alliance, and mutually encouraged each other to greater boldness.^ At length, on their sole authority, it is said, and as if they had constituted the House itself, the Committee published a declaration con- taining the result of their inquiries f and the Com- mon Council addressed a petition to the King, in which they complained of his bad councillors, of the Cavaliers and Papists, and of the new Governor of the Tower, openly embraced the cause of the five members, and demanded all the reforms which the Commons had indicated.^ The King was alone, shut up in Whitehall, dis- avowed by his most honest adlierents. Even the Cavaliers were intimidated, and either dispersed or silenced. He attempted to reply to the petition of the Common Council, and again ordered the arrest of the five members.^ But his answers were unnoticed, and his orders ineffectual. He learned that, within two days, the House would resume its sittings ; and that the five members were to be escorted with great pomp to Westminster, by the militia, the peo]3le, and even the Thames boatmen, whose afifection he had until then believed he possessed. " What !" he said, ' Eushworth, part. iii. vol. i. p. 483. * Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, vol. ii. p. 155. " Rushworth, part iii. vol. i. p. 480. * Ibid., pp. 481, 482. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 341 angrily, ''do even these water rats desert me?" and this speech, spreading rapidly among the men, was received by them as an insult which called for revenge.' Deserted and humiliated, irritated by the general outcry which daily assailed him without one voice being raised in his defence, Charles could not endure the thought of seeing his enemies pass in triumph before his palace. The Queen, by turns furious and fearful, conjm-ed him to leave the capital. The royahsts, and messengers whom he sent to various parts of the kingdom, promised him strength and safety elsewhere ; the Cavahers, conquered in London, boasted of their influence in their respective counties ; away from the Parliament, the King would be free ; and without the King, what could the Parliament do ? This resolution was adopted ; he determined to retire, in the first instance, to Hampton Court, and after- wards, to a greater distance, if necessary ; secret orders were despatched to the governors of several places, whose loyalty seemed unquestionable ; the Earl of Newcastle set out for the north, where his influence was predominant : and on the 1 0th of January, the evening before the reassembling of the Commons, accompanied only by his wife and children and a few servants, Charles left London and that palace of Whitehall which he was destined to re-enter only on his way to the scaffold.^ On the day after his departure, at about two o'clock ' William Lilly's Observations on the Life and Death of King Charles, in Maseres' Select Tracts, vol. i. p. 173. * Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, vol. ii. p. 162 ; Rushworth, 342 HISTORY OP CHARLES THE FIRST in the afternoon, the Thames was covered with boats, carrying small pieces of ordnance, and prepared for fight, in which the five members were escorted back to Westminster. A multitude of barges, gaily adorned with flags, and filled with citizens, followed ; along the banks marched the London militia, carrying the last declaration of the Parliament at the end of their pikes.' An officer, trained in the armies of Gustavus Adol- phus. Captain Skippon, had been appointed on the previous evening to command them ; he was a coarse, illiterate man, but a blunt, bold soldier, very austere in his manners, and exceedingly popular in the City. An immense crowd thronged after this procession ; and as they passed before the deserted palace of Wliite- hall, they came to a stand, and asked, with insulting- shouts : " What has become of the King and his Cavaliers? and whither are they fled?"^ On their arrival at Westminster, the five members eulogised in glowing language the devotedness of the City to the popular cause, and the sheriffs were brought into the House and received the thanks of the Speaker. As they departed, another procession came up ; four thou- sand knights, gentlemen, freeholders, and others, arrived on horseback from Buckinghamshire, Hampden's na- tive county, to present to the House a petition against Papist lords and bad counsellors, and to express their part iii. vol. i. p. 564. Commons' Journals, vol. ii. p. 925 ; Whitelocke, p. 54. ' May's History of the Long Parliament, p. 157 ; Rushworth, part iii. vol. i. p. 484 ; Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, vol. ii. pp. 164 — 166. * Clarendon's History of the RebcUion, vol. ii. p. 164. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 343 coufidence in their worthy representative ; they had also another petition for the House of Peers, and a thu'd for the King, and in their hats they wore a printed oath to live and die with the Parhament, who- ever might be its enemies.' On every side burst forth that proud and joyous enthusiasm which authorises and conmiands the leaders of the people to adopt the boldest resolutions ; the Commons advanced with skil- ful daring, yielding to the popular pressure, as the pilot gives way to a violent but propitious wind. In a few hours, they had voted that no member could be arrested, on any pretext, without their consent ; a bill was adopted giving the Houses power to adjourn, in case of need, to any place they might choose ; an address was drawn up to request the King to remove Sir John Byron from the government of the Tower ; and until his answer should be received, Skippon was directed to post guards around the fortress, and to watch its approaches with the utmost care ; letters were sent to Colonel Groring, the Grovernor of Ports- mouth, to forbid him to receive any troops or muni- tions of war into the town, without the authority of Parliament ; Sir John Hotliam, a rich and influential Yorkshire gentleman, was ordered to set out imme- diately, and take the command of Hull, an important town, the key to the north of England, and the seat of extensive arsenals. Finally, two days afterwards, the House voted that the kingdom was threatened with danger, and should be placed without delay in a state ' Rushworth, part iii. vol. i. pp. 486 — 488 ; Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, vol. ii. pp. 166—170. 344 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST of defence : the Lords refused to join in this declara- tion ; but this mattered little ; the object was attained^ the people were everywhere on their guard. ^ The House had reason to anticipate war, for the King's only thought now was how to prepare it. In London, he had been powerless and humiliated; but when he had once left the capital, he was surrounded by none but partizans, was no longer reminded daily and hourly of his weakness, and was able to indulge freely in the hope of overcoming, by armed force, the enemy from whom he had just fled without a combat. The Cavaliers also had recovered their presumptuous bearing ; already they seemed to think war had been declared, and evinced the greatest anxiety to com- mence hostilities. On the very day after their de- parture, the House learned that two hundred of them, commanded by Lunsford, had marched upon Kingston, twelve miles from London, where the military stores of the county of Surrey were kept, as if with the inten- tion of seizing upon the town, and establishing them- selves in it ; it was also informed that Lord Digby had gone to them on the King's behalf, to thank them for their zeal, and come to an understanding with them, assuredly for some fatal purpose. The Parlia- ment lost no time in taking its measures, and these attempts were frustrated. Lord Ligby was so strongly denounced that he fled beyond sea.^ Thinking himself ' Parliamentary History, vol. ii. cols. 1028 — 1035 ; Rushworth, part iii. vol. 1. p. 469 ; Clareiidon's History of the Rebellion, vol. ii. pp. 170 — 173. ''■ Rushworth, part iii. vol. i. p. 469 ; Nalsou's Collection, vol. ii, p. 845 ; Parhamentary History, vol. ii. col. 1036 ; Whitelocke, p. 54. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 345 still too near London, the King left Hampton Court for Windsor; Lunsford and his Cavaliers followed him thither. There, in a secret council, it was resolved that the Queen, taking with her the crown jewels, should proceed into Holland to purchase arms and ammunition, and to solicit the support of the con- tinental princes ; and that she should allege, as the pretext for her jommey, the necessity of taking to the Prince of Orange, the Princess Henrietta-Maria, a mere child, to whom he had been contracted six months previously.^ The King, on his part, still keeping up his negociations with the Parliament, was to retire gradually towards the northern counties, where his partizans were most numerous, to take up his residence at York, and there await the oppor- tunity and means of action. Matters being thus arranged, the Queen made her preparations for de- parture with great mystery ; and the King requested the two Houses to prepare a general statement of their grievances and present them to him in one entire body, promising to give them immediate satisfaction, and thus put an end to their contentions.^ The Upper House received this message with joy ; the King had numerous friends in that body, and many others, alarmed or wearied by the existing state of things, only aspired to put an end to the struggle, without any thought for the future. But the Com- mons, more clear-sighted and resolute, could not be- ' Clarendon's History of the Eebellion, vol. ii. p. 176 ; Pere d'Orleans, Histoire des Revolutions d'Angleteri'e, book ix. p. 87. ^ Parliamentary Histox-y, vol. ii. cols. 1045, 1046. 346 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST lieve that the King would grant what they demanded, or perform what he had promised. His proposition was, in their eyes, a mere stratagem to get rid of them at a single blow, and, when they were dismissed, to resume absolute power. They refused to concur in the eager thanks of the Lords, unless the King were requested, in the first place, to intrust the command of the Tower, of the other forts, and of the militia, to men who possessed the confidence of the Parliament.^ The House of Peers rejected the amendment, but thirty-two lords protested against its rejection -^ and the Commons, strong in the support of such a mi- nority, addressed their petition to the King in their own name alone. He answered by a decided refusal as to the Tower and other forts, and in vague and evasive language as to the militia -f for he was evi- dently bent on making no further concessions, and his sole object was to gain time. The Commons, on their part, were determined not to lose time ; they were as well served at Windsor as in London, for their strength was very generally believed in ; they had spies and friends everywhere, and were ignorant nei- ther of the King's projects, nor of the Queen's intended journey, nor of the intrigues of the Court in the northern counties and on the Continent.^ The danger was pressing ; it might happen that the King would be ready for war before the militia question was ' Parliamentary History, vol. ii. col. 1048. ^ Ibid., vol. ii. col. 1049. 3 Rushworth, part iii. vol. i. p. 517. ■* Clarcudoii'a Iliatory of the Rebellion, vol. ii. p. 234. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 347 decided, and in that case, how was he to be re- sisted? The populace were agitated by bhnder but more immediate fears ; there were rumours that ammunition had been taken from the Tower; that plots existed against the lives of the popular leaders ; and great indignation was felt that they should always win fruitless victories. A fresh and strong expression of pablic feehng could alone, it was thought, surmount these new obstacles, arm the zealous, encourage the lukewarm, and paralyze the malignant. Petitions flowed in from all the counties, and from all classes of citizens ; apprentices, small tradesmen, poor artizans, London porters, and even women, thronged about Westminster Hall to present their addresses. Wlien the women first made their appearance, Skippon, who commanded the guard, expressed his surprise : " Hear us," they cried, "for where there is now one, there will be five hundred the next day ; and it is as good for us to die here, as at home." He went to the House for instructions, and, on his return, gently advised them to withdraw. But they returned two days after, having chosen Anne Stagg, the wife of a wealthy brewer, as their spokeswoman, and bearing a petition at the end of which they had taken care to explain their reasons for their conduct. " It may be thought strange and unbeseeming our sex," they said, " to show ourselves by way of petition to this honour- able assembly. But Christ has purchased us at as dear a rate as he hath done men, and therefore requireth of us the like obedience for the same mercy, as of men. Women are sharers in the common calamities 348 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST that accompany both Church and Commonwealth, when oppression is exercised over the Church and kingdom. Therefore we do this, not out of an^^ seK-conceit or pride of heart, as seeking to equal ourselves with men, either in authority or wisdom ; but, according to our places, to discharge that duty we owe to God, and to the cause of the Church." Their petition was received, and Pym went out to give them an answer. They formed in a body around him, in front of the door. " Good women," he said, " your petition, with the reasons, hath been read in the House, and is thank- fully accepted of, and is come in a seasonable time. You shall, God willing, receive from us all the satis- faction which we can possibly give to your just and lawful desires. We entreat you, therefore, to repair to your houses, and turn your petition into prayers at home for us ; for we have been, are, and shall be, to our utmost power, ready to relieve you, your hus- bands, and children."' They departed without noise or tumult ; furnishing a remarkable instance of sobriety amid the vagaries of popular enthusiasm, and of moral gravity amid party manoeuvres. The petitions were very uniform in character ; they all demanded the reformation of the Chui'ch, the punishment of the Papists, and the repression of malig- nants. Some even went further, and pointed out the • Nearly all these petitions were presented between the 20th of January and the 5th of February, 1642 ; that of the women was pre- sented on the 4th of February. Conamons' Journals, vol. ii. pp. 938— 961 ; Parhamentary History, cols. 1049—1055, 1072—1076 ; Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, vol. ii. pp. 221, 225. AND TITE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 349 crying evils of the moment ; and in these, the House of Lords was openly threatened. " Let those noble wortliies of the House of Peers," they said to the Commons, "who concur with your happy votes, he earnestly desired to join with your honourable House, and to sit and vote as one entire body ; which, we hope, will remove from us our destructive fears, and prevent that which apprehension will make the wisest and peaceablest men to put into execution." "We never doubted the House of Commons," cried the people at the doors of Westminster Hall, " but we hear all sticks in the Lords' House ; and we desire to know the names of those peers who hinder the agreement between the good Lords and. the Commons."^ Even in the House of Lords, the language of the two parties began to assume a warlike tone : — " Wliosoever refuses to join with the House of Commons, in this particular of the mihtia, is, in my opinion, an enemy to the Com- monwealth," said the Earl of Northumberland. He was called upon to explain himself. "It is our opinion like- wise," cried his friends, who had, until then, been in the minority on this question. The mob were at the doors ; fear seized on the Lords ; several left the House ; others changed their views ; Lord Chancellor Littleton himself, with a few trifling reservations, supported the proposition of the Commons, which at length received the sanction of the Tipper House ; and, a few days after, the bill for the exclusion of the ' Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, vol. ii. pp. 224, 225, 350 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST bishops, which had been in suspense for three months, was also passed by the Lords. ^ This bill was presented to the King separately, as the ordinance respecting the militia was not yet drawn up. His perplexity was great ; he had just informed the Parliament of the Queen's intended journey ; in order to appease the Commons, he had officially aban- doned all proceedings against the five members ; ^ he had even consented to appoint, as Governor of the Tower, Sir John Conyers, whom the Commons had recommended ; ^ but it had been his hope, by these concessions, to avoid doing anything further, and to elude all great questions, until he should be ready to resist. The exclusion of the bishops was against his conscience ; the abandonment of the mihtia would place all the force of the country in the hands of his adversaries. Meanwhile, he was hard pressed on all sides ; even his own councillors did not think he could give a total refusal ; Lord Falkland, still supposing him to be sincere, constantly advocated concession ; Cole- pepper, who was not very devout, but fond of expe- dients, strongly insisted on the adoption of the bill against the bishops, but said that the militia bill was a matter of far greater importance, for, with the sword, all might be regained, and it would then be easy to > Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, vol. ii. p. 226 ; May's His- tory of the Long Parliament, p. 148 ; Parliamentary History, vol. ii. cols. 1077, 1367. ^ Rushworth, part iii. vol. i. p. 492. ^ Parliamentary History, vol. ii. col. 1087 ; Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, vol. ii. p. 236. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 851 revoke an assent which had been extorted by violence. " Is Ned Hyde of that mind ? " asked the King. " No, sire," repHed Hyde, " I am not ; nor do I wish that either of the bills should be passed." " That is my judgment also," said the King, " and I will run the hazard." ^ Colepepper went to the Queen, described to her the dangers which menaced both the King and herself, and pointed out the obstacles which would be placed in the way of her journey, now the only means of putting the King in a position to defeat his enemies. The Queen, as easily inspired by fear as by hope, and animated, moreover, by no friendly feelings towards the Anghcan bishops, readily allowed herself to be agitated and persuaded, by the vehemence of his gestures and language. She hastened to her husband, and with passionate tears and entreaties, implored him to have regard for his safety, for their future happiness, and for their children. Charles was unable to resist her ; he yielded sorrowfully and repentantly, as he had done in Strafford's case, authorized Commissioners to sign the bill in his name, said nothing about the mihtia, and set out for Dover, where the Queen was to embark. He had no sooner arrived there, than he received a message from the Commons ; like Colepepper, they attached far more importance to the militia bill than to the exclusion of the bishops, who were already vanquished and in prison. They had hastened to draft their bill, in which they had inserted the names ' Clarendon's Life, vol. i. pp. 114, 115. 352 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST of the lieutenants who were to command in each county; and they sohcited its immediate sanction. " I have no time to consider of a particular answer for a matter of so great a weight as this," said the King ; *' therefore, I must respite the same until my return."^ As he was retm-ning, after the Queen's embarkation (which took place on the 23rd of February), he received a second message on the road, at Canterbury, insisting still more urgently on an answer. He learned at the same time, that the Commons opposed the departure of his son Charles, Prince of Wales, whom he had directed to meet him at Greenwich, as he intended to take him with him into the North ; that they had prosecuted the Attorney-General, Herbert, for having obeyed his orders in impeaching the five members ; and, finally, that they had intercepted and opened a letter from Lord Digby to the Queen. So much distrust, after so many concessions, offended him as deeply as if the concessions had been sincere. He treated the messengers very roughly, without, however, coming to any decision.^ On liis arrival at Greenwich, he found the Prince, whom his tutor, the Marquis of Hertford, notwithstanding the prohibition of the Commons, had at once taken thither, on re- ceiving the King's orders. Then at length, free from anxiety respecting his wife and children, he sent his answer to the Parliament ;^ he was willing, he said, to intrust the command of the militia to the officers ' Parliamentary History, vol. ii. cols. 1083—1085, 1091, 1097. ^ Clarendon's Life, vol. i. pp. 119, 121. ^ Rushworth, part iii. vol. i. p. 521 ; Clarendon's Life, vol. i. p. 124. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 353 whom they had named, but he must have Kberty to dismiss them, if necessary, and they must except from the measure the principal towns of the kingdom, where the mihtia would remain, as before, under the government of their charters, and of the ancient laws. Then, without further delay, he set out for York, travel- ling by easy stages. At Theobalds, he was overtaken by twelve Commissioners from the Parliament. On receiving his answer, both Houses had voted that it was a positive refusal ; that, if he persisted in it, they would dispose of the militia without his sanction ; and that his return to London could alone avert the evils with which the kingdom was threatened. The tone of the messsage was rough, as though the Houses wished to intimate that they knew their strength, and would not fear to use it. " I am so much amazed at this message," said the King, " that I know not what to answer. You speak of jealousies and fears ; lay your hands to your hearts, and ask yourselves whether I may not likewise be disturbed with fears and jealousies ? And if so, I assure you this message hath nothing lessened them. For the militia, I thought so much of it before I sent that answer, and am so much assured that the answer is agreeable to what in justice or reason you can ask, or T in honour grant, that I shall not alter it in any point. For my residence near you, I wish it might be so safe and honourable, that I had no cause to absent myself from Whitehall ; ask yourselves whether I have not. For my son, I shall take that care of him which shall justify me to God as a father, and to my dominions VOL. I. 2 A 354 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST as a king. To conclude, I assure you, upon my honour, that I have no thought but of peace and justice to my people, which I shall by all fair means seek to preserve and maintain, relying upon the goodness and providence of God, for the preservation of myself and rights."^ And he continued his journej'-. A week after, at Newmarket, other Commissioners presented themselves ; they brought with them a declaration, in which the Parliament, enumerating all its grievances and fears, justified its conduct, and conjured the King to return to London, to come to an understanding with his people, and thus to dissipate the dark forebodings which agitated all minds. Deep emotion was evident in the firm language of the declaration, and it was equally manifest at the inter- view between the King and the Commissioners ; their conversation was long, earnest, and familiar, as between men deeply afiected by the prospect of an imminent rupture, and still striving to persuade each other to be reconciled ; it was clear that, though they no longer hesitated, though they had no means of reconcihation, though they judged a contest inevitable, and were firmly resolved to maintain it, yet both parties engaged in the conflict with unfeigned regret, and made a last efibrt to avert it, with earnestness, though without hope. "What would you have?" said the King. " Have I violated your laws ? Have I denied to pass any one bill for the ease and security of my subjects ? I do not ask you what you have ' Clarendon's Life, vol. i. p. 127 ; Rushworth, part iii. vol. i. pp. 523, 624. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 355 done for me. Have any of my people been transported with fears and apprehensions ? I have offered as free and general a pardon as yourselves can devise ? What have I denied the ParUament ? " The Earl of Hol- land instanced the militia. "That was no bill," replied the King, "and I have not denied it." The Earl then endeavoured to persuade his Majesty to resume his residence near the Parliament. " I would you had given me cause," said the King ; " but I am sure that this declaration is not the way to it ; and in all Aristotle's Ehetoric, there is no such argument of persuasion." The Earl of Pembroke reminded his Majesty that the Parliament had hunbly besought him to come near them. " I have learned by your declaration," answered the King, " that words are not sufficient." Lord Pembroke entreated his Majesty to express what he would have. *' I would whip a boy in Westminster school," said Charles, " that could not tell that by my answer ; but you are iiriich mistaken if you think my answer a denial." "Well," said Lord Pembroke, " may not the militia be granted, as is desired by the Parliament, for a time ?" " By God ! not for an hour," exclaimed the King ; " you have asked that of me in this, which was never asked of a king, and with which I will not trust my wife and childi'en." Then, turning to the Commissioners of the Commons, he added : — " The business of Ireland will never be done in the way you are in ; four hundred will never do that work, it must be put in the hands of one. If I were trusted with it, I would pawn my head to end that work ; and thougli I am a beggar 2 A 2 H50 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST myself, yet I can find money for that."' These last words revived every suspicion ; they were regarded as an acknowledgment of the possession of secret re- sources, and as indicative of a design to render the Parliament unpopular, by imputing to it the disorders of Ireland, and also of a desire to find himself alone at the head of an army of which he could dispose at his pleasure. The conference was carried no further ; the Commissioners returned to London ; the King continued his journey, and arrived at York without any other incident. Then commenced, between the Parliament and the King, a conflict previously unexampled in Europe — a clear and glorious symptom of the social revolution which then took its rise, and is now in process of ac- complishment. Negociations were still continued, but neither party expected any result from them, or even had any intention to treat. It was no longer to one another that they addressed their declarations and messages ; both appealed to the whole nation, to public opinion ; to this new power both seemed to look for strength and success. The origin and extent of the royal authority, the privileges of the Houses of Parlia- ment, the limits of the fidehty due from subjects, the militia, the petitions for the redress of grievances, and ' This conversation is taken from a pamphlet pubhshed in London by W. Gaye, immediately after the return of the Commissioners, and which contained a narrative of all that had passed between them and the King. The printer of this pamphlet was sent for and questioned by the House of Lords ; but, upon his saying that he had the copy from the Lord Keeper's clerk, he was dismissed. — Parliamentary His- tory, vol. ii. cols. 1126, 1127 ; Rushworth, part iii. vol. i. pp. 526 — 533. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 357 the distribution of public employments became the subjects of an official controversy, in v^hich the general principles of social order, the various nature of governments, the primitive rights of liberty, the his- tory, laws and customs of England, were alternately quoted, explained, and commented upon. In the in- terval between the disputes of the two parties in Parhament, and their armed encounter on the field of battle, reason and learning interposed, as it were, for several months, to suspend the course of events, and to put forth their ablest efforts to obtain the free con- currence of the people, by stamping either cause with the impress of legitimacy. At the opening of the Parliament, England had neither expected nor desired a revolution : the Dissenters alone meditated one in the Church. A return to legal order, the restoration of ancient liberties, and the reformation of actual and pressing abuses were, in the country's belief at least, the sole wish and hope of the nation. The leaders themselves, though bolder and more enlightened, had formed no vaster projects ; the energy of their will exceeded the ambition of their thoughts ; and they had gone onward, from day to day, without any remote object or systematic design, by the mere progressive development of their position, and in order to satisfy urgent necessities. When the time came for drawing the sword, all were astonished and deeply moved ; not that their hearts were timid, or that civil war in general was regarded by either Parliament or people as any- thing unprecedented or criminal ; on the contrary, they were proud to read of its triumphs in the Great Charter, 358 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST and in the history of their country : more than once they had hraved their masters, and had taken away and bestowed the crown ; but those times were ah-eady so distant that they had forgotten the miseries which they entailed, and only remembered the glorious examples which they famished of their energy and power. But it had always been in the name of the laws, of certain and admitted rights, that resistance had been declared : in achieving liberty, England had always considered herself as merely defending her inheritance; and to the words law and legal order, that popular and spon- taneous respect was attached, which rejects discussion and sanctions the most audacious designs. Now, how- ever, both parties mutually accused each other of illegality and innovation, and both were justified in making the charge ; for the one had violated the ancient rights of the country, and had not abjured the maxims of tyranny ; and the other demanded, in the name of principles still confused and chaotic, liberties and a power which had until then been unknown. Both felt the necessity of throwing the mantle of legahty over their pretensions and acts ; both under- took to justify themselves, not only according to reason, but according to law. In their train, the whole nation rushed eagerly into the hsts, agitated, to a greater extent than their leaders, by feehngs that seemed contradictory, and yet were all equally sincere. Scarcely emancipated from an oppression which the laws of their ancestors had condemned without being able to prevent, they engaged ardently in the search for more effectual guarantees : but yet their hopes AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 359 were still attached to those very laws, whose power- lessness they had so recently experienced. New be- liefs, new ideas, were fermenting in their minds ; they clung to them with pure and lively faith, giving way, with powerful confidence, to that enthusiasm which seeks the triumph of truth, no matter at what price ; and yet, at the same time, modest in their thoughts, tenderly faitliful to their old habits, and fall of respect for their ancient laws, they dehghted in the behef that, far from making any changes, they were merely paying- homage to their ancestral institutions, and restoring them to vigorous operation. Hence arose a singular mixture of boldness and timidity, sincerity and hypo- crisy, in the pubhcations of all kinds, official or other- wise, with which England was then inundated. The ardour of the national mind was unbounded, the move- ment universal, unprecedented, and mirestrained ; in London, in York, in all the large towns of the kingdom, pamplilets, periodical and irregular journals, were multiphed and diffused in every direction ; political, religious and historical questions, news, sermons, plans, advice and invectives — all found a place in them, all were related and discussed :^ voluntary messengers hawked them about the comitry ; at the assizes, on the market-days, at the doors of churches, the crowd flocked to purchase or read them ; and in this simul- taneous outburst of heterogeneous thoughts, in the ' These are the titles of some of these pubhcations : — Mercurius, with the affixes of AuUcus, Britannicus, Rusticus, Pragmaticus, FoUticus, Lunaticus, and so forth ; Diurnal Occurrences, Parliament Scout, Parlia- mentary Intelligencer, Special Passages, &c., &c., &c. 360 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST midst of this novel appeal to popular opinion, whilst at the core of both actions and writings there already prevailed the principle of national sovereignty in conflict with the Divine right of kings, yet the statutes of the realm, the jurisprudence, traditions, and usages of the country were incessantly invoked as the only legitimate umpires in the dispute ; and revolution was everywhere existent, without any one daring to proclaim the fact, or perhaps even to avow it to him- self. In this state of the public mind, the moral position of the Parliament was a false one, for it was by its means and to its advantage that the revolution was to be effected ; compelled at once to promote and disavow it, its actions and language belied each other in turn, and it fluctuated painfully between bold- ness and artifice, violence and hypocrisy. Considered as exceptional maxims and measures, applicable to critical emergencies, but ceasing with the necessity which called them forth, its principles were true and its resolutions legitimate ; but parties will not thus rest satisfied with the possession of a merely ephemeral legitimacy, people will never feel enthusiastic devotion to the doctrines and interests of a day : at the very moment when the present alone sways them so as to decide both their opinions and their acts, they love to believe in the perpetuity of their ideas and deeds, and assume to regulate the future in the name of eternal truth. Not content with possessing itself of the sovereign power, the Parliament voted, as a funda- mental principle and definition, as it were, of the legal AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 361 order of the country, that the command of the militia did not belong to the King, that he could not refuse his sanction to bills desired by the people, that the Houses of ParHament, without his concurrence, had the right to declare what was the law, and finally, that it was good and lawful to solicit by petitions the altera- tion of existing customs or statutes, but that every petition for their maintenance should be rejected as unnecessary.' Notwithstanding the uncertainty and diversity of ancient examples, maxims such as these, if converted into public and permanent law, were evi- dently contrary to the historical foundations, the regular state, and even the very existence, of monar- chy. The King hastened to take advantage of this. In his turn, he spoke in the name of Old England, her laws, and recollections. Able and learned champions undertook to maintain his cause. Edward Hyde, who was still in London, prepared, sometimes single-handed, and sometimes in concert with Lord Falkland, answers to all the publications of the Parhament. Transmitted to York, in all haste, by secret messengers, these documents were delivered to the King alone, who spent whole nights in copying them with his own hand, that no one might know their author, and after- wards published them in the name of his Council.^ Written with great skill and clearness, sometimes even with cutting irony, they aimed more especially to reveal the subtle intrigues, the artifices, and the ille- gality of the pretensions, of the Parliament. Charles ' Clarendon's History of the Eebellion, vol. ii. pp. 404 — 408 ; Parlia- mentary History, vol. ii. col. 1140. * Clarendon's Life, vol. i. pp. 123, 124 ; Warwick's Memoirs, p. 209. 862 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST no longer governed ; he had no actual tyranny to defend ; he could be silent as to his secret principles, his ultimate designs, and his despotic hopes, and could invoke the law, in his turn, against his enemies, who had now become the reigning despots. So great was the effect of these royal publications that the ParHa- ment used every effort to suppress them, whilst the King printed the messages of the Parliament on the same sheet with his answers.' The royalist party visibly increased ; it ere long grew bold, and turned the weapons of Hberty against its adversaries, George Benyon, a rich city merchant, addressed a petition to Parhament against the ordinance respecting the militia, and many influential citizens signed it with him.^ The gentlemen of Kent met to adopt one in favour of prerogative and episcopacy ; several members of Parliament, among others Sir Edward Dering, who first introduced the bill against the bishops, openly encouraged these proceedings.^ The royalist pamphlets enjoyed a wide circulation, and met with great favour; they were frequently haughty, and written with a tone of elegant and disdainful superiority ; even among the people, abuse of the leaders of the Commons found welcome and credence : so the pamphlets spoke with derisive scorn of " King Pym," and the " sugar-loaves " which he had formerly received as a present, and of the " ten thousand pounds of the King's money," which, it was said, he had just given his daughter as a ' Rushworth, part iii. vol. i. p. 751. ^ Parliamentary History, vol. ii. col. 1150. ^ At the Maidstone Assizes. Ibid., vol. ii. col. 1147. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 3G3 marriage-portion ; and of the cowardice of the Earl of Warwick, " whose heart was in his boots ;" and a thousand other coarse insults, which, a short time before, no one would have cared to repeat, or even to hear.^ In the Parliament also, the King's friends acted with greater pride and susceptibility ; men who had previously been silent, such as Sir Ealph Hopton and Lord Herbert, haughtily repelled all insinuations offensive to his honour. It was clear that, in the eyes of many persons, his cause was assuming a favourable aspect, and that they would uphold it in case of need, for they no longer hesitated to avow it. ParHament took the alarm ; the self-love of the leaders was wounded; long used to enjoy popularity, they could not patiently endure insult and contempt, and it irritated them to think that, in this paper warfare, their enemies seemed to have the advantage. Accord- ingly, they resolved, as much from ill-humour as from motives of policy, to meet this new danger with tyranny. All freedom of discussion ceased ; Sir Ealph Hopton was sent to the Tower ;^ Lord Herbert was censured and threatened ;^ George Benyon and Sir Edward Dering were impeached ;^ and the petition from the county of Kent was set aside.^ A report was spread that it was to be renewed; Cromwell hastened to communicate this to the Commons, and received in- structions to take measures to prevent the recurrence ' Parliamentary History, vol. ii. cols. 1164, 1405. * Ibid., vol. ii.col. 1118. ^ Ibid., vol. ii. col. 1242. * Ibid., vol. ii. cols. 1149, 1188. ' Ibid., vol. ii. col. 1147. 364 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST of the danger.^ Making as yet but little figure in the House, though abeady more skilled and more deeply involved than any other in the intrigues of the revo- lution, it was in these external duties of exciting the people, and of watching, denouncing, and frustrating the royalists, that his activity and influence were at this time employed. An immediate war was no longer doubtful ; the two parties could no longer live together, or even sit within the same walls. Every day members of Par- Kament left London, some retiring in disgust or alarm to their estates, others proceeding elsewhere to seek new weapons against their enemies, far from a town where they felt themselves defeated. Most of them repaired to the King, who had already been joined by nearly all his councillors.^ An unexpected incident occurred to quicken this emigration, and irrevocably to sunder the two parties. On the 23rd of April, the King, at the head of three hundi-ed horse, advanced towards Hull, and required Sir John Hotham, the governor, to deliver the town into his hands. Weak and irresolute, moved by no bitter animosity against the Crown, and unprovided with instructions for the regulation of his conduct in such an emergency, Sir John, in a state of the utmost perplexity, sent to beseech the King to wait until he had informed the ParHament of his demand. But Charles still advanced, and appeared beneath the walls at eleven o'clock. He ' Parliamentary History, vol. ii. col. 1 194. ^ Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, vol. ii. p. 538 ; May's History of the Long Parliament, p. 176. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 365 had already opened communications witli the town : on the previous evening, his son James, Duke of York, his nephew the Count Palatine, and Lord Newport, had entered Hull under the pretext of spending a day there. The mayor and several of the citizens were proceeding towards the gates to give the king admis- sion, when Hotham ordered them to return home, and, accompanied by his officers, went to the ramparts. There the King in person summoned him to admit him. Sir John fell on his knees, and with great anguish begged pardon for refusing to do so, on the ground of the oath he had taken to keep the place at the disposal of the Parliament. Violent mui-murs arose among the Cavaliers who surrounded the King ; they threatened Sir John, calling him a rebel and traitor. " Kill him !" they cried to the officers of the garrison ; " throw him over the wall !" But it was the officers who had induced the governor to resist. In vain did Charles himself attempt to intimidate or cajole them : after a long parley, he withdrew, but to a short distance only, and in an hour's time, sent to request Sir John to admit him alone, with twenty horse. Sir John refused this also. " If his person had been in but with half that number," he wrote to the Parliament, " I should have been noways master of the town." The King returned to the foot of the ramparts, ordered Hotham and his adherents to be proclaimed traitors, and on the same day addressed a message to Parliament, to demand j ustice for such an outrageous insult.^ ' Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, vol. ii. p. 383 ; Rushworth, 366 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST The Parliament justified all their governor had done, and rephed to the King that the town and arsenals were not personal property of which he could claim possession in virtue of the law, as a citizen might claim his houses or lands ; but that they were merely given him in trust for the safety of the realm, and that the same cause might authorise the Parliament to seize them for the public advantage.^ The answer was frank and legitimate, but it was equivalent to a declaration of war. It was regarded as such by both parties. Thirty -two lords and more than sixty members of the House of Commons, Mr. Hyde among others, set out for York." The Earls of Essex and Holland, the former of whom was Lord Chamberlain, and the other first gentleman of the bed-chamber, received orders from the King to join him, for he was desirous to secure their persons, and to deprive the Parliament of their support. With the sanction of the House of Peers, they refused to obey, and lost their offices.^ Lord Chancellor Littleton, after long and pusillanimous part iii. vol. i. p. 567 ; Parliamentary History, vol. ii. col. 1197, in wliich wiU be found the letter from Hotham to the Parliament relating the occurrence. ' Parhamentary History, vol. ii. cols. 1188, 1193, 1204, 1209. '^ May's History of the Long Parhament, p. 175 ; Clarendon's Life, vol. i. pp. 135—146. On the 16th of June, 1642, the House of Com- mons was called over, and sixty-five members were found to be absent without any known and legitimate excuse ; it was proposed that they should iiot be allowed to resume their seats until they had justified their absence, and this motion was carried by a majority of fifty-five votes ; it was also proposed that a fine of 201. should be imposed upon them, but this proposition was rejected by a majoi'ity of twenty-one votes. — Parhamentary History, vol. ii. col. 1373. ^ Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, vol. ii. p. 163 ; Parliamentary History, vol. ii. cols. 1171 — 1173. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 867 hesitation, sent the great seal to the King, and escaped himself on the following day.^ This produced a great sensation in London, for legal government seemed inseparably connected with the possession of the great seal. The Upper House seemed ill at ease, and almost ready to give way. But the energy of the Commons prevented all indecision. The absent members were twice summoned to resume their seats ;^ on the formal refusal of nine lords to do so, prosecutions were insti- tuted against them ;^ all citizens were forbidden to take arms at the King's command;^ instructions were sent into all the counties to direct the organization of the mihtia ;^ and in many places it had already been formed and exercised spontaneously. The transfer of the military stores from Hull to London was ordered, and effected in spite of all obstacles.^ The King had commanded that the Westminster assizes should be transferred to York, in order that he might concentrate the entire legal government at the place of liis re- sidence ; but the Parliament opposed tliis, and its orders were obeyed.' Finally, the Commons appointed a com- mittee to negociate a loan in the City, without specifying the object to which the money was to be applied;^ and Commissioners were despatched to York, all of them wealthy and influential gentlemen of that county, with orders to reside near the King, whatever he might say ' Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, vol. ii. pp. 487 — 502. * Parliamentaiy History, vol. ii. cols. 1296, 1327. » Ibid., vol. ii. col. 1368. * Ibid., vol. ii. col. 1235. * Ibid., vol. ii. col. 1.328. « Ibid., vol. ii. col. 1319. 7 Ibid., vol. ii. col. 1233. « Ibid., vol. ii. col. 1323. 368 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST to the contrary, and to send a report to Parliament of all tliat occurred within th^ir observation.^ The firmness of the Commissioners was equal to the perilous character of their mission. " Gentlemen," said the King to them, on their arrival, " why have you come here ? I command you to depart. If you will positively disobey me, and stay here, I would advise you not to make any party, or hinder my service in the country ; for, if you do, I will clap you up." ~ They answered respectfully, but remained, exposed daily to insult and frequently to threats, rarely at liberty to go out, but acting secretly, observing all that passed, and sending full information to the Parliament. The movement was, comparatively, as great at York as in London : the King was beginning to raise a guard ; but as he did not dare imperiously to require this service, he had called together the gentlemen of the neighbom'hood, in the hope of obtaining it from their zeal. The meeting was numerous and animated;^ prolonged acclamations greeted the King's words; and the Commissioners of the Parliament were received with hissings and hootings. But, on the same day, there arrived at York several thousand freeholders and farmers, who had carefully been excluded from the ' Parliamentary History, vol. ii. cols. 1206, 1210—1212. These Com- missioners were the Lords Howard and Fairfax, Sir Hugh Cholmon- deley. Sir Henry Cholmondeley, and Sir Philip Stapletou. * See the letter from the Committee at York to the Parliament, in the Parliamentary History, vol. ii. col. 1222 ; Clarendon's History of the Eebellion, vol. ii. p. 423. ^ May's History of the Long Parliament, p. 171 ; Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, vol. ii. p. 429. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 369 invitation to tlie meeting ; they had, they said, as much right as the gentlemen to dehberate on the affairs of the country, and they presented themselves at the door of the room in which the royalists were assembled. They were refused admittance ; and accordingly, they held a meeting elsewhere, and protested against the measures which they had heard were to be adopted by the gentry. Even these were divided ; — when the propo- sition was made for levying a guard, more than fifty gentlemen signed a protest against it ; at their head was Sir Thomas Fairfax,^ yo^ig and unknown as yet, but already one of the most courageous and sincere patriots the country could boast. ^ Charles was in- timidated, and announced a second meeting, to which all the freeholders were to be invited ; the Commis- sioners of the Parliament were forbidden to attend it ; but it was held on Heyworth Moor, near their resi- dence, and their friends came to them continually for advice and encouragement. More than forty thousand men were present, gentlemen, freeholders, farmers, and townspeople, on foot and horseback, some stand- ing in groups, others walking about over the moor, to speak to their friends and rally them together. Ere long the Cavaliers perceived that a petition was cir- culating, the pui'port of which was to beseech the King to banish all thouglits of war, and to come to an understanding with his Parliament. They burst into invectives and menaces, riding violently among the ' Born in January, 1611, at Denton, in Yorkshire. * Letter from the Committee at York to the Parliament, May 13, 1642 ; Pariiamentary History, vol. ii. cols. 1226—1233. VOL. I. 2 15 370 HISTORY OF (HAELES THE FIRST groups, snatching the copies of the petition from those who were reading it, and declaring that the King should not receive it.^ Charles arrived, in great embarrassment and ill-humour, not knowing what to say to the multitude, whose presence and enthusiasm had already offended his impolitic gravity. After reading an equivocal declaration, he was about to retire in all haste, to avoid any protest, when young Fairfax succeeded in getting near him, fell suddenly on his knees, and laid the petition on the pommel of his saddle, thus braving, even at his feet, the anger of the King, who urged his horse rouglily against him, but in vain, in order to force him to withch'aw.^ So much boldness in presence of the King, in the county most thoroughly devoted to his cause, inti- midated the Eoyalists, especially those who had recently arrived from London, with their minds im- pressed with a sense of the power and energy of the Parliament. It was already a great deal, they thought, to have given their prince a perilous proof of their zeal, by coming to join him ; — they had no desire to compromise themselves more deeply ; and, once arrived at York, they proved themselves unen- thusiastic and timid.^ Charles demanded from them a declaration of the motives which had constrained them ' Sixth letter from the Committee at York to the Parhament, June 4, 1642 ; Letter from Sir John Bovirchier, who was pi-esent at the meet- ing on Heyworth Moor, to his cousin. Sir Thomas Barrington, a member of the House of Commons ; Parhamcntary History, vol. ii. cols. 1345 — ^ Carte'.s Life of Ormond, vol. i. p. 357. ^ Clarendon's History of tlie Rebellion, vol. iii. p. 81 — 84. AND THE EXCtLISH REVOLUTION. 371 to leave London ; he wanted it in order to prove that, after all the acts of riot and violence which had been perpetrated, the ParHament, being no longer free, had also ceased to be legal. They signed it ; but, on the following day, several of them told the King that, if he pubhshed it, they would be obliged to disavow it. " What do you expect me to do with it, then ? " asked Charles, angrily ; but they persisted, and the declara- tion did not appear.^ Notwithstanding the concourse and bravadoes of the Cavahers, nothing was done ; on the contrary, money, arms, ammunition, and even pro- visions, were aU wanting at York ; the King scarcely had the means of supplying his table, and meeting the ordinary expenses of his household.^ The Queen had sold some of the Crown jewels in Holland ; but so great was the power of the tlireats of the ParHament, that a long time elapsed before she could find means to transmit the proceeds to the King.^ He forbade all his subjects to obey the ordinance respecting the militia,^ and gave, under his own hand, commissions to the Eoyahst leaders, in each county, to raise and organize it in his name.^ But, immediately, in order to diminish the effect of this measure, he protested that he had no idea of making war ; and the Lords present at York declared, by an official manifesto, which was * Clarendon's History of the Eebellion, vol. iii. pp. 67 — 69. * Ibid., vol. iii. pp. 101, 102. 3 Ibid., vol. iii. p. 102. ■* Rusbworth, part iii. vol. i. p. 550. * The first commission of this sort was given to Lord Hastings for Leicestershire, and is dated on the 11th of June, 1G42. — Rushworth, part iii. vol. i. pp. 655 — 658. 2 B 2 '672 IIISTOIIV OF CHARLES THE FIRST carefully circulated, that, as far as they knew, no prepa- rations or proceedings on his part announced any such intention/ All this indecision and falsehood was not occasioned by weakness alone : since the arrival of the deserters from the Parliament, Charles had been a prey to the most conflicting counsels ; feehng convinced that their surest strength resided in the popular respect for legal order, the lawyers, magistrates, and all the more sensible men advised him, henceforward, by a strict observance of the laws, to throw on the Parlia- ment alone the discredit of violating them ; while the Cavahers exclaimed, on the other hand, that delay was ruining all their prospects, and that, under all circumstances, it was best to anticij)ate the enemy ; and Charles, unable to do without the support of either opinion, endeavoured, by turns, to satisfy them both. The position of the Parliament, on the contrary, had become greatly simplified; the withdrawal of so large a number of royahst members had left the revo- lutionary leaders in the undisputed possession of power ; some voices were still raised in opposition, but they were reduced to the melancholy task of deploring and warning ; scarcely any one took the trouble to reply to them. A decided majority, considering war inevitable, had boldly made up their minds to accept it, although with very different views and feelings. To keep up appearances, a committee was appointed to devise ' This declaration, dated on the 15th of June, 1642, was signed by forty-five lords or members of the Privy Council. Parliamentary His- tory, vol. ii. cols. 1373 — 1375 ; Clarendon's History of the Rebellion' vol. iii. pp. 71, 72. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 373 means for preventing it ; ^ propositions of accommoda- tion, in nineteen articles, were even prepared and formally communicated to the King." But while awaiting his answer, care was taken to suppress every petition that was favourable to the maintenance of peace ; ^ and military preparations were openly and vigorously pushed forward. Charles had offered to go in person to repress the rebellion in Ireland, which every day became more violent ; his offer was rejected.^ He refused to appoint Lord Warwick, whom the Commons had recommended, to the command of the fleet ; Warwick assumed the office in spite of his refusal.^ Sir Richard Gourney, the Lord Mayor, had not hesitated to publish in London the King's com- mission, ordering that the militia should be raised for his service and in his name ; he was impeached, sent to the Tower, dismissed from his office, and Alderman Pennington, a zealous Puritan, was appointed in his stead.® The City advanced a hundred thousand pounds ;' a similar sum was taken from the funds intended for the relief of Ireland;^ a subscription was ' Parliamentaiy History, vol. ii. col. 1 31 9. "■' Ibid., vol. ii. cols. 1324, 1327 ; May's History of the Long Parlia- ment, p. 189. * Among others, a petition prepared at the beginning of June, in Somersetshire. Parliamentary History, vol. ii. col. 1366, * Parhamentary History, vol. ii. cols. 1169, 1172. ' May's History of the Long Parliament, p. 209 ; Parliamentary His- tory, vol. ii. cols. 1164, 1165. ^ Parhamentary History, vol. ii. cols. 1203, 1403, 1452 ; State Trials, vol. iv. col. 159. " Parhamentary History, vol. ii. col. 1328. ^ May's History of the Long Parliament, p. 231 ; Parliamentary His- tory, vol. ii. cols. 1443 — 1448. 374 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST opened in both Houses, and eacli member was called upon in liis turn, and requested to state liis intentions. Some refused to do so : " If there be occasion," said Sir Henry Killigrew, " I will provide a good horse and a good sword, and make no question but I shall find a good cause." But he left London immediately, for after such a speech, he could not have passed through the streets without being exposed to insult and danger.^ The ardour of the people had reached its climax ; but, both in the City and at Westminster, the departure of the Royahst members had filled their adlierents with despondency. The Parhament made an ajDpeal to the patriotism of tlie citizens ; money, plate, and jewels, were all put in requisition for the equipment of a few squadrons of cavalry, and interest at eight per cent, was promised. The pulpits re- sounded with the exhortations of the preachers ; and the result surpassed even the demands of the most passionate, and the expectations of the most confident. During ten days, an immense quantity of plate was brought to Guildhall — so much, indeed, that there were not men enough to receive it, or room enough to hold it ; poor women brought their wedding rings, and the gold or silver pins with which they fastened their hair ; and many of them had to wait a very long while before their offerings could be taken from their hands. ^ Informed of this success on the part of the Commons, Charles resolved to try the same method of raising ' Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, vol. iii. p. 63. ^ May's History of the Long Parliament, p. 212; Clarendon's History of the Eebellion, vol. iii. p. fJ2 : Wliitelnckc, p. 61. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 375 funds ; but enthusiasm is not easily convertible, and popular devotedness can alone supply the necessities of a cause. The University of Oxford sent its plate to the King ; following the example, Cambridge also had its plate packed up, and a portion of it had already been sent off, v^hen Cromvi^ell, ever vigilant, arrived suddenly, and prevented any more being despatched, i The King's Commissioners had the greatest difficulty in obtaining a few paltry contributions by going from one country-seat to anotlier ; and ridicule of the niggards, an empty and dangerous pleasure to a de- feated Court, was the only consolation left to the Cavaliers.^ The propositions for accommodation reached York, and were presented to the King, on the ITtli of June ; they surpassed the predictions of even the most ultra RoyaHsts, and deprived the more moderate of all hope. The Parliament demanded the utter destruction of the royal prerogative, and that the entire power should rest in their hands ; the creation of new peerages, the appointment and dismissal of all great public function- aries, the education and marriage of the King's children, the religious, civil, and military aifairs of the country ■ — everything, in fact, was to be under their control, and without their formal sanction, nothing was in future to be decided. Such was, in reality, their true object^ ' May's History of the Long Parliament, p. 222 ; Parlianientai-y His- tory, vol. ii. col. 1453 ; Querela Cantabrigiensis, p. 182 ; Barwick's Life; p. 24 ; Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, vol. iii. p. 246. * Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, vol. iii. p. 247 — 2r>l ; May's History of the Long Pai'lianient, p. 212. 376 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST and such was one day destined to be the irretrievable result of the revolution ; but the time had not yet arrived when the decisive action of the Parliament in the government was to be introduced by the natural working of the national institutions, and the dominant, though indirect, influence of the Commons on the daily exercise of power. Unable to force their leaders on the Crown as indispensable advisers, the national party found themselves constrained officially to subject the Crown to their sway, as they could obtain safety by no other means ; a deceptive and impossible me- thod, calculated only to plunge the State into anarchy, but yet the only one which the ablest men could then devise. When these propositions were read, the King's eyes flashed with anger, and his countenance burned with indignation. " Should we grant these demands," he said in reply, " we may be waited on bareheaded ; we may have our hand kissed, the style of Majesty continued to us, and The Kings authority, declared hy both Houses of Parliament, may be still the style of our commands ; we may have swords and maces carried before us, and please ourself with the sight of a crown and sceptre, (and yet even these twigs would not long flourish, when the stock upon which they grew was dead) ; but as to true and real power, we should remain but the outside, but the picture, but the sign, of a king."^ And he broke off all further negociation. The Parliament had expected no other answer. As ' Rushworth, part iii. vol. i. p. 728. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. '617 soon as it was received, all hesitation even of a merely formal character disappeared ; the question of civil war was brought forward for discussion. One voice, — the same which, at the oj)ening of the session, had been the first to denounce aU public grievances, — was now raised almost alone in opposition. " Mr. Speaker," said Sir Benjamin Rudyard, " I am touched, I am pierced with an apprehension of the honour of the House, and success of the ParKament ; but that we may the better consider the condition we are in, let us set ourselves three years back. If any man then could have credibly told us that, within three years, the Queen shall be gone out of England into the Low Countries, for any cause whatsoever ; the King shall remove from his Parliament, from London to York, declaring himself not to be safe here ; that there shall be a total rebellion in Ireland, and such discords and distempers both in Church and State here, as now we find — certainly we should have trembled at the thought of it ; wherefore it is fit we should be sensible now we are in it. On the other side, if any man then could have credibly told us that, within three years, ye shall have a Parhament, it would have been good news ; that ship-money shall be taken away by an Act of Parliament, and the reasons and grounds of it so rooted out, as that neither it, nor anything like it, can ever grow up again ; that monopohes, the High Com- mission Court, the Star-Chamber, the bishops' votes, shall be taken away ; the council-table regulated and restrained ; the forests bounded and hmited ; — that ye shall have a triennial Parhament, nav, more than that. 378 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST a perpetual Parliament, which none shall have the power to dissolve but yourselves ; we should have thought this a dream of happiness. Yet now we are in the real possession of it, we do not enjoy it. We stand upon further security, whereas the very having of these things is a convenient, fair security, mutually securing one another. Wherefore, Sir, let us beware we do not contend for such a hazardous, unsafe security as may endanger the loss of what we have already. Though we had all we desire, yet we cannot make a mathematical security ; all human caution is susceptible of corruption and failing. God's providence will not be bound ; success must be His . . . Mr. Speaker, it now behoves us to call up all the wisdom we have about us, for we are at the very brink of combustion and confusion. If blood begins once to touch blood, we shall presently fall into a certain misery, and must attend an uncertain success, God knows when, and God knows what ! Every man here is bound in conscience to employ his utmost endeavours to prevent the effusion of blood. Blood is a crying sin ; it pollutes a land. Let us save our liberties and our estates, but so as we may save our souls too. Now I have clearly delivered my own conscience, I leave every man freely to his."^ The appeal made by this worth}^ man was, however, in vain, and nothing re- mained for liim but to retire from an arena hencefortli too agitated for liis virtuous and prudent mind. Other previsions and otlier fears, equally well founded, ' ParliaineiitaiT History, vol. ii. cols. 1416 — 1418. AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 379 although allied to passions less pure and more unre- flecting, ruled the national party with imperious sway ; and the time had come when good and evil, safety and peril, were so vaguely commingled and confounded that the firmest minds, unable to distinguish between them, were merely instruments in the hands of Providence, which alternately chastises kings by means of peoples, and peoples by means of kings. Only forty-five mem- bers of the Commons shared in the scruples of Sir Benjamin Eudyard ;^ and in the House of Peers, the Earl of Portland alone protested.^ Warlike measures were at once adopted ; the Parliament seized upon all the public revenues for its own service -^ the counties were ordered to provide supplies of arms and ammu- nition, and to hold themselves in readiness to obey the first signal. Under the name of the Committee of Safety, five peers and ten members of the House of Commons were appointed to " take measures for the pubHc de- fence, and to see to the execution of the orders issued by Parliament."^ Finally, the formation of an army was resolved upon, to consist of twenty regiments of infantry of about a thousand men each, and of seventy- five troops, each of sixty horse. Lord Kimbolton, ' The levy of 10,000 volunteers in London was voted in the House of Commons by 12.1 votes against 45. Parliamentary History, vol. ii. col. 1409. - Ibid., vol. ii. col. 1414. * Ibid., vol. ii. col. 1349. * The five lords were the Earls of Northumberland, Essex, Pembroke, Holland, and Viscount Say ; the ten Commoners were Hampden, Pym, HoUis, Marty n, Fiennes, Pierrepoint, Glynn, Sir William Waller, Sir Philip Stapleton, and Sir John JMerrick. 380 HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST. Lord Brooke, Sir John Merrick, Hampden, Hollis, and Cromwell, leaders of the people in the camp as well as at Westminster, received commands in this army. The Earl of Essex was appointed Generalissimo.^ ' An exact and complete list of the commanders of this truly national army will be found in Appendix VIII. APPENDIX. ( 383 ) APPENDIX. APPENDIX I. (Page 137.) SYMPTOMS OF THE SPIRIT OF OPPOSITION AND LIBERTY IN THE REIGN OF QUEEN ELIZABETH. In the month of November, 1575, Mr. Peter Wentworth, a member of the House of Commons, having made a speech in defence of the privileges of the House, and more especially in advocacy of liberty of speech, was arrested by order of the Queen, and was subjected, by a committee of the House, on which sat several privy councillors, to the following examina- tion — a curious record of the spirit of independence which began to manifest itself at this time, and of the approbation which the very men intrusted with the task of repressing it, could not refuse to accord to it. Committee. Where is your late speech you promised to deliver in writing ? Wentworth. Here it is, and I deliver it upon two condi- tions : first, that you shall peruse it all, and if you can find any want of good will to my prince and state in any part thereof, let me answer all as if I had uttered all. The second is, that you shall deliver it unto the Queen's Majesty ; if her Majesty, or you of her privy council, can find any want of love to her Majesty or the State therein, also let me answer it. Committee. We will deal with no more than you uttered in the House. Wentworth. Your honours cannot refuse to deliver it to her Majesty, for I do send it to her Majesty as my heart and mind, knowing that it will do her Majesty good ; it will hurt no man but myself. 384 APPENDIX. Committee. Seeing your desire is to have us deliver it to her Majesty, we will deliver it. Wentworth. I humbly require your honours to do so. [Then, the speech being read, they went on.] Committee. Here you have uttered certain rumours of the Queen's Majesty : where and when heard you them? Wentworth. If your honours ask me as councillors of her Majesty, you shall pardon me ; I will make you no answer. I will do no such injury to the place from whence I came, for I am now no private person ; I am a public, and a councillor to the whole State in that place, where it is lawful for me to speak my mind freely, and not for you, as councillors, to call me to account for anything that I do speak in the House ; and therefore if you ask me as councillors to her Majesty, you shall pardon me, I will make no answer : but if you ask me as committees from the House, I will make you the best answer I can. Committee. We ask you as committees from the House. Wentworth. I will then answer you ; and the willinger for that mine answer will be in some part so imperfect, as of necessity it must be. Your question consisteth of these two points : where and of whom I heard these rumours. The place where I heard them was the Parliament House ; but of whom I assure you I cannot tell. Committee. This is no answer, to say you cannot tell of whom, neither will we take it for any. Wentworth. Truly your honours must needs take it for an answer when I can make you no better. Committee. Belike you have heard some speeches in the town of her Majesty's misliking of religion and succession, you are loth to utter of whom, and did use speeches there- upon. Wentworth. I can assure your honours I can show you that speech at my own house, written with my hand two or three years ago. So that you may thereby judge that I did not speak it of anything that I heard since I came to town. Committee. You have answered that, but where heard you it then ? Wentworth. If your honours do think I speak for excuse' APPENDIX. 385 sake, let this satisfy you : I protest before the living God I cannot tell of whom I heard these rumours ; yet I do verily think that I heard them of a hundred or two in the House. Committee. Then of so many you can name some. We NT WORTH. No, surely, because it was so general a speech, I marked none ; neither do men mark speakers com- monly when they be general ; and I assure you if I could tell, I would not. For I will never utter anything told me to the hurt of any man, when I am not enforced thereunto, as in this case I may choose. Yet I would deal plainly with you, for I would tell your honours so, and if your honours do not credit me, I will voluntarily take an oath, if you offer me a book, that I cannot tell of whom I heard those rumours. But if you offer me an oath of your authorities, I will refuse it, because I will do nothing to infringe the liberties of the House. But what need I to use these speeches ? I will give you an instance, whereupon I heard these rumours to your satisfying, even such a one as, if you will speak the truth, you shall confess you heard the same as well as I. Committee. In so doing we will be satisfied : what is that? Wextworth. The last Parhament [1 8th Eliz.], he that is now Speaker [Robert Bell, Esq.], and who was also Speaker in the first session of the present Parliament [14th Eliz.], uttered a very good speech for the calling in of certain licences granted to four courtiers to the utter undoing of 6000 or 8000 of the Queen's subjects. This speech was so disliked by some of the council that he was sent for, and so hardly dealt with, that he came into the House with such an amazed counte- nance, that it daunted all the House ; in such sort, that for ten, twelve, or sixteen days, there was not one in the House that durst deal in any matter of importance. And in those simple matters that they dealt in, they spent more words and time in their preamble, requiring that they might not be mis- taken, than they did in the matter they spake unto. This inconvenience grew into the House by the council's hard handling of the same good member, whereon this rumour grew in the house : " Sirs, you may not speak against licences, the Queen's Majesty will be angry ; the privy council, too, will be angry ;" and this rumour T suppose there is not VOL. I. 2 C 386 APPENDIX. one of you here but heard it as well as I. I beseech your honours discharge your consciences herein as I do. Committee, We heard it, we confess, and you have satis- fied us in this ; but how say you to the hard interpretation you made of the message that was sent into the house. [The words were recited.] We assure you we never heard a harder interpretation of a message. Wentwokth. I beseech your honours first, was there not such a message sent into the house ? Committee. We grant that there was. Wentworth. Then I trust you will bear me record that I made it not ; and I answer for that, so hard a message could not have too hard an interpretation made by the wisest man in England. For can there, by any possible means, be sent a harder message to a council gathered together to serve God, than to say : "You shall not seek to advance the glory of God !" I am of this opinion ; — that there cannot be a more wicked message than it was. Committee. You may not speak against messages, for none sendeth them but the Queen's majesty. Wentworth. If the message be against the glory of God, against the prince's safety, or against the liberty of this Par- liament house, whereby the State is maintained, I neither may nor will hold my jDoace. I cannot, in so doing, discharge my conscience, whosoever doth send it. And I say, that I heartily repent me, for that I have hitherto held my peace in these causes ; and I do promise you all, if God forsake me not, that I will never, during life, hold my tongue if any message is sent wherein God is dishonoured, the prince reviled, or the liberties of the Parliament impeached ; and every one of you here present ought to repent you of these faults, and to amend them. Committee. It is no new precedent to have the prince to send messages. [There were two or three messages recited sent by two or three princes.] Wentworth. Sirs, I say you do very ill to allege prece- dents in this order. You ought to allege good precedents, to comfort and embolden men in good doings, and not evil prece- dents, to discourage and terrify men to do evil. APPENDIX. 387 Committee, But what meant you to make so hard inter- pretation of messages ? Wentworth. Surely, I marvel what you mean by asking this question. Have I not said so hard a message could not have too hard an interpretation ? And have I not set down the reason that moved me in my speech? — that is to say, that, for the receiving and accepting that message, God has passed so great indignation upon us, that he put into the Queen's heart to refuse good and wholesome laws for her own preservation, which caused many loving and faithful hearts for grief to burst out with sorrowful tears ; and moved all Papists, traitors to God, to her Majesty, and to every good Christian government, in their sleeves, to laugli the whole Parliament-house to scorn. Have I not thus said, and do not your honours think it so ? Committee. Yes, truly. But how durst you say, that the Queen had unkindly abused herself against the nobility and people ? Wentworth. I beseech your honours, tell me how far you can stretch these words, of her unkindly abusing and opposing herself against her Majesty's nobility and people? Can you apply them any further than I have applied them — that is to say, in that her Majesty called the Parliament on purpose to prevent traitorous perils to lier person, and for no other cause ; and in that her Majesty did send unto us two bills, willing us to take our choice of that we liked best for her Majesty's safety, and thereof to make a law, promising her royal consent thereunto ; and did we not first choose the one, and her Majesty refused it? Yet did not we, nevertheless^ receive the other? and agreeing to make a law thereof, did not her Majesty in the end refuse all our travails ? And did not the Lord Keeper, in her Majesty's presence, in the begin- ning of the Parliament, show this to be the occasion that we were called together? And did not her Majesty, in the end of the Parliament, refuse all our travails ? Is not this known to all here present, and to all the Parliament-house also ? I beseech your honours discharge your consciences herein, and utter your knowledge simply as I do ; for, in truth, herein did her Majesty abuse her nobility and subjects, and did oppose herself against them by the way of advice. 2 c 2 388 APPENDIX. COMMi'JTEE, Surely, we cannot deny it, you say the truth. Wp:ntworth. Then, I beseech your honours, show me if it were not a dangerous doing to her Majesty in these two respects : first, in weakening, wounding, and discouraging the hearts of her Majesty's loving and faithful subjects, thereby to make them the less able, or the more fearful and unwilling, to serve her Majesty another time ? On the other side, was it not a raising up and encouraging the hearts of her Majesty's hateful enemies to adventure any desperate enterprise to her Majesty's peril and danger. Committee. We cannot deny but that it was very danger- ous to her Majesty in these respects. Wentworth. Then, why do your honours ask, how I dare tell a truth, to give the Queen warning to avoid her danger ? I answer you thus ; — I do thank the Lord, my God, that I never found fear in myself to give the Queen's Majesty warn- ing to avoid her danger ; be you all afraid thereof, if you will, for I praise God I am not, and I hojoe never to live to see that day ; and yet I will assure your honours, that twenty times and more, when I walked in my grounds, revolving this speech, to prepare against this day, my own fearful conceit did say unto me, that this speech would carry me to the place whither I shall now go, and fear would have moved me to put it out ; when I weighed whether in good conscience, and the duty of a faithful subject, I might keep myself out of prison and not warn my prince of walking in a dangerous course, my con- science said unto me that I could not be a faithful subject if 1 had more respect to avoid my own danger than my prince's danger. Therewithal, I was made Ijold, and went forward, as your honours heard ; yet, when 1 uttered those words in the House, that there was none without fault, no, not our noble Queen, 1 paused, and beheld all your countenances, and saw plainly that those words did amaze you all ; then I was afraid with you for company, and fear bade me to put out those words that followed, for your countenances did assure me, that not one of you would stay me of my journey ; yet the consi- deration of a good conscience, and of a faithful subject, did make me bold to utter it in such sort as your honours heard. With this heart and mind I spake it; and I piaise God for it ; and, if it were to do again, I would with the same miud speak it again. APPENDIX. 389 Committee. Yea, but you might have uttered it in better terms : why did you not so ? Wentwortii. Would you have me to have done as you of her Majesty's council do, to utter a weighty matter in such terms as she should not have understood. To have made a fault then, it would have done her Majesty no good, and my interest was to do her good. Committee. You have answered us. Wentwortii. Then I praise God for it. And he bowed. Mr. Seckford. Mr. Wentworth will never acknowledge himself to make a fault, nor say that he is sorry for anything he doth speak. You shall hear none of these things come out of his mouth. Wextworth. Mr. Seckford, I will never acknowlede'e that to be a fault to love the Queen's Majesty while I live ; neither will I be sorry for giving her Majesty warning to avoid danger, while the breath is in my body. If you do think it a fault to love her Majesty, or to be sorry that her Majesty should have warning to avoid her danger, say so, for I cannot ; speak for yourself, Mr. Seckford. — Old Parlia- mentary History, vol. iv. pp, 200 — 207. APPENDIX II. (Page 169.) PAPER FOUND IN THE HAT OF FELTOX, THE MURDERER OF THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. The original paper still exists ; and was first published ver- batim by Mr. Lingard in his History. It is as follows : — "That man is Cowardly base, and deserveth not the name of a gentleman or Souldier that is not willinge to sacrifice his life for the honor of his God, his King, and his Countrie. Lett noe man commend me for doeinge of it, l)ut rather discommend themselves as the cause of it ; for if God had not taken ovr harts for ovr sinnes, he (the Duke of Buckingham) w** not have gone so long vnpunished." " Jo. Felton." — lAnyarcVs History of EnylaiHl, vol. ix. p. 394. 390 APPENDIX. APPENDIX III. (Page 185.) CHARACTER OF LORD STRAFFORD'S ADMINISTRATION IN IRELAND. The letter, from which the following extract is taken, was addressed by Strafford to his intimate friend, Sir Christopher Wandesford, Master of the Rolls in Ireland. In it he gives an account of the manner in which he had replied before the King and Council to the charges which had been brought against him : — " I then craved admission to justify myself in some particulars wherein I had been very undeservedly and bloodily traduced. " So I related to them all that had passed betwixt myself, Earl of St. Albans, Wilmot, Mountnorris, Piers Crosby, and the jury of Galway, that hereupon touching and rubbing in the course of my service upon their particulars, themselves and friends have endeavoured to possess the world I was a severe and an austere hard-conditioned man — rather, indeed, a bashaw of Buda than the minister of a pious and Christian king. Howbeit, if I were not much mistaken in myself, it was quite the contrary ; no man could show wherein I had expressed it in my nature, no friend I had would charge me with it in my private conversation, no creature had found it in the managing of my own private affairs, so as if I stood clear in all these respects, it was to be confessed by any equal mind, that it was not anything within, but the necessity of his Majesty's service, which enforced me into a seeming strictness outwardly. And that was the reason, indeed ; for where I found a Crown, a Church, and a people spoiled, I could not imagine to redeem them from under the pressure with gracious smiles and gentle looks ; it would cost warmer water than so. True it was, that where a dominion was once gotten and settled, it might be stayed and kept where it was by soft and moderate counsels ; but where a sovereignty (be it spoken with reverence) was going down the hill, the nature of a man did so easily slide into the paths of an uncontrolled liberty, as it would not be brought back without strength, nor be forced up the hill again but by vigour and force. And true it was indeed, I knew no other rule to govern by, but by reward and punishment ; and I APPENDIX. 'V.)\ must profess, that where I found a person well and entirely- set for the service of my master, I should lay my hand under his foot, and add to his respect and power all I might ; and that where I found the contrary, I should not handle him in my arms, or soothe him in his untoward humour, but if he came in my reach, so far as honour and justice would warrant me, I must knock him soundly over the knuckles ; but no sooner he become a new man, apply himself as he ought to the government, but I also change my temper, and express myself to him, as unto that other, by all the good offices I could do him. If this be sharpness, and this be severity, I desired to be better instructed by his Majesty and their lordships, for, in truth, it did not seem so to me ; however, if I were once told that his Majesty liked not to be thus served, I would readily conform myself, and follow the bent and current of my own disposition, which is to be quiet, not to have debates and disputes with any. " Here his Majesty interrupted me, and said, that was no severity ; wished me to go on in that way, for if I served him otherwise, I should not serve him as he expected from me." — Strafford's Letters and Despatches, vol. ii. p. 20. APPENDIX IV. (Page 196.) FINES IMPOSED FOR THE PROFIT OF THE CROWN FROM 1629 TO 1640. 1. Richard Chambers, for having refused to pay £'. custom duties not voted by parliament, fined 2,000 2. Hill yard, for having sold saltpetre . , . 5,000 3. Goodenough, for the same cause . . . 1,000 4. Sir James Maleverer, for not having com- pounded with the King's commissioners for the title of knighthood 2,000 5. The Earl of Salisbury, for encroachments on the royal forests 20,000 6. The Earl of Westmoreland, idem. . . . 19,000 7. Lord Newport, idem 8,000 8 Sir Christopher HattoD, idem .... 12,000 9. Sir Lewis Watson, idem. ..... 4,000 392 APPENDIX. 10. Sir Anthony Cooper, for having changed arable £. into grass land ...... 4,000 11. Alexander Leighton, for a libel . . . 10,000 1 2. Henry Sherfield for having broken some panes of stained glass in Salisbury Cathedral . . 500 13. John Overman, and several other soap-makers, for not having followed the King's orders in the fabrication and sale of soap . . . 13,000 14. John Rea 2,000 15. Peter Hern, and several others, for having ex- ported gold 8,100 16. Sir David Foulis and his son, for having spoken disrespectfully of the Northern Coiui; . . 5,500 17. Prynne, for a libel 5,000 18 Buckner the censor, for having allowed Prynne's book to be published .... 60 19. Michael Sparkes, printer, for having printed the said book ....... 600 20. Allison and Robins, for having spoken ill of Archbishop Laud 2,000 21. Bastwick, for a libel 1,000 22. Prynne, Burton, and Bastwick, for libels . . 15,000 23. Prynne's servant, for the same cause . . 1,000 24. Bowyer, for having spoken against Laud . . 3,000 25. Yeomans and Wright, for dying silks improperly 5,000 26. Savage, Weldon, and Burton, for having spoken ill of Lord Falkland, Lord-Lieutenant of Ire- land 3,500 27. Grenville, for speaking ill of the Earl of Suffolk. 4,000 28. Favers, idem ' 1,000 29. Morley, for having abused and struck Sir George Theobald, within the precinct of the Court . 10,000 30. Williams, Bishop of Lincoln, for having spoken ill of Laud 10,000 31. Bernard, for having preached against the use of the crucifix ...... 1000 32. Smart, for having preached against the ecclesi- astical innovations of Dr. Cosins, &c. . . 500 £ 173,650 APPENDIX. 393 This list is far from being complete ; a multitude of other cases, amounting to a considerable sum, may be found in the second and third volumes of Rushworth's Collection. APPENDIX V. (Page 236.) INSTRUCTIONS SENT BY THE KING TO THE MARQUIS OF HAMILTON FOR THE HOLDING OF THE ASSEMBLY AT GLASGOW IN 1638. The King wrote to Hamilton : — " And as for this General Assembly, though I can expect no good from it, yet I hope you may hinder much of the ill ; first, by putting divisions among them, concerning the legality of their elections, then by protestations against their tumul- tuous proceedings." And elsewhere : — " As for the opinions of the clergy to prorogue this Assembly, I utterly dislike them, for I should more hurt my reputation by not keeping it, than their mad acts can prejudice my service ; wherefore I command you hold your day : but, as you write, it you can break them by proving nullities in their proceedings, nothing better." — Burnet, Memoirs of the Hamiltons, pp. 82, 88. APPENDIX VI. (Page 300.) I. INSTRUCTIONS SENT TO M. DE MONTREUIL BY CARDINAL DE RICHELIEU. Paris, 22 Fevrier, 1641. Fault dire a Forster et mander a Montereuil que le Roy ne receuvrait pas seulement la Royne sa soeur en France au cas que sa sante Tobligeat d'y faire voyage, mais qu'il serait bien fasche qu'elle n'y vingt pas. Mais que, comme I'affection que Sa Majeste a pour la Royne de la Grande Bretagne luy donne ces sentimens, la part qu'elle prend a ses interets fait qu'elle ne pent ne lui dire pas qu'il fajit bien qu'elle se donne garde de venir mal a propos en France dans la conjoncture des affaires presentes ; qu'en telles occasions qui quitte la partie la perd, que sa sortie d'Angleterre tirera 394 APPENDIX. indubitablement apr^s elle la haine des Catlioliques et peut- estre la sienne propre, pour tousjours, et celle du Roy son mari et de ses enfants ; que dans les grands changements comma ceux qui sont en Angleterre, il faut craindre qu'on passe aux dernieres extremites, incapables par apres de touts remedes. Que c'est a la Royne de se donner un peu de patience jus- ques a ce que le mal qui la presse soit sur son retour, auquel cas ce que aigriroit maintenant son mal, seroit capable de supporter une entiere gaierison. En un mot que le Roy cognest la pensee d'un tel voiage si prejudiciable pour la Royne qu'il croiroit estre responsable devant Dieu s'il ne le luy reprdsentait. II. EXTEACT OF A LETTER FROM M. DE MONTREUIL. Londres, 21 Mars, 1641. La Royne de la Grande Bretagne ne cache plus a ses domestiques le ressentiment qu'elle a de la responce qu'elle a receue de France sur la resolution qu'elle avait prise d'y aller, jusques a dire qu'elle ne voudrait pas racheter sa vie par un voyage en ses quartiers, si elle n'y alloit pour reprendre les pretentions que les Roys d' Angleterre croient avoir sur cet Estat. III. M. DE MONTREUIL TO HIS EXCELLENCY CARDINAL DE RICHELIEU. MONSEIGNEUR, Londres, 23 Mai, 1641. Le bruit qui avoit couru que la France armait centre I'Angleterre, ou je trouvois si peu de fondement, que je ne jugeais pas qu'il put gaigner creance aupres des personnes plus appreliensives et moins judicieuses, s'est augmente de telle sorte que le Vendredy, 17 May, le S' Pime fit sqavoir a la Maison Haute de la part de la Basse, qu 'apres avoir examine les desseins de ceulx qui avoient pris la fuitte, ils avoient trouve qu'ils ne s'estoient pas contentez de vouloir employer I'armee Angloise centre I'Angleterre, n'y de lever de nouvelles forces dans le pays pour destruiro sa liberte et pour delivrer le Lieutenant d'Irlande, mais qu'il y avoit de tres puissantes APPENDIX. 395 preuves qu'ils vouloient se servir des armes etrang^res ; et faire entrer une armee Franqoise en ce pays. II demanda en- suitte qu'on deputa quelques uns des deux maisons du Parlement pour s'asseurer de Portsmuth, ou cette armee debvoit descendre, et qu'on donnast les ordres necessaires, pour tenir la milice des provinces voisines en estat de marcher au premier commandement qu'elle en recevrait, ce qui fut aussy tost execute, et le Yicomte de Mandeville avec les Chevaliers Clothworthy et Stapleton y furent envoyez des le soir. Soit que ceulx du Parlement ayant voulu se servir de ce bruit, auquel les domestiqi es de la Roynede la Grande Bretagne, et les Catholiques Anglois n'ont donne que trop de fondement, pour avoir un pretexte de faire armer la campagne, affin de reduire le Eoy de la Grande Bretagne dans la necessite de confirmer le Bill du Parlement contre le Lieutenant d'Irlande, qui passe le soir mesme dans la Maison Haute, et pour oster a ce Roy la volonte de la conserver en lui en otant la puissance ; soit qu'en effect ils ayent cru veritable ce qu'ils n'ont pas juge impossible; il est certain que ce bruit s'est augmente de plus en plus, et qu'il se diet Samedy matin publiquement qu'on avait receu la confirmation des soupQons qu'on avait eus les jours precedens, que cette armee dont on avoit apprehende la venue, s'estoit emparee desja des Isles de Gerzay et de Grenezay. Je receus trois ou quatre billets de mes amys sur les dix heures, par lesquels ils m'advertirent qu'on tenoit cecy pour asseure et me prierent ou de me sauver si les ports estoient ouverts, ou de me retirer quelque part s'ils estoient fermez, que la Royne de la Grande Bretagne se disposoit a prendre la fuitte. Je jugeay ce conseil peu horineste, et me confiant en la bonte et en la sagesse du Roy et de Monseigneur le Cardinal, et en ma propre conscience, je courus a la cour ou je trouvai que lalarme y estoit plus grande que Ton ne me Tavoit exprimee, que tons les domestiques de la Royne de la Grande Bretagne avoient pris avec eulx tout ce qu'ils avoient de plus precieux et que les carrosses de cette Princesse attendoient au pied de I'Escallier niais en effet h Portsmouth en apparence pour la mener a Wimilshow I()79rg7pxg9 q z 99 X b, et je sceus qu'elle avait pris ceLte resolution sur la 396 APPENDIX. peur qu'on lui avoit faicte, qu'en suitte des bruits qui avaient couru, on desiroit s'asseurer de sa personne, et de celle du Roy son mary, particulierement s'il refusoit de confirmer le billet contre le Lieutenant d'Irlande. J'allay trouver M'^''^- I'Evesque d'Angouleme a qui je representay le tort que se faisoit la ditte dame Royne, que la fuitte estait un moyen pour haster le mal qu'elle appreliendoit, et pour les porter h I'execution d'une entreprise dont ils n'oseroient pas alors avoir eu la pensee, outre qu'il y avait peu d'apparence, ni que son de'part put estre secret, le faisant en plein jour et le communiquant a tant de personnes , n'y qu'il fut assez prompt pour se sauver, ayant tant de personnes a sa suitte, et em- portant beaucoup de hardes avec elle ; qu'il y avoit encore deux choses a considerer, et le peu d'asseurance qu'elle avoit que Portsmutli tint pour elle, et le danger auquel elle exposerait ce qui resteroit de ses domestiques, et tons les Catholiques qui vivent icy. Mg^- I'Evesque d'Angoulesme, qui a agi durant tout ce desordre avec une extreme prudence, me tesmoigna qu'il estoit dans les memes sentimens, mais qu'encore qu'ils fussent tres justes, ils seroient difficilement escoutez de la Royne de la Grande Bretagne. II me diet qu'il trouveroit moyen toutefois de les representer, et jugea a propos que j'allasse chez le Pere Philippe et quelques unes de ses femmes pour les porter a faire le mesme, affin d'essayer a obtenir tout ensemble ce qu'ils ne pourroient pas peut-estre gaigner separement. Je feis ce qu'il me proposa, et je dis de plus au Pere Philippes queje le priois de sc;avoir de la Royne dela Grande Bretagne si elle ne me commanderoit rien pour son service durant ces desordres, et de la vouloir asseurer que le Roy prenoit une part tres particuliere en son affliction, que pour le dessein qu'elle faisoit presentement, estant celuy qui pou- voit davantage sur 1' esprit de cette princesse, il estoit oblige plus qu'aucun autre de la porter a changer une resolution qui lui estoit si ruineuse, que si je n'apprehendois point de donner de nouveaux soub^ons a des personnes extremement jalouses, je m'iroisjetter aux pieds de la dicte dame Royne, pour la sup- plyer au nom du Roy son frere de demeurer. Le Pere Phi- lippes me fit response qu'il n'y avoit pas d'apparence qu'il luy put faire changer dc dessein, que les personnes de condition APPENDIX. 397 qui lui avoient conseille de fair avoient scevi sans doute le danger qu'elle couroit en deme\irant, qu'on le jugeroit coupa- ble de tout le mal qui lui arriveroit a Londres. II m'en dit assez pour me faire croire qu'il avoit autant de part que per- sonne a la resolution que cette princesse avoit prise. Je ne scay si toutes ces choses eurent quelque pouvoir sur I'esprit de cette princesse, mais j'appris a midy qu'elle avoit change de dessein, ce qui arriva ties heiireusement pour elle, par ce qu'elle apprist deux heures apres que le Colonel Gorin avoit informe le Parlement de tout ce qui se passoit et que cette fuitte eust pour Ba reputation encore este detres grand prejudice 22 22 17 10 26 50 comme vous jugerez, par ce qui s'est diet depuis assez publiquement estoit toute presto a laisser que cette princesse r z, 29 a d 4 8- m 17 z 27 9 90 pz 22 q le Rot Bon mari pour suivro If Sr. Germain 91 86 45 95 1 x 22 25 a to 17 9 1 2 3 rt q 76 q 95 a m ; je vous rajDporte, Mouse igneur, des choses qui vous donneront de I'estonnement, mais qui sent couformes a ce qui s'est diet et que je diminue plustot que je n'augmente par le discours. J'avois pense des le jour precedent de quelle sorte je debvois agir pour assoupu' ce bruit qui s'estoit e'pandu du grand armement qui se faisait en France pour porter la guerre en Angleterre, et bien que d'abord j'eusse este tout prest de demander audience aux deux Chambres du Parlement pour representor comme c'estoit une chose qui n'avoit pas niesnie apparence de verite. J'avois toutefois juge qu'il estoit plus a propos de prendre une autre voye pour deux differentes raisons, I'une affin qu'ils ne s'imaginassent que ce fut plustot une apologie pour la Royne de la Grande Bretagne, et pour ceulx qu'on accusoit d'avoir voulu faire entrer cette armee en Angleterre, qu'en esclaircissement pour la France, et I'autre pour De leur pas faire penser qu'on eust trop de peur de les fascher, ce que ces peuples s'imaginent fort aysement. Je m'estois done contente de parler seulement a ceulx des deux maisonsdu Parlement qui y ont plus de credit, et avec qui j'ai davantage de familiarite, a qui j'avois represente le peu d'apparence qu"il y avoit que des personnes qui sQeussent les affaires presentes s'imaginassent que le Roy vouliit laisser en paix la maison d'Autriche dans un temps ou ily asi grand 398 APPENDIX. suject de croire qu'il la rangera a la raison, pour s'aller faire de nouveaux ennemys, et qu'il voulut rompre avec le Parle- ment et tout un royaume allie pour sauver le Lieutenant d'Irlande, que Ton s^ayt avoir este tres confident a I'Espagne et peu affectionne a la France, que je sgavois que durant que le Roy de la grande Bretagne avait encore un party en Angle- terre, et que les deux royaumes estoient divisez, le E.oy n'eust pas mesme voulu escouter les propositions qui eussent pu tendre en quelque fagon a affoiblir I'union des deux Etats, cequeje me contentois dedire ainsy en general sans en venir a de plus grandes explications, qu'il y avoit peu d'apparence qu'il eut voulu entendre a un dessein de cette nature, en un temps ou les affaires du Roy de la Grande Bretagne estoient entierement desesperes, qu'il y avoit une armee sur les fron- tiferes de Flandres et une flotte sur la coste de Bretagne, mais que c'estoit une chose cogneue de tout le monde qu'on alloit deffendre le Portugal avec celle-ci et attaquer la Flandres avec celle-la. J'avais commence a insinuer ces sentimens des le Vendredy au soir, et n'ayant pu rencontrer ce jour le Comte d'Hollande, je I'allay trouver le Samedy, aussi tost que la resolution du partement de la Roynede la Grande Bretagne fut changee, et apres lui avoir diet les mesmes choses que j'avais represente aux autres, j'adjoustay que je m'addressois a luy comme a celuy qui avoit plus de connoissance qu'aucun du desir qu'avoit eu le Roy et Monseigneur le Cardinal, d'entretenir entre les deux Estats une estroitte union et une bonne intelligence, et des ofl&ces, qu'ils avoient faicts, pour empesclier qu'elle se put ou rompre ou refroidir, qu'il sq avoit que le royage en France de la Royne de la Grande Bretagne avoit este diverty sur cette consideration, qu'un Ambassadeur seroit ici dans peu de jours quiconfirmeroit encore plus particulierement ce que je lui disois, que je le priois cependant, et de parler de cecy a ses amys et de le vouloir representer de ma part a MM. du Parlement estant assemblez, etleur faire s^avoir quej'estois icy pour respondrc de tout le mal qui arriveroit, ce que je jugeoy a propos de faire dire publiquement, pour asseurer tout ce que nous avons icy de Fran9ois. Aussi cela contenta fort ceulx du Parlement, et servit beaucoup pour empesclier que ceulx APPENDIX. 399 de notre nation ne receussent aucune injure, ce faux bruit s'estant presque esvanouy au mesme temps. Voila, Monsigneur, de quelle sorte je me suis porte durant ce desordre. Je m'estimeray bien heureux si, apres avoir agi selon qu'il m'a semble debvoir faire, vous me faictes I'honneur d'agreer ce que j'ai faict. La longueur de cette de'pesche m'oblige a vous faire scavoir le plus succinctement qu'il me sera possible, ce qui est encore arrive depuis le dernier ordinaire affin de trouver un moyen pour estre exact sans etre toutefois ennuyeux. .... (Archives des Affaires Etrangeres de France.) APPENDIX VII. (Page 338.) CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN THE MARQUIS DE LA FERTE IMBAULT AND ONE OF THE OFFICIALS IN THE FRENCH FOREIGN OFFICE. Monsieur, Londres, 12 Decembre, 1641. Le Roy de la Grande Bretagne fist son entree Jeudy' a Londres comme je vous ai mande par ma j)recedente, et Vendredy j'eus audiance publique auparavant aucun autre ambassadeur. Celuy d'Espagne I'eut Samedy, de Portugal Dimanche, de Venise Lundy. Dans la mienne, je temoignay premierement au Roy de la Grande Bretagne la satisfaction que Sa Majeste avoit eue lorsqu'elle avoit appris le bon succes de son voyage, et comme il avoit donne la paix a ses royaumes d'Escosse et d'Angleterre. Je lui dis ensuitte que lorsque je lui avois demande, de la part du Roy raon maistre, la permis- sion de faire quelque levee de ses sujets, il me Tavoit accord ee avec tant de temoignages d'affection que cela avoit bien fort oblige Sa Majeste, et que maintenant qu'elle apprenoit la rebellion qui estoit en Irlande elle luy offroit son assistance, s'il en avoit besoin. Sa Majeste Britannique me remercia et me dit que maintenant I'Escosse et I'Angleterre estoient en estat de tranquillite, que pour I'lrlande il y avoit veritablement quelque revoke, mais qu'elle n'estoit pas beaucoup con- ' On the 25th of November (December 5), UMl. 400 APPENDIX. siderable, n'y ayant aucune personne de qualite de qui elle fust appuye ; qu'il esperoit que dans peu toutes choses seroient pacifiees, et que cepeudant il m'assurait qu'il se sentoit trcs oblige au Roy son frere, etqu'en toutes les occasions ou il vou- droit disposer de tout ce qui depend de luy, il en pouvoit faire estat. Auparavant que de voir le Roy, j'avois sonde les esprits de mes amis du Parlement pour veoir s'ils agreeroient ces offres et s'ils n'en prendroient point d'ombrage ; mais bien loing de cela, ils m'en ont supplie, et apres que j'eus veu le Roy de la Grande Bretagne, ils m'en firent faire compliment. Apres mon audience, Sa Majeste Britannique alia trouver la Royne, et moy j'y fus conduit par le S' Gerbier qui voulut aller devant Tadvertir que je venois pour avoir I'honneur de la voir. Le Comte de Dorset et le diet Gerbier vinrent au devant de moy me dire que la Royne viendroit aussytost. Je fus bien demi-lieure dans sa cliambre, et apres on me dist qu'elle s'en estoit alle'e. II est vrai que je ne lui avois pas demande I'audiance, et que peut-estre elle ne I'a pas sceu, au moins le dict-elle ainsi. M. de Vendosme vint hier chez moi, qui me dist que le Roy et la Rojoie lui avoient diet que c' estoit la faute du Comte Dorset, qu'elle ne sqavoit point que je fusse la, et qu'elle m'en feroit excuse a la premiere veue. Je ne feray aucun semblant d'en estre mal satisfait, et si elle m'en parle, je lui temoigneray que j'allois pour lui rendre compte de ce que j'avois diet au Roy de la Grande Bretagne, et que je n'aurois garde de penser qu' ayant I'honneur d'estre auprt^s d'elle de la part du Roy, elle n'eust pas dessein de me vouloir veoir, que je n'y allois pas cette fois comme ambassadeur, mais comme son tres bumble serviteur, M. de Vendosme me temoigna que leurs Majest(5z Bri- tanniques estoient resolues de me proposer de me mesler, de la part du Roy, de leur accommodement avec le Parlement, n'y trouvant pas grande lumiere que par cette voye la dans I'embarras ou sont les affaires, Je lui respondis que je m'estois offert plusieurs fois de servir la Royne dans ce dessein 1^, mais qu'elle ne I'avoit jamais de'sire ; que toutes les fois qu'elle me le commanderoit j'y agirois comme son tres humble serviteur ; qu'au temps quo je luy en avois parle, la chose estoit bien plus facile et que dcpuis le retour de Sa Majeste Britan- nique, ils avoient si fort meprise tous les seigneurs du Par- APPENDIX. 401 lement et toute la Chambre des Communes que, pour se sauver du mal qu'apparemment ou leur vouloit faire, ils s'estoient reunis et cherchoient, par les loys du royaume, d'empescher qu'on ne leur peust nuire ; que leurs Majestez Britauuiques avoient au contraire reeeu toute Tautre cabale, qui est celle d'Espagne, avec tant d'applaudissement et de temoignages de satisfaction, que j'appreliendois que ces Mes- sieurs du Parlement ne peussent pas quitter leurs defiances tant qu'ils verroient les choses en cet estat, et que cette faction, qui leur est ennemie, seroit en credit aupres de leurs Majestez ; que j'etois asseure que, quand le Royne voudroit prendre les interests de la France, et abandonner ceulx d'Espagne, le Roy et mesme ces Messieurs dont elle se plaint, se porteroient a toutes les choses qui pouiToient contribuer a sa satisfaction. Le sentiment de M. de Vendosme est qu'il faut que leurs Majestes Britanniques me donnent parole qu'ayant travaille a leur accommodement et en estant venu a bout, ils rompront avec rEsjjagne. Je ne luy ay rien respondu la dessus, mais je suis d'une opinion conti'aire, et je crois qu'il fault qu'ils fassent la rupture auparavant que j 'oblige ceulx du Parlement a le desirer ainsi, leur faisant voir qu'il n'y a point de surete pour eux tant que ces favoris Espagnols demeureront en puissance. La necessite des uns et des autres est fort pressante, et de chaque cote ils sont a present dans lextremite II faut que dans dix jours il arrive quelque re vers a I'une ou I'autre de ces cabales, faisant I'une et Tautre ce qu'elles peuvent pour se miner. Celle oil jay habitude a este jusques a cette heure la plus forte. L'amvee du Roy de la Grande Bretagne a fortifie Tautre. J'espere que cela n'empescbera pas qu'elle ne se maintienne. L'Evesque de Lincoln, le Comte de Bristol et son fils sont ceux qui, pensant me brouiller avec le Roy, la Royne et le Parlement, ont fait courre le bruit que j'avois offert au Roy de la Grande Bretagne vingt mille hommes pour mettre les Anglois a la raison. Cela ne leur a point donne d'ombrage, le Comte de Hollande estant dernierement lorsque je lui ay parld, et le Parlement au contraire a diet tout haidt que je temoignois bien par mes actions que la France n'avoit pas envie de brouiller cet estat, puisqu'elle offroit des forces VOL. I. 2d 402 APPENDIX. pour chastier ceulx que la cabale d'Espagne avoit suscitespour en causer tous les troubles ...... Les Deputez d'Escosse doivent arriver dans deux jours. On me dit que lorsqvi'ils seront venus, le Parlement et eulx se joiudront pour me parler d'une nouvelle alliance. Je ne man- queray de vous le faire scavoir aussitost et ne loirray de les escoviter pour tenir I'affaire en estat afin d'attendre les ordres de Monseignevir le Cardinal. Si c'est chose qu'il desire, il ne faudra pas perdre de temps a se resoudre, car ces gens icy sont fort inegaux, et si on ne les prend dans le temps de leiurs brouilleries avec le Roy, ils sont personnes a n'en rien faire. II. THE SAME TO THE SAME. Londres, 26 Decembre, 1641. Leurs Majestez Britanniques seront enfin contraints de chercher accomodemeut. On ne parloit il y a quatre jours que de faire couper la teste a plusieurs du Parlement. Tous les exiles qui sont en France font ce qu'ils peuvent pour rendre de mauvais offices au Dt. Sr. de la Ferte. lis se plaignent haute- ment de Monseigneur le Cardinal. Ceux qui sont en Angle- terre font encore pis, flattant leurs Majestez dans leurs senti- ments. III. THE SAME TO THE SAME. Londres, 16 Janvier, 1642. Les affaires d'Angieterre empirent tous les jours. II y a trois jours que le Parlement demanda au Roy une garde qui fut command ee par le Comte d Essex, laquelle il ne voulut pas leur accorder sur Iheure. Le Roy et la Royne d'Angieterre ont mis deux personnes de la Chambre Basse dans lem: conseil, en ont fait un autre de la meme Chambre Chancelier de TEschiquier, et le Comte de Southampton, qui est de la Haute, gentilhomme de la chambre du lict. Toutes ces promotions choquent extremement le Parlement. Le Parlement estant rassomble, Sa Majeste de la Grande Bretague envoya le Procureur du Roy declarer a la Chambre APPENDIX. 408 Haute, le Vicomte de Mandeville criminal de haute trahison, et demanda qu'on I'envoyast prisonnier a la Tour, En mesme temps la Maison Haute envoya demander conference avec la Basse, et deputa ce meme Vicomte de Mandeville pour conferer avec elle. Les uns et les autres trouv^rent que cette action estoit violente, d' envoy er vm homme de condition du Parlement prisonnier sans en dire les raisons. Comme ils parlaient de cette affaire, il arriva encore d'autres deputez de la part du Roy a la Maison Basse, qui declarerent les Sieurs Pime, Holis et trois autres de cette Maison criminels de haute trahison, et mesme le Roy avait envoye dans les logos de ces six sceller leurs cabinets et coffres de son sceau. Le Parlement aprenant ces procedures, envoya lever le sceau, declara qu'il tenoit ces personnes en sa protection, qu'on vouloit ruyner leurs pri- villeges, mais qu'ils estoient bien resolus de les maintenir, qu'on faisoit des assemblees a la cour, et une garde, qu'ils prioient le Roi de faire retirer toute la noblesse qui s' estoit jettee dans son palais, et de trouver bon qu'ils eussent autaut de gardes qu'il en prenoit pour luy, et personnes qu'ils choi- siroient. Le Royne de la Grande Bretagne m'a envoye le superieur des Capucins me dire que je retirasse chez moi Targenterie de sa chapelle. En mesme temps on fit peur aux Peres qu'on les devoit assommer. Je fus chez la Royne qui me confirma le commandement qu'elle m'avoit fait faire, et I'apprehension quelle avoit pour ces pferes. J'y avois prdveu ddja et mes amis du Parlement m'avoient assure qu'on n'entreprendroit rien contre aux, et qu'ils avoient donnd ordre que les appren- tis n'y allassent point. Depuis j'ai seen que des serviteurs de la Royne faisoient coure le bruit qu'elle ne se soucioit pas des Capucins, puisque cela estoit si fort contraire aux senti- ments du peuple. Le Roy et le Parlement se roidissent chacun de son coste. Nous verrons bientost qui flechira. Je ne scay s"il seroit plus avantageux a la France que I'une de ces deux puissances demeurast le maistre. Je vous prie de me mander ce que j 'ay a faire. Je ne vols mes amis que le moins que je puis, ni la cour 404 APPENDIX. non plus, pour me maintenir sans ombrage. Je vous supplie, que je saclie les intentions de son Eminence sur ce sujet. On a envoye douze Evesques a la Tour ; on pensoit faire leur proces. Je leur ay conseilld le contraire, parcequ'^tant condamnez on y en pourvoiroit d'autres. La ou n'estant que prisonniers, c'estoit douze voix que estoient a leur avantage. Je crois qu'ils alentiront ce sagement. On ne voit prdsentement que des preparations a beaucoup de maux, assemblies de part et d'autre, porter publiquement dans la ville, chez le Roy et au Parlement poignards et pistolets de poclie, tirer les espees et poignards dans la chambre du Roy et de la Royne pour faire veoir qu'ils ont quelque dessein. Hier le Roy fut au Parlement avec trois cents gentils- hommes, et le peu qu'il a de gardes. II entra dans la Chambre des Communes ou il demanda les cinq qu"il avoit accusez, et comme le party ce jour la n'estoit pas bien fait pour le Parlement, j"en advertis mes amis qui y pourveurent faisant un quart d'heure devant esloigner ces personnes, et donnant ordre a la ville qu'on prit les armes. Le lendemain le Roy, croyant s'assurer du peuple, fut chez le Maire oil le conseil estoit, puis disnerent chez un cherif, n'ayant mend avec soi que le Marquis d'Hamilton, les Comtes d'Essex, de Holland et de Nieuport. II devoit aller apres disner a la Tour. Le bruit est que son intention estoit de laisser ces quatre seigneurs prisonniers s'il eut trouve disposi- tion aux bourgeois de la proteger ; mais au contraire dans le conseil de la ville et par les rues, le peuple crioit tout haut liberte du Parlement. Les bourgeois prirent les armes, et plus de deux mille furent sur le chemin de la Tour. Le Roy ne trouvant pas son compte est revenu droit a la Cour. Le Parlement et le peuple ont proteste la protection de ces six personnes condamnees, de sorte que mes amis, dont quatre estoient du nombre, se maintiendront, et de telle sorte que j'ay peur que Tautorite du Roy d'Angleterre ne soit bien esbranlee. Le Sieur Gerbier m'est venu trouver pour me parler d'une proposition que I'ambassadeur de Venise lui a fait faire, pour sauver I'honneur . du Roy d'Angleterre. Cet ambassadeur APPENDIX. 405 projettoit que nous demandassions audiance publique en- semble, et que nous prierions le Roy de donner un pardon general de tout ce qui s'est fait au Parlement, que les ambassa- deurs estant bien aupres de la Royne, ils la porteroient a cela, et que moy estant bien avec le Parlement, je tacherois aussi de le porter a y consentir, et que mes amis qui estoient en crime seroient par la a couvert. J'ai respondu au Sieur Gerbier que je ne pouvois commettre le nom de Sa Majeste pour aucune affaire que ce soit avec un autre ambassadeur, et que je ne voulois point avoir d'audiance avec personne, que je voyais le Roy et la Royne d'Angleterre souvent, et que quand ils me conimanderoient de les servir, je ferois toutes choses possibles pour leur tesmoigner qvie I'intentions du Roy seront toujours de les assister de ses bons conseils, que je n'aurois garde de pousser cette affaire plus avant, Leurs Majestes m'ayant toujours tesmoigne qu'elles ne vouloient penser a aucun accommodement. On croit que le Roy d'Augleterre n'a plus d'autre resource que d'aller en Irlande. Je ne saurois subsister si Monseigneur ne m'en donne le moyen. Sij'avois autant de biens comme de volonte dele servir, il ne seroit pas importune de moy. {Archives des Affaires Etr anger es de France.) APPENDIX Vin. (Page 380.) COMPOSITION OF THE ARMY RAISED BY PARLIAMENT IN 1642.' General-in-chief : Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex. Major-General (or, as the office was then called, Seijeant- Major-General), Sir John Merrick. General of artillery: John Mordaunt, Earl of Peterborough.* ' From a pamphlet published in London in 1642, and entitled, " The List of the Army raised under the command of his Excellency Robert, Earl of Essex." * On the death of the Earl of Petei'borough, Sir John Merrick became general of the artillery, and Philip Skippon was appointed major-general. 406 APPENDIX. COLONELS OF INFANTRY REGIMENTS. The Earl of Essex. The Earl of Peterborough. Henry Grey, Earl of Stamford, William Fiennes, Viscount Say. Edward Montague, Viscount Mandeville.' John Carey, Viscount Roch- ford.^ Oliver St. John, Viscount St. John. Robert Greville, Lord Brook. John Roberts, Lord Roberts. Philip Wharton, Lord Wharton. John Hampden. Denzil Holies. Sir John Merrick. Sir Henry Cholmondley. Sir William Constable. Sir William Fairfax.* Charles Essex. Thomas Grantham. Thomas Ballard. William Bampfield. COLONELS OF TROOPS OF HORSE.'* The Earl of Essex. The Earl of Bedford. The Earl of Peterborough. The Earl of Stamford. Viscount Say. Viscount St. John Basil Fielding, Viscount Field- ing.^ Lord Brook. Lord Wharton, William Willoughby, Lord Willoughby of Parham. Ferdinand Hastings, Lord Hastings. Thomas Grey, Lord Grey of Groby. Sir William Balfour. Sir William Waller. Sir Arthur Haslerig. Sir Faithful Fortescue. Nathaniel Fiennes. Francis Fiennes. John Fiennes. Oliver Cromwell. Valentine Wharton. Henry Ireton. Arthur Goodwin. John Dalbier. Adrian Scrope. Thomas Hatcher. John Hotham, Edward Beny. ' Lord Manchester, known also by the name of Baron Kimbolton. ^ Also called Lord Hunsdon. ' A cousin of the celebrated Sir Thomas Fairfax. * In the writings of the period they are often called captains. * Sometimes also called Lord Newnham ; he was son of the Earl of Denbigh, and, on his father's death, in April, 164;?, he assumed the title. APPENDIX. 407 Sir Robert Pye. Sir William Wray. Sir John Saunders. John Alured. Edwin Sandys. John Hammond. Thomas Hammond. Alexander Pym. Anthony Mildmay. Henry Mildmay. James Temple. Thomas Temple. Arthur Evelyn. Robert Vivers. Hercules Langrish. William Pretty. William Pretty. James Sheffield. John Gunter. Robert Burrel. Francis Dowet. John Bird. Matthew Drapper. Matthew Dimock. Horace Carey. John Neal. Edward Ayscough. George Thompson. Francis Thompson. Edward Keightly. Alexander Douglas. Thomas Lidcot. John Fleming. Richard Grenville. Thomas Terril. John Hale. William Balfour. George Austin. Edward Wingate. Edward Baynton. Charles Chichester. Walter Long. Edmund West. William Anselm. Robert Kirle. Simon Rudgeley. END OF VOL. I. LONDON : rUIN'TED nY WILIJAM OI.OWRS AND SONS, STAMFOIID-STIIKET. ^ / UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY AA 001 316 421 5 DATE DUE 1 MAR 9 983 3 1989 ^ iV;A\ C '■>: ii:tU y^ V 1 ^ORVit ^ Ci^ \99 I GAYLORD PRINTED IN U.S.A. iL LIBRARY FACILITY 6 421 5 WWy.^PS'IY P.F, CA., RIVERSIDE LIBRARY 3 1210 00710 1528 i'f'^'Biiilliia^^^ H: i:.i!VHii;iil S /A Ifi'r mm vllliii mmm