^y/r/y/^Vj /y r /^ /y VJ ^///A/r ^ /' X^////^//// ///'^A /yy////, //MS' J » LittRAKT •TATE TCACHCRS COLLtOk •ANTA SARBAKA. CALII»CmN»A THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND FROM THE ACCESSION OF JAMES II BT THOMAS BABINGTON xMACAULAY. VOL. L CHICAGO : DONOHUE, HENNEBERRY & CO. 407-425 Dearborn Street 1890 DONOHUE & HENNEBERRY, Printers and Binders, Chicago. CONTENTS OF VOL. 1. CHAPTER I. Introduction 13 Britain under the Romans . 15 Britain under the Saxons , 16 Conversion of the Saxons to Christianity 17 Danish Invasions ; The Normans , 20 Tlie Norman Conquest 23 Separation of England and Normandy 25 Amalgamation of Races 26 English Conquests on the Continent . . . , 28 Wars of the Roses 30 Extinction of Villenage 31 Beneficial Operation of the Roman Catholic Religion 32 The early English Polity often misrepresented, and why ? .. . . 34 Nature of the Limited Monarchies of the Middle Ages 36 Prerogatives of the early English Kings 37 Limitations of the Prerogative 38 Resistance an ordinary Check on Tyranny in the Middle Ages 42 Peculiar Character of the English Aristocracy. 45 Government of the Tudors : 46 Limited Monarchies of the Middle Ages generally turned into Absolute Monarchies 49 The English Monarchy a singular Exception 50 The Reformation and its Effects 51 Origin of the Church of England 55 Pier peculiar Character , , 57 Relation in which she stood to the Crown 59 The Puritans 63 Their Republican Spirit 65 No systematic parliamentary Opposition offered to the Gov- ernment of Elizabeth 66 5 6 CONTENTS. PAGE. Question of the Monopolies 67 Scotland and Ireland become Parts of the same Empire with England 68 Diminution of the Importance of England after the Accession of James 1 72 Doctrine of Divine Right 73 The Separation between the Chnrch and the Puritans be- comes wider 77 Accession and Character of Charles I. . . •. 85 Tactics of the Opposition in the House of Commons 86 Petition of Right 87 Petition of Right violated ; Character and Designs of Went- worth 88 Character of Laud 89 Star Chamber and High Commission 90 Ship-Money 91 Resistance to the Liturgy in Scotland 94 A Parliament called and dissolved 95 The Long Parliament 97 First Appearance of the Two great English Parties 98 The Remonstrance 105 Impeachment of the Five Members 107 Departure of Charles from London 108 Commencement of the Civil War . „ . Ill Successes of the Royalists 112 Rise of the Independents 114 Oliver Cromwell 115 Self denying Ordinance ; Victory of the Parliament 116 Domination and Character of the Army 117 Rising against the Military Government suppressed 120 Proceedings against the King 121 His Execution 124 Subjugation of Ireland and Scotland 126 Expulsion of the Long Parliament 127 The Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell 130 Oliver succeeded by Richard ^ 135 Fall of Richard and Revival of the Long Parliament 137 Second Expulsion of the Long Parliament 138 The Army of Scotland marches into England 139 Monk declares for a Free Parliament 141 CONTENTS. 7 PAOE. Geueial Election of 1660 142 The Restoration 143 CHAPTER II. Conduct of those who restored the House of Stuart unjustly censured 145 Abolition of Tenures by Knight Service ; Disbandment of the Army 147 Disputes between the Roundheads and Cavaliers renewed 148 Religious Dissension 150 Unpopularity of the Puritans 153 Character of Charles II „ 159 Character of the Duke of York and Earl of Clarendon 162 General Election of 1661 165 Violence of the Cavaliers in the new Parliament 166 Persecution of the Puritans 167 Zeal of the Church for Hereditary Monarchy 168 Change in the Morals of the Community 168 Profligacy of Politicians 171 State of Scotland 173 State of Ireland 176 The Government become unpopular in England 177' War with the Dutch 180 Opposition in the House of Commons 181 Fall of Clarendon 182 State of European Politics, and Ascendency of France 185 Character of Lewis XIV 187 The Triple Alliance 189 The Country Party 190 Connection between Charles II. and France 191 Views of Lewis with respect to England 194 Treaty of Dover 196 Nature of the English Cabinet 197 The Cabal 198 Shutting of the Exchequer 201 War with the United Provinces, and their extreme Danger. . . 202 William, Prince of Orange 203 Meeting of the Parliament ; Declaration of Indulgence 205 It is cancelled, and the Test Act passed 207 The Cabal dissolved 208 8 CONTENTS. PAGE. Peace with the United Provinces ; Administration of Danby 209 Embarrassing Situation of the Country Party 211 Dealings of that Party with the French Embassy 213 Peace of Niniegueu 213 Violent Discontents in England 214 Fall of Danby ; the Popish Plot 216 Violence of the new House of Commons 221 Temple's Plan of Government 223 Character of Halifax 225 Character of Sunderland 228 Prorogation of the Parliament ; Habeas Corpus Act ; Second General Election of 1679 230 Popularity of Monmouth 231 Lawrence Hyde . .• 235 Sidney Godolphin 236 Violence of Factions on the Subject of the Exclusion Bill. 237 Names of Whig and Tory ; 238 Meeting of Parliament ; The Exclusion Bill passes the Com- mons ; Exclusion Bill rejected by the Lords 239 Execution of Stafford ; General Election of 1681 240 Parliament held at Oxford, and dissolved 241 Tory Reaction 242 Persecution of the Whigs 244 Chaiter of the City confiscated ; Whig Conspiracies 245 Detection of the Whig Conspiracies 247 Severity of the Government ; Seizure of Charters 248 Lifliience of the Duke of York 250 He is opposed by Halifax 251 Lord Guildford 252 Policy of Lewis 254 State of Factioiv* in the Court of Charles at the time of his Dftath 256 CHAPTER m. Great Change in the State of England since 1685 257 Population of England in 1685 259 Increase of Population greater in the North than in the South 261 Revenue iu 1G85 264 Military System 266 The Navy- 273 CONTENTS. 9 PAGE. The Ordnance 280 Noneffective Charge ; Charge of Civil Government > . 281 Great Gains of Ministers and Courtiers 282 State of Agriculture 285 Mineral Wealth of the Country 289 Increase of Rent 291 Tlie Country Gentlemen 292 The Clergy 296 The Yeomanry ; Growth of the Towns ; Bristol 306 Norwich 308 Other Country Towns 309 Manchester ; Leeds ; Sheffield 311 Birmingham 313 Liverpool 314 Watering-places ; Cheltenham ; Brighton ; Buxton ; Tunbridge Wells 315 Bath 316 London 318 The City 320 Fashionable Part of the Capital 324 Police of London 329 Lighting of London 330 Whitefriars ; The Court 331 The Coffee Houses 334 Difficulty of Travelling 338 Badness of the Roads 339 Stage Coaches 343 Highwaymen 346 Inns 349 Post Office , 350 Newspapers 352 News-letters 354 The Observator 356 Scarcity of Books in Country Places ; Female Education 357 Literary Attainments of Gentlemen 359 Influence of French Literature 360 Immorality of the Polite Literature of England 361 State of Science in England 368 State of the Fine Arts. 373 State of the Common People ; Agricultural Wages 376 10 CONTENTS. PAGE. Wages of Manufacturers 378 Labour of Children in Factories 379 Wages of different Classes of Artisans 380 Number of Paupers 381 Benefits derived by the Common People from the Progress of Civilisation 382 Delusion which leads Men to overrate the Happiness of pro- ceding Generations 385 CHAPTER rV, Death of Charles II 387 Suspicions of Poison 398 Speech of James II. to the Privy Council 400 James proclaimed 401 State of the Administration 402 New Arrangements 404 Sir George Jeffreys 406 The Revenue collected without an Act of Parliament 410 A Parliament called 411 Transactions between James and the French King 412 Churchill sent Ambassador to France ; His History 415 Feelings of the Continental Governments towards England. . 418 Policy of the Court of Rome. 420 Struggle in the Mind of James ; Fluctuations in his Policy.. . 423 Public Celebration of the Roman Catholic Rites in the Palace 425 His Coronation 427 Enthusiasm of the Tories ; Addresses 430 The Elections 431 Proceedings against Gates 435 Proceedings against Dangerfield 440 Proceedings against Baxter 442 Meeting of the Parliament of Scotland 446 Feeling of James towards the Puritans 447 Cruel Treatment of the Scotch Covenanters 449 Feeling of James towards the Quakers 453 William Penn 455 PocTiliar Favour shown to Roman Catholics and Quakers 458 Meeting of the English Parliament; Trevor chosen Speaker; Character of Seymour 461 The King's Speech to the Parliament 463 CONTENTS. H PAGE. Debate in the Commons ; Speech of Seymour 464 The Revenue voted ; Proceedings of the Commons concerning' Religion 465 Additional Taxes voted ; Sir Dudley North 467 Proceedings of the Lords . 469 Bill for reversing the Attainder of Stafford 470 CHAPTER V. Whig Refugees on the Continent 472 Their Correspondents in England 473 Characters of the leading Refugees ; Ayloffe ; Wade 474 Goodenough ; Rumbold 475 Lord Grey 476 Monmouth 477 Ferguson 478 Scotch Refugees ; Earl of Argyle 483 Sir Patrick Hume; Sir John Cochrane ; Fletcher of Saltoun. 486 Unreasonable Conduct of the Scotch Refugees 487 Arrangement for an Attempt on England and Scotland 488 John Locke 490 Preparations made by Government for the Defence of Scot- land 491 Conversation of James with the Dutch Ambassadors ; Ineffec- tual Attempts to prevent Argyle fi"om sailing 492 Departure of Argyle from Holland; He lands in Scotland... . 495 His Disputes with his Followers 496 Temper of the Scotch Nation 498 Argyle's Forces dispersed • 501 Argyle a Prisoner 502 His Execution , . . 507 Execution of Rumbold 508 Death of Ayloff 510 Devastation of Argyleshire 511 Lieffectual Attempts to prevent Monmouth from leaving Hol- land 512 His Arrival at Lyme . 514 His Declaration - 515 His Popularity in the West of England . . . . , 516 Encounter of the Rebels with the Militia at Bridport ..... 618 Encounter of the Rebels with the Militia at Axminster j News 12 CONTENTS. VXGB, of the Rebellion carried to London ; Loyalty of the Parlia- ment = 520 Reception of Monmouth at Taunton 524 He takes the Title of King > 527 His Reception at Bridgewater 531 Preparations of the Government to oppose him 532 His Design on Bristol 535 He relinquishes that Design 53G Skirmish at Philip's Norton; Despondence of Monmouth.. . 538 He returns to Bridgewater ; The Royal Army encamps at Sedgemoor . . . 540 Battle of Sedgemoor 544 Pursuit of the Rebels - 550 Military Executions ; Flight of Monmouth 551 His Capture 558 His Letter to the King; He is carried to London 555 His Interview with the King ....... .... 556 His Execution . 560 His Memory cherished by the Common People . . 563 Cruelties of the Soldiers in the West ; Kirke ,, 566 Jeffreys sets out on the Western Circuit . .... 571 Trial of Alice Lisle . ... 572 The Bloody Assizes 576 Abraham Holmes 579 Christopher Battiscombe ; The Hewlings 580 Punishment of Tutchin 581 Rebels Transported 582 Confiscation and Extortion 583 Rapacity of the Queen and her Ladies. 585 Grey ; Cochrane ; Storey 591 Wade, Goodenough, and Ferguson 591 Jeffreys made Lord Chancellor 593 Trial and Execution of Cornish 594 Trials and Executions of Fernley and Elizabeth Gaunt 596 Trial and Execution of Bateman 598 *?<"ormation. 16 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. been predominant. It drove out the Celtic ; it was not driven out by the Teutonic; and it is at this day the basis of the French, Spanish and Portuguese languages. In our island the Latin appears never to have superseded the old Gaelic speech, and could not stand its ground against the German. The scanty and superficial civilisation which the Britons had derived from their southern masters was effaced by the calamities of the fifth century. In the continental kingdoms into which the Roman empire was then dissolved, the conquerors learned much from the conquered race. In Britain the conquered race became as barbarous as the conquerors. All the chiefs who founded Teutonic dynasties in the con- tinental provinces of the Roman empire, Alaric, Theodoric, Clovis, Alboin, were zealous Christians. The followers of Idu and Cerdic, on the other hand, brought to their settlements in Britain all the superstitions of the Elbe. While the German princes who reigned at Paris, Toledo, Aries, and Ravenna listened with reverence to the instructions of bishops, adored the relics of martyrs, and took part eagerly in disputes touching the Nicene theology, the rulers of Wessex and Mercia were still performing savage rites in the temples of Thor and Woden. The continental kingaoms which had risen on the ruins of the Western Empire kept up some intercourse with those eastern provinces where the ancient civilisation, though slowly fading away under the influence of misgovernment, might still astonish and instruct barbarians, where the court still exhibited the splendour of Diocletian and Constantine, where the public buildings were still adorned with the sculptures of Polycletus and the paintings of Apelles, and where laborious pedants, themselves destitute of taste, sense, and spirit, could still read and interpret the masterpieces of Sophocles, of Demosthenes, and of Plato. From this communion Britain was cut off. Her slipres were, to the polished race which dwelt by the Bosporus, objects of a mysterious horror, such as that witli which the lonians of the age of Homer had regarded the Straits of Scylla and the city of the Lrestrygonian cannibals. There was ong BEFOUt: THE RESTORATION. 17 '?rovince of ouv island in which, as Procopius had been told, the ground was covered with serpents, and the air was such that no man could inhale it and live. To this desolate region tlie spirits of the departed were ferried over from the land of the Fronks at midnight. A strange race of fishermen performed the ghastly office. The speech of the dead was distinctl}^ heard bj tiie boatmen : their weight made the keel sink deep in the water ; but their forms were invisiljle to mortal eye. Such were the marvels which an able historian, the contemporary of Belisarius, of Simplicius, and of Tribouian, gravely related in the rich and polite Constantinople, touching the country in which the founder of Constantinople had assumed the imperial purple. Concerning all the other provinces of the Western Empire we have continuous information. It is only in Britain that an age of fable completely separates two ages of truth. Odoacer and Totila, Euric and Thrasimund, Clovis, Fredegunda, and Brunechild, are historical men and women. But Hengist and Horsa, Vortigern and Rowena, Arthur and Mordred are mythical persons, whose very existence may be questioned, and whose adventures must be classed with those of Hercules and Romulus. At length the darkness begins to break ; and the country which had been lost to view as Britain reappears as England. The conversion of the Saxon colonists to Christianity was the first of a long series of salutary revolutions. It is true that the Church had been deeply corrupted both by that superstition and by that philosophy against which she had long contended, and over which she had at last triumphed. She had given a too easy admission to doctrines borrowed from the ancient schools, and to rites borrowed from the ancient temples. Ro- man policy and Gothic ignorance, Grecian ingenuity and Syrian asceticism, had contributed to deprave her. Yet she retained enough of the sublime theology and benevolent morality of her earlier days to elevate many intellects, and to purifv many hearts. Some things also which at a later period were justly regarded as among her chief blemishes were, in the seventh century, and long afterwards, p'-noiig her chief merits That ^1i 18 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. the sacerdotal order should encroach ou the functions ot tr.e civil magistrate would, in our time, be a great evil. But tnat which in an age of good government is an evil may, in an age of grossly bad government, be a blessing. It is better that mrm- kind should be governed by wise laws well administered, and by an enlightened })ublic opinion, than by priestcraft : but it is better that men should be governed by priestcraft than by brute violence, by such a prelate as Dunstan than by such a warrior as Penda. A society sunk in ignorance, and ruled by mere physical force, has great reason to rejoice when a class, of which the influence is intellectual and moral, rises to ascendency. Such a class will doubtless abuse its power : but mental power, even when abused, is still a nobler and better power than that which consists merely in coi'poreal strength. We read in our Saxon chronicles of tyrants, who, when at the height of great- ness, were smitten with remorse, who abhorred the pleasures and dignities which they liad j^urchased by guilt, who abdicated their crowns, and who sought to atone for their offences 1,)^ cruel penances and incessant prayers. These stories have drawn forth bitter expressions of contempt from some writers who, while they boasted of liberality, were in truth as narrow-mind- ed as any monk of the dark ages, and whose habit was to apply to all events in the history of the world the standard received in the Parisian society of the eighteenth century. Yet surely a svstem which, however deformed by sui)erstition, introduced strong moral restraints into communities previously governed only by vigour of muscle and by audacity of spirit, a system which taught the fiercest and mightiest ruler that he was, like his mean- est bondman, a responsible being, might have seemed to deserve imore respectful mention from philosophers and philanthropists. The same observations will apply to tlie contempt with which, in the last century, it was fashionable to speak of the pilgrimages, the sanctuaries, the crusades, and the monastic institutions of the middle ages. In times when men were scarcely ever induced to travel by liberal curiosity, or by the pursuit of gain, it was better that the rude inhabitant of the North should visit Italy and the East as a pilgrim, than that he BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 19 should never see anything but those squalid cabins and un- cleared woods amidst which he was born. In times when life and when female honour were exposed to daily risk from ty- rants and marauders, it was better that the precinct of a shrine should be reo-arded with an irrational awe, than that there should be no refuge inaccessible to cruelty and licentiousness. In times when statesmen were incapable of forming extensive political combinations, it was better tliat the Christian nations should be roused and united for the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre, than that they should, one by one, be overwhelmed by the Mahometan power. Whatever reproach may, at a later period, have been justly thrown on the indolence and luxury of religious orders, it was surely good that, in an age of ignorance and violence, there should be quiet cloisters and gardens, in which the arts of peace could be safely cultivated, in which gentle and contemplative natures could find an asylum, in which one brother could employ himself in tran- scribincr the Tii^neid of Yirijil, and another in meditating the Analytics of Aristotle, in which he who had a genius for art might illuminate a martyi'ology or carve a crucifix, and in which he who had a turn for natural philosophy might make experiments on the properties of plants and minerals. Had not such retreats been scattered here and there, among the huts of a miserable peasanti-y, and the castles of a ferocious aristocracy, European society would have consisted merely of beasts of burden and beasts of in*ey. The Church has many times been compared by divines to the ark of which we read in the Book of Genesis : but never was the resemblance more perfect than during that evil time when she alone rode, amidst darkness and tempest, on the deluge beneath which all the great works of ancient power and wisdom lay entombed, bearing within her that feeble germ from which a second and more glorious civilisation was to spring. Even the spiritual supremacy arrogated by the Pope was, in the dark ages, productive of far more good than evil. Its effect was to unite the nations of Western Europe in one great commonwealth. What the Olympian chariot course and the 20 IIISTOKY OF ENGLAND. Pythian oracle were to all the Greek cities, from Trebizond to Marseilles, Rome and her Bishop were to all Christians of the Latin communion, from Calabria to the Hebrides. Thus grew up sentiments of enlarged benevolence. Races separated from each other by seas and mountains acknowledged a fraternal tie and a common code of public law. Even in war, the cruelty of the conqueror was not seldom mitigated by the recollection that he and his vanquished enemies were all members of one great federation. Into this federation our Saxon ancestors were now admitted. A regular communication was opened between our shores and that part of Europe in which the traces of ancient power and policy were yet discernible. Many noble monuments which have since been destroyed or defaced still retained their pris- tine magnificence ; and travellers, to whom Livy and Sallust were unintelligible, might gain from the Roman aqueducts and temples some faint notion of Roman history. The dome of Agrippa, still glittering with bronze, the mausoleum of Adrian, not yet deprived of its columns and statues, the Flavian amphi- theatre, not yet degraded into a quarry, told to the rude English pilgrims some part of the story of that great civilised world which had j^assed away. The islanders returned, with awe deeply impressed on their half opened minds, and told the won- dering inhabitants of the hovels of London and York that, near the grave of Saint Peter, a mighty race, now extinct, had piled up buildings which would never be dissolved till the judgment day. Learning followed in the train of Christianity. The poetry and eloquence of the Augustan age was assiduously studied in Mercian and Northumbrian monasteries. The names of Bede and Alcuin were justly celebrated throughout Europe. Such was the state of our country when, in the nnith century, began the last great migration of the northern barbarians. During many years Denmark and Scandinavia continued to pour forth immmerable pirates, distinguished by strength, by valour, by merciless ferocity, and by hatred of the Christian name. No country suffered so much from these invaders as England. Her coast lay near to the ports whence they sailed BEFORK THK RESTORATION. 21 nor was any shire so far distant from tlie sea as to be secure from atta:k. Tlie same atrocities which had attended the victory of tlie Saxon over 'the Celt were now, after the lapse of ages, suffered by the Saxon at the hand of the Dane. Civilization, just as it began to rise, was met by this blow, and sank down once more. Large colonies of adventurei-s from the Baltic established themselves on the eastern shores of our island, sjoread gradually westward, and, supj^orted by constant reinforcements from I eyond tlie sea, aspired to the dominion of the whole realm. The straggle between Ihe two fierce Teutonic breeds lasted through six generations. Each was alternately paramount. Cruel massacres followed by cruel retribution, ]>rovinces wasted, convents plundered, and cities rased to the ground, make up the greater part of the history of those evil days. At length the North ceased to send forth a constant stream of fresh depreda- tors ; and fi'om that time the mutual aversion of the races be- gan to subside. Intermarriage became frequent. The Danes learned the religion of the Saxons ; and thus one cause of deadly animosity was removed. The Danish and Saxon tongues, both dialects of one widespread language, were blended together. But the distinction between the two nations was by no means effaced, when an event took place which prostrated both, in common slaveiy and degradation, at the feet of a third peoi^le. The Normans were then the foremost race of Christendom. Their valour and ferocity bad made them conspicuous among the rovers wliom Scnndinavia had sent foj'th to ravage Western Europe. Their sails were long tbe terror of both coasts of the Channel. Their arms were repeatedly cai-ried far into the heart of the Carlovingian empire, and were victorious under the walls of Maestricht and Paris. At length one of the feeble heirs of Charlemagne ceded to the strangers a fertile province, watered by a noble river, and contiguous to the sea which was their favourite element. In that province they founded a mighty state, which gradually extended its influence over the neighbouring principalities of Britanny and lyiaine. Without laying aside that duuntless valour which had been the terror of every land from the Elbe to the Pyrenees, the Normans rapidly acquired 22 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. all, and more than all, the knowledge and refinement which they found in the country where they settled. Their courage se- cured their territory against foreign invasion. They established internal order, such as had long been unknown in the Frank empire. They embraced Christianity ; and with Christianity they learned a great part of what the clergy had to teach. The}' abandoned their native speech, and adopted the French tongue, in which the Latin was the predominant element. They speedily raised their new language to a dignity and importance which it had never before possessed. They found it a barbarous jargon ; they fixed it in writing ; and they employed it in legis- lation, in poetry, and in romance. They renounced that brutal intemperance to which all the other branches of the great Ger- man family were too much inclined. Tlie polite luxury of the Norman presented a striking contrast to the coarse voracity and drunkenness of his Saxon and Danish neighbours. He loved to display his magnificence, not in huge piles of food and hogsheads of strong drink, but in large and stately edifices, rich armour, gallant horses, choice falcons, well ordered tournaments, ban- quets delicate rather than abundant, and wines remarkable rather for their exquisite flavour than for their intoxicating power. That chivalrous spirit, which has exercised so powerful an in- fluence on the jjolitics, morals, and manners of all the Euro- pean nations, was found in the highest exaltation among the Norman nobles. Those nobles were distinguished by their graceful bearing and insinuating address. They were distin- guished also by their skill in negotiation, and by a natural elo- quence which they assiduously cultivated. It was the boast of one of their historians that the Norman gentlemen were orators from the cradle. But their chief fame was derived from their military exploits. Every country, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Dead Sea, witnessed the prodigies of their discii^line and valour. One Norman knight, at the head of a handful of war- riors, scattered the Celts of Connaught. Another founded the monarchy of the Two Sicilies, and saw the emperors both of the East and of the West fly before his arms. A thtrd, the l^lygses of the first crusade, was invested by his fellow soldiers BEFOUt: THE RESTORATION. 23 with the sovereignty of Antioch; and a fourth, the Tancred whose name lives in the great poem of Tasso, was celebrated tlirougli Christendom as the bravest and most generous of the deliverers of the Holy Sepulchre. The vicinity of so remarkable a people early began to pro- duce an effect on the public mind of England. Before the Conquest, English princes received their education in Norman- dy. English sees and English estates were bestowed on Nor- mans. The French of Normandy was familiarly spoken in the palace of Westminster. The court of Rouen seems to have been to the court of Edward the Confessor what the court of Ver- sailles loasr afterwards was to the court oi Charles the Second. The battle of Hastings, and the events which followed it, not only placed a Duke of Normandy on the English throne, but gave up the whole population of England to the tyranny of the Norman race. The subjugation of a nation by a nation has seldom, even in Asia, been more complete. The country was portioned out among ihe captains of the invaders. Strong military institutions, closely connected with the institution of property, enabled the foreign conquerors to oppress the children of the soil. A cruel penal code, cruelly enforced, guarded the privileges, and even the sports, of the alien tyrants. Yet the subject race, though beaten down and trodden under foot, still made its sting felt. Some bold men, the favourite heroes of our oldest ballads, betook themselves to the woods, and there, in de- fiance of curfew laws and forest laws, waged a predatory war against their oppressors. Assassination was an event of daily occurrence. Many Normans suddenly disappeared leaving no trace. The corpses of many were found bearing the marks of vio- lence. Death by torture was denounced against the murderers, and strict search was made for them, but generally in vain ; for the whole nation was in a conspiracy to sci-een them. It was at length thought necessary to lay a heavy fine on every Hun- dre.l in which a person of French extraction sliould be found slain ; and this regulation was followed up by another r 'gulation, providing that every person who was found slain should be sup* posed to be a Frenchman, unless he was proved to be a Saxon. 24 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. During the century and a, half which followed the Cv>Qques^, there is, to speak strictly, no English historj'. The French Kings of England rose, indeed, to nn eminence which was the wonder and dread of all neighbouring nations. They conquered Ireland. They received the homage of Scotland. By their valour, by their policy, by their fortunate matrimonial alliances, they became far more popular on the Continent than their liege lords the Kings of France. Asia, as well as Europe, was daz- zled by the power and glory of our tyrants. Arabian chroni- clers recorded with unwilling admiration the fall of Acre, the defence of Joppa, and the victorious march to Ascalon ; and Arabian mothers long awed their infants to silence with the name of the liouhearted Plantay no means so strong • at Rio Janerio as at Wash.ington. In our own country this peculiarity of the Roman Catholic system produced, during the middle ages, many salutary effects. It is true that, shortly after the battle of Hastings, Saxon prelates and abbots were violently deposed, and that ecclesiastical adventurers from the Continent were intruded by hundreds into lucrative benefices. Yet even then pious divines of Norman l)jood raised their voices against such a violation of the constitution of the Church, refused to accept mitres from the hands of William, and charged him, on the peril of his soul, not to forget that the vanquished islanders were his fellow Christians. The first protector whom the Ensflish found amouir the dominant caste was Archbishop Anselm. At a time when the English name was a reproach, and when all the civil and military dignities of the kingdom were supposed to belong exclusively to the countrymen of ths Conqueror, the despised race learned, with transports of de^'^ht, that one of themselves, BEFORE THE RESTORATION, 33 Nicholas Breakspear, had beeu elevated to the papal throne, and had held out his foot to be kissed 'by ambassadors sprung from the noblest houses of Normandy. It was a nationtil as well as a religious feeling that drew great multitudes to the shrine of Becket, whom they regarded as the enemy of their enemies. Whether he was a Norman or a Saxon may be doubted : but there is no doubt that he perished by Norman hands, and that the Saxons cherished his memory with peculiar tenderness and veneration, and, in their popular poetry, repre- sented him as one of their own race. A successor of Becket was foremost among the refractory magnates who obtained that charter which secured the privileges both of the Norman barons and of the Saxon yeomanry. How great a part the Roman Catholic ecclesiastics subsequently had in the abolition of villen- age we learn from the unexceptionable testimony of Sir Thomas Smith, one of the ablest Protestant counsellors of Elizabeth. When the dying slaveholder asked for the last sacraments, his spiritual attendants regularly adjured him, as he loved his soul, to emancipate his brethren for whom Christ had died. So suc- cessfully had the Church used her formidable machinery that, before the Reformation came, she had enfranchised almost all the bondmen in the kingdom except her own, who, to do her justice, seem to have been very tenderly treated. There can be no doubt that, when these two great revolu- tions had been effected, our forefathers were by far the best governed people in Europe. During three hundred years the social system had been in a constant course of improvement. Under the first Plautagenets there had been barons able to bid defiance to the sovereign, and peasants degraded to the level of the swine and oxen which they tended. The exorbitant power of the baron had been gradually reduced. The condition of the peasant had been gradually elevated. Between the aristocracy and the working people had sprung up a middle class, agricul- tural and commercial. There was still, it may be, more in- equality than is favourable«to the happiness and virtue of our species : but no man was altogether above the restraints of law ; and no man was altogether below its protection. 34 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. That the political institutions of England were, at this early period, regarded by the English with pride and affection, and by the most enlightened men of neighbouring nations with admiration and envy, is proved by the clearest evidence. But touching the nature of these institutions there has been much dishonest and acrimonious controversey. The historical literature of England has indeed suffered grievously from a circumstance M^hich has not a little contributed to her prosperity. The change, great as it is, which her polity has undergone during the last six centuries, has been the effect of gradual development, not of demolition and reconstruction. The present constitution of our country is, to the constitution under vhich she flourished five hundred years ago, what the tree is to the sapling, what the man is to the boy. The altera- tion has been great. Yet there never was a moment at which the chief part of what exifeted was not old. A polity thus formed must abound in anomalies. But for the evils arising from mere anomalies we have ample compensation. Other societies possess written constitutions more symmetrical. But no other society has yet succeeded in uniting revolution with prescription, progress with stability, the energy of youth with the majesty of immemorial antiquity. This great blessing, however has its drawbacks : and ons of those drawbacks is that every source of information as to our early history has been poisoned by party spirit. A"S there is no country where statesmen have been so much under the influence of the past, so there is no country where historians have been so much under the influence of the present. Between these two tilings, indeed, there is a natural connection. Whera history is regarded merely as a picture of life and manners, or as a collection of experiments from which general maxims of civil wisdom may be drawn, a writer lies under no very pressing temptation to misrepresent transactions of ancient date. But where history is regarded as a repository of titledeeds, on which the rights of governments and nations depend, the motive to falsification becomes almost irresistalftle. A Frenchman is not now impelled by any strong interest either to exaggerate or to BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 35 underrate the powers of the Kings of the house of Valois. The privileges of the States General, of the States of Brittany, of the States of Burgundy, are to him matters of as little practical importance as the constitution of the Jewish Sanhedrim or of the Amphictyonic Council. The gulph of a great revolution completely separates the new from the old system. No such chasm divides the existence of the English nation into two distinct parts. Our laws and customs have never been lost in general and irreparable ruin. Witli us the precedents of the middle ages are still valid precedents, and are still cited, on the gravest occasions, by the most eminent statesmen. For example, when King George the Third was attacked by the malady which made him incapable of performing his regal functions, and when the most distinguished lawyers and politicians differed widely as to the course which ought, in such circumstances, to be pursued, the Houses of Parliament would not proceed to discuss any plan of regency till all the precedents which were to be found in our annals, from the earliest times, had been collected and arranged. Committees were appointed to examine the ancient records of the realm. The first case reported was that of the year 1217 : much importance was attached to the cases of 1326, .of 1377, and of 1422 : but the case which was justly considered as most in point was that of 1455. Thus in our country the dearest interests of parties have frequently been staked on the results of the researches of antiquaries. The in- evitable consequence was that om antiquaries conducted their researches in the spirit of partisans. It is therefore not surprising that those who have written, concerning the limits of perogative and liberty in'the old polity of England should generally have shown the temper, not of judges, but of angry and uiicandid advocates. For they were discussing, not a speculative matter, but a matter which had a direct and practical connection with the most momentous and excitinelled by the Barons to sign. Edward the First ventured to break through the rule : but, able, powerful, and popular as he was, he encountered an opposition to which he found it expedient to yield. He covenanted accordingly in • This is excellently put iy Mr, HaUani in the first chapter of his Constitu- tional History. 40 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. express terms, for himself and his heirs, that they would never again levy any aid without the assent and goodwill of the Estates of the realm. His powerful and victorious grandson attempted to violate this solemn compact : but the attempt was strenuously withstood. At length the Plantagenets gave up the point in despair : but, though they ceased to infringe the law openly, they occasionally contrived, by evading it, to pro- cure an extraordinary supply for a temporary purpose. They were interdicted from taxing ; but they claimed the right of begging and borrowing. They therefore sometimes begged in a tone not easily to be distinguished from that of command, and sometimes borrowed with small thought of repaying. But the fact that they thought it necessary to disguise their exactions under the names of benevolences and loans sufficiently proves that the authority of the great constitutional rule was univer- sally recognised. The principle that the King of England was bound to con- duct the administration according to law, and that, if he did anything against law, his advisers and agents were answerable, was established at a very early period, as the severe judgments pronounced and executed on many royal favourites sufficiently prove. It is, however, certain that the rights of individuals were often violated by the Plantagenets, and that the injured parties were often unable to obtain redress. . According to law no Englishman could be arrested or detained in confinement merely by the mandate of the sovereign. In fact, persons obnoxious to the government were frequently imprisoned with- out any other authority than a royal order. According to law, torture, the disgrace of the Roman jurisprudence, could not, in any circumstances, be inflicted on an English subject. Never- theless, during the troubles of the fifteenth century, a rack was introduced into the Tower, and was occasionally used under the plea of political necessity. But it would be a great error to infer from such irregularities that the English monarchs were, either in theory or in practice, absolute. "We live in a highly civilised society, through which intelligence is so rapidly dif- fused by means of the press and of the post office that any BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 41 gross act of oppression committed in any part of our island is, in a few hours, discussed by millions. If the sovereign were now to immure a subject in defiance of the writ of Habeas Corpus, or to put a conspirator to the torture, the whole nation would be instantly electrified by the news. In the middle ages the state of society was widely different. Rarely and witli great difficulty did the wrongs of individuals come to the knowl- edge of the public. A man might be illegally confined during many months in the castle of Carlisle or Norwich ; and no whisper of the transaction might reach London. It is highly probable that the rack had been many years in use before the great majority of the nation had the least suspicion that it was ever employed. Nor were our ancestors by any means so much alive as we are to the importance of maintaining great general rules. We have been taught by long experience that we can- not without danger suffer any breach of the constitution to pass unnoticed. It is therefore now universall}' held that a govern- ment which unnecessarily exceeds its powers ought to be visited with severe parliamentary censure, and that a government which, under the pressure of a great exigency, and withpui'e intentions, has exceeded its powers, ought without delay to apply to Par- liament for an apt of indemnity. But such were not the feelings of the Eiifrlishmen of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. They were little disposed to contend for a principle merely as a principle, or to cry out against an irregularity which was not also felt to be a grievance. As long as the general spirit of the administration was mild and popular, they were willing to allow some latitude to their sovereign. If, for ends generally ac' knowledged to be good, lie exerted a vigour beyond the law, they not only forgave, but applauded him, and while they en- joyed security and prosperity under his rule, were but too ready to believe that whoever had incurred his displeasure had de- served it. But to this indulgence there was a limit ; nor was that King wise who presumed far on the forbearance of the English people. They might sometimes allow him to overstep the constitutional line : but they also claimed the privilege of overstepping that line themselves, whenever his encroachments 42 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. were so serious as to excite alarm. If, not content with occa- sionally oppressing individuals, he darpd to oppress great masses, his subjects promptly appealed to the laws, and, that appeal failing, appealed as promptly to the God of battles. Our forefathers might indeed safely tolerate a king in a few excesses ; for they had in reserve a check which soon brought the fiercest and proudest king to reason, the check of physical force. It is difficult for an Englishman of the nineteenth cen- tury to imagine to himself the facility and rapidity with which, four hundred years ago, this check was applied. The people have long unlearned the use of arms. The art of war has been carried to a perfection unknown to former ages ; and the knowl- edge of that art is confined to a particular class. A hundred thousand soldiers, v/ell disciplined and commanded, will keep down ten millions of ploughmen and artisans. A few regiments of household troops are sufficient to overawe all the discontented spirits of a large capital. In the meantime the effect of the constant progress of wealth has been to make insurrection far more terrible to thinking men than maladministration. Immense sums have been expended on works which, if a rebellion broke out, might perish in a few hours. The mass of movable wealth collected in the shops and warehouses of London alone exceeds five hundredfold that which the whole island contained in the days of the Plantagenets ; and, if the government were subvert- ed by physical force, all this movable wealth would be exposed to imminent risk of spoliation and destruction. Still greater would be the risk to public credit, on which thousands of families directly depend for subsistence, and with which the credit of the whole commercial world is inseparably connected. It is no ex- aggeration to say that a civil war of a week on English ground would now produce disasters which would be felt from the Hoang- ho to the Missouri, and of which the traces would be discernible at the distance of a century. In such a state of society resist- ance must be regarded as a cure more desperate than almost any malady which can afflict the state. In the middle ages, on the contrary, resistance was an ordinary remedy for political distempers, a remedy which was always at hand, and which, BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 43 though doubtless sharp at the moment, produced* no deep or lasting ill effects. H a popular chief raised his standard in a popular cause, an irregular army could be assembled in a day- Regular army there was none. Every man had a slight tincture^ of soldiership, and scarcely any man more than a slight tincture. The national wealth consisted chiefly in flocks and herds, in the harvest of the j^ear, and in the simple buildings inhabited by the people. All the furniture, the stock of shops, the machin- ery which could be found in the realm was of less value than the property which some single parishes now contain. Man- iifactures were rude ; credit was almost unknown. Society, therefore, recovered from the shock as soon as the actual conflict was over. The calamities of civil war were confined to the slaughter on the field of battle, and to a few subsequent execu- tions and confiscations. In a week the peasant was driving his team and the esquire flying his hawks over the field of Towton or of Bosworth, as if no extraordinary event had interrupted the regular course of human life. More than a hundred and sixty years have now elapsed since the English people have by force subverted a government. During the hundred and sixty years which preceded the union sf the Roses, nine Kings reigned in England. Six of these nine Kings were deposed. Five lost their lives as well as their irowns. It is evident, therefore, that any comparison between sur ancient and our modern polity must lead to most erroneous conclusions, unless large allowance be made for the effect of that restraint which resistance and the fear of resistance con- stantly imposed on the Plantagenets. As our ancestors had against tyranny a most important security which we want, they misht safely dispense with some securities to which we justly attach the highest importance. As we cannot, without the risk of evils from which the imagination recoils, employ physical force as a check on misgovernment, it is evidently our wisdom to keep all the constitutional checks on misgovernment in the highest state of efficiency, to watch with jealousy the first be- ginnings of encroachment, and never to suffer irregularities, even when harmless in themselves, to pass unchallengfed, lest 44 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. they acquire the force of precedents. Four hundred years ago such minute vigilance might well seem unnecessary. A nation of hardy archers and spearmen might, with small risk to its lib- erties, connive at sonie illegal acts on the part of a prince whose general administration was good, and whose throne was not de- fended by a single company of regular soldiers. Under this system, rude as it may appear when compared with those elaborate constitutions of which the last seventy years have been fruitful, the English long enjoyed a large measure of freedom and happiness. Though, during the feeble reign of Henry the Sixth, the state was torn, first by factions, and at length by civil war ; though Edward the Fourth was a prince of dissolute and imperious character ; though Richard the Third has generally been represented as a monster of de- pravity ; though the exactions of Henry the Seventh caused great repining; it is certain that our ancestors, wider those Kings, were far better governed than the Belgians under Philip, surnamed the Good, or the French under that Lewis who was styled the Father of his people. Even while the wars of the Roses were actually raging, our country appears to have been in a happier condition than the neighbouring realms during years of profound peace. Comines was one of the most enlightened statesmen of his time. He had seen all the richest and most highly civilised parts of the Continent. He had lived in the opulent towns of Flanders, the Manchesters and Liver- pools of the fifteenth century. He had visited Florence, recently adorned by the magnificence of Lorenzo, and Venice, not yet humbled by the Confederates of Cambray. This eminent mau deliberately pronounced England to be the best governed country of which he had any knowledge. Her constitution he emphat= ically designated as a just and holy thing, which, while it pro- tected the people, really strengthened the hands of a prince who respected it. In no other country were men so effectually secured from wrong. The calamities produced by our intestine wars seemed to him to be confined to the nobles and the fighting men, and to leave no traces such as he had been accustomed to see elsewhere, no ruined dwellings, no depopulated citiest BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 45 It was not ouly by the eliicieucy of the restraints imposed oa the royal prerogative that England was advantageously distin- guished from most of the neighbouring countries. A peculiarity equally important, though less noticed, was the relation in which the nobility stood here to the commonalty. There was a strong hereditary aristocracy : but it was of all Itereditary aris- tocracies the least insolent and exclusive. It had none of the invidious character of a caste. It was constantly receiving members from the people, and constantly sending down mem- bers to mingle with the people. Any gentleman might become a peer. The younger son of a peer was but a gentleman. Grandsons of peers yielded precedence to newly made knights. The dignity of knighthood was not beyond the reach of any man who could by diligence and thrift realise a good estate, or who could attract notice by his valour in a battle or a siege. It was regarded as no disparagement for the daughter of a Duke, nay of a royal Duke, to espouse a distinguished commoner. Thus, Sir John Howard married the daughter of Thomas Mowbi'ay Duke of Norfolk. Sir Richard Pole married the Countess of Salisbury, daughter of Ceorge Duke of Clarence. Good blood was indeed held in high respect : but between good blood and ::he privileges of peerage there was, most fortunately for our country, no necessary connection. Pedigrees as long, and scutcheons as old, were to be found out of the House of Lords as in it. There were new men who bore the highest titles. There were untitled men well known to be descended from knights who had broken the Saxon ranks at Hastings, and scaled the walls of Jerusalem. There w6re Bohuns, Mowbrays, De Veres, nay, kinsmen of the House of Plantagenet, with no higher ad- dition than that of Esquire, aftd with no civil privileges beyond those enjoyed by every farmer and shopkeeper. There was therefore here no line like that which in ;ome other countries divided the patrician from the plebeiauo The yeoman was not inclined to murmur at dignities to which his own children might rise. The grandee was not inclined to insult a class into which his own children must descend. After the wars of York and Lancaster, the links which con- 46 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. nected the nobility and commonalty became closer and more numerous than ever. The extent of destruction which had fallen on the old aristocracy may be inferred from a single circum- stance. In the year 1454 Henry the Sixth summoned fifty -three temporal Lords to parliament. The temporal Lords summoned by Henry the Seven tli to the parliament of 1485 vi^ere only twenty-nine, and of these several had recently been elevated to the peerage. During the following century the ranks of the no- bility were largely recruited from among the gentry. The con- stitution of the House of Commons tended greatly to promote the salutary intermixture of classes. The knight of the shire was the connecting link between the baron and the shopkeeper. On the same benches on which sate the goldsmiths, draj^ers, and grocers, who had been returned to parliament by the commercial towns, sate also members who, in any other country, would have been called noblemen, hereditary lords of manors, entitled to hold courts and to bear coat armour, and able to trace back an honourable descent through many generations. Some of them were younger sons and brothers of lords. Others could boast of even royal blood. At length the eldest son of an Earl of Bedford, called in courtesy by the second title of his father, offercfl himself as candidate for a seat in the House of Com- mons, and his example was followed by others. Seated in that house, the heirs of the .great peers naturally became as zealous for its privileges as any of the humble burgesses with whom they were mingled. Thus our democracy was, from an early period, the most aristocratic, and our aristocracy the most dem- ocratic in the world ; a peculiarity which has lasted down to the present day, and which has produced many important moral and political effects. The government of Henry the Seventh, of his son, and of his grandchildren was, on the whole, more arbitrary than that of the Plantagenets. Personal character may in some degi-ee explain the di-fference ; for courage and force of will were com- mon to all the men and women of the House of Tudor. They exercised their power during a period of a hundred and twenty years, always with vigour, often with violence, sometimes with BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 47 cruelty. They, in imitation of the dynasty which had preceded them, occasionally invaded the rights of the subject, occasionally exacted taxes under the name of loans and gifts, and occasionally dispensed with penal statutes : nay, though they never presumed to enact any permanent law by their own authority, they occa- sionally took upon themselves, when Parliament was not sitting, to meet temporary exigencies by temporary edicts. It was, however, impossible for the Tudors to carry oppression beyond jt, certain point : for they had no armed force, and they were surrounded by an armed peopl-e. Their palace was guarded by a few domestics, whom the array of a single shire, or of a single ward of London, could with ease have overpowered. These haughty princes were therefore under a restraint stronger than any that mere law can impose, under a restraint which did not, indeed, prevent them from sometimes treat- ing an individual in an arbitrary and even in a barbarous manner, but which effectually secured the nation against general and long confinued oppression. They might safely be tyrants, within the precinct of the court : but it was necessary for them to watch with constant anxiety the temper of the country, Henry the Eighth, for example, encountered no opposition when he wished to send Buckingham and Surrey, Anne Boleyn and Lady Salisbury, to the scaffold. But wheu, without the consent of Parliament, he demanded of his subjects a contribution amount- ing to one sixth of their goods, he soon found it necessary to retract. The cry of hundreds of thousands was that they were English and not French, freemen and not slaves. In Kent the royal commissioners fled for their lives. In Suffolk four thou- sand men appeared in arms. The King's lieutenants in that county vainly exerted themselves to raise an army. Those who did not join in the insurrection declared that they would not fight against their brethren in such a quarrel. Henry, proud and selfwilled as he was, shrank, not without reason, from a conflict with the roused spirit of the nation. He had before his eyes the fate of his predecessors who had perished at Berkeley and Pomfret. lie not only cancelled his illegal commissions ; he not only granted a general pardon to all the malecontents; 48 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. but he publicly and solemnly auologised for his infraction of thfe laws. His conduct, on this occasion, well illustrates the whole policy of his house. The temper of the princes of that line 'Hjas hot, ajid their spirits high, but they understood the character of the nation that they governed, and never once, like some of their predecessors, and some of their successors, carried obstinacy to a fatal point. The discretion of the Tudors was such, that their power, though it was often resisted, was never subverted. The reign of every one of them was disturbed by formidable discon- tents : but the govern-ment was always able either to soothe the mutineers or to conquer and punish them. Sometimes, by timely concessions, it succeeded in averting civil hostilities ; but in gene- ral it stood firm, and called for help on the nation. The nation obeyed the call, rallied round the sovereign, and enabled him to quell the disaffected minority. Thus, from the age of Henry the Third to the age of Eliza- ■beth, England grew and flourished under a polity which con- tained the germ of our present institutions, and which, though not very exactly defined, or very exactly observed, was yet effec- tually prevented from degenerating into despotism, by the awe in which the governors stood of the spirit and strength of the governed. But such a polity is suited only to a particular stage in the progress of society. The same causes which produce a division of labour in the peaceful arts must at length make war a dis- tinct science and a distinct trade. A time arrives when the use of arms begins to occupy the entire attention of a separate class. It soon appears that peasants and burghers, however brave, are unable to stand their ground against veteran soldiers, whose whole life is a preparation for the day of battle, whose nerves have been braced by long familiarity with danger, and whose movements have all the precision of clockwork. It is found that the defence of nations can no longer be safely entrusted to warriors taken from the plough or the loom for a campaign of forty days. If any state forms a great regular array, the bor- dering states must imitate the example, or must submit to a for- BKFORK THE RESTORATION. 49 eign yoke. But, where a great regular army exists, limited monarchy, such as it was in the middle ages, cau exist no longer. The sovereign is at once emancipated from what had been the chief restraint on his power ; and he inevitably becomes abso- lute, unless he is subjected to checks such as would be super- fluous in a society where all are soldiers occasionally, and none permanently. With the danger came also the means of escape. In the monarchies of the middle ages the power of the sword belonged to the prince ; but the power of the purse belonged to the nation ; and the progress of civilisation, as it made the sword of the prince more and more formidable to the nation, made the purse of the nation more and more necessary to the prince. His hereditary revenues would no longer suffice, even for the ex- penses of civil government. It was utterly impossible that, without a regular and extensive system of taxation, he could keep in constant efficiency a great body of disciplined troops. The policy which the parliamentary assemblies of Europe ought to have adopted was to take their stand firmly on their consti- tutional right to give or withhold money, and resolutely to refuse funds for the support of armies, till ample securities had been provided against despotism. This wise policy was followed in our country alone. In the neighbouring kingdoms great military establishments were formed ; no new safeguards for public liberty were devised ; and the consequence was, that the old parliamentary institutions everywhere ceased to exist. In France, where they had always been feeble, they languished, and at length died of mere weak- ness. In Spain, where they had been as strong as in any part of Europe, they struggled fiercely for life, but struggled too late. The mechanics of Toledo and Valladolid vainly defended the privileges of the Castilian Cortes against the veteran bat- talions of Charles the Fifth. As vainly, in the next genera- tion, did the citizens of Saragossa stand up against Philip the Second, for the old constitution of Aragon. One after another, the great national councils of the continental monarchies, councils once scarcely less proud and powerful tlian those which 4 50 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. sate at Westminster, sank into utter insignificance. If they met, they met merely as our Convocation now meets, to go through some venerable forms. In England events took a different course. This singular felicity she owed chiefly to her insular situation. Before the end of the fifteenth century, great military establishments were indispensable to the dignity, and even to the safety, of the French and Castilian monarchies. If either of those two powers had disarmed, it would soon have been compelled to submit to the dictation of the other. But England, protected by the sea against invasion, and rarely engaged in warlike operations on the Continent, was not, as yet, under the necessity of employing regular troops. The sixteenth century, the seventeenth century, found her stiU without a standing army. At the commence- ment of the seventeenth century political science had made con- siderable progress. The fate of the Spanish Cortes and of the French States General had given solemn warning to our Par- liaments ; and our Parliaments, fully aware of the nature and magnitude of the danger, adopted, in good time, a system of tac- tics which, after a contest protracted through three generations, was at length successful. Almost every writer who has treated of that contest has been desirous to show that his own party was the party which was struggling to preserve the old constitution unaltered. The truth however is that the old constitution could not be preserved unaltered. A law, beyond the control of human wisdom, had decreed that there should no loncjer be governments of that peculiar class which, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, had been common throughout Europe. The question, therefore, was not whether our polity should undergo a change, but what the nature of the change should be. The introduction of a new and mighty force had disturbed the old equilibrium, and had turned one limited monarchy after another into an absolute monarchy. AVhat had happened elsewhere would assuredly have happened here, unless the balance had been redressed by a great transfer of power from the crown to the parliament. Our princes were about to have at their command means of BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 51 «oti£ioa such as no Plantagenet or Tudor had ever possessed. They must inevitably have become despots, unless they had been, at the same time, placed under restraints to which no Plantagenet or Tudor had ever been subject. It seems certain, therefore, that, had none but political causes been at work, the seventeenth century would not have passed away without a fierce conflict between our Kings and their Parliaments. But other causes of perhaps greater potency contributed to jiroduce the same effect. While the government of the Tudors was in its highest vigour an event took place which has coloured the destinies of all Christian nations, and in an especial manner the destinies of England. Twice during the middle ages the mind of Europe had risen up against the domination of Rome. The first insurrection broke out in the south of France, The energy of Innocent the Third, the zeal of the young orders of Francis and Dominic, and the ferocity of the Crusaders whom the priesthood let loose on an unwarlike population, crushed "the Albigensian churches. The second reformation had its origin in England, and spread to Bohemia. The Council of Constance, by removing some ecclesiastical dis- orders which had given scandal to Christendom, and the jmnces of Europe, by unsparingly using fire and sword against the heretics, succeeded in arresting and turning back the movement. Nor is this much to be lamented. The sympathies of a Protes- tant, it is true, will naturally be on the side of the Albigensian^ and of the Lollards. Yet an enlightened and.temperate Protes' taut will perhaps be disposed to doubt whether the success^ either of the Albigensians or of the Lollards, would, on the whole, have promoted the happiness and virtue of mankind. Corrupt as the Church of Rome was, there is reason to believe that, if that Church had been overthrown in the twelfth or even in the fourteenth century, the vacant space would have been occupied by some system more corrupt still. There was then, through the greater part oi Europe, very little knowledge ; and that little was confined to the clergy. Not one man in five hundred could have spelled his way through a psalm. Book* were few and costly. The art of printing was unknown. 52 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. Copies of the Bible, iuferior in beauty and clearness to those which every cottager may now command, sold for prices which many priests could not aiford to give. It was obviously impos- sible that the laity should search the Scriptures for themselves. It is probable therefore, that, as soon as they had put off one spiritual yoke, they would have put on another, and that the power lately exercised by the clergy of the Church of Rome would have passed to a far worse class of teachers. The six- teenth century was comparatively a time of light. Yet even in ihe sixteenth century a considerable number of those who quitted the old religion followed the first confident and i:)lausible guide who offered himself, and were soon led into errors far more serious than those which they had renounced. Thus Mat- thias and Kniperdoling, apostles of lust, robbery, and murder, were able for a time to rule great cities. In a darker age such false prophets might have founded empires ; and Christianity might have been distorted into a cruel and licentious supersti- tion, more noxious, not only than Popery, but even than Islamism. About a hundred years after the rising of the Council of Constance, that great change emphatically called the Reforma- tion began. The fulness of time was now come. The clergy were no longer the sole or the chief depositories of knowledge. The invention of printing had furnished the assailants of the Church with a mighty weapon which had been wanting to their predecessors. The study of the ancient writers, the rapid de- velopment of the powers of the modern languages, the unprece- dented activity which was displayed in every department of literature, the political state of Europe, the vices of the Roman court, the exactions of the Roman chancery, the jealousy with which the wealth and privileges of the clergy were naturally regarded by laymen, the jealousy with which the Italian ascend- ency was naturally regarded by men born on our side of thfe, Alps, all these things gave to the teachers of the new theology an advantage which they perfectly understood how to use. Those who hold that the influence of the Church of Rome in the dark ages was, on the whole, beneficial to mankind, may yet with perfect consistency regard the Reformation as an BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 53 inestimable blessing. The leading strings, which preserve and uphold the infant, would impede the fullgrown man. And so the very means by which the human mind is, in one stage of its progress, supported and propelled, may, in another stage, be mere hindrances. There is a season in the life both of an individual and of a society, at which subnaission and faith, such as at a later j^eriod would be justly called servility and credulity, are useful qualities. The child who teachably and undoubtingly listens to the instructions of his elders is likely to improve rapidly. But the man who should receive with childlike docility every assertion and dogma uttered by another man no wiser than himself would become contemptible. It is the same with communities. The childhood of the European nations was passed under the tutelage of the clergy. The ascendency of the sacerdotal drder was long the ascendency which naturally and properly belongs to intellectual superiority. The priests, with all their faults, were by far the wisest portion of society. It was, tlierefore, on the whole, good that they should be re- spected and obeyed. The encroachments of the ecclesiastical power on the province of the civil power produced much more happiness than misery, while the ecclesiastical power was iu the hands of the only class that had studied history, philosophy, and public law, and while the civil power was in the hands of savage chiefs, who could not read their own grants and edicts. But a change took place. Knowledge gradually spread among laymen. At the commencement of the sixteenth century many of them were in every intellectual attainment fully equal to the most enlightened of their spiritual pastors. Thenceforward that dominion, which, during the dark ages, had been, in spite of many abuses, a legitimate and salutary guardianship, became an unjust and noxious tyranny. From the time when the barbarians overran the Western Empire to the time of the revival of letters, the influence of the Church of Rome had been gelierally favourable to science, to civilisation, and to good government. But, during the last three centuries, to stunt the growth of the human mind has been her chief object. Throughout Christendom, whatever ad- 54 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. vance has been made in knowledge, in freedom, in wealth, and in the arts of life, has been made in spite of her, and has every- where been in inverse proportion to her power. The loveliest and most fertile provinces of Europe have, under her rule, been sunk in poverty, in political servitude, and in intellectual tor- por, while Protestant* countries, once proverbial for sterility and barbarism, have been turned by skill and industry into gardens, and can boast of a long list of heroes and statesmen, philosophers and poets. Whoever, knowing what Italy and Scotland naturally are, and what, four hundred years ago, they actually were, shall now compare the country round Rome with the country round Edinburgh, will be able to form some judg- ment as to the tendency of Papal domination. The descent of Spain, once the first among monarchies, to the lowest depths of degradation, the elevation of Holland, in spite of many natural disadvantages, to a position such as no commonwealth so small has ever reached, teach the same lesson. "Whoever passes in Germany from a Roman Catholic to a Protestant principality, in Switzerland from a Roman Catholic to a Protestant canton, in Ireland from a Roman Catholic to a Protestant county, finds that he has passed from a lower to a higher grade of civilisation. On the other side of the Atlantic the same law prevails. The Protefetants of the United States have left far behind them the Roman Catholics of Mexico, Peru, and Brazil. The Roman Catholics of Lower Canada remain inert, while the whole con- tinent round them is in a ferment with Protestant activity and enterprise. The French have doubtless shown an energy and an intelligence which, even when misdirected, have justly en- titled them to be called a great people. But this apparent exception, when examined, will be found to confirm the rule ; for in no country that is called Roman Catholic, has the Roman Catholic Church, during several generations, possessed so little authority as in France. The literature of France is justly held in high esteem throughout the world. But if we deduct from that literature all that belongs to four parties which have been, on dififerent grounds, in rebellion against the Papal domination, all that belongs to the Protestants, all that belongs to the assert- BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 55 ors of the Gallican liberties, all that belongs to the Jansenists, and all that belongs to the jihilosophers, how much will be left ? It is difficult to say whether England owes more to the Roman Catholic relicfion or to the Reformation. For the amal- gamation of races and for the abolition of villenage, she is chiefly indebted to ~lhe influence w^hich the priesthood in the middle ages exercised over the laity. For political and intel- lectual freedom, and for all the blessings which political and intellectual freedom have brought in their train, she is chiefly indebted to the great rebellion of the laity against the priest- hood. The struggle between the old and the new theology in our country was long, and the event sometimes seemed doubtful. There were two extreme parties, prepared to act with violence or to suffer with stubborn resolution. Between them lay, dur- ing a considerable time, a middle party, which blended, very illogically, but by no means unnaturally, lessons learned in the nursery with the sermons of the modern evangelists, and, while clinging with fondness to all observances, yet detested abuses with which those observances were closely connected. Men in such a frame of mind were willing to obey, almost with thank- fulness, the dictation of an able ruler who spared them the trouble of judging for-themselves, and, raising a firm and com- manding voice above the uproar of controversy, told them how to worsliip and wliat to believe. It is not strange, therefore, that the Tudors should have been able to exercise a great in- fluence on ecclesiastical affairs ; nor is it strange that their in- fluence should, for the most part, have been exercised with a view to their own interest. Henry the Eighth attempted to constitute an Anglican Church differing from the Roman Catholic Church on the point of the supremacy, and on that point alone. His success in this attempt was extraordinary. The force of his character, the singularly favourable situation in which he stood with respect to foreign powers, the immense wealth which the spoliation of the abbeys placed at his disposal, and the support of that class which still halted between two opinions, enabled him to bid defiance to 56 HISTORY OF ENGLA>:D. both the extreme ruarties, to burn as heretics those who avowed the tenets of the Reformers, and to hang as traitors those who owned the authorxty of the Pope. But Henry's system died with him. Had his lift been prolonged, he would have found it difficult to maintain a position assailed with equal fury by all who were zealous either for the new or for the old opinions. The ministers who held the royal prerogatives in trust for his infant son could not venture to persist in so hazardous a policy; ncr could Elizabeth venture to return to it. It v/as necessary to make a choice. The government must either submit to Rome, or must obtain the aid of the Protestants. The governmenl and the Protestants had only one thmg m common, hatred oi the Papal power. The English Reformers were eager to go as far as their brethren on the Continent. They unanimously condemned as Antichristian numerous dogmas and practices to which Henry had stubbornly adhered, and which Elizabeth re- luctantly aban.doned. Many felt a strong repugnance even to things indifferent which had formed part of the polity or ritual of the /mystical Babylon. Thus Bishop Hooper, who died man- fully :, Gloucester for his religion, long refused to wear the episcopal vestments. Bishop Ridley, a martyr of still greater renown, pulled down the ancient altars of his diocese, and order- ed the Eucharist to be administered in the middle of churches, at tables which the Papists irreverently termed oyster boards. Bishop Jewel pronounced the clerical garb to be a stage dress, a fool's coat, a relique of the Amorites, and promised that he would spare no labour to extirpate such degrading absurdities. Arch' Ishop Grindal long hesitated about accepting a mitre from dislike of what he regarded as the mummery of consecration. Bishop Farkhurst uttered a fervent prayer that the Church of England would propose to herself the Church of Zurich as the absolute pattern of a Christian community. Bishop Ponet was of opinion that the word Bishop should be abandoned to the Papists, and that the chief officers of the purified church should be called Superintendents. When it is considered that none of these prelates beionged to the extreme section oC tke Protestant party, it cannot be doubted that, if the general sense of that BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 57 party had been followed, the work of reform would have been cawied on as unsparingly in England as in Scotland. But, as the government needed the support of the Protes- tants, so the Protestants needed the protection of the government. Much was therefore given up on both sides : an union was effected ; and the fruit of that union was the Church of England. To the peculiarities of this great institution, and to the strong passions which it has called forth in the minds both of friends and of enemies, are to be attributed many of the rnest impor- tant events which have, since the Reformation, taken place in our country ; nor can the secular history of England be at all understood by us, unless we study it in constant connection with the history of her ecclesiastical polity. The man wlio took the chief part in settling the conditions of the alliance which produced the Anglican Church Avas Arch- bishop Cranmer. He was the representative of botli the parties which, at tliat time, needed each other's assistance. He was at once a divine and a courtier. In his character of divine he was perfectly ready to go as far in the way of change as any Swiss or Scottish Reformer. In his character of courtier he was de- sirous to preserve that organisation which had, during many ages, admirably served the purposes of the Bishops of Rome, and might be expected now to serve equally well the purposes of the English Kings and of their ministers. His temper and his understanding eminently fitted him to act as mediator. Saintly in his professions, unscrupulous in his dealings, zealous for nothing, bold in speculation, a coward and a timeserver in action, a placable enemy and a lukewarm friend, he was in every way qualified to arrange the terms of the coalition between the religious and the worldly enemies of Popery. To this day the constitution, the doctrines, and the services of the Church, retain the visible marks of the compromise from which she sprang. She occupies a middle position between the Churches of Rome and Geneva. Her doctrinal confessions and discourses, composed by Protestants, set forth principles of theology in which Calvin or Knox would have found scarcely a word to disapprove. Her prayers and thanksgivings, derived 58 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. from the ancient Breviaries, are very generally such that Cardinal Fisher or Cardinal Pole might have heartily joined in them. A controversialist who puts an Arminian sense on her Articles and Homilies will be pronounced by candid men to be as unreasonable as a controversialist who denies that the doctrine of baptismal regeneration can be discovered in her Liturgy. The Church of Rome held that episcopacy was of divine institution, and that certain supernatural graces of a high order had been transmitted by the imposition of hands through fifty generations, from the Eleven who received their commission on the Galilean mount, to the bishops who met at Trent. A large body of Protestants, on the other hand, regarded prelacy as positively unlawful, and persuaded themselves that they found a very different form of ecclesiastical government prescribed in Scriptui-e. The founders of the Anglican Church took a middle course. They retained episcopacy ; but they did not declare it to be an institution essential to the welfare of a Christian society, or to the efficacy of the sacraments. Cranmer, indeed, on one im- portant occasion, plainly avowed his conviction that, in tke prim itive times, there was no distinction between bishops and priests, and that the laying on of hands was altogether superfluous. Among the Presbyterians the conduct of public worship is, to a great extent, left to the minister. Theic prayers, there- fore, are not exactly the same in any two assemblies on the same day, or on any two days in the same assembly. In one parish they are fervent, eloquent, and full of meaning. In the next parish they may be languid or absurd. The priests of the Roman Catholic Church, on the other hand, have, during many generations, daily chaunted the same ancient confessions, sup- plications, and thanksgivings, in India and Lithuania, in Ireland and Peru. The service, being in a dead language, is intelligible only to the learned ; and the great majority of the congregation may be said to assist as spectators rather than as auditors. Here, again, the Church of England took a middle course. She copied the Roman Catholic forms of prayer, but translated them into the vulojar tonsfue, and invited the illiterate multitude to join its voice to that of the minister. BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 59 In every part of her system the same policy may be traced. Utterly rejecting the doctrine of transubstantiation, and con- demning as idolatrous all adoration paid to the sacramental bread and wine, she yet, to the disgust of the Puritan, required her children to receive the memorials of divine love, meekly kneeling upon their knees. Discarding many rich vestments which sur- rounded the altars of the ancient faith, she yet retained, to the horror of weak minds, a robe of white linen, typical of the purity which belonged to her as the mystical spouse of Christ. Discarding a crowd of {Dantomimic gestures which, in the Roman Catholic worship, are substituted for intelligible words, she yet shocked many rigid Protestants by marking the infant just sprinkled from the font with the sign of the cross. The Roman Catholic addressed his prayers to a multitude of Saints, among whom were numbered many men of doubtful, and some of hateful, character. The Puritan refused the addition of Saint even to the apostle of the Gentiles, and to the disciple whom Jesus loved. The Church of England, though she asked for the intercession of no created being, still set apart days for the commemoration of some who had done and suffered great things for the faith. She retained confirmation and ordination as edifying rites ; but she degraded them from the rank of sacra- ments. Shrift was no part of her system. Yet she gently invited the dying penitent to confess his sins to a divine, and empowered her ministers to soothe the departing soul by an absolution which breathes the very spirit of the old religion. In general it may be said that she appeals more to the understand- ing, and less to the senses and the imagination, than the Church of Rome, and that she appeals less to the understanding, and more to the senses and imagination, than the Protestant Churches -of Scotland, France, and Switzerland. Nothing, however, so strongly distinguished the Church of England from other Churches as the relation in which she stood to the monai'chy. The King was her head. The limits of the authority which he possessed, as such, were not traced, and indeed have never yet been traced with precision. The laws which declared him supreme in ecclesiastical matters were drawn 60 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. rudely and in general terms. If, for the purpose of ascertain- ing the sense of those laws, we examine the books and lives of those who founded the English Church, our perplexity will be increased. For the founders of the English Church wrote and acted in an age of violent intellectual fermentation, and of con- stant action and reaction. They therefore often contradicted each other, and sometimes contradicted themselves. That the King was, under Christ, sole head of the Church, was a doctrine which they all with one voice affirmed : but those words ha,d very different significations in different mouths, and in the same mouth at different conjunctures. Sometimes an authority which would have satisfied Hildebrand was ascribed to the sovereign : then it dwindled down to an authority little more than that which had been claimed by many ancient English princes who had been in constant communion with the Church of Rome. What Henry and his favourite counsellors meant, at one time, by the supremacy, was certainly nothing less than the whole power of the keys. The King was to be the Pope of his king- dom, the vicar of God, the expositor of Catholic verity, the channel of sacramental o-races. He arroijated to himself the right of deciding dogmatically what was orthodox doctrine and what was heresy, of drawing up and imposing confessions of faith, and of giving religious instruction to his people. He proclaimed that all jurisdiction, spiritual as well as temporal, was derived from him alone, and that it was in his power to confer episcopal authority, and to take it away. He actually ordered his seal to be put to commissions by which bishops were a^ipointed, who were to exercise their functions as his deputies, and during his pleasure. According to this system, as expounded by Cranmer, the King was the spiritual as well as the temporal chief of the nation. In both capacities His Highness must have lieutenants. As he appointed civil officers to keep his seal, to collect his revenues, and to dispensie justice in his name, so he appointed divines of various ranks to preach the gospel, and to administer the sacraments. It was unnecessary that there should be any imposition of hands. The King, — such vv^s the opinion, of Cranmer given in the plainest words, — BEFORE THE KESTOIiATION. 61 might, in virtue of authority derived from God, make a priest ; and the priest so made needed no ordination whatever. These opinions the Archbisliop, in spite of tlie opposition of less courtl}^ divines, followed out to every legitimate consequence. He held that his own spiritual functions, like the secular functions of the Chancellor and Treasurer, were at once deter- mined by a demise of the crown. When Henry died, there- fore, the Primate and his suffragans took out fresh commissions, emjaowering them to ordain and to govern the Church till the new sovereiffu should think fit to order otherwise. When it was objected that a power to bind and to loose, altogether distinct from temporal power, had been given by our Lord to his apostles, some theologians of this school replied that the power to bind and to loose had descended, not to the clergy, but to the whole body of Christian men, and ought to be exercised by the chief magistrate as the representative of the society. When it was objected that Saint Paul had spoken of certain persons whom the Holy Ghost had made overseers and shepherds of the faithful, it was answered that King Henry was the very overseer, the very shepherd, whom the Holy Ghost had appointed, and to whom the expressions of Saint Paul applied.* These high pretensions gave scandal to Protestants as well as to Catholics ; and the scandal was greatly increased when the supremacy, which Mary had resigned back to the Pope, was again annexed to the ci'own, on the accession of Elizabeth. It seemed monstrous that a woman should be the chief bishop of a Church in which an apostle had forbidden her even to let her voice be heard. The Queen, therefore, found it necessary expressly to disclaim that sacerdotal character which her father had assumed, and which, according to Cranmer, had been inseparably joined, by divine ordinance, to the regal function. When the Anglican confession of faith was revised in her reign, the supremacy was explained in a manner somewhat different from that which had been fashionable at the court of • See a very curious paper which Strype believed to be in Gardiner's band' writing. EccleBiastical Memorials, Book I., Chap, xvii, , 62 HISTOKY OF ENGLAND. Henry. Cranmer had declared, in emphatic terms, that God had immediately committed to Christian princes the whole cure of all their subjects, as well concerning the administration of God's word for the cure of souls, as concerning the administra- tion of things political.* The thirty-seventh article of religion, framed under Elizabeth, declares, in terms as emphatic, that the ministering of Goil's word does not belong to princes. The Queen, however, s'till had over the Church a visitatorial power of vast and undefined extent. She was entrusted by Parlia- ment with the office of restraining and punishing heresy and every sort of ecclesiastical abuse, and was permitted to dele- gate her authority to commissioners. The Bishops were little more than her ministers. Rather than grant to the civil magis- trate the absolute power of nominat ng spiritual pastors, the Church of Rome, in the eleventh cei?tury, set all Europe on fire. Rather than grant to the civil magistrate the absolute power of nominating spiritual pastors, the ministers of the Church of Scotland, in our time, resigned their livings by hun- dreds. The Church of England had no such scruples. By the royal authority alone her prelates were appointed. By the royal authority alone her Convocations were summoned, regu- lated, prorogued, and dissolved. Without the royal sanction her canons had no force. One of the articles of her faith was that without the royal consent no ecclesiastical council could law- fully assemble. From all her judicatures an appeal lay, in the last resort, to the sovereign, even when the question was whether an opinion ought to be accounted heretical, or whether the administration of a sacrament had been valid. Nor did the Church grudge this extensive power to our princes. By them she had been called into existence, nursed through a feeble in- fancy, guarded from Papists on one side and from Puritans on the other, protected against Parliaments which bore her no good will, and avenged on literary assailants whom she found it hard to answer. Thus gratitude, hope, fear, common attach- ments, common enmities, bound her to the throne. All her •The.se are Cranmer's own words. See tlie Appendix to Burnet's History of the Refonnation, Parti. Book III. No. 21. Questjoa 9, BEKORK THE RESTORATION. 63 traditions, an her tastes, were monarchical. Loyalty became a point of professional honour among her clergy, the peculiar badge which distinguished them at once from Calvinists and from Papists. Both the Calvinists and the Papists, widely as they differed in other respects, regarded with extreme jealousy all encroachments of the temporal power on the domain of the spiritual power. Both Calvinists and Papists maintained that subjects might justifiably draw the sword against ungodly rulers. In France Calvinists resisted Charles the Ninth: Papists re- sisted Henry the Fourth : both Papists and Calvinists resisted Henry the Third. In Scotland Calvinists led Mary captive. On the north of the Trent Papists took arms against the Eng- lish throne. The Church of England meantime condemned both Calvinists and Papists, and loudly boasted that no duty was more constantly or earnestly inculcated by her than that of submission to princes. The advantages which the crown derived from this close alliance with the Established Church were great ; but they were not without serious drawbacks. The compromise arranged by Cranmer had from the first been considered by a large body of Protestaats as a scheme for serving two masters, as an attempt to unite the worship of the Lord with the wprship of Baal. In the days of Edward the. Sixth the scruples of this party had repeatedly thrown great difficulties in the way of the government. When Elizabeth came to the throne, those diffi- culties were much increased. Violence naturally engenders violence. The spirit of Protestantism was therefore far fiercer and more intolerant after the cruelties of Mary than before them. Many persons who were warmly attached to the new opinions had, during the evil days, taken refuge in Switzerland and Germany. They had been hospitably received by their brethren in the faith, had sate at the feet of the great doctors of Strasbui'g, Zurich, and Geneva, and had been, during some years, accustomed to a more simple worship, and to a more democratical form of church government, than England had yet seen. These men returned to their country convinced that the reform which had been effected under King Edward had been ^4. HISTORr OP ENGLAND. far less searching and extensive than the interests of pure re- ligion required. But it was in vain that they attempted to ob- tain any concession from Elizabeth. Indeed her system, where- ever it differed from her brother's, seemed to them to differ for the worse. They were little disposed to submit, in matters of faith, to any human authority. They had recently, in reliance on their own interpretation of Scripture, risen up against a Church strong in immemorial antiquity and catholic consent. It was by no common exertion of intellectual energy that they had thrown off the yoke of that gorgeous and imperial supersti- tion ; and it was vain to expect that, immediately after such an emancipation, they would patiently submit to a new spiritual tyranny. Long accustomed, when the priest lifted up the host, to bow down with their faces to tlie earth, as before a present God, they had learned to treat the mass as an idola- trous mummery. Long accustomed to regard the Pope as the successor of the chief of the apostles, as the bearer of the keys of earth and heaven, they had learned to regard him as the Beast, the Antichrist, the Man of Sin. It was not to be expect- ed that they would immediately transfer to an upstart authority the homage which they had withdrawn from the Vatican ; that they would submit their private judgment to the authority of a Church founded on private judgment alone ; that they would be afraid to dissent from teachers who themselves dissented from what had lately been the universal faith of western Chris- tendom. It is easy to conceive the indignation which must have been felt by bold and inquisitive spirits, glorying in newly acquired freedom, when an institution younger by many years than themselves, an institution which had, under their own eyes, gradually received its form from the passions and interests of a court, began to mimic the lofty style of Rome. Since these men could not be convinced, it was determined that they should be persecuted. Persecution produced its natu- ral effect on them. It found them a sect : it made them a faction. To their hatred of the Church was now added hatred of the Crown. The two sentiments were intermingled ; and each embittered the other. The opinions of the Puritan con- BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 65 cerulng the relation of ruler and subject were widely different from those which were inculcated in the Homilies. His favour- ite divines had, both by precept and by example, encouraged resistance to tyrants and persecutors. His fellow Calvinists in France, in Holland, and in Scotland, were in arms against idolatrous and cruel princes. His notions, too, respecting the government of the state took a tinge from his notions respect- ing the government of the Church. Some of the sarcasms which were popularly thrown on episcopacy might, without much difficulty, be turned against royalty ; and many of the arguments which were used to prove that spiritual power was best lodged in a synod seemed to lead to the conclusion that temporal power was best lodged in a parliament. Thus, as the priest of the Established Church was, from interest, from principle, and from passion, zealous for tlie royal prerogatives, the Puritan was, from interest, from principle, and from passion, hostile to them. The power of the discontented sectaries was great. They were found in every rank : but they were strongest among the mercantile classes in the towns, and among the small proprietors in the country. Early in the reign of Elizabeth they began to return a majority of the House of Commons. And doubtless, had our ancestors been then at liberty to fix their attention entirely on domestic questions, the strife between the C)'own and the Parliament would instantly have commenced. But that was no season for internal dissen- sions. It might, indeed, well be doubted whether the firmest union among all the orders of the state could avert the common danger by which all were threatened. Roman Catholic Europe and reformed Europe were struggling for death or life. France divided against herself, had, for a time, ceased to be of any account in Christendom. The Enirlish Government was at the head of the Protestant interest, and, while persecuting Presby- terians* at home, extended a powerful protection to Presbyte- rian Churches abroad. At the head of the opposite party was the mightiest prince of the age, a prince who ruled Spain, Portugal, Italy, the East and the West Indies, whose ar.uies repeatedly marched to Paris, and whose fleets kept the coasts of 66 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Devonshire and Sussex in alarm. It long seemed probable that Englishmen would have to fight desperately on English ground for their religion and independence. Nor were they ever for a moment free from apprehensions of some great trea- son at home. For in that age it had become a point of con- science and of honour with many men of generous natures to sacrifice their country to their religion. A succession of dark plots, formed by Roman Catholics against the life of the Queen and the existence of the nation, kept society in constant alarm. Whatever might be the faults of Elizabeth, it was plain that, to speak humanly, the fate of the realm and of all reformed Churches was staked on tho security of her person and on the success of her administration. To strengthen her hands was, therefore, the first duty of a patriot and a Protestant ; and that duty was well performed. The Puritans, even in the depths of the prisons to which she had sent them, prayed, and with no simulated fervour, that she might be ke[)t from the dag- ger of the assassin, that rebellion might be put down under her feet, and that her arms might be victorious by sea and land. One of the most stubborn of the stubborn sect, immediately after his hand had been lopped off for an offence into which he had been hurried by his intemperate zeal, waved his hat with the hand which was still left him, and shouted " God save the Queen ! " The sentiment with which these men regarded her has descended to their posterity. The Nonconformists, rigorously as she treated them, have, as a body, always venerated her memory.* During the greater part of her reign, therefore, the Puritans in the House of Commons, though sometimes mutinous, felt no disposition to array themselves in systematic opposition to the * The Puritan historian, Neal, after censuring the cruelty with which she treated the sect to which he belonged, concludes tlius : " However, notwithstand- ing all these blemishes. Queen Elizabeth stands upon record as a wise and politic princess, for dtdivering her kingdom from the difficulties in which it was in- volved at her accession, for preserving the Protestant reformation against thepo^ tent attempts of the Pope, tlie Emperor, and King of Spain abroad, ai;d the Queen of Scots and her Popish subjects at home. . . . She was the glory of the F<^e in which she lived, and will be the admiration of posterity." — History of the i?uri- 'ians, Part I. Chap. viii. BEFORK THE RESTORATION. 67 government. But. when the defeat of the Armada, the snecess- ful resistance of the United Provinces to the Spanish jjower, tlie firm establishment of Henry the Fourth on the throne of France, and the death of Philip the Second, had secured the State and the Church against all danger fi'om abroad, an obstinate strug- gle, destined to last during several generations, instantly began at home. It was in the Parliament of 1601 that the opposition which had, during forty years, been silently gathering and husbanding strength, fought its first great battle and won its first victory. The ground was well chosen. The English Sovereigns had al- ways been entrusted with the supreme direction of commercial police. It was their undoubted prerogative to regulate coin, weights, and measures, and to appoint fairs, markets, and ports. The line which bounded their authoritv over trade had, as usual, been but loosely drawn. They therefore, as usual, encroached on the province which rightfully belonged to the legislature. The encroachment was, as usual, patiently borne, till it became serious. But at length the Queen took upon herself to grant patents of monopoly by scores. There was scarcely a family in the realm which did not feel itself aggrieved by the oppression and extortion which this abuse naturally caused. Iron, oil, vine- gar, coal, saltpetre, lead, starch, yarn, skins, leather, glass, could be bought only at exorbitant prices. The House of Commons met in an angry and determined mood. It was in vain that a courtly minority blamed the Speaker for suffering the acts of the Queen's Highness to be called in question. The language of the discontented party was high and menacing, and was echoed by the voice of the whole nation. The coach of the chief min- ister of the crown was surrounded by an indignant populace, who cursed the monopolies, and exclaimed that the prerogative should not be suffered to touch the old liberties of England. There seemed for a moment to be some danger that the long and glo- rious reign of Elizabeth would have a shameful and disastrous end. She, however, with admirable judgment and temper, de- clined the contest, put herself at the head of the reforming par- ty, redressed the grievance, thanked the Commons, in touching 68 HISTOKY OI-' KNGLANO. raid dignified language, for tiieir tender care of the general weal, brought back to herself the hearts of the people, and left to her successors a memorable example of the way in which it behoves a ruler to deal with public movements which he has not the means of resisting. In the year 1603 the great Queen died. That year is, on many accounts, one of the most important epochs in our history. It was then that both Scotland and Ireland became parts of the same empire with England. Both Scotland and Ireland, indeed, had been subjugated by the Plantagenets ; but neither country had been patient under the yoke. Scotland had, "with heroic energy, vindicated her independence, had, from the time of Rob- ert Bruce, been a separate kingdom, and was now joined to the southern part of the island in a manner which rather gratified than wounded her national pride. Ireland had never, since the days of Henry the Second, been able to expel the foreign invad- ers ; but she had struggled against them long and fiercely. Dur- ing the fourteenth and fifteenbli centuries the English power in that island was constantly declining, and in the days of Henry the Seventh, sank to the lowest point. The Irish dominions of that prince consisted only of the counties of Dublin and Louth, of some parts of Meath and Kildare, and of a few seaports scattered along the coast. A large portion even of Leinster was not yet divided into counties. Munster, Ulster, and Con- naught were ruled by petty sovereigns, partly Celts, and partly degenerate Normans, who had forgotten their origin and had adopted the Celtic language and manners. But during the six- teenth century, the English power had made great progress. The half savage chieftains who reigned beyond the pale had sub- mitted one after another to the lieutenants of the Tudors. At fcngth, a few weeks before the death of Elizabeth, the conquest, which had been begun more than four hundred years before by Strongbow, was completed by Mountjoy. Scarcely had James the First mounted the Engrlish throne when the last O'Donnel and O'Neil who have held the rank of independent princes kissed his hand at "Whitehall. Thenceforward his writs ran and his judges held astsizes in every ^jart of Ireland ; and the English BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 69 law superseded the customs which had prevailed among the aboriginal tribes. In extent Scotland and Ireland were nearly equal to each other, and were together nearly equal to England, but were much less thickly peopled than England, and were very far behind Enoland iu wealth and civilisation. Scotland had been kept back by the sterility of her soil ; and, in the midst of light, the thick .darkness of the middle ages still rested on Ire- land. The population of Scotland, with the exception of the Cel- tic tribes which were thinly scattered over the Hebrides and over the mountainous parts of the northern shires, was of the same blood with the population of England, and spoke a tongue which did not differ from the purest English more than the dialects of Somersetshire and Lancasliire differed from each other. Iu Ireland, on the contrary, the population, with the exception of the small English colony near the coast, was Cel- tic, and still kept the Celtic speech and manners. In natural courao'e and intelliijence both the nations which now became connected with England ranked high. In perse- verance, in selfcommand, in forethought, in all the virtues which conduce to success in life, the Scots have never been surpassed. The Irish, on the other hand, were distinguished by qualities which tend to make men interesting rather than prosperous. They were an ardent and impetuous race, easily moved to tears or to laughter, to fury or to love. Alone among the nations of northern Eurojie they had the susceptibility, the vivacity, the natural turn for acting and rhetoric, which are indiiienous on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. In mental cultivation Scotland had an indisputable superiority. Though that kingdom was then the poorest in Christendom, it already vied in every branch of learning with the most favoured coun- tries. Scotsmen, whose dwellings and whose food were as wretched as those of the Icelanders of our time, wrote Latin verse with more than the delicacy of Vida, and made discoveries in science which would have added to the renown of Galileo. Ireland could boast of no Buchanan or Napier. The genius, 70 • HISTORY OF ENGLAND. with which her aboriginal inhabitants were largely endo^fed, showed '"^self as yet only in ballads which, wild and rugged as they w^'fe, seemed to the judging eye of Spenser to contain a portio"^ of the pure gold of poetry. S''otland, in becoming part of the British monarchy, pre- served her dignity. Having, during many generations, cour- ageously withstood the English arms, she was now joined to her stronijer neijjhbour on the most honourable terms. She gave a King instead of receiving one. She retained her own constitution and laws. Her tribunals and parliaments remained entirely independent of the tribunals and parliaments which sate at Westminster. The administration of Scotland was in Scottish hands ; for no Englishman had any motive to emigrate northward, and to contend with the shrewdest and most perti- nacious of all races for what was to be scraped together in the poorest of all treasuries. Nevertheless Scotland by no means escaped the fate ordained for every country which is connected, but not incorporated, with another country of greater resources. Though in name an independent kmgdom, she was, during more than a century, really treated, in many respects, as a subject province. Ireland was undisguisedly governed as a dependency won by the sword. Her rude national institutions had perished. The Enirlish colonists submitted to the dictation of the mother country, without whose support they could not exist, and in- demnified themselves by trampling on the people among whom they had settled. The parliaments which met at Dublin could pass no law which had not been previously approved by the English Privy Council. The authority of the English legisla- ture extended over Ireland. The executive administration was entrusted to men taken either from England or from the English pale, and, in either case, regarded as foreigners, and even as enemies, by the Celtic population. But the circumstance which, more than any other, has made Ireland to differ from Scotland remains to be noticed. Scotland was Protestant. In no jiart of Europe had the movement of the popular mind against the Roman Catholic Church been so HKKORE THE UESTORATION. • 71 rapid and violent. The Reformers liad vanquished, deposed, and imprisoned their idolatrous sovereign. They would not endure even such a compromise as had been effected in England. They had established the Calvinistic doctrine, discipline, and worship ; and they made little distinction between Popery and Prelacy, between the Mass and the Book of Common Prayer. Unfortunately for Scotland, tlie prince whom she sent to govern a fairer inheritance had been so much annoyed by the pertinacity with which her theologians had asserted against him the privi- leges of the synod and the pulpit that he hated the ecclesiastical polity to which she was fondly attached as much as it was in his effeminate nature to hate anything, and nad no sooner mounted the Enirlish throne than he beijan to show an intolerant zeal for the government and ritual of the English Church. The Irish were the only peo.')le of northern Europe who had i-emained true to the old religion. This is to be partly as- cribed to the circumstance that they were some centuries behind their neighbours in knowledge. But other causes had coope- rateil. The Reformation had been a national as well as a moral revolt. It had been, not only an insurrection of the laity against the clergy, but also an insurrection of all the branches of the great German race against an alien domination. It is a most significant circumstance that no large society of which the tongue is not Teutonic has ever turned Protestant, and that, wherever a lancruaije derived from that of ancient Rome is spoken, the religion of modern Rome to this day prevails. The patriotism of the Irish had taken a peculiar direction. The ob- ject of their animosity was not Rome, but England ; and they had especial reason to abhor those English sovereigns who had been the chiefs of the great schism, Henry the Eighth and Eliz- abeth. Durinij the vain stru2, noxious to the government languished for years in prison, with- out being ever called upon to plead before any tribunal. For these things history nuist hold the King himself chieflj responsible. From the time of his third Parliament he was his own prime minister. Several persons, however, whose temper and talents were suited to his purposes, were at the head of dif- ferent departments of the administration. Thomas Wentworth, successively created Lord Wentworth and Earl of Strafford, a man of great abilities, elociueuce, and courage, but of a cruel and imperious nature, was the counsellor most trusted in political and military affairs. He had been one of the most distinguished members of the opposition, and felt towards those whom he had deserted that peculiar malignity which has, in all ages, been characteristic of apostates. He perfectly understood the feelings, the resources, and the policy of the party to which he had lately belonged, and had formed a vast and deeply meditated scheme which very nearly con- founded even the able tactics of the statesmen by whom the House of Commons had been directed. To this scheme, in his confidential correspondence, he gave the expressive name of Thorough. His object was to do in England all, and more than all, that Richelieu was doing in France ; to make Charles a monarch as absolute as any on the Continent ; to put the estates and the personal liberty of the whole people at the disposal of the crown ; to deprive the courts of law of all independent au- thority, even in ordinary questions of civil right between m.an and man ; and to punish with merciless rigour all who mur- mured at the acts of the government, or who applied, even in BEFORE THE RESTORATION. • 89 the most decent and regular manner, to any tribunal for relief against those acts.* This was his end ; and he distinctly saw in what manner alone this end could be attained. There was, in truth, about all his notions a clearness, a coherence, a precision, which, if he had not been pursuing an object pernicious to his country and to his kind, would have justly entitled him to liigh admiration. He saw that there was one instrument, and only one, by which his vast and daring projects could be carried into execution. That instrument was a standing army. To the forming of such an army, therefore, he directed all the energy of his strong mind. In Ireland, where he was viceroy, he actually succeeded in establishing a military despotism, not only over the aborigi- nal population, but also over the English colonists, and was able to boast that, in that island, the King was as absolute as any prince in the whole world could be.f The ecclesiastical administration was, in the meantime, prin- cipally directed by William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury. Of all the prelates of the Anglican Church, Laud had departed farthest from the principles of the Reformation, and had drawn nearest to Rome. His theology was more remote than even that of the Dutch Arminians from the theology of the Calvinists. His passion for ceremonies, his reverence for holidays, vigils, and sacred places, his ill concealed dislike of the marriage of ecclesiastics, the ardent and not altogether disinterested zeal with which he asserted the claims of the clergy to the reverence of the laity, would have made him an object of aversion to the Puritans, even if he had used only legal and gentle means for the attainment of his en Is. But his understanding was narrow ; and his commerce with the world had been small. He was by * The correspondence of Wentworth seems to me fully to bear out what I have said in the text. To transcribe all the passages which have led me to the conclu- sion at which I have arrived, would be impossible ; nor would it be easy to make a better selection than has already been made by Mr. Hallam. I may, however, direct the attention of the reader particularly to the very able paper which Went' worth drew up respecting the affairs of the Palatinate. The date is March 31, 1637. t These are Wentworth's own woMs. See his letter to Laud, dated Dec. 16, 1684. 90 . HISTORY OF ENGLAND. nature rash, irritable, quick to feel for his own dignity, slow to sympathise with the sufferings of others, and prone to the error, common in superstitious men, of mistaking his own peevish and malignant moods for emotions of pious zeal. Under his di- rection every corner of the realm was subjected to a constant and minute inspection. Every little congregation of separatists was tracked out and broken up. Even the devotions of private families could not escape the vigilance of his spies. Such fear did his rigour inspire that the deadly hatred of the Church, which festered in innumerable bosoms, was generally disguised under an outward show of conformity. On the very eve of troubles, fatal to himself and to his order, the Bishops of several extensive dioceses were able to report to him that not a sino-le dissenter was to be found within their jurisdiction.* The tribunals afforded no protection to the subject against the civil and ecclesiastical tyranny of that period. The judges of the common law, holding their situations during the pleasure of the King, were scandalously obsequious. Yet, obsequious as they were, they were less ready and less efTicient instruments of arbitrary power than a class of courts, the memory of which is still, after the lapse of more than two centuries, held in deep abhorrence by the nation. Foremost among these courts in power and in infamy were the Star Chamber and the High Commission, the former a political, the latter a religious inqui- sition. Neither was a part of the old constitution of England. The Star Chamber had been remodelled, and the High .Commis- sion created, by the Tudors, The power which these boards had possessed before the accession of Charles had been extensive and formidable, but had bee i small indeed when compared with that which they now usui ped. Guided chiefly by the violent spirit of the primate, and freed from the control of Parliament, they displayed a rapacity, a violence, a malignant energy, which had been unknown to any former age. The government was able through their instrumentality, to fine, imprison, pillory, and mutilate without restraint- A separate council which sate * See Ills report to Charles tor the year 1639. BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 91 M York, under the presidency of Wentworth, was armed, in de- faance of law, by a pure act of prerogative, with ahiiost bound- less power over the northern counties. All these tribunals in- sulted and defied the authority of Westminster Hall, and daily committed excesses which the most distinguished Royalists have warmly condemned. We are informed by Clarendon that there was hardly a man of note in the realm who had not personal experience of the harshness and greediness of the Star Chamber, that the High Commission had so conducted itself that it had scarce a friend left in the kingdom, and that the tyranny of the Council of York had made the Great Charter a dead letter on the north of the Trent. The government of England was now, in all points but one, as despotic as that of France. But that one point was all im- portant. There was still no standing army. There was therefore, no security that the whole fabric of tyranny might not be sub- verted in a single day ; and, if taxes were imposed by the royal authority for the support of an army, it was probable that there would be an immediate and irresistible explosion. This was the difficulty Avhich more than any other perplexed Wentworth. The Lord Keeper Finch, in concert with other lawyers who were emploved by the government, recommended an expedient which was eagerly adopted. The ancient princes of England, as they called on the inhabitants of the counties near Scotland to arm and array themselves for the defence of the border, had sometimes called on the maritime counties to furnish ships for the defence of the coast. In the room of ships money had sometimes been accepted. Tliis old practice it was now deter- mined, after a long interval, not only to revive but to extend. Former princes had raised shipmoney only in time of war : it was now exacted in a time of profound peace. Former princes, even in the most perilous wars, had raised shipmoney only along the coasts : it wa" now exacted from the inland shires. Former princes had raised shipmoney only for the* maritime defence of the country : it was now exacted, by the admission of the Royalists themselves, with the object, not of maintaining a navy, but of furnishing the King wit-li supplies which might 92 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. be increased at his discretion to any amount, and expended at his discretion for any purpose. Tlie wliole nation was alarmed and incensed. John Haihp' den, an opulent and well born gentleman of Buckinghamshire, highly considered in his own neighbourhood, but as yet little known to the kingdom generally, had the courage to step for- ward, to confront the whole power of the government, and take on himself the cost and the risk of disputing the prerogative to which the King laid claim. The case was argued before the judges in the Exchequer Chamber. So strong were the argu- ments against the pretensions of the crown that, dependent and servile as the judges were, the majority against Hampden was the smallest possible. Still there was a majority. The inter- preters of the law had pronounced that one great and produc- tive tax might be imposed by the royal authority. Wentworth justly observed that it was impossible to vindicate their judg- mei:t except by reasons directly leading to a conclusion which they had not ventured to draw. If monev mioht lejjallv be raised w^ithout the consent of Parliament for the support of a ileet, it was not easy to deny that money might, without con- sent of Parliament, be legally raised for the support of an army. Tlie decision of the judges increased the irritation of the people. A century earlier, irritation less serious would have produced a general rising. But discontent did not now so readiljr as in an earlier age take the form of rebel- lion. The nation had been long steadily advancing in wealth and in civilisation. Since the great northern Earls took up arms against Elizabeth seventy years had elapsed ; and during those seventy years there had been no civil war. Never, dur- ing the whole existence of the English nation, had so long a period passed without intestine hostilities. Men had become accustomed to the pursuits of peaceful industry, and, exasperated as they were, hesitated long before they drew the sword. This was the conjuncture at which the liberties of the na- tion were in the greatest peril. The opponents of the govern- ment began to despair of the destiny of their country ; and BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 93 many looked to the American wilderness as the only asylum in which they could enjoy civil and spiritual freedom. There a few resolute Puritans, who, in the cause of their religion, feared neither the rage of the ocean nor the hardships of uncivilised life, neither the fangs of savage beasts nor the tomahawks of more savage men, had built, amidst the primeval forests, vil- lages which are now great and opulent cities, but which have, through every change,, retained some trace of the character derived from their founders. The government regarded these infant colonies with aversion, and attempted violently to stop the stream of emigration, but could not prevent the population of New England from being largely recruited by stouthearted and Godfearing men from every part of the old England. And now Wentworth exulted in the near prospect of Thorough. A few years might probably suffice for the execution of his great design. If strict economy were observed, if all collision with foreign powers were carefully avoided, the debts of the crown would be cleared off : there would be funds available for the support of a large military force ; and that force would soon break the refractory spirit of the nation. At this crisis an act of insane bigotry suddenly changed the whole face of public affairs. Had the King been wise, he would have pursued a (cautious and soothing policy towards Scotland till he Wiis master in the South. For Scotland was of all his kingdoms that in which there was the greatest risk that a spark might produce a flame, and that a flame might become a conflagration. C^onstitutional opposition, indeed, such as he had encountered at Westminster, he had not to apprehend at Edinburgh. The Parliament of his northern kingdom was a very different body from that which bore the same name in England. It was ill constituted : it was little considered ; and it had never imposed any serious restraint on any of his prede- cessors. The three Estates sate in one house. The commis- sioners of the burghs were considered merely as retainers of the great nobles. No act could be introduced till it had been approved by the Lords of Articles, a committee which was really, though not in form, nominated by the crown. But, 94 HISTORY OK ENGLAND. thouo-h the Scottish Parliament was obsequious, the Scottish people had always been singularly turbulent and ungovernable. They had butchered their first James in his bedchumoer: they had repeatedly arrayed themselves in arms against James the Second ; they had slain James the Third on the field of battle : their disobedience had broken the heart of James the Fifth • they had deposed and imprisoned Mary : they had. led her son captive ; and their temper was still as intractable as ever. Their habits were rude and martial. All along the southern border, and all along the line between the higlihiuds and the lowlands, raged an incessant predatory war. In every part of the country men were accustomed to redress their wrongs by the strong hand. Whatever loyalty the nation had anciently felt to the Stuarts had cooled during their long absence. The supreme influence over the public mind was divided between two classes of malecontents, the lords of the soil and the preachers ; lords animated by the same spirit which had often impelled the old Douglasses to withstand the royal house, and preachers who had inherited the republican opinions and the unconquerable spirit of Knox. Both the national and religious feelings of the population had been wounded. All orders of men complained that their country, that country which had, with so much glory, defended her independence against the ablest and bravest Plantagenets, had, through the instrumentality of her native princes, become in effect, though not in name, a province of England. In no part of Europe had tlie Calvin istic doctrine and discipline taken so strong a hold on the public mind. The Church of Rome was regarded by the great body of the people with a hatred which might justly be called ferocious ; and the Church of England, which seemed to be every day becoming more and more like the Church of Rome, was an object of scarcely less aversion. The government had long wished to extend the Anglican system over the whole island, and had alread}^, with this view, made several changes highly distasteful to every Presbyterian. One innovation, however, the most hazardous of all, because it was directly cognisable by the senses of the common jjeople, BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 95 had not yet been attempted. The public worship of God was still couducted in the manner acceptable to the nation. Now, however, Charles and Laud determined to force on the Scots the English liturgy, or rather a liturgy which, wherever it differed l^-om that of England, differed, in the judgment of all riofid Protestants, for the worse. To this step, taken in the mere wantonness of tyranny, and in criminal ignorance or more criminal c )utempt of public feeling, our country owes her freedom. The first performance of the foreign ceremonies produced a riot. The riot rapidly became a revolution. Ambition, patriotism, fanaticism, were mingled in one headlong torrent. The whole nation was in arms. The power of England was indeed, as appeared some years later, sufficient to coerce Scotland : but a large part of the English people sympathised with the religious feelings of the insurgents ; and many Englishmen who had no scruple about antiphonies and genuflexions, altars and surplices, saw with pleasure the progress of a rebellion which seemed likely to confound the arbitrary projects of the court, and to make the calling of a Parliament necessary. For the senseless freak which had produced these effects "Wentworth is not responsible.* It had, in fact, thrown all his plans into confusion. To counsel submission, however, was not in his nature. An attempt was made to put down the insurrec- tion by the sword : but the King's military means and military talents were unequal to the task. To impose fresh taxes on England in defiance of law, would, at this conjuncture, have been madness. No resource was left but a Parliament ; and in the spring of 1640 a Parliament was convoked. The nation had been put into good humour by the prospect of seeing constitutional government restoi'ed, and grievances redressed. The new House of Commons was more temperate and more respectful to the throne than any which had sate since the death of Elizabeth. The moderation of this assembly has been highly extolled by the most distinguished Royalists, and seems to have caused no small vexation and disappointment * See his letter to the Earl of Northumberland, dated July 30, 1638. 96 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. to the chiefs of the opposition : but it was the uniform practice of Charles, a practice equally impolitic and ungenerous, to re- fuse all compliance with the desires of his people, till those dasires were expressed in a menacing tone. As soon as the Commons showed a disposition to take into consideAtiou the grievances under which the country had suffered during eleven years, the King dissolved the Parliament with every mark of displeasure. Between the dissolution of this shortlived assembly aud the meeting of that ever memorable body known by the name of the Long Parliament-, intervened a few months, during which the yoke was pressed down more severely than ever on the na- tion, while the spirit of the nation rose up more angrily than ever against the yoke. Members of the House of Commons were questioned by the Privy Council touching their parliamen- tary conduct, and thrown into prison for refusing to reply. Shipmoney was levied with increased rigour. The Lord Mayor and the Sheriffs of London were threatened with imj^risonment for remissness in collecting the payments. Soldiers were en- listed by force. Money for their support was exacted from their counties. Torture, which had always been illegal, and which had recently been declared illegal even by the servile judges of that age, was inflicted for the last time in England in the month of May, 1610. Everything now depended on the event of the King's mili- tary operations against the S'^ots. Among his troops there was little of that feeling which soparates professional soldiers from the mass of a nation, and attaches them to their leaders. His army, composed for the most part of recruits, who regretted the plough from which they had been violently taken, and who were imbued with the religious and political sentiments then prevalent throughout the country, was more formidable to him- self than to the enemy. The Scots, encouraged by the heads of the English opposition, aud feebly resisted by the English forces, marched across the Tweed and the T^'ne, and encamped on the borders of rurkshire. And now the murmurs of dis- content swelled uito an uproar by which all spirits save one BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 97 were overawed. But the voice of Strafford was still for Thorouofh ; and he even, in this extremity, showed a nature so cruel and despotic, that his own pikemen were ready to tear him in pieces. There was yet one last expedient which, as the King flat tered himself, might save him from the misery of facing another House of ('ommous. To the House of Lords he was less averse. The Bishops were devoted to him ; and though the temporal peers were generally dissatisfied with his administra- tion, they were, as a class, so deeply interested in the mainte- nance of order, and in the stability of ancient institutions, that they were not likely to call for extensive reforms. Departing from the uninterrupted practice of centuries, he called a Great Council consisting of Lords alone. But the Lords were too prudent to assume the unconstitutional functions with which he wished to invest them. Without money, without credit, with- out authority even in his own camp, he yielded to the pressure of necessity. The Houses were convoked ; and the elections proved that, since the spring, the distrust and hatred with which the government was regarded had made fearful progress. In November, 1640, met that renowned Parliament which, in spite of many errors and disasters, is justly entitled to the reverence and gratitude of all who, in any part of the world, enjoy the blessings of constitutional government. During the year which followed, no very important division of opinion appeared in the Houses. The civil and ecclesiasti- cal administration had, through a period of nearly twelve years, been so oppressive and so unconstitutional that even those classes of which the inclinations are generally on the side of order and authority were eager to promote popular reforms, and to bring the instruments of tyranny to justice. It was en- acted that no interval of more than three years should ever elapse between Parliament and Parliament, and that, if writs under the Great Seal were not issued at the proper time, the returning officers should, without such writs, call the constit- uent bodies together for the choice of representatives. The Star Chamber, the High Commission, the Council of York were *J8 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. swept away. Men who, after suffering cruel mutilations, had been confined in remote dungeons, regained their liberty. On the chief ministers of the crown the vengeance of the nation was unsparingly wreaked. The Lord Keeper, the Primate, the Lord Lieutenant were impeached. Finch saved himself by flight. Laud was flung into the Tower. Straffoi'd was put to death by act of attainder. On the day on which this act passed, the King gave his assent to a law by which he bound himself not to adjourn, prorogur, or dissolve the existing Parliament without its own consent. After ten months of assiduous toil, the Houses, in Septem ber 1641, adjourned for a short vacation ; and the King visited Scotland. He with difRculty pacified that kingdom by consent- ing, not only to relinquish his plans of ecclesiastical reform, but even to pass, with a very bad grace, an act declaring that episcopacy was contrary to the word of God. The recess of the Euirlish Parliament lasted six weeks. The day on which the Houses met again is one of the most remarkable epochs in our histor3\ From that day dates the corporate existence of the two great parties which have ever .mce alternately governed the country. In one sense, indeed, the distinotion which then became obvious had always existed, and always must exist. For it has its origin in diversities of temper, of understanding, and of interest, which are found in, all societies, and which will be found till the human mind ceases to be drawn in opposite directions by the charm of habit and by the charm of novelt3^ Not only in politics but in literature, in art, in science, in surgery ^d mechanics, in navigation and agriculture, nay, even in mathematics, we find this distinction. Everywhere there is a class of men who cling with fondness to whatever is ancient, and who, even when convinced by over- powering reasons that innovation would be beneficial, consent to it with many misgivings and forebodings. We find also everywhere another class of men, sanguine in hope, bold in speculation, always pressing forward, quick to discern the im» perfections of v/iiatever exists, disposed to think lightly of the risks and inconveniences which attend improvements, and disr BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 99 posed to give every change credit for being an improvement. In the sentiments of both chxsses there is something to approve. But of both the best specimens will be found not far from the common i^rontier. The extreme section of one class consists of bigoted dotards : the extreme section of the other consists of shallow and reckless empirics. There can be no doubt that in our very first Parliaments might have been discerned a body of members anxious to jjre- serve, and a body eager to reform. But, while the sessions of the legislature were short, these bodies did not take definite and permanent forms, array themselves under recognised leaders, or assume distinguishing names, badges, and war cries. iTuring the first months of the Long Parliament, the indignation excited by many years of lawless oppression was so strong and general that the House of Commons acted as one man. Abuse after abuse disappeared without a struggle. If a small minority of the representative body wished to retain the Star Chamber and the High Commission, that minority, overawed by the enthusiasm and by the numerical superiority of the reformers, contented itself with secretly regretting institutions which could not, with any hope of success, be openly defended. At a later period the Royalists found it convenient to antedate the separation between themselves and their oj^yponents, and to attribute the Act which restrained the King from dissolving or proroguing the Parlia- ment, the Triennial Act, the impeachment of the ministers, and the attainder of Strafford, to the faction which afterwards made war on the Kinij. But no artifice could be more disinjxenuous. Every one of those strong measures was actively promoted by the men who Avere afterwards foremost among the Cavaliers. No republican spoke of the long misgovernment of Charles more severely than Colepepper. The most remarkable speech in favour of the Triennial Bill was made by Digby. The im- peachment of the Lord Keeper was moved by Falkland. The demand that the Lord Lieutenant should be kept close prisoner was made at the bar of the Lords * by Hyde. Not till the law attainting Sti-afford was proposed did the signs of serious dis- union become visible. Even against that law, a law which 100 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. nothing but extreme necessity could justify, only about sixty members of the House of Commons voted. It is certain that Hyde was not in the minority, and that Falkland not only voted with the majority, but spoke strongly for the bilL Even the few who entertained a scruple about inflictmg death by a retrospective enactment thought it necessary to express the utmost abhorrence of Strafford's character and administration. But under this apparent concord a great schism was latent ; and when, in October, 1641, the Parliament reassembled after a short recess, two hostile parties, essentially the same with those which, under different names, have ever since contended, and a'-e still contending, for the direction of public affairs, appeared con- fronting each other. Daring some years they were designated as Cavaliers and Roundheads. They were subsequently called Tories and Whigs i nor does it seem that these appellations are likely soon to become obsolete. It would not bcdifficul'-. to compose a lampoon or panegyric on either of these renowned factions. For no man not utterly destitute of judgment .. ^1 candor will deny that there are many deep stains on the fame of the party to which he belongs, or that the party to which he is opposed may justly boast of many illus- trious names, of many heroic actions, and of many great services rendered to the state. The truth is that, though both parties have often seriously erred. 'and could have spared neither. If, in her institutions, freedom and order, the advantages arising from innovation and the advantages arising from prescription, have been combined to an extent elsewhere unknown, we may attribute this happy peculiarity to the strenuous conflicts and al- ternate victories of two rival confederacies of statesmen, a con- federacy zealous for authority and antiquity, and a confederacy zealous for liberty and progress. It ought to be remembered that the difference between the two great sections of English politicians has always been a dif- ference rather of degree than of principle. There were certain limits on the right and on the left, which were very rarely over- stepped. A few enthusiasts on one side were ready to lay all our laws and franchises at the fefet of our Kings. A few enthu' BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 101 siasts on the other side were bent on pursuing, through endless civil troubles, their darling phantom of a republic. But the great majority of those who fought for the crown were averse to despotism ; and the great majority of the champions of popular rights were averse to anarchy. Twice, in the course of the sev- enteenth century, the two parties suspended their dissensions, and united their strength in a common cause. Their first coa- lition restored hereditary monarchy. Their second coalition res- cued constitutional freedom. It is also to be noted that these two parties have never been i\},q whole nation, nay, that they have never, taken together,, made up a majority of the nation. Between them has always been a great mass, which has not steadfastly adhered to either, which has sometimes remained inertly neutral, and which has sometimes oscillated to and fro. That mass has more than once passed in a few years from one extreme to the other, and back again. Sometimes it has changed si.^ec, merely because it was tired of supporting the same men, sometimes because it was dis- mayed by its own excesses, rometimes because it had expected imjaossibilities, and had been disappointed. But whenever it has leaned with its whole wei t in either direction, that weight has, fftr the time, been irresisti When the rival parties first appeared in a distinct form, they seemed to be not unequally matched. On the side of the government was a large ma 'ty of the nobles, and of those op; ulent and well descended gentlemen to whom nothing was want- ing of nobility but the name. These, with the dependents whose support they could command, were no small power in the state. On the same side were the great body of the clergy, both the Universities, and all those laymen who were strongly attached to episcopal government and to the Anglican ritual. These respectable classes found themselves in the company of some allies much less decorous than themselves. The Puritan aus- terity drove to the King's faction all who made pleasure their business, who affected gallantry, sj^lendour of dress, or taste in the higher arts. With these went all who live by amusing the leisure of others, from the painL^^^nd the comic poet, down t'- OTATB TEACHERS COCL .dANTA BARBARA. CALlfo^,, / D // ^ rf 102 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. ihe ropedancer and the Merry Andrew. For these artists well knew that they might thrive under a superb and luxurious des- potism, but must starve under the rigid rule of the precisians. In the same interest were the Roman Catholics to a man. The Queen, a daughter of France, was of their own faith. Her hus- band was known to be strongly attached to her, and not a little in awe of her. Though undoubtedly ar Protestant on conviction, he regarded the professors of the old religion with no ill-will, and would gladly have granted them a much larger toleration than he was disposed to concede to the Presbyterians. If the opposition obtained the mastery, it was probable that the san- guinary laws enacted against Papists, in the reign of Elizabeth, would be severely enforced. The Roman Catholics were there- fore induced by the strongest motives to espouse the cause ol the court. They in general acted with a caution which brought on them the reproach of cowardice and lukewarmness ; but it is probable that, in maintaining great reserve, they consulted the King's interest as well as their own. It was not for his service that they should be conspicuous among his friends. The main strength of .the opposition lay among the small freeholders in the country, and among the merchants and shop- keepers of the towns. But these were headed by a formidable minority of the aristocracy, a minority which included the rich and powerful Earls of Northumberland, Bedford, Warwick, . Stamford, and Essex, and several other Lords of great wealth and influence. In the same ranks was found the whole body of Protestant Nonconformists, and most of those members of the Established Church who still adhered to the Calvinistic opinions which, forty years before, had been generally held by the prelates and clergy. The municipal corporations took, with few exceptions, the same side. In the House of Commons the opposition preponderated, but not very decidedly. Neither i)arty wanted strong arguments for the course which it was disposed to take. The reasonings of the most enlightened Royalists may be summed up thus : — " It is true that great abuses have existed ; but they have been redressed. It is true that precious rights have been invaded ; but they have beeo BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 103 vindicated and surrounded with new securities. The sittings of the Estates of the realm liave been, in defiance of all precedent and of the spirit of the constitution, intermitted during eleven years ; but it has now been provided that henceforth three years shall never elapse without a Parliament. The Star Chamber, the High Connnission, the Council of York, oppressed and plun- dered us ; but those hateful courts have now ceased to exist. The Lord Lieutenant aimed at establishing military despotism ; but he has answered for his treason witli his head. The Pri- mate tainted our worship with Popish rites and punished our scruples with Popish cruelty ; but he is awaiting in the Tower the judgment of his peers. The Loid Keeper sanctioned a plan by which the pro2:)erty of every man in England was placed at the mercy of the Crown ; but he has been disgraced, ruined, and compelled to take refuge in a foreign land. The ministers of tyranny have expiated their crimes. The victims of tyranny have been compensated for their sufferings. It would therefore be most unwise to persevere further in that course which was justifiable and necessary when we first met after a long interval, and found the whole administration one mass of abuses. It is time to take heed that we do not so pursue our victory over despotism as to run into anarchy. It was not in our power to overturn the bad institutions which lately afflicted our country, without shocks which have loosened the foundations of Govern- ment. Now that those institutions have fallen, we must ha. t:;n to prop the edifice which it was lately our duty to batter. Henceforth it will be our wisdom to look with jealousy on schemes of innovation, and to guard from encroachment all the prerogatives with which the law has, for the public good, armed the sovereign." Such were the views of those men of whom the excellent Falkland may be regarded as the leader. It was contended on the other side with not less force, by men of not less ability and virtue, that the safety which the liberties of the English people enjoyed was rather appai'ent than real, and that the arbitrary projects of the court would be resumed as soon as the vigilance of the Commons was relaxed. True it was, — such was 104 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. the reasoning of Pym, of Hollis, and of Hampden, — that many good laws had been passed but, if good laws had been sufficient to restrain the King, his subjects would have had little reason ever to complain of his administration. Tlie recent statutes were surely not of more authority than the Great Charter or the Petition of Right. Yet neither the Great Charter, hal- lowed by the veneration of four centuries, nor the Petition of Right, sanctioned, aftei' mature reflection, and for valuable con- sideration, by Charles himself, had been found effectual for the protection of the people. If once the check of fear were with- drawn, if once the spirit of opposition were suffered to slumber, all the securities for English freedom resolved themselves into a single one, the roy;.l word ; and it had been proved by a long and severe experience that the royal word could not be trusted. The two parties were still regarding each other with cau- tious hostility, and had not yet measured their strength, when news arrived which inflamed the passions and confirmed the opinions of both. The great chieftains of Ulster, who, at the time of the accession of James, had, after a long struggle, sub- mitted to the royal authority, had not long brooked the humili- ation of dependence. They had conspired against the English government, and had been attainted of treason. Their immense domains had been forfeited to the crown, and had soon been peopled by thousands of English and Scotch emigrants. The new settlers were, in civilisation and intelligence, far superior to the native population, and sometimes abused their superiority. The animosity produced by difference of race was increased by difference of religion. Under the iron rule of Wentworth, scarcely a murmur was heard i but, when that strong pressure was withdrawn, when Scotland had set the example of success- ful resistance, when England was distracted by internal quarrels, the smothered rage of the Irish broke forth into acts of fearful violence. On a sudden, the aboriginal population rose on the colonists. A war, to which national and theological hatred gave a character of . peculiar ferocity, desolated Ulster, and spread to the neighbouring jjrovinces. The castle of Dublin was scarcely thought secure. Every post brought to London BEFORE THE RESTORATIOX. ' 1 U J exaggerated accounts of outrages which, without any exag- geration, were sufficient to move pity and horror. These evil tidings roused to the height the zeal of both the great parties which were marshalled against each other at Westminster. The Royalists maintained that it was the first duty of every good Englishman and Protestant, at such a crisis, to strengthen the hands of the sovereign. To the opposition it seemed that there were now stronojer reasons than ever for thwartinjj and restrain- ing him. That the commonwealth was in danger was undoubt- edly a good reason for giving large powers to a trustworthy magistrate : but it was a good reason for taking away powers from a magistrate who was at heart a public enemy. To raise a great army had always been the King's first object. A great army must now be raised. It was to be feared that, unless some new securities were devised, the forces levied for the reduction of Ireland would be employed against the liberties of England. Nor was this all. A horrible suspicion, unjust indeed, but not altogether unnatural, had arisen in many minds. The Queen was an avowed Roman Catholic : the King was not regarded by the Puritans, whom he had mercilessly persecuted, as a sincere Protestant ; and so notorious was his duplicity, that tliuere was no treachery of which his subjects might not, with some show of reason, believe him capable. It was soon whispered that the rebellion of the Roman Catholics of Ulster was part of a vast work of darkness which had been planned at Whitehall. After some weeks of prelude, the first great parliamentary conflict between the parties, which have ever since contended, and are still contending, for the government of the nation, took place on the twenty-second of November, 1G41. "It was moved by the opposition, that the House of Commons should present to the King a remonstrance, enumerating the faults of his administration from the time of his accession, and expressing" the distrust with which his policy was still regarded by his people. That assembly, which a few months before had been unanimous in calling for the reform of abuses, was now divided into two fierce and eager factions of nearly equal strength. 106 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. After a hot debute of many hours, the remonstrance was carried b}'^ only eleven votes. The result of this struggle was highly favourable to the conservative party. It could not be doubted that only some great indiscretion could prevent them from shortly obtaining the predominance in the Lower House. The Upper House was already their own. Nothing was wanting to ensure their suc- cess, but that the King should, in all his conduct, show respect for the laws and scrupulqus good faith towards his subjects. His first measures promised well. He had, it seemed, at last discovered that an entire change of system was necessary, and had wisely made up his mind to what could no longer be avoided. He declared his determination to govern in harmony with the Commons, and, for that end, to call to his councils men in whose talents and character the Commons might place con- fidence. Nor was the selection ill made. Falkland, Hyde, and Colepepper, all three distinguished by the part which they had taken in reforming abuses and in punishing evil ministers, were invited to become the confidential advisers of the Crown, and were solemnly assured by Charles that he would take no step in any way affecting the Lower House of Parliament without their privity. Had he kept this promise, it cannot be doubted that the reaction which was already in progress would very soon have become quite as strong as the most respectable Royalists would have desired. Already the violent members of the opposition had begun to despair of the fortunes of their party, to tremble for their own safety, and to talk of sell g their estates and emigrating to America. That the fair prospects which had begun to open- before the King were suddenly overcast, that his life was darkened by adversity, and at length shortened by violence, is to be attributed to his own faithlessness and con- "tempt of law. The truth seems to be that he detested both the parties into which the House of Commons was divided : nor is this strange ; for in both those parties the love of liberty and the love of or- der were mingled, though in different proportions. The advis* BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 107 ers whom necessity had compelled him to call round him were by no means after his own heart. They had joined in condemn- ing his tyranny, in abridging his power, and in punishing his instruments. They were now indeed prepared to defend in a strictly legal way his strictly legal prerogative ; but they would have recoiled with horror from the thousfht of reviving Went- worth's projects of Thorough. They were, therefore, in the King's opinion, traitors, who differed only in the degree of their seditious malignity from Pym and Hampden. He accordingly, a few days after he had promised the chiefs of the constitutional Royalists that no step of importance should be taken without their knowledge, formed a resolution the most momentous of his whole life, carefully concealed that resolution from them, and executed it in a manner which overwhelmed tliem with shame and dismay. He sent the Attorney General to impeach iPym, Hollis, Hampden, and other members of the House of Commons of high treason at the bar of the Plouse of Lords. Not content with this flagrant violation of the Great Charter and of the uninterrupted practice of centuries, he went in person, accompanied by armed men, to seize the leaders of the opposition within the walls of Parliament. The attempt failed. The accused members had left the House a short time before Charles entered it. A sudden and violent revulsion^of feeling, both in the Parliament and in the country, followed. The most favourable view that has ever been taken of the King's conduct on this occasion by his most partial advocates is that he had weakly suffered himself to be hurried into a gross indiscretion by the evil counsels of his wife and of his courtiers. But the general voice loudly charged him with far deeper guilt. At the very moment at which his subjects, after a long estrangement produced by his maladministration, were returning to him with feelings of confidence and affection, he had aimed a deadly blow at all their dearest rights, at the privileges of Parliament, at the very principle of trial by jury. He had shown that he considered opposition to his arbi- trary designs as a crime to be expiated only by blood. He had broken faith, not only with his Great Council and with 108 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. his people, but with his own adherents. He had done what, but for an unforeseen accident, would probably have produced a bloody conflict round the Speaker's chair. Those who had the chief sway in the Lower House now felt that not only their power and popularity, but their lands and their necks, were staked on the event of the struggle in which they were engaged. The flagging zeal of the party opposed to the court revived in an instant. During the night which followed the outrage the wdiole city of London was in arms. In a few hours the roads leading to the capital were covered with multitudes of yeomen spurring hard to Westminster with the badges of the parliamentary cause in their hats. In the House of Commons the opposition became at once irresistible, and carried, by more than two votes to one, resolutions of unprecedented violence. Strong bodies of the trainbands, regularly relieved, mounted guard round Westmin- ter Hall. The gates of the King's palace were daily besieged by a furious multitude whose taunts and execrations were heard even in the presence chamber, and who could scarcely be kept out of the royal apartments by the gentlemen of the household. Had Charles remained much longer in his stormy capital, it is probable that the Commons would have fou;:d a plea for making him, under outward forms of respect, a state prisoner. He quitted London, never to return till the day of a terrible and memorable reckoning had arrived. A negotiation began wlxich occupied many months. Accusations and recriminations passed backward and forward between the contending parties. All accommodation had become impossible. The sure punish- ment which waits on habitual perfidy had at length overtaken the King. It was to no purpose that he now j^awned his royal word, and invoked heaven to witness the sincerity of his j^rofessions. The distrust with which his adversaries i-ejjarded him was not to be removed by oaths or treaties. They were convinced that they could be safe only when he was utterly helpless. Their demand, therefore, was, that he should surrender, not only those prerogatives which he had usurped in violation of ancient laws and of his own recent promises, but also other prerogatives which the English Kings had always possessed, and continue to BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 109 possess at the present day. No minister must be appointed, no peer created, without the consent of the Houses. Above all, the sovereign must resign that supreme military authority which, from time beyond all memory, had appertained to the regal office. That Charles would comply with such demands while he had any means of resistance, was not to be expected. Yet it will be difficult to show that the Houses could safely have exacted less. They were truly in a most embarrassing position. The great majority of the nation was firmly attached to heredi- tary monarchy. Those who held republican opinions were as yet few, and did not venture to speak out. It was therefore impossible to abolish kingly government. Yet it was plain that no confidence could be placed in the King. It would have been absurd in those who knew, by recent proof, that he was bent ou destroying them, to content themselves with presenting to him another Petition of Right, and receiving from him fresh promises similar to those which he had repeatedly made and broken. Nothing but the want of an army had prevented him from entirely subverting the old constitution of the realm. It was now necessary to levy a great regular army for the conquest of Ireland ; and it would therefore have been mere insanity to leave him m possession of that plenitude of military authority which his ancestors had enjoyed. When a country is in the situation in which England then was, when the kingly office is regarded with love and veneration, but the person who fills that ofiice is hated and distrusted, it should seem that the course which ought to be taken is obvious. Tlie dig- nity of the ofiice should be preserved : the person should be discard- ed. Thus .our ancestors acted in 1399 and in 1689. Had there been, in 1642, any man occupying a position similar to that which Henry of Lancaster occupied at the time of the deposition of Richard the Second, and which William of Orange occupied at the time of the deposition of James th e Second, it is probable that the Houses would have changed the dynasty, and would have made no formal change in the constitution. The new King, called to the throne by their choice, and dependent on 110 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, their support, would have been under the necessity of governing in conformity with their wishes and opinions. But there was no prince of the blood royal in the parliamentary party ; and, though that party contained many men of high rank and many men of eminent ability, there was none who towered so conspic- uously above the rest that he could be proposed as a candidate for the crown. As there was to be a King, and as no new King could be found, it was necessary to leave the regal title to Charles Only one course, therefore, was left: and that was to disjoin the regal title from the regal prerogatives. The change which the Houses proposed to make in our in- stitutions, though it seems exorbitant, when distinctly set fort-h and digested into articles of capitulation, really amounts to little more than the change which, in the next generation, was effected by the Revolution. Tt is true that, at the Revolution, the sovereign was not deprived 1 y law of the jiower of naming his ministers : but it is equally true that, since the Revolution, no minister has been able to retain office six months in opposi- tion to the sense of the House of Commons. It is true that the sovereign still possesses the power of creating peers, and the more important jjower of the sword : but it is'equally true that in the exercise of these powers the sovereign has, ever since the Revolution, been guided by advisers who possess the confidence of the representatives of the nation. In fact, the leaders of the Roundhead party in 1642, and the statesmen who, about half a century later, effected the Revolution, had exactly the same object in view. That object was to terminate the contest between the Crown and the Parliament, by giving to the Par- liament a supi'eme control over the executive administration. The statesmen of the Revolution effected this indirectly by changing the dynasty. The Roundheads of 1 642, being unable to change the dynasty, were comj^elled to take a direct course towards their end. We cannot, however, wonder that the demands of the oppo- sition, importing as they did a complete and formal transfer to the Parliament of powers which had always belonged to the Crown, should have shocked that great party of which the BEFORE THE RESTORATION. Ill characteristics are respect for constitutional authority and dread of violent innovation. That party had recently been in hopes of obtaining by peaceable means the ascendency in the House of Commons ; but every such hope had been blighted. The duplicity of Charles liad made his old enemies irreconcileable, had driven back into the ranks of the disaffected a crowd of moderate men who were in the very act of coming over to his side, and had so cruelly mortified his best friends that they had for a time stood aloof in silent shame and resentment. Now, however, the constitutional Royalists were forced to make their choice between two dangers ; and they thought it their duty rather to rally round a prince whose past conduct they con- demned, and whose word inspired them with little confidence, ihan to suffer thevt^egal office to be degraded, and the polity of the realm to be entirely remodelled. With such feelings, many men whose virtues and abilities would have done honour to any cause, ranged themselves on the side of the King. In August 1642 the sword was at length drawn ; and soon, in almost every shire of the kingdom, two hostile factions appeared in arms against each other. It is not easy to say which of the contending parties was at first the more formid- able. The Houses commanded London and the counties round London, the fleet, the navigation of the Thames, and most of the large towns and seaports. They had at their disposal almost all the military stores of the kingdom, and were able to raise duties, both on goods imported from foreign countries, and on some important products of domestic industry. The King was ill provided with artillery and ammunition. The taxes which he laid on the rural districts occupied by his troops jjro- duced, it is probable, a sum far less than that which the Parlia- ment drew from the city of London alone. He relied, indeed, chiefly, for pecuniary aid, on the munificence of his opulent adherents. Many of these mortgaged their land, pawned their jewels, and broke up their silver chargers and christening bowls, in order to assist him. But experience has fully proved that the voluntary liberality of individuals, even in times of the greatest excitement, is a poor financial resource when compared 112 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. with severe and methodical taxation, which presses on the willing and unwilling alike. Charles, however, had one advantage, which, if he had used it well, would have more than compensated for the want of stores and money, and which, notwithstanding his mismanage- ment, gave him, during some months, a superiority in the war. His troops at first fought much better than those of the Parlia- ment. Both armies, it is true, were almost entirely composed of men who had never seen a field of battle. Nevertheless, the difference was great. The Parliamentary ranks were filled with hirelings whom want and idleness had induced to enlist. Hampden's regiment was regarded as one of the best; and even Hampden's regiment was described by Cromwell as a mere rabble of tapsters and serving men out of 'place. The royal army, on the other hand, consisted in great part of gentlemen, high spirited, ardent, accustomed to consider dishonour as more terrible than death, accustomed to fencing, to the use of fire arms, to bold riding, and to manly and perilous sport, which has been well called the image of war. Such gentlemen, mounted on their favourite horses, and commanding little bands composed of their younger brothers, grooms, gamekeepers, and huntsmen, were, from the very first day on whicli they took the field, qualified to play their part with credit in a skirmish. The steadiness, the prompt obedience, the mechanical precision of movement, which are characteristic of the regular soldier, these gallant volunteers never attained. But they were at first opposed to enemies as undisciplined as themselves, and far less active, athletic, and daring. For a time, therefore, the Cava- liers were successful in almost every encounter. The Houses had also been unfortunate in the choice of a general. The rank and wealth of the Earl of Essex made him one of the most important members of the parliamentary party. He had borne arms on the Continent with credit, and, when the war began, had as high a military reputation as any man in the country. Bu*: it soon appeared that he was unfit for the post of Commander in Chief. He had little energy and no originality. The methodical tactics which he had learned in BEFORE THE RESTORATION. i:3 tte war of the Palatinate did not save him from the disiirate of being surjDrised and baffled by such a Captain as Rupert, who could claim no higher fame than that of an enterprising partisan. Nor were the officers who held the chief commissions under Essex qualified to supply what was wanting in him. For this, indeed, the Houses are scarcely to be blamed. In a country which had not, within the memory of the oldest person livinr, made war on a great scale by land, generals of tried skill an,! valour were not to be found. It was necessary, therefore, ia the first instance, to trust untried men ; and the preference was naturally given to men distinguished either by their station, or by the abilities which they had displayed in Parliament. In scarcely a single instance, however, was the selection fortunate. Neither the grandees nor the orators proved good soldiers. The Earl of Stamford, one of the greatest nobles of England, was routed by the Royalists at Stratton. Nathaniel Fiennes, inferior to none of his contemporaries in talents for civil busi- ness, disgraced himself by the pusillanimous surrender of Bristol Indeed, of all the statesmen who at this juncture accepted liiglj military commands, Hampden alone appears to have carried into the camp the capacity and strength of mind wliich had made him eminent in politics. When the war had lasted a year, the advantage was decid- edly with the Royalists. They were victorious, both in the western and in the northern counties. They had wrested Bristol, the second city in the iiingdom, from the Parliament. They had won several battles, and had not sustained a single serious or ignominious defeat. Among the Roundheads adver- sity had begun to produce dissension and discontent. Tlic Parliament was kept in alarm, sometimes by plots, and son.e- times by riots. It was thought necessary to fortify London against the royal army, and to hang some disaffected citizeaj at their own doors. Several of the most distinguished pccri who had hitherto remained at Westminster fled to the court at Oxford ; nor can it be doubted tliat, if the operations of the Cavaliers had, at this season, been directed by a sagacious and 8 114 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, powerful mina, Charles would soon have marched iii triumjjh to Whitehall. But the King suffered the auspicious moment to pass away; and it never returned. In August 1643 he sate down before the city of Gloucester. That city was defended by the inhab- itants and by the garrison, with a determination such as had not, since the commencement of the war, been shown by the adherents of the Parliament. The emulation of London was excited. The trainbands of the City volunteered to march wherever their services might be recpiired. A great force was speedily collected, and began to move westward. The siege of Gloucester was raised : the Royalists in every part of the king- dom were disheartened: the spirit of the iiarliamentary party re- vived : and the apostate Lords, who had lately fled from West- minster to Oxford, hastened back from Oxford to Westminster. And now a new and alarming class of symptoms began to appear in the distempered body politic. There had been, from the first, in the parliamentary party, some men whose m.inds were set on objects from which the majority of that party would have shrunk with horror. These men were, in religion. Independents. They conceived that every Christian congrega- tion had, under Christ, supreme jurisdiction in things spiritual ; that appeals to provincial and national synods were scarcely less unscriptural than appeals to the Court of Arches, or to the Vatican ; and that Popery, Prelacy, and Presbyterianism were merely three forms of one great apostasy. In politics, the Independents were, to use the phrase of their time, root and branch men, of, to use the kindred phrase of our own time, radicals. Not content Avitli limiting the power of the monarch, they were desirous to erect a commonwealth on the ruins of the old English polity. At first they had been inconsiderable, both in numbers and in weight ; but before the war had lasted two years they became, not indeed the largest, but the most powerful faction in the country. Some of the old parliamentary leaders had been removed by death ; and others had forfeited the public confidence. Pym had been borne, with princely honours, to a grave among the Plantagenets. Hampden had fallen, as BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 115 became hira, wnile vainly endeavouring, by his hei'oic example, to inspire his followers with courage to face the fiery cavalry of Rupert. Bedford had been untrue to the cause. Northum- berland was known to be lukewarm. Essex and his lieutenants had shown little vigour and ability in the conduct of military operations. At such a conjuncture it was that the Independent party, ardent, resolute, and uncompromising, began to raise its head, both in the camp and in the House of Commons. The soul of that party was Oliver Cromwell. Bred to peaceful occupations, he had, at more than forty ^ears of age, accepted a commission in the parliamentary army. No sooner had he become a solaier than he discerned, with the keen glance of genius, what Essex, and men like Essex, with all their experience, were unable to perceive. He saw precisely where the strength of the Royalists lay, and by what means alone that strength could be overpowered. He saw that it was necessary to reconstruct the army of the Parliament. He saw also that there were abundant and excellent materials for the purj^ose, materials less showy, indeed, but more solid, than those of which the gallant squadrons of the King were composed. It was necessary to look for recruits who were not mere merce- naries, for recruits of decent station and grave character, fearing God and zealous for public liberty. With such men he filled his own regiment, and, while he subjected them to a discipline more rigid than had ever before been known in England, he administered to their intellectual and moral nat e stimulants of fearful potency. The events of the year 1644 fully proved the superiority of his abilities. In the south, where Essex held the command, the parliamentary forces underwent a succession of sliameful disasters ; but in the north the victory of Marston Moor fully compensated for all that had been lost elsewhere. That vic- tory was not a more serious blow to the Royalists than to the party which had hitherto been dominant at Westminster ; for it was notorious that the day, disgracefully lost by the Presby- terians, had been retrieved by the energy of Cromwell, and by the steady valour of the warriors whom he had trained. 116 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. These events produced the Selfdenyiug Ordinance and the new model of the army. Under decorous pretexts, and with every mark of respect, Essex and most of those who had held high posts under him were removed ; and the conduct of the war was intrusted to very different hands. Fairfax, a brave soldier, but of mean understanding and irresolute temper, was the nominal Lord General of the forces ; but Cromwell was their real head. Cromwell made haste to organise the whole army on the same principles on which he had organised his own regiment. As soon as this process was complete, the event of the war was decided. The Cavaliers had now to encounter natural courage equal to their own, enthusiasm stronger than their own, and discipline such as was utterly wanting to them. It soon became a proverb that the soldiers of Fairfax and Cromwell were men of a different breed from the soldiers of Essex. At Naseby took place the fti'st great encounter between the Royalists and the remodelled army of the Houses. The victory of the Round- heads was complete and decisive. It was followed by other triumphs in rapid succession. In a few months the authority of the Parliament was fully established over the whole king- dom. Charles fled to the Scots, and was by them, in a manner which did not much exalt their national character, delivered up to his English subjects. While the eveiiD of the war was still doubtful, the Houses had put the Primate to death, had interdicted, within the sphere of their authority, the use of the Liturgy, and had required all men to subscribe that renowned instrument known by the name of the Solemn League and Covenant. Covenanting woi-k, as it was called, went on fast. Hundreds of thousands affixed their names to the rolls, and, with hands lifted up towards heaven, swore to endeavour, without respect of persons, the ex- tirpation of Popery and Prelacy, heresy and schism, and to bring to public trial and condign punishment all who should hinder the reformation of religion. When the struggle was over, the work of innovation and revenge was pushed on with increased ardour. The ecclesiastical polity of the kingdom was BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 117 remotlelled. Most of the old clergy were ejected from their benefices. Fines, often of ruinous amount, were laid on the Royalists, already impoverished by large aids furnished to the King. Many estates were confiscated. Many proscribed Cav- aliers found it exfjedient to purchase, at an enormous cost, the protection of eminent members of the victorious party. Large domains, belonging to the crown, to the bishops, and to the chapters, were seized, and either granted away or put up to auction. "In consequence these spoliations, a great part of the soil of England was at once offered for sale. As money was scarce, as the market was glutted, as the title was insecure, and as the awe inspired by powerful bidders prevented free competition, the prices were often merely nominal. Thus many old and honourable families disappeared and were heard of no more ; and many new men rose rapidly to affluence. But, while the Houses were employing their authority thus, it suddenly passed out of their hands. It had been obtained by calling into existence a power which could not be controlled. In the summer of 1647, about twelve months after the last for- tress of the Cavaliers had submitted to the Parliament, the Parliament was compelled to submit to its own soldiers. Thirteen years followed, during which England was, under various names and forms, really governed by the sword. Never before that time, or since that time, was the civil power in our country subjected to military dictation. The army which now became supreme in the state was an army very different from any that has since been seen among us. At present the pay of the common soldier is not such as can seduce any but the humblest class of English labourers from their calling. A barrier almost impassable separates him from the commissioned officer. The great majority of those who rise high in the service rise by purchase. So numerous and extensive are the remote dependencies of England, that every man who enlists in the line must expect to pass many years in exile, and some years in climates unfavourable to the health and vigour of the European race. The army of the Long Parliament was raised for home service. The pay of '» 118 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. the private soldier was much above the wages earned by the great body of the people ; and, if he distinguished himself by intelligence and courage, he might hope to attain high com- mands. The ranks were accordingly composed of persons superior in station and education to the multitude. These per- sons, sober, moral, diligent, and accustomed to reflect, had been induced to take up arms, not by the pressure of want, not by the love of novelty and license, not by the arts of recruiting officers, but by religious and political zeal, mingled with the desire of distinction and promotion. The boast of the soldiers, as we find it recorded in their solemn resolutions, was that they had not been forced into the service, nor had enlisted chiefly for the sake of lucre, that they were no janissaries, but freeborn Englishmen, who had, of their own accord, put their lives in jeopardy for the liberties and religion of England, and whose right and duty it was to watch over the welfare of the nation which they had saved. A force thus composed might, without injury to its eflliciency, be indulged in some liberties fvhich, if allowed to any other troops, would have proved subversive of all discipline. In gen- eral, soldiers who should form themselves into political clubs, elect delegates, and pass resolutions on high questions of state, would soon break loose from all control, would cease to form an army, and would become the worst and most dangerous of mobs. Nor would it be safe, in our time, to tolerate in any regiment religious meetings, at which a corporal versed in Scripture should lead the devotions of his less gifted colonel, and admon- ish a backsliding major. But such was the intelligence, the gravity, and the selfcommand of the warriors whom Cromwell had trained, that in their camp a political organisation and a religious organisation could exist without destroying military organisation. The same men, who, off duty, were noted as demagogues and field preachers, were distinguished by steadi- ness, by the spirit of order, and by prompt obedience on watch; on drill, and on the field of battle. In war this strange force was irresistible. The stubborn courage characteristic of the English people was, by the system BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 119 of Cromwell, at once regulated and stimulated. Other leaders have maintained orders as strict. Other leaders have inspired their followers with zeal as ardent. But in his camp alone the most rigid discipline was found in company with the fiercest en- thusiasm. His troops moved to victory with the precision of machines, while burning with the wildest fanaticism of Crusad- ers. From the time when the army was remodelled to the time when it was disbanded, it never found, either in the British islands or on the Continent, an enemy who could stand its onset. In England, Scotland, Ireland, Flanders, the Puritan warriors, often surrounded by dilFiculties, sometmies contending against threefold odds, not only never failed to conquer, but never failed to destroy and break in pieces whatever force was opposed to them. They at length came to regard the day of battle as a day of certain triumph, and marched against the most renowned battalions of Europe with disdainful confidence. Turenne was startled by the shout of stern exultation with which hie English allies advanced to the combat, and expressed the delight of a true soldier, when he learned that it was ever the fashion of Cromwell's pikemen to rejoice greatly when they beheld the enemy ; and the banished Cavaliers felt an emotion of national pride, when they saw a brigade of their countrymen, outnumbered by foes and abandoned by friends, drive before it in headlong rout the finest infantry of Spain, and force a pas- sage into a counterscarp which had just been pronounced im- pregnable by the ablest of the Marshals of France. But that which chiefly distinguished the army of Cromwell from other armies was the austere morality and the fear of God which pervaded all ranks. It is acknowledged by the most zealous Royalists that, in that singular camp, no oath was heard, no drunkenness or gambling was seen, and that, during the long dominion of the soldiery, the property of the peaceable citizen and the honour of woman were held sacred. If outrages were committed, they were outrages of a very different kind from those of which a victorious army is generally guilty. No ser- vant girl comj)lained of the rough gallantry of the redcoats. Not an ounce of plate was taken from the shops of the goldsmiths. 120 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. But a Pelagian sermon, or a window on which the Virgin and Child were painted, j^roduced in tlie Puritan ranks an excite- ment which it required the utmost exertions of the officers to quell. One of Cromwell's chief difficulties was to restrain his musketeers and dragoons from invading by main force the pul- pits of ministers whose discourses, to use the language of that time, were not savoury ; and too many of our cathedrals still bear the marks of the hatred with which those stern spirits re- garded every vestige of Popery. To keep down the English people was no light task even for that army. No sooner was the first pressure of military tyranny felt, than the nation, unbroken to such servitude, began to struggle fiercely. Insurrections broke out even in those counties which, during the recent war, had been the most sub- missive to the Parliament. Indeed, the Parliament itself ab- horred its old defenders niore than its old enemies, and was der sirous to come to terms of accommodation with Charles at the expense of the troops. In Scotland at the same time, a coali- tion was formed between the Royalists and a large body of Presbyterians who regarded the doctrines of the Independents tvith detestation. At length the storm burst. There were ris- ings in Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Kent, "Wales. The fleet in the Thames suddenly hoisted the royal colours, stood out to sea, and menaced the southern coast. A great Scottish force crossed the frontier and advanced into Lancashire. It misht well be sus- pected that these movements were contemplated with secret com- placency by a majority both of the Lords and of the Commons. But the yoke of the army was not to be so shaken off. While Fairfax suppressed the risings in the neighbourhood of the capital, Oliver routed the Welsh insurgents, and, leaving their castles in ruins, marched against the Scots. His troops were few, when compared with the invaders ; but he was little in the habit of counting his enemies. The Scottish army was utterly destroyed. A change in the Scottish government fol- lowed. An administration, hostile to the King, was formed at Edinburgh ; and Cromwell, more than ever the darling of his soldiers, returned in triumph to Loudon. BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 121 And now a design, to which, at the commencement of the civil war, no man would have dared to allude, and which was not less inconsistent with the Solemn League and Covenant than with the old law of England, began to take a distinct form. The austere warriors who ruled the nation had, during some months, meditated a fearful vengeance on the captive King. When and how the scheme originated ; whether it spread from the general to the ranks, or from the ranks to the general ; whether it is to be ascribed to policy using fanaticism as a tool, or to fanaticism bearing down policy with headlong impulse, are questions which, even at this day, cannot be answered with per- fect confidence. It seems, however, on the whole, probable that he who seemed to lead was really forced to follow, and that, on this occasion, as on another great occasion a few years later, he sacrificed his own judgment and his own inclinations to the wishes of the army. For the power which he had called into existence was a power which even he could not always control ; and, that he might ordinarily command, it was necessary that he should sometimes obey. He publicly protested that he was no mover in the matter, that the first steps had been taken with- out his privity, that he could not advise the Parliament to strike the blow, but that he submitted his own feelings to the force of circumstances which seemed to him to indicate the purposes of Providence. It Ji is been the fashion to consider these profes- sions as instances of the hypocrisy which is vulgarly imputed to him. But even those who pronounce him a hypocrite will scarcely venture to call him a fool. Tliey are therefore bound to show that he had some purpose to serve by secretly stimula- ting the army to take that course which he did not venture openly to recommend. It would be absurd to suppose that he who was never by his respectable enemies represented as wan- tonly cruel or implacably vindictive, would have taken the most important step of his life under the influence of mere malevolence. He was far too wise a man not to know, when he consented to shed that august blood, that he was doing a deed which was inexpiable, and which would move the grief and horror, not only of the Royalists, but of nine tenths of those who had stood 122 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. by the Parliament. Whatever visions may have deluded others, he was assuredly dreaming neither of a republic on the antique pattern, nor of the millennial reign of the Saints. If he already aspired to be himself the founder of a new dynasty, it was plain that Charles the First was a less formidable competitor than Charles the Second would be. At the moment of the death of Charles the First the loyalty of every Cavalier would be trans- ferred, unimpaired, to Charles the Second. Charles the First was a captive : Charles the Second would be at liberty. Charles the First was an object of suspicion and dislike to a large pro> portion of those who yet shuddered at the thought of slaying him : Charles the Second would excite all the interest which belongs lo distressed youth and innocence. It is impossible to believe that considerations so obvious, and so important, es- caped the most'profound politician of that age. The truth is that Cromwell had, at one time, meant to mediate between the throne and the Parliament, and fco reorganise the distracted State by the power of the sword, imder the sanction of the royal name. In this design he persisted till he was compelled to abandon it by the refractory temper of the soldiers, and by the incurable duplicity of the King. A party in the camp began to clamour for the head of the traitor, who was for treating with Agag. Conspiracies were formed. Threats of impeachment were loudly uttered. A mutiny broke out, which all the vigour and resolution of Oliver could hardly quell. And though, by a judicious mixture of severity and kindness, he succeeded in restoring order, he saw that it would be in the highest degree dif- ficult and perilous to contend against the rage of warriors, who regarded the fallen tyrant as their foe, and as the foe of their God. At the same time it became more evident than ever that the King could not be trusted. The vices of Charles had grown upon him. They were, indeed, vices which difficulties and per- plexities generally bring out in the strongest light. Cunning is the natural defence of the weak. A prince, therefore, who is habitually a deceiver when at the height of power, is not likely to learn frankness in the midst of embarrassments and distresses. Charles was not only a most unscrupulous but a most unlucky BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 123 dissembler. There never was a politician to whom so mahy frauds and falsehoods were brought home by undeniable evidence. He publicly recognised the Houses at Westminster as a legal Parliament, and, at the same time, made a private minute in council declaring the recognition null. He publicly disclaimed ■all thought of calling in foreign aid against his peo^jle : he pri- vately solicited aid from France, from Denmark, and from Lor- raine. He publicly denied that he employed Papists : at the same time he privately sent to his generals directions to employ every Papist that would serve. He publicly took the sacrament at Oxford, as a pledge that he never would even connive at Popery. He privately assured h*is wife, that he intended to tolerate Popery in England ; and he authorised Lord Glamor- gan to promise that Popery should be established in Ireland. Then he attempted to clear himself at his agent's expense. Glamorgan received, in the Royal handwriting, reprimands hitended to be read by others, and eulogies which were to be seen only by himself. To such an extent, indeed, had insincerity now tainted the King's whole nature, that his most devoted friends could not refrain from complaining to each other^ with bitter grief and shame, of his crooked politics. His defeats, they said, gave them less pain than his intrigues. Since he had been a prisoner, there was no section of the victorious party -lyhich had not been the object both of his flatteries and of his machinations ; but never was he more unfortunate than when he attempted at once to cajole and to undermine Cromwell. Cromwell had to determine whether he would put to hazard the attachment of his party, the attachment of his army, his own greatness, nay his own life, in an attempt which would probably have been vain, to save a prince whom no engagement could bind. With many struggles and misgivings, and probably not without many prayers, the decision was made. Charles was left to his fate. The military saints resolved that, in defiance of the old laws of the realm, and of the almost universal senti- ment of the nation, the King should expiate his crimes with his blood. He for a time expected a death lik^ that of his unhappy predecessors, Edward the Second and Richard the Second. But 224 J^ISTORT OF ENGLAND. h'fe was in no danger of such treason. Those who had him in their gripe were not midnight slabbers. What they did they did in order thai it might be a spectacle to heaven and earth, and that it might be held in everlasting remembrance. They enjoyed keenly the very scandal which they gave. That the ancient constitution and the public opinion of England were directly opposed to regicide made i-egicide seem strangely fascina- ting to a party bent on effecting a, complete political and social revolution. In order to accomplish their purpose, it was neces^ sary that they should first break in pieces every part of the machinery df the government ; and this necessity was rather agreeable than painful to them. The Commons passed a vote tending to accommodation with the King. The soldiers ex- cluded the majority by force. The Lords unanimously rejected the proposition that the King should be brought to trial. Their house was instantly closed. No court, known to the law, would take on itself the office of judging the fountain of justice. A revolutionary tribunal was created. That tribunal pronounced Charles a tyrant, a traitor, a murderer, and a ^mblic enemy ; and his head was severed from his shoulders, before thousands of spectators, in front of the banqueting hall of his own palace. In no long time it became manifest that those political and religious zealots, to whom this deed is to be ascribed, had committed, not only a crime, but an error. They had given to a prince, hitherto known to his people chiefly by his faults, an opportunity of displaying, on a great theatre, before the eyes of all nations and all ages, some qualities which irresistibly call forth the admiration and love of mankind, the high spirit of a gallant gentleman, the patience and meekness of a penitent Christian. Nay, they had so contrived their revenge that the very man whose life had been a series of attacks on the liberties of England now seemed to die a martyr in the cause of those liberties. No demagogue ever produced such an impression on the public mind as the captive King, who, retaining in that extremity all his regal dignity, and cpnfronting death with dauntless courage, gave utterance to the feelings of his oppressed people, manfully refused to plead before a court unknown to BEFORE THK RESTORATION. 125 the law, appealed from military violence to the principles of the constitution, asked by what right the House of> Commons had been purged of its most respectable members and the House of Lords deprived of its legislative functions, and told liis weeping hearers that he was defending, not only his own cause, but theirs. His long misgovernment, his iimumerable perfidies, were forgotten. His memory was, in the minds of the great majority of his subjects, associated with those free institutions which he had, during many years, laboured to destroy : for those free institiitions had perished with him, and, amidst the mournful silence of a community kept down by arms, had been defended by his voice alone. From that day began a reaction in favour of monarchy and of the exiled house, a reaction which never ceased till the throne had again been set up in all its old dignity. At first, however, the slayers of the King seemed to have derived new energy from that sacrament of blood by which they had bound themselves closely together, and separated themselves for ever from the great body of their countrymen. England was declared a commonwealth. The House of Com- mons, reduced to a small number of members, was nominally the supreme jDower in the state. In fact, the army and its great chief governed everything. Oliver had made his choice. He had kept the hearts of his soldiers, and had broken with almost every other class of his fellow citizens. Beyond the limits of his camps and fortresses he could scarcely be said to have a party. Those elements of force which, when the civil war broke out, had appeared arrayed against each otheV, were combined against him ; all the Cavaliers, the great majority of the Roundheads, the Anglican Church, the Presbyterian Church, the Roman Catholic Church, England, Scotland, Ireland. Yet such was Ills genius and resolution that he was able to over- power and crush everything that crossed his path, to make himself more absolute master of his country than any of her legitimate Kings had been, and to make his country more dreaded and respected than she had been during many genera- tions under the rule of her legitimate Kings. 126 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. i England had already ceased to struggle. But the two other kingdoms which had been governed by the Stuarts were hostile to the new republic. The Independent party was equally odious to the Roman Catholics of Ireland and to the Presbyterians of Scotland. Both those countries, lately in rebellion against Charles the First, now acknowledged the authority of Charles the Second. But everything yielded to the vigour and ability of Crom- well. In a few months he subjugated Ireland, as Ireland had never been subjugated during the five centuries of slaughter which had elapsed since the landing of the first Norman settlers. He resolved to put an end to that conflict of races and religions which had so long distracted the island, by making the English and Protestant population decidedly predominant. For this end he gave the rein to the fierce enthusiasm of his followers, waged war resembling tliat which Israel waged on the Canaanites, smote the idolaters with the edge of tlie sword, so that great cities were left without inhabitants, drove many thousands to the Continent, shipped off many thousands to the West Indies, and supplied the void thus made by pouring in numerous colonists, of Saxon blood, and of Calvinistic faith. Strange to say, under that iron rule, the conquered country began to wear an outward face of prosperity. Districts, which had recently been as wild as those where the first white settlers of Connecticut were contending with the red men, were in a few years transformed into the likeness of Kent and Norfolk. New buildings, roads, and plantations were everywher« seen. The r*nt of estates rose fast ; and soon the English landowners began to complain that they were met in every market by the products of Ireland, and to clamour for protecting laws. From Ireland the victorious chief, who was now in name, as he had long been in reality. Lord General of the armies of the Commonwealth, turned to Scotland. The Youns KinffM-as there. ,He had consented to profess himself a Presbyterian, and to subscribe the Covenant ; and, in return for these con- cessions, the austere Puritans who bore sway at Edinburgh had permitted him to assume the crown, and to hold, under their BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 127 inspection and control, a solemn and melancholy court. This mock royalty was of short duration. In two great battles Cromwell annihilated the military force of Scotland. Charles fled for his life, and, with extreme difficulty, escaped the fate of his father. The ancient kingdom of the Stuarts was reduced, for the first time, to profound submission. Of that independ- ence, so manfully defended against the mightiest and ablest of the Plantagenets, no vestige was left. The English Parliament made laws for Scotland. English judges held assizes in Scot- land. Even that stubborn Church, which has held its own against so many governments, scarce dared to utter an audible murmur. Thus far there had been at least the semblance of harmony be- tween the warriors who had subjugated Ireland and Scotland and the politicians who sate at Westminster : but the alliance which had been cemented by danger was dissolved by victory. The Parliament forgot that it was but tb.e creature of the army. The army was less disposed than ever to submit to the dictation of the Parliament. Indeed the few members who made up what was contemptuously called the Rump of the House of Commons had no more claim than the military chiefs to be esteemed the rep- resentatives of the nation. The dispute was soon brought to a decisive issue. Cromwell filled the House with armed men. The Speaker was pulled out of his chair, the mace taken from the table, the room cleared, and the door locked. The nation, which loved neither of the contending parties, but which was forced, in its own despite, to respect the capacity and resolution of the General, looked ou with patience, if not with complacency. King, Lords, and Commons, had now in turn been van- quished and destroyed ; and Cromwell seemed to be left the sole heir of the powers of all three. Yet were certain limitations still imposed on him by the very army to which he owed his immense authority. That singular body of men was, for the most part, composed of zealous republicans. In the act of enslaving their country, they had deceived themselves into the belief that they were emancipating her. The book which they most venerated furnished them with a precedent which was 128 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. frequently in their mouths. It was true that the ignorant and ungrateful nation murmured against its deliverers. Even so had another chosen nation murmured against the leader who brought it, by painful and dreary paths, from the house of bondage to the land flowing with milk and honey. Yet had that leader rescued his brethren in spite of themselves ; nor had he shrunk from making terrible examples of those who con- tenined the proffered freedom, and pined for the fleshpots, the taskmasters, and the idolatries of Egypt. The object of the warlike saints who surrounded Cromwell was the settlement of a free and pious commonwealth. For that end they were ready to employ, without scruple, any means, however violent and lawless. It was not impossible, therefore, to establish by their aid a dictatorship such as no King had ever exercised : but it was probable that their aid would be at once withdrawn from a ruler who, even under strict constitutional restraints, should venture to assume the kingly name and dignity. The sentiments of Cromwell were widely different. He was not what he had been ; nor would it be just to consider the change which his views had undergone as the effect merely of selfish ambition. He had, when he came up to the Long Pai'liament, brought with him from his rural retreat little knowledge of books, no experience of great affairs, and a tem- per galled by the long tyranny of the government and of the hierarchy. He had, during the thirteen years which followed, gone through a political education of no common kind. He had been a chief actor in a succession of revolutions. He had been long the soul, and at last the head, of a party. He had commanded armies, won battles, negotiated treaties, subdued, pacified, and regulated kingdoms. It would have been strange indeed if his notions had been still the same as in the days when his mind was principally occupied by his fields and his religion, and when the greatest events which diversified the course of his life were a cattle fair or a prayer meeting at Huntingdon. He saw that some schemes of innovation for which he had once been zealous, whether good or bad in themselves, were oj^posed to the general feeling of the country, and that, if he persevered BEFORK THE RESTORATION. 129 in those schemes, he had uothiiig before him but constant trouUcG, which must be suppressed by the constant use of the sword. He therefore wished to restore, in all essentials, that ancient constitution which the majority of the people had always loved, and for which they now pined. The course afterwards taken by Monk was not open to Cromwell. The memory of one terrible day separated the great regicide for ever from the House of S^trart. What remained was that he should mount the ancient English throne, and reign according to the ancient English polity. If he could effect this, he might hope that the wounds of the lacerated State would heal fast. Great nunabers of honest and quiet mon would speedily rally round him. Those Royalists whose attachment was rather to institutions than to persons, to the kingly office than to King Charles the First or King Charles the Secmd, would soon kiss the hand of King Oliver. The 23eers, who now remained sullenly at their country houses, and refused to take any part in public affairs, would, when summoned to their House by the writ of a King in pos- session, gladly resume their ancient functions. Northumlxr- land and Bedford, Manchester and Pembroke, would be prouct to bear the crown and the spurs, the sceptre and the globe, before the restorer of ai'istocracy. A sentiment of loyalty would gradu.dly bind the people to the new dynasty ; and, on the decease of the founder of that dynasty, the royal dignity might descend with general acquiescence to his posterity. The ablest Royalists were of opinion that these views were correct, and that, if Cromwell had been permitted to follow his own judgment, the exiled line would never have been re- stored But his plan was directly opposed to the feelings of the only class which he dared not offend. The name of King was hateful to the soldiers. Some of them were indeed unwilling to see the administration in the hands of any single person. The great majority, however, were disposed to sup- port their general, as elective first magistrate of a common- wealth, against all factions which might resist his authority : but they would not consent that he should assume the regal title, or that the dignity, which was the just reward of his per- 130 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. sonal merit, should be declared hereditary in his famih^ Ali that was left to him was to give to the new republic a constitu- tion as like the constitution of the old monarchy as the army would bear. That his elevation to power might not seem"to be merely his own act, he convoked a council, composed partly of persons on whose support he could depend, and jjartly of persons whose opposition he might safely defy. Tliis assembly, which he called a Parliament, and which the j^opulace nick- named, from one of the most conspicuous members, Barebones's Parliament, alter exposing itself during a short time to the public contempt, surrendered back to the General the powers which it had received from him, and left him at liberty to frame a plan of government. His plan bore, from the first, a considerable resemblance to the old English" constitution: but, in a few years, he thought it safe to proceed further, and to restore almost every part of the ancient system under new names and forms. The title of King was not revived ; but the kingly prerogatives were in- trusted to a Lord Hicjh Protector. The sovereign was called not His Majesty, but His Highness. He was not crowned and anointed in Westminster Abbey, but was solemnly enthroned, girt with a sword of state, clad in a robe of purple, and pre- sented with a rich Bible, in Westminster Hall. His office was not declared hereditary : but he was permitted to name his suc- cessor ; and none could doubt that he would name his son. A House of Commons was a necessary part of the new polity. In constituting this body, the Protector showed a wisdom and a public spirit which were not duly appreciated by his contemporaries. The vices of the old representative sys- tem, though by no means so serious as they afterwards became, had already been remarked by farsighted men. Cromwell re- formed that system on the same principles on which Mr. Pitt, a hundred and thirty years later, attempted to reform it, and on which it was at length reformed in our own times. Small boroughs were disfranchised even more unsparingly than in 1832 ; and the number of county members was greatly increased. Very few unrepresented towns had yet grown into importance. BEFORK THE RESTORATION 131 Of those towns the most considerable wore Manchester, Leeds, and Halifax. Representatives were given to all three. An addition was made to the number of the members for the capital. The elective franchise was placed on such a footing that every man of substance, whether possesfed of freehold estates in laud or not, had a vote for the courty in which he resided. A few Scotchmen and a few of the English colonists settled in Ireland were summoned to the assembl} which was to legislate, at Westminster, for every part of the Brtish isles. To create a House of Lords was a less easy task. Democ- racy does not require the support of prescription Monarchy has often stood without that support. But a patrician order is the work of time. Oliver found already existing a nobility, opulent, highly considered, and as popular with the i ommonalty as any nobility has- ever been. Had he, as King o.*^ England, commanded the peers to meet him in Parliament according to the old usage of the realm, many of them would undoubtedly have obeyed the call. This he could not do ; :uid it was to no purpose that he offered to the chiefs of illustriou _i.Tiil:es seats in his new senate. They conceived that they could not accept a nomination to an upstart assembly without renouncing their birthright and betraying their order. The Protector was. there- fore, under the necessity of filling his Upper House with new men who, during the late stirring times, had made themselves conspicuous. This was the least happy of his contrivances, and displeased all parties. The Levellers were angry with him for instituting a privileged class. The multitude, which felt re- spect and fondness for the great historical names of the land- laughed without restraint at a House of Lords, in which lucky draymen and shoemakers were seated, to which few of the old nobles were invited, and from which almost all those old noble? who were invited turned disdainfully away. How Oliver's Parliaments were constituted, however, was practically of little moment : for he possessed the means of conducting the administration without their support, and in de- fiance of their opposition. His wish seems to have been to govern constitutionally, and to substitute the empire of the laws for that / 132 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. of the sword. But he soon fomid that, hated as he was, both by Royalists and Presbyterians, he could be safe only by being ab- solute. The first House of Commons which the people elected by his command, questioned his authority, and was dissolved Avitliout having passed a single act. His second House of Commons, though it recognised him as Protector, and would gladly have made him King, obstinately refused to acknowledge his new Lords. He had no course left but to dissolve the Parliament. " God," he exclaimed, at parting, " be judge between you and me ! " Yet was the energy of the Protector's administration in no- wise relaxed by these dissensions. Those soldiers who would not suffer him to assume the kingly title stood by him when he ventured on acts of power, as high as any English King has ever attempted. The government, therefore, though in form a republic, was in truth a despotism, moderated only by the wis- dom, the sobriety, and the magnanimity of the despot. The country was divided into military districts. Those districts were placed undp- the command of Major Generals. Every insur- rectionary m.jvement was promptly j^ut down and punished. The fear inspn'ed by the power of the sword, in so strong, steady, and expert a hand, quelled the spirit both of Cavaliers and Levellers. The loyal gentry declared that they were still as ready as ever to risk their lives for the old government and the old dynasty, if there were the slightest hope of success : but to rush, at the head of their serving men and tenants, on the pikes of brigades victorious in a hundred battles and sieges, would be a frantic waste of innocent and honourable blood. Both Royal- ists and Republicans, having no hope in open resistance, began to revolve dark schemes of assassination : but the Protector's intelligence was good: his vigilance was unremitting ; and, when- ever he moved beyond the walls of his palace, the drawn swords and cuirasses of his trusty bodyguards encompassed him thick an every side. Had he been a cruel, licentious, and rapacious prince, the nation might have found courage in despair, and might have made a convulsive effort to free itself from military domination. BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 133 But the grievances which the country suffered, though such as excited serious discontent, were by no means such as impel great masses of men to stake their lives, their fortunes, and the wel- fare of their families against fearful odds. The taxation, though heavier than it had been under the Stuarts, was not heavy when compared with that of the neighbouring states and with, the re- sjurces of England. Property was secure. Even the Cavalier, who refrained from giving disturbance to the new settlement, en- joyed in peace whatever the civil troubles had left him. The laws were violated only in cases where the safety of the Protec- tor's person and government was concerned. Justice was adminis- tered between man and man with an exactness and purity not before known. Under no English government since the Ref- ormation, had thei-e been so little religious persecution. The unfortunate Roman Catholics, indeed, were held to be scarcely within the pale of Christian charity. But the clergy of the fallen Anglican Church were suffered to celebrate their worship on condition that they would abstain from preaching about poli- tics. Even the Jews, whose public worship had, ever since the thirteenth century, been interdicted, were, in spite of the strong opposition of jealous traders and fanatical theologians, permit- ted to build a synagogue in London. The Protector's foreign policy at the same time extorted the ungracious approbation of those who most detested him. The Cavaliers could scarcely refrain from wishing that one who had done so much to raise the fame of the nation had been a legitimate King ; and the Republicans were forced to own that the tyrant suffered none but himself to wrong his country, and that, if he had robbed her of liberty, he had at least given her glory in exchange. After half a century during which England had been of scarcely more weight in European politics than Venice or Saxony, she at once became the most formidable power in the world, dictated terms of peace to the United Provinces, avenged the common injuries of Christendom on the pirates of Barbary, vanquished the Spaniards by land and sea, seized one of the finest West Indian islands, and acquired on the Flemish coast a fortress which consoled the 134 illSTORY OF ENGLAND. national pride for tvje loss of Calais. She was supreme on the ocean. She was the head of the Protestant interest. All the reformed Churches scattered over Roman Catholic kingdoms acknowledged Cromwell as their guardian. The Huguenots of Languedoc, the shepherds who, in the hamlets of the Alps, professed a Protestantism older than that of Augsburg, were secured from oppression by the mere terror of his great name. The Pope himself was forced to preach humanity and modera- tion to Popish princes. For a voice which seldom threatened in vain had declared that, unless favour were shown to the people of God, the English guns should be heard in the Castle of Saint Angelo. In truth, there was notliing which Cromwell had, for his own sake and that of his family, so much reason to desire as a general religious war in Europe. In such a war he must have been the captain of the Protestant armies. The heart of England would liave been with him. His victories would have been hailetl with an unanimous enthusiasm unknown in the country since the rout of the Armada, and would have effaced the stain which one act, condemned by the general voice of the nation, has left on his splendid fame. Unhappily for him he had no opportunity of displaying his admirable military talents, except against the inhabitants of the British isles. While he lived his power stood firm, an object of mingled aversion, admiration, and dread to his subjects. Few indeed loved his government; but those who hated it most hated it. less than they feared it. Had it been a worse government, it might perhaps have been overthrown in spite of all its strength. Had it been a weaker government, it would certainly have been overthrown in spite of all its merits. But it had modera- tion enough to abstain from those oppressions which drive men mad ; and it had a force and energy which none but men driven mad by oppression would venture to encounter. It has often been affirmed, but with little reason, that Oliver died at a time fortunate for his renown, and that, if his life had been prolonged, it would probably have closed amidst disgraces and disasters. It is^ certain that he was, to the last, BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 135 honoured by his soldiers, obeyed by the whole population of the British islands, and dreaded by all foreign powers, that he was laid among the ancient sovereigns of England with funeral pomp such as London had never before seen, and that he was succeeded by his son Richard as quietly as any King had ever been succeeded by any Priuce of Wales. During five months, the administration of Richard Crom- well went on so tranquilly and regularly that all Europe believed him to be firmly established on the chair of state. In truth his situation was in some respects much more advanta- geous than that of his father. The young man had made no enemy. His hands were unstained by civil blood. The Cav- aliers themselves allowed him to be an honest, good-natured gentleman. The Presbyterian party, powerful both in numbers and in wealth, had been at deadly feud with the late" Protector, but was disposed to regard the present Protector with favour. That party had always been desirous to see the old civil polity of the realm restored with some clearer definitions and some stronger safeguards for public liberty, but had many reasons for dreading the restoration of the old family. Richard was the very man for politicians of this description. His humanity, ingenuousness, and modesty, the mediocrity of his abilities, and the docility with which he submitted to the guidance of persons wiser than himself, admirably qualified him to be the head of a limited monarchy. For a time it seemed highly probable that he would, under the direction of able advisers, effect what his father had at- tempted in vain. A Parliament was called, and the writs were directed after the old fashion. The small boroughs which had recently been disfranchised regained their lost privilege : Man- chester, Leeds, and Halifax ceased to return members ; and the county of York was again limited to two knights. It may seem strange to a generation which has been excited almost to madness by the question of parliamentary reform that great shires and towns sho; .d have submitted with patience, and men with complacency, to this change : but though speculative ■«en might, even m that age, discern the vices of the old repre- 136 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Bentative system, and predict that those vices would, sooner oi later, produce serious practical evil, the practical evil had not yet been felt. Oliver's representative system, on the other hand, though constructed on sound principles, was not popular. Both the events in which it originated, and the effects which it had produced, prejudiced men against it. It had sprung from military violence. It had been fruitful of nothing .but disputes. The whole nation was sick of government by the sword, and pined for government by the law. The restoration, therefore, even of anomalies and abuses, which were in strict conformity with the law, and which had been destroyed by the sword, gave general satisfaction. Among the Commons there was a strong opposition, con- sisting partly of avowed Republicans, and partly of concealed Royalists : but a large and steady majority appeared to be favourable to the plan of reviving the old civil constitution under a new dynasty. Richard was solemnly recognised as first magistrate. The Commons not only consented to transact business with Oliver's Lords, but passed a vote acknowledging the right of those nobles who had, in the late troubles, taken the side of public liberty, to sit in the Upper House of Parlia- ment without any new creation. Thus far the statesmen by whose advice Richard acted had been successful. Almost all the parts of the govei'nment were now constituted as they had been constituted at the commence- ment of the civil war. Had the Protector and the Parliament been suffered to proceed undisturbed, there can be little doubt that an order of things similar to that which was afterwards established under the House of Hanover would have been established under the House of Cromwell. But there was in the state a power more than sufficient to deal with Protector and Parliament together. Over the soldiers Richard had no authority except that which he derived from the great name which he had inherited. He had never led them to victory. He had never even borne arms. All his tastes and habits were pacific. Nor were his opinions and feelings on religious sub- jects approved by the military saints. That he was a goo(j BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 137 mau he evinced by proofs more satisfactory than deep groans or long sermons, by humility and suavity when he was at the height of human greatness, and by cheerful resignation under cruel wrongs and misfortunes : but the cant then common iu every guardroom gave him a disgust which he had not always the prudence to conceal. The officers who had the principal influence among the troops stationed near London were not his friends. They were men distinguished by valour and con- duct in the field, but destitute of the wisdom and civil courage which had been conspicuous in their deceased leader. Some oi them were honest, but fanatical, Independents and Republicans. Of this class Fleetwood was the representative. Others were impatient to be what Oliver had been. His rapid elevation, his prosperity and glory, his inauguration in the Hall, and his gorgeous obsequies in the Abbey, had inflamed their imagina- tion. They were as well born as he, and as well educated : they could not understand why they were not as worthy to wear the purple robe, and to wield the sword of state ; and they pursued the objects of their wild ambition, not, like him, with patience, vigilance, sagacity, and determination, but with the restlessness and irresolution characteristic of aspiring medi- ocrity. Among these feeble copies of a great original the most conspicuous was Lambert. On the very day of Richard's accession the officers began to conspire against their new master. The good understanding which existed between him and his Parliament hastened the crisis. Alarm and- resentment spread through the camp. Both the religious and the i3rofessional feelings of the army were deeply wounded. It seemed that the Independents wer-e to be subjected to the Presbyterians, and that the men of the sword were to be subjected to the men of the gown. A coalition was formed between the military malecontents and the republican minority of the House of Commons. It may well be doubted whether Richard could have triumphed over that coalition, even if he had inherited his father's clear judgment and iron courage. It is certain that simplicity and meekness like his were not the qualities which the conjuncture required. He fell ingloriously, 138 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. and without a struggle. He was used by the army as an in- strument for the purpose of dissolving the Parliament, and was then contemptuously thrown aside. The officers gratified their republican allies by declaring that the expulsion of the Rump had been illegal, and by inviting that assembly to resume its functions. The old Speaker and a quorum of the old mem- bers came together, and were proclaimed, amidst the scarcely stifled derision and execration of the whole nation, the supreme power in the commonwealth. It was at the same time ex- pressly declared that there should be no first magistrate, and no House of Lords. But this state of things could not last. On the day on which the long Parliament revived, revived also its old quarrel with the army. Again the Rump forgot that it owed its existence to the pleasure of the soldiers, and be ^an to treat them as subjects. Again the doors of the House of Commons were closed by mil- itary violence ; and a provisional government, named by the offi- cers, assumed the direction of affairs. Meanwhile the sense of great evils, and the strong apprehen- sion of still greater evils close at hand, b.ad at length produced an alliance between the Cavaliers and the Presbyterians. Some Presbyterians had, indeed, been disposed to such an alliance even before the death of Charles the First : but it was not till after the fall of Richard Cromwell that the whole party became eager for the restoration of the royal house. There was no longer any reasonable hope that the old constitution could be reestablished under a new dynasty. One clioice only was left, the Stuarts or the army. The banished family had committed great faults ; but it ha'd dearly expiated those faults, and had undergone a long, and, it might be hoped, a salutary training in the school of ad- versity. It was probable that Charles the Second would take warning by the fate of Charles the First. But, be this as it might, the dangers which threatened the country were such that, in order to avert them, some opinions might well be comjjro- mised, and some risks mi<;ht well be incurre J. It seemed but too likely that England would fall under the most odious and degrading of all kinds of government, under agovernment uniting BEFORE THE RESTORATION. 139 all the evils of despotism to all the evils of anarchy. Anything was preferable to the yoke of a succession of incapable and inglo- rious tyrants, raised to power, like the Deys of Barbary, by mil- itary revolutions recurring at short intervals. Lambert seemed likely to be the first of these rulers ; but within a year Lambert might give place to Desborough, and Desborough to Harrison. As often as the truncheon was transferred from one feeble hand to another, the nation would be pillaged for the purpose of be- stowing a fresh donative on the troops. If the Presbyterians obstinately stood aloof from the Royalists, the state was lost ; and men might well doubt whether, by the combined exertions of Presbyterians and Royalists, it could be saved. Eor the dread of that invincible army was on all the inhabi*;:uits of the island ; and the Cavaliers, taught by a hundred disastrous fields how little numbers can effect against discipline, were even more com- pletely cowed than the Roundheads. While the soldiers remained united, all the plots and risings of the malecontents were ineffectual. But a few days after the 'second expulsion of the Rump, came tidings which gladdened the hearts of all who were attached either to monarchy or to lib- erty. That mighty force which had, during many years, acted as one man, and which, while so acting, had beeij found irresisti- ble, was at length divided againsc itself. The army of Scotland had done cood service to the Commonwealth, and was in the highest state of efficiency. It had borne no part in the late i ev- olutions, and had seen them with indignation resembling the indignation which the Roman legions posted on the Danube and the Euphrates felt, when they learned that the empire had been put up to sale by the Prastorian Guards, It was intolerable tliat certain regiments shouid, merely because they happened to be quartered near Westminster, take on themselves to make and un- make several governments in the course of half a year. If it were fit that the state should be reo;ulated bv the soldiers, those soldiers who upheld the English ascendency on the north of the Tweed were as well entitled to a voice as those who garri- soned the Tower of London. There appears to have been less fanaticism among the troops stationed in Scotland than in any 140 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Other part of the army ; and their general, George Monk, was himself the very opposite of a zealot. He had at the com- mencement of the civil war, borne arms for the King, had been made prisoner by the Roundheads, had then accepted a commis- sion from the Parliament, and, with very slender pretensions to saintship, had raised himself to high commands by his courage and professional skill. He had been an useful servant to both the Protectors, and had quietly acquiesced when the officers at Westminster had pulled down Richard and restored the Long Parliament, and would perhaps have acquiesced as quietly in the second exjiulsion of the Long Parliament, if the provis- ional government had abstained from giving him cause of offence and apprehCiJ-'^ion. For his nature was cautious and some- what sluggish ; nor was he at all disposed to hazai'd sure and moderate advantages for the chance of obtaining even the most splendid success. He seems to have been impelled to attack the new rulers of the Commonwealth less by the hope that, if he overthrew them, he should become great, than by the fear that, if he submitted to them, he should not even be secure. Whatever were feis motives, he declared himself the cham- pion of the oppressed civil power, refused to acknowledge the usurped authority of the provisional government, and, at the head of seven thousand veterans, marched into England. This step was the signal for a general explosion. The peo- ple everywhere refused to pay taxes. The apprentices of the City assembled by thousands and clamoured for a free Parlia- ment. The fleet sailed up the Thames, and declared against the tyranny of the soldiers. The soldiers, no longer under the control of one commanding mind, separated into factions. Every regiment, afraid lest it should be left alone a mark for the vengeance of the oppressed nation, hastened to make a sep- arate peace. Lambert, who had hastened northward to encoun- ter the army of Scotland, was abandoned by his troops, and be- came a prisoner. Daring thirteen years the civil power had, in every conflict, been compelled to yield to the military power. The military power now humbled itself before the civil power. The Rump, generally hated and despised, but still the only body in BEFORE THE KESTORATION. 141 the country which had auy show of legal authority, returned again to the house from which it had been twice ignominiously expelled. In the mean time Monk was advancing towards London. Wherever he came, the gentry flocked round him, imploring him to use his power for the purpose of restoring peace and liberty to the distracted nation. The General, coldblooded, taciturn, zealous for no polity and for no religion, maintained an impenetrable reserve. What were at this time his plans, and whether he had any plan, may well be doubted. His great object, apparently, was to keep himself, as long as possible, free to choose between several lines of action. Such, indeed, is commonly the policy of men who are, like him, distinguished rather by wariness than by farsightedness. It was probably not till he had been some days in the capital that he had made up his mind. The cry of the whole people was for a free Parlia- ment ; and there could be no doubt that a Parliament really free would instantly restore the exiled family. The Rump and the soldiers were still hostile to the House of Stuart. But the Rump was universally detested and despised. The power of the soldiers was indeed still formidable, but had been greatly diminished by discord. They had no head. They had recently been, in many parts of tbe country, arrayed against each other. On the very day before Monk reached London, theie was a fight in the Strand between the cavalry and the infantry. An united army had long kept down a divided nation ; but the na- tion was now united, and the army was divided. During a short time the dissimulation or irresolution of Monk kept all parties in a state of painful suspense. At length he broke silence, and declared for a free Parliament. As soon as his declaration was known, the whole nation was wild with delight. ' Wherever he appeared thousands thronged around him, shouting and blessing his name. The bells of all England rang joyously : the gutters ran with ale ; and, night after night, the sky five miles round London was reddened by innumerable bonfires. Those Presbyterian mem- bers of the House of Commons who had many years before 142 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. been expelled by the army, I'eturned to their seats, and were hailed with acclamations by great multitudes, which filled Westminster Hall and Palace Yard. The Independent leaders no lonsrer dared to show their faces in the streets, and were scarcely safe within their own dwellings. Temporary provision was made for the government : writs were issued for a general election ; and then that memorable Parliament, which had, in the course of twenty eventful years, experienced every variety of fortune, which had triumphed over its sovereign, which had been enslaved and degraded by its servants, which had been twice ejected and twice restored, solemnly decreed its own dissolu- tion. The result of the elections was such as might have been expected from the temper of the nation. The new House of Commons consisted, with few exceptions, of persons friendly to the royal family. The Presbyterians formed the majority. That there would be a restoration now seemed almost cei'- tain ; but whether there would be a peaceable restoration was matter of painful doubt. The soldiers were in a gloomy and savage mood. They hated the title of King. They hated the name of Stuart. They hated Presbyterianism much, and Prel- acy more. They saw with bitter indignation that the close of their long domination was approaching, and that a life of in- glorious toil and penury was before them. They attributed their ill fortune to the weakness of some generals, and to the treason of others. One hour of their beloved Oliver mi'D 1 ia CHAPTER II. The history of England, during the seventeenth century, is the history of the transformation of a limited monarchy, constituted after the fashion of the middle ages, into a limited monarchy suited to that more advanced state of society in which the pub- lic charges can no longer be borne by the estates of the crown, and in which the public defence can no longer be entrusted to a feudal militia. We have seeu that the politicians who were at the head of tlie Long Pai-liament made, in 1642, a great effort to accomplish this change by transferring, directly and formally, to the estates of the realm the choice of ministers, the command of the army, and the superintendence of the whole executive administration. This scheme was, perhaps, the best that could then be contrived : but it was completely disconcerted by the course which the civil war took. The Houses triumphed, it is true ; but not till after such a struggle as made it necessary for them to call into existence a power which they could not control, and which soon began to domineer over all orders and all par- ties. During a few years, the evils inseparable from military government were, in some degree, mitigated by the wisdom and magnanimity of the great man who held the supreme command. But, when the sword, which he had wielded, with energy indeed, but with energy always guided by good sense and generally tempered by good nature, had passed to captains who possessed neither his abilities nor his virtues, it seemed too probable that order and liberty would perish in one ignominious ruin. That ruin was happily averted. It has been too much the practice of writers zealous for freedom to represent the Restor- ation as a disastrous event, and to condemn the folly or baseness of that Convention, which recalled the royal family without 10 T46 history of ENGLAND. exacting new securities against maladministration. Those who hold this language do not comprehend the real nature of the crisis which followed the deposition of Richard Cromwell. Eng- land was in imminent danger of falling under the tyranny of a succession of small men raised up and pulled down by military caprice. To deliver the country from the domination of the soldiers was the first object of every enlightened patriot : but it was an object which, while the soldiers were united, the most sanguine could scarcely expect to attain. On a sudden a gleam of hope appeared. General was opposed to general, army to army. On the use which might be made of one auspicious moment depended the future destiny of the nation. Our ancestors used that moment well. They forgot old injuries, waved petty scruples, adjourned to a more convenient season all dispute about the reforms which our institutions needed, and stood together, Cavaliers and Roundheads, Episcoi)alians and Presbyterians, in firm union, for the old laws of the land against military despotism. The exact partition of power among King, Lords, and Commons might well be postponed till it had been decided whether England should be governed by King, Lords, and Commons, or by cuirassiers and pikemen. Had the states- men of the Convention taken a different course, had they held long debates on the principles of government, had they drawn up a new constitution and sent it to Charles, had conferences been opened, had couriers been passing and repassing during' some weeks between Westminster and the Netherlands, with projects and counterprojects, replies by Hyde and rejoinders by Prynne, the coalition on which the public safety depended would have been dissolved : the Presbyterians and Royalists would certainly have quarrelled : the military factions might possibly have been reconciled ; and the misjudging friends of liberty might long have regretted, under a rule worse than that of the worst Stuart, the golden opportunity which had been suffered to escape. The old civil polity was, therefore, by the general consent of both the great parties, reestablished. It was again exactly what it had been when Charles the First, eighteen years before, UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 147 withdrew from his capital. All those acts of the Long Parlia- ment which had received the royal assent were admitted to be still in full force. One fresh concession, a concession in which the Cavaliers were even more deeply interested than the Roundheads, was easily obtained from the restored King. The military tenure of land had been originally created as a means of national defence. But in the course of ages whatever was useful in the institution had disappeared; and nothing was left but ceremonies and grievances. A landed proprietor who held an estate under the crown by knight service, — and it was thus that most of the soil of England was held, — had to pay a large fine on coming to his property. He could not alienate one acre without purchasing a license. When he died, if his domains descended to an infant, the sovereign was guardian, and was not only entitled to great part of the rents during the minority, but could require the ward, under heavy penalties, to marry any person of suitable rank. The chief bait which attracted a needy sycophant to the court was the hope of obtaining as the reward of servility and flattery, a royal letter to an heiress. These abuses had perished with the monarchy. That they should not revive with it was the wish of every landed gentleman in the kingdom. They were, therefore, solemnly abolished by statute; and no relic of the ancient tenures in chivalry was allowed to remain except those honorary services which are still, at a coronation, rendered to the person of the sovereign by some lords of manors. The troops were now to be disbanded. Fifty thousand men, accustomed to the profession of arms, were at once thrown on the world : and experience seemed to warrant the belief that this change would produce much misery and crime, that the dis- charged veterans would be seea begging in every street, or that they would be driven by hunger to pillage. But no such result followed. In a few months there remained not a trace indica- ting that the most formidable army in the world had just been absorbed into the mass of the community. The Royalists them- selves confessed that, in every department of honest industry, discarded warriors prospered beyond other men, that none Ii8 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. was charged with any theft or robbery, that none was heard to ask an alms, and that, if a baker, a mason, or a waggoner at- tracted notice by his diligence and sobriety, he was in all prob- ability one of Oliver's old soldiers. The military tyranny had passed away ; but it had left deep and enduring traces in the public mind. The name of standing army was long held in abhorrence : and it is remarkable that this feelinw was even strdnsfer amonu- the Cavaliers than amonff the Roundheads- It ought to be considered as a most fortunate circumstance that, when our country was, for the first and last time, ruled by the sword, the sword was in the hands, not of legitimate princes, but of those rebels who slew the King and demolished the Church. Had a prince with a title as good as that of Charles, commanded an army as good as that of Crom- well, there would have been little hope indeed for the liberties of England. Happily that instrument by which alone the mon- archy could be made absolute became an object of peculiar hon-or and disgust to the monarchical jjarty, and long continued to be insejjarably associated in the imagination of Royalists and Prelatists with regicide and field preaching. A century after the death of Cromwell, the Tories still continued to clamour against every augmentation of the regular soldiery, and to sound the praise of a national militia. So late as the year 178G, a min- ister who enjoyed no common measure of their confidence found it impossible to overcome their aversion to his scheme of fortify- ing the coast : nor did they ever look with entire complacency on the standing army, till the French Revolution gave a new direction to their apprehensions. The coalition which had restored the King terminated with the danger from which it had sprung ; and two hostile parties again appeared ready for conflict. Both, indeed, were agreed as to the propriety of inflicting punishment on some unhappy men who were, at that moment, objects of almost universal hatred. Cromwell was no more ; and those who had fled be- fore him were forced to content themselves with the miserable satisfaction of digijing up. hanoring, quartering, and burning the remains of the greatest prince that has ever ruled England. IXDKU CIIARLKS TIIK SHCOND. 149 Other objects of vengeance, few indeed, yet too many, were found among the, republican chiefs. Soon, however, the conquerors, ghitted with the blood of the regicides, turned against each other. The Roundheads, while admitting the virtues of the late King, and while condemning the sentence passed upon him by an illegal tribunal, yet maintained that his administration had been, in many things, unconstitutional, and that the Houses had taken arms against him from good motives and on strong grounds. The monarchy,- these politicians conceived, had no worse enemy than the flatterer who exalted prerogative above the law, who condemned all opposition to regal encroachments, and who reviled, not only Cromwell and Harrison, but Pym and Hampden, as traitors. If the King v/ished for a quiet and y)rosperous reign, he must confide in those who, though they had drawn the sword in defence of the invaded privileges of Par- yiament, had yet exposed themselves to the rage of the soldiers in order to save his father, and had taken the chief part in bringing back the royal family. The feeling of the Cavaliers was widely different. During eighteen years they had, through all vicissitudes, been faithful to the Crown. Having shared the distress of their prince, were they not to share his triumph? Was no distinction to be made between them and the disloyal subject who had fought against his rightful sovereign, who had adhered to Richard Cromwell, and who had never concurred in the restoration of the Stuarts, till it appeared that nothing else could save the nation from the tyranny of the army ? Grant that such h man liad, by his re- cent services, fairly earned his pardon. Yet were his services, rendered at the eleventh hour, to be put in comparison with the toils and sufferings of those wlio had borne th& burden and heat of the day ? Was he t(j be ranked with men who had no need of the royal clemency, with men who had, in every part of their lives, merited the royal grr^titude ? Above all, was he to be suf- fered to retain .. fortune raised out of tlie substance of the ruined defenders of the throne ? Was it not enough that his head and his patrimonial estate, a hundred times forfeited to justice, were secure, and that he shared, with the rest of tlie nation, in the bless- 150 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. mgs of that mild government of whicli he had long been the foe ? Was it necessary that he should be rewarded for his treason at the expense of men whose only crime was the fidelity with which they had observed their oath of allegiance. And what interest had the King in gorging his old enemies with prey torn from his old friends ? What confidence could be placed in men who had opposed their sovereign, made war on him, imprisoned him, and who, even now, instead of hanging down their heads in shame and contrition, vindicated all that they had done, and seemed to think that they had given an illustrious proof of loyalty by just stopping short of regicide ? It was true they had lately assisted to set up the throne : but it was not less true that they had pre- viously pulled it down, and that they still avowed principles which might impel them to pull it down again. Undoubtedly it might be fit that marks of royal approbation should be be- stowed on some converts who had beeia eminently useful : but policy, as well as justice and gratitude, enjoined the King to give the highest place in his regard to those who, from first to last, through good and evil, had stood by his house. On these grounds the Cavaliers very naturally demanded indemnity for all that they had suffered, and preference in the distribution of the favours of the Crown. Some violent members' of the party went further, and clamoured for large categories of proscrip- tion. The political feud was, as usual, exasperated by a religious feud. The King found the Church in a singular state. A short time before the commencement of the civil war, his father had given a reluctant assent to a bill, strongly supported by Falk- land, which deprived the Bishops of their seats in the House of Lords : but Episcopacy and the Liturgy had never been abol- ished bj law. The Long Parliament, however, had passed or- dinances which had made a complete revolution in Church government and in public worship. The new system was, in principle, scarcely less Erastian than that which it displaced. The Houses, guided chiefly by the counsels of tlie accomplished Selden, had determined to keep the spiritual power strictly subordinate to the temporal power. They tiad refused to declare UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 151 that any form of ecclesiastical polity was of divine origin ; and they had provided that, from all the Church courts, an appeal should lie in the last resort to Parliament. With this highly important reservation, it had been resolved to set up in England a hierarchy closely resembling that which now exists in Scotland. The authority of councils, rising one above another in regular gradation, was substituted for the authority of Bishojjs and Archbishops. The Liturgy gave place to the Presbyterian Directory. T5ut scarcely had the new regulations been framed, .>'hen the Independents rose to supreme- influence in the state. The Independents had no disposition to enforce the ordinances touching classical, provincial, and national synods. Those or- dinances, therefore, were never carried into full execution. The Presbyterian system was fully established nowhere but in Mid- dlesex and Lancashire. In the other fifty counties almost every parish seems to have beei\ unconnected with the neighbouring parishes. In some districts, indeed, the ministers formed them- selves into voluntary associations, for the purpose of mutual help and counsel ; but these associations had no coercive power. The patrons of livings, being now checked by neither Bishop nor Presbytery, would have been at liberty to confide the cure of souls to the most scandalous of mankind, but for the ar- bitrary intervention of Oliver. He established, by his own authority, a board of commissioners, called Triers. Most of these persons were Independent divines ; but a few Presbyterian ministers and a few laymen had seats. The certificate of the Triers stood in the place both of institution and of induction ; and without such a certificate no person could hold a benefice. This was undoubtedly one of the most despotic acts ever done by any English ruler. Yet, as it was generally felt that, with- out some such precaution, the country would be overrun by ignorant and drunken reprobates, bearing the name and receiv- ing the pay of ministers, some highly respectable persons, who were not in general friendly to Cromwell, allowed that, on this occasion, he had been a public benefactor. The presentees whom the Triers had approved took possession of the rectories, cultivated the glebe lands, collected the tithes, prayed without 152 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. book or surplice, and administered the Eucharist to communi-. cants seated at long tables. Thus the ecclesiastical polity of the realm was in inextri- cable confusion. Episcopacy was the form of government pre- scribed by the old law which was still unrepealed. The form of government prescribed by parliamentary ordinance was Presbyterian. But neither the old law nor the parliamentary ordinance was practically in force. The Church actually estab- lished may be described as an irregular body made up of a few Presbyteries and many Independent congregations, which were all held down and held together by the authority of the govern- ment. Of those who had been active in bringing back the King, many were zealous for Synods and for the Directory, and many were desirous to terminate by a compromise the religious dis- sensions which had long agitated England. Between the big- oted followers of Laud and the bigoted followers of Knox there could be neither peace nor truce : but it did not seem impossible to effect an accommodation between the moderate Episcopalians of the school of Usher and the moderate Presbyterians of the school of Baxter. The moderate Episcopalians would admit that a Bishop might lawfully be assisted by a council. The moderate Presbyterians would not deny that each provincial assembly might lawfully have a permar'^nt president, and that this president might lawfully be called a Bishop. There might be a revised Liturgy which should not exclude extempc^aneous prayer, a baptismal service in which the sign of the crgfes might be used or omitted at discretion, a communion service at which the faithful might sit if their conscience fori ade them to kneel. But to no such plan could the great bodies of the Cavaliers listen with patience. The religious members of that party were conscientiously attached to the whole system of tlieir Church. She had been dear to their murdered King. She had consoled them in defeat and penury. Her service, so often whispered in an inner chamber dui-ing the season of trial, had such a charm for them that they were unwilling to part with a single response. Other Eoj-alists, who made little pretence to piety, yet loved tJNDEK CHARLKS THE SECOND. 158 the episcoi al church because she was the foe of their foes. They valued a prayer or a ceremony, not on account of the comfort which it conveyed to themselves, but on account of the vexation which it gave to the Roundheads, aud were so far from bein<^ disposed to purchase union by concession that they ob- jected to concession chiefly because it tended to produce union. Such feelings, though blamable, were natural, and not wholly inexcusable. The Puritans had undoubtedly, in the day of their power, given cruel provocation. They ought to have learned, if from nothing else, yet from their own discontents, from their own struggles, from their own victory, from the fall of that proud hierarchy by which they had been so heavily oppressed, that, in England, and in the seventeenth century, it was not in the power of tlie civil magistrate to drill the minds of men into conformity with his own system of theology. They proved, however, as intolerant and as meddling as ever Laud had been. They interdicted under heavy penalties the use ©f the Book of Common Prayer, not- only in churches, but even in private houses. It was a crime in a child to read by the bedside of a sick parent one of those beautiful collects which had soothed the griefs of forty generations of Christians. Severe punish- ments were denounced against such as should presume to blame the Calvinistic mode of worship. Clergymen of respectable character were not only ejected from their benefices by thou- sands, but were frequently exposed to the outrages of a fanatical rabble. Churohes and sepulchres, fine works of art and curious remains of antiquity, were brutally defaced. The Parliament resolved that all pictures in the royal collection which contained representations of Jesus or of the Virgin Mother should be burned. Sculpture fared as ill as painting. Nymphs and Graces, the work of Ionian chisels, were delivered over to Puri- tan stonemasons to be made decent. Against the lighter vices tUe ruling faction waged war with a zeal little tempered by humanity or by common sense. Sharp laws were passed against betting. It was enacted that adultery should be punished with death. The illicit intercourse of the sexes, even where neither violence nor seduction was imputed, where no public scandal 154 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. was given, where no conjugal right was violated, was made a misdemeanour. Public amusements, from the masques which were exhibited at the mansions of the great down to the wrest- ling matches and grinning matches on village greens, were vig- orously attacked. One ordinance directed that all the May- poles in England should forthwith be hewn down. Another proscribed all theatrical diversions. The playhouses were to be dismantled, the spectators fined, the actors whipped at the cart's tail. Rope-dancing, puppet-shows, bowls, horse-racing, were re- garded with no friendly eye. But bearbaiting, then a favourite diversion of high and low^ was the abomination which most strongly stirred the wrath of the austere sectaries. It is to be remarked that their antipathy to this sport had nothing in com- mon with the feeling which has, in our own time, induced the legislature to interfere for the purpose of protecting beasts against the wanton cruelty of men. The Puritan hated bear- baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators. Indeed, he generally contrived to enjoy the double pleasure of tormenting both spectators and bear.* Perhaps no single circumstance more strongly illustrates the temper of the precisians than their conduct respecting * How little compassion for the bear liad to do with the m itter is sufflcieutly proved by the following extract from a paper entitled A perfect Diurnal of some Passages of Parliament, and from other Parts of the Kingdom, from Monday July 24th, to Monday July 31st, 1643. " Upon the Queen's coming from Holland, she brought with her, besides a company of savage-like ruffians, a company of savage bears, to what purpose you may judge by the sequel. Those bears were left about Newark, and were brought into country towns constantly on the Lord's day to be Imted, such is the religion those here related would settle amongst us; and, if any went about to hinder or but speak against their damnable profana- tions, they were presently noted as Roundheads and Puritans, and sure to be plundered for it. But some of Colonel Cromwell's forces coming by accident into Uppingham town, in Rutland, on the Lord's day, foujid these bears playing there in the usual manner, and, in the height of their sport, causod them to be seized upon, tied to a tree and shot." This was by no means a solitary instance. Colonel Pride, when Sheriff of Surrey, ordered the beasts in the bear garden of Sottth- wark to be killed. He is represented by a loyal satirist as defending the act thus : "The first thing that is upon my spirits is the killing of the bears, for which the people hate me, and call me all the names in the rainbow. But did not David kill a bear ? Did not the Lord Deputy Ireton kill a bear ? Did not anoth- er lord of ours kill five bears?"— Last Speech and Dying Words of Thomaa Fride. UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND, 155 Christmas da3^ Christmas had been, from time immemorial, the season of joy and domestic aflPection, the; season when fami- lies assembled, when children came home from school, when quarrels were made up, when carols were heard in every street, when every house w^as decorated with evergreens, and every table was loaded with good cheer. At that season all hearts not utterly destitute of kindness were enlarged and softened.- At that season the poor were admitted to partake largely of the overflowings of the wealth of the rich, whose bounty was pecu- liarly acceptable on account of the shortness of the days and of the severity of the weather. At that season, the interval be- tween landlord and tenant, master and servant, was less marked than through the rest of the year. Where there is much enjoyment there will be some excess : yet, on the w^hole, the spirit in which the holiday was kept was not unworthy of a Christian festival. The long Parliament gave ordersi-in 164i, that the twenty-fifth of December should be strictly observed as a fast, and that all men should pass it in humbly bemoan- ing the great national sin which they and their fathers had to often committed on that day by romping under the mistle- toe, eating boar's head, and drinking ale flavored with roasted apples. No public act of that time seems to have irritated the common people more. On the next anniversary of the fes- tival formidable riots broke out in many places. The consta- bles were resisted, the magistrates insulted, the houses of noted zealots attacked, and the prescribed service of the day openly read in the churches. Such was the spirit of the extreme Puritans, both Presby- terian and Independent. Oliver, indeed, was little disposed to be either a persecutor or a meddler. But Oliver, the head of a party, and consequently, to a great extent, the slave of a party, could not govern altogether according to his own inclinations. Even under his administration many magistrates, within their own jurisdiction, made themselves as odious as Sir Iludibras, interfered with all the pleasures of the neighbourhood, dispersed festive meetings, and put fiddlers in the stocks. Still more formidable was the zeal of the soldiers, lu every village where 156 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. they appeared there was an end of dancing, belh-inging. and hockey. In London they several times interrupted theatrical performances at which the Protector had the judgment and good nature to connive. With the fear and hatred inspired by such a tyranny con- tempt was largely mingled. The peculiarities of the Puritan, his look, his dress, his dialect, his strange scruples, had been, ever since the time of Elizabeth, favourite subjects with mock- ers. But these peculiarities appeared far more grotesque in a faction which ruled a great empire than in obscure and perse- cuted congregations. The cant, which had moved laughter when it was heard on the stage from Tribulation Wholesome and Zeal-of-the-Land Busy, was still more laughable when it proceeded from the lips of Generals and Councillors of State. It is also to be noticed that during the civil troubles several sects ha4 sprung into existence, whose eccentricities surpassed anything that had before been seen in England. A mad tailor, named Lodowick Muggleton, wandered from pothouse to pot- house,tippling ale, and denouncing eternal torments against those who refused to believe, on his testimony, that the Supreme Being was only six feet high, and that the sun was just four miles from the earth.* George Fox had raised a tempest of derision by pro- claiming that it was a violation of Christian sincerity to desig- nate a single pei-son by a plural pronoun, and that it was an idolatrous homage to Janus and Woden to talk about January and Wednesday. His doctrine, a few years later, was embraced by some eminent men, and rose greatly in the public estima- tion. But at the time of the Restoration the Quakers were popularly regarded as the most despicable of fanatics. By the Puritans they were treated with severity here, and were perse- cuted to the death in New England. Nevertheless the public, which seldom makes nice distinctions, often confounded the Puritan with the Quaker. Both were schismatics. Both hated episcopacy and the Liturgy. Both had what seemed extrava- gant whimsies about dress, diversions, and postures. Widely as • See Peim'sNew-Witnesses proved Old Heretics, and Muggleton's works, ;>^5S}w». UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. lo7 the two differed in opinion, they were popularly classed together as canting schismatics ; and whatever was ridiculous or odious in either increased the scorn and aversion which the multitude felt for both. Before the civil wars, even those who most disliked the opinions and manners of the Puritan were forced to admit that his moral conduct was generjilly, in essentials, blameless ; but this praise was now no longer bestowed, and, unfortunately, was no longer deserved. The general fate of sects is to obtain a high reputation for sanctity while they are oppressed, and to. lose it as soon as they become powerful : and the reason is obvi- ous. It is seldom that a man enrolls himself in a proscribed body from any but conscientious motives. Such a body, there- fore, is composed, with sci^rcely an exception, of sincere persons. The most rigid discipline tliat can be enforced within a religious society is a very feeble instrument of purification, when com- pared with a little sharp persecution from without. We may be certain that very few persons, not seriously impressed by religious convictions, applied for baptism while Diocletian was vexing the Church, or joined themselves to Protestant con- sreoations at the risk of benig burned by Bonner. But, when a sect becomes powerful, when its favour is the road to riches and dignities, worldly and ambitious men crowd into it, talk its language, conform strictly to its ritual, mimic its peculiarities, and frequently go beyond its honest members in all the outward indications of zeal. No discernment, no watchfulness, on the part of ecclesiastical rulers, can pi'event the intrusion of such false brethren. The tares and wheat must grow together. Soon the world begins to find out that the godly are not better than other men, and argues, with some justice, that, if not better, they must be much worse. In no long time all those signs which were formerly regarded as characteristic of a saint are regarded as characteristic of a knave. Thus it was with the English Nonconformists. They had been oppressed ; and oppression had kept them a pure body. They then became supreme in the state. No man could hope to rise to eminence and command but By their favour. Their 158 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. favour was to be gained only by exchanging with them the signs and passwords of spiritual fraternity. One of the first resolutions adopted by Barebones' Parliament, the mostintensely Puritanical of all our political assemblies, was that no person should be admitted into the public service till the House should be satisfied of his real godliness. What were then considered as the signs of real godliness, the sadcoloured dress, the sour look, the straight hair, the nasal whine, the speech interspersed with quaint texts, the Sunday, gloomy as a Pharisaical Sabbath, were easily imitated by men to whom all religions were the same. The sincere Puritans soon found themselves lost in a multitude, not merely of men of the world, but of the very worst sort of men of the world. For the most notorious libertine who had fought under the royal standard might justly be thought virtuous when compared with some of those who, while they talked about sweet experiences and comfortable scriptures, lived in the constant practice of fraud, rapacity, and secret de- bauchery. The people, with a rashness which we may justly lament, but at which we cannot wonder, formed their estimate of the whole body from these hypocrites. The theology, the manners, the dialect of the Puritan were ihm associated in the public mind with the darkest and meanest vices. As soon as the Restoration had made it safe to avow enmity to the party which had so long been predominant, a general outcry against Puritanism rose from every corner of the kingdom, and was often swollen by the voices of those very dissemblers whose villany had brought disgrace on the Puritan name. Thus the two great parties, which, after a long contest, had for a moment concurred in restoring monarchy, were, both in poli- tics and in religion, again opposed to each other. The great body of the nation leaned to the Royalists. The crimes of Straiford and Laud, the excesses of the Star Chamber and of the High Commission, the great services which the Long Par- liament had, during the first year of its existence, rendered to the state, had faded from the minds of men. The execution of Charles the First, the syllen tyranny of the Rump, the violence of the army, were remembered with loathing ; and the nudti- UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 159 tude was inclined to hold all who had withstood the late King, responsible for his death and for the subsequent disasters. The House of Commons, having been elected while the Presbyterians were dominant, by no means represented the gen- eral sense of the people. Most of the members, while execra- ting Cromwell and Bradshaw, reverenced the memory of Essex and of Pym. One sturdy Cavalier, who ventured to declare that all who had drawn the sword against Charles the First were as much traitors as those who had aut off his head, was called to order, placed at the bar, and reprimanded by the Speaker. The general wish of the House undoubtedly was to settle the ecclesiastical disputes in a manner satisfactory to the moderate Puritans. But to such a settlement both the court and the nation were avei'se. The restored King was at this time more loved by the peo- ple than any of his predecessors had ever been. The calamities of his house, the heroic death of his father, his own long suffer- ings and romantic adventures, made him an object of tender inter- est. His return had delivered the country from an intolerable bondage. Recalled by the voice of both the contending factions, he was in a position which enabled him to arbitrate between them ; and in some respects he was well qualified for the task. He had received from nature excellent parts and a happy tem- per. His education had been such as might have been expected" to develope his understanding, and to form him to the practice of every public and private virtue. He had passed through all varieties of fortune, and had seen both sides of human nature. He had, while very young, been driven forth from a palace to a life of exile, penury, and danger. He had, at the age when the mind and body are in their highest perfection, and when the first effervescence of boyish passions should have subsided, been re- called from his wanderings to wear a crown. He had been taught by bitter experience how much baseness, perfidy, and ingratitude may lie hid under the obsequious demeanor of courtiers. He had found, on the other hand, in the huts of the poorest, true nobility of soul. When wealth was offered to any who would betray him, when death was denounced against all 160 «ISTORY OF ENGLAND. who should shelter him, cottagers and serving men haa Kept his secret truly, and had kissed his hand under his naean disguises with as much reverence as if he had been seated on his ancestral throne. From such a school it might have been expected that a young man who wanted neither abilities nor amiable qualities would have come forth a great and good King. Charles came forth from that school with social habits, with polite and engaging manners, and with some talent for lively conversation, addicted beyond measure to sensual indulgence, fond of sauntering and of frivolous amusements, incapable of selfdenial and of exer- tion, without faith in human virtue or in human attachment, without desire of renown, and without sensibility to re- proach. According to him, every person was to be bought : but some people haggled more about their price than others ; and when this haggling was very obstinate and very skilful it was called by some fine name. The chief trick by which clever men kept up the price of their abilities was called integrity. The chief trick by which handsome women kept up the price of their beauty was called modesty. The love of God, the love of coun- try, the love of family, the love of friends, were phrases of the same sort, delicate and convenient synonymes for the love of self. Thinking thus of mankind, Charles naturally cared very little what they thought of him. Honour and shame were scarcely more to him than light and darkness to the blind. His contempt of flattery has been highly commended, but seems, when viewed in connection with the rest of his character, to de- serve no commendation. It is possible to be below flattery as well as above it. One who trusts nobody will not trust sycophants. One who does not value real glory will not value its counterfeit. It is creditable to Charles's temper that, ill as he thought of his species, he never became a misanthrope. He saw little in men but what was hateful. Yet l>e did not hate them. Nay, hg was so far humane that it was highly disagreeable to him to see their sufferings or to hear their complaints. This, how- ever, is a sort of humanity which, though amiable and laudable in a private man whose power to help or hurt is bounded by a narrow circle, has in princes often been rather a vice than a TJNDER CIIARLKS THK SECOND, 161 virtue. More than one well disposed ruler has given up whole provinces to rapine and oppression, merely from a wish to see none but happy faces round his own board and in his own walks. No man is fit to govern great societies who hesitates about disobliging the few who have access to him, for the sake of the many whom he will never see. The facility of Charles was such as has perhaps never been found in any man of equal sense. He was a slave without being a dupe. Worthless men and women, to the very bottom of whose hearts he saw, and whom he knew to be destitute of affection for him and unde- serving of his confidence, could easily wheedle him out of titles, places, domains, state secrets and pardons. lie bestowed much; yet he neither enjoyed the pleasure nor acquired the fame of beneficence. lie never gave spontaneously; but it was painful to him to refuse. The consequence was that his bounty gen- erally went, not to those who deserved it best, nor even to those whom he liked best, bui to the most shameless and im- portunate suitor who could obtain an audience. The motives which governed the political conduct of Charles the Second differed widely from those by which his predeces- sor and his successor were actuated. He was not a man to be imposed upon by the patriarchal theory of government and the doctrine, of divine right. He was utterly without ambition. Pie detested business, and wolild sooner have abdicated his crown than have undergone the trouble of really directing the administration. Such was his aversion to toil, and such his ignorance of affairs, that the very clerks who attended him when he sate in council could not refrain from sneering at his frivolous remarks, and at his childish impatience. Neither gratitude nor revenge had any share in determining his course ; for never was there a mind on which both services and injuries left such faint and transitory impressions. He wished merely to be a King such as Lewis the Fifteenth of France afterwards was ; a King who could draw without limit on the treasury for the gratification of his private tastes, who could hire with wealth and honours persons capable of assisting him to kill the time, and who, even when the state was brought by maladmin- 162 HISTORY or ENGLAND. istration to the depths of humiliation and to the brink of ruin, could still exclude unwelcome truth from the purlieus of his own - seraglio, and refuse to see and hear whatever might dis- turb his luxurious repose. For these ends, and for these ends alone, he wished to obtain arbitrary power, if it could be ob- tained without risk or trouble. In the religious disputes which divided his Protestant subjects his conscience was not at all in- terested. For his opinions oscillated in contented suspense be- tween infidelity and Popery. But, though his conscience was neutral in the quarrel between the Episcopalians and the Pres- byterians, his taste was by no means so. His favourite vices were precisely those to which the Puritans were least indul- gent. He could not get through one day without the help of diversions which the Puritans regarded as sinful. As a man eminently well bred, and keenly sensible of the ridiculous, he was moved to contemptuous mnth by the Puritan oddities. He had indeed some reason to dislike the rigid sect. He had, at the age when the passions are most impetuous and when levity is most pardonable, spent some months in Scotland, a King in name, but in fact a state prisoner in the hands of austere Pres- byterians. Not content with requiring him to conform to their worship and to subscribe their Covenant, they had watched all his motions, and lectured him on all his youthful follias. He had been compelled to give reluctant attendance at endless prayers and sermons, and might think himself fortunate when he was not insolently reminded from the pulpit of his own frail- ties, of his father's tyranny, and of his mother's idolatry. In- deed he had been so miserable during this part of his life that the defeat which made him again a wanderer might be regarded as a deliverance rather than as a calamity. Under the influ- ence of such feelings as these Charles was desirous to depress the party which had resisted his father. The King's brother, James Duke of York, took the same side. Though a libertine, James was diligent, methodical, and fond of authority and business. His understanding was singularly slow and narrow, and his temper obstinate, harsh, and unforgiving. That such a prince should have looked with UNDER CHARLES THE SECON 163 no good will on the free institutions of England, and on the party which was peculiarly zealous for those institutions, can excite no surprise. As yet the Duke professed himself a mem' ber of the Anglican Church : but he had already shown inclina- tions which liad seriously alarmed good Protestants. The person on wjiom devolved at this time the greatest part of the labour oi governing was Edward Hyde, Chancellor of the x'ealm, who was soon created Earl of Clarendon. The respect which we justly feel for Clarendon as a writer must not blind us to the laults which he committed as a statesman. Some of those faults, however, are explained and excused by the unfor- tunate position in which he stood. He liad, during the first year of the Long Parliament, been honourably distinguished among the senators who laboured to redress the grievances of the nation. Oneof the most odious of those grievances, the Coun- cil of York, had been removed in consequence chiefly of his exertions. When the great schism took place, when the reform- ing party and the conservative party first appeared marshalled against each other, he, with many wise and good men, took the conservative side. He thenceforward followed the fortunes of the court, enjoyed as large a share of the confidence of Charles the First as the reserved nature and tortuous policy of that prince allowed to any minister, and subsequently shared the exile and directed the political conduct of Charles the Second. At the Restoration Hyde became chief minister. In a few months it was announced that he was closely related by aflfjnity to the royal house. His daughter had become, by a secret mar- riage. Duchess of York. His grandchildren might perhaps wear the crown. He was raised by this illustrious connection over the heads of the old nobility of the land, and was for a time supposed to be allpowerful. In some respects he was well fitted for his great place. No man wrote abler state papers. No man spoke with more weight and dignity in Council and in Parliament. No man was better acquainted with general maxims of statecraft. No man observed the varieties of charac- ter with a more discriminating eye. It must be added that he bad a strong sense of moral ^nd religious obligation, a sincere 164 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. reverence for the laws of his country, and a conscientious regard for the honour and interest of the Crown. But his temper was sour, arrogant, and impatient of opposition. Above all, he had been long an exile ; and this circumstance alone would have completely disqualified him for the supreme direction of affairs. It is scarcely possible that a politician, wjio has been compelled by civil troubles to go into banishment, and to pass many of the best years of his life abroad, can be fit, on the day on which he returns to his native land, to be at the head of the government. Clarendon was no exception to this rule. He had left England with a mind heated by a fierce conflict which had ended in the downfall of his party and of his own fortunes. From 1 646 to 1660 he had lived beyond sea, looking on all that passed at home from a great distance, and through a false medium. His notions of public affairs were necessarily derived from the reports of plotters, many of whom were ruined and desperate men. Events naturally seemed to him auspicious, not in proportion as they increased the prosperity and glory of the nation, but in proportion as they tended to hasten the hour of his own return. His wish, a wish which he has not disguised, was that, till his countrymen brought back the old line, they might never enjoy quiet or freedom. At length he returned ; and, without having a single week to look about him, to mix with society, to note the changes which fourteen eventful years had produced in the national character and feelings, he was at once set to rule the state. In such circumstances, a minister of the greatest tact and docility would probably have fallen into serious errors. But tact and docility made no part of the character of Clarendon. To him England was still the England of his youth ; and he sternly frowned down every theory and every practice which had sprung up during his own exile. Though ho- was far from meditating any attack on the ancient and undoubted power of the House of Commons, he saw- with extreme uneasiness the growth of that power. The royal prerogative, for which he had long suffered, and by which he had at length been raised to wealth and dignity, was sacred in his eyes. The Roundheads he regarded both with political and with personal aversion. To UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 165 the Anglican Church he had always been strongly attached, and had repeatedly, where her interests were concerned, separated himself with regret from his dearest friends. His zeal for Episcopacy and for the Book of Common Prayer was now more ardent than ever, and was mingled with a vindictive hatred of the Puritans, which did him little honour either as a states- man or as a Christian. While the House of Commons which had recalled the royal family was sitting, it was impossible to effect the re-establish- ment of the old ecclesiastical system. Not only were the inten- tions of the court strictly concealed, but as'surances which qui- eted the minds of the moderate Presbyterians were given by the King in the most solemn manner. He had promised, before his restoration, that he would grant liberty of conscience to his subjects. He now repeated that promise, and added a promise to use his best endeavours for the purpose of effecting a compro- mise between the contending sects. He wished, he said, to see the spiritual jurisdiction divided between bishops and synods. The Liturgy should be revised by a body of learned divines, one-half of whom should be Presbyterians. The questions respecting the surplice, the posture at the Eucharist, and the sign of the cross in baptism, should be settled in a way which would set tender consciences at ease. When the King had thus laid asleep the vigilance of those whom he most feared, he dis- solved the Pai-liament. He had already given his assent to an act by which an amnesty was granted, with few exceptions, to all who, during the late troubles, had been guilty of political offences. He had also obtained from the Commons a grant for life of taxes, the annual product of which was estimated at twelve hundred thousand pounds. The actual income, indeed, during some years, amounted to little more than a million : but this sum, together with the hereditary revenue of the crown, was then sufficient to defray the expenses of the government in time of peace. Nothing was allowed for a standing army. The nation was sick of the very name ; and the least mention of such a force would have incensed and alarmed all parties Early in 1661 took place a general election. The peoplo 16{^ HISTOKY OF ENGLAND. were mad with loyal enthusiasm. The capital was excited by preparations for the most splendid coronation that had ever been known. The result was that a body of representatives was returned, such as England had never yet seen. A large proportion of the successful candidates were men who had foLiuht for the Crown and the Church, and whose minds had been exasperated by many injuries and insults suffered at the hands of the Roundheads. When the members met, the passions which animated each individually acquired new strength from sympathy. Tlie House of Commons was, during some years, more zealous for royalty than the King, more zealous for epis- copacy than the Bishops. Charles and Clarendon were almost terrified at the completeness of their own success. They found themselves in a situation not unlike that in wliich Lewis the Eighteenth and the Duke of Richelieu were placed while the Chamber of 1815 was sitting. Even if the King had been desirous to fulfil the promises which he had made to the Pres- byterians, it would have been out of his power to do so. It was indeed only by the strong exertion of his influence that he could prevent the victorious Cavaliers from rescinding the act of indemnity, and retaliating v/ithout mercy all that they had suffered. The Commons began by resolving that every member sliould, on pain of expulsion, take the sacrament according to the form prescribed by the old Liturgy, and that the Covenant should be burned by the hangman in Palace Yard. An act was passed, which not only acknowledged the power of the sword to be solely in the King, but declared that in no extremity whatever could the two Houses be justified in withstanding him by force. Anotlier act was passed which required every officer of a cor- poration to receive the Eucharist according to the rites of the Church of Eno[land, and to swear that he held resistance to the King's authority to be in all cases unlawful. A few hotheaded men wished to bring in a bill, which should at once annul all the statutes passed by the Long Parliament, and should restore the Star Chamber and the High Commission ; but the reaction, vio- lent as it was, did not proceed quite to this length. It still con- UNDKR CHARLES TIIK SICCOND. 167 tinued to be the law that a Parliament should be held every three yeai's : but the stringent clauses which directed the return- ing officers to proceed to election at the proper time, even with- out the royal writ, were repealed. The Bishops were restored to their seats in the Upper House. The old ecclesiastical pol- ity and the old Liturgy were revived without any modification which had any tendency to conciliate even the most reasonable Presbyterians. Episcopal ordination was now, for the first time, made an indispensable qualification for church 2:)i"eferment. About two. thousand ministers of religion, whose conscience did not suffer them to conform, were driven from their benefices in one day. The dominant party exultingly reminded the suf- ferers that the Long Parliament, when at the height of power, had turned out a still greater number of Royalist divines. The reproach was but too well founded : but the Long Parlia- ment had at least allowed to the divines whom it ejected a provision sufficient to keep them from starving ; and this exam- ple the Cavaliers, intoxicated with animosity, had not the jus- tice and humanity to follow. Then came penal statutes against Noncouxormists, statutes for which precedents might too easily be found in the Puritan legislation, but to which the King could not give his assent without a breach of promises publicly made, in the most impor- tant crisis of his life, to those on whom his fate depended. The Presbyterians, in extreme distress and terror, fled to the f^y who, though attached to the Church and to hereditary mon^i-chy, had been driven into op- position by dread of Popery, b^ dread of France, and by disgust UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 191 at the extravagance, dissoluteness, and faithlessness of the court. The power of this band of politicians was constantly growing. Every year some of those members who had been returned to Parliament during the loyal excitement of 1661 had dropped off ; and the vacant seats had generally been filled by persons less tractable. Charles did not think himself a King while an assembly of subjects could call for his accounts before paying his debts, and could insist on knowing which of his mistresses or boon companions had intercepted the money destined for the equipping and manning of the fleet. Though not very studi- ous of fame, he was galled by the taunts which were sometimes uttered in tbe discussions of the Commons, and on one occa- sion attempted to restrain the freedom of sjieech by disgraceful means. Sir John Coventry, a country gentleman, had, in de- bate, sneered at the profligacy of the court. Tn any former reign he would probably have been called before the Privy Council and committed to the Tower. A different course was now taken. A gang of bullies was secretly sent to slit the nose of the offender. This ignoble revenge, instead of quelling the spirit of opposition, raised such a tempest that the King was compelled to submit to the cruel humiliation of passing an act which attainted the instruments of his revenge, and which took from him the power of pardoning them. But, impatient as he was of constitutional restraints, how was he to emancipate himself from them ? He could make himself despotic only by the help of a great standing army ; and such an army was not in existence. His revenues did indeed enable him to keep up some regular troops : but those troops, though niimerous enough to excite great jealousy and appre- hension in the House of Commons and in the country, were scarcely numerous enough to protect Whitehall and the Tower against a rising of the mob of London. Such risings were, in- deed, to be dreaded ; for it was calculated that in the capital and its suburbs dwelt not less than 20,000 of Oliver's old soldiers. Since the King was bent on emancipating himself from the control of Parliament, and since, in such an enterprise, he could 192 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. not hope for effectual aid at home, it followed that he must look- for aid abroad. The power and wealth of the King of France might be equal to the arduous task of establishing absolute monarchy in England. Such an ally would undoubtedly ex- pect substantial probfs of gratitude for such a service. Charles must descend to the rank of a great vassal, and must make peace and war according to the directions of the government which- protected him. His relation to Lewis would closely re- semble that in which the Rajah of Nagpore and the King of Oude now stand to the British Government. Those princes are bound to aid the East India Company in all hostilities, defen- sive and offensive, and to have no diplomatic relations but such as the East India Company shall sanction. The Company in return guarantees them against insurrection. As long as they faithfully discharge their obligations to the paramount power, they ai'e permitted to dispose of large revenues, to fill their palaces with beautiful women, to besot themselves in the com- pany of their favourite revellers, and to oppress with impunity any subject who may incur their displeasure.* Such a life would be insupportable to a man of high spirit and of powerful understanding. But to Charles, sensual, indolent, unequal to any strong intellectual exertion, and destitute alike of all patriotism and of all sense of personal dignity, the prospect had nothing unp] easing. Tliat the Duke of York should have concurred in the desisti of degrading that crown which it was probable that he would himself one day wear may seem more extraordinary. For his nature was haughty and imperious ; and, indeed, he continued to the very last to show, by occasional starts and struggles, his impatience of the French yoke. But he was almost as much debased by superstition as his brother by indolence and vice. James was now a Roman Catholic. Religious bigotry had become the dominant sentiment of his narrow and stubborn mind, and had so mingled itself with his love of rule, that the * I am happy to say, that, since this passage was written, the territories both of the Rajah of Nagpore and of the King of Oude have been added to the British dominions. (1857.) UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 193 two passions could hardly be distiuguished from each othei\ It seemed highly improbable that, without foreign aid, he would be able to obtain ascendency, or even toleration, for his own faith : and lie was in a temper to see nothing humiliating in u»y step which might promote the intei'ests of the true Church. A negotiation was opened which lasted during several months. The chief agent between the English and French courts was the beautiful, graceful, and intelligent Henrietta, Duchess of Orleans, sister of Charles, sister in law of Lewis, ind a favourite with both. The King of England offered to ieclare himself a Roman Catholic, to dissolve the Triple Alli- ince, and to join with France against Holland, if France would engage to lend him such military and pecuniary aid as might make him independent of his parliament, Lewis at first affected JO receive those propositions coolly, and at length agreed to them with the air of a man who is conferring a great favour : but in truth, the course which he had resolved to take was one by which he might gain and could not lose. It seems certain that he never seriously thought of establish- ing despotism and Popery in England by force of arms. He must have been aware that such an enterprise would be in the highest degree arduous and hazardous, that it would task to the utmost all the energies of France daring many years, and that it would be altogether incompatible with more promising schemes of aggrandisement, which were dear to his heart. He would indeed willingly have acquired the merit and the glory of doing a great service on reasonable terms to the Church of which he was a member. But he was little disposed to imitate his ancestors who, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, had led the flower of French chivalry to die in Syria and Egypt : and he well knew that a crusade against Protestantism in Great Britain would not be less perilous than the expeditions in which the armies of Lewis the Seventh and of Lewis the- Ninth had perished. He had no motive for wishing the Stuarts to be absolute. He did not regard the English constitution with feelings at all resembling those which have in later times induced princes to make war on the free institutions of neigh- 194 HISTORY OF EIVGLAND. bouring nations. At present a great party zealous for popular government has ramifications in every civilised country. Any important advantage gained anywhere by that party is almost certain to be the .signal for general commotion. It is not won- derful that governments threatened by a common danger should combine for the purpose of mutual insurance. But in the seventeenth century no such danger existed. Between the public mind of England and the public mind of France, there was a great gulph. Our insiitutions and our factions were as little understood at Paris as at Constantinople. It may be doubted whether any one of the forty members of the French Academy had an p]nglish volume in his library, or knew Shake- speare, Jonson, or Spenser even by name. A few Huguenots, who had inherited the mutinous spirit of their ancestors, might perhaps have a fellow feeling with their brethren in the faith, the English Eoundheads : but the Huguenots had ceased to be formidable. The French, as a people, attached to the Church of Rome, and proud of the greatness of their King and of their own loyalty, looked on our struggles against Popery and arbitrary power, not only without admiration or sympathy, but with strong disapprobation and disgust. * It would there- fore be a great error to ascribe the conduct of Lewis to appre- hensions at all resembling those which, in our age, induced the Holy Alliance to interfere in the internal troubles of Naples and Spain. Nevertheless, the ])ropositions made by the court of White- hall were most welcome to him. He already meditated gigantic designs, which were destined to keep Europe hi constant fer- mentation during more than forty years. He wished to humble the United Provinces, and to annex Belgium, Franche Comte, and Loraine to his dominions. Nor was this all. The King of Spain was a sickly child. It was likely that he would die without issue. His eldest sister was Queen of France. A day would almost certainly come, and might come very soon, when the House of Bourbon might lay claim to that vast empire on which the sun never set. The union of two great monarchies under one head would doubtless be opposed by a continental UKDER CHARLES THE SECOXD. 195 CMialition. But for auy continental eoalition France single- handed was a match. Enghind could turn the scale. On the course which, in such a crisis, Enijldnd might pursue, the destinies of the world would depend ; and it was notorious that the P]n Jish Parliament and nation were strongly attached to the policy which had dictated the Triple Alliance. Nothing, tlierefore, coulil he more gratiiying^to Lewis than to learn tliat the princes, of the House of Stuart needed his help, and were willing to purchase that help by unbounded subserviency. He determined to profit by the opportunity, and laid down for himself a plan to which, without deviation, he adhered, till the Revolution of 1688 disconcerted all his politics. He professed himself desirous to promote the designs of the English court. He promised large aid. He from time to time doled out such aid as might serve to keep hope alive, and as he could v/ithout risk or inconvenience spare. In this way, at an expense very much less than that which he incurred in Imilding and decora- ting Versailles or Marli, he succeeded in making England, during nearly twenty years, almost as insignificant a member of the political system of Europe as the republic of 8aii Marino. His object was not to destroy our constitution, but to keep the various elements of which it was composed in a perpetual state of conflict, and to set irreconcilable enmity between those who had the power of the purse and those who had the power of the sword. With this view he bribed and stimulated both parties in turn, pensioned at once the ministers of the crown and the chiefs of the opposition, encouraged the court to witii- stand the seditious encroachments of the Farliament, and con- veyed to the Parliament intimations of the arbitrary designs of tlie court. One of the devices to which he resorted for the purpose of obtaining an ascendency in the English counsels deserves especial notice. Charles, though incapable of love in the highest sense of the word, was the slave of any woman whose person excited his desires, and whose airs and prattle amused bis leisure. Indeed ^ Jiusbapd would be justly derided wtjo 196 HISTOlir OF ENGLAND. should bear from a wife of exalted rank and spotless virtue half the insolence which the King of England bore from the con- cubines who, while they owed everything to hjs bounty, caressed his courtiers almost before his face. He had patiently endured the termagant passions of Barbara Palmer and the pert vivacity of Eleanor Gwynn. Lewis thought that the most useful envoy who could be sent to London, would be a handsome, licentious, and crafty Frenchwoman. Such a woman was Louisa, c lady of the Plouse of Querouaille, whom our rude ancestors called Madam Carwell. She was soon triumphant over all her rivals, was created Duchess of Portsmouth, was loaded with wealth, and obtained a dominion which ended only with the life of Charles. The most important conditions of the alliance between the crowns wero digested into a secret treaty which was signed at Dover in May, 1670, just ten years after the day on which Charles had landed at that very port amidst the acclamations and joyful tears of a too confiding people. By this treaty Charles bound himself to make public pro- fession of the Roman Catholic religion, to join his arms to those of Lewis for the purpose of destroying the power of the United Provinces, and to employ the whole strength of Eng- land, by land and sea, in support of the rights of the House of Bourbon to the vast monarchy of Spain. L^^wis, on the other hand, engaged to pay a large subsidy, and promised that, if any insurrection should break out in Enslaud, he would send an army at his own charge to supj^ort his ally. This compact was made with gloomy auspices. Six weeks after it had been signed and sealed, the charming princess, whose influence over her brother and brother in law had been so pernicious to her country, was no. more. Her death gave rise to horrible suspicions which, for c moment, seemed likely to interrupt the newly formed friendship between the Houses of Stuart and Bourbon : but in a short time fresh assurances of undiminished good will were exchanged between theco:ifedei'atej>. The Duke of York, too dull to apprehend danger, or too fanatical to care about it, was impatient to see the article touch- UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 197 ing the Roman Catholic religion carried into immediate execu- tion : but Lewis had the wisdom to perceive that, if this course were taken, there would be such an explosion in England as would probably frustrate those parts of the plan which he had most at heart. It was therefore determined that Charles should still call himself a Protestant, and should still, at high festivals, receive the sacrament according to the ritual of the Church of England. His more scrupulous brother ceased to appear in the royal chapel. About this time died the Duchess of York, dauditer of the banished Earl of Clarendon. She had been, during some years, a concealed Roman Catholic. She left two daughters, Mary and Anne, afterwards successively Queens of Great Britain. They were bred Protestants by the positive command of the King, who knew that it would be vain for him to profess him- self a member of the Church of England, if children who seemed likely to inherit his throne were, by his permission, brought up as members of the Church of Rome. The principal servants of the crown at this time were men whose names have justly acquired an unenviable notoriety. We must take heed, however, that we do not load their memory with infamy which of right belongs to their master. For the treaty of Dover the King himself is chiefly answerable. He held conferences on it with the French agents : he wrote many letters concerning it with his own hand : he was the jierson who first suggested the most disgraceful articles which it con- tained ; and he carefully concealed some of those articles from the majority of his Cabinet. Few things in our history are more curious than the origin and growth of the power now possessed by the Cabinet. From an early period the Kings of England had been assisted by a Privy Council co which the law assigned many important func- tions and duties. During several centuries this body deliberated on the gravest and most delicate affairs. But by degrees its char- acter changed. It became too lai'ge for despatch and secrecy. The I'ank of Privy Councillor was often bestowed as an honorary distinction on jiersons to whom nothing was confided, and whose 198 HL'iTORY OF ENGLAND. opinion was never ask'^'d. The sovereign, on the most important occasions, resorted for advice to a small knot of leading minis- ters. The advantages and disadvantages of this course wfere early pointed out by Bacon, with his usual judgment and sagacity : but it was not till after the Restoration that the interior council began to attract general notice. During many years old fashioned politicians continued to regard the Cabinet as an unconstitutional and dangerous board. Nevertheless, it constantly became more and more important. It at length drew to itself the chief executive power, and has now been regarded, during several generations, as an essential part of our polity^ Yet, strange to say, it still continues to be altogether unknown to the law: the names of the noblemen and gentlemen who compose it are never officially announced to the public : no record is kept of its meetings and resolutions ; nor has its exist- ence ever been recognised by any Act of Parliam nt. During some years the word Cabal was popularly used as synonymous with Cabinet. But it happened by a whimsical coincidence that, in 1671, the Cabinet consisted of five persons the initial letters of whose names made up the word Cabal ; Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley, and Lauderdale. These ministers were therefore emphatically called the Cabal ; and they soon made that appellation so infamous that it has never since their time been used except as a term >f reproach. Sir Thomas Clifford was a Commissioner of the Treasury, and had greatly distinguished himself in the House of Commons. Of the members of the Cabal he was the most respectable. For, with a fiery and imperious temper, he had a strong though a lamentably perverted sense of duty and honour. Henry Bennet, Lord Arlington, then Secretary of State, had, since he came to manhood, resided principally on the Continent, and had learned that cosmopolitan indifference to constitutions and religions wliich is ofton observable in persons whose life has been passed in vagrant diplomacy. If there was any form of government which he liked it was that of France. If there was any Church for wiiich he felt a preference, it was that of Rome. He had some talent for coDyepsatipn, and some talent also foy UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 199 transacting the ordinary business of office. He had learned, dur- ing a life passed in travelling- and negotiating, the art of accom- modating his language and deportment to the society in which he found himself. His vivacity in the closet amused the King : his gravity in debates and conferences imposed on the public ; and he had succeeded in attaching to himself, partly by services and partly by hopes', a considerable number of personal re- tainers. Buckingham. Ashley, and Lauderdale were men in v/hom the fmmorality which was epidemic among the politicians of that age appeared in its most malignant tji^e, but variously modi- fied by great diversities of temper and understanding. Buck- ingham was a sated man of pleasure, who had turned to ambition as to a pastime. As he had tried to amuse himself with architec- ture and music, with Avriting farces and with seeking for the philosopher's stone, so he now tried to amuse himself with a se- cret negotiation and a Dutch war. He had already, rather from fickleness and love of novelty than from any deep design, been faithless to every party. At one time he had ranked among the Cavaliers. At another time warrants had been out against him for maintainin-T a treasonable correspondence with the remains of the Republican party in the city. He was now again a cour- tier, and was eager to win the favour of the King by services from which the most illustrious of those v»'ho had fought and suf- fered for the royal house would have recoiled with horror. Ashley, with a far stronger head, and with a far fiercer and more earnest ambition, had been equally versatile. But Ash- ley's versatility was the effect, not of levity, but of deliberate selfishness. He had served and betrayed a succession of gov- ernmeutj . But he had timed all his treacheries so well that, through all revolutions, his fortunes had constantly been rising. The multitude, struck with admiration by a prosperity which, while everything else was constantly changing, remained un- changeable, attributed to him a prescience almost miraculous, and likened him to the Hebrew statesman of whom it is written that his counsel was as if a man had inquired of the oracle ©f God. 20G HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Lauderdale, loud and coarse both in mirth and anger, wae perhaps, under the outward show of boisterous frankness, the most dishonest man in the whole Cabal. lie had made himself conspicuous among the Scotch insurgents of 1638 by his zeal for the Covenant. He was accused of having been deeply con- cerned in the sale of Charles the First to tlie Englii;h Pai'liament, and Vv^as therefore, in the estimation of good Cavaliers, a traitor, if possible, of a w^orse description than those who had sate in the High Court of Justice. He often talked with a noisy jocularity of the days when he was a canter and a rebel. He was now the chief instrument employed by the court in the work of for- cing episcopacy on his reluctant countrymen ; nor did he in that cause shrink from the uns{)aring use of the sword, the halter, and the boot. Yet those who knew him knew that thirty years had made no change in his real sentiments, that he still hated the memory of Charles the First, and that he still pre- ferred the Presbyterian form of church government to every other. Unscrupulous as Buckingham, Ashley, and Lauderdale were, it was not thouojht safe to intrust to them the Kin^r's intention of declaring himself a Roman Catholic. A false treaty, in which the article concernincj relijjion was omitted, was shown to them. The names and seals of Clifford and Arlington are affixed to the genuine treaty. Both these statesmen had a partiality for the old Church, a partiality which the brave and vehement Clifford in no long time manfully avowed, but wliich the colder and meaner Arlington concealed, till the near approach of death scared him into sincerity. The three other cabinet ministers, however, were not men to be kept easily in the dark, and prob- ably suspected more than was distinctly avowed to them. They (\'ere certainly privy to all the political engagements contracted with France, and were not ashamed to receive large gratifica- tions from Lewis. The first object of Charles was to obtain from the Commons supplies which might be employed in executing the secret treaty.; The Cabal, holding power at a time when our government was in a state of transition, united in itself two different kinds of ...NTA SAKbARA. CAU^O*.. • JJZ V g T UNDEK CHARLES THE SECOND. 201 vices belonging to two diiferentages and to two different systems. As those five evil counsellors were among the last English statesmen who seriously thought of destroying the Parliament, so they were the first English statesmen-who attempted exten- sively to corrupt it. We find in their policy at once the latest trace of the Thorough of Strafford, and the earliest trace of that methodical bribery wliich was afterwards practiced by Walpole. They soon perceived, however, that, though the House of Com- mons was chiefly composed of Cavaliers, and though places and French gold had been lavished on the members, there was no chance that even the least odious parts of the scheme arranged at Dover would be supported by a majority. It was necessary to have recourse to fraud. The King professed great zeal for the princi23les of the Triple Alliance, and pretended that, in or- der to hold the ambition of France in check, it would be neces- sary to augment the fleet. The Commons fell into the snare, and voted a grant of eight hundred thousand poui>ds. The Par- liament was instantly prorogued ; and the court, thus emanci- pated from control, j^roceeded to the execution of the great de- sign. The financial difficulties however were serious. A war with Holland could be carried on only at enormous cost. The ordi' nary revenue was not more than sufficient to support the gov- ernment in time of peace. The eight hundred thousand pounds out of which the Commons had just been tricked would not defray the naval and military charge of a single year of hostil- ities. After the terrible lesson given by the Long Parliament, even the Cabal did not venture to recommend benevolences or shipmoney. In this perplexity Asliley and Clifford proposed a flagitious breach of public faith. The goldsmiths of London were then not only dealers in the precious metals, but also bank- ers, and were in the habit of advancing large sums of money to the government. In return for these advances they received assignments on the revenue, and were repaid with interest as the taxes came in. About thirteen hundred thousand pounds had been in this way intrusted to the honour of the state. On a sudden it was announced that it was not convenient to oav 202 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. the principal, and that the lenders must content themselves with interest. They were consequently unable to meet their own engagements. The Exchange was in an uproar : several great mercantile houses broke ; and dismay and distress spread through all society. -Meanwhile rapid strides were made towards despotism. Proclamations, dispensing with Acts of Parliament, or enjoining what only Parliament could lawfully enjoin, ap- peared in rapid succession. Of these edicts the most important was the Declaration of Indulgence. By this instrument the penal laws against Roman Catholics were set aside ; and, that the real object of the measure might not be perceived, the laws against Protestant Nonconformists were also suspended. A few days after the appearance of the Declaration of In- dulgence, war was proclaimed against the United Provinces. By sea the Dutch maintained the struggle with honour ; but on land they were at first borne down by irresistible force. A great French army passed the Rhine. Fortress after fortress opened its gates. Three of the seven provinces of the federa- tion were occupied by the invaders. The fires of the hostile camp were seen from the top of the Stadthouse of Amsterdam. The Republic, thus fiercely assailed from without, was torn at the same time by internal dissensions. The government was in the hands of a close oligarchy of powerful burghers. There were numerous selfelected Town Councils, each of which exer- cised, within its own sphere, many of the rights of sovereif^ntv. These councils sent delegates to the Provincial States, and the Provincial States again sent delegates to the States General. A hereditary first magistrate was no essential part of this polity. Nevertheless one family, singularly fertile of great men, had gradually obtained a large and somewhat indefinite authority. William, first of the name. Prince of Orange Nassau, and Stadt- holder of Holland, had headed the memorable insurrection against Spain. His son Maurice had been Captain General and first minister of the States, had, by eminent abilities and public services, and by some treacherous and cruel actions, raised himself to almost kingly power, and had bequeathed a great part of that power to his family. The influence of the UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 203 Stadtholders was an object of extreme jealousy to the munici- pal oligarchy. But the army, and that great body of citizens which was excluded from all share in the government, looked on the Burgomasters and Deputies with a dislike resembling the dislike with which the legions and the common people of Rome regarded the Senate, and were as zealous for the House of Orange as the legions and the common people of Rome for the House of C;i?sar. The Stadtholder commanded the forces of the commonwealth, disposed of all militaiy commands, had a large share of the civil patronage, and was surrounded by pomp almost regal. Prince William the Second had been strongly opposed by the oligarchical party. His life had terminated in the year 1 650, amidst great civil troubles. He died childless : the ad- herents of his house were left for a short time without a head ; and the powers which he had exercised were divided among the Town Councils, the Provincial States, and the States Gen- eral. But, a few days after William's death, his widow, Mary, daughter of Charles the first, King of Great Britain, gave birth to a son, destined to raise the glory and authority of the House of Nassau to the highest point, to save the United Provinces from slavery, to curb the power of France, and to establish the English constitution on a lasting foundation. This Prince, named W^illiam Henry, was from his birth an object of serious apprehension to the party now supreme in Holland, and of loyal attachment to the old friends of his line. He enjoyed high consideration as the possessor of a splendid fortune, as the chief of one of the most illustrious houses in Europe, as a Magnate of the German empire, as a prince of the blood royal of England, and, above all, as the descendant of the founders of Batavian liberty. But the high office which had once been considered as hereditary in his family remained in abeyance ; and the intention of the aristocratical party was that there should never be another Stadtholder. The want of a fipst magistrate was, to a great extent, supplied by the Grand Pensionary of the Province of Holland, John De Witt, whose 204 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. abilities, firmness, and integrity bad raised bim to unrivalled autbority in tbe councils of tbe municipal oligarcby. The French invasion produced a complete change. The suffering and terrified people raged fiercely against the govern- ment. In their madness they attacked tbe bravest captains and the ablest statesmen of the distressed commonwealth. De Ruyter was insulted by the rabble. De Witt was torn in pieces before tbe gate of the palace of the States General at the Hague. The Prince of Orange, who had no share in tbe guilt of tbe murder, but who, on this occasion, as on another lamentable occasion twenty years later, extended to crimes per- petrated in his cause an indulgence which has left a stain on his glory, became chief of tbe government without a rival. Young as he was, his ardent and unconquerable spirit, though disguised by a cold and sullen manner, soon roused the courage of his dismayed countrymen. It was in vain that both his uncle and the French King attempted by splendid offers to seduce him from tbe cause of the Republic. To the States General he spoke a high and inspiriting language. He even ventured to suggest a scheme which has an aspect of antique heroism, and which, if it had been accomplished, Avould have been tbe noblest subject for epic song that is to be found in the whole compass of modern history. He told tbe deputies that, even if .their watal soil and the marvels with which human in- dustry had covered it were buried under the ocean, all was not lost. The Hollanders might survive Holland. Liberty and pure religion, driven by tyrants and bigots from Europe, might take refuge in the farthest isles of Asia. The shipping in the ports of the republic would suffice to carry two hundred thou- sand emigrants to the Indian Archipelago. There the Dutch commonwealth might commence a new and more glorious ex- istence, and might rear, under the Southern Cross, amidst the sugar canes and nutmeg trees, the Exchangs of a wealthier Amsterdam, and tbe schools of a more learned Leyden. The national spirit swelled and rose higli. The terms offered by the allies were firmly rejected. Tbe dykes were opened. The whole country was turned into one great lake, from which the UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 205 cities, with their ramparts and steeples, rose like islands. The invaders were forced to save themselves from destruction by a precipitate retreat. Lewis, who, though he sometimes thought it necessary to appear at the head of his troops, greatly pre- ferreied age, and at an important conjuncture, to an extent never before known, and for a purpose generally abhorred. It was instantly subjected to a severe scrutiny. Men did not, indeed, at first, venture to pronounce it altogether unconstitutional. But they began to perceive that it was at direct variance with the spirit of the constitution, and would, if left unchecked, turn the English government from a limited into an absolute monarchy. Under the influence of such apprehensions, the Commons denied the King's right to dispense, not indeed with "all penal statutes, but with penal statutes in matters ecclesiastical, and gave him plainly to understand that, unless he renounced that right, they would grant no supply for the Dutch war. He, for a moment, showed some inclination to put everything to hazard ; but he was strongly advised by Lewis to submit to necessity, and to wait for better times, when the French armies, now em- ployed in an arduous struggle on the Continent, might be avail- able for the purpose of suppressing discontent in England. In the Cabal itself the signs of disunion and treachery began to appear. Shaftesbury, with his proverbial sagacity, saw that a violent reaction was at hand, and that all things were tending towards a crisis resembling that of 1640. He was determined that such a crisis should not find him in the situation of Straf- ford. He therefore turned suddenly round, and acknowledged, in the House of Lords, that the Declaration was illegal. The * The most sensible thing said in the House of Commons, on this suhject, came from Sir William Coventry :—" Our ancestors never did draw a line to circuna. scribe prerogative and liberty." 208 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. King, thus deserted by-his ally and by his Chancellor, yielded, cancelled the Declaration, and solemnly promised that it should never be drawn into precedent. Even this concession was insufficient. The Commons, not content with having forced their sovereign to annul the Indul- gence, next extorted his unwilling assent to a celebrated law, which continued in force do^vn to the reign of George the Fourth, This law, known as the Test Act, provided that all persons holding any office, civil or military, should take the oath of supremacy, should subscribe a declaration against transub- stantiation, and should publicly receive the sacrament according to the rites of the Church of England. The preamble expressef* hostility only to the Papists : but the enacting clauses were scarcely more unfavourable to the Papists than to the rigid Puritans. The Puritans, however, terrified at the evident leaning of the court towards Popery, and encouraged by some, churchmen to hope that, as soon as the Roman Catholics should have been effectually disarmed, relief would be extended to Protestant Nonconformists, made little opposition ; nor could the King, who was in extreme want of money, venture to with- hold his sanction. The act was passed ; and the Duke of York was consequently under the necessity of resigning the great place of Lord High Admiral. Hitherto the Commons had not declared against the Dutch war. But, when the King had, in return for money cautiously doled out, relinquished his whole plan of domestic policy, they fell impetuously on his foreign policy. They requested him to dismiss Buckingham and liauderdale from his councils forever, and appointed a committee to consider the propriety of impeach- ing Arlington. In a short time the Cabal was no more. Clif- ford, who, alone of the five, had any claim to be regarded as an honest man, refused to take the new test, laid down his white staff, and retired to his country seat. Aiiington quitted the post of Secretary of State for a quiet and dignified employment vn the Royal household. Shaftesbury and Buckingham made their peace with the opposition, and appeared at the head of the stormy democracy of the cit3\ Lauderdale, however, still UNDER CHAULES THE SECOND. 209 <;ontinued to be minister for Scotch affairs, with which the Enirlish Parliament could not interfere. And now the Commons nrged the King to make peace with Holland, and expressly declared that no more supplies s/iould be granted for the war, unless it should appear that the enemy obstinately refused to consent to reasonable terms. Charles found it necessary to postpone to a more convenient season all thought of executing the treaty of Dover, and to cajole the nation by pretending to return to the policy of the Triple Alliance. T( mple, who, dui-ing the ascendency of the Cabal, had lived in seclusion among his books and flower beds, was called forth from his hermitage. By his instrumentality a separate peace was concluded with the United Provinces ; and he again became ambassador at the Hague, where his presence was regarded as a sure pledge for the sincerity of his court. The chief direction of affairs was now intrusted to Sir Thomas Osborne, a Yorkshire baronet, who had, in the House of Commons, shown eminent talents for business and debate. Osborne became Lord Treasurer, and was poon created Earl of ^ Danby. He was not a man whose character, if tried by any high standard of morality, would appear to merit approbation. He was greedy of wealth and honours, corrupt himself, and a corrupter of others. The Cabal had bequeathed to him the art of bribing Parliaments, an art still rude, and giving little promise of the rare perfection to which it was brought in the following century. He improved greatly on the plan of the first inventors. They liad merely purchased orators : but every man who had a vote, might sell himself to Danb3\ Yet the new minister must not be confounded with the negotiators of Dover. He was not without the feelinofs of an Englishman and a Protestant ; nor did he, in his solicitude for his own interests, ever wholly forget the interests of his country and of his religion. He was desirous, indeed, to exalt the prerogative : but the means by which he proposed to exalt it were widely different from those which had been contemplated by Arlington and Clifford. The thought of establ'shing arbitrary power, by calling in the aid of foreign arms, and bv reducing the kingdom to the rank of a dependent princi' 14 2lO HISTORY OF ENGLAND. pality, never entered into his mind. His plan was to rally round the monarchy those classes which had been the firm allies of the monarchy during the troubles of the preceding generation, and which had been disgusted by the recent crimes and errors of the court. With the help of the old Cavalier interest, of the nobles, of the country gentlemen, of the clergy, and of the Universities, it might, he conceived, be possible to make Charles, not indeed an absolute sovereign, but a sovereign scarcely less powerful than Elizabeth had been. x Prompted by these feelings, Danby formed the design of securing to the Cavalier party the exclusive possession of all political power both executive and legislative. In the year 1675, accordingly, a bill was offered to the Lords which provided that no person should hold any office, or should sit in either House of Parliament, without first declaring on oath that he considered resistance to the kingly power as in all cases criminal, and that he would never endeavour to alter the government either in Church or State. During several weeks the debates, divisions, and protests caused by this proposition kept the coun- try in a state of excitement. The opposition in the House of Lords, headed by two members of the Cabal who were desirous to make their peace with the nation, Buckingham and Shaftes- bury, was beyond all precedent vehement and pertinacious, and at length proved successful. The bill was not indeed rejected, but was retarded, mutilated, and at length suffered to drop. So arbitrary and so exclusive was Danby's scheme of domes- tic policy. His opinions touching foreign policy did him more honour. They were in truth directly opposed to those of the Cabal and differed little from those of the Country Party. He bitterly lamented the degraded situation to which England was reduced, and declared, with more energy than politeness, that his dearest wish was to cudgel the French into a proper respect for her. So little did he disguise his feelings that, at a great banquet where the most illustrious dignitaries of the State and of the Church were assembled, he not very decorously filled his glass to the confusion of all who were against a war with France. He would indeed most gladly have seen his country IJNDEU CHARLES THE SECOND. 2ll united with the powers which were then combined against Lewis, and was for that end bent on placing Temple, the author of the Triple Alliance, at the head of the department which directed foreign affairs. But the power of the prime minister was limited. In his most confidential letters he complained that the infatuation of his master prevented England from taking her proper place among European nations. Charles was insa- tiably greedy of French gold : he had by no means relinquished the hope that he might, at some future day, be able to establish absolute monarchy by the help of the French arms ; and for both reasons he wished to maintain a good understanding with the court of Versailles. Thus the sovereign leaned towards one system of foreign pol- itics, and the minister towards a system diametrically opjjosite. Neither the sovereign nor the minister, indeed, was of a temper to pursue any object with undeviating constancy. Each occa- sionally yielded to the importunity of the other ; and their jarring inclinations and mutual concessions gave to the whole administration a strangely capricious character. Charles some- times, from levity and indolence, suffered Danby to take steps Avhich Lewis resented as mortal injuries. Danby, on the other hand, rather than relinquish his great place, sometimes stooped to compliances which caused him bitter pain and shame. The King was brought to consent to a marriage between the Lady Mary, eldest daughter and presumptive heiress of the Duke of York, and William of Orange, the deadly enemy of France and the hereditary champion of the Reformation. Nay, the brave Earl of Ossory, son of Ormond, was sent to assist the Dutch with some British troops, who, on the most bloody day of the whole war, signally vindicated the national reputation for stub- born courage. The Treasurer, on the other hand, was induced not only to connive at some scandalous pecuniary transactions which took place between his master and the court of Versailles, but to become, unwillingly indeed and ungraciously, an agent in those transactions. Meanwhile the Country Party was driven by two strong feel- ings in two opposite directions. The popular leaders were 212 HISTORY OF KNGLAND. afraid of the greatness of Lewis, who was not only making head against the whole strength of the continental alliance, but was even gaining ground. Yet th'ey were afraid to entrust their own King with the means of curbing France, lest those means should be used to destroy the liberties of England. Tlie conflict be- tween these apprehensions, both of which were perfectly legiti- mate, made the policy of the Opposition seem as eccentric and fickle as that of the Court. The Commons called for a war with France, till the King, pressed by Danby to comply with their wish, seemed disposed to yield, and began to raise an army. But, as soon as they saw that the recruiting had commenced, their dread of Lewis gave placo to a nearer dread. They began to fear that the new levies might be employed on a service in which Charles took much more interest than in the defence of Flanders. They therefore refused supplies, and clamoured for disbanding as loudly as they had just before clamoured for arm- ing. Those historians who have severely reprehended this inconsistency do not appear to have made sufficient allowance for the embarrassing situation of subjects who have reason to believe that their prince is conspiring with a foreign and hostile power against their liberties. To refuse him military resources is to leave the state defenceless. Yet to give him military resources may be only to arm him against the state. In such circumstances vacillation cannot bo considered as a proof of dis- honesty or even of weakness. These jealousies were studiously fomented by the French King. He had long kept England passive by promising to support the throne against the Parliament. He now, alarmed at finding that the patriotic counsels of Danby seemed likely to prevail in the closet, began to inflame the Parliament against the throne. Between Lewis and the Country Party there was one thing, and one only in common, profound distrust of Charles. Could the Country Party have been certain that their sovereign meant only to make war on France, they would have been eager to support him. Could Lewis have been certain that the new levies were intended only to make war on the constitution of England, he would have made no attempt to stop them. UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 213 But the unsteadiness and faithlessness of Charles were such that the French Government and the English opposition, agree- ing in nothing else, agreed in disbelieving his protestations, and were equally desirous to keep him poor and without an army. Communications were opened between Barillon, the Ambassador of Lewis, and those English politicians who had always professed, and who indeed sincerely felt, the greatest dread and dislike of the French ascendency. The most up- right of the Country Party, William Lord Russell, son of the Earl of Bedford, did not scruple to concert with a foreign mission schemes for embarrassing his own sovereign. This was the whole extent of Russell's offence. His principles and his fortune alike raised him above all temptations of a sordid kind : but there is too much reason to believe that some of his associates were less scrupulous. It would be unjust to impute to them the extreme wickedness of taking bribes to injure their country. On the contrary, they meant to serve her : but it is impossible to deny that they were mean and indelicate enough to let a foreign prince pay them for serving her. Among those who cannot be acquitted of this degrading charge was one man who is popularly considered as the personification of public spirit, and who, in spite of some great moral and intellectual faults, has a just claim to be called a hero, a philosopher, and a patriot. It is impossible to see withoiit pain such a name in the list of the pensioners of France. Yet it is some consolation to reflect that, in our time, a public man would be thought lost to all sense of duty and of shame, who should not spurn from him a temptation which conquered the virtue and the pride of Algernon Sydney. The effect of these intrigues was that England, though she occasionally took a menacing attitude, remained inactive till the continental war, having lasted near seven years, was ter- minated by the treaty of Nimeguen. The United Provinces, which in 1672 had seemed to be on the verge of utter ruin, obtained honourable and advantageous terms. This' narrow escape was generally ascribed to the ability and courage of the young Stadtholder. His fame was great throughout Europe, 214 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. and especially among the English, who regarded him as one ot their own princes, and rejoiced to see him the liusband of their future Queen. France retained many important towns in the Low Countries and the great province of Franche Comte. Almost the whole loss was borne by the decaying monarchy of Spain. A few months after the termination of hostilities on the Continent came a great crisis in English politics. Towards such a crisis things had been tending during eighteen years. The whole stock of popularity, great as it was, with which the King had commenced his administration, had long been ex- pended. To loyal enthusiasm had succeeded profound dis- affection. The public mind had now measured back again the space over which it had passed between 1640 and 1G60, and was once more in the state in which it had been when the Long Parliament met. The prevailing discontent was compounded of many feelings. One of these was wounded national pride. That generation had seen England, during a few years, allied on equal terms with France, victorious over Holland and Spain, the mistress of the sea, the terror of Rome, the head of the Protestant interest. Her resources had not diminished ; and it might have been ex- pected that she would have been at least as highly considered in Europe under a legitimate King, strong in the affection aud willing obedience of his subjects, as she had been under an usurper whose utmost vigilance and energy were required to keep down a mutinous people. Yet she had, in consequence of the imbecility and meanness of her rulers, sunk so low that any German or Italian principality which brought five thousand men into the field was a more important member of the com- monwealth of nations. With the sense of national humiliation was mingled anxiety for civil liberty. Rumours, indistinct indeed, but perhaps the more alarming by reason of their indistinctness, imputed to the court a deliberate design against all the constitutional rights of Englishmen. It had even been whispered that this design was to be carried into effect by the intervention of foreign UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 215 arms. The thought of such intervention made the blood, even of the Cavaliers, boil in their veins. Some who had always professed the doctrine of non-resistance in its full extent were now heard to mutter that there was one limitation to that doc- trine. If a foreign force were brought over to coerce the nation, they would not answer for their own patience. But neither national pride nor anxiety for public liberty had so great an influence on the popular mind as hatred of the Roman Catholic religion. That hatred had become one of the ruling passions of the community, and was as strong in the ignorant and profane as in those who were Protestant from con- viction. The cruelties of Mary's reign, cruelties which even in the most accurate and sober narrative excite just detestation, and which were neither accurately nor soberly related in the popular martyrologies, the conspiracies against Elizabeth, and above all the Gunpowder Plot, had left in the minds of the vulgar a deep and bitter feeling which was kept up by annual commemorat ons, prayers, bonfires, and processions. It should be added that those classes which were peculiarly distinguished by attachment to the throne, the ^clergy and the landed gentry, had peculiar reasons for regarding the Church of Rome with aversion. The clergy trembled iot their benefices ; the landed gentry for their abbeys and great tithes. While the memory of the reigii* of the Saints was still recent, hatred of Popery had in some degree given place to hatred of Puritanism ; but, during the eighteen years which had elapsed since the Restoration, the hatred of Puritanism had abated, and the hatred of Popery had Increased. The stipulations of the treaty of Dover were accu- I'ately known to very few ; but some hints had got abroad. The general impression was that a great blow was about to be aimed at the Protestant religion. The King was suspected by many of a leaning towards Rome. His brother and heir pi-esumptive was known to be a bigoted Roman Catholic. The first Duchess of York had died a Roman Catholic. James had then, in de« fiance of the remonstrances of the House of Commons, taken to -wife the Princess Mary of Modena, another Roman Catholic. If there should be sons by this marriage, there was reason to 216 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. fear that they might be bred Roman Catholics, and that a long succession of princes, hostile to the establislied faith, might sit * on the English throne. The constitution had recently been violated for the purpose of protecting the Roman Catholics from the penal laws. The ally by whom the policy of England had, during many years, been chiefly governed, was not only a Roman Catholic, but a persecutor of the reformed Churches. Under such circumstances it is not strange that the common people should have been inclined to apprehend a return of the times of her whom they called Bloody Mary. Thus the nation was in such a temper tliat the smallest spark might raise a flame. At this conjuncture fire was set in two places at once to the vast mass of combustible matter ; and in a moment the whole was in a blaze. The French court, which knew Danby to be its moptjtl enemy, artfully contrived to ruin him by nijkiiig him pass for its friend. Lewis, by the instrumentality of Ralph Montague, a faithless and shameless man who had resided in France as minister from England, laid before the House of Commons proofs that the Treasurer had been concerned in an application made by the Court of Whitehall*to the Court of Versailles for a sum of money. This discovery produced its natural effect. The Treasurer was, in truth, exposed to the vengeance of Par- liament, not on account of his delinquencies, but on account of his merits ; not because he had been an accomplice in a crim- inal transaction, but because he had been a most unwilling and unserviceable accomplice. But of the circumstances, which liave, in the judgment of posterity, greatly extenuated liis fault, liis contemporaries were ignorant. In their view he was the broker who had sold England to France. It seemed clear that his greatness was at an end, and doubtful whether his head could be saved. Yet was the ferment excited by this discovery slight, when compared with the commotion which arose when it was noised abroad that a great Popish plot had been detected. One Titus Gates, a clergyman of the Church of England, had, by his disorderly life and heterodox doctrine, drawn on himself the UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 217 censure of his spiritual superiors, had been compelled to quit his benefice, and had ever since led an infamous and vagrant life. He had once professed himself a Roman Catholic, and had passed some time on the Continent in English colleges of the order of Jesus. In those seminaries he had heard much wild talk about the best means of bringing England back to the true Church. From hints thus furnished he constructed a hid' eous romance, resembling rather the dream of a sick man than any transaction which ever took place in the real world. The Pope, he said, had entrusted the government of England to tho Jesuits. Tlie Jesuits had, by commissions under the seal of their society, appointed Roman Catholic clergyiften, noblemen, and gentlemen, to all the highest offices in Church and State. The Papists had burned down London once. They had tried to burn it down again. They were at that moment planning a scheme for setting fire to all the shipping in the Thames. They were to rise at a signal and massacre all their Protestant neigh- bours. A French army was at the same time to land in Ireland. All the leading statesmen and divines of England were to be murdered. Three or four schemes had been formed for assas- sinating the King. He was to be stabbed. He was to be poi- soned in his medicine. He was to be shot with silver bullets. The public mind was so sore and excitable that these lies readily found credit with the vulgar ; and two events which speedily took place led even some reflecting men to suspect that the tale, though evidently distorted and exaggerated, might have some foundation. Edward Coleman, a very busy, and not very honest, Roman Catholic intriguer, had been among the persons accused. Search was made for his papers. It was found that he had just destroyed the greater part of them. But a few which had es' caped contained some passages such as, to minds strongly pre- possessed, might seem to confirm the evidence of Gates. Those passages indeed, when candidly construed, appear to express little more than the hopes which the posture of affairs, the pre- dilections of Charles, the still stronger predilections of .lames, and the relations existing between the French and English 218 HISTOKY OF ENGLAND. courts, might naturally excite iu the mind of a Roman Catholic strongly attached to the interests of his Church. But tha coun- try was not then inclined to construe the letters of Papists can- didly ; and it was urged, with some show of reason, that, if papers which had been passed over as unimportant were filled with matter so suspicious, some great mystery of iniquity must have been contained in those documents which had been care- fully committed to the flames. A few days later it was known that Sir Edmondsbury God- frey, an eminent justice of the peace who had taken the deposi- tions of Oates against Coleman, had disappeared. Search was made ; and Godfrey's corpse was found in a field near London. It was clear that he had died by violence. It was equally clear that he had not been set upon by robbers. His fate is to this da}"^ a secret. Some think that he perished by his own hand ; some, that he was slain by a private enemy. The most improlv able supposition is that he was murdered by the party hostile to the court, in order to give colour to the story of the plot. The most probable supposition seems, on the whole, to be that some hotheaded Roman Catholic, driven to frenzy by the lies of Oates and by the insults of the mul.itude, and not nicely dis- tinguishing between the perjured accuser and the innocent mag- istrate, had taken a revenge of which the history of persecuted sects furnishes but too many examples. If this were so, the assassin must have afterwards bitterly execrated his own wick- edness and folly. The capital and the whole nation went mad with hatred and fear. The penal laws, which had begun to lose something of their edge, were sharpened anew. Every- where justices were busied in searching houses and seizing papers. All the gaols were filled with Papists. London had the aspect of a city in a state of siege. The trainbands were under arms all night. Preparations were made for barricading the great thoroughfares. Patrols marched up and down the streets. Cannon were planted round Whitehall. No citizen thought himself safe unless he carried under his coat a small flail loaded with lead to brain the Popish assassins. The corpse of the murdered magistrate was exhibited during several days UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 219 to the gaze of great multitudes, and was then committed to the grave with strange and terrible ceremonies, which indicated rather fear and the thirst of vengeance tliau sorrow or religious hope. The Houses insisted that a guard should be placed in the vaults over which they sate, in order to secure them against a second Gunpowder Plot. All their proceedings were of a piece with this demand. Ever since the reign of Elizabeth the oath of supremacy had been exacted from members of the House of Commons. Some Roman Catholics, however, had contrived so to interpret this oath that they could take it without scruple. A more stringent test was now added : every member of Parliament was re({uired to make the Declaration against Transubstantiation ; and thus the Roman Catholic Lords were for the first time excluded from their seats. Strong resolutions were adopted against the Queen. The Commons threw one of the Secretaries of State into prison for having countersigned commissions directed to gentlemen who were not good Protes- tants. They impeached the Lord Treasurer of high treason. Nay, they so far forgot the doctrine which, while the memory of the civil war was still recent, they had loudly professed, that they even attempted to wrest the command of the militia out of the King's hands. To such a temper had eighteen years of misgovernment brought the most loyal Parliament that had ever met in England. Yet it may seem strange that, even in that extremity, the King should have ventured to appeal to the people ; for the people were more excited than their representatives. The Lower House, discontented as it was, contained a larger num- ber ot Cavaliers than were likely to find seats again. But it was thought that a dissoluti(m would put a stop to the prosecu- tion of the Lord Treasurer, a prosecution which might probably bring to light all the guilty mysteries of the French alliance, and might thus cause extreme personal annoyance and embarrass- ment to Charles. Accordingly, in January, 1679, the Parliament, which had been in existence ever since the beffinnins: of the year 1661, was dissolved j and Tvrits were jssijed for a general election, 220 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. During some weeks the contention over the whole country was fierce and obstinate beyond example. Unprecedented sums were expended. New tactics were employed. It was remark- ed by the pamphleteers of tliat time as something extraordinary that horses were hired at a great charge for the conveyance of electors. The practice of splitting freeholds for the purpose of multiplying votes dates from this memorable straggle. Dissent- ing preachers, who had long hidden themselves in quiet nooks from persecution, now emerged from their retreats, and rode from village to village, for the purpose of rekindling the zeal of the scattered j^eojsle of God. The tide ran strong against the government. Most of the new members came up to West- minster in a mood little differing from that of their predeces- sors who had sent Strafford and Laud to the Tower. Meanwhile the courts of justice, which ought to be, in the midst of political commotions, sure places of refuge for the innocent of every party, were disgraced by wilder passions and fouler corruptions than were to be found even on the hustings. The tale of Gates, though it had sufficed to convulse the whole realm, would not, unless confirmed by other evidence, suffice to destroy the humblest of those whom he had accused. F'or, by the old law of Euijland, two witnesses are necessary to establish a charge of treason. But the success of the first impostor produced its natural consequences. In a few w-eeks he had been raised from penury and obscurity to opulence, to power which made him tlie dread of princes and nobles, and to notoriety such as has for low and bad minds all the attractions of glory. He was not long without coadjutors and rivals. A wretch- named Carstairs, who had earned a livelihood in Scotland by going disguised to conventicles and then informing against the preachers, led the way. Bedloe, a noted swindler, followed; and soon from all the brothels, gambling houses, and spunging houses of London, false witnesses poured forth to swear away the lives of Roman Catholics. Gne came with a story about an army of thirty thousand men who were to muster in the disguise of pilgrims at Corunna, and to sail thence to Wales. Another had been promised canonisation and five hundred pounds to UNDEK CHARLES THE SECOND. 221 murder the King. A third had stepped into an eating house in Covent Garden, and had there heard a great Roman Catholic banker vow, in the hearing of all the guests and drawers, to kill the heretical tyrant. Gates, that he might not be eclipsed by his imitators, soon added a large supplement to his original narrative. He had the portentous impudence to affirm, among other things, that he had once stood behind a door which was ajar, and had there overheard the Queen declare that she had re- solved to give her consent to the assassination of her husband. The vuVar believed, and the liighest magistrates pretended to believe, even such fictions as these. The chief judges of the realm were corrupt, cruel, and timid. The leaders of the Country Party encouraged the prevailing delusion. The most respectable amonsr them, indeed, were themselves so far deluded as to be- lieve the greater part of the evidence of the plot to be true. Such men as Shaftesbury and Buckingham doubtless perceived that the whole was a romance. But it was a romance which served their turn ; and to their seared consciences the death of an innocent man gave no more uneasiness than the death of a parti'idge. The juries partook of the feelings then common throughout the nation, and were encouraged by the bench to in- dulge those feelings without restraint. The multitude applauded Gates and his confederates, hooted and pelted the Witnesses who appeared on behalf of the accused, and shouted with joy when the verdict of Guilty was pronounced. It was in vain that the sufferers appealed to the respectability of their past lives : for the public mind was possessed with a belief that the more con- scientious a Papist was, the more likely he must be to plot against a Protestant government. It was in vain that, just before the cart passed from under their feet, they resolutely affirmed their innocence : for the general opinion was that a good Papist considered all lies which were serviceable to his Church as not only excusable but meritorious. While innocent blood was shedding under the forms of jus- tice, the new Parliament met ; and such was the violence of the predominant party that even men whose youth had been passed amidst revolutions, men who remembered the attainder of Straf- 222 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. ford, the attempt on the five members, the abolition of the House of Lords, the execution of the King, stood aghast at the aspect of public affairs. The impeachment of Danliy was re- sumed. He pleaded the royal pardon. But the Commons treated the plea with contempt, and insisted that the trial should proceed. Danby, however, was not their chief object. They were convinced that the only effectual way of securing the liberties and religion of the nation was to exclude the Duke of York from the throne. The King was in great perplexity. He had insisted that his brother, the sight of whom inflamed the populace to mad- ness, should retire for a time to Brussels : but this concession did not seem to have produced any favourable effect. The Roundhead party was now decidedly preponderant. Towards that party leaned millioris who had, at the time of the Restora- tion, leaned towards the side of prerogative. Of the old Cava- liers many participated in the prevailing fear of Popery, and many, bitterly resenting the ingratitude of the prince for whom they had sacrificed so much, looked on his distress as carelessly as he had looked on theirs. Even the Anglican clergy, morti- fied and alarmed by the apostasy of the Duke of York, so far countenanced the opposition as to join cortiially in the outcry against the Roman Catholics. The King in this extremity had recourse to Sir William Temple. Of all the official men of that age Temple had pre- served the fairest character. The Triple Alliance had been his work. He had refused to take any part in the politics of the Cabal, and had, while that administration directed affaii's, lived in strict privacy. He had quitted his retreat at the call of Danby, had made peace between England and Holland, and had borne a chief part in bringing about the marriage of the Lady Mary to her cousin the Prince of Orange. Thus he had the credit of every one of the few good things which had been done by the government since the Restoration. Of the numer- ous crimes and blunders of the last eighteen years none could be imputed to him. His private life, though not austere, was figcproHs ; his manner? were popular ; and he Yfm o-ot to b© L'NDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 223 corrupted either by titles or by money. Something, however, was wanting to the character of this respectable statesman. The temperature of his patriotism was lukewarm. He prized his ease and his personal dignity too much, and shrank from re- sponsibility with a pusillanimous fear. Nor indeed had his habits fitted him to bear a part in the conflicts of our domestic factions. He had reached his fiftieth year without having sate in the English Parliament ; and his ofiicial experience had been almost entirely acquired at foreign courts. He was justly esteemed one of the first diplomatists in Europe: but the talents and accomplishments of a diplomatist are widely differ- ent from those which qualify a politician to lead the House of Commons in agitated times. The scheme which he proposed showed considerable ingenu- ity. Though not a profound philosopher, he had thought more than most busy men of the world on the general principles of government ; and his mind had been enlarged by historical studies and foreion travel. He seems to have discerned more clearly than most of his contemporaries one cause of the diffi- culties by which the government was beset. The character of the English polity was gradually changing. The Parliament was slowly, but constantly, gaining ground on the prerogative The line between the legislative and executive powers was in theory as strongly marked as ever, but in practice was daily be- coming fainter and fainter. The theory of the constitution was that the King might name his own ministers. But the House of Commons had driven Clarendon, the Cabal, and Danby suc- cessively from the direction of affair?. The theory of the con- stitution was that the King alone had the power of making peace and war. But the House of Commons had forced him to make peace with Holland, and had all but forced him to make war with France. The theory of the constitution was that the King was the sole judge of the cases in which it might be proper to pardon offenders. Yet he was so much in dread of the House of Commons that, at that moment, he could not ven- ture to rescue from the gallows men whom he well knew to be the innocent victims of perjury. 224 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Temple, it should seem, was desirous to secure to the legis* lature its undoubted coustitutional powers, and yet to prevent it, if possible, from encroaching further on the province of the executive administration. With this view he determined to in- terpose between the sovereign and the Parliament a body which might break the shock of their collision. There was a body, ancient, highly honourable, and recognised by the law, which, he thought, might be so remodelled as to serve this purpose. He determined to give to the Privy Council a new character and office in the government. The number of Councillors he fixed at thirty. Fifteen of them were to be the cliief ministers of state, of law, and of religion. The other fifteen were to be unplaced noblemen and gentlemen of ample fortune and high character. There was to be no interior cabinet. All the thirty were to be entrusted with every political secret, and summoned to every meeting ; and the King was to declare that he would, on every occasion, be guided by their advice. Temple seems to have thought that, by this contrivance, he could at once secure the nation against the tyranny of the Crown, and the Crown against the encroachments of the Par- liament. It was, on one hand, highly impi-obable that schemes such as had been formed by the Cabal would be even propounded for discussion in an assembly consisting of thirty eminent men, fifteen of whom were bound by no tie of interest to the court. On the other hand, it might be hoped that the Commons, con- tent with the guarantee against misgovernment which such a Privy Council furnished, ^would confine themselves more than they had of late done to their strictly legislative functions, and would no longer think it necessary to pry into every part of the executive administration. This plan, though in some respects not unworthy of the abilities of its author, was in principle vicious. The new board was half a cabinet and haM a Parliament, and, like almost every other contrivance, whether mechanical or political, which is meant to serve two purposes altogether different, failed of ac- complishing either. It was too large and too divided to be a gooi administrative body. It was too closely connected with UNDER CHARLES rilE SECOND. 225 the Crown to be a good checking botly. It contained just enough of popular ingredients to make it a bad council of state, unfit for the keeping of secrets, for the conducting of delicate negotiations, and for the administration of war. Yet were these popular ingredients by no means sufficient to secure the nation against misgovernment. The plan, therefore, even if it had been fairly tried, could scarcely have succeeded ; and it was not fairly tried. The King was fickle and perfidious : the Parlia- ment was excited and unreasonable ; and the materials out of which the new Council was made, though perhaps the best which that age afforded, were still bad. The commencement of the new system was, however, hailed with general delight ; for the peojjle were in a temper to think any change an improvement. They were also pleased by some of the new nominations. Shaftesbury, now their favourite, was appointed Lord President. Russell and some other distinguished members of the Country Party were sworn of the Council. But a few days later all was again in confusion. The inconveniences of having so numerous a cabinet were such that Temple him.self consented to infringe one of the fundamental rules which he had laid down, and to become one of a small knot which really directed everything. With him were joined three other minis- ters, Arthur Capel, p]arl of Essex, George Savile, Viscount Halifax, and Robert Spencer, Earl of Sunderland. Of the Earl of Essex, then First Commissioner of the Treasury, it is sufficient to say that he was a man of solid, though not brilliant parts, and of grave and melancholy charac- ter, that he had been connected with the Country Party, and that he was at this time honestly desirous to effect, on terras beneficial to the state, a reconciliation between that party and the throne. Among the statesmen of those times Halifax was, in genius, the first. His intellect was fertile, subtle, and capacious. His polished, luminous, and animated eloquence, set off by the silver tones of his voice, was the delight of the HousGi of Lords. His conversation overflowed with thought, fancy, and wit. His political tracts well deserve to be studied for their literary 15 226 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. merit, and fully entitle him to a place among English cla> >sica. To the weight derived from talents so great and varices he united all the influence which belongs to rank and ample ;»osses- sions. Yet he was less successful in politics than majy who enjoyed smaller advantages. Indeed, those intellectual pecu- liarities which make his writings valuable frequently impeded him in the contests of active life. For he always saw, passing events, not in the point of view in which they commonly appear to one who bears a part in them, but in thepoint of view in which, after the lapse of many years, they appear to the phil- osophic historian. With such a turn of mind, he could not long continue to act cordially with any body of men. All the pre- judices,' all the exaggerations, of both the great parties in the state moved his scorn. He despised the mean arts and unrea- sonable clamours of demagogues. He despised still more the doctrines of divine right and passive obedience. He sneered impartially at the bigotry of the Churchman and at the bigotry of the Puritan. He was equally unable to comprehend how any man should object to Saints' days and surplices, and how any man should persecute any other man for objecting to them. In temper he was what, in our time, is called a Conservative, in theory he was a Republican. Even wlien his dread of anarchy and his disdain for vulgar delu ions led him to side for a time with the defenders of arbitrary power, his intellect was always with Locke and Milton. Indeed, his jests upon heredi- tary monarchy were sometimes such as would have better become a member of the Calf's Head Club than a Privy Coun- cillor of the Stuarts. In reli confidential advisers of the crown soon found that their position was embarrassing and invidious. The other members of the Council murmured at a distinction inconsistent with the King's promises ; and some of them, with Shaftesbury at their head, again betook themselves to strenuous opposition in Parliament. The agitation, which had been suspended by the late changes, speedily became more violent than ever. It was in vain that Charles offered to grant to the Commons any security for the Protestant religion which they could devise, provided only that they would not touch the order of succession. They would hear of no compromise. They would have the Exclusion Bill, and nothing but the Exckision Bill. The King, therefore, a few weeks after he had publicly promised to take no step without the advice of his new Council, went down to the House of Lords without mentioning Ids intention in Coun- cil, and prorogued the Parliament. The day of that prorogation, the twenty-sixth of May, 1 679, is a great era in our history. For on that day the Habeas Corpus Act received the royal assent. From the time of tlie Great Charter the substantive law respecting the personal lib- -^rty of Englishmen had been nearly the same as at present: but it had been inefficacious for want of a stringent system of procedure. What was needed was not a new right, but a prompt and searching remedy ; and such a remedy the Habeas Corpus Act supplied. The King would gladly have refused his consent to that measure : but he was about to appeal from his Parliament to his people on the question of the succession, and he could not venture, at so critical a moment, to reject a bill whicli was in the highest degree popular. On the same day the press of England became for a short time free. In old times jirinters had been strictly controlled by the Court of Star Chamber. The Long Parliament had abolished the Star Chamber, but had, in spite of the philo- sophical and eloquent expostulation of Milton, established and UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 231 maintained a censorship. Soon after the Restoration, an Act had been passed which prohibited the printing of nnlicensed books ; and it had been provided that tliis Act should continue in force till the end of the first session of the next Parliament. That moment had now arrived ; and the King, in the very act of dismissing the House, emancipated the Press. Shortly after the prorogation came a dissolution and another general election. The zeal and strengtli of the opposition were at the height. The cry for the Exclusion Bill was louder than ever; and with this cry was mingled another cry, which fired the blood of the multitude, but wliich was heard with regret and alarm by all judicious friends of freedom. Not oidy the rights of the Duke of York, an ^avowed Papist, but those of his two daughters, sincere and zealous Protestants, were assailed. It was confidently affirmed that the eldest natural son of the King had been born in wedlock, and was lawful heir to the crown. Charles, while a wanderer on the Continent, had fallen in at the Hague with Lucy Walters, a Welsh girl of great beauty, but of weak understanding and dissolute manners. She be- came his mistress, and presented him with a son. A suspicious lover might have had his doubts ; for the lady had several ad- mirers, and was not supposed to be cruel to any. Charles, how- ever, readily took her word, and poured forth on little James Crofts, as the boy was then called, an overflowing fondness, such as seemed hardly to belong to that cool and careless nature. Soon after the restoration, the young favourite, who had learned in France the exercises then considered necessary to a fine gentleman, made his appearance at Whitehall. He was lodged in the palace, attended by pages, and permitted to enjoy sevei'al distinctions which had till then been confined to princes of the blood royal. He was married, while still in tender youth, to Anne Scott, heiress of the noble house of Buccleuch. He took her name, and received with her hand possession of her ample domains. The estate which he had acquired by this match was popularly estimated at not less than ten thousand pounds a year. Titles, and favours more substantial than titles, were 232 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. lavished on him. He was made Duke of Monmouth in Eng- land, Duke of Buccleuch in Scotland, a Knight of the Garter, Master of the Horse, Commander of the first troop of Life Guards, Chief Justice of Eyre south of Trent, and Chancellor of the University of Cambridge. Nor did he appear to the public unworthy of his high fortunes. His countenance was eminently handsome and engaging, his temper sweet, his man- ners polite and affable. Though a libertine, he won the hearts of the Puritans. Though he was known to have been privy to the shameful attack o-n Sir John Coventry, he easily obtained the forgiveness of the Country Party. Even austere moral- ists owned that, in such a court, strict conjugal fidelity was scarcely to be expected from one who, while a child, had been married to another child. Even patriots were willing to excuse a headstrong boy for visiting with immoderate vengeance an in- sult offered to his father. And soon the stain left by loose amours and midnight brawls was effaced by honourable ex- ploits. When Chnrlcs and Lewis united their forces against Holland, Monmouth commanded the English auxiliaries who were sent to the Continent, and approved himself a gallant soldier and a not unintelligent officer. On his return he found himself the most ])opular man in the kingdom. Nothing was withheld from him but the crown ; nor did even tlie crown seem to be absolutely beyond his reach. Tiie distinction which had most injudiciously been made between him and the highest nobles had produced evil conse(}uences. When a boy he had been invited to put on his hat in the presence chamber, while Howards and Seymours stood uncovered round him. When foreign princes died, he had mourned for them in the long pur- ple cloak, which no other subject, except the Duke of York and Prince liupert, was permitted to wear. It was natural that these things should lead him to regai'd himself as a legitimate prince of the House of Stuart. Charles, even at a ripe age, was devoted to his pleasures and regardless of his dignity. It could hardly be thought incredible that he should at twenty have secretly gone through the form of espousing a lady whose beauty had fascinated him. While Monmouth was still a child. UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 233 and while the Duke of York still passed for a Protestant, it was rumoured throughout the country, and even in circles which ought to have been well informed, that the King had made Lucy Walters his wife, and that, if every one had his right, her son would be Prince of Wales. Much was said of a certain black box which, according to the vulgar belief, contained the contract of marriage. When JVIonmouth had returned from the Low Countries with a high character for valour and conduct, and when the Duke of York was known to be a member of a church detested by the great majority of the nation, this idle story became important. For it there was not the sli such a height were his pretensions carried, that he not only exhibited on his escutcheon the lions of England and the lilies of France without the baton sinister under which, according to the law of heraldrj, they should 234 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. have been debruised in token of his illegitimate birth, but ven- tured to touch for the king's evil. At the same time he neglected no art of condescension by which the love of the multitude could be conciliated. He stood godfather to the children of the peas- antry, mingled in every rustic sport, vprestled, played at quarter- stafp, and won footraces in his boots against fleet runners in shoes. It is a curious circumstance that, at two of the greatest con- junctures in our history, the chiefs of the Protestant party should have committed the same error, and should by that error have greatly endangered their country and their religion. At the death of Edward the Sixth they set up the Lady Jane, without any show of birthright, in opposition, not only to their eneniy Mary, but also to Elizabeth, the true hope of England and of the Reformation. Thus the most respectable Protestants, with Elizabeth at their head, were forced to make common cause with the Papists. In the same manner, a hiuidred and thirty years later, a part of the opposition, by setting up Monmouth as a claimant of the crown, attacked the rights, not only of James, whom they justly regarded as an implacable foe of their faith and their liberties, but also of the Prince and Princess of Orange, who were eminently marked out, both by situation and by personal qualities, as the defenders of all free governments and of all reformed churches. The folly of this course speedily became manifest. At pres- ent the popularity of Monmouth constituted a great part of the strength of the opposition. The elections went against the court : the day fixed for the meeting of the Houses drew near ; and it was necessary that the King should determine on some line of conduct. Those who advised him discerned the first faint signs of a change of public feeling, and hoped that, by merely postponing the conflict, he would be able to secure the victory. He therefore, without even asking the opinion of the Council of the Thirty, resolved to prorogue the new Parliament before it entered on business. At the same time the Duke of York, who had returned from Brussels, was ordered to retire to Scotland, and was placed at the head of the administration of that kingdom. UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 235 Temple's phm of government was now avowedly abandoned and very soon forgotten. The Privy Council again became wiiat it had been. Shaftesbury, and those who were connected with him in politics resigned their seats. Temple himself, as was his wont in unquiet times, retired to his garden and his library. Essex quitted the boafd of Treasury, and cast in his lot with the opposition. But Halifax, disgusted and alarmed by the violence of his old associates, and Sunderland, who never quitted place while he could hold it, remained in the King's service. In consequence of the resignations which took place at this conjuncture, the way to greatness was left clear to a new set oi aspirants. Two statesmen, who subsequently rose to the Ihighest eminence which a British subject can reach, soon began to attract a large share of the public attention. These were Xawrence Hyde and Sidney Godolpbin. Lawrence Hyde was the second son of the Chancellor Clai'- endon, and was brother of the first Duchess of York. He had excellent parts, which had been improved by parliamentary and diplomatic exi^erience ; but the infirmities of his temper detracted much from the effective strength of his abilities. Negotiator and courtier as he was, he never learned the art of governing or of concealing his emotions. When prosperous, he was insolent and boastful : when he sustained a check, his undisguised mortifi- cation doubled the triumph of his enemies : very slight provo- cations sufficed to kindle his anger ; and when he was angry he said bitter things which he forgot as soon as he was pacified, but which others remembered many years. His quickness and penetration would have made him a consummate man of busi- ness but for his selfsufficiency and impatience. His writings proved that he had many of the qualities of an orator: but his irritability prevented him from doing himself justice in debate; for nothing was easier than to goad him into a passion ; and, from the moment when he went into a passion, he was at the mercy of opponents far inferior to him in capacity. Unlike most of the leading politicians of that generation he was a consistent, dogged, and rancorous party man, a Cavalier 236 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. of the old school, a zealous champion of the Crown and of the Church, and a hater of Republicans and Nonconformists. He had consequently a great body of personal adherents. The clergy especially looked on him as their own man, and extended to his foibles an indulgence of which, to say the truth, he stood in some need : for he drank deep ; and when h6 was in a rage, — and he very often was in a rage, — he swore like a porter. He now succeeded Essex at the treasury. It is to be observed that the place of First Lord of the Treasury had not then thf importance and dignity which now belong to it. When there was a Lord Treasurer, that great officer was generally prime minister : but, when the white staff was in commission, the chief commissioner hardly ranked so high as a Secretary of State. It was not till the time of Walpole that the First Lord of the Treasury became, under a humbler name, all that the Lord High Treasurer had been. Godolphin had been bred a page at Whitehall, and had early acquired all the flexibility and the selfpossession of a veteran courtier. He was laborious, clearheaded, and profoundly versed in the details of finance. Every government, therefore, found him an useful servant ; and there was nothing in his opin- ions or in his character which could prevent him from serving any government. " Sidney Godolphin," said Charles, " is never in the way, and never out of the way." This pointed remark goes far to explain Godolphin's extraordinary success in life. He acted at different times with both the great political parties : but he never shared in the passions of either. Like most men of cautious tempers and prosperous fortunes, he had a strong disposition to support whatever existed. He disliked revolutions ; and, for the same reason for which he disliked revolutions, he disliked counter revolutions. His deportment was remarkably grave and reserved : but his personal tastes were low and frivolous ; and most of the time which he could save from public business was spent in racing, cardplaying, and cockfighting. He now sate below Rochester at the Board of Treasury, and distinguished himself there by assiduity and utelligence. rNDEU OHARLKS TIIK SECOND. 237 Before the v.ew Parliament was f.uilered to meet for the despatch of business a whole year elapsed, an eventful year, which has left lasting traces in our manners and language. Never before hiid political controversy been carried on with so much freedom. Never before had political clubs existed with so elaborate an organisation or so formidable an influence. The one question of the Exclusion occupied the pul)Iic mind. All the presses and pulpits of the realm took part in the con- flict. On one side it was maintained that the constitution and religion of the state could never be secure under a Popish King ; on the other, that the right of James to wear the crown in his turn was derived from God, and could not be annulled, even by the consent of all the branches of the legislature. Every county, every town, every family, was in agitation. The civilities and hospitalities of neighbourhood were inter- rupted. The dearest ties of friendshiji and of blood were sun- dered. Even schoolboys were divided into angry parties ; and the Duke of York and the Earl of Shaftesbury had zealous adherents on all the forms of Westminster and Eton. The theatres shook with the roar of the contending factions. Pope Joan was brought on the stage by the zealous Protestants. Pensioned poets filled their prologues and epilogues with eulogies on the King and the Duke. The malecontents be- sieged the throne with petitions, (Remanding that Parliament might be forthwith convened. The royalists sent up addresses, expressing the utmost abhorrence of all who presumed to dictate to the sovereign. The citizens of London assembled by tens of thousands to burn the Pope in efiigy. The government posted cavalry at Temple Bar, and placed ordnance round Whitehall. In that year our tongue was enriched with two words, Mob and Sham, remarkable memorials of a season of tumult and imposture.* Opponents of the court were called Birminghams, Petitioners, and Exclusionists. Those who took the King's side were Antibirminghams, Abhorrers, and Tan- tivies. These appellations soon become obsolete : but at this time were first heard two nicknames which, though originally • North's Examen, 231, 574. 238 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. ^iven in insult, were soon assumed with pride, which are still in daily use, which have spread as widely as the English race, and which will last as long as the English literature. It is a curious circumstance that one of these nicknames was of Scotch, and the other of Irish, origin. Both in Scotland and in Ireland, misgovernment had called into existence bands of desperate men wliose ferocity was heightened by religious enthusiasm. In Scotland some of the persecuted Covenanters, driven mad by oppression, had lately murdered the Primate, had taken arms against the government, had obtained some advantages against the King's forces, and had not been put down till Monmouth, at the head of some troops from England, had routed them at Bothwell Bridjje. These zealots were most numerous among the rustics ot the western lowlands, who were vulgarly called Whigs. Thus the appellation of Whig was fastened on the Presbyterian zealots of Scotland, and was transferred to those English 23oliticians who showed a disposition to oppose the court, and to treat Protestant Nonconformists with indulgence. The bogs of Ireland, at the same time, afforded a refuge to Popish outlaws, much resembling those who were afterwards known as Whiteboys. These men were then called Tories. The name of Tory was therefore given to Englishmen who refused to concur in excluding a Roman Catholic prince from the thrqne. The rage of the hostile factions would have been sufficiently violent, if it had been left to itself. But it was studiously exasperated by the common enemy of both. Lewis still con- tinued to bribe and flatter both the court and the opposition. He exhorted Charles to be firm : he exhorted .James to raise a civil war in Scotland : he exhorted the Whigs not to flinch, and to rely with confidence on the protection of France. Through all this agitation a discerning eye might have perceived that the jmblic opinion was gradually changing. The persecution of the Roman Catholics went on ; but con- victions were no longer matters of course. A new brood of false witnesses, among Avhom a villain named Dangerfield was the most conspicuous, infested the courts : but the stories of UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 239 these men, though better constructed than that of Gates, found less credit. Juries were no longer so easy of belief as during the panic which had followed the naurder of Godfrey ; and Judges, who, while the popular frenzy was at the height, had been its most obsequious instruments, now ventured to express some part of what they had from the first thought. At length, in October 1680, the Parliament met. The Whigs had so great a majority in the Commons that the Exclu- sion Bill went through all its stages there without difficulty. The King scarcely knew on what members of his own cabinet he «ould reckon. Hyde had been true to his Tory opinions, and had steadily supported the cause of hereditary monarchy. But Godolphin, anxious for quiet, and believing that quiet could be restored only by concession, wished the bill to jjass. Sunderland, ever false, and ever shortsighted, unable to discern the signs of approaching reaction, and anxious to conciliate the party which he believed to be irresistible, determined to vote against the court. The Duchess of Portsmouth implored her royallover not to rush headlong to destruction. If there were any point on which he had a scruple of conscience or of honour, it was the question of the succession ; but during some days it seemed that he would submit. He wavered, asked what sum the Commons would give him if he yielded, and suffered a negotiation to be opened with the leading Whigs. But a deep mutual distrust whifh had been many years growing, and which had been carefully nursed by the arts of France, made a treaty impossible. Neither side would place confidence in the other. The whole nation now looked with breathless anxiety to the House of Lords. The assemblage of peers was large. The King himself was present. The debate was long, earnest, and occasionally furious. Some hands were laid on the pommels of swords in a manner which revived the recollection of the stormy Parliaments of Edward the Third and Richard the Second. Shaftesbury and Essex were joined by the treacherous Sunderland. But the genius of Halifax bore down all opposition. Deserted by his most im- portant colleagues, and opposed to a crowd of able antagonists. We defended the cause of the Duke of York, in a succession of 240 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. speeches which, many years later, were remembered as master- pieces of reasoning, of wit, and of eloquence. It is seldom that oratory changes votes. Yet the attestation of contemporaries leaves no doubt that, on this occasion, votes were changed by the oratory of Halifax. The Bishops, tiue to their doctrines, supported the principle of hereditary right, and the bill was rejected by a great majority.* The party which preponderated in the House of Commons, bitterly mortified by this defeat, found some consoiatioii iu shed- duig the blood of Roman Catholics. William Howard, Viscount Stafford, one of the unhappy men who had beeu accused of a share m the plot, was impeached ; and on the testimony of Gates and of two other false witnesses, Dugdale and Turbervill' ■, was found guilty of high treason, and suffered death. But the circumstances of his trial and execution ought to have given an useful warning to the Whig leaders. A large and respectable minority of the House of Lords pronounced the prisoner not guilty. The multitude, which a few months before had received the dying declarations of Oates's victims with mockery and ex- ecrations, now loudly expressed a belief that Stafford was a murdered man. When he with his last breath protested his innocence, the cry was, " God bless you, my Lord ! We believe you, my Lord." A judicious observer might easily have pre- dicted that the blood then shed would shortly have blood. The King determined to try once more the experiment of a dissolution. A new Parliament was summoned to meet at * A peer who was present lias described the effect of Halifax's oratory in words which I will quote, because, though they have been long in print, they are prob- ably known to few even of the most curious and diligent readers of history. " Of powerful eloquence and great parts were the Duke's enemies who did assert the Bill ; but a noble Lord appeared against it who, that day, in all the force of speech, in reason, in arguments of what could concern the public or the private Interests of men, in honour, in conscience, in estate, did outdo himself and every other man ; and in fine his conduct and his parts were both victorious, and by him all the wit and malice of that party was overthrown." This passage is taken from a memoir of Henry Earl of Peterborough, In a volume entitled "Succinct Genealogies, by. Robert Halstead," fol. 1685. The name of Halstead is fictitious. The real authors were the Earl of Peterborough himself and his chaplain. The book is extremely rare. Only twenty-four copies vere printed, two of which are now in the British Museum. Of these two OM belonged to George the Fourth, and the other to Mr. GrenviUa. UNDER CHAKLES THE SECOND. 24i Oxford, in March, 1G81. Since the days of the Plantagenets the Houses had constantly sat at Westminster, except when the plague was raging in the capital : but so extraordinary a conjunc- ture seemed to require extraordinary precautions. If the Parlia- ment were held in its usual place of assembling, the House of Commons might declare itself permanent, and might call for aid on the magistrates and citizens of Loudon. The trainbands might rise to defend Shaftesbury as they had risen forty years before to defend Pym and Hampden. The Guards might be overpowered, the palace forced, the King a prisoner in the hands of his mutinous subjects. At Oxford there was no such dangei-. The University was devoted to the crown ; and the gentry of the neighbourhood were generally Tories. Here, therefore, the opposition had more reason than the King to apprehend violence. The elections were sharplj^ contested. The Whigs still composed a majority of the House of Commons : but it was plain that the Tory spirit was fast rising throughout the coun- try. It should seem that the sagacious and versatile Shaftes- bury ought to have foreseen tlie coming change, and to have consented to the compromise which the court offered : but he appears to have forgotten his old tactics. Instead of making dispositions which, in the worst event, woidd have secured his retreat, he took up a position in which it was necessary that he should either conquer or perish. Perhaps his head, strong as it was, had been turned by popularity, by success, and by the excitement of conflict. Perhaps he had spurred his party till he could no longer curb it, and was really hurried on headlong by those whom he seemed to guide. The eventful day arrived. The meetir g at Oxford resem- bled rather that of a Polish Diet than that of an English Par- Uament. The Whig members were escorted by great numbers »f their armed and mounted tenants and serving men, who ex- jhanged looks of defiance with the royal Guards. The slight- est provocation might, under such circ«msLa.^v»38, have produced R civil war; but neither side dared to strixe tiie first blow. The King again offered to consent to anything but the Exclusion Bill. The Commons were determined to ftccept nothing but the 16 242 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Exclusion Bill. In a few days the Parliament was again dis- solved. The King had triumphed. The reaction, which had begun some months before the meeting of the House at Oxford, now went rapidly on. The nation, indeed, was still hostile to Popery : but, when men reviewed the whole history of the plot, they felt that their Protestant zeal had hiwried them into folly and crime, and could scarcely believe that they had been induced by nursery tales to clamour for the blood of fellow subjects and fellow Christianso The most loyal, indeed, could not deny that the administration of Charles had often been highly blamable. But men who had not the full information which we possess touching his dealings with France, and who were disgusted by the violence of the Whigs, enumerated the large concessions which, during the last few years he had made to his Parliaments, and the still larger concessions which he had declared himself willing to make. He had consented to the laws which excluded Roman Catholics from the Plouse of Lords, from the Privy Council, and from all civil and military offices. He had passed the Habeas Corpus Act. If securities yet stronger had not been provided against the dangers to which the constitution and the Church might be exposed under a Roman Catholic sovereign, the fault lay, not with Charles who had invited the Parliament to propose such securities, but with those Whigs who had re- fused to hear of any substitute for the Exclusion Bill. One thing only had the King denied to his people. He had refused to take away his brother's birthright. And was there not good reason to believe that this refusal was prompted by laudable feelings ? What selfish motive could faction itself impute to the royal mind ? The Exclusion Bill did not curtail the reign- ing King's prerogatives, or diminish his income. Indeed, by passing it, he might easily have obtained an ample addition to his own revenue. And what was it to him who ruled after him .'' Nay, if he had personal predilections, they were known to be rather in favour of the Duke of Monmouth than of the Duke of York. The most natural explanation of the King's conduct seemed to be that, careless as was his temper and loose as were UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 243 his morais, lie had, on this occasion, acted from a sense of duty and honour. And, if so, would tlie nation compel him to do what lie thought criminal and disgraceful ? To apply, even by strictly constitutional means, a violent pressure to liis conscience, seemed to zealous royalists ungenerous and undutiful. But strictly constitutional means were not the only means which the Whigs were disposed to employ. Signs were already discerni- ble which portended the approach of great troubles. Men, who, in the time of the civil war and of the Commonwealth, had ac- quired an odious notoriety, had emerged from the obscurity in which, after the Restoration, they had hidden themselves from the general hatred, showed their confident and busy faces every- where, and appeared to anticipate a second reign of the Saints. Another Naseby, another High Court of Justice, another usurper on the throne, the Lords again ejected from their hall by violence, the Universities again purged, the Church again robbed and persecuted, the Puritans again dominant, to suck results did the desperate policy of the opposition seem to tend. Strongly moved by these apprehensions, the majority of the upper and middle classes hastened to rally round the throne. The situation of the King bore, at tliis time, a great resemblance to that in which his father stood just after the Remonstrance had been voted. But the reaction of 1641 had not been suf- fered to run its course. Charles the First, at the very moment when his people, long estranged, were returning to him with hearts disposed to reconciliation, had, by a perfidious violation of the fundamental laws of the realm, forfeited their confidence for ever. Had Charles the Second taken a similar course, had he arrested the Whig leaders in an irregular manner, had he impeached them of high treason before a tribunal which had no legal jurisdiction over them, it is highly probable that they would speedily have regained the ascendency which they had lo6t. Fortunately for liimself, he was induced, at this crisis, to adopt a policy singularly judicious. He determined to conform to the law, but at the same time to make vigorous and unsparing use of the law against his advei'sai'ies. He was not bound to convoke a Parliament till three years should havf; elapsed. He 244 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. was not mucli distressed for money. The iiroduce of the taxes which had been settled on him for life exceeded the estimate. He was at peace with all the world. He could retrench his expenses by giving up the costly and useless settlement of Tangier ; and he might hope for pecuniary aid f i-om France. He had, therefore, ample time and means for a systematic attack on the opposition under the forms of the constitution. The Judges were removable at his {pleasure: the jui'ies were nominated by the Sheriifs ; and, in almost all the counties of England, the Sheriifs were nominated by himself. Witnesses, of the same class with those who had recently sworn away the lives of Papists, were ready to swear away the lives of Whigs. The first victim was College, a noisy and violent demagogue of mean birth and education. He was by trade a joiner, and was celebrated as the inventor of the Protestant flail.* He had been at Oxford when the Parliament sate there, and was accused of having planned a rising and an attack on the King's guards. Evidence was given against him by Dugdale and Tur- berville, the same infamous men who had, a few months earlier, borne false witness against Stafford. In the sight of a jury of country squires no Exclusionist was likely to find favour. College was convicted. The crowd which filled the court house of Oxford received the verdict with a roar of exultation, as bar- barous as that which he and his friends had been in the habit of raising when innocent Papists were doomed to the gallows. His execution was the beginning of a new judicial massacre not less atrocious than that in which he had himself borne a share. The government, emboldened by this first victory, now aimed a blow at an enemy of a very different class. It was resolved that Shaftesbury should be brought to trial for his life. Evidence was collected which, it was thought, would support a charge of treason. But the facts which it was necessary to prove were alleged to have been committed in London. The * This is mentioned in the curious work entitled " Ragguaglio della soleiin* Comparsa fatta iu Boma gli otto di Geiuiaio, 1687, dall' illustrissimo et ©ccelleu- tiasimo signer Conto di Castleinaiue." UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 245 Sheriffs of London, chosen by the citizens, were zealous Whigs. Thej named a Whig grand jury, wliieh threw out the bilL This defeat, far from discouraging those who advised the Kino-, suggested to them a new and daring scheme. Since the charter of the capital was in their way, that charter must be annulled. It was pretended, therefore, that the City had by some irreo-u- larities forfeited its municipal privileges ; and proceedings were instituted against the corporation in the Court of King's Bench. At the same time those laws which had, soon after the Restora- tion, been enacted against Nonconformists, and which had re- mained dormant during the ascendency of tlie Whigs, were enforced all over the kinijdom with extreme riirour. Tet the spirit of the Whigs was not subdued. Though in evil plight, they were still a numerous and powerful party ; and, as they mustered strong in the large towns, and especially in the capital, they made a noise and a show more than propor- tioned to their real force. Animated by the recollection of past triumphs, and by the sense of present oj^pression, they overrated both their strength and their wrongs. It was not In their power to make out that clear and overwhelming case which can alone justify so violent a remedy as resistance to an established government. Whatever they might suspect, they could not prove that their sovereign had entered into a treaty with France against the religion and liberties of England. What was apparent was not sufficient to warrant an appeal to the sword. If the Lords had thrown out the Exclu- sion Bill, they had thrown it out in the exercise of a right coeval with the constitution. If the Kincj had dissolved the Oxford Parliament, he had done so by virtue of a prerogative which had never been questioned. If he had, since the dissolu- tion, done some harsh things, still those things were in strict conformity with the letter of the law, and with the recent practice of the malecontents themselves. If he had prosecuted his opponents, he had prosecuted them according to the proper forms, and before the proper tribunals. The evidence now pro- duced for the crown was at least as worthy of credit as the evidence on which the noblest blood of England had lately been 246 HISTORY OF ENGLAND- «hed bj the opposition. The treatment which an accused Whig had now to expect from judges, advocates, slieriffs, juries and spectators, was no worse than the treatment which had lately been thought liy the Whigs good enough for an accused Papist. If the privileges of the City of London were attacked, they were attacked, not by military violence or by any disputable exercise of prerogative, but according to the regular practice of. Westminster Hall. No tax was imposed by royal authority.. No law was suspended. The Habeas Corpus Act was i-espected.. Even the Test Act was enforced. The opposition, therefore,,, could not bring home to the King that species of misgoverar- ment which alone could justify insurrection. And, even had his misgovernment been more flagrant than it was, insurrection would still have been criminal, because it was almost certain to be unsuccessful. The situation of the Whiss in 1682 differed widely from that of the Roundheads forty years before. Those who took up arms against Charles the First acted under the authority of a Parliament which had been legally assembled, and which could not, without its own consent, be legally dis- solved. The opponents of Charles the Second were private men. Almost all the military and naval resources of the king-- dom had been at the disposal of those who resisted Charles the First. All the military and naval resources of the kingdom were at the disposal of Charles the Second. The House of Commons had been supported by at least half the nation against Charles the First. But those who were disposed to- levy war against Charles the Second were certainly a minority. It could hardly be doubted, therefore, that, if they attempted a. rising, they would fail. Still less could it be doubted that their failure would aggravate every evil of which they complained. The true policy of the Whigs was to submit with patience to adversity which was the natural consequence and the just pun- ishment of their errors, to wait patiently for that turn of public feeling which must inevitably come, to observe the law, and to- avail themselves of the protection, imperfect indeed, but by no means nugatory, which the law afforded to innocence. Unhap- pily they took a very different course. Unscrupulous and hoi- UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 247 headed chiefs of the party formed and discussed schemes of resistance, and were heard, if not with approbation, yet with the phow of acquiescence, by much better men than themselves. It was proposed that there should be simultaneous insurrections in London, in Cheshire, at Bristol, and at Newcastle. Communi- cations were opened with the discontented Presbyterians of Scotland, who were suffering under a. tyranny such as England, in the worst times, had never known. While the leaders of the opposition thus revolved plans of open rebellion, but were still restrained by fears or scruples from taking any decisive step^ a design of a very different kind was meditated by some of their accomplices. To fierce spirits, unrestrained by principle, or maddened by fanaticism, it seemed that to waylay and murder the King and his brother was the shortest and surest way of vindicatinor the Protestant relii>ion and the liberties of Ensrland. A place and a time were named ; and the details of the butchery were frequently discussed, if not definitely arranged. This scheme was known but to few, and was concealed with especial care from the upright and humane Russell, and from Mon- mouth, who, though not a man of delicate conscience, would have recoiled with horror from the guilt of parricide. Thus there were two plots, one within the other. The object of the great Whig plot wals to raise the nation in arms against the government. The lesser plot, commonly called the Rye House Plot, in which only a few desperate men were concerned, had for its object the assassination of the King and of the heir presumptive. Both plots were soon discovered. Cowardly traitors hastened to save themselves, by divulging all, and more than all, that had passed in the deliberations of the party. That only a small minority of those who meditated resistance had admitted into their minds the thought of assassination is fully estab- lished : but, as the two conspiracies ran into each other, it was not difficult for the government to confotmd them to- gether. The just indignation excited by the Rye House Plot was extended for a time to the whole Whig body. The King was now at liberty to exact full vengeance for years of restraint 248 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. and humiliation. Shaftesbury, indeed, had escaped the fate which his manifold perfidy had well deserved. He had seen that the ruin of his party was at hand, had in vain endeavoured to make his peace with the royal brothers, had fled to Holland, and had died there, under the generous protection of a govern- ment whicli he had cruelly wronged. Monmouth threw himself at his father's feet and found mercy, but soon gave new offence, and thought it prudent to go into voluntary exile. Essex per- ished by his own hand in the Tower. Russell, who appears to have been guilty of no offence falling within the definition of high treason, and Sidney, of whose guilt no legal isvidence could be produced, were beheaded in defiance of law and justice. Russell died with the fortitude of a Christian, Sidney with the fortitude of a Stoic. Some active politicians of meaner rank were sent to the gallows. Many quitted the country. Numer- ous prosecutions for misprision of treason, for libel, and for con- spiracy were instituted. Convictions were obtained without difficulty from Tory juries, and rigorous punishments were in- flicted by courtly judges. With these criminal proceedings were joined civil proceedings scarcely less formidable. Actions were brought against persons who had defamed the Duke of York ; and damages tantamount to a sentence of perpetual imprison- ment were demanded by the plaintiff, and without difficulty obtained. The Court of King's "Bench pronounced that the franchises of the City of London were forfeited to the Crown. Flushed with tliis great victory, the government proceeded to attack the constitutions of other corporations which were gov- erned by AYhig officers, and which had been in the habit of re- turnincr Whiij members to Parliament. Boroua:li after boroush was compelled to surrender its privileges ; and new charters were granted which gave the ascendency everywhere to the Tories. These proceedings, however reprehensible, had yet the sem- blance of legality. They were also accompanied by an act intended to quiet the uneasiness with which many loyal men looked forward to the accession of a Popish sovereign. The Lady Aune, younger daughter of the Duke of York by his first UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 249 wife, was married to George, a prince of the orthodox House of Denmark. The Tory gentry and clergy might now flatter themselves that the Church of England had been effectually secured without any violation of the order of succession. The King and the heir presumptive were nearly of the same age. Both were approaching the decline of life. The King's health was good. It was therefore probable that James, if he came to the throne, would have but a short reign. Beyond his reign there was the gratifying prospect of a long series of Protestant sovereigns. The liberty of unlicensed printing was of little or no use to the vanquished party ; for the temper of judges and juries was such that no writer whom the government prosecuted for a libel had any chance of escaping. The dread of punishment there- fore did all that a censorship could have done. Meanwhile, the pulpits resounded with harangues agaiiist the sin of rebellion. The treatises in which Filmer maintained that hereditary des- potism was the form of government ordained by God, and that limited monarchy was a pernicious absurdity, had recently ap- peared, and had been favourably received by a large section of the Tory party. The university of Oxford, on the very day on which Russell was put to death, adopted by a solemn public act these strange doctrines, and ordered the political works of Buchanan, Milton, and Baxter to be publicly burned in the court of the Schools. Thus emboldened, the King at length ventured to overstep . the bounds which he had during some years observed, and to violate the plain letter of the law. The law was that not more than three years should pass between the dissolving of one Par- liament and the convoking of another. But, when three years had elapsed after the dissolution of the Parliament which sate at Oxford, no writs were issued for an election. This infraction of the constitution was the more reprehensible, because the King had little reason to fear a meeting with a new House of Com- mons. The counties were generally on his side ; and many boroughs in which the Whigs had lately held sway had been so remodelled that they were certain to return none but courtiers 250 HISTOUY OF ENGLAND. In a short time the hxw wn,s again violated in order to gratify the Duke of York. That prince was, partly on account of his religion, and partly on account of the sternness and harshness of his nature, so unpopular that it had been thought necessary to keep him out of sight while the Exclusion Bill was before Parliament, lest his appearance should give an advantage to the party which was sti'uggling to deprive him of his birthright. He had therefore been sent to govern Scotland, where the sav- age old tyrant Lauderdale was sinking into the grave. Even Lauderdale was now outdone. The administration of James was marked by odious laws, by barbarous punishments, and by judgments to the iniquity of which even that age furnished no parallel. The Scottish Privy Council had jiower to put state prisoners to the question. But the sight was so dreadful that, as soon as the boots appeared, even the most servile and hard- hearted courtiers hastened out of the chamber. The board was. sometimes quite deserted : and it was at length found necessary to make an order that the members should keep their seats on such occasions. The Duke of York, it was remarked, seemed to take pleasure in the spectacle which some of the worst men then living were unable to contemplate without pity and horror. He not only came to Council when the torture was to be in- flicted, but watched the agonies of the sufferers with that soi't of interest and complacency with which men observe a curious ex- periment in science. Thus he employed himself at Edinburgh, till the event of the conflict between the court and the Whigs was no longer doubtful. He then returned to England t but he was still excluded by the Test Act from all public emplo}Tnent ; nor did the King at first think it safe to violate a statute which the great majority of his most loyal subjects regarded as one of the chief securities of their religion and of their civil rights. When, however, it appeared, from a succession of trials, that the nation had patience to endure almost anything that the government had courage to do, Charles ventured to dispense with the law in his brother's favour. The Duke again took his seat in the Council, and resumed the direction of naval affairs. These breaches of the constitution excited, it is true, some UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 251 murmurs among the moderate Tories, and were not unani- mously approved even by the King's ministers. Halifax in particular, now a Marquess and Lord Privy Seal, had, from the very day on which the Tories had by his help gained the ascendant, begun to turn Whig. As soon as the Exclusion Bill had been thrown out, he had pressed the House of Lords to make i>rovision against the danger to which, in the next reign, the liberties and religion of the nation might be exposed. He now saw with alarm the violence of that reaction which was, in no small measure, his own work. He did not try to conceal the scorn which he felt for the servile doctrines of the University of Oxford. He detested the French alliance. He (disapproved of the long intermission of Parliaments. He re- gretted the severity with which the vanquished party was \treated. He who, when the Whigs were predominant, had ventured to pronounce Stafford not guilty, ventured, when they were vanquished and helpless, to intercede for Russell. At one of the last Councils which Charles held a remarkable scene took place. The charter of Massachusetts had been for- feited. A question arose how, for the future, the colony should be governed. The general opinion of the board was that the whole power, legislative as well as executive, should abide in the crown. Halifax took the opposite side, and argued with great energy against absolute monarchy, and in favour of rep- resentative government. It was vain, he said, to think that a population, sprung from the English stock, and animated by English feelings, would long bear to be deprived of English institutions. Life, he exclaimed, would not be worth having in a country where liberty and property were at the mercy of one despotic master. The Duke of York was greatly incensed by this language, and represented to his brother the danger of retaining in office a man who appeared to be infected with all •the worst notions of Marvell and Sidney. Some modern writers have blamed Halifax for continuing in the ministry while he disapproved of the manner in which both domestic and foreign affairs were conducted. But this censure is unjust. Indeed it is to be remarked that the word 252 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. ministry, in the sense in wliich we use it, was then unknown.* The thing itself did not exist ; for it belongs to an age in which parliamentary government is fully established. At present the chief servants of the crown form one body. They are under- stood to be on terms of friendly confidence with each other, and to agree as to the main principles on which the executive ad- ministration ought to be conducted. If a slight difference of opinion arises among them, it is easily compromised : but, if one of them differs from the rest on a vital point, it is his duty to resign. While he retains his office, he is held responsible even for steps which he has tried to dissuade his colleagues from taking. In tlie seventeenth century, the heads of the various branches of the administration were bound toafether in no such ijartnershij:). Each of them was accountable for his own acts, for the use which he made of his own official seal, for the documents which he signed, for the counsel which he gave to the King. No statesman was held answerable for what he had not himself done, or induced others to do. If he took care not to be the agent in what was wrong, and if, when con- sulted, he recommended what was right, he was blameless. It would have been thought strange scrupulosity in him to quit his post, because his advice as to matters not sti-ictly within liis own department was not taken by his master ; to leave the Board of Admiralty, for example, because the finances were in disorder, or the Board of Treasury because the foreign rela- tions of the kingdom were in an unsatisfactory state. It was, therefore, by no means unusual to see in high oflice, at the same time, men who avowedly differed from one another as widely as ever Pulteney differed from Walpole, or Fox from Pitt. The moderate and constitutional counsels of Halifax were timidly and feebly seconded by Francis North, Lord Guildford, who had lately been made Keeper of the Great Seal. The character of Guildford has been drawn at full length by his brother Roger North, a most intolerent Tory, a most affected and pedantic writer, but a vigilant observer of all those minute e ►North's Exameu, 69. UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 25S circumstances which throw light on the dispositions of men. It is remarkable that the biographer, though he was under the in- fluence of the strongest fi-aternal partiality, and though he was evidently anxious to produce a flattering likeness, was unable to portray the Lord Keeper otherwise than as the most ignoble of mankind. Yet the intellect of Guildford was clear, his in- dustry great, his proficiency in letters and science respectable, and his legal learning more than respectable. His faults were selfishness, cowardice, and meanness. He was not insensible to the power of female beauty, nor averse from excess in wine. Yet neither wine nor beauty could ever seduce the cautious and frugal libertine, even in his earliest youth, into one fit of indis- creet generosity. Though of noble descent, he rose in his pro- fession by paying ignominious homage to all who possessed influence in the courts. He became Chief Justice of the Com- mon Pleas, and as such was party to some of the foulest judicial murders recorded in our history. He had sense enough to per- ceive from the first that Oates and Bedloe were impostors : but the Parliament and the country were greatly excited : the govern- ment had yielded to the pressure ; and North was not a man to risk a good place for the sake of justice and humanity. Accord- ingly, while he was in secret drawing up a refutation of the whole romance of the Popish plot, he declared in public that the truth of the story was as plain as the sun in heaven, and was not ashamed to browbeat, from the seat of judgment, the unfortunate Roman Catholics who were arraigned before him for their lives. He had at length reached the highest post in the law. But a lawyer, who, after many years devoted to pro- fessional labour, engages in politics for the first time at an ad- vanced period of life, seldom distinguishes himself as a states- man ; and Guildford was no exception to the general rule. He was indeed so sensible of his deficiencies that he never attended the meetinjTs of his colleagues on foreign affairs. Even on o o O questions relating to his own profession his opinion had less weiglit at the Council board than that of any man who has ever held the Great Seal. Such as his influence was, however, he used it, as far as he dared, on the side of the laws. 254 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. The chief opponent of Halifax was Lawrence Hyde, who had recently been created Earl of Rochester. Of all Tories, Rochester was the most intolerent and uncompromising. The moderate members of his party complained that the whole patronage ot the Treasury, while he was First Commissioner there, went to noisy zealots, whose only claim to promotion was that they were always drinking confusion to Whiggery, and lighting bonfires to burn the Exclusion Bill. The Duke of York, pleased with a spirit which so much resembled his own, supported his brother in law passionately and obstinately. The attempts of the rival ministers to surmount and sup- plant each other kept the court in incessant agitation. Hali- fax pressed the King to summon a Parliament, to grant a gen- eral amnesty, to deprive the Duke of York of all share in the government, to recall Monmouth from banishment, to break with Lewis, and to form a close union with Holland on the principles of the Triple Alliance. The Duke of York, on the other hand, dreaded the meeting of a Parliament, regarded the vanquished Whigs with undiminished hatred, still flattered him- self that the design formed fourteen years before at Dover might be accomplished, daily represented to his brother the im- propriety of suffering one who was at heart a Republican to hold the Privy Seal, and strongly recommended Rochester for the great place of Lord Treasurer. While the two factions were struggling, Godolphin, cautious, silent, and laborious, observed a neutrality between them. Sun- derland, with his usual restless perfidy, intrigued against them both. He had been turned out of office in disgrace for having voted in favour of the Exclusion Bill, but had made his peace by employing the good offices of the Duchess of Portsmouth and by cringing to the Duke of York, and was once more Sec- retary of State. Nor was Lewis negligent or inactive. Everything at that moment favoured his designs. He had nothing to apprehend from the German empire, which was then contending against the Turks on the Danube. Holland could not, unsupported venture to oppose him. He was therefore at liberty to indulge UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 255 his ambition and insolence without restraint. He seized StraS' burg, Courtray, Luxemburg. He exacted from the republic of Genoa the most hunjiliating submissions. The power of France at that time reached a higher point than it ever before or ever after attained, during the ten centuries which separated the reign of Charlemagne from the reign of Napoleon. It was not easy to say where her acquisitions would stop, if only England could be kept in a state of vassalage. The first object of tha court of Versailles was therefore to prevent the calling of a Parliament and the reconciliation of English parties. For this end bribes, promiseSj and menaces were unsparingly employed. Charles was sometimes allured by the hope of a subsidy, and sometimes frightened by being told that, if he convoked the Houses, the secret articles of the treaty of Dover should be published. Several Privy Councillors were bought ; and at- tempts were made to buy Halifax, but in vain. "When he had been found incorruptible, all the art and influence of the French embassy were employed to drive him from office: but his pol- ished wit and his various accomplishments had made him so agreeable to his master, that the design failed.'"' Halifax was not content with standing on the defensive. He openly accused Rochester of malversation. An inquiry took place. It appeared that forty thousand pounds had been lost to the public by the mismanagement of the First Lord of the Treasury. In consequence of this discovery he was not only forced to relinquish his hopes of the white staff, but was re- moved from the direction of the finances to the more dignified but less lucrative and importau; post of Lord President. " I have seen people kicked down stairs," said Halifax ; " but my Lord Rochester *.s the first person that I ever saw kicked up * Lord Preeton, who was envoy at Paris, wrote thence to Halifax as follows : "I find that your Lordship lies e IJ under the r-.ame misfortune of being nh has elapsed sirioe this chapter was written, Eng- land has continued to advance rapidly in material prosperity. I have left my text nearly a,ry service was to be performecJ. The household infantry consisted of two regiments, which were then, as now, called the first regiment of Foot Guards, and the Coldstream Guards. They generally did duty near White- hall and Saint James's Palace. As there were then no barracks, and as, by the Petition of Right, It had been declared unlawful to quarter soldiers on private families, the redcoats filled all the alehouses of Westminster and the Strand. There were five other regiments of foot. One of these, called the Admiral's Regiment, was especially destined to service on board of the fleet. The remaining four still rank as the first four regiments of the line. Two of these represented two brigades which had long sustained on the Continent the fame of British valour. The first, or Royal regiment, had, under the great Gustavus, borne a conspicuous part in the deliverance of Germany. The third regiment, distinguished by fleshcoloured facings, from which it had derived the well known name of the Buffs, had, under Maurice of Nassau, fought not less bravely for the deliverance of the Netherlands. Both these gallant bands had at length, after many vicissitudes, been recalled from foreign service by Charles the econd, and had been placed on the English establishment. The regiments which now r , "- as the second and fourth of the line had, in 1685, just returned from Tangier, bringing with them cruel and licentious habits contracted in a long course of warfare with the Moors. A few companies of infantry which had not been regimented lay in garrison at Tilbury Fort, at Portsmouth, at Plymouth, and at 3omc other important stations regular and considerable importation from France. At presen! our springs and mines not only supply our own immense deman*', but send annually more tlian seven hundred millions of poun- of his Life and Death, printed with the Bloody Assizes. His style was, as ubup.I, coarse ; but I cannot reckon tha reprimand which he gave to the magistrates of Bristol among his crimes. STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1685. 309 Christmas to Twelfth Niglit. Ale flowed in oceans for the popu- hxce. Three coaches, one of which had heen built at a cost of five hundred pounds to contain fourteen persons, were sent every afternoon round the city to bring ladies to the festivities ; and the dances were always followed by a luxurious banquet. When the Duke of Norfolk came to Norwich, he was greeted like a King returning to his caj^ital. The bells of the Cathedral and of St. Peter Mancroft were rung : the guns of the castle were fired ; and the Mayor and Aldermen waited on their illustrious fellow citizen with complimentary addresses. In the year 1693 the population of Norwich was found by actual enumeration, to be between twenty-eight and twenty-nine thousand souls.* Far below Norwich, but still high in dignity and impor- tance, were some other ancient capitals of shires. In that age it was seldom that a country gentleman went up with his family to London. The county town was his metropolis. He some- times made it his residence during part of the year. At all events, he was often attracted thither by business and pleasure, by assizes, quarter sessions, elections, musters of militia, festi- vals, and races. There were the halls where the judges, robed in scarlet and escorted by javelins and trumpets, opened the King's commission twice -a year. Tliere were the markets at wliich the corn, the cattle, the wool, and the hops of the sur- I'ounding csuutry were exposed to sale. There were the great fairs to which merchants came down from London, and where the rural dealer laid in his annual stores of sugar, stationery, cutlery, and muslin. There were the shops at which the best families of the neighbourhood bought 'grocery and millinery. Some of these places derived dignity from interesting historical recollections, from cathedrals decorated by all the art and magnificence of the middle ages, from palaces where a long succession of prelates had dwelt, from closes surrounded by the venerable abodes of deans and canons, and from castles which had in the old time repelled the Nevilles or de Veres, and * Fuller's Worthies ; Evelyn's Diary, Oct. 17, 1G7! ; Journal of T. Browne, son f>f Sir Thomas Browne, Jan. 16G3-4 ; Blomefield's History of Norfolk ; History of the City and County of Norwich, 2 vols. 1768. 310 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. * which bore more recent traces of the vengeance of Rupert or of Cromwell. Conspicuous amongst these interesting cities were York, the capital of the north, and Exeter, the capital of the west. Neither can have contained much more than ten thousand inhabitants. Worcester, the queen of the cider land, had but eight thousand ; Nottingham probably as many. Gloucester, renowned for that resolute defence which had been fatal to Charles the First, had certainly between four and five thou- sand ; Derby not quite four thousand. Shrewsbury was the chief place of an extensive and fertile district. The Court of the Marches of Wales was held there. In the language of the gentry many miles round the Wrekin, to go to Shrewsbury was to go to town. The provincial wits and beauties imitated, as well as they could, the fashions of Saint James's Park, in the walks along the side of the Severn. The inhabitants were about seven thousand.* The population of every one of these places has, since the Revolution, much more than doubled. The population of some has multiplied sevenfold. The streets have been almost entirely rebuilt. Slate has succeeded to thatch, and brick to timber The pavements and the lamps, the display of wealth in the principal shops, and the luxurious neatness of the dwellings occupied by the gentry would, in the seventeenth cgntury, have seemed miraculous. Yet is the relative importance of the old capitals of counties by no means what it was. Younger towns, towns which are rarely or never mentioned in our early history * The population of York appears, from the return of baptisms and burials, in Drake's History, to have been about 13,000 in 1730. Exeter had only 17,000 inhabitants in 1801. The population of V^oreester was numbered just before the siege in 1646. See Nash's Historj' of Worcestershire. I have made allowancei for the increase which must be supposed to have taken place in forty years. In, 1740, the population of Nottingham was found, by enumeration, to be just 10.000.' See Bering's Histeiy. The population of Gloucester may readily be inferred from the number of houses which King found in the returns of hearth money, and from the number of births and burials which is given in Atkyns's History. The population of Derby was 4000 hi 1712. See "Wolley's MS. History, quoted in Lyson's Magna Britannia. The population or Shrewsbury was ascertained, in 1695, by .ictual enumeration. As to the gaieties of Shrewsbury, see Farquhar's Recruiting Officer. Farquhar's description is borne out by a ballad in the Pepyslar Library, of which the burden is " Shrewsbury for me." STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1685. ^il »imA which sent no representatives to our early Parliaments, ha*^e, within the memory of persons still living, grown to a greatness which this generation contemplates with wonder and pride, not unaccompanied by awe and anxiety. The most eminent of these towns were indeed known in the seventeenth century as respectable seats of industry. Nay, their rapid progress and their vast opulence were then some- times described in language which seems ludicrous to a man who has seen their present grandeur. One of the most popu- lous and prosperous among them was Manchester. Manchester had been required by the Protector to send one representative to his Parliament, and was mentioned by writers of the time of Charles the Second as a busy and opulent place. Cotton had, during half a century, been brought thither from Cyprus and Smyrna; but the manufacture was in its infancy. Whitney had not yet taught how the i-aw material might be furnished in quantities almost fabulous. Arkwright had not yet taught how it might be worked up with a speed and precision which seem magical. The whole annual import did not, at the end of the seventeenth century, amount to two millions of pounds, a quan- tity which would now hardly supply the demand of forty-eight hours. That wonderful emporium, which in population and wealth far surpasses capitals so much renowned as Berlin, Madrid, and Lisbon, was then a mean and ill built market town containing under six thousand people. It then had not a single press. It now supports a hundred printing establishments. It then had not a single coach. It now supports twenty coach- makers.* Leeds was already the chief seat of the woollen manufactures of Yorkshire ; but the elderly inhabitants could still remember the time when the first brick house, then and long after called the Red House, was built. They boasted loudly of their in- * Blome's Britannia, 167.3 ; Aikin's Countiy round Manchester ; Manchester Directory, 1845 ; Baines, History of the Cotton Manufacture. The best Informa- tion which I liave been able to find, touching the population of Manchester in the seventeenth century, is contained in a paper drawn up by the Reverend R. Parklngon, and published in the Journal of the Statistical Society for Octobej 1842. 312 HiSTonr of England. creasing wealth, and of the immense sales of cloth which took place in the open air on the bridge. Hundreds, nay thousands of pounds, had been paid down in the course of one busy mai'ket day. The rising importance of Leeds had attracted the notice of snccessive governments. Charles the First had c^ranted mu- nicipal privileges to the town. Oliver had invited it to send one member to the House of Commons. But from the returns of the hearth money it seems certain that the whole population of the borough, an extensive district which contains many hamlets, did not, in the reign of Charles the Secondl, exceed seven thou eand souls. In 1841 there were more thau a hundred and fifty thousand.* About a day's journey goutUof "Leeds, on the verge of a wild moorland tract, lay an ancient manor, now rich with cultivation, then barren and unenclosed, which was known by the name of Hallamshire. Iron abounded there ; and, from a very early period, the rude whittles fabricated there had been sold all ovei the kingdom. They had indeed been mentioned by Geoffrey Chaucer in one of his Canterbury Tales. But the manufacture appears to have made little progress during the three centuries which followed his time. This languor may perhaps be explain- ed by the fact that the trade was, during almost the whole of this long period, subject to such regulations as the lord and his court leet thought fit to impose. The more delicate kinds of cutlery were either made in the capital or brought from the Continent. Indeed it was not till the reign of George the First that the English surgeons ceased to import from France those exquisitely fine blades which are required for operations on the human frame. Most of the Hallamshire forges were collected in a market town which had sprung up near the castle of the proprietor, and which, in the reign of James the First, had been a singularly miserable place, containing about two thousand in- habitants, of whom a third were half starved and half naked beg- gars. It seems certain from the parochial registers that the • Thoresby's DucatusLeodensIs ; Wliitalcer's Loidls and Elmete ; Wardell'i Municipal History of tha Borough of Leeds. (1848.) In 1851 Leeds had 172,00i Inhabitants. (1857.) STATE OP ENGLAND IN 1685. 315 population did not amount to four thousand at the end of the reign of Charles the Second. The effects of a species of toi* singularly unfavourable to the health and vigour of the humai< frame were at once discerned by every traveller. A large propor tion of the people had distorted limbs. This is that Sheffield which now, with its dependencies, contains a hundred and twenty thousand souls, and which sends forth its admirable knives, razors, and lancets to the farthest ends of the world.* Birmingham had not been thought of sufficient importance to return a member to Oliver's Parliament. Yet the manufac- turers of Birmingham were already a busy and thriving race. They boasted that their hardware was highly esteemed, not in- deed as now, at Pekin and Lima, at Bokhara and Timbuctoo, but in Loudon, and even as far off as Ireland. They had ac- quired a less honourable renown as coiners of bad money. In allusion to their spurious groats, some Tory wit had fixed on demagogues, who hypocritically affected zeal against Popery, the nickname of Birminghams. Yet in 1685 the population, which is now little less than two hundi'ed thousand, did not amount to four thousand. Birmingham buttons were just beginning to be known ; of Birmingham guns nobody had yet heard ; and the place whence, two generations later, the mag- nificent editions of Baskerville went forth to astonish all the librarians of Europe, did not contain a single regular shop where a Bible or an almanack could be bought. On Market days a bookseller named Michael Johnson, the father of the great Samuel Johnson, came over from Lichfield, and opened a stall during a few hours. This supply of literature was long found equal to the demand, f * Hunter's History of H.-illamshire. (1848.) In 1851 the population of Sheffield had increased to 1.35,000. (1857.) t Blome's Britannia, T^r.T ; Dugdale's "WarwicksLire ; North's Fxamen, 321; Preface to Absalom and Achitophel ; lint ton's History of Birmingham ; Boswell'a Xife of Johnson. In 1690 the burials at Birmingham were 150, the baptisms 1^5, I think it probable that the annual mortality was little less than one in twenty five. In London it was considerably greater. A historian of Nottingham, hall a century later, boasted of the extraordinary salubrity of his town, where tbp nn nual mortality was one in thirty. See Bering's F'story of Nottingham- (1S48.) In 1851 the population of Birmingham had increased to 232,000. (1857.) 814 HISTORI OF ENGLAND. These four chief seats of our great manufactures deserve especial meation. It would be tedious to enumerate all the populous and opulent hives of industry which, a hundred and fifty years ago, were hamlets without parish churches, or deso- late moors, inhabited only by grouse and wild deer. Nor has the change beea less signal in those outlets by which the pro- ducts of the English looms and forges are poured forth over the whole world. At present Liverpool contains more than three hundred thousand inhabitants. The shipping registered at her port amounts to between four and five hundred thousand tons. Into her custom house has been repeatedly paid in one year a 6um more than thrice as great as the whole income of the Eng- lish crown in 1 685. The receipts of her post oflTice, even since the great reduction of the duty, exceed the sum which the post- age of the whole kingdom yielded to the Duke of York. Her endless docks, quays, and warehouses are among the wonders of the world. Yet even those docks and quays and warehouses seem hardly to suffice for the gigantic trade of the Mersey ; and already a rival city is growing fast on the opposite shore. In the days of Charles the Second Liverpool was described as a rising town which had recently made great advances, and which maintained a profitable intercourse with Ireland and with the BUgar colonies. The customs had multiplied eight-fold within sixteen years, and amounted to what was then considered as the immense sum of fifteen thousand pounds annually. But the population can hardly have exceeded four thousand : the ship- ping was about fourteen hundred tons, less than the tonnage of a single modern Indiaman of the first class ; and the whole number of seamen belonging to the port cannot be estimated at more than two hundred.* Such has been the progress of those towns where wealth is created and accumulated. Not less rapid has been the progress of towns of a very different kind, towns in which wealth, created • Blome's Britannia ; Gregson's Antiquities of the County Palatine and Duchy of Lancaster, Part II. ; Petition from Liverpool in the Privy Council Book, May 10, 1686. In 1690 the hurials at Liverpool were 151, the baptisms 120. In 1844 the net receipt of the customs at Liverpool was 4.365,52fii. 1*. S4- ilSW^ la 1£51 Liverpool contained 375,000 inhabitants, (185J4 STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1685. 315 and accumulated elsewhere, is expended for purposes of health and recreation. Some of the most remarkable of these gay places have sprung into existence since the time of the Stuarts. Cheltenham is now a greater city than any which the kingdom contained in the seventeenth century, London alone excepted. But in the • seventeenth century, and at the beginning of the eighteenth, Cheltenham was mentioned by local historians merely as^a rural parish lying under the Cotswold Hills, and affording good ground both for tillage and pasture. Corn grew and cat- tle browsed over the space now covered by that long succession of streets and villas.* Brighton was described as a place which had once been thriving, which had possessed many small fishing barks, and which had, when at the height of prosperity, contain- ed above two thousand inhabitants, but which was sinking fast into decay. The sea was gradually gaining on the buildings, which at length almost entirely disappeared. Ninety years awo the ruins of an old fort were to be seen lying among the pebbles and seaweed on the beach ; and ancient men could still point out the traces of foundations on a spot where a street of more than' a hundred huts had been swallowed up by the waves. So desolate was the place after this calamity, that the vicarage was thought scarcely worth having. A few poor fishermen, however, still continued to dry their nets on those cliffs, on which now a town, more than twice as large and populous as the Bristol of the Stuarts, presents, mile after mile, its gay and fantastic front to the sea.f England, however, was not, in the seventeenth century, destitute of watering places. The gentry of Derbyshire and of the neighbouring counties repaired to Buxton, where tliey were lodged in low rooms under bare rafters, and regaled with oat- cake, and with a viand which the hosts called mutton, but which the guests suspected to be dog. A single good house stood near the spring.^ Tunbridge "Wells, lying within a day's journey of * Atkyns's Gloucestershire. t Magna Britannia ; Grose's Antiquities ; New Brightbelmstone Directory, 1770. i Tour in Derbyslijre, by Thomas Browne, son of Sir Thomas, SIQ HISTORY, OF ENGLAND. the capital, and in one of the richest and most highly civilised parts of the kingdom, had mucii greater attractions. At present we see there a town which would, a hundred and sixty years ago, have ranked, in population, fourth or fifth among the towns of England. The brilliancy of the shops and the luxury of the private dwellings far surpasses anything that England could then show. When the court, soon after the Restoration, visited Tunbridge Wells, there was no town : but, within a mile of the spring, rustic cottages, somewhat cleaner and neater than the ordinary cottages of that time, were scattered over the heath. Some of these cabins were movable and were carried on sledges from one part of the common to another. To these huts men of fashion, wearied with the din and smoke of London, sometimes came in the summer to breathe fresh air, and to catch a glimpse of rural life. During the season a kind of fair was daily held near the fountain. The wives and daugh- ters of the Kentish farmers came from the neisrhbourinsr villages with cream, cherries, wheatears, and quails. To chaffer with them, to flirt with them, to praise their straw hats and tight heels, was a refreshing pastime to voluptuaries sick of the airs of actresses and maids of honour. Milliners, toymen, and jewellers came down from London, and opened a bazaar under the trees. In one booth the politician might find his coffee and the London Gazette ; in another were gamblers playing deep at basset ; and, on fine evenings, the fiddles were in attendance, and there were morris dances on the elastic turf of the bowling green. In 1685 a subscription had just been raised among those who fre~ quented the wells for building a church, which the Tories, who then domineered everywhere, insisted on dedicating to Saint Charles the Martyr.* But at the head of the English watering places, without a rival, was Bath. The springs of that city had been renowned from the days of the Romans. It hnd been, during many cen- turies, the seat of a Bishop. The sick repaired thither from • Memoires de Grammoiit ; Hasted's Historv of Kent ; Tunbridge Wella, a Comedy, lfi78; Cp.ugt.on's Tni)bridgia,l}a., 1668 ; M^teUus. a poem en Tunbridge Wells, 1693. STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1635. 317 every part of the realm. The King sometimes held his court there. Nevertheless, Bath was then a maze of only four or five hundred houses, crowded within an old wall in the vicinity of the Avon. Pictures of what were considered as the finest of those houses are still extant, and greatly resemble the lowest rag shops and pothouses of Ratcliffe Highway Travellers indeed complained loudly of the narrowness and meanness of the streets. That beautiful city which charms even eyes familiar with the masterpieces of Bramaiite and Palladio, and which the genms of Anstey and of Smollett, of Frances Burney and of Jane Austen, has made classic ground, had not begun to exist. Milsom Street itself was an open field lying far beyond the walls ; and hedgerows mtersected the space which is now covered by the Crescent and the Circus. The poor patients to whom the waters had been recommended lay on straw in a place which, to use the language of a contemporary physician, was a covert rather than a lodo-ini;:. As to the comforts and luxuries which were to be found in the interior of the houses of Bath by the fashionable visitors who resorted thither in search of health or amusement, we possess information more complete and minute than can generally be obtained on such subjects. . A writer who published an account of that city about sixty years after the Revolution has accurately desci-ibed the changes which had taken place within his own recollection. He assures us that, in his younger days, the gentlemen who visited the springs slept in rooms hardly as good as the garrets which he lived to see occupied by footmen. The floors of the dining rooms were uncarpeted, and were coloured brown with a wash made of soot and small beer, in order to hide the dirt. Not a wainscot was painted. Not a hearth or a chimneypiece was of marble. A slab of common free-stone and fire irons which had cost from three to four shillings were thought sufficient for any fireplace. The best apartments were hung with coarse woollen stuflf, and were furnished with rushbottomed chairs. Reader* who take an interest in the progress of civilisation and of the useful arts will be grateful to the humble topographer who has recorded these facts, and will perhaps wish that historians of far higher 318 HISTORY OK ENGLAND. pretensions had sometimes spared a few pages from military evolution and political intrigues, for the purpose of letting us know how the parlours and bedchambers of our ancestors looked.* The position of London, relatively to the other towns of the empire, was, in the time of Chai'les the Second, far higher than at present, For at present the population of London is little moi'e than six times the population of Manchester or of Liver- pool, In the days of Charles the Second the population of London was more than seventeen times the population of Bristol or of Norwich. It may be doubted whether any other instance can be mentioned of a great kingdom in which the fii'st city was more than seventeen times as large as the second. There is reason to believe that, in 1685, London had been, during about half a century, the most populous capital in Europe. The inhabitants, who are now at least nineteen hundred thousand, were then probably little more than half a million. f London had in the world only one commercial rival, now long ago out- stripped, the mighty and opulent Amsterdam. English writers boasted of the forest of masts and yardarms which covered the river from the Bridge to the Tower, and of the stupendous sums which were collected at the Custom House in Thames Street. There is, indeed, no doubt that the trade of the metropolis then bore a far greater proportion than at present to the whole trade of the country; yet to our generation the honest vaunting of our ancestors must appear almost ludicrous. The shipping which they thought inci'edibly great appears not to have ex- ceeded seventy thousand tons. This was, indeed, then moi'e than a third of the whole tonnage of the kingdom, but is now less than a fourth of the tonnage of Newcastle, and is nearly lequalTed by the tonnage of the steam vessels of the Thames. * See Wood's History of Bath, 1749; Evelyn's Diary, June 27, 1654; Pepys's Diary, .June 12j 1668; Stukeley's Itinerarium Curiosnm; Collinson's Somersetshire; Dr. Pelrce's History* and Memoirs of the Bath, 1713, Book I, chap, viii, obs. 2, 1684. I have consulted several old maps and pictures of Bath, particularly one curious map which is surrounded by views of the principal buildings. It bears the date of 1717. + According to King 530,000 (1848). In 1851 the population of London exceeded 2.300,000. (1857.) STATE OF KNOLANl) IN 1685. 819 The customs of Londou amounted, in 1685, to about three hun- dred and th:r.y thousand pounds a year. In our time the net duty paid annually, at the same place, exceeds ten millions.* Whoever examines the maps of London which were pub- j3 lished towards the close of the reign of Charles the Second will see that only the nucleus of the present capital then ex- isted. The town did not, as now, fade by imperceptible degrees into the country. No long avenues of villas, embowered in lilacs and laburnums, extended from the great centre of wealth and civilisation almost to the boundaries of Middlesex and far into the heart of Kent and Surrey. In the east, no part of the immense line of warehouses and artificial lakes wiiich now stretches from the Tower to Blackwall had even been projected. On the west, scarcely one of those stately piles of buildiug which are inhabited by the noble and wealthy was in existence ; and Chelsea, which is now peopled by more than forty thousand human beings, was a quiet country village with about a thou- sand inhabitants.! On the north, cattle fed, and sportsmen wandered with dogs and guns, over the site of the borough of Marylebone, and over far the greater part of the space now covered by the boroughs of Finsbury and of tlie Tower Hamlets. Islington was almost a solitude ; and poets loved to contrast its silence and repose with the din and turmoil of the monster London, t On the south the capital is now connected with its suburb by several bridges, not inferior in magnificence and solidity to the noblest works of the Ccesars. In 1685, a single line of irregular ai-ches, overhung by piles of mean and crazy houses, and garnished, after a fashion worthy of the naked bar- barians of Dahomy, with scores of mouldering heads, impeded the navigation of the river. * Macpherson'9 History of Commerce ; Chalmers's Estimate ; Cliamlierlayiie's State of England, 1684. The tonnage of the steamers belonging to the port of London was, at the end of 1847, about CO,COJ tons. The customs of the port, from 1842 to 18-15. very nearly averaged 11,000,000/. (1848.) In 1854 the tonnage of the Bteamers of the port of London amounted to 138,000 toua, without reckoning vessels of less than fifty tons. (1857.) t Lyson's Environs of London. The baptisms at Chelsea, between 1680 «a4 1690, were only 42 a year- I Cowley, Discourse of Solitude. 320 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Of the metropolis, the City, properly so called, was the most important division. At the time of the Restoration it had been built, for the most part, of wood and plaster: tVie few bricks that were used were ill baked ; the booths where goods were exposed to sale projected far into the streets, and were overhung by the upper stories. A few specimens of this architecture may still be seen in those districts which were not reached by the great fire. That fire had, in a few days, covered a space of little less than a square mile with the ruins of eighty- nine churches and of tliirteen thousand houses. But the City had risen again with a celerity which had excited the admiration of neighbouring countries. Unfortunately, the old lines of the streets had been to a great extent preserved ; and those lines, originally traced in an age when even princesses performed their journeys on horseback, were often too narrow to allow, wheeled carriages to pass each other with ease, and were there- fore ill adapted for the residence of wealthy persons in an age when a coach and six was a fashionable luxury. The style of building was, however, far superior to that of the City which had perished. The ordinaiy material was brick, of much better quality than had formerly been used. On the sites of the ancient parish churches had arisen a multitude of new domes, towers, and spires which bore the mark of the fertile genius of Wren. In eveiy place save one the traces of the great devas- tation had been completely effaced. But the crowds of work- men, the scaffolds, and the masses of hewn stone were still to be seen where the noblest of Protestant temples was slowly rising on the ruins of the Old Cathedral of Saint Paul.* The whole character of the City has, since that time, under- gone a complete change. At jiresent the bankers, the merchants, and the chief shopkeepers repair thither on six mornings of every week for the transaction of business ; but they reside in other * The fullest and most trustworthy information about the state of th& build- ings of London at this time is to by derived from the maps and drawings in tho British Museum and in the Pepysian Library. The badness of tlie bricIcB in the old buildings of London is particularly mentioned in the Travels of the Grand Duke Cosmo. There is an account of the works at Saint Paul's in 'Ward's Lon- don Spy. I am almost ashamed to quote such nauseous balderdash ; but I hare been forced to descend even lower, if possible, in search of materials. STATE OP ENGLAND IN 1685. 321 quarters of the metropolis, or at suburban country seats sur- rounded by shrubberies and flower gardens. This revolution in private habits has produced a political revolution of no small importance. The City is no longer regarded by the wealthiest traders with that attachment which every man naturally feels for his home. It is no longer associated in their minds with domes- tic affections and endearments. The fireside, the nursery, the social table, the -quiet bed are not there. Lombard Street and Threadneedle Street are merely places where men toil and ac- cumulate. They go elsewhere to enjoy and ^to expend. On a Sunday, or in an evening after the hours of business, some courts and alleys, which a few hour.? before had been alive with hurrying feet and anxious faces, areas silent as the glades of a forest. The chiefs of the mercantile interest are no lonser cit- izens. They avoid, they almost contemn, municipal honours and duties. Those honours and duties are abandoned to men who, though useful and highly respectable, seldom belong to the princely commercial houses of which the names are renowned throughout the world. In the seventeenth century the City was the merchant's res- idence. Those mansions of the great old burghers which still exist have been turned into counting houses and warehouses : but it is evident that they were originally not inferior in magnifi- cence to the dwellings which were then inhabited by the nobil- ity. They sometimes stand in retired and gloomy courts, and are accessible only by inconvenient passages ; but their dimen- sions are ample, and their aspect stately. The entrances are decorated with richly carved pillars and canopies. The staircases and landing places are not wanting in grandeur. The floors are sometimes of wood tessellated after the fashion of France. The palace of Sir Robert Clayton, in the Old Jewry, contained a superb banqueting room wainscoted with cedar, and adorned with battles of gods and giants in fresco.* Sir Dudley North expended four thousand pounds, a sum which would then have been important to a Duke, on the rich furniture of his re- ception rooms in Basinghall Street, f In such abodes, under " Evelyn's l)iary, Sept. 20. 1672. t Roger North's Lifft of Sir Dudley North. .21 522 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. the last Stuarts, the hQ3,ds of the great firms lived splendidly and hospitably. To their dwelling place they were bound by the strongest ties of interest and affection. There they had passed their youth, had made their friendships, had courted their wives, had seen their children grow up, had laid the remains of their parents in the earth, and expected that their own remains would be laid. That intense patriotism which is peculiar to the mem- bers of societies congregated within a narrow space was, in such circumstances, strongly developed. London was, to the Londoner, what Athens was to the Athenian of the age of Pericles, what Florence was to the Florentine of the fifteenth century. The citizen was proud of the grandeur of his city, punctilious about her claims to respect, ambitious of her offices, and zealous for her franchises. At the close of the reign of Charles the Second the pride of the Londoners was smarting from a cruel mortification. The old charter had been taken away ; and the magistracy had been remodelled. All. the civic functionaries were Tories : and the Whigs, though in numbers and in wealth, superior to their oppo- nents, found themselves excluded from every local dignity. Nevertheless, the external splendour of the municipal govern- ment was not diminished, nay, was rather increased by this change. For, under the administration of some Puritans who had lately borne rule, the ancient fame of the City for good cheer had declined : but under the new magistrates, who belong- ed to a more festive party, and at whose boards guests of rank and fashion from beyond Temple Bar were often seen, the Guildhall and the halls of the great companies were enlivened by many sumptuous banquets. During these repasts, odes com- posed by the poet laureate of the corporation, in praise of the King, the Duke, and the Mayor, were sung to music. The drinking was deep and the shouting loud. An observant Tory, who had often shared in these revels, has remarked that the prac tice of huzzaing after drinking healths dates from this joyous period.* * North's Examen. This amusing writer has preserved a specimen of the sub- lime raptures in which the Pir.dar of the City indulged :— " The worshipful Sir John Moor ! After age that name adore 1 " STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1685. 323 The magnificence displayed by the first civic magistrate was almost regal. The gilded coach, indeed, which is now annually admired by the crowd, was not yet a part of lys state. On great occasions he appeared on horseback, attended by a long cavalcade inferior in magnificence only to that which, before a coronation, escorted the sovei-eign from the Towe'r to Westminster. The Lord Mayor was never seen in public without his rich robe, his hood of black velvet, his gold chain, his jewel, and a great attendance of harbingers and guards.* Nor did the world find anything ludicrous in the pomp which constantly surrounded him. For it was not more than became the place which, as wielding the strength and representing the dignity of the City of London, he was entitled to occuj^y in the State. That City, being then not only without equal in the country, but without second, had, during five and forty years, exercised almost as great an influence on the politics of England as Paris has, in our own time, exercised on the politics of France. In Intelli- gence London was greatly in advance of every other part of the kingdom. A government, supported and trusted by London, could in a day obtain such pecuniary means as it would have taken months to collect from the rest of the island. Nor were the military resources of the capital to be despised. The power which the Lord Lieutenants exercised in other parts of the kingdom was in London entrusted to a Commission of emment citizens. Under the order of this Commission were twelve regiments of foot and two regiments of horse. An army of drapers' apprentices and journeymen tailors, with common councilmen for captains and aldermen for colonels, might not indeed have been able to stand its ground against regular troops ; but there were then very few regular troops in the kingdom. A town, therefore, which could send forth, at an hour's notice, thousands of men, abounding in natural courage, provided with tolerable weapons, and not altogether untinctured with martial discipline, could not but be a valuable ally and a formidable enemy. It was not forgotten that Hampden and Pynj had been * Cbamberlayne's state of England, 1G84; Anglise Metropolis, 1690 ; Seymour'f Loncjon, X734, 324 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. protected from lawless tyranny by the London trainbands ; that, in the great crisis of the civil war, the London trainbands had inarched to raise the siege of Gloucester ; or that, in the move- ment against the military tyrants which followed the downfall of Richard Cromwell, the London trainbands had borne a signal part. In truth, it is no exaggeration to say that, but for the hostility of the City, Charles the First would never have been vanquished, and that, without the help of the City, Charles the Second could scarcely have been restored. These considerations may serve to explain why, in spite of that attraction which had, during a long course of years, gradually drawn the aristocracy westward, a few men of liigh rank had continued, till a very recent period, to dwell in the vicinity of the Exchange and of the Guildhall. Shaftesbury and Buckingham, while engaged in bitter and unscrupulous op- position to the government, had thought that tliey could no- wnere carry on their intrigues so conveniently or so securely as under the protection of the City magistrates and the City militia. Shaftesbury had therefore lived in Aldersgate Street, at a house which may still be easily known by pilasters and wreaths, the graceful work of Inigo. Buckingham had ordered his mansion near Charing Cross, once the abode of the Archbishops of York, to be pulled down ; and, while streets and alleys which are still named after him were rising on that site, chose to reside in Dowgate.* These, however, were rare exceptions. Almost all the noble families of England had long migrated beyond the walls. The district where most of their town houses stood lies between the city and the regions which are now considered as fashionable. A few great men still retained their hereditary hotels in the Strand, The stately dwellings on the south and west of Lin- coln's Inn Fields, the Piazza of Coveut Garden, Southampton Square, which is now called Bloomsbury Square, and King's Square in Soho Fields, which is now called Soho Square, were among the favourite spots. Foreign princes were carried to * North's Examen, 116 ; "Wood, Ath. Ox, Shaftesbury • The Duke of B.'s Litany. STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1685. 325 see Bloomsbury Square, as one of the wonders of England.* Soho Square, which had just been built, was to our ancestors a subject of pride with which their posterity will hardly sympa- thise. Monmouth Square had been the name whil^ the fortunes of the Duke of Monmouth flourished ; and on the southern side towered his mansion. The front, though ungraceful, was lofty and richly adorned. The walls of the principal apartments were finely sculptured with fruit, foliage, and armorial bearings, and were hung with embroidered satin. f Every trace of this magnificence has long disappeared ; and no aristocratical man- sion is to be found in that once aristocratical quarter. A little way north from Holborn, and on the verge of the pastures and corn-fields, rose two celebrated palaces, each with an ample 'garden. One of them, then called Southampton House, and subsequently Bedford House, was removed about fifty years ago to make room for a new city, which now covers with its squares, streets, and churches, a vast area, renowned in the seventeenth century for peaches and snipes. The other, IMon- tague House, celebrated for its frescoes and furniture, was, a few months after the death of Charles the Second, burned to the ground, and was speedily succeeded by a more magnificent Montague House, which, having been long the repository of such various and precious treasures of art, science, and learning as were scarcely ever before assembled under a single roof, has now given place to an edifice more magnificent still. t Nearer to the Court, on a space called St. James's Fields, had just been built St. James's Square and Jermyn Street. St. James's Church had recently been opened for the accommo- dation of the inhabitants of this new quarter. § Golden Square, which was in the next generation inhabited bv lords and min- isters of state, had not yet been begun. Indeed the only dwellings to be seen on the north of Piccadilly were threo or four isolated and almost rural mansions, of which the most * Travels of the Grand Duke Cosmo. t Chamberlayiie's State of England, 1684 ; Pennant's London ; Smith's Life of Nollekens. t Evelyn's Diary, Oct. 10, 1683, Jan. 19, 1685-6. J Stat. 1 Jac. II. c. 22 ; Evelyn's Diary, Dec. 7, 1684. 526 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. celebrated was the costly pile erected by Clarendon, and nick, named Dunkirk House. It had been purchased after its found- er's downfall by the Duke of Albemarle. The Clarendon Hotel and Albemarle Street still preserve the memory of the site. He who then rambled to what is now the gayest and most crowded part of Regent Street found himself in a solitude, and was sometimes so fortunate as to have a shot at a woodcock.* On the north the Oxford road ran between hedges. Three or four hundred yards to the south were the garden walls of a few great houses which were considered as quite out of town. On the west was a meadow renowned for a sprii)g from which, long afterwards. Conduit Street was named. On the east was a field not to be passed without a shudder by any Londoner of that age. There, as in a place far from the haunts of men, had been dug, twenty years before, when the great plague was raging, a pit into which the dead carts had nightly shot corpses by scores. It was popularly believed that the earth was deeply tainted with infection, and could not be disturbed without im- minent risk to human life. No foundations were laid there till two generations had passed without any return of the pesti- lence, and till the ghastly spot had long been surrounded by buildings. t We should greatly err if we were to suppose that any of the streets and squares then bore the same aspect as at present. The great majority of the houses, indeed, have, since that time, been wholly, or in great part, rebuilt. If the most fashionable parts of the capital could be placed before us such as they then were, we should be disgusted by their squalid appearance, and poisoned by their noisome atmosphere. In Covent Garden a filthy and noisy market was held close to the dwellings of the great. Fruit women screamed, carters Old General Oglethorpe, who died in 1785, used to boast that he had shot birds here in Anne's reign. See Pennant's London, and the Gentleman's Maga- zine for July, 1785. t The pest field will be seen in maps of London a« late as the end of George the First's reign. STATE OP ENGLAND IN 1685. 327 fought, cabbage stalks aud rotten apples accumulated in heaps at the thresholds of the Countess of -Berkshire and of the Bishop of Durham.* The centre of Lincoln's Inn Fields was an open space where the rabble congregated every evening, within a few yards of Cardigan House aud Winchester House, to hear mountebanks harangue, to see bears dance, and to set dogs at oxen. Rub- bish was shot in every part of the area. Horses were exer- cised there. The beggars were as noisy and importunate as in the worst governed cities of the Continent. A Lincoln's Inn mumper was a proverb. The whole fraternity knew the arms and liveries of every charitably disposed grandee in the neigh- bourhood, and as soon as his lordship's coach and six appeared, came hopping and crawling in crowds to persecute him. These disorders lasted, in spite of many accidents, and of some legal proceedings, till, in the reign of George the Second, Sir Joseph Jekyll, Master of the Rolls, was knocked down and nearly killed in the middle of the Square. Then at length palisades were set up, and a pleasant garden laid out.f Saint James's Square was a receptacle for all the oifal and cinders, for all the dead cats and dead dogs of Westminster. At one time'a cudgel player kept the ring there. At another time an impudent squatter settled himself there, and built a shed for rub- bish under the windows of the gilded saloons in which the first magnates of the realm, Norfolk, Ormond, Kent, and Pembroke, gave banquets and balls. It was not till these nuisances bad lasted through a whole generation, and till much had been writ- » See a very curious plan of Covent Garden made about 1C90, and engraved for Smiths History of Westminster. See also Hogarth's Morning, painted while some of the houses in the Piazza were still occupied by people of fashion. t London Spy ; Tom Brown's coniical View of London and Westminster ; Turner's Propositions for the employing of the Poor, 1678 ; Daily Coiirant j»nd Daily Journal of June 7, 1733 ; Case of Michael v. Allestree, in 1676, 2 Levinz, p. 172. Michael had been run over by two horses which Allestree was breaking in Lincoln's Inn Fields. The declaration set forth that the defendant " porta deux chivals ungovernable en un coach, et improvise, incaute, et absque debita con- sideratione ineptitudinis loci la eux drive pur eux faire tractable et apt pur un coach, quels chivals, pur ceo que, per leur ferocite,ne poientestre rule, curro Bur le plaintifC et le noie." S28 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. ten about them, that the inhabitants applied to Parliament foJ permission to put up rails, and to plant trees.* When such was the state of the region inhabited by the most luxurious portion of society, we may easily believe that the great body of the population suffered what would now be con- sidered as insupportable grievances. The pavement was detest- able : all foreigners cried shame upon it. The drainage was so bad that in rainy weather the gutters soon became torrents. Several facetious poets have commemorated the fury with which these black rivulets roared down Snow Hill and Ludgate Hill, bearing to Fleet Ditch a vast tribute of animal and vegetable filth from the stalls of butchers and greengrocers. This flood was profusely thrown to right and left by coaches and carts. To keep as far from the carriage road as possible was therefore the wish of every pedestrian. The mild and timid gave the wall. The bold and athletic took it. If two roisterers met, tlisy cocked their hats in each other's faces, aud pushed each other about till the weaker was shoved towards the kennel. If he was a mere bully he sneaked off, muttering that he should find a time. If he was pugn-vcious, the encounter probably ended in a duel behind Montague House, t The houses were not numbered. There would indeed have been little advantage in numbering them ; for of the coachmen, chairmen, porters, and errand boys of London, a very small proportion could read. It was necessary to use marks which the most ignorant could understand. The shops were therefore distinguished by painted or sculptured signs, which gave a gay and grotesque aspect to the streets. The walk from Charing Cross to Whitechapel lay through an endless succession of Sar- acens' Heads, Royal Oaks, Blue Bears, and Golden Lambs, which disappeared when they were no longer required for the direction of the common people. * Stat. 12 Geo. I. c. 25 ; Commons' Journals, Feb. 25, March 2, 1725-6 ; London Gardener, 1712 ; Evening Post, March, 23, 1731. I have not been able to find this number of the Evening Post ; I therefore quote it on the faith of Mr. Malcolm, who mentions it in his History of London. t Lettres sur les Anglois, written early iu the reign of "William the Third ; Swift's City Shower ; Gay's Trivia. Johnson used to relate a curious conversation which he had with his mother about giving and taking the wall. STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1685. 329 "When the evening closed in, the difficulty and dangoi* of walking about Loudon became serious indeed. The garret win- dows were opened, and pails were emptied, with little regard to those who were passing below. Falls, bruises and broken bones were of constant occurrence. For, till the last year of the reign of Charles the Second, most of the streets were left in profound darkness. Thieves and robbers plied their trade with impunity : yet they were hardly so terrible to peaceable citizens as another class of ruffians. It was a favourite amusement of dissolute young gentlemen to swagger by night about the town, breaking windows, upsetting sedans, beating quiet men, and offering r«de caresses to pretty women. Several dynasties of these tyrants had, since the Restoration, domineered over the streets. The Muns and Tityre Tus had given place to the Hectors, and the Hectors had been recently succeeded by the Scourers. At a later period arose the Nicker, the Hawcubite, and the yet more dreaded name of Mohawk.* The machinery for keeping the peace was utterly contemptible. There was an Act of Common Council which provided that more than a thousand watchmen should be constantly on the alert in the city, from sunset to_ sunrise, and that every inhabitant should take his turn of duty. But this Act was negligently executed. Few of those who were summoned left their homes ; and those few generally found it more agreeable to tipple in alehouses than to pace the streets. f It ought to be noticed that, in the last year of the reign of Charles the Second, began a great change in the police of Lon- don, a change which has perhaps added as much to the happiness of the body of the people as revolutions of much greater fame. * Oldham's Imitation of tlio 3d Satire of Juvenal, 1G82 ; Shadwell's Scourers, 1690. Many other authorities will readily occur to all who are acquainted with the popular literatvire of that and the succeeding generation It may be suspected that Som3 of the Tityre Tus, like good Cavaliers, broke Milton's windows shortly after the Restoration I am confident that he was thinking of those pests of Lon- don when he dictated the noble lines :— "And in luxurious cities, when the noise Of riot ascends above their loftiest towers. And injury and outrage, and when night Darkens the streets, then wander forth the sons Of Kclial, flown with insolence and wine." t Seymour's London. 830 HISTOilT OF ENGLAND. An ingenious projector, named Edward Heming, obtained letters patent conveying to him, for a term of years, the exclusive right of lighting up London. He undertook, for a moderate consid- eration, to place a light before every tenth door, on moonlcsi nights, from Michaelmas to Lady Day, and from six to twelve of the clock. Those who now see the capital all the year round, from dusk to dawn, blazing with a splendour beside which the illuminations for La Hogue and Blenheim would have look- ed pale, may perhaps smile to think of Heming's lanterns, which glimmered feebly before one house in ten during a small part of one night in three. But such was not the feeling of his contem- poraries. His scheme was enthusiastically applauded, and furiously attacked. The friends of improvement extolled him as the greatest of all the benefactors of his city. What, they asked, were the boasted inventions of Archimedes, when com- pared with the achievement of the man who had turned the nocturnal shades into noon-day ? In spite of these eloquent eulo- gies the cause of darkness was not left undefended. There were fools in that age who opposed the introduction of what w:is called the new light as strenuously as fools in our age have opposed the introduction of vaccination and railroads, as strenuously as the fools of an age anterior to the dawn of history doubtless opposed the introduction of the plough and of alphabetical writing. Many years after the date of Heming's patent there were extensive districts in which no lamp was seen.* We may easily imagine what, in such times, must have been the state of the quarters of London which were peopled by the outcasts of society. Among those quarters one had attained a Bcandalous preeminence. On the confines of the City and the Temple had been founded, in the thirteenth century, a House of Carmelite Friars, distinguished by their white hoods. The precinct of this house hadj^ before the Reformation, been sanctuary for criminals, and still retained the privilege of pro- tecting debtors from arrest. Insolvents consequently were to be found in every dwelling, from cellar to garret. Of these * Angliae Metropolis, 1690, Sect. 17, entitled, " Of the new lights " ; Seymour's lx>ndon. STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1685. 331 A large proportion were knaves and libertines, and were follow- ed to their asylum by women more abandoned than themselves. The civil power was unable to keep order in a district swarming with such inhabitants ; and thus Whitefriars became the favour- ite resort of all who wished to be emancipated from the restraints of the law. Though the immunities legally belonging to the place extended only to cases of debt, cheats, false witnesses, for- gers, and highwaymen found refuge there. For amidst a rabble so desperate no peace officer's life was in safety. At the cry of " Rescue," bullies with swords and cud^-els, and termao'ant hairs with spits and broomsticks, poured forth by hundreds ; and the intruder was fortunate if he escaped back into Fleet Street, hustled, stripped, and pumped upon. Even the warrant of the Chief Justice of England could not be executed without the help of a company of musketeers. Such relics of the barbarism of the darkest ages were to be found within a short walk of the chambers where Somers was studying history and law, of the chapel where Tillotson was preaching, of the coffee house where Dryden was passing judgment on poems and plays, and of the hall whei'e the Royal Society was examining the astronomical system of Isaac Newton.* Each of the two cities which made up the capital of England had its own centre of attraction. In the metropolis of com- merce the point of convergence was the Exchange ; in the me- tropolis of fashion the Palace. But the Palace did not retain its influence so long as the Exchange. The Revolution com- pletely altered the relations between the Court and the higher classes of society. It was by degrees discovered that the King, in his individual capacity, had very little to give ; that coronets and garters, bishoprics and embassies, lordships of the Treasury and tellerships of the Exchequer, nay, even charges in the royal stud and bedchamber, were really bestowed, not by him, but by his advisers. Every ambitious and covetous man perceived that he would consult his own interest far better by acquiring the dominion of a Cornish borough, and by rendering good ser* • Stowe's Survey of London ; Shatlwell's Squire of Alsatia ; Ward's London 6py : Stat. 8 & 9 Qui. nl. cap. 27. S32 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. vice to the ministry during a critical session, than by becoming the companion, or even the minion, of his prince. It was there- fore in the antechambers, not of George the First and of George the Second, but of Walpole and of Pelham, that the daily crowd of courtiers was to be found. It is also to be remarked that the same Revolution, which made it impossible tliat our Kings should use the patronage of the state merely for the pur- pose of gratifying their personal predilections, gave us several Kings unfitted by their education and habits to be gi'acious and affable hosts. They had been born and bred on the Continent. They never felt themselves at home in our island. If they spoke our language, they spoke it inelegantly and with effort. Our national character they never fully understood. Our national manners they hardly attempted to acquire. The most important part of their duty they performed better than, any ruler who preceded them : for they governed strictly ac- cording to law : but they could not be the first gentlemen of the realm, the heads of polite society. If ever they unbent, it was in a very small circle where hardly an English face was to ba seen ; and they were never so happy as when they could escape for a summer to their native land. They had indeed their days of reception for our nobility and gentry ; but the reception was a mere matter of form, and became at last as solemn a ceremony as a funeral. Not such was the court of Charles the Second. Whitehall, when he dwelt there, was the focus of political intrigue and of fashionable gaiety. Half the jobbing and half the flirting of the metropolis went on under his roof. Whoever could make himself agreeable to the prince, or could secure the good ofiices of the mistress, might hope to rise in the world without rendering any service to the government, without being even known by sight to any minister of state. This courtier got a frigate, and that a company ; a third, the pardon of a rich offender ; a fourth, a lease of crown land on easy terms. If the King notified his pleasure that a briefless lawyer should be made a judge, or that a libertine baronet should be made a pa«r, the gravest counsellors, after a little mui'muring, sub- STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1G85. 333 mitted.* Interest, therefore, drew a constant press of suitors to the gates of the palace ; and those gates always stood wide. The King kept open house every day, and all day long, for the good society of London, the extreme Whigs only excepted. Hardly any gentleman had any difficulty in making his way to the royal presence. The levee was exactly what the word imports. Some men of quality came every morning to stand round their master, to chat with him while his wig was combed and his cravat tied, and to accompany him iu his early walk through the Park. All persons who had been properly intro- duced might, without any special invitation, go to see him dine, sup, dance, and play at hazai-d, and might have the pleasure of hearing him tell stories, which indeed he told remarkably well., about his flight from Worcester, and about the misery which he had endured when he was a state prisoner in the hands of the canting meddling preachers of Scotland. Bystanders whom His Majesty recognis d often came in for a courteous word. This proved a far more successful kingcraft than any that his father or grandfather had practised. It was not easy for the most austere republican of the school of Marvel to resist the fascination of so much good humour and affability; and many a veteran Cavalier, iu whose heart the remembrance of unre- quited sacrifices and services had been festering during twenty years, was compensated in one moment for wounds and seques- trations by his sovereign's kind nod, and " God bless you, my old friend!" Whitehall naturally- became the chief staple of news. Whenever there was a rumour that anything important had happened or was about to happen, people hastened thither to obtain Intel. igence from the fountain head. The galleries presented the appearance of a modern club room at an anxious time. They were full of people enquiring whether the Dutch mail was in, what tidings the express from France had brought, whether John Sobiesky had beaten the Turks, whether the * See Sir Roger North's account of the way in which "Wright was made a Judge, and Clarendon's account of the way in which Sir George Savil'^ was mads A peer. U34 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Doge of Genoa was really at Paris. These were matters about W^hich it was safe to talk aloud. But there were subjects con- cerning which information was asked and given in whispers. Had Halifax orot the better of Rochester ? Was there to be a Parliament ? "Was the Duke of York really going to Scotland ? Had Monmouth really been summoned from the Hague ? Men tried to read the couutenauce of every minister as he went through the throng to and from the royal closet. All sorts of auguries were drawn from the tone in which His Majesty spoke to the Lord President, or from the laugh with which His Majesty honoured a jest of the Lord Privy Seal ; and in a few hours the hopes and fears inspired by such slight indications had spread to all the coffee houses from Saint James's to the Tower.* The coffee house must not be dismissed with a cursory men- tion. It might indeed at that time have been not improperly called a most important political institution. No Parliament had sat for years. The municipal council of the City had ceased to speak the sense of the citizens. Public meetings, harangues, resolutions, and the rest of the modern machinery of agitation had not yet come into fashion. Nothing resembling the modern newsp.aper existed. In such circumstances the coffee houses were the chief organs through which the public opinion of the me£ropolis vented itself. The first of these establishments had been set up by a Turkey merchant, who had acquired among the Mahometans a taste for their favourite beverage. The convenience of being able to make appointments in any part of the town, and of being able to pass evenings socially at a very small charge, was so great that the fashion spread fast. Every man of the upper or middle class went daily to his coffee house to learn the news and to dis- cuss it. Every coffee house had one or more orators to whose eloquence the crowd listened with admiration, and who soon be- * The sources from which I have drawn my information about the state of the Court are too numei*ous to recapitulate. Among them are the Despatches of Barillon, Van Citters, Ronquillo, and Adda, the Travels of the Grand T)uke Cosmo, the works of Roger North, the Diaries of Pepys, Evelyn, and T<^nge, and the Memoirs of Grammont and Reresby. STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1685. 385 ame, what the journalists of our time have been called, a fourth Estate of the realm. The Court had long seen with uneasiness the growth of this new joower in the state. An attempt had been made, during Danby's administration, to close the coffee houses. But men of all parties missed their usual places of resort so much that there was an universal outcry. The govern- ment did not venture, in opposition to a feeling so strong and general, to enforce a regulation of which the legality might well be questioned. Since that time ten years had elapsed, and during those years the number and influence of the coffee houses had been constantly increasing. Foreigners remarked that the coffee house was that which especially distinguished London from all other cities ; that the coffee house was the Londoner's home, and (/'that those who wished to find a gentleman commonly asked, not whether he lived in Fleet Street or Chancery Lane, but whether he frequented the Grecian or the Rainbow. Nobody was excluded from these places who laid down his penny at the bar. Yet every rank and profession, and every shade of religious and political opinion, had its own head quarters. There were houses near Saint James's Park where fops congregated, their heads and shoulders covered with black or flaxen wigs, not less ample than those which are now worn by the Chancellor and by the Speaker of the House of Commons. The wig came from Paris and so did the rest of the fine gentleman's ornaments, his em- broidered coat, his fringed gloves, and the tassel which upheld his pantaloons. The conversation was in that dialect which, long after it had ceased to be spoken in fashionable circles, con- tinued, in the mouth of Lord Foppington, to excite the mirth of theatres.* The atmosphere was like that of a perfumer's shop. Tobacco in any other form than that of richly scented snuff was held in abomination. II any clown, ignorant of the usages of the house, called for a pipe, the sneers of the whole assembly and the short answers of the waiters soon convinced him that he * The chief peculiarity of this dialect was that, in a large class of words, the Owas pronounced like A. Thus Lord was pronounced Lard. See Vanbrugh's Relapse. Lord Sunderland was a great master of this court tune, as Roger North calls it ; and Titus Gates affected it in the hope of passing for a fine gentle man. Examen, 77, 254. 336 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. had better go somewhere else. Nor, indeed, would he have had far to go. For, in general the coffee rooms reeked with tobacco like a guardroom: and strangers sometimes expressed their surprise that so many people should leave their own firesides to sit in the midst of eternal fog and stench. Nowhere was the smoking more constant than at AVill's. That celebrated house, situated between Covent Garden and Bo .v Street, was sacred to polite letters. There the talk was about poetical justice and the unities of place and time. There was a faction for Perrault and the moderns, a faction for Boileau and the ancients. One group debated whether Paradise Lost ought not to have been in rhyme. To another an envious poetaster demonstrated that Venice Preserved ought to have been hooted from the stage. Under no roof was a greater variety of figures to be seen. There were Earls in stars and garters, clergymen in cassocks and bands, pert Templars, sheepish lads from the Universities, translators and index makers in ragged coats of frieze. The great press was to get near the chair where John Dry den sate. In winter that chair was always in the warmest nook by the fire ; in summer it stood in the balcony. To bow to the Laureate, and to hear his opinion of Racine's last tragedy or of Bossu's treatise on epic poetry, was thought a privilege. A pinch from his snuff box was an honour sufficient to turn the head of a vounof enthusaist. There were coffee houses where the first medical men might be consulted. Doctor John Radcliffe, who, in the year 1685, rose to the largest practice in London, came daily, at the hour when the Exchange was full, from his house in Bow Street, then a fashionable part of the capital, to Garrawny's, and was to be found, surrounded by surgeons and apothecaries, at a particular table. There were Puritan coffee houses where no oath was heard, and where lankhaired men discussed election and reprobation through their noses ; Jew coffee houses where darkey ed money changers from Venice and Amsterdam greeted each other ; and Popish coffee houses where, as good Protestants believed, Jesuits planned, over their cups, another great fire, and cast silver bullets to shoot the King.* * Lettres sur les Anglois ; Tom Brown's Tour ; Ward's London Spy ; The Char- STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1685. 337 These gregarious habits had no small share in forming the character of the Londoner of that age. He was, indeed, a dif, ferent being from the rustic Englishman. There was not then the intercourse which now exists between the two classes. Only very great men were in the habit of dividing the year be- tween town and country. Few esquires came to the capital thrice in their lives. Nor was it yet the practice of all citizens in easy circumstances to breathe the fresh air of the fields and woods during some weeks of every summer, A cockney, in a rural village, was stared at as much as if he had intruded into a Kraal of Hottentots. On the other hand, when the lord of a Lincolnshire or Shropshire manor appeared in Fleet Street, he was as easily distinguished from the resident population as a Turk or a Lascar. His dress, his gait, his accent, the manner in which he gazed at the shops, stumbled into the gutters, ran against the porters, and stood under the waterspouts, marked him out as an excellent subject for the operations of swindlers and banterers. Bullies jostled him into the kennel. Hackney coachmen splashed him from head to foot. Thieves explored with perfect security the huge pockets of his horseman's coat, while he stood entranced by the splendour of the Lord Mayor's show. Moneydroppers, sore from the cart's tail, introduced themselves to him, and appeared to him the most honest friendjy gentlemen that he had ever seen. Painted women, the refuse of Lewkner Lane .and Whetstone Park, passed themselves on him for countesses and maids of honour. If he asked his way to Saint James's, his informants sent him to Mile End. If he went into a shop, he was instantly discerned to be a fit pur- chaser of everything that nobody else would buy, of second- hand embroidery, copper rings, and watches that would not go. If he rambled into any fashionable coffee house, ne became a mark for the insolent derision of fops and the grave waggery acter of a Coffee House, 1673 ; Rules and Orders of the Coffee House, 1074 ; Cof- fee Houses vindicated, 1G75 ; A Satyr against Coffee ; Norths Examen, 138 ; Life of Guildford«152 ; Life of Sir Dudley North, 149 ; Life of Dr. Kadclifle, published by CurU in 1715. The liveliest description of Will's is in the City and Country Mouse. There is a remarkable passage about the influence of the coffee bousQ orators in Halstead's Succinct Genealogies, printed in 1685. 338 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. of Templars. Enraged and mortified, he soon returned to his mansion, and there, in the homage of his tenants and the con- versation of his boon companions, found consolation for the vexations and humiliations wliich he had underuch as it was hardly possible to distinguish, in the dusk, from *he unenclosed heath and fen which lay on both sides. Ralph Thorseby, the antiquary, was in danger of losing his way on the great North road, between Barnby Moor and Tuxford, and actually lost his way between Doncaster and York. t Pepys and his wifo, trav- elling in their own coach, lost their way between Newba^y and Reading. In the course of the same tour they lost the'r way near Salisbury, and were in danger of having to pass the night on the plain, t It was only in fine weather that the whoR breadth of the road was available for wheeled vehicles. Oftei * North's Life of Guildford, 136. t Thoresby's Diary, Oct. 21, 1680, Aug. 3, 1712. t Pepys'a Diary, June 12 and 16, 1668. 340 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. the mud lay deep on the right and the left ; and only a narrow track of firm ground rose above the quagmire,* At such times obstructions and quarrels were frequent, and the path was some- times blocked up during a long time by carriers, neither of whom would break the way. It happened, almost every day, that coaches stuck fast, until a team of cattle could be procured from some neighbouring farm, to tug them out of the slough. But in bad seasons the traveller had to encounter inconven- iences still more serious. Thoresby, who was in the habit of travelling between Leeds and the capital, has recorded, in his Diary, such a series of perils and disasters as might suffice for a journey to the Frozen Ocean or to the Desert of Sahara. On one occasion he learned that the floods were out between Ware and London, that passengers had to swim for their lives, and that a higgler had perished in the attempt to cross. In conse- quence of these tidings he turned out of the high road, and was conducted aci'oss some meadows, where it was necessary for him to ride to the saddle skirts in water.f In the course of another journey he narrowly escaped being swept away by an inunda- tion of the Trent. He was afterwards detained at Stamford four days, on account of the state of the roads, and then ven- tured to proceed only because fourteen members of the House of Commons, who were going up in a body to Parliament with guides and numerous attendants, took him into their company. $ On the roads of Derbyshire, travellers were in constant fear for their necks, and were frequently compelled to alight and lead their beasts.§ The great route through Wales to Holyhead was in such a state that, in 1 685, a viceroy, going to Ireland, was five hours in travelling fourteen miles, from Saint Asaph to Conway. Between Conway and Beaumaris he was forced to walk a great part of the way : and his lady was carried in a litter. His coach was, with much difficulty, and by the help of many hands, brought after him entire. In general, carriages were *rbid. Feb. 28, IGfiO. t Thoresby's Diary. May 17, 1695. t Ibid. Dec. 27, 170R. § Tour in Derbyshire, by J. Browne, son of Sir Thomas Browne, 1662 ; Cot- ton's Angler, 1676. STATE OP ENGLAND IN 1685. 341 taken to pieces at Conway, and borne, on the shoulders of stout Welsh peasants, to the Menai Straits.* In some parts of Kent and Sussex, none but the strongest horses could, in winter, get through the bog, in which, at every step, they sank deep. The markets were often inaccessible during several months. It is said that the fruits of the earth were sometimes suifered to rot in one place, while in another place, distant only a few miles, the supply fell far sliort o'f the demand. The wheeled carriages were, m this district, generally pulled by oxen.f When Prince George of Denmark visited the stately mansion of Petworth in wet weather, he was six hours in going nine miles ; and it was necessary that a body of sturdy hinds should be on each side of his coach, in order to prop it. Of the carriages which conveyed his retinue several were upset and injured. A letter from one of the party has been pi-eserved, in which the unfortunate courtier complains that, during fourteen hours, he never once alighted, except when his coach was overturned or stuck fast in the mud. I One chief cause of the badness of the roads seems to have been the defective state of the law. Every parish was bound to repair the highways which passed through it. The peasantry were forced to give their gratuitous labour six days in the year. If this was not sufficient, hired labour was employed, and the expense was met by a parochial rate. That a route connecting two great towns, which have a large and thriving trade with each other, should be maintained at the cost of tlie rural pop- ulation scattei'ed between them is obviously unjust ; and this injustice was peculiarly glaring in the case of the great North road, which traversed very poor and thinly inhabited districts, and joined very rich and populous districts. Indeed it was not in the power of the parishes of Huntingdonshire to mend a high- way worn by the constant traffic between the West Riding of Yorkshire and London. Soon after the Restoration this griev- * Correspondence of Henry Earl of Clarendon, Dec. 30, 1G85, Jan. 1, 1686. t Postlethwaite's Dictionary, Koads ; History of liawkhurst, in the Biblio- theca Topographica Britannica. t Annals of Queen Anne, 1703, Appendix, No. 3. 342 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. ance attracted the notice of Parliament ; and an act, the first of our many turnpike acts, was passed, imposing a small toll on travellers and goods, for the purpose of keeping some parts of this important line of communication in good repair.* This innovation, however, excited many murmurs ; and the other great avenues to the capital were long left under the old system. A chancre was at lenoth effected, but not without much diffi. culty. For unjust and absurd taxation to which men are ac- customed is often borne far more willingly than the most reason- able impost which is new. It was not till many toll bars had been violently pulled down, till the troops had in many districts been forced to act against the people, and till much blood had been shed, that a good system was introduced.! By slow degrees reason triumphed over prejudice ; and our island is now crossed in every direction by near thirty thousand miles of turn- pike road. On the best highways heavy articles were, in the time of Charles the Second, generally conveyed from place to place by stase watrsons. In the straw of these vehicles nestled a crowd of passengers, who could not afford to travel by coach or on horseback, and who were prevented by infirmity, or by the weight of their luggage, from going on foot. The expense of transmitting heavy goods in this way was enormous. From Loudon to Birmingham the charge was seven pounds a ton ; from London to Exeter twelve pounds a ton.$ This was about fifteen pence a ton for every mile, more by a third than was afterwards charged on turnpike roads, and fifteen times what is now demanded by railway companies. The cost of conveyance amounted to a prohibitory tax on many useful articles. Coal in particular was never seen except in the districts where it was produced, or in the districts to which it could be carried by sea, and was indeed always known in the south of England by the name of sea coal. • 15 Car. IL c. 1. t The evils of the old system are strikingly set forth in many petitions which Appear in the Commons' Journal of 1725._ How fierce an opposition was offered to Ui« new system may be learned from the Gentleman's Magazine of 1749. Pestlathwftite'a Diet., Roads. STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1685. 343 On 'byroads, and generally throughout the country north of York and west of Exeter, goods were carried by long trains of packhorses. These strong and patient beasts, the breed of which is now extinct, were attended by a class of men who seem to have borne much resemblance to the Spanish mule- teers, A traveller of humble condition often found it conve- nient to perform a journey mounted on a packsaddle between two baskets, under the care of these haMy guides. The ex- pense of this mode of conveyance was small. But the caravan moved at a foot's pace ; and in winter the cold was often insup- portable.* The rich commonly travelled in their own carriages, with at least four horses* Cotton, the facetious poet, attempted to go from London to the Peak with a single pair, but found at Saint Albans that the journey would be insupportably tedious, and altered his plan.f A coach and six is in our time never seen, except as part of some pageant. The frequent mention therefore of such equipages in old books is likely to mislead us. We attribute to magnificence what was really the effect of a very disagreeable necessity. People, in the time of Charles the Second, travelled with six horses, because with a smaller number there was great danger of sticking fast in the mire. Nor were even six horses always sufficient. Yanbrugh, in the succeeding generation, described with great humour the way in which a country gentleman, newly chosen a member of Parlia- ment, went up to London. On that occasion all the exertion§ of six beasts, two of which had been taken from the plough, could not save the family coach from being embedded in a quagmire. Public carriages had recently been much improved. During the years which immediately followed the Restoration, a dili- gence ran between London and Oxford in two days. The passengers slept at Beaconsfield. At length, in the spring of 1669, a great and daring innovation was attempted. It was * Loidis and Elmete , Marshall's Rural Economy of England, In 1739 Roderio Random came from Scotland to Newcastle on a packhorse. t Cotton's Epistle to J, Bradshaw. 344 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. announced that a vehicle, described as the F) jing Coach, would perform the wiiole journey between sunrise and sunset. This spirited undertaking was solemnly considered and sanctioned by the Heads of the University, and appears to have excited the same sort of interest which is excited in" our own time by the opening of a new railway. The Vicechancellor, by a notice affixed in aL public places, prescribed the hour and place of departure. The success of the experiment was complete. At six in the morning the carriage began to move from before the ancient front of All Souls College ; and at seven in the evening the adventurous gentlemen who had run the first risk were safely deposited at their inn in London.* The emulation of the sister University was moved ; and soon a diligence was set up which in one day carried passengers from Cambridge to the capital. At the close of the reign of Chai'les the Second, flying carriages ran thrice a week from London to the chief towns. But no stage coach, indeed no stage waggon, appears to have proceeded further north than York, or further west than Exeter. The ordinary day's journey of a flying coach was about fifty miles in the summer ; but in winter, when the ways were bad and the nights long, little more than thirty. The Chester coach, the York coach, and the Exeter coach generally reached London in four days during the fine season, but at Christmas not till the sixth day. The passengers, six in number, were all seated in the carriage. For accidents were so frequent that it would have been most perilous to mount the roof. The ordinary fare was about twopence halfpenny a mile in summer, and some- what more in winter.t This mode of travelling, which by Englishmen of the pres- ent day would be regarded as insufferably slow, seemed to our ancestors wonderfully and indeed alarmingly rapid. Lt. a work published a few months before the death of Charles the Second, the flying coaches are extolled as far superior to any similar vehicles ever known in the world. Their velocity is the subject • Anthony h Wood's Life of himself t Chamberlayne'3 State of England, 1G84. See also the list of stage coachea and waggons at the end of the book, entitled Anglias Metropolis, 1690, STATIC OF ENGLAND IN 1 G85. . 345 of special commendation, and is triumphantly contrasted with the sluggish pace of the continental posts. But with boasts like these was mingled the sound of complaint and invective. The interests of large classes had been unfavourably affected by the establishment of the new diligences ; and, as usual, many per- sons were, from mere stupidity and obstinacy, disposed to clamour against the innovation, simply because it was an inno- vation. It was vehemently argued that this mode of convey- ance would be fatal to the breed of horses and to the noble art of horsemanship ; that the Thames, which had long been an important nursery of seamen, would cease to be the chief thorough- fare from London up to "Windsor and down to Gravesend ; that saddlers and spurriers would be ruined by hundreds j that numerous inns, at which mounted travellers had been in the habit of stopping, would be deserted, and would no longer pay any rent ; that the new carriages were too hot in summer and too cold in winter ; that the passengers were grievously annoyed by invalids and crying children ; that the coach sometimes reached the inn so late that it was impossible to get sujiper, and sometimes started so early that it was impossible to get breakfast. On these grounds it was gravely recommended that no public coach should be permitted to have more than four horses, to start oftener than once a week, or to go more than thirty miles a day. It was hoped that, if this regulation were adopted, all except the sick and the lame would return to the old mode of travelling. Petitions embodying such opinions as these were presented to the King in council from several companies of the City of London, from several provincial towns and from the justices of several counties. We smile at these things. It is not impossible that our descendants, when they read the history of the opposition offered by cupidity and preju- dice to the improvements of the nineteenth century, may smile in their turn.* • John Cresset's Reasons for suppressing Stage Coaches, 1G72. These reasons were afterwards inserted iu a tract, entitled " The Grand Concern of England explained, 1673." Cresset's attack on stage coaches called forth some auBwers which I have consulted. 346 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. In spite of the attractions of the flying coaches, it was still usual for men who enjoyed health and vigour, and who were not encumbered by much baggage, to perform long journeys on horseback. If the traveller wished to move expeditiously he rode post. Fresh saddle horses and guides were to be procured at convenient distances along all the great lines of road. The charge was threepence a mile for each horse, and fourpence a stage for the guide. In this manner, when the ways were good, it was possible to travel, for a considerable time, as rapidly as by any conveyance known in England, till vehicles were pro- pelled by steam. There were as yet no post chaises ; nor could those who rode in their own coaches ordinarily procure a change of horses. The King, however, and the great officers of state were able to command relays. Thus Charles commonly went in one day from Whitehall to New-market, a distance of about fifty-five miles through a level country ; and this was thought by his subjects a proof of great activity. Evelyn performed the same journey in company with the Lord Treasurer Clifford. The coach was drawn by six horses, which were changed at Bishop Stortford and again at Chesterford. The travellers reached Newmarket at night. Such a mode of conveyance seems to have been considered as a rare luxury confined to princes and minis'^ers.* Whatever might be the way in which a journey was per- formed, the travellers, unless they were numerous and well armed, ran considerable risk of being stopped and plundered. The mounted highwayman, a marauder known to our genera- tion only from books, was to be found on every main road. The waste tracts which lay on the great routes near London were especially haunted by plunderers of this class. Hounslow Heath, on the Great Western Road, and Finchley Common, on the Great Northern Road, were perhaps the most celebrated of these spots. The Cambridge scholars trembled when they ap- proached Epping Forest, even in broad daylight. Seamen who had just been paid off at Chatham were often compelled to * Chamberlayne'8 State of England, 1634 ; North's Examen, 105 ; ETelyn'* piary, Oct. 9,10, 1671. ■'' STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1685. 347 deliver their purses on Gadsliill, celebrated near a hundred years earlier by the greatest of poets as the scene of the depre- ^ dations of Falstaff. The public authorities seem to have been often at a loss how to deal with the plunderers. At one time it was announced in the Gazette, that several persons, who were strongly suspected of being highwaymen, but against whom there was not sufficient evidence, would be paraded at Newsate in ridinir dresses; their horses would also be shown; and all gentlemen who had been robbed were invited to inspect this singular exhibition. On another occasion a pardon was publicly offered to a robber if he would give up some rough diamonds, of immense value, which he had taken when he stopped the Harwich mail. A short time after appeared another proclamation, warning the innkeepers that the eye of the gov- ernment was upon them. Tiieir criminal connivance, it was affirmed, enabled banditti to infest the roads with impunity. That these suspicions were not without foundation, is proved by the dying speeches of some penitent robbers of that age, who appear to have received from the innkeepers services much resembling those which Farquhar's Boniface rendered to Gibbet.* It was necessary to the success and even to the safety of the highwayman that lie should be a bold and skilful rider, and that his manners and appearance should be such as suited the master of a fine horse. He therefore held an aristocratical position in the community of thieves, ajjpeared at fashionable coffee houses and gaming houses, and betted with men of quality on the race ground.f Sometimes, indeed, he was a man of good family and education. A romantic interest therefore at- tached, and perhaps still attaches, to the names of freebooters of this class. The vulgar eagerly drank in tales of their ferocity and audacity, of their occasional acts of generosity and good * See the London Gazette, May 14, 16T7, August 4, 1687, Dec. 5, 168T. The last confession of Augustin King, who was the son of an eminent divine, and had been educated at Cambridge but was hanged at Colchester in March, 1688, is highly curious, t Aimwell. Pray sir, han't I seen your face at Will's coffeehouse ? Gibbet, Yes, sir, and at "White's too.— Beaux' Stratagem. 348 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. * nature, of their amours, of their miraculous escapes, of their des- perate struggles, and of their manly bearing at the bar and in the cart. Thus it was related of William Nevisou, the great robber of Yorkshire, that he levied a quarterly tribute on all the northern drovers,and,in return, not only spared them himself, but protected them against all other thieves ; that he demanded purses in the most courteous manner ; that he gave largely to the poor what he had taken from the rich ; that his life was once spared by the royal clemency, but that he again tempted his fate, and at length died, in 1685, on the gallows of York.* It was related how Claude Duval, the French page of the' Duke of Richmond, took to the road, became captain of a formidable gang, and had the honour to be named first in a royal proclamation against notorious offenders ; how at the head of his troop he stopped a lady's coach, in which there was a booty of four hundred pounds ; how he took only one hundred, and suffered the fair owner to ransom the rest by dancing a corauto with him on the heath ; how his vivacious gallantry stole away the hearts of all women ; how his dexterity at sword and pistol made him a terror to all men ; how, at length, in the year 1670, he was seized when overcome by wine ; how dames of high rank visited him in prison, and with tears interceded for his life ; how the King would have granted a pardon, but for the interference of Judge Morton, the terror of highwaymen, who threatened to resign his office unless the law were carried into full effect ; and how, after the execu- tion, the corpse lay in state with all the pomp of scutcheons, wax lights, black hangings and mutes, till the same cruel Judge, who had intercepted the mercy of the crown, sent officers to dis- turb the obsequies.f In these anecdotes there is doubtless a large mixture of fable ; but they are not on that account unworthy of being recorded ; for it is both an authentic and an • Gent's Histoiy of York. Another marauder of the same description, named Biss, was hanged at Salisbury in 1695. In a ballad which is in the Pepysian Library, he is represented as defending himself thus before the Judge : "What say you now, my honoured Lord, AV hat liarm was there in this ? Rich, wealthy misers were abhorred B3' brave, freehearted Biss." t Pope's Memoirs of Duval, published immediately after the execution, Oatos's "EIkuv pacikiKf]^ Part I. ' , STATE OP ENGLAND IN 1685. 349 important fact that such tales, whether false or true, were heard by oiir ancestors with eagerness and faith. All the various dangers by which the traveller was beset were greatly increased by darkness. He was therefore com- monly desix-ous of having the shelter of a roof during the night ; and such shelter it was not difficult to obtain. From a very early period the inns of England had been renowned. Our first great poet had described the excellent accommodation which they afforded to the pilgrims of the fourteenth century. Nine and twenty persons, with their horses, found room in the wide chambers and stables of the Tabard in Southwark. The food was of the best, and the wines such as drew the company on to drink largely. Two hundred years later, under the reign of Eliza- beth, William Harrison gave a livefy description of the plenty and comfort of the great hostelries. The Continent of Europe, he said, could show nothing like them. There were some in which two or three hundred people, with their horses, could without difficulty be lodged and fed. The bedding, the tapestry, above all, the abundance of clean and fine linen was matter of wonder. Valuable plate was often set on the tables. Nay, there were signs which had cost thirty or forty pounds. In the seventeenth century England abounded with excellent inns of every rank. The traveller sometimes, in a small village, lighted on a public house such as Walton has described, where the brick floor was swept clean, where the walls were stuck round with ballads, where the sheets smelt of lavender, and where a blazing fire, a cup of good ale, and a dish of trouts fresh from the neighbour- ing brook, were to be procured at small charge. At the larger houses of entertainment were to be found beds hung with silk, choice cookery, and claret equal to the best which Avas drunk in London.* The innkeepers too, it was said, were not like other innkeepers. On the Continent jthe landlord was the tyrant of those who crossed the threshold. In England he was a ser- vant. Never was an Englishman more at home than when he * See tlie prologue to the Canterbury Tales, Harrison's Historical Description of the Island of Great Britain, and Pepys's account of his tour in the summer of 1668. The excellence of the English inns is noticed in the Travels of the Grand Duke Cosmo. S90 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. took his ease in his inn. Even men of fortune, who might in their own mansions have enjoyed every luxury, were often in the habit of passing their evening in the parlour of some neigh- bouring house of public entertainment. They seem to have thought that comfort and freedom could in no other place be enjoyed with equal perfection. This feeling continued during many generations to be a national peculiarity. The liberty and jollity of inns long furnished matter to our novelists and drama- tists. Johnson declared that a tavern chair was the throne of human felicity ; and Shenstone gently complained that no private roof, however friendly, gave the wanderer so warm a welcome as that which was to be found at an inn. Many conveniences, which were unknown at Hampton Court and Whitehall in the seventeenth century, are in all modern hotels. Yet on the whole it is certain that the improvement of our houses of public entertainment has by no means kept pace with the improvement of our roads and of our conve3'ances. Nor is this strange ; for it is evident that, all other circumstances being supposed equal, the inns will be best where the means of locomotion are worst. The quicker the rate of travelling, the less important is it that there should be numerous agreeable resting places for the traveller. A hundred and sixty years ago a person who came up to the capital from a remote county gener- ally required, by the way, twelve or fifteen meals, and lodging for five or six nights. If he were a great man, he expected the meals and lodging to be comfortable, and even luxurious. At present we fly from York or Exeter to London by the light of a single winter's day. At present, therefore, a traveller sel- dom interrupts his journej'^ merely for the sake of rest and re- freshment. The consequence is that hundreds of excellent inns have fallen into utter decay. In a short time no good houses of that description will be found, except at places where strangers are likely to be detained by business or pleasure. The mode in which correspondence was carried on between distant places may excite the scorn of the present generation; yet it was such as might have moved the admiration and envy of the polished nations of antiquity, or of the contemporaries STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1685. 35l of Raleigh and Cecil. A rude and imperfect establishment of posts for the conveyance of letters had been set up by Charles tlie First, and had been swept away by the civil war. Under the Commonwealth the design was resumed. At the Restoration the proceeds of the Post Office, after all expenses had been paid, were settled on the Duke of York. On most lines of road the mails went out and came in only on the alternate days. In Cornwall, in the fens of Lincolnshire, and among the hills and lakes of Cumberland, letters were received only once a week. During a royal progress a daily post was despatched from the capital to the place where the court sojourned. There was also daily communication between London and the Downs ; and the same privilege was sometimes extended to Tunbridge Wells and Bath at the seasons when those places were crowded by the great. The bags were carried on horseback day and night at 'the r;Ue of about five miles an hour.*^ The revenue of this establishment was not derived solely from the charsre for the transmission of letters. The Post Office alone was entitled to furnish post horses ; and, from the care with which this monopoly was guarded, we may infer that it was found profitable, f If? indeed, a traveller had waited half an hour without being supplied he might hire a horse wherever he could. To facilitate correspondence between one part of London and another was not originally one of the objects of the Post Office. But, in the reign of Charles the Second, an enterpris- ing citizen of London, William Dockwray, set up, at great ex- pense, a penny post, which delivered letters and parcels six or eight times a day in the busy and crowded streets near the Ex- change, and four times a day in the outskirts of the capital. This improvement was, as usual, strenuously resisted. The porters complained that their interests were attacked, and tore down tlie placards in which the scheme was announced to the public. The excitement caused by Godfrey's death, and by the • Stat. 12 Oar. II. c. 35 ; Chamberlayne's State of England, 1684 ; Angliae Me- tropolis, 1690 ; London Gazette, June 22, 1685, August 15, 1687. + Lend. Gaz., Sept. 14, 1685. 352 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. discovery of Coleman's papers, was then at the height. A cry was therefore raised that the penny post was a Popish contriv- ance. The great Doctor Oiites, it was affirmed, had hinted a suspicion that the Jesuits were at the bottom of the scheme, and that the bags, if examined, would be found full of treason.* The utility of the enterprise was. however, so great and obvious that all opposition proved fruitless. As soon as it became clear that the speculation would be lucrative, the Duke of York com- plained of it as an infraction of his monopoly ; and the courts of law decided in his favour.! The revenue of the Post Office was from the first constantly increasing. In the year of the Restoration a committee of the House of Commons, after strict enquiry, had estimated the net receipt at about twenty thousand pounds. At the close of the reign of Charles the Second, the net receipt was little short of fifty thousand pounds ; aijfl this was then thought a stupendous sum. The gross receipt was about seventy thousand pounds. The charge for conveying a snigle letter was twopence for eighty miles, and threepence for a longer distance. The postage increased in proportion to the weight of the packet. J At pre- sent a single letter is carried to the extremity of Scotland or of Ireland for a penny ; and the monopoly of post horses has long ceased to exist. Yet the gross annual receipts of the depart- ment amount to more than eighteen hundred thousand pounds, and the net receipts to more than seven hundred thousand pounds. It is, therefore, scarcely possible to doubt that the number of letters now conveyed by mail is seventy times the number winch was so conveyed at the time of the accession of James the Second. § No part of the load which the old mails carried out was more important than the newsletters. In 1685 nothing like the * Smitb's Current Intelligence, March 30, and April 3, 1680. t Anglite Metropolis, 1690. t Commons' Journals, Sept. 4. 1660, March^l, 1688-9; Chamberlayne. 1684 ; Dav- enant on the Public Revenue, Discourse IV. § I have left the text as it stood in 1848. In the year 1856 the gross receipt of the Post Office was more than 2,800,000L; and the net receipt was about l,200,000i. The number of letters conveyed by post was 478,000,000. (1857). STATE OF ENGLAND IX 1G85. 353 London daily paper of our time existed, or could exist. Neither the necessary capital nor the necessary skill was to be found. Freedom too was wanting, a want as fatal as that of either capital or skill. The press was not indeed at that moment under a general censorship. The licensing act, which had been passed soon after the Restoration, had expired in 1 G79. Any person might therefore print, at his own risk, a history, a ser- mon, or a ])oem, without the previous approbation of any officer ; but the Judges were unanimously of opinion that this liberty did not extend to Gazettes, and that, by the common law of England, no man, not authorised by the crown, had a right to publish political news.* While the Whig party was still for- midable, the government thought it expedient occasionally to connive at the violation of this rule. During the great battle of the Exclusion Bill, many newspapers were suffered to appear, the Protestant Intelligence, the Current Intelligence, the Domestic Intelligence, the True News, the London Mercury, f None of these was published oftener than twice a week. None exceeded in size a single small leaf. The quantity of matter which one of them contained in a year was not more than is often found in two numbers of the Times. After the defeat of the Whigs it was no longer necessary for the King to be spar- ing in the use of that which all his Judges had pronounced to be his undoubted prerogative. At the close of his reign no newspaper was suffered to appear without his allowance : and his allowance was given exclusively to the London Gazette. The London Gazette came out only on Mondays and Thursdays. The contents generally were a royal proclamation, two or three Tory addresses, notices of two or three promotions, an account of a skirmish between the imperial troops and the Janissaries on the Danube, a description of a highwayman, an announce- ment of a grand cockfight between two persons of honour, and an advertisement offering a reward for a strayed dog. The whole made up two pages of moderate size. Whatever was * London Gazette, ISIay 5, and 17, 1680. t There is a very curious, and, I should think, unique collection of thesft papers in the British Museum. 354 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, communicated respecting matters of the highest moment was communicated in the most meagre and formal style. Some- times, indeed, when the government was disposed to gratify the public curiosity respecting an important transaction, a broadside was put forth giving fuller details than could be found in the Gazette : but neither the Gazette nor any supplementary broad side printed by authority ever contained any intelligence which it did not suit the purposes of the Court to publish. The most important parliamentary debates, the most important slate trials recorded in our history, were passed over in profound silence.* In the capital the coffee houses supplied in some measure the place of a journal. Thither the Londoners flocked, as the Athe- nians of old flocked to the market place, to hear whether there was any news. There men might learn how brutally a Whig had been treated the day before in Westminster Hall, what hor- rible accounts the letters from Edinburgh gave of the torturing of Covenanters, how grossly the Navy Board had cheated the crown in the victualling of t)ie fleet, and what grave charges the Lord Privy Seal had brought against the Treasury in the matter of the hearth money. But people who lived at a dis- tance from the great theatre of political contention could be kept regularly informed of what was passing there only by means of newsletters. To prepare such letters became a calling in London, as it now is among the natives of India. The news- writer rambled from coffee room to coffee room, collecting re- ports, squeezed himself into the Sessions House at the Old Bailey if there was an interesting trial, nay perhaps obtained admission to the gallery of Whitehall, and noticed how the King and Duke looked. In this way he gathered materials for weekly epistles destined to enlighten some county town or some bench of rustic magistrates. Such were the sources from which the inhabitants of the larg ost provincial cities, and the great body of the gentry and clergy, learned almost all that they knew of the history of their own time. We must suppose * For example, there is not a word in the Gazette about the important parlia- mentary proceedings of November, 1685, or about the trial and acquittal of the Seven Bishops- STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1685. 355 that at Cambridge there were as mauy persons curious to know what was passing in the world as at almost any piace in the king- dom, out of London. Yet at Cambridge, during a great part of the reign of Charles the Second, the Doctors of Laws and the Masters of Arts had no regular supply of news except through the London Gazette. At length the services of one of the col- lectors of intelligence in the capital were employed. That was a memorable day on which the first newsletter from London was laid on the table of the only coffee room in Cambridge.* At the seat of a man of fortune in the country the newsletter was impatiently expected. Within a week after it had arrived it had been thumbed by twenty families. It furnished the neighboring squires with matter for talk over their October, and the neighboring rectors with topics for sharp sermons against Whiggery or Popery. Many of these curious journals might doubtless still be detected by a diligent search in the archives of old families. Some are to be found in our public libraries ; and one series, which is not the least valuable part of the literary treasures collected by Sir James Mackintosh, will be occasionally quoted in the course of this work.f It is scarcely necessary to say that there were then no provincial newspapers. Indeed, except in the capital and at the two Universities, there was scarcely a printer in the kingdoai. The only press in England north of Trent appears to have been at York.$ * Roger North's Life of Dr. John North. On the subject of newsletters, soe the Examen, 133. t I take this opportunity of expressing my warm gratitude to the family of my dear and honoured f rien4 Sir James Mackintosh for confiding to me the materials collected by him at a time when ha»meditated a work similar to that which I have undertaken. I have never seen, and I do not believe that there anywhere exists, within the same compass, so noble a collection of extracts from public and private archives. The judgment with which Sir James, in great masses of the rudest ore of history, selected what was valuable, and rejected what was worth- less, can be fully appreciated only by one who has toiled after him in the same mine. t Life of Thomas Gent. A complete list of all printing houses in 1724 will be found in Nichols's Literary Anecdotes of the eighteenth century. There had then been a great increase within a few years in the number of presses ; and yet there were thirty-four counties in which there was no printer, one of those counties being Lancashire, 356 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. It was not only by means of the London Gazette that the government undertook to furnish political instruction to the people. That journal contained a scanty supply of news without comment. Another journal, published under the patronage of the court, consisted of comment without news. This paper, called the Observator, was edited by an old Tory pamphleteer named Roger Lestrange. Lestrange was by no means deficient in readiness and shrewdness ; and his diction, thouirh coarse, and disfigured by a mean and flippant jargon which then passed for wit in the green room and the tavern, was not without keen- ness and vigour. But his nature, at once ferocious and ignoble, showed itself in every line that he penned. When the first Obser- vators appeared there was some excuse for his acrimony. The Whigs were then powerful ; Sand he had to contend against numerous adversaries, whose unscrupulous violence might seem to justify unsparing retaliations But in 1685 all the oppositiDU had been crushed. A generous spirit would have disdained to insult a party which could not reply, and to aggravate the misery of prisoners, of exiles, of bereaved families : but from the malice of Lestrange the grave was no hiding place, and the house of mourning no sanctuary. In the last month of tlie reign of Charles the Second. William Jenkvn, an asjed dissenting pastor of great note, who had been cruelly persecuted for no crime but that of worshipping God according to the fashion generally followed throughout Protestant Europe, died of hard- ships and privations at Newgate. The outbreak of popular sympathy coald not be repressed. The corpse was followed to the grave by a train of a hundred and fifty coaches. Even courtiers looked sad. Even the unthinkins Kins: showed some signs of concern. Lestrange alone set up ahowlof savage exultation, laughed at the weak compassion of the Trimmers, proclaimed that the blasphemous old impostor had met with a most righteous punishment, and vowed to wage war, not only to the death, but after death,with all the mock saints and martyrs.* Such was the spirit of the paper which was at this time the * Observator, Jan. 29, ana 31, 1685 ; Calamy's Life of Baxter ; Nonconformist Memorial. STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1685. 357 oracle of the Tory party, and especially of the parochial clergy. Literature which could be carried by the post bag then formed the greater part of the intellectual nutriment ruminated by the country divines and country justices. The difficulty and expense of conveyuig large packets from place to place was so great, that an extensive work was longer in making its way from Paternoster Row to Devonshire or Lancashire than it now is in reaching Kentucky. How scantily a rural parsonage was then furnished, even with books the most necessary to a theo- logian, has already been remarked. The houses of the gentry were not more plentifully supplied. Few knights of the shire had libraries so good as may now perpetually be found in a serv- ants' hall or in the back parlour of a small shopkeeper. An esquire passed among his neighbours for a great scholar, if Hudibras and Baker's Chronicle, Tarlton's Jests and the Seven Champions of Christendom, lay in his hall window among the fishing rods and fowling pieces. No circulating library, no book societ}'-, then existed even in the capital : but in the capital those students who could not a£Eord to purchase largely had a resource. The shops of the great booksellers, near Saint Paul's Churchyard, were crowded every day and all day long with readers ; and a known customer was often permitted to carry a volume home. In the country there was no such accommodation ; and every man was under the necessity of buying whatever he wished to read.* As to the lady of the manor and her daughters, their literary stores generally consisted of a prayer book and receipt book. But in truth they lost little by living in rural seclusion. For, even in the highest ranks, and in those situations which afforded the greatest facilities for mental improvement, the English women of that generation were decidedly worse educated than they have been at any other time since the revival of learning. At an early period they had studied the masterpieces of ancient * Cotton seems, from his Angler, to have found room for his whole library in his hall window ; and Cotton was a man of letters. Even when Franklin first visited London in 1724, circulating libraries were unknown there. The crowd at the booksellers' shops iu Little Britain is mentioned by Roger North in his life of his brother John. 358 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. • genius. In the present day they seldom bestow much attention on the dead languages ; but they are familiar with the tongue of Pascal and Moliere, with the tongue of Dante and Tasso, with the tongue of Goethe and Schiller ; nor is there any purer or more graceful English than that which accomplished women now speak and write. But, during the latter part of the sev- enteenth century, the culture of the female mind seems to have been almost entirely neglected. If a damsel had the least smat- tering of literature she was regarded as a prodigy. Ladies higlily born, highly bred, and naturally quick witted, were unable to write a line in their mother tongue without solecisms and faults of spelling such as a charity girl would now be ashamed to commit.* The explanation may easily be found. Extravagant licen- tiousness, the natural effect of extravagant austerity, was now the mode ; and licentiousness had produced its ordinary effect, the moral and intellectual degradation of women. To their personal beauty, it was the fashion to pay rude and impudent homage. But the admiration and desire which they inspired were seldom mingled with respect, with affection, or with any chivalrous sentiment. The qualities which fit them to be com- panions, advisers, confidential friends, rather repelled than attracted the libertines of Whitehall. In that court a maid of honour, who dressed in such a manner as to do full justice to a white bosom, who ogled significant!}', who danced voluptuously, who excelled in pert repartee, who was not ashamed to romp with Lords of the Bedchamber and Captains of the Guards, to sing sly verses with sly expression, or to put on a page's dress for a frolic, was more likely to be followed and admiaed, more likely to be honoured with royal attentions, more likely to win a rich and noble Imsband than* Jane Grey or Lucy Hutchinson would have been. In such circumstances the standard of female attainments was necessarily low ; and it was more dangerous to * One instance will suffice. Queen Mary, the daufjhter of James, had excel- lent natural abilities, had been educated by a Bishop, was fond of history and poetry and was regarded by very eminent men as a superior woman. There is, in the li- brary at the Hague, a superb English Bible which was delivered to her when she was crowned in Westminster Abbey. In the titlepage are these words in her own band, " This book was given the King and I, at our crownation. Marie B." STATC OF KKGLAND IN 1685. 359 be above that staudard than to be beneath it. Extreme iple> S^e SbJith'* Memoirs of Wool, chapter Ixviii. STATE OP ENGLAND IN 1685. 379 ual broadside. It is the vehement and bitter cry of labour against capital. It describes the good old times when every artisan employed in the vtfoollen manufacture lived as well as a farmer. But those times were past. Sixpence a day was now all that could be earned by hard labour at the loom. If the poor complained that they could not live on such a pit- tance, they were told that they were free to take it or leave it. For so miserable a recompense were the producers of wealth compelled to toil, rising early and lying down late, while the master clothier, eating, sleepmg, and idhng, became rich by their exertions. A shilling a day, the poet declares, is what the weaver would have if justice were done.* We may therefore conclude that, in the generation which preceded the Revolution, a workman employed in the great staple manufacture of England thought himself fairly paid if he gained six shillings a week. It may here be noticed that the practice of setting children prematurely to work, a practice which the state, the legitimate pi'otector of those who cannot protect themselves, has, in our time, wisely and humanely interdicted, prevailed m the seven- teenth century to an extent which, when compared with the ex- tent of the manufacturing system, seems almost incredible. At Norwich, the chief seat of the clothing trade, a little creature of six years old was thought fit for labour. Several writers of that time, and among them some who were considered as emi- nently benevolent, mention, with exultation, the fact that, in that single city, boys and girls of very tender age created wealth * This ballad is in the British Museum. The precise year is not given ; but the Imprimatur of Roger Lestrange fixes the date sufficiently for my purpose. I will quote some of the lines. The master clothier is introduced speaJcing ai follows :— ** In former ages we used to give, S>/ that our workfolks like farmers did live ; But the times are changed, we will make them know. " We will make them to work hard for sixpence a day, Though a shilling they deserve if they had their just pay ; If at all they murmur and say 'tis too small. We bid them choose whether they'll work at all. And thus we ("o giin all our wealth and estate. By many poor men that work early and late. Tiien hey for the clothing trade ! It goes on brave ; We scorn for to toyl and moyi, nor yet to slave. Our workmen do work hard, but we live at case, We £0 wh»a we wilt, and we come When we plsac«." ^80 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. exceeding what was necessary for their own subsistence by twelve thousand pounds a year.* The more carefully we examine the history of the past, the more reason shall we find to dissent from those who imagine that our age has been fruitful of new social evils. The truth is ' hat the evils are, with scarcely an exception, old. That which is new is the intelligence which discerns and the humanity which remedies them. When we pass from the weavers of cloth to a different class of artisans, our enquiries will still lead us to nearly the same conclusions. During several generations, the Commissioners of Greenwich Hospital have kept a register of the wages paid to dif- ferent classes of workmen who have been employed in the repairs of the building. From th.'s valuable record it appears that, in the course of a hundred and twenty years, the daily earnings of the bricklayer have risen from half a crown to four and tenpence, those of the mason from half a crown to five and threepence, those of the carpenter from half acrown to five and fivepence, and those of the plumber from three shillings to five and sixpence. It seems clear, therefore, that the wages of labour, estima- ted in money, were, in 1685, not more than half of what they now are ; and there were few articles important to the working man of which the price was not, in 1685, more than half of what it now is. Beer was undoubtedly much cheaper in that age than at present. Meat was also cheaper, but was still so dear that hundi'eds of thousands of families scarcely knew the taste of it. f In the cost of wheat there has been very little change. The aver- age price of the quarter, during the last twelve years o Charles the Second, was fifty shillings. Bread, therefore, such as is now given to the inmates of a workhouse, was then soldom seen, even on the trencher of a yeoman or of a shopkeeper. The great ma- lority of the nation lived almost entirely on ye, barley, and oats. The produce of tropical countries, the produce of the mines, * Cliamberlayne's State of England ; Petty's Political Arithmetic, cliapter viii. ; Dmming's Plain and Easy Method ; Finnin's Proposition for the Employing of the Poor. It ought to be observed that Firmin was an eminent philanthropist. t King in his Natural and Political Conclusions roughly estimated the common people of England at 880,000 families. Of these f ^miilies 440,000, according to him, ate animal food twice a week. The remaining 440,000, ate it not at all, or at most not oftener than once a week. STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1685. 381 the produce of machinery, was positively dearer than at present^ Among the commodities for which the labourer would have had to pay higher in 1685 than his posterity now pay were sugar, salt, coals, candles, soap, shoes, stockings, and generally all articles of clothing and all articles of bedding. It may be added, that the old coats and blankets would have been, not only more costly, but less serviceable than the modern fabrics. It must be lemembered that those labourers who were able to maintain themselves and their families by means of wages were not the most necessitous members of the community. Beneath them lay a large class which could not subsist without some aid from the parish. There can hardly be a more impor- tant test of the condition of the common people than the ratio jvhich this class bears to the whole society. At present, the men, women, and children who receive relief appear from the official returns to be, in bad years, one tenth of the inhabitants of England, and, in good years, one thirteenth. Gregory King estimated them in his time at about a fourth ; and this estimate, which all our respect for his authority will scarcely prevent us from calling extravagant, was pronounced by Davenant emi- nently judicious. We are not quite without the means of forming an estimate for ourselves. The poor rate was undoubtedly the heaviest tax borne by our ancestors in those (h,js. It was computed, in the reisn of Charles the Second, at near vseven hundred thou- sand pounds a year, much more than .e produce either of the excise or of the customs, and little l')ss than half the entire revenue of the crown. The poor rate went on increasing rapidly, and appears to have risen in a short time to between eight and nine hundred thousand a year, that is to say, to one sixth of what it now is. The population was then less than a third of what it now is. The minimum of wages, estimated in money, was half of what it now is ; and we can therefore hardly suppose that the average allowance made to a pauper can have been more than half of what it now is. It seems to follow that the proportion of the English people which received parochial relief then must have been larger thtn the proportion which receives ^82 nisTOur of enc;:..\xd. relief now. It is good to speak on such questions with dif fidence : but it has certainly never yet been proved that pau- perism was a less heavy burden or a less serious social evil during the last quarter of the seventeenth century than it is in our own time.* In one respect it must be admitted that the progress of civ- ilization has diminished the physical comforts of a portion of the^ poorest cla«s. It has already been mentioned that, before the Revolution, many thousands of square miles, now enclosed and cultivated, were marsh, forest, and heath. Of this wild land much was, by law, common, and much of what was not common by law was woilh so little that the proprietorc suffered it to be common in fact. In such a tract, squatters and trespassers were tolerated to an extent now unknown. The peasant who dwelf there could, at little or no charge, procure occasionally som€ palatable addition to his hard fare, and provide himself witb» fuel for the winter. He kept a flock of geese on what is novf an orchard rich with apple blossoms. He snared wild fowl on the fen which has long since been drained and divided into corn-fields and turnip fields. He cut turf among the furze bushes on the moor which is now a meadow bright with clover and renowne(? for butter and cheese. The progress of agriculture and the in- crease of population necessarily deprived him of these privileges. But against this disadvantas^e a long list of advantacres is to be set off. Of the blessings which civilisation and philosophy bring with them a large proportion is common to all ranks, and would, if withdrawn, be missed as painfully by the labourer as by the peer. The market-place which the rustic can now reach with * Fourteenth Report of the Poor Law Commifsioiiers, Appendix B. Ko. 2, Appendix C. Ko. 1, 1848. Of the two estimates of the poor rate mentioned in the text one was formed by Arthur Moore, tlie other, some years later, by Kichaid Dunning. Moore's estimate will be found in Davenant's Essay on Ways and Means ; Dunning's in Sir Frederic Eden's valuable work on the jjoor. King and Davenant estimate the paupers and beggars in 1G96, at the incredible number of l,3aO,000 out of a population of 5,500,000. In 1846 the number of persons who received relief appears from the official returns to have been only 1,332,089 outot a population ot about 17,000,000. It ought also to be observed that, in tJiose re- turns, a pauper must very ofteu be reckoned more than once. I would advise the reader to consult De Foe's pamphlet entitled "Giving Alms no Charity," and the Greenwich tables which will be found iu Mr. M'ChV* locb't Commercial Dictionary under the head Pricee. STATE OF ENGLAND IN 1685. 38S his cart in an hour was, a hundred and sixty years ago, a day's journey from him. The street which now affords to the artisan, during the whole night, a secure, a convenient, and a brilliantly lighted walk was, a hundred and sixty years ago, so dark after sunset that he would not have been able to see his hand, so ill paved that he would have run constant risk of breaking his neck, and so ill watched that he would have been in imminent danger of being knocked down and plundered of his small earnings. Every bricklayer who falls from a scaffold, every sweeper of a crossing who is run over by a carriage, may now have his wounds dressed and his limbs set with a skill such as, a hundred and sixty years ago, all the wealth of a great lord like Ormond, or a merchant prince like Clayton, could not have purchased. Some frightful diseases have been extirpated by science; and some have been banished by police. The term of human life has been lengthened over the whole kingdom, and especially in the towns. The year 1G85 was not accounted sickly ; yet in the year 1685 more than one in twenty-three of the inhabitants of the capital died.* At present only one inhabitant of the cap- ital in forty dies annually. The difference in salubrity between the London of the nineteenth century and the London of the sev- enteenth century is very far greater than the difference between London in an ordinary year and London in a year of cholera. Still more important is the benefit which all orders of society, and especially the lower orders, have derived from the mollifying influence of civilisation on the national character. The groundwork of that character has indeed been the same through many generations, in the sense in which the groundwork of the character of an individual may be said to be the same when he is a rude and thoughtless schoolboy and when he is a refined and accomplished man. It is pleasing to reflect that the public mind of England has softened while it has ripened, and that we have, in the course of ages, become, not only a wiser, but also a kinder people. There is scarcely a page of the his- tory or lighter literature of the seventeenth century which does not contain some proof that our ancestors were less humane than • The deaths were 23,222. Petty's Political Arithmetic. 3&4 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. their posterity. The discipline of workshops, of schools, of pri- vate families, though not more efficient than at present, was infinitely harsher. Masters, well born and bred, were in the habit of beating their servants. Pedagogues knew no way of imparting knowledge but by beating their pupils. Husbands, of decent station, were not ashamed to beat their wives. The implacability of hostile factions was such as we can scarcely con- ceive. Whigs were disposed to murmur because Stafford was suffered to die without seeing his bowels burned before his face. Tories reviled and insulted Russell as his coach passed from the Tower to the scaffold in Lincoln's Inn Fields.* As little mercy was shown by the populace to sufferers of a humbler rank. If an offender was put into the pillory, it was well if he escaped with life from the shower of brickbats and paving stones.f If he was tied to the cart's tail, the crowd pressed round him, im- ploring the hangman to give it the fellow well, and make him howl.$ Gentlemen arranged parties of pleasure to Bridewell on court days for the purpose of seeing the wretched women who beat hemp there whipped. § A man pressed to death for refusing to plead, a woman burned for coining, excited less sym- pathy than is now felt for a galled horse or an overdriven ox. Fights compared with which a boxing match is a refined and humane spectacle were among the favourite diversions of a large part of the town. Multitudes assembled to see gladiators hack each other to pieces with deadly weapons, and shouted with de- light when one of the combatants lost a finger or an eye. The pris- ons were hells on earth, seminaries of every crime and of every disease. At the assizes the lean and yellow culprits brought with them from their cells to the dock an atmosphere of stench and pestilence which sometimes avenged them signally on bench, bar, and jury. But on all this misery society looked with pro- found indifference. Nowhere could be found that sensitive and restless compassion which has, in our time, extended a powerful protection to the factory child, to the Hindoo widow, to the * Buniet, i. 560. t Muggleton's Acts of the Witnesses of the Spirit. i Tom Brown describes such a scene in lines which I do not venture to quote. § Ward's London Spy. STATE OP ENGLAND IN 1G85. 385 negro slave, which pries into the stores and watercasks of every emigrant ship, which winces at every lash laid on the back of a drunken soldier, which will not suffer the thief iu the hulks to be ill fed or overworked, and which has repeatedly endeavoured to save the life even of the murderer. It is true that compassion ouglit, like all other feelings, to be under the government of reason, and has, for want of such government, produced some ridiculous and some deplorable effects. But the more we study the annals of the past, the more shall we rejoice that we live in a merciful age, in an age in which cruelty is abhorred, and iu which pain, even when deserved, is inflicted reluctantly and from a sense of duty. Every class doubtless has gained largely by this great moral change : but the class which has gained most is the poorest, the most dependent, and the most defenceless. The general effect of the evidence which has been submitted to the reader seems hardly to admit of doubt. Yet, in spite of evidence, many wjll still image to themselves the England of the Stuarts as a more pleasant country than the England in which we live. It may at first sight seem strange that society, while constantly moving forward with eager speed, should be con- stantly looking backward with tender regret. But these two propensities, inconsistent as they may appear, can easily be resolved into the same principle. Both spring from our impatience of the state in which we actually are. That impa- tience, while it stimulates us to surpass preceding generations, disposes us to overrate their happiness. It is, in some sense, unreasonable and ungrateful in us to be constantly discontented with a condition which is constantly improving. But, in truth, there is constant imjjrovement precisely because there is constant discontent. If we were perfectly satisfied with the present, we should cease to contrive, to labour, and to save with a view to the future. And it is natural that, being dissatisfied with the present, we should form a too favourable estimate of the past. In truth we are under a deception similar to that which mis- leads the traveller in the Arabian desert. Beneath the caravac all IS dry and bare : but far in advance, and far in the rear, is the semblance of refreshing waters. The pilgrims hasten for* 386 HISTORT OF ENGLAND. ward and find nothing but sand where an hour before they had seen a lake. They turn their eyes and see a lake where, an nour before, they were toiling through sand. A similar illusion seems to haunt nations through every stage of the long pro- gress from poverty and barbarism to the highest degrees of opulence and civilisation. But if we resolutely chase the mirage backward, we shall find it recede before us into the regions of fabulous antiquity. It is now the fashion to place the golden age of England in times when noblemen were destitute of com- forts the want of which would be intolerable to a modern foot- man, when farmers and shopkeepers bre;:!:fasted on loaves the very sight of which would raise a riot in r. modern workhouse, when to have a clean shirt once a week was a privilege reserved for the higher class of gentry, when men died faster in the purest country air than they now die in the most pestilential lanes of our towns, and when men died faster in the lanes of our towns than they now die on the coast of Guiana. We too shall, in our turn, be outstripped, and in our turn be envied. It may well be, in the twentieth century, that the peasant of Dorsetshire may think himself miserably paid with twenty shillings a week-, that the carpenter at jGreenwich may receive ten shillings a day; that laboring men may be as little used to dine without meat as they now are to eat rye bread ; that sanitary police and medical discoveries may have added several more years to the average length of human life; that numerous comforts and luxuries which are now unknown, or confined to a few, may be within the reach of every diligent and thrifty woi'king man. And yet it may then be the mode to assert that the increase of wealth and the progress of science have benefited the few at the expense of the many, and to talk of the reign of Queen Victoria as the time when England was truly merry England, when all classes were bound together by brotherly sympathy, when the rich did not grind the faces of the poor, and when the poor did not envy the splendor of the rich. OH^BLES THE aECOND. 337 CHAPTER IV. The deatli of King Charles the Second took the nation by surprise. His frame was naturally strong, and did not appear to have suffered from excess. He had always been mindful of h''s health even in his pleasures ; and his habits were such as promise a long life and a robust old age. Indolent as he was on all occasions which required tension of the mind, he was active and persevering in bodily exercise. He had, when young, been renowned as a tennis player,* and was, even in the decline of life, an indefatigable walker. His ordinary pace was such that those who were admitted to the honour of his society found it difficult to keep up with him. IIo rose early, and generally passed three or four hours a day in the open air. He might be seen, before the dew was off the grass in St. James's Park, striding among the trees, playing witb his spaniels, and flinging corn to his ducks ; and these exhibitions endeared him to the common people, who always love to see the great unbend. t At length, towards the close of the year 1684, he was pre- vented, by a slight attack of what was supposed to be gout, from rambling as usual. He now spent his mornings in his laboratory, where he amused himself with experiments on the jproperties of mercury. His temper seemed to have suffered from confinement. He had no apparent cause for disquiet. His kingdom was tranquil : he was not in pressing want of money : his power was greater than it had ever been : the party which had long thwarted him had been beaten down ; but • Pepye's Diary, Dec. 28, 16C3, Sept. 2, 1667. t Burnet, i. 606 ; Spectator, No. 462 ; Lords' Journals, October 28, 16Z8 ; Gibber's Apology, S88 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. the cheerfulness which had supported him against adverse fortune had vanished in tMs season of prosperity. A trifle now suflSced to depress those elastic spirits which had borne up against defeat, exile, and penury. Ilis irritation frequently showed itself by looks and words such as could hardly have been expected from a man so eminently distinguished by good humour and good breeding. It was not supposed however that his constitution was seriously impaired.* His palace liad seldom presented a gayer or a more Ecanda- lous appearance than on the evening of Sunday the first of February 1 GSo.f Some grave persons who liad gone thither, after the fashion of that age, to pay their duty to their sove- reign, and who had expected that, on such a day, his: court would wear a decent aspect, were struck with astonishment and horror. The great gallery of Whitehall, an admirable relic of the magnificence of the Tudors, was crowded witli revellers and gamblers. Tlie king sate there chatting and toying with three women, whose charms were the boast, and whose vices were the disgrace, of three nations. Barbara Palmer, Duchess of Cleveland, was there, no longer young, but still retaining some traces of that superb and voluptuous loveliness which twenty years before overcame the hearts of all men. There too was the Duchess of Portsmouth, whose soft and infantine features were lighted up with the vivacity of France. Hortei-^ia Man- cini, Duchess of Mazarin, and niece of the gTeat Cardinal, completed the group. She had been early removed from her native Italy to the court where her uncle was supreme. Ilis power and her own attractions had drawn a crowd of illus- trious suitors round her. Charles himself, during his exile, had sought her hand in vain. No gift of nature or of fortune seemed to be wanting to her. Her face was beautiful with the rich beauty of the South, her understanding quick, her manners graceful, her rank exalted, her possessions immense ; but her ungovernable passions had turned all these blessings into • Buniet.l. 605, e06 ; "Wei wood ; North's Life of Guildford, 251. t I may take this opportunity of mentioning that whenever I give only one date, I follow the old style, which was, in the seventeenth c«nturyf tha Btijrle of England ; but I reckon the year from the first of January, CHARLES THE SECOND. 389 curses. She had found the misery of an ill assorted marriage intolerable, had fled from her husband, had abandoned lier vast wealth, and, after having astonished Rome and Piedmont by her adventures, had fixed her abode in England. Her housw was the favourite resort of men of wit and pleasure, who, foi ^the sake of her smiles and her table, endured her frequent fits of insolence and ill humour. Rochester and Godolphiu sonie- tiirfes forgot the cares of state in her company. BarJiV.n and Saint Evremond found in her drawing room consolation for their' long banishment from Paris. The learning of Vossius, the wit of Waller, were daily employed to flatter and amuse her. But her diseased mind required stronger stimulants, and sought them in gallantry, in basset, and in usquebaugh.* While Charles flirted with his three sultanas, Hortensia's French page, a handsome boy, whose vocal performances were the delight of Whitehall, and were rewarded by numerous presents of rich clothes, ponies, and guineas, warbled some amorous verses.f A party of twenty courtiers was seated at cards round a large table on which gold was heaped in moun- tains, t Even then the King had complained that he did not feel quite well. He had no appetite for his supper : his rest that night was broken ; but on the following morning he rose, as usual, early. To that morning the contending factions in his council had, during some day^, looked forward with anxiety. The struggle between Halifax and Rochester seemed to be approaching a decisive crisis. Halifax, not content with having already driven his rival from the Board of Treasury, had undertaken to prove him guilty of such dishonesty or neglect in the conduct of the finances as ought to be jiunished by dismission from the public service. It was even whispered that the Lord President would probably be sent to the Tower. The King had promised to enquire into the matter. The second of February had been fixed for the investigation ; and several officers of the revenue * Saint Everemond, /?a.ssi??i ; Saint Real, M«5moires de la Duchesse de Maza- riu ; Rochester's Farewell ; Evelyn's Diary, Sept. 6, 1676, June 11, leSS. 390 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. had been ordered to attend with their books on that day.* But d. great turn of fortune was at hand. Scarcely had Charles risen from his bed when his attend- ants perceived that his utterance was indistinct, and that his thoughts seemed to be wandering. Several men of rank had, as usual, assembled to see their sovereign shaved and dressed. He made an effort to converse with them in his usual gay style ; but his ghastly look surprised and alarmed them. Soon his faco grew black ; his eyes turned in his head ; he uttered a cry, staggered, and fell into the arms of one of his lords. A physician who had charge of the royal retorts and crucibles happened to be present. lie had no lancet ; but he opened a vein with a penknife. The blood flowed freely ; but the King was still insensible. He was laid on his bed, where, during a short time, the Duchess of Portsmouth huug over him with the familiarity of a wife. But the alarm had been given. The Queen and the Duchess of York were hastening to the room. The favour- ite concubine was forced to retire to her own apartments. Those apartments had been thrice pulled down and thrice rebuilt by her lover to gratify her caprice. The very furniture of the chimney was massy silver. Several fine paintings, which prop- erly belonged to the Queen, had been transferred to the dwell- ing of the mistress. The sideboards were piled with richly wrought plate. In the niches stood cabinets, the masterpieces of Japanese art. On the hangings, fresh from the looms of Paris, were depicted, in tints which no English tapestry could rival, birds of gorgeous plumage, landscapes, hunting matches, the lordly terrace of Saint Germains, the statues and fountains of Versailles.f In the midst of tliis splendour, purchased by guilt and ehame, the unhappy woman gave herself up to an agony of grief, which, to do her justice, was not wholly sel- fish. • Roger North's Life of Sir Dudley Nortli, 170 ; The tnie Patriot vindicated »r a Justification of his Excellency the E of R ; Bura&t, i. 605. The Treaa* nry Books prove that Burnet had good intelligence. t Evelyn's Diary, Jan. 24, 1681-2, Oct. 4, 1683. CHARLES THE SECOND 391 And now the gates of Wliitehall, wliick ordinarily stood open to all comers, were closed. But persons whose faces were known were still permitted to enter. The antechambers and galleries were soon filled to overflowing ; and even the sick room was crowded with peers, i)rivj councillors, and foreign ministers. All the medical men of note iu London were sum- moned. So high did political animosities run that the presence of some Whig physicians was regarded as an extraordinary circumstance.* One Roman Catholic, whose skill was then widely renowned, Doctor Thomas Short, was iu attendance. Several of the prescriptions have been preserved. One of them is signed by fourteen Doctors. The patient was bled largely. Hot iron was applied to his head. A loathsome volatile salt, extracted from human skulls, was forced into his mouth. He recovered his senses ; but he was evidently in a situation of extreme danger. The Queen was for a time assiduous in her attendance. The Duke of York scarcely left his brother's bedside. The Primate and four other bishops were then in London. They remained at Whitehall all day, and took it by turns to sit up at night in the King's room. The news of his illness filled the capital with sorrow and dismay. For his easy temper and affable manners had won the affection of a large part of the nation ; and those who most disliked him preferred his unprincipled levity to the stern and earnest bigotry of his brother* On the morning of Thursday the fifth of February, the London Gazette announced that His Majesty was going on well, and was thought by the physicians to be out of danger. The bells of all the churches rang merrily ; and preparations for bonfires were made in the streets. But iu the evening it was known that a relapse had taken place, and that the medical attendants had given up all hope. The public mind was great- ly disturbed ; but there was no disjjosition to tumult. The Duke, of York, who had already taken on himself to give orders, ascertained that the City was perfectly quiet, and that * Dugdale's Correspondence, 392 HISTOKY OF ENGLAND. he might without difficulty be proclaimed as soon as his brother should expire. The King was in great pain, and complained that he felt as if a fire was burning within him. Yfet he bove up against his suiierinors with a fortitude which did not seem to belong to his soft and luxurious nature. The sio'ht of his mlserv aifected his wife so much that she fainted, and was carried senseless to her chamber. The prelates who were in waiting had from the first exhorted him to prepare for his end. They now thought it their duty to address him in a still more urgent manner. Wil- liam Bancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury, an honest and pious, though narrowminded, man, used great freedom. " It is time," he said, " to speak out ; for, Sir, you are about to appear before a Judge who is no respecter of persons." The King answered not a word. Thomas Ken, Bishop of Bath and Wells, then tried his powers of persuasion. He was a man of parts and learning, of quick sensibility and stainless virtue. IHs elaborate works have long been forgotten ; but his morning and evening hymns are still repeated daily in thousands of dwellings. Though, like most of his order, zealous for monarchy, he was no sycophant. Before he became a Bishop, he had maintained the honour of his gown by refusing, when the court was at Winchester, to let Eleanor Gwynn lodge in the house which he occupied there as a prebendary.* The King had sense enough to respect so manly a spirit. Of all the prelates he liked Ken the best. It was to no purpose, however, that the good Bishop now put forth all his eloquence. His solemn and pathetic exhortation awed and melted the bystanders to such a degree that some among them believed him to be filled with the same spirit which, in the old time, had, by the mouths of Nathan and Elias, called sinful princes to repentance. Charles however was unmoved. He made no objection indeed when the service for the visitation of the sick was read. In reply to the pressing questions of the divines, he said that he was sorry for what he had done amiss ; * Hawkins's Life of Ken, 1713* CHARLES THE SECOND. 393 and he suffered tlie iibsolufcion to be pronounced over him ao cording to the forms of the Church of England : but, when he was urged to declare that he died in the communion of that Church, he seemed not to hear what was said ; and nothing could induce him to take the Eucharist fi'om the hands of the Bishops. A table with bread and wine was brought to his bedside, but in vain. Sometimes he said that there was no hurry, and some- times that he was too weak. Many attributed this apathy to contempt for divine things, and many to the stupor which often precedes death. But there were in the palace a few persons who knew better. Charles had never been a sincere member of the Established Church. His mind had long oscillated between Hobbism and Popery. When his health was good and his spirits high he was a scoffer. In his few serious moments he was a Roman Catholic. The Duke of York was aware of this, but was entirely occupied with the care of his own interests. He had ordered the outports to be closed. He had posted detachments of the Guards in dif- ferent parts of the city. He had also procured the feeble signa- ture of the dying King to an instrument by which some duties, granted only till the demise of the Crown, were let to farm for a term of three years. These things occupied the attention of James to such a degree that, though, on ordinary occasions, he was indiscreetly and unseasonably eager to bring over proselytes to his Church, he never reflected that his brotlier was in danger of dying without the last sacraments. This neglect was the more extraordinary because the Duchess of York had, at the request of the Queen, suggested, on the morning on which the King was taken ill, the propriety of procuring spiritual assist- ance. For such assistance Charles was at last indebted to an agency very different from that of his pious wife and sister-in- law. A life of frivolty and vice had not extinguished in the Duchess of Portsmouth all sentiments of religion, or all that kindness which is the glory of her sex. The French ambassador Barillon, who had come to the palace to enquire after the King, paid her a visit. He found her in an agony of sorrow. She took him into a secret room, and poured out her whole heart to 394 niSTOBT OP England. - him. " I have," she said, " a thing of great moment to teQ yon If it were known, my head would be in danger. The Kin"- ia really and truly a Catholic ; but he will die without being rec- onciled to the Church. His bedchamber is full of Protestant clergymen. I cannot enter it without giving scandal. Tho- Duke is thinking only of himself. Speak to him. Remind him that there is a soul at stake. He is master now. He can clear the room. Go this instant, or it will be too late." Barillon hastened to the bedchamber, took the Duke aside, and delivered the message of the mistress. The conscience of James smote liim. He started as if roused from sleep, and de- clared that nothing should prevent him from discharging the sacred duty which had been too long delayed. Several schemes were discussed and rejected. At last the Duke commanded the crowd to stand aloof, went to the bed, stooped down, and whis- pered something which none of the spectators could hear, but which they suj^posed to be some question about affairs of state. Charles answered in an audible voice, " Yes, yes, with all my heart." None of the bystanders, except the French Ambassador, ' guessed that the King was declaring his wish to be admitted into the bosom of the Church of Rome. " Shall I bring a priest ? " said the Duke, . " Do, brother," replied the sick man. " For God's sake do, and lose no time. But no ; you will get into trouble." " If it costs me my life," said the Duke, " I will fetch a priest." To find a priest, however, for such a purpose, at a moment's notice, was not easy. For, as the law then stood, the person who admitted a proselyte into the Roman Catholic Church was guilty of a capital crime. The Count of Castel Melhor, a Portuguese nobleman, who, driven by political troubles from his native land, had been hospitably received at the English court, undertook to procure a confessor. He had recourse to his countrymen who belonged to the Queen's household ; but he found that none of lier chaplains knew English or French enough to shrive the King. The Duke and Barillon were about to send to the Venetian Minister for a clergyman when they heard that a Benedictine monk, named Joliii Huddlestou, happen- CHARLES THE SECOND. 395 ed to be at Whitehall. Tliis man had, with great risk to him self, saved the King's life after the battle of Worcester, tind had, on that account, been, ever since the Restoration, a privi- leged person. In the sharpest proclamations which had been put forth against Popish priests, when false witnesses had inflamed the nation to fury, Huddleston had been excepted by name.* ITe readily consented to put his life a second time in peril for his prince; but there was still a difficulty. The honest monk was so illiterate that he did not know what he ought to say on an occasion of such importance. He however obtained some hints, through the intervention of Castel Melhor, from a Portuguese ecclesiastic, and, thus instructed, was brought up the back stairs by Chiffinch, a confidential servant, who, if the satires of that age are to be credited, had often introduced visitors of a very different description by the same entrance. The Duke then, in the King's name, commanded all who were present to quit .the room, except Lewis Duras, Earl of Fever- sham, and John Granville, Earl of Bath. Both these Lords professed the Protestant religion ; but James conceived that he could count on their fidelity. Feversham, a Frenchman of noble birth, and nephew of the great Turenne, held high rank in the English army, and was Chamberlain to the Queen. Bath was Groom of the Stole. The Duke's orders were obeyed ; and even the physicians withdrew. The back door was then opened ; and Father Hud- dleston entered. A cloak had been thrown over his sacred vestments ; and his shaven crown was concealed by a flowing wig '' Sir," said the Duke, " this good man once saved your /ife. He now comes to save your soul." Charles faintly an- swered, " He is welcome." Huddleston went through his part better than had been expected. He knelt by the bed, listened to the confession, pronounced the absolution, and administered extreme unction. He asked if the King wished to receive the Lord's supper. " Surely," said Charles, " if I am not unworthy.'* • See the London Gazette of Nov. 21, 167ft. Barillon and Burnet say that Huddleston was excepted out of all the Acts of Parliament made against priests j laut this is a mistake. 396 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. The host was brought in. Charles feebly strove to rise and kneel before it. The priest made him lie still, and assured him that God would accept the humiliation of the soul, and would not require the humiliation of the body. The King found so much difficulty in swallowing the bread that it was necessary to open the door and procure a glass of water. This rite ended, the monk held up a crucifix before the penitent, charged him to fix his last thoughts on the sufferings of the Redeemer, and withdrew. The whole ceremony had occupied about three quarters of an hour ; and, during that time, the courtiers who filled the outer room had communicated their suspicions to each other by whispers and significant glances. The door was at length thrown open, and the crowd again filled the chamber of death. It was now late in the evening. The King seemed much relieved by what had passed. His natural children were brought to his bedside, the Dukes of Grafton, Southampton, and North- umberland, sons of the Duchess of Cleveland, the Duke of Saint Albans, son of Eleanor Gwynn, and the Duke of Bich- mond, son of the Duchess of Portsmouth. Charles blessed them all, but spoke with peculiar tenderness to Richmond. One face which should have been there was wanting. The eldest and best loved child was an exile and a wanderer. Plis name was not once mentioned by his father. During the night Charles earnestly recommended the Duchess of Portsmouth and her boy to the care of James ; " And do not," he good-naturedly added, " let poor Nelly starve." The Queen sent excuses for her absence by Halifax. She said that she was too much disordered to resume her post by tlie couch, and implored pardon for any offence which she might unwittingly have given. " She ask my pardon, poor woman ! " cried Charles ; *' I ask hers with all my heart." The morning light began to peep through the windows of "Whitehall i and Charles desired the attendants to pull aside the curtains, that he might have one more look at the day. He remarked that it was time to wind up a clock which stood neai bis bed. These little circumstances were long remembered CHARLES THE SECOND. 397 because they proved beyond dispute that, when he declared him- self a Roman Catholic, he was in full possession of his faculties, He apologised to those who had stood romid him all night for the trouble which he had caused. He had been, he said, a most unconscionable time dying ; but he hoped that they would excuse it. This was the last glimpse of the exquisite urbanity, so often found potent to charm away the resentment of a justly incensed nation. Soon after dawn the speech of the dyijig man failed. Before ten his senses were gone. Great numbers had repaired to the churches at the hour of morning service. When thfc prayer for the King was read, loud groans and sobs showed. how deeply his people felt for him. At noon on Friday, the sixth of February, he passed away without a struggle.* » Clark's Life of James the Second, i. 746. Orig. Mem. ; Barillon's Despatch of Feb. 1-18, 1685; Vaii Citters's Despatches of Feb. 3-13 and Feb. 6-16. Huddleston's Narrative; Letters of Philip, seco.id Earl of Chestei-field, 277 ; Sir H. Ellis's Original Letters, First Seiies, iii. 333 ; Second Series, iv. 74 ; Chaillot MS. ; Burnet, i. 606 ; Evelyn's Diary, Feb. 4, 1684-5 ; Wei wood's Memories, 140 ; North's Life of Guildford, 252 ; Examen, 648 ; Hawkins's Life of Ken ; Dryden's Thren- odia Augustalis ; Sir H. Halford's Essay on Deaths of Eminent Persons. See also a fragment of a letter written by tlie Earl of Ailesbury, which is printed in the European Magazine for April, 1795. Ailesbury calls Burjiet an impostor. Yet his own narrative and Burnet's will not, to any candid and sensible reader, ap- pear to contradict each other. I have seen in the British Museum, and also in the Librai-y of the Royal Institution, a curious broadside containing an account of the de.ath of Charles. It will be found in the Somers Collections. The author was evidently a zealous Roman Catholic, and must have had access to good sources of infoiTnation. I strongly suspect that he had been in communication, directly or indirectly, with James himself. No name is given at length : but the initials are perfectly intelligible, except in one place. It is said that the D. of Y. was reminded of the duty which he owed to his brother by P. M. A. C. F. I must own myself quite unable to decipher the last five letters. It is some conso- lation that Sir "Walter Scott was equally unsuccessful. (1848.) Since the first edition of this work was published, several ingenious conjectiires touching these mysterious letters have been communicated to me ; but I am convinced that the true solution has not yet been suggested. (1850.') I still greatly doubt whether the riddle has been solved. But the most plausible interpretation is one which, with some variations, occuiTed. almost at the same time, to myself and to several other persons ; I am inclined to read " Pere Mansuete A Cordelier Friar." Mansuete, a Cordelier, was then James's confessor. To Mansuete therefore it peculiarly belonged to remind James of a sacred duty which had been culpably neglected. The writer of the broadside must have been unwilling to inform the ■world that a soul which many devout Roman Catholics had left to perish had been snatched from destruction by the courageous charity of a woman of loose character. It is therefore not unlikely that be would prefer a fiction, at once probable and edifying, to a truth which could not fail to give scandal. (ia56.) It should seem ttiat no transactions in history ought to be more accurately. 398 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. At that time the common people throughout Europe, and nowhere more than in England, were in the habit of attribu- ting the death of princes, especially when the prince was popular and the death unexpected, to the foulest and darkest kind of assassination. Thus Jam6s the -First had been accused of poisoning Prince Henry. Thus Charles the First had been accused of poisoning James the First. Thus when, in the time of the Commonwealth, the Princess Elizabeth died at Carisbrook, it was loudly asserted that Cromwell had stooped to the senseless and dastardly wickedness of mixing noxious drugs with the food of a young girl whom he had no con- ceivable motive to injure.* A few years later, the rapid de- composition of Cromwell's own corpse was ascribed by many to a deadly potion administered in his medicine. The death of Charles the Second could scarcely fail to occasion similar known to us than those which took place round the deathbed of Charles the Second. We have several relations written by persons who were actually in his room. "We have several relations written by persons who, though not themselves eyewitnesses, had the best opportunity of obtaining information from eye- witnesses. Yet whoever attempts to digest this vast mass of materials into a consistent narrative will find the task a difficult one. Indeed James and hia wife, when they told the story to the nuns of Chaillot, could not agree as to some circumstances. The Queen said that, after Charles had received the last sacraments the Protestant Bishops renewed their exhortations. The King said that nothing of the kind took place. " Surely," s.Tid the Queen, " you told mo so yourself." "It is impossible that I have told you so," said the King ; "for nothing of the sort happened." It is much to be regretted that Sir Henry Ilalford should have taken bo little trouble ascertain the facts on which he pronounced judgment. He does not seem to have been aware of the existence of the narrative of James, Barillou, and Huddle- ston. As this is the first occasion on which I cite the correspondence of the Dutch ministers at the English court, I ought here to mention that a series of their despatches, from the accession of James the Second to his flight, forms one of the most valuable parts of the Mackintosh collections. The subsequent dcs- patches, down to the settlement of the government in February, 1689, 1 procured from the Hague. The Dutch archives have been far too little explored. They abound with information interesting in the highest degree to every Englishman. They are admirably arranged ; and they are in the charge of gentlemen whose courtesy, liberality and zeal for the interests of literature, cannot be too highly praised. I wish to acknowledge, in the strongest manner, my own obligations to Mr. De .Jonge and to Mr. Van Zwanne. * Clarendon mentions this calumny with just scorn. "According to the charity of the time towards Cromwell, very many would have it believed to l>e by poison, of which there was no appearance, nor any proof ever after made. "-^ Book xiv. JAMES THE SECOND. 399 rumours. The public ear had been repeatedly abused by stories of Popish plots against his life. There was, therefore, in many minds, a strong predisposition to suspicion ; and there were some unlucky circumstances which, to minds so predisposed, might seem to indicate that a crime had been perpetrated. The fourteen Doctors who deliberated on the Kinsf's case contradicted each other and themselves. Some of them thought that his fit was epileptic, and that he should be suffered to have his doze out. The majority pronounced^ him apoplectic, and tortured him during some hours like an Indian at a stake. Then it was determined to call his com- plaint a "fever, and to administer doses of bark. One physician, however, prptested against this course, and assured the Queen that his brethren would kill the King among them. Nothing better than dissension and vacillation could be expected from such a multitude of advisers. But many of the vulgar not unnaturally concluded, from the perplexity of the great masters of the healing art, that the malady had some ex- traordinary origin. There is reason to believe that a horrible suspicion did actually cross the mind of Short, who, though skilfid in his profession, seems to have been a nervous and fanciful man, and whose perceptions were probably confused by dread of the odious imputations to which he, as a Roman Catholic, was peculiarly exposed. We cannot, therefoi'e, wonder that wild stories without number were repeated and believed by the common people. His Majesty's tongue had swelled to the size of a neat's tongue. A cake of deleterious powder had been found in his brain. There were blue spots on his breast. There were black spots on his shoulder. Some- thing had been put in his snuff-box. Something had been put into his broth. Something had been put into his favourite dish of eggs and ambergrease. The Duchess of Portsmouth had poisoned him in a cup of chocolate. The Queen had poisoned him in a jar of dried pears. Such tales ought to be preserved ; for they furnish us with a measure of the intelli- gence and virtue of the generation which eagerly devoured them. That po ruajoiir of the same kind Jias ev^r, i» tb§ 400 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. present age, found credit among us, even when lives on which great interest depended have been terminated by unforeseen attacks of disease, is to be attributed partly to the progress of medical and chemical science, but partly also, it may be hoped, to the progress which the nation has made in good sense, justice, and humanity.* When all was over, James retired from the bedside to his closet, where, during a quarter of an hour, he remained alone. Meanwhile the Privy Councillors who were in the palace as- sembled. The new King came forth, and took his place at the head of the board. He commenced his administration, according to usage, by a speech to the Council. He expressed his regret for the loss which he had just sustained, and he promised to imitate the dugular lenity which had distin- guished the late reign. He was aware, he said, that he had been accused of a fondness for arbitrary power. But that was not the only falsehood which had been told of him. He was resolved to maintain the established government both in Church and State. The Church of England he knew to be eminently loyal. It should therefore always be his care to support and defend her. The laws of England, he also knew, were sufficient to make him as great a King as he could wish to be. He would not relinquish his own rights ; but he would respect the rights of others. He had formerly risked his life in defense of his country ; and he would still go as far as any man in support of her just liberties. This speech was not, like modern speeches on similar oc- casions, carefully prepared by the advisers of the sovereign. It was the extemporaneous expression of the new King's feel- ings at a moment of great excitement. The members of the Council broke forth into clamours of delight and gratitude. * "Welwood, 139 : Burnet, i. 609 ; Sheffield's Character of Charles the Second ; North's Life of Guildford, 252 ; Exanven, 648 ; Revolution Policies ; Higgonson Burnet. What North says of the embarrassment and vacillation of the physi- cians is confirmed by the despatches of Van Citters. I have been much perplex- ed by the strange story about Short's suspicions. I was, at one time, inclined to adopt North's solution. But, though I attach little weight to the authority of Welwood and Burnet in such a case, I cannot reject the testimony of so well in- formed and so unwilling a witness as Sheffield. •■MTA BARHARA. GAUIFOWNIA JAMBS' THB-^BC^OiTOV^*^—*— The Lord President, Rochester, iu the name of his brethren, expressed a hope that His Majesty's most welcome declaration would be made public. The Solicitor General, Heneage Finch, offered to act as clerk. He was a zealous churchman, and, as luch, was naturally desirous that there should be some per- manent record of the gracious promises which had just been uttered. " Those promises," he said, " have made so deep an impression on me that I can repeat them word for word." He soon produced his report. James read it, approved of it, and ordered it to be published. At a later period he said that he had taken this step without due consideration, that his unpremeditated expressions touching the Church of Eng- land were too strong, and that Finch had, with a dexterity which at the time escaped notice, made them still stronger.* • The King had been exhausted by long watching and by many violent emotions. He now retired to rest. The Privy Councillors, having respectfully accompanied him to his bed- chamber, returned to their seats, and issued orders for the ceremony of proclamation. The Guards were under arms ; the heralds appeared in their gorgeous coats ; and the pageant proceeded without any obstruction. Casks of wine were broken up in the streets, and all vAio passed were invited to drink to the health of the new sovereign. But, though an occasional shout was raised, the people were not in a joyous mood. Tears were seen in many eyes ; and it was remarked that there was scarcely a housemaid in London who had not contrived to procure some fragment of black crape in honour of King Charles.f The funeral called forth much censure. It would, indeed, hardly have been accounted worthy of a noble and opulent subject. The Tories gently blamed the new King's parsimony : the Whigs sneered at his want of natural affection; and the fiery Covenanters of Scotland exultingly proclaimed that the curse denounced of old against wicked princes had been * London Gazette, Feb. 9, 1684-5 ; Clarke's Life of James the Second, ii. 3 ; Barillon, Feb. 9-10 ; EvehTi's Diary, Feb. C. 1 See the authorities cited in the last note. See also the Examen, 647 ; Bup net, i. 620 ; HiggoiVi on Burnet, ofi 402 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. signally fulfilled, and that the departed tyrant had been buried with the burial of an ass.* Yet James commenced his ad- ministration with a large measure of public good will. His speech to the Council appeared in print, and the impression svhich it produced was highly favourable to him. This, then, fras the prince whom a faction had driven into exile and had tried to rob of his birthright, on the ground that he was a deadly enemy to the religion and laws of England. He had triumphed : he was on the throne ; and his first act was to declax'e that he would defend the Church, and would strictly respect the rights of his people. The estimate which all parties had formed of his character, added weight to every word that fell from him. The Whigs called him haughty, implacable, obstinate, regardless of public opinion. The Tories, while they extolled his princely virtues, had often Jamented his neglect of the arts which conciliate popula;rity. Satire itself had never represented him as a man likely to court public favour by professing what he did not feel, and by promising what he had no intention of performing. On the Sunday which followed his accession, his speech was quoted in many pulpits. "We have now for our Church," cried one loyal preacher, " the woi'd of a King, and of a King who was never worse than his word." Tliis pointed sentence was fast circulated through town and country, and was soon the watchword of the whole Tory party. f The great offices of state had become vacant by the demise of the crown ; and it was necessary for James to determine how they should be filled. Few of the members of the late cabinet had any reason to expect his favour. Sunderland, who was Secretary of State, and Godolphin, who was First Lord of the Treasury, had supported the Exclusion Bill. Halifax, who held the Privy Seal, had opposed that bill with unrivalled powers of argument and eloquence. But Halifax was the mortal enemy of despotism and Of Popery. He saw * London Gazette, Feb, 14, 1684-^; Evelyn's Diary of the same day ; Btirnet, i. 610; The Hind let looBe, 1 Bura^t, i. 628 ; Jy^Btrftnge, Obeerrator, Feb, U, 1684 JAMES THE SECOND. 403 with dread! tlie progress of the French arms on the Continent, and the influence of French gold in the counsels of England. Had his advice been followed, the laws would have feeen strictly observed : clemency would have been extended to the vanquished Whigs : the Parliament would have been convoked in due season : an attempt woidd have been made to recon- cile our domestic factions ; and the principles of the Triple Alliance would again have guided our foreign policy. He had therefore incurred the bitter animosity of James. The Lord Keeper Guildford could hardly be said to belong to either of the parties into which the court was divided. He could by no means be called a friend of liberty ; and yet he had so great a reverence for the letter of the law that he was not a serviceable tool of arbitrary power. He was accordingly des- ignated by the vehement Tories as a Trimmer, and was to James an object of aversion with which contempt was largely mingled. Ormond, who was Lord Steward of the Household and Viceroy of Ireland, then resided at Dublin. His claims on the royal gratitude were superior to those of any other subject. He had fought bravely for Charles the First: he had shared the exile of Charles the Second ; and, since the Restoration, he had, in spite of many provocations, kept his loyalty unstained Though he had been disgraced during the predominance of the Cabal, he had never gone into factious opposition, and had, in the days of the Popish Plot and the Exclusion Bill, been foremost among the supporters of the throne. He was now old, and had been recently tried by the most cruel of all calamities. He had followed to the grave a son who should have been his own chief mourner, the gallant Ossory. The eminent services, the venerable age, and the domestic misfortunes of Ormond made him an object of general interest to the nation. The Cavaliers regarded him as, both by right of seniority and by right of merit, their head; and the Whigs knew that, faithful as he had always been to the cause of monarchy, he was no friend either to Popery or to arbitrary power. But, high as he stood in the public estimation, he had little favor to expect from his new 404 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. master. James, indeed, while still a subject, had urged his brother to make a complete cliauge iu the Irish admiuistra tion. Charles had assented ; and it had been arranged that, in. r few months, there should be a new Lord Lieutenant.* Rochester was the only member rf the cabinet who stood high iu the favour of the King. The general expectation was that he would be immediately placed at the head of affairs, and that all the other great officers of the state would be changed. This expectation proved to be well founded in part only. Rochester was declared Lord Treasurer, and thus became prime minister. Neither a Lord High Admiral nor a Board of Admiralty was appointed. The new King, who loved the details of naval business, and would have made a respectable clerk in a dockyard at Chatham, determined to be his own minister of marine. Under him the management of that im- portant department was confided to Samuel Pepys, whose library and diary have kept his name fresh to our time. No servant of the late sovereign was publicly disgraced. Sunder- land exerted so much art and address, employed so many intercessors, and was in possession of so many secrets, that he was suffered to retain his seals. Godolphin's obsequious- ness, industry, experience and taciturnity, could ill be spared. As he was no longer wanted at the Treasury, he was made Chamberlain to the Queen. With these three Lords the King took counsel on all important questions. As to Halifax, Ormond,' and Guildford, he determined not yet to dismiss them, but merely to humble and annoy them. Halifax was told that he must give up the Privy seal and accept the Presidency of the Council. He submitted with extreme reluctance. For. thoufjh the President of the Council had always taken precedence of the Lord Privy Seal, the Lord Privy Seal was, in that age, a much more important officer than the Lord President. Rochester had not forgotten the jest which had been made a few months before on his * The letters which passed between Rochester and Ormond on this subject ■sdll be found in the Clarendon Corresi»ondence. JAMES THE SECOND. 405 own removal from the Treasury, and enjoyed in his turn the pleasure of kicking his rival up stairs. The Privy Seal was delivered to Rochester's elder brother, Henry Earl of Clarendon. To Barillon James expressed the strongest dislike of Halifax. " I know him well, I never can trust him. He shall have no share in the management of public business. As to the place which I have given him, it will just serve to show how li.tle influence he has." But to Halifax it was thought convenievt to hold a very different language. " All the past is forgotten," said the King, " except the service which you did me in the debate on the Exclusion Bill." This speech has often been cited to prove that James was not so vindictive as he had been called by his enemies. It seems .rather to prove that he by no means deserved the praises which have been bestowed on his sincerity by his friends.* Ormond was politely informed that his services were no longer needed in Ireland, and was invited to repair to White- hall, and to perform the functions of Lord Steward. He dutifully submitted, but did not affect to deny that the new arrangement wounded his feelings deeply. On the eve of his departure he gave a magnificent banquet at Kilmainham Hospital, then just completed, to the officers of the garrison of Dublin. After dinner he rose, filled a goblet to the brim with wine, and, holding it up, asked whether he had spilt one drop. " No, gentlemen ; whatever the courtiers may say, I am not yet sunk into dotage. INIy hand does not fail me yet : and my hand is not steadier than my heart. To the health of King James ! " Such was the last farewell of Ormond to Ireland. He left the administration in the hands of Lords Justices, and repaired to London, where he was received with unusual marks of public respect. Many persons of rank went forth to meet him on the road. A long train of equipages followed him into Saint James's Square, where his mansion * The miiiistprial oliniu-ps are niinouiif-e'l i'-i the T oiulon Gazette, Feb. 10, 1C84- & See Burnet, i. 621 ; Barillon, Feb. 0-19, ie-2C ; and j^;^ 406 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Stood ', and the Square was thronged by a multitude which greeted him with loud acclamations.* The Great Seal was left in Guildford's custody ; but a marked indignity was at the same time offered to him. It was determined that another lawyer of more vigour and auda- city should be called to assist in the administration. The person selected was Sir George Jeffreys, Chief Justice of the Court of King's Bench. The depravity of this man has passed into a proverb. Both the great English parties have attacked his memory with emulous violence : for the Whigs considered him as their most barbarous enemy ; and the Tories found it convenient to throw on him the blame of all the crimes which had sullied their triumph. A diligent and candid enquiry will show that some frightful stories which have been told concerning him are false or exaggerated. Yet the dispas- sionate historian will be able to make very little deduction from the vast mass of infamy with which the memory of the wicked judge has been loaded. He was a man of quick and vigorous parts, but constitu- tionally prone to insolence and to the angry passions. When just emerging from boyhood he had risen into practice at the Old Bailey bar, a bar where advocates have always used a license of tongue unknown in Westminster Hall. Here, during many years his chief business was to examine and crossexamine the most hardened miscreants of a great capital. Daily conflicts with prostitutes and thieves called out and exercised his powers so effectually that he became the most consummate bully ever known in his profession. Tenderness for others and respect for himself were feelings alike unknown to him. He acquired a boundless command of the rhetoric in which the vulgar express hatred and contempt. The pro- fusion of maledictions and vituperative epithets which com- posed his vocabulary could hardly have been rivalled in the fishmarket or the beargarden. His countenance and his voice must always have been unamiable. But these natural advan- * Carte's Life of Ormond ; Secret Consults of the Romish Paxty in Ireland, 1690 ; Memoirs of Ireland, 1716. JAMES TniC SECOND. 407 tages, for such lie seems to have thought them, — he had improved to such a degree that there were few who, in his paroxysms of rage, could see or hear him without emotion. Impudence and ferocity sate upon his brow. The glare of hia eyes had a fascination for the unhappy victim on whom they were fixed. Yet his brow and his eye were less terrible than the savage lines of his mouth. His yell of fury, as was said by one who had often heard it, sounded like the thunder of the judgment day. These qualifications he carried, while still a young man, from the bar to the bench. He early became Common Serjeant, and then Recorder of London. As a judge at the City sessions he exhibited the same propensities which afterwards, in a higher post, gained for him an unenviable immortality. Already might be remarked in him the most odious vice which is incident to human nature, a delight in misery merely as misery. There was a fiendish exultation in the way in which he pronounced sentence on offenders. Their weeping and imploring seemed to titillate him voluptuously; and he loved to scare them into fits by dilating with luxuriant amplification on all the details of what they were to suffer. Thus, when he had an opportunity of ordering an unlucky adventuress to be whipped at the cart's tail, " Hangman," he would exclaim, " I charge you to pay particular attention to this lady ! Scourge her soundly, man ! Scourge her till the blood runs down ! It is Christmas, a cold time for Madam to strip iu ! See that you warm her shoulders thoroughly 1 " * He was hardly less facetious when he passed judgment on poor Lodowick Muggleton, the drunken tailor who fancied himself a prophet. " Impudent rogue ! " roared Jeffreys, " thou shalt have an easy, easy, easy punishment ! " One part of this easy punishment was the pillory, in which the wretched fanatic was almost killed with brickbats. f By this time the heart of Jeffreys had been hardened to * Christmas Sessions Paper of 1678. t The Acts of the Witnesses of the Spirit, part v- chapter v. In this work Lod- owick, after his fashion, revenges himself on the " bawling devil," as he calls .TeffroyB, by a string of curses which Ernulplxus, or Jeffrej^s hin^gfi*, might b»v» «pyie4. The triaj ww In Jftnujuy, J677t 408 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. that temper which tyrants require in their worst implements. He had hitherto looked for professional advancement to the corporation of London. He had therefore professed himself a Roundhead, and had always appeared to be in a higher state of exhilaration when he explained to Popish priests that they were to be cut down alive, and wei-e to see their own bowels burned, than when he passed ordinary sentences of death. But, as soon as he had got all that the city could give, he made haste to sell his forehead of brass and his tongue of venom to the Court. ChifRnch, who was accustomed to act as broker in infamous contracts of more than one kind, lent his aid. He had conducted many amorous and many political intrigues ; but he assuredly never rendered a more scandalous service to his masters than when he introduced Jeffreys to Whitehall. The renegade soon found a patron in the ob- durate and revengeful James, but was always regarded with scorn and disgust by Charles, whose faults, great as they were, had no affijiity with insolence and cruelty. " That man," said the King, " has no learning, no sense, no manners, and more impudence than ten carted street-walkers." * Work was to be done, however, which could be trusted to no man who reverenced law or was sensible of shame ; and thus Jeffreys, at an age at which a barrister thinks himself fortu- nate if he is employed to conduct an important cause, was made Chief Justice of the King^s Bench. His enemies could not deny that he possessed some of the qualities of a great judge. His legal knowledge, indeed, was merely such as he had picked up in practice of no very high kind. But he had one of those happily constituted intellects which, across labyrmths of sophistry, and through masses of immaterial facts, go straight to the true point. Of his intel- lect, however, he seldom had the full use. Even in civil causes his malevolent and despotic temper perpetually diS' ordered his judgment. To enter his court was to enter the den of a wild beast, which none could tame, and which was This saying is to be found in many contemporary pamphlets. Titus Oates was never tirbd oi' quoting it. See his EIimv BaailiKfj. JAMKS 'THE SECOND. 409 as likely to be roused to rage by caresses as by attacks. He frequently poured forth on plaintiffs and defendants,' barristers and attorneys, witnesses and jurymen, torrents of frantic abuse, intermixed with oaths and curses- His looks and tones had inspired terror when he was merely a young advocate strusfirlinir into practice. Now that he was at the head of the most formidable tribunal in the realm, there were few indeed who did not tremble before him. Even when he was sober, his violence was sufficiently frightful. But in general his reason was overclouded and his evil passions stimulated by the fumes of intoxication. His evenings were ordinarily given to revelry. People who saw him only over his bottle would have supposed him to be a man gross indeed, sottish, and addicted to low company and low merriment, but social and ffoodhumoured. He was constantly surrounded on such occasions by buffoons selected, for the most part, from among the vilest pettifoggers who practised before him. These men bantered and abused each other for his entertainment. He joined in their ribald talk, sang catches with them, and, when his head grew hot, hugged and kissed them in an ecstasy of drunken fondness. But though wine at first seemed to soften his heart, tho effect a few hours later was very different. He often came to the judgment seat, having kept the court waiting long, and yet having but half slept off his debauch, his cheeks on fire, his eyes staring like those of a maniac. When he was in this state, his boon companions of the pre- ceding niglit, if they were wise, kept out of his way : for the ' recollection of the familiarity to which he had admitted them inflamed his malignity ; and he was sure to take every oppor^ tunity of overwhelming them with execration and invective. Not the least odious of his many odious peculiarities was the pleasure which he took in publicly browbeating and mortify- ing those whom, in his fits of maudlin tenderness, he had encouraged to presume on his favour. The services which the government had expected from him were performed, not merely without flinching, but eagerly )»nd triumphantly. His first exploit was the judicial murder 410 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. of Algernon Sidney. What followed was in perfect harmony with this beginning. Respectable Tories lamented the dis- grace which the barbarity and indecency of so great a func- tionary brought upon the administration of justice. But the excesses which filled such men with horror were titles to the esteem of James. Jeffreys, therefore, very soon after the death of Charles, obtained a seat in the cabinet and a peerage. This last honour was a signal mark of royal approbation. For, since the judicial system of the realm had been remodelled in the thirteenth century, no Chief Justice had been a Lord of Parliament.* Guildford now found himself superseded in all his political functions, and restricted to his busioess as a judge in equity- At Council he was treated by Jeffreys with marked incivility. The whole legal patronage was in the hands of the Chief Justice ; and it was well known by the bar that the surest wav to propitiate the Chief Justice was to treat the Lord Keeper with disrespect. James had not been many hours King when a dispute arose between the two heads of the law. The customs had been settled on Charles for life only, and could not therefore be legally exacted by the new sovereign. Some weeks must elapse before a House of Commons could be chosen. If, in the meantime, the duties were suspended, the revenue would suffer ; the regular course of trade would be interrupted ; the consumer would derive no benefit ; and the only gainers would be those fortunate speculators whose cargoes might hajipen to arrive during the interval between the demise of the crown and the meeting of the Parliament. The Treasury was be- sieged by merchants whose warehouses were filled with goods on which duty had been paid, and who were in grievous ap- * The chief sources of Information concerning Jeffreys are the State Trials and North's Life of Lord Guildford. Some touches of minor importance I owe to contemporary pamphlets in verse and prose. Such are the Bloody Assizes, the Life and Death of George Lord Jeffreys, the Panegj-ric on the late Lord Jcllreys, the Letter to the Lord Chancellor, Jeffreys's Elegy. See also Evelyn'8 Diary, Dec. 5, 1683, Oct. 31, 1685. I scarcely need advise every reader to couBult Lord Campbell's excellent Life of Jeffreys. JAMES THE SECOND. 411 prehension of being undersold and ruined. Impartial men must admit that this was one of those cases in which a government may be justified in deviating from the strictly constitutional course. But when it is necessary to deviate from the strictly constitutional course, the deviation clearly ought to be no greater than the necessity requires. Guildford felt this, and gave advice which did him honour. He proposed that the duties should be levied, but should be kept in the Exchequer apart from other sums till the Parliament should meet. In this way the King, while violating the letter of the laws, would show that he wished to conform to their spirit. Jeffreys gave very different counsel. He advised James to put forth an edict declaring it to be His Majesty's will and pleasure that the customs should continue to be paid. This advice was well suited to the King's temper. The judicious proposition of the Lord Keeper was rejected as worthy only of a Whig, or of what was still worse, a Trimmer. A procla- mation, such as the Chief Justice had suggested, appeared. Some people had expected that a violent outbreak of public indig- nation would be the consequence ; but they were deceived. The spirit of opposition had not yet revived ; and the court might safely venture to take steps which, five years before, would have produced a rebellion. In the City of London, lately so turbulent, scarcely a murmur was heard.* The proclamation, which announced that the customs Would still be levied, announced also that a Parliament would shortly meet. It was not without many misgivings that James had determined to call the Estates of his realm together. The moment was, indeed, most auspicious for a general election. Never since the accession of the House of Stuart had the con- stituent bodies been so favourably disposed towards the Court. But the new sovereign's mind was haunted by an apprehension not to be mentioned even at this distance of time, without shame and indignation. He was afraid that by summoning his Parliament he might incur the displeasure of the King of France. * London Gazette, Feb. 12, 1684-6. North's Life of Guildford, 254, 412 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. To the King of France it mattered little which of the two English factions triumphed at the elections : for all the Paj-liaments wliich had met since the Restoration, whatever might have been their temper as to domestic politics, had been jealous of the growing power of "the House of Bourbon. On this sul)ject thei'e was little difference between the Whigs and th^ sturdy country gentlemen who; formed the main strength of the Tory party. Lewis had th-d'efore spared neither bribes nor menaces to .jorevent Charles from convoking the Houses; and Jam*es., who. had: from the: first been in . the-feecret of his brother's foreign politics, had, iini becoming King of Englfaid, become also a hireling and vassal of France. Rochester, Godolphin, and Sunderland, who now formed the interior cabinet, were perfectly aware that their late master had been in the habit of receiving money from the court of Versailles. They were consulted by James as to the expediency of convoking the legislature. They acknowledged the: importance of -keeping Lewis in good humour: but it seemed to them that the calling of a Parliament was not a matter of choice, '.-. Patient as. the nation appeared to be, there were limits to its patience. The principle, that the money of the subject could not be, lawfully taken by the King without the assent of the Commons, was firmly rooted in the public mind; and though, on., an exti'aordinary emergency even Whigs might be willing to pay, during a few weeks, duties not imposed by statute, it was certain that even Tories would become refractory if such irregular taxation should continue longer than the speqial. circumstances which alone justified it. The Houses then must meet ; and since it was so, the sooner they wei-e summoned the better. Even the short delay which would be occasioned by a reference to Versailles might produce irreparable mischief. Discontent and suspicion would spread fast through society. Halifax would complain that the fundamental principles of the con- stitution were violated. The Lord Keeper, like a cowardly pedantic special pleader as he was, would take the same side. What might have been done with a good grace would at last JAMES THE SECOND. 4.1: j be done with a bad grace. Tliose veiy ministers whom His Majesty most wished to lower in the imblic estimation wouleated by Rochester. Barillon received them civilly Rochester, grown bolder, proceeded to ask for money " It will be well laid out," he said : " j^our master cannot employ his revenues better. Represent to him strongly how im- portant it is that the King of England should be dependent, not on his own people, but on the friendship of France alone." * Barillon hastened to communicate to Lewis the wishes of the English government ; but Lewis had already anticipated them. His first act, after he was apprised of the death of • The chief authority for these transaetions ia Barillon 's despatch of Febra- nry 0-19, lfiS5. It will be fonnd in the Appendix to Mr. Fox's History. See also Preston's Letter to James, dated April 18-28, 1685, in Dalrymple, 414 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Chaiies, was to collect bills of exchange on England to tliG amount of five hundred thousand livres, a sum equivalent to about thirty-seven thousand five hundred pounds sterling. Such bills were not then to be easily procured in Paris at a day's notice. In . a few hours, however, the purchase was effected, and a courier started for London.* As soon as Barillon received the remittance, he flew to Whitehall, and communicated the welcome news. James was not ashamed to shed, or pretend to shed, tears of delight and gratitude. *' Nobody but your King," he said, " does such kind, such noble things. I never can be grateful enough. Assure him that my attachment will last to the end of my days." Ro- chester, Sunderland, and Godolphin came, one after another, to embrace the ambassador, and to whisper to him that he had given new life to their royal master.f But though James and his three advisers were pleased with the promptitude which Lewis had shown, they were by no means satisfied with the amount of the donation. As they were afraid, however, that they might give offence by importunate mendicancy, they merely hinted their wishes. They declared that they had no intention of haggling with so generous a benefactor as the French King, and that they were willing to trust entirely to his munificence. They, at the same time, attempted to propitiate him by a large sacri- fice of national honour. It was well known that one chief end of his politics was to add the Belgian provinces to his dominions. Erigland was bound by a treaty which had been concluded with Spain when Danby was Lord Treasurer, to resist any attempt which France might make on those prov- inces. The three ministers informed Barillon that their master considered that treaty as no longer obligatory. It had been made, they said, by Charles : it might, perhaps, hare been binding on him ; but his brother did not think himself bound by it. The most Christian King tuigbti • Lewis to Barillon, Feb. 16- 2C, 1685- t Barillon, Feb. 16-26, 16S5. JAMES THE SECOND. 415 i!ierefore, without any fear of opposition from England, pro- ceed to annex Brabant and Hainault to his empire.* It was at the same time resolved that an extraordinary embassy should be sent to assure Lewis of the gratitude and affection of James. For this mission was selected a man who did not as yet occupy a very eminent position, but whose renown, strangely made up of infamy and glory, filled at a later period the whole civilized world. Soon after the Restoration, in the gay and dissolute times which have been celebrated by the lively pen of Hamilton, James, young and ardent in the pursuit of pleasure, had been attracted to Arabella Churchill, one of the maids of honour who waited on his first wife. The young lady was plain:' but the taste of James was not nice : and she became his avowed mistress. She was the daughter of a poor Cavalier knight who haunted Whitehall, and made himself ridiculous by publishing a dull and affected folio, long forgotten, in praise of monarchy and monarchs. The necessities of the Churchills were pressing; their loyalty was ardent; and their only feeling about Arabella's seduction seems to have been joyful surprise that so homely a girl should have attained Buch high preferment. Her interest was indeed of great use to her relations : but none of them was so fortunate as her eldest brother John, a fine youth, who carried a pair of colours in the foot guards. He rose fast in the court and in the army, and was early dis- tinguished as a man of fashion and . of pleasure. His stature was commanding, his face handsome, his address singularly winning, yet of such dignity that the most impertinent fops never ventured to take any liberty with him ; his temper, even in the most vexatious and irritating circumstances, always under perfect command. His education had been so much neglected that he could not spell the most common words of his own language : but his acute and vigorous understanding amply supplied the place of book learning. • Bullion, Feb. 18-28, I68& 416 HISTORY OP EWGLAWO. He was not talkative : but when he was forced to speak in public, his natural eloquence moved the envy of practised rhetoricians.* His courage was singularly cool and imper- turbable. During many years of anxiety and peril, he never, in any emergency, lost even for a moment, the perfect use oi his admirable judgment. In his twenty-third year he was sent with his regiment to join the French forces, then engaged in operations against Holland. His serene intrepidity distinguished him among thousands of brave soldiers. His professional skill com- manded the resjject of veteran officers. He was publicly thanked at the head of the army, and received many marks of esteem and confidence from Turenne, who was then at the height of military glory. Unhappily the splendid qualities of John Churchill wero mingled with alloy of the "most sordid kind. Some propen- sities, which in youth are singularly ungraceful, began very early to show themselves in him. He was thrifty in his very vices, and levied ample contributions on ladies enriched by the spoils of more liberal lovers. He was, during a short time, the object of the violent but fickle fondness of the Duchess of Cleveland. On one occasion he was cauffht with her by the King, and was forced to leap out of the window. She rewarded this hazardous feat of gallantry with a present -^f five thousand pounds. With this sum the prudent young hero instantly bought an annuity of five hundred a year, well secured on landed property.f Already his private drawer contained a hoard of broad pieces which, fifty years * Swift who bated Marlborough, and who was little disposed to allow any merit to those whom he hated, says, iu the famous letter to Crassus, " You are no ill • orator in the Senate." T Dartmouth's note on Burnet, i. 264. Chesterfield's Letters, Nov, 18, 7748. Chesterfield is an unexceptional witness ; for the annuity was a charge on the estate of his grandfather, Halifax. I believe that there is no foundation for» disgraceful addition to the story which may be found in Pope : " The gallant too, to whom she paid it dpwn. Lived to refuse liis mistress half a crown." .. Curll calls this a piece of travelling scaoidal. JAMES THE SECOND. 417 later, when he was a Duke, a Prince of the Empire, and the richest subject in Europe, remained untouched.* After the close of the war he was attached to the house- hold of the Duke of York, accompanied his patron to the Low Countries and to Edinburgh, and was rewarded for his services with a Scotch peerage and with the command of the only regiment of dragoons which was then on the English establishment.! His wife had a post in the family of James's younger daughter, the Princess of Denmark. Lord Churchill was now sent as ambassador extraordinary to Versailles. He had it in charge to express the warm gratitude of the English government for the money which had been so generously bestowed. It had been originally intended that he should at the same time ask Lewis for a much larger sum ; but, on full consideration, it was appre- hended that such indelicate greediness might disgust the bene- factor whose spontaneous liberality had been so signallj displayed. Churchill was therefore directed to confine himself to thanks for what was past, and to say nothing about the future. J But James and his ministers, even while protesting that they did not mean to be importunate, contrived to hint, very intelli- gibly, what they wished and exoected. In the French ambassador they had a dexterous, a zealous, and, perhaps, not a disinterested intercessor. Lewis made some difficulties, probably with the design of enhancing the value of his gifts. In a very few weeks, however, Barillon received from Versailles fifteen hundred thou- sand livres more. This sum, equivalent to about a hundred and twelve thousand pounds sterling, he was instructed to dole * Pope in Spence's Anecdotes. t See the Historical Records of the first or Royal Dra5;oons. The appoint- ment of Churchill to the command of this regiment was ridiculed as an instance of ahsurd partiality. One lampoon of that lime, which T do not remember to have seen in print, but of which a manuscript copy is in the British Museum, contains these lines " Let's CMt our iner't with snoons ; The sense is as ^ood As that Churchill should Be put to command the drasoons." t Barillon, Feb. 16-26, 1685. 2i 418 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. v out cautiously. He was authorised to furnish the English gov- ernmeut with thirty thousand pounds, for the purpose of corrupting members of the New House of Commons. The rest he was directed to keep in reserve for some extraordinary emer- gency, such as a dissolution or an insurrection.* The turpitude of these transactions is universally acknowl- edged: but their real nature seems to be often misunderstood : for though the foreign policy of tlie last two Kings of the House of Stuart has never, since the correspondence of Barillon was exposed to the public eye, found an apologist among us, there is still a party which labours to excuse their domestic policy. Yet it is certain that between their domestic policy and their foreign policy there was a necessary and indissoluble connection. If they had upheld, during a single year, the honour of the country abroad, they would have been compelled to change the whole system of their administration at home. To praise them for refusing to govern in conformity with the sense of Parliament, and yet to blame them for sub- mitting to the dictation of Lewis, is inconsistent. For they had only one choice, to be dependent on Lewis, or to be de- pendent on Parliament. James, to do him justice, would gladly have found out a third way . but there was none. He became the slave of France : but it would be incorrect to represent him as a con- tented slave. He had spirit enough. to be at times angry with himself for submitting to such thraldom, and impatient to break loose from it ; and this disposition was studiously' en- couraged by the agents of many foreign powers. His accession had excited hopes and fears in every conti- nental court : and the commencement of his administration was watched by strangers with interest scarcely less deep than that which was felt by his own subjects. One government alone wished that the troubles which had, during three generations, distracted England, might be eternal. All other governments, whether republican or monarchical, whether Protestant or * Barillon, April 6-26 ; Lewis to Barillon, April 14-24. JAMES THE SECOND. 419 Roman Catholic, wished to see those troubles hapj^ily termi- nated. The nature of the long contest between the Stuarts and their Parliaments was indeed very imperfectly apprehended by for- eign statesmen : but no statesman could fail to perceive the ef- fect whicli that contest liad produced on the balance of power in Europe. In ordinary circumstances, the sympathies of the courts of Vienna and Madrid would doubtless have been with a prince struggling against subjects,' and especially with a Roman Catholic prince struggling against heretical subjects : but all such sympa- thies wer J now overpowered by a stronger feeling. The fear and hatred inspired by the greatness, the injustice, and the arro- gance of the French King were at the height. His neighbours might well doubt whether it were more dangerous to be at wai or at peace with him. For in peace he continued to plunder and to outrage them ; and they had tried the chances of war agamst him in vain. In this perplexity they looked with intense anxiety towards England. Would she act on the principles of the Triple Alliance or on the principles of the treaty of Dover ? On that issue depended the fate of all her neighbouis. With her help Lewis might yet be withstood : but no help could be expected from her till she was at unity with herself. Before the strife between the throne and the Parliament began, she had been a power of the first rank : on the day on which that strife terminated she became a power of the first rank again : but while the dis- pute remained undecided, she was condemned to inaction and to vassalage. She had been great under the Plantagenets and Tudors: she was again gre it un ler the princes who reigned after the Revolution : but, under the Kin^s of the House of Stuart, she was a blank in the map of Europe. She had lost one class of energies, and had not yet acquired another. That species of force, which, in the fourteenth century had enabled her to hum- ble France and Spain, had ceased to exist. That species of fo^-ce, which, in the eighteenth century, humbled France and Spain once more, had not yet been called into action. The government was no longer a limited monarchy after the fashion of the middle ages. It had not yet become a limited monarchy after the 420 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. modern tashion. With the vices of two different systems it had the strength of neither. The elements of our polity, instead of combining in harmony,*counteracted and neutralised each other. All was transition, conflict, and disorder. The chief business of the sovereign was to infringe the privileges of the legislature. The chief business of the legislature was to encroach on the pre- rogatives of the sovereign. The King readily accepted foreign aid, which relieved him from the misery of being dependent on a mutinous Pai'liament. The Parliament refused to the Kiuff the means of supporting the national honor abroad, from an apprehension, too well founded, that those means might be employed in order to establish despotism at home. The effect of these jealousies was that our country, with all her vast re- sources, was of as little weight in Christendom as the duchy of Savoy or the duchy of Lorraine, and certainly of far less weight than the small province of Holland. France was deeply interested in prolonging this state of things.* All other powers were deeply interested in bringing it to a close. The general wish of Europe was that James would govern in conformity with law and with public opinion. From the Escurial itself came letters, expressing an earnest hope that the new King of En'^land would be on good terms with his Parliament and his people. f From the Vatican * I might transcribe half Barillon's correspondence in proof of this proposi- tion ; but I will quote only one passage, in which the policy of the French gov- ernment towards England is exhibiti'd concisely and with perfect clearness. " On peut tenir pour un maxime indubitable que I'accord du Koy d'Angleterre avec son parlement, en quelque manifere qu'il se fasse, n'est pas conforme aux int6rets de V. M. Je me contente de penser cela sane m'en ouvrir k personne, et ie cache avec soin mes seutimens k cet 6gard." — Barillon to Lewis, ^/ " . ' 1687. •■ Mar. 10, That this was the real secret of the whole policy of I^^wis towards our country was perfectly understood at Vienna. The Emperor Leopold wrote thus to James, —^ ' 1689 : " Galli id unum agebant, ut, perpetuas inter Serenitatem vestram Apnl 9, o I 7 i- jT et ejusdem populos fovendo simultates, reliquae Christianae Europe tanto securius insultarent." t " Que sea unido con su reyno, y en todo buena intelligencia con el parla- mento."— Despatch from the King of Spain to Don Pedro Koiiquillo, March 16-26, 1685. This despatch is in the archives of Samancas, which contain a great mass of papers relating to English affairs. Copies of the most interesting of those papers are in the posisession of M. Guizot, and were by him lent to me. It is with pecuUar pleasure tbat at this time, I acknowledge this mark of the friendship of eo great man. (1848.) JAMES THE SECOND. 421 itself came cautions against immoderate zeal for the Roman Catholic faith. Beuedict Odescalchi, who filled the papal chair under the name of Innocent the Eleventh, felt, in his character of temporal sovereign, all those apprehensions with which other princes watched the progress of the French power. He had also grounds of uneasiness which were pecu- liar to himself. It was a happy circumstance for the Pro- testant religion that, at the moment when the last Roman Catholic King of England mounted the throne, the Roman Catholic Church was torn by dissension, and threatened with a new schism. A quarrel similar to that which had raged in the eleventh century between the Emperors and the Supreme Pontiffs had arisen between Lewis and Innocent. Lewis, zealous even .to bigotry for the doctrines of the Church of Rome, but tenacious of his regal authority, accused the Pope of encroaching on the secular rights of the French Crown, and was in turn accused by the Pope of encroaching on the spiritual power of the keys. The King, haughty as he was, encountered a spirit even more determined than his own. Innocent was, in all private relations, the meekest and gentlest of men : but when he spoke officially from the chair of St. Peter, he spoke in the tones of Gregory the Seventh and of Sixtus the Fifth. The dispute became serious. Agents of the King were excommunicated. Adherents of the Pope were banished. The King made the champions of his authority Bishops. The Pope refused them institution. They took possession of the Episcopal palaces and revenues : but they were incompetent to perform the Episcopal functions. Before the struggle terminated, there were in France thirty prelates who could not confirm or ordain.* Had any prince then living, except Lewis, been engaged in such a dispute with the Vatican, he would have had all Pro- estant governments on his side. But the fear and resent- ment which the ambition and insolence of the French King * Few English readers will be desirous to go deep into the history of this quax- rel. Summaries will be found in Cardinal Bausset's Life of iJossuet, and in Vol- taire's Age of Lewis XIV. 422 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. had inspired were such that whoever had the courage manfully to oppose him was sure of public sympathy. Even Lutherans and Calvinists, who had always detested the Pope, could not refrain from wishing him success against a tyrant who aimed at universal monarchy. It was thus that, in the present century, many who regarded Pius the Seventh as Antichrist were well pleased to see Antichrist confront the gigantic power of Napo- leon. The resentment which Innocent felt towards France dis» posed him to take a' mild and liberal view of the affairs of England. The return of the English people to the fold of which lie was the shepherd would undoubtedly have rejoiced his soul. But he was too wise a man to believe that a nation so bold and stubborn, could be brought back to tlie Church of Rome by the violent and unconstitutional exercise of royal authority. It was not difficult to foresee that, if James attempted to promote the interests of his religion by illegal and unpopular means, the attempt would fail ; the hatred with which the heretical islanders regarded the true faith would become fiercer and stronger than ever ; and an indis- soluble association would be created in their minds between Protestantism and civil freedom, between Popery and arbi- trary power. In the meantime the King would be an object of aversion and suspicion to his people. England would still be, as she had been under James the First, under Charles the First, and under Charles the Second, a power of the third rank ; and France would domineer unchecked beyond the Alps and the Rhine. On the other hand, it was probable that James, by acting with prudence and moderation, by strictly observing the laws and by exerting himself to win the confidence of his Parliament, might be able to obtain, for the professors of his religion, a large measure of relief. Penal statutes would go first. Statutes imposing civil incapacities would soon follow. In the meantime, the English King and the English nation united might head the European coalition, and might oppose an insuperable barrier to the cupidity of Lewis. JAMES THK SECOND. 423 Innoceut was confirmed in his judgment by the principal Englishmen who resided at his- court. Of these the most illustrious was Philip Howard, sprung from the noblest houses of Britain, grandson, on one side, of an Earl of Arundel, on the other, of a Duke of Lennox. Philip had long been a member of the sacred college : he was commonly designated as the Cardinal of England ; and he was the chief counsellor of the Holy See in matters relating to his country. He had been driven into exile by the outcry of Protestant bigots ; and a member of his family, the unfortunate Stafford, had fallen a victim to their rage. But neither the Cardinal's own wrongs, nor those of his house, had so heated his mind as to make him a rash adviser. Every letter, therefore, which went from the Vatican to Whitehall, recommended patience, moderation, and respect for the prejudices of the English people.* In the mind of James there was a great conflict. We should do him injustice if we supposed that a state of vassal- age was agreeable to his temper. He loved authority and business. He had a high sense of his own personal dignity. Nay, he was not altogether destitute of a sentiment Avhich bore some affinity to patriotism. It galled his soul to think that the kingdom which he ruled was of far less account in the world than many states which possessed smaller natural ad- vantages ; and he listened eagerly to foreign ministers when they urged him to assert the dignity of his rank, to place himself at the head of a great confederacy, to become the protector of injured nations, and to tame the pride of that power which held the Continent in awe. Such exhortations made his heart swell with emotions unknown to his care- less and effeminate brother. But those emotions were soon subdued by a stronger feeling. A vigorous foreign policy necessarily implied a conciliatory domestic policy. It was impossible at once to confront the might of France and to trample on the liberties of England, The executive govern- ment could undertake nothing great without the support of * Burnet, i. 661, and Letter from Kome ; Dodd's Church History, part viii. book i- ert. 1. 424 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. the Commons, and could obtain their support only by acting in conformity with their opinion. Thus James found that the two things which he most desired could not be enjoyed together. His second wish was to be feared and respected abroad. But his first wish was to be absolute master at home. Between the incompatible objects on which his heart was set, he, for a time, went irresolutely to and fro. The conflict ia his own breast gave to his public acts a strange appearance of indecision and insincerity. Those who, without the clue, attempted to explore the maze of his politics were unable to und:;rstand how the same man could be, in the same week, so haughty and so mean. Even Lewis was perplexed by the vagaries of an ally who passed, in a few hours, from homage to defiance, and from defiance to homage. Yet, now that the whole conduct of James is before us, this inconsistency seems to admit of a simple explanation. At the moment of his accession ' he was in doubt whether the kingdom would peaceably submit to his authority. The Exclusionists, lately so powerful, might rise in a)-ms against him. He might be in great need of French money and French troops. He was therefore, during some days, content to be a sycophant and a mendicant. He humbly apologised for daring to call his Parliament together without the consent of the F^-ench jrovernment. He begged hard for a French subsidy. He wept with joy over the French bills of exchange. He sent to Versailles a special embassy charged with assur- ances of his gratitude, attachment, and submission. But scarcely had the embassy departed when his feelings under- went a change. He had been everywhere proclaimed without one riot, without one seditious outcry. From all corners of the island he received intelligence that his subjects were tran- cjuil and obedient. His spirit rose. The degrading relation in which he stood to a foreign power seemed intolerable. He became proud, punctilious, boastful, quarrelsome. He held such high language about the dignity of his crown and the balance of power that his whole court fully expected a com- plete revolution in the foreign politics of the realm. Ha JAMES THE SECOND. 425 commanded Churchill to send home a minute report of the ceremonial of Versailles, in order that the honours with which the English embassy was received there might be repaid, and not more than repaid, to the representative of France at AVhitehall. The news of this change was received with delighf. at Madrid, Vienna, and the Hague.* Lewis was at firsl merely diverted. "My good ally talks big," he said; "but he is as fond of my pistoles as ever his brother was." Soon, however, the altered demeanour of James, and the hopes witi which that demeanour inspired both the branches of the House of Austria, began to call for more serious notice. A remarkable letter is still extant, in which the French King intimated a strong suspicion that he had been duped, and that the very money which he had sent to Westminster would be employed against him.t By this time England had recovered from the sadness and anxiety caused by the death of the goodnatured Charles. The Tories were loud in professions of attachment to their new master. The hatred of the Whigs was kept down by fear. That great mass which is not steadily AVhig or Tory, bu*" which inclines alternately to Whiggism and to Toryism, was still on the Tory side. The reaction which had followed the dissolution of the Oxford parliament had not yet spent its force. The King early put the loyalty of his Protestant friends to the proof. While he was a subject, he had been in the habit of hearing mass with closed doors in a small oratory which had been fitted up for his wife. He now ordered the doors to be thrown open, in order that all who came to pay their duty to him might see the ceremony. When the host was elevated there was a strange confusion in the antechamber. The Roman Catholics fell on their knees : the Protestants hlirried out of the room. Soon a new pulpit was erected in the palace ; and, during Lent, a series of sermons was preached * Consultations of the Spanish Council of State on April 2-12 and April ie-26, in the Archives of Simancas. t Lewis to Barillon, f "^ f • 16g5 ; Burnet, i. 623. June 1, ' ' 426 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. there by Popish divines, to the great discomposure of zealous churchmen.* A more serious innovation followed. Passion week came ; and the King determined to hear mass with the same pomp with which his predecessors had been surrounded when they repaired io the temples of the established religion. He announced his intention to the three members of the interior cabinet, and re- quested them to attend him. Sunderland, to whom all religions were the same, readily consented. Godolphin, as Chamberlain of the Queen, had already been in the ^ habit of giving her his hand when she repaired to her oratory, and felt no scruple about bowing himself officially in the house of Rimmon. But Rochester was greatly disturbed. His influence in the country arose chiefly from the opinion entertained by the clergy and by the Tory gentry, that he was a zealous and uncompromising friend of the Church. His orthodoxy had been considered as fully atoning for faults which would otherwise have made him the most unpopular man in the kingdom, for boundless arrogance, for extreme violence of temper, and for manners almost brutal. f He feared that, by complying with the royal wishes, he should greatly lower himself in the estimation of his party. After some altercation he obtained permission to pass the holidays out of town. All the other great civil dignitaries were ordered to be at their posts on Easter Sunday. The rites of the Church of Rome were once more, after an interval of a hundred and twenty-seven years, performed at Westminster with regal splendour. The Guards were drawn out. The Knights of the Garter wore their collars. The Duke of Somerset, second in rank among the temporal nobles of the realm, carried the sword of state. A long train of great lords accompanied the King to his seat. But it was remarked that Ormond and Feb 19 * Life of .James the Second, i. 5. Barillon, mJ^j^ 1685 ; Evelyn's Diary, March 5, 1684-6. t " To those that ask boons He Bwears by God's oons, And cliides them as if they came-there to steal spooiig." Lamentable Lory, a ballad, 1684. JAMES THE "SECOND. 427 Halifax remained iu the antechamber. A few years before they had gallantly defended the cause of James against some of those who now pressed past them. Ormond had borne no share in the slaughter of Roman Catholics. Halifax had courageously pronounced Stafford not guilty. As the time- servers who had pretended to shudder at the thought of a Popish king, and who had shed without pity the innocent blood of a Popish peer, now elbowed each other to get near a Popish altar, the accomplished Trimmer might, with some justice, indulge his solitary pride in that unpopiilar nickname.* Within a week after this ceremony James made a far greater sacrifice of his own religious prejudices than he had yet called on any of his Protestant subjects to make. He was crowned on the twenty-third of April, the feast of the patron saint of the realm. The Abbey and the Hall were splendidly decorated. The presence of the Queen and of the peeresses gave to the solemnity a charm which had been wanting to the magnificent inaugui'ation of the late King. Yet those who remembered that inauguration pronounced that there was a great falling off. The ancient usage was that, before a coro- nation, the sovereign, with all his heralds, judges, councillors, lords, and great dignitaries, should ride in state from the Tower of Westminster. Of these cavalcades the last and the most glorious was that which passed through the capital while the feelings excited by the Restoration were still in full vigour. Arches of triumph overhung the road. All Corn- hill, Cheapside, Saint Paul's Church Yard, Fleet Street, and the Strand, were lined with scaffolding. The whole city had thus been admitted to gaze on royalty in the most splendid and solemn form that royalty could wear. James ordered an estimate to be made of the cost of such a procession, and found that it would amount to about half as much as he pro- posed to expend in covering his wife with trinkets. He accordingly determined to be profuse where he ought to have been frugal, and niggardly where he might pardonably have been profuse. More than a hundred thotisand po«««i9 we^e • Barillou, April 20-30 1685. 428 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. laid out ill dressing the Queen, and the procession from the Tower was omitted. The folly of this course is obvious. If pageantry be of any use in politics, it is of use as a means of striking th,e imagination of the multitude. It is surely the height of absurdity to shut out the populace from a show of which the main object is to make an impression on the pojiulace. James would have shown a more judicious munificence and a more judicious parsimony, if he had traversed London from east to west with t\m accustomed pomp, and had ordered the robes of his wife to be somewhat less thickly set wilh pearls and diamonds. His example was, however, long followed by his successors ; and sums, which, well employed, would have afforded exquisite gratification to a large part of the nation, were squandered on an exhibition to which only three or four thousand privileged persons were admitted. At length the old practice was partially revived. On the day of the coro- nation of Queen Victoria there was a procession in which many deficiencies might be noted, but which was seen with interest and delight by half a million of her subjects, and which un- doubtedly gave far greater pleasure, and called forth far great- er enthusiasm, than the more costly display which was wit nessed by a select circle within the Abbey. » James had ordered Sancroft to abridge the ritual. The reason publicly assigned was that the day was too short for all that was to be done. But whoever examines the changes which were made will see that the real object was to remove some things highly offensive to the religious feelings of a zealous Roman Catholic, The Communion Service was not read. The ceremony of presenting the sovereign with a richly bound copy of the English Bible, and of exhorting him to prize above all earthly treasures a volume which he had been taught to regard as adulterated with false doctrine, was omit- ted. What remained, however, after all this curtailment, might well have raised scruples in the mind of a man who sincerely believed the Church of England to be a heretical society, within the pale of which salvation was not to be found. The King made an oblation on the altar. He appeared JAMES THE SECOND. 429 to join in the petitions of the Litany which was chaunted by the Bishops. He received from those false prophets the unc- tion typical of a divine influence, and knelt with the semblance of devotion, while they called down upon him that Holy Spirit of which they were, in his estimation, the malignant and obdurate foes. Such are the inconsistencies oi human nature that this man, who, from a fanatical zeal for his religion, threw away three kingdoms, yet chose to commit what was little short of an act of apostasy, rather than forego the childish pleasure of being invested with the gewgaws symbolical of kingly power.* Francis Turner, Bishop of Ely, preached. He was one of those writers who still affected the obsolete style of Arch- bishop Williams and Bishop Andrews. The sermon was made up of quaint conceits, such as seventy years earlier might have been admired, but such as moved the scorn of a generation accustomed to the purer eloquence of Sprat, of South, and of Tillotson. King Solomon was King James. Adonijah was Monmouth. Joab was a Rye House conspirator ; Shimei, a Whie libeller ; Abiathar, an honest but misguided old Cavalier. One phrase in the Book of Chronicles was con- strued to mean that the King was above the Parliament ; and another was cited to prove that he alone ought to command the militia. Towards the close of the discourse the orator very timidly alluded to the new and embarrassing position in which the Church stood with reference to the sovereign, and reminded his hearers that the Emperor Constantius Clilorus, thouijh not himself a Christian, had held in honour those Christians who remained true to their religion, and had treated with scorn those who sought to earn his favour by apostasy. The service in the Abbey was followed by a stately banquet in the Hall, the banquet by brilliant fireworks, and the fireworks by much bad poetry, f * From Adda's despatch of J?Eji:. 1686, and from the expressions of the Pfero Keb. 1, d' Orleans (Histoire des Revolutions d' Aaigleterre, liv. xi.), it is clear that rigid Catholics thought the King's conduct indefensible. t London Gazette ; Gazette de France ; Life of James the Second, u. 10 ; History of the Coronation of King James the Second and Queen Mary, by Francia 430 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. This may he fixed upon as tlie momeut at which the enthu- siasm of the Tory party reached the zenith. Ever since the accession of the new King, addresses had been pouring in which expressed profpuud veneration for his person and office, and bitter detestation of the vanquished Whigs. The magis- trates of Middlesex thanked God for having confounded the designs of those regicides and exclusionists who, not content with having murdered one blessed monarch, were bent on destroying the foundations of monarchy. The city of Glou- cester execrated the bloodthirsty villains who had tried to deprive His Majesty of "his just inheritance. The burgesses of Wigan assured their sovereign that they would defend him against all plotting Achitophels and rebellious Absaloms. The grand jury of Suifolk expressed a hope that the Parliament would proscribe all the exclusionists. Many corporations pledged themselves never to return to the House of Commons any person who had voted for takirig away the birthright of James. Even the capital was profoundly obsequious. The lawyers and the traders vied with each other in servility. Inns of ('i)urt and Inns of Chancery sent up fervent professions of attacliment and submission. All the great commercial societies, the East India Company, the African Comi)any, the Turkey Company, the Muscovy Company, the Hudson's Bay Company, the Maryland Merfiba-iits, the Jamaica Merchants, the Mer- chant Adv nhi e s d 1 1 'ed that they most cheerfully complied with the royal iMV--t wliich rpquired them still to pay custom. Bristol, the sr-cond <-itv of the island, (vlioed the voice of Lon- don. ^ut nowh'^:-^. was tb- ^ -lirU. of loyalty stronger than in the two T"fniversities. Ox Mid dpclared that she would never swerve from those religious principles which bound her to obey Saiidford, Lancaster Herald fol. 16«7 : Evelyn's Diary, May, 21, 1685 ; Despatch of the Dutch Ami^assadois. April 10-20, 1685: Buniet, i. 62? : Eachard, iii. 734 ; A sermon preiehed before their Majesies Kiii? .Tnines (he Second and Queen kar>' at thpiv roronation in Westminster Abbey, April 2;<, I6R5, by Francis Lord Bisbon of Flv, and Lord Almoner. I have seen an Italian acconnt of the Coro- nation which wns nnblisbed at ■VTodem, and which is chiefly remarkable for the skill wi'h which the writer sink the ffl/>t that the prayers and psalms were in English, and that the Bisho;)9 were heretics. JAMES THE SECOND. 431 the King without any restrictions or limitations. Cambridge condemned, in severe terms, the violence and treachery of those turbulent men who had maliciously endeavoured to turn the stream of succession out of the ancient channel.* Such addresses as these filled, during a considerable time, every number of the London Gazette. But it was not only by addressinjr that the Tories showed their zeal. The writs for the new Parliament had gone forth, and the country was agi- tated by the tumult of a general election. No election had ever taken place under circumstances so favourable to the Court. Hundreds of thousands whom the Popish plot had scared into Whiggism had been scared back by the Rye House plot into Toryism. In the counties the government could depend on an overwhelming majority of the gentlemen of three hundred a year and upwards, and on the clergy almost to a man. Those boroughs which had once been the citadels ot Whiggism had recently been deprived of their charters by legal sentence, or had prevented the sentence by voluntary surren- der. They had now been reconstituted in such a manner that they were certain to return members devoted to the crown. Where the townsmen could not be trusted, the freedom had been bestowed on the neighbouring squires. In some of the small western corporations, the constituent bodies were in great- part composed of Captains and Lieutenants of the Guards. The returning officers were almost everywhere in the interest of the court. In every shire the Lord Lieutenant and his deputies formed a powerful, active, and vigilant committee, for the pur- pose of cajoling and intimidating the freeholders. The people were solemnly warned from thousands of pulpits not to vote for any Whig candidate, as they should answer it to Him who had ordained the powers that be, and who had pronounced re- bellion a sin not less deadly than witchcraft. All these advan- tages the predominant party not only used to the utmost, but abused in so shameless a manner that gra%'e and reflecting men, who had been true to the monarchy in peril, and who bore no * See the London Gazette (Juring tbe months of February, Marcb» and April, 432 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. >, love to republicans and schismatics, stood aghast, and augured from such beginnings the ajjproach of evil times. * Yet the Whigs, though suffering the just punishmejit of their errors, though defeated, disheartened, and disorganized, did not yield without an effort. They were still numerous among the traders and artisans of the towns, and among the yeomanry and peasantry of tlie open country. In some dis' tricts, in Dorsetshire for example, and in Somersetshire, they were the great majority of the population. In the remodelled boroughs they could do nothing : but, in every county where they had a chance, they struggled desperately. In Bedford- shire, which had lately been represented by the virtuous and unfortunate Russell, they were victorious on the show of hands, but were beaten at the poll.f In Essex they polled thirteen hundred votes to eighteen hundred. $ At the election for Northamptonshire the common people were so violent in their hostility to the court candidate that a body of troops was drawn out in the marketplace of the county town, and was ordered to load with ball.§ The history of the contest for Buckingham- shire is still more remarkable. The whig candidate, Thomas Wharton, eldest sou of Philip Lord Wharton, was a man dis- tinguished alike by dexterity and by audacity, and destined to play a conspicuous, though not always a respectable, part in the politics of several reigns. He had been one of those members of the House of Commons who had carried up the Exclusion Bill to the bar of the Lords. The court was therefore bent on throwing him out by fair or foul means. The Lord Chief Jus- tice Jeffreys himself came down into Buckinghamshire, for the * It would be easy to till a volume with what "Whig historians and pamphlet- eers have written on this subject. I will cite only one witness, a churchman and a Tory. " Elections," says Evelyn, " were thought to be very indecently canied on in most places. God give a better issue of it than some expect ! " May 10, 1685. Again he says, " The truth is there were many of the new mem. bers whose elections and returns were universally condemned." May 22. t This fact I learned from a newsletter in the library of the Royal Institution, Van Citters mentions the strength of the Whig party in Bedfordshire. t Bramston's Memoirs. § Reflections on a Remonstrance and Protestation of all the good Protestants of this Kingdom, 1689 ; Dialogue between Two Friends, 1689. JAMES THE SECOND. 433 purpose of assisting a gentleman named Hacket, who stood on the high Tory interest. A stratagem was devised which, it was thought, could not fail of success. It was given out that the polling would take place at Ailesbury ; and Wharton, whose skill in all the arts of electioneering was unrivalled, made his arrangements on that supposition. At a moment's warning the Sheriff adjourned tiw poll to Newport Pagnell. Wharton and his friends hurried thither, and found that Hacket, who . was in the secret, had already secured every inn and lodging. The Whig freeholders were compelled to tie their horses to the hedges, and to sleep under the open sky in the meadows which surround the little town. It was with the greatest difficulty that refreshments could be procured at such short notice for so large a number of men and beasts, though Wharton, who was utterly regardless of money when his ambition and party spirit were roused, disbursed fifteen hundred pounds in one day, an immense outlay for those times. Injustice seems, however, to have animated the courage of the stouthearted yeo- men of Bucks, the sons of the constituents of John Hampden. Not only was Wharton at the head of the poll ; but he was able to 'spare his second votes to a man of moderate opinions, and to throw out the Chief Justice's candidate.* In Cheshire the contest lasted six days. The Whigs polled about seventeen hundred votes, the Tories about two thousand. The common people were vehement on the Whig side, raised the cry of " Down with the Bishops," insulted the clergy in the streets of Chester, knocked down one gentleman of the Tory party, broke the windows and beat the constables. The nulitia was called out to quell the riot, and was kept assembled, in order to protect the festivities of the conquerors. When the poll closed, a salute of five great guns from the castle proclaimed the triumph of the Church and the Crown to the surrounding country. The bells rang. The newly elected members went in state to the City Cross, accompanied by a band of music, and by a long train of knights and squires. The procession, as * Memoirs of the Life of Thomas Marquess of Wharton, 1715. 28 434 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. It marched, sang " Joy to Great Cfesar," a loyal ode, which had lately been written by Durfey, and which, though like all Dur- fey's writings, utterly contemptible, was, at that time, almost as popular as Lillibullero became a few years later.* Round the Cross the trainbands were drawn up in order : a bonfire was lisfhted : the Exclusion Bill was burned : and the health of King James was drunk with loud acclamations. The following day was Sunday. In the morning the militia lined the streets leading to the Cathedral. The two knights of the shire were escorted with great pomp to their choir by the magistracy of the city, heard the Dean preach a sermon, probably on the duty of passive obedience, and were afterwards feasted by the Mayor.f In Northumberland the triumph of Sir John Fenwick, a courtier whose name afterwards obtained a melancholy celeb- rity, was attended by circumstances which excited interest in London, and which were thought not unworthy of being mentioned in the despatches of foreign ministers. Newcastle was lighted up with great piles of coal. The steeples sent forth a joyous peal. A copy of the Exclusion Bill, and a black box, resembling that which, according to the popular fable, contained the contract between Charles the Second and Lucy Walters, were publicly committed to the flames, with loud acclamations, t The general result of the elections exceeded the most san- guine expectations of the court. James found with delight that it would be unnecessary for him to expend a farthing in buying votes. He said that, with the exception of about forty members, the House of Commons was just -such as he should hims~elf have named. § And this House of Commons it was in his power, as the law then stood, to keep to the end of his reign. Secure of parliamentary support, he might now indulge in * See the Guardian, No. 67 ; an exquisite specimen of Addison's peculiar planner. It would be difficult to find in the works of any other writer puch an in- stance of benevolence delicately flavoured ■nith contempt. t TheObservator, April 4, 1685. t Despatch of the Dutch Ambassadors, April XO-20 J685. § Burnet, i. 626. JAMES THE SECOND. 435 the luxury of reveuge. His nature was not placable ; and, while still a subject, he had suffered some injuries and indig- nities which might move even a placable nature to fierce and lasting resentment. One set of men in particular had, with a baseness and cruelty beyon-d all example and all description, attacked his honour and his life, the witnesses of the plot. He may well be excused for hating them ; since, even at this day, the mention of their names excites the disgust and horror of all sects and parties. Some of these wretches were already beyond the reach of human justice. Bedloe had died in his wickedness, without one sign of remorse or shame.* Dugdale had followed, driven mad, men said, by the Furies of an evil conscience, and with lou(i shrieks imploring those who stood round his bed to take away Lord Stafford.f Carstairs, too, was gone. His end had been all horror and despair ; and, with his last breath, he had told his attendants to throw him into a ditch like a dog, for that he was not fit to sleep in a Christian burial ground. J But Gates and Dangerfield were still witliin the reach of the stern prince whom they had wronged. James, a short time before his accession, had instituted a civil suit against Gates for defamatory words ; and a jury had given damages to the enormous amount of a hundred thousand pounds. § The de- fendant had been taken in execution, and was lying in prison as a debtor, without hope of release. Two bills of indictment against him for perjury had been found by the grand jury of Middlesex, a few weeks before the death of Charles. Soon after the close of the elections the trial came on. AmonjT the upper and middle classes Gates had few friends left. The most respectable Whigs were now convinced that, even if his narrative had some foundation in fact, he had erected on that foundation a vast superstructure of romance. » A faithful aoeoimt of the Sickness. Death, and Burial of Captain Bediow, 1680 ; Narrative of Lord Chief Justice Korth. t Smith's Intrigues of the Popish Plot, 16«5. t Burnet, i. 430. § See tiie proceedings in the Collection of State Trials. 436 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. A considerable number of low fanatics, howe-ver, still regarded him as a public benefactor. These people well knew that, if he were convicted, his sentence would be one of extreme severity, and were therefore indefatigable in their endeavours to manage an escape. Though he was as yet in confinement only for debt, he was put into irons by the authorities of the King's Bench prison ; and even so he was with difficulty kept in safe custody. The mastiff that guarded his door was poisoned ; and, on the very night preceding the trial, a ladder of ropes was introduced into the cell. On the day in which Titus was brought to the bar, West- minster Hall was crowded with spectators, among whom were many Roman Catholics, eager to see the misery and humilia- tion of their persecutor.* A few years earlier his short neck, his legs uneven, the vulgar said, as those of a badger, his forehead low as that of a baboon, his purple cheeks, and his monstrous length of chin, had been familiar to all who fre- quented the courts of law. He had then been the idol of the nation. Wherever he had appeared, men had uncovered their heads to him. The lives and estates of the magnates of the realm had been at his mercy. Times had now changed ; and many, who had formerly regarded him as the deliverer of his country, shuddered at the sight of those hideous features ou which villany seemed to be written by the hand of God.f It was proved, beyond all possibility of doubt, that this toan had by false testimony deliberately murdered several guiltless persons. He called in vain on the most eminent members of the Parliaments which had rewarded and extolled him to give evidence in his favour. Some of those whom he had summoned absented themselves. None of them said any- thing tending to his vindication. One of them, the Earl of Huntingdon, bitterly reproached him with having deceived the- Houses and drawn on them the guilt of shedding innocent blood. The Judges browbeat and reviled the prisoner with an * Evelyn's Diary, May 7, 1685. t There remain many pictures of Gates. The most striking descriptions of his person,are in North's Examen, 225, in Dryden's Absalom and Aehitophel, ind in a broadside entitled, A Hue and Cry after T. O. JAMES THE SECOND. , 437 intemperance which, even in the most atrocious cases, ill be- comes the judicial character. He betrayed, however, no sign of fear or of shame, and faced the storm of invective which burst upon him from bar, bench, and witness box, with the insolence of despair. He was convicted on both indictments. His of- fence, though, in a moral light, murder of the most aggravated kind, was, in the eye of 'he law, merely a misdemeanour. The tribunal, however, was nesii'ous to make his punishment more severe than that of felona or traitors, and not merely to put him to death, but to put him to death by frightful torments. He was sentenced to be stripped of his clerical habit, to be pilloried in Palace Yard, to be led round Westminster Hall with a.'i inscrip- tion declaring his infamy over his head, to be pilloried again in front of the Royal Exchange, to be whipped from Aldgate to Newgate, and, after an interval of two days, to be whipped from Newgate to Tyburn. If, against all probability, he should happen to survive this horrible infliction, he was to be kept close prisoner daring life. Five times every year he was to be brought forth from his dungeon and exposed on the pillory in different parts of the capital.* This rigorous sentence was rig- orously executed. On the day on which Oates was pilloried in Palace Yard he was mercilessly pelted and ran some risk of being pulled in pieces. f But iu the City his partisans mus- tered in great force, raised a riot, and upset the pillory. $ They were, however, unable to rescue their favourite. It was sup- posed that he would try to escape the horrible doom which awaited him by swallowing poison. All that he ate and drank was therefore carefully inspected. On the following morning he was brought forth to undergo his first flogging. At an early hour an innumerable multitude filled all the streets from Aid- gate to the Old Bailey. The hangman laid on the lash with such unusual severity as showed that he had received special in- structions. The blood ran down in rivulets. For a time the criminal showed a strange constancy : but at last his stubborn * The proceedings will be found at length in the Collection of State Trials. May 29, t Gazette de France j^^^. g 1685. t Despatch of the Dutch Ambassadors, May 19-29 1686. 438 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. fortitude gave way. His bellowings were frightful to hear. He swooned several times ; but the scourge still continued to descend. When he was unbound, it seemed that he had borne as much as the human frame can bear without dissolution. James was entreated to remit the second flogging. His answer was short and clear: "He shall go through with it, if he has breath in his body." An attempt was made to obtain the Queen's inter- cession ; but she indignantly refused to say a word in favour of such a wretch. After an interval ot only forty-eight hours, Gates was again brought out of his dungeon. He was unable to stand, and it was necessary to drag him to Tyburn on a sledge. He seemed quite insensible ; and the Tories reported that he had stupified himself with strong drink. A person who counted the stripes on the second day said that they were seven- teen hundred. The bad man escaped with life, but so narrowly that his ignorant and bigoted admirers thought his recovery mu-acu- lous, and appealed to it as a proof of his innocence. The doors of the piivon closed upon him. During many months he re- mained ironed in the darkest hole of Newgate. It was said that , in his cell he gave himself up to melancholy, and sate whole days uttering deep groans, his arms folded, and his hat pulled over his eyes. It was not m England alone that these events excited strong interest. Millions of Roman Catholics, who knew nothing of our institutions or of our factions, had heard that a persecution of singular barbarity had raged in our island against the professors of the true faith, that many pious men had suf- fered martyrdom, and that Titus Gates had been the chief mur- derer. There was, therefore, great joy in distant countries when it was known that the divine justice had overtaken him. Engrav- ings of him, looking out from the pillory, and writhing at the cart's tail, were circulated all over Europe; and epigrammatists, m many languages, made merry with the doctoral title which he. pretended to have received from the University of Salamanca, and remarked that, since his forehead could not be made to blush, it was but reasonable that his back should do so.* • Evelyn's Diary, May 22, 1685 ; Eacbard, iii. 741 ; Burnet, 1. 637; Obserrator, al*y 27. 1686 ; Oates's Kikuv, 89 j E'ikuv ^poTO^-oiyov, 169X j Commons' Journals of JAMES THE SECOND. 43& Horrible as were the sufferings of Oates, they did not equal his crimes. The old law of England, which had been suffered to become obsolete, treated the false witness, who had caused death by means of perjury, as a murderer.* This was wise and righteous ; for such a witness is, in truth, the worst of murderers. To the guilt of shedding innocent blood he has added the guilt of violating the most solemn engagement into which man can enter with his fellow men, and of making institutions, to which it is desirable that the public should look with respect and confidence, instruments of frightful wrong and objects of general distrust. Tlie pain produced by ordinary mui'der bears no proportion to the pain produced by murder of which the courts of justice are made the agents. The mere extinction of life is a very small part of what makes an execution horrible. The prolonged mental agony of the sufferer, the shame and misery of all connected with him, the stain abiding even to the third and fourth generation, are things far more dreadful than death itself. In general it may be safely affirmed that the father of a large family would rather be bereaved of all his children by accident or by disease than lose one of them by the liands of the hangman. Murder by false testimony is therefore the most aggravated species of murder ; and Oates had been guilty of many such murders. Nevertheless the punishment which was inflicted upon him cannot be justified. In sentencing him to be stripped of his ecclesiastical habit and imprisoned for life, the judges exceeded May, June, and July, 1689 ; Tom Brown's advice to Dr. Oates. Some interesting circumstances are mentioned in abroadside, printedfor A. Brooks, ChaiingCross, 1685. I have seen contemporary French and Italian pamphlets containing the history of the trial and execution. A print of Titus in the pillory was published at Milan, with the following curious inscription : " Questo e il naturale ritratto di Tito Otez, o vero Oatz, Inglese, posto in berliua, uno de' principali professor! della religion protestante, acerrimo persecutore de' Cattolici, e gran spergiuro." 1 have also seen a Dutch engraving of his punishment, with some Latin verses, of \yhich the following are a specimen : " At Doctor fictus non fictos pertnlit ictus, A tortorc dates haud molli in corpore gratos, Discerct ut vere ecelera ob commissa rubere." The anagram of his name, " Testis Ovat," may be found on many prints pub- lished in different countries, * Blackstone's Commentaries, Chapter of Hoaieide. 440 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. their legal power. They were undoubtedly competent to inflict whipping ; nor had the law assigned a limit to the number of stripes. But the spirit of the law clearly was that no misde- meanour should be punished more severely than the most atrocious felonies. The worst felon could only be hanged. The judges, as they believed, sentenced Gates to be scourged to , death. That the law was defective is not a sufficient excuse : for defective laws should be altered by the legislature, and not strained by the tribunals ; and least of all should the law be strained for the purpose of inflicting torture and destroying life. That Gates was a bad man is not a sufficient excuse ; for the guilty are almost always the first to suffer those hardships which are afterwards used as precedents against the innocent. Thus it was in the present case. Merciless flogging soon became an ordinary punishment for political misdemeanours of no very aggravated kind. Men were sentenced, for words spoken against the government, to pains so excruciating that they, with unfeigned earnestness, begged to be brought to trial on capital charges, and sent to the gallows. Happily the prog- ress of this great evil was speedily stopped by the Revolution, and by that article of the Bill of Rights which condemns all cruel and unusual punishments. The villany of Dangerfield had not, like that of Gates, de- stroyed many innocent victims ; for Dangerfield had not taken up the trade of a witness till the plot had been blown upon and till juries had become incredulous.* He was brought to trial, not for perjury, but for the less heinous offense of libel. He had, during the agitation caused ^by the Exclusion Bill, put forth a narrative containing some false and odious imputations on the late and on the present King. For this publication he was now, after the lapse of five years, suddenly taken up, * According to Roger North the judges decided that Dangerfield, having been previously convicted of perjury, was incompetent to be a witness of the plot- But this is one among many instances of Roger's inaccuracy. It appears, from the report of the trial of Lord Castlemaine in June 1680, that, after muoh alter- cation between counsel, and much consultation an^ong the judges of the different courts in Westminster Hall, Dangerfield was sworn and suffered to tell his story ; but the jury very properly gave no credit to his testimony. JAMES THE SECOND. 441 bro-aght before the Privy Council, committed, tried, convicted^ and sentenced to be whipped from Aldgate to Newgate and from Newgate to Tyburn. The wretched man behaved with great effrontery during the trial ; but, when he heard his doom., he went into agonies of despair, gave himself up for dead, and chose a text for his funeral sermon. His forebodings were just. He was not, indeed, scourged quite so severely as Oates had been ; but he had not Oates's iron strength of body and mind. After the execution Dangerfield was put into a hackney coach and was taken back to prison. As he passed the corner of Hatton Garden, a Tory gentleman of Gray's Inn, named Fran- cis, stopped the carriage, and cried out with brutal levity, " Well, friend, have you had "your heat this morning ? " The bleed- ing prisoner, maddened by this insult, answered with a curse. Francis instantly struck him in the face with a cane which in- jured the eye. Dangerfield was carried dying into Newgate. This dastardly outrage roused 'the indignation of the bystanders. They seized Francis, and were with difficulty restrained from tearing him to pieces. The appearance of Dangerfield's body, which had been frightfully lacerated by the whip, inclined many to believe that lil; death was chiefly, if not wholly, caused by the stripes which lie had received. The government and the Chief Justice thought it convenient to lay the whole blame on Francis, who, though he seems to have been at worst guilty only of awgravated manslaujihter, was tried and executed for murder. His dying speech is one of the most curious monuments of that age. The savage spirit which had brought him to the gallows remained with him to the last. Boasts of his loyalty and abuse of the Whigs were mingled with the parting ejaculations in which he commended his soul to the divine mercy. An idle rumour had been circulated that his wife was in love with Dangerfield, who was eminently handsome and renowned for gallantry. The fatal blow, it was said, had been prompted by jealousy. The dying husband, with an earnestness, half ridiculous half pathet- ic, vindicated the lady's character. She was, he said, a virtuous woman : she came of a loyal stock, and, if she had been inclined 442 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. to break her marriage vow, would at least have selected a Tory and a churchman for her paramour. * About the same time a culprit, who bore very little resem« blance to Gates or Dangerfield, appeared on the floor of the Court of King's Bench. No eminent chief of a party has ever passed through many years of civil and religious dissension with more innocence than Eichard Baxter. He belonged to the mildest and most temperate section of the Puritan body. He was a young man when the civil war broke out. He thought that the right was on the side of the Houses ; and he had nc scruple about acting as chaplain to a regiment in the parliamen- tary army : but his clear and somewhat sceptical understanding, and his strong sense of justice, preserved him from all excesses. He exerted himself to check the fanatical violence of the sol- diery. He condemned the proceedings of the High Court of Justice. In the days of the Commonwealth he had the boldness to express, on many occasions, and once even in Cromwell's presence, love and reverence for the ancient institutions of the country. While the royal family was in exile, Baxter's life was chiefly passed at Kidderminster in the assiduous discharge of parochial duties. He heartily concurred in the Eestoration, and was sincerely desirous to bring about an union between Episco- palians and Presbyterians. For, with a liberty rare in his time, he considered questions of ecclesiastical polity as of small account when compared with the great principles of Christianity, and had never, even when prelacy was most odious to theruhng powers, joined in the outcry against Bishops. The attempt to reconcile the contending factions failed. Baxter cast in his lot with his proscribed friends, refused the mitre of Hereford, quitted * Dangerfleld's trial was not reported ; but I have seen a concise account of it in a contemporary broadside. An abstract of the evidence against Francis, and his dying speech, will be fou nd in the Collection of State Trials. See Eaehard, iii. 741. Burnet's narrative contains more mistakes than lines. See also North's Examen, 2oG, the sketch of Dangerfleld's life in the Bloody Assizes, the Observator of July 29, 1685, and the poem entitled "Dangerfleld's Ghost to Jeffreys." In the very rare volume entitled " SucciTict Genealogies, by Robert Halstead,' ' Lord Pet«rbough says that Dangerfield, with whom he had had some intercourse, was " a young man who appeared under a decent figure, a serious behaviour, and with words that did not seem to proceed from a common understanding." JAMES THE SECOND, 443 the parsonage of Kidderminster, and gave himself up almost wholly to study. His theological writings, though too mod- erate to be pleasing to the bigots of any paitv, had an im- mense reputation. Zealous Churchmen called him a Round- head ; and many Nonconformists accused him of Erastianism and Arminianism. But the integrity of his heart, the puiity^of his life, the vigour of his faculties, and the extent of his attain- ments were acknowledged by the best and wisest men of every persuasion. His political opinions, in spite of the oppres- sion which he and his brethren had suffered, were moderate. He was friendly to that small party which was hated by both Whigs and Tories. He could not, he said, join in cursing the Trimmers, when he remembered who it was that had blessed the peacemakers.* In a Commentary on the New Testament he had com- plained, with some "bitterness, of the persecution which the Dissenters suffered. That men who, for not using the Prayer Book, had been driven from their homes, stripped of their property, and locked up in dungeons, should dai-e to utter a murmur, was then thought a high crime against the State and the Church. Roger Lestrange, the champion of the govern- ment and the oracle of the clergy, sounded the note ot war in the Observator. An info nation was filed. Baxter begged that he might be allowed s me time to prepare for his defence. It was on the day on whicn Oates was pilloried in Palace Yard that the illustrious chief of the Puritans, oppressed by age and infirmities, came to AYestminster Hall to make this request. Jeffreys burst into a storm of rage. " Not a minute," he cried, " to save his life. I can deal with saints as well as with sin- ners. There stands Oates on one side of the pillory ; and, if Baxter stood on the other, the two greatest rogues in the king- dom would stand together." When the trial came on at Guildhall, a crowd of ttiose who loved and honoured Baxter filled the court. At his side stood * Baxter's prt ee to SirMathew Hale's Judgment of the Nature of True Ba- li gion, l'684. 444 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Doctor "William Bates, one of the most eminent of the Noncon- formist divines. Two Whig barristers of great note, Pollexfen and Wallop, appeared for the defendant. Pollexfen had scarcely begun his address to the jury, when the Chief Justice broke forth : " Pollexfen, I know you well. I will set a mark on you. You are the patron of the faction. This is an old rogue, a schismatical knave a hypocritical villain. He hates the Liturgy. He would have nothing but longwinded cant without book ;" and then his Lordship turned up his eyes, clasped his hands, and began to sing through his nose, in imitation of what he supposed to be Baxter's style of praying " Lord, we ai-e thy people, thy peculiar people, thy dear people." Pollexfen gently remindetl the court that his late Majesty had thought Baxter deserving of a bishopric. " And what ailed the old blockhead then," cried Jeffreys, " that he did not take it ?" His fury now rose almost to madness. He called Baxter a dog, and swore that it would be no more than justice to whip such a villain through the whole City. Wallop interposed, but fared no better than his leader. *' You ai'e in all these dirty causes, Mr. Wallop," said the Judge. " Gentlemen of the long robe ought to be ashamed to assist such factious knaves." The advocate made another attempt to obtain a hearing, but to no purpose. " If you do not know your duty," said Jeffreys, " I will teach it you." Wallop sate down ; and Baxter himself attempted to put in a word. But the Chief Justice drowned all expostulation in a torrent of ribaldry and invective, mingled with scraps of Hudibras. " My Lord," said the old man, " I have been much blamed by Dissenters for speaking respectfully of Bishops." " Baxter for Bishops I" cried the Judge, " that's a merry conceit indeed. I know what you mean by Bishops, rascals like yourself, Kidderminster Bishops, factious snivelling Presbyterians !" Again Baxter essayed to speak, and again Jeffreys bellowed " Richard, Richard, dost thou think we will let thee poison the court? Richard, thou art an old knave. Thou hast written books enough to load a cart, and every book as full of sedition as an egg is full of meat. By the grace of God, I'll look after JAMES THE SECOND 445 thee. I see a great many of your brotherhood waiting to know what will befall their mighty Don. And there," he continued, fixing his savage eye on Bates, " there is a Doctor of the party at your elbow. But, by the grace of God Almighty, I will crush you all." Baxter held his peace. But one of the junior counsel for the defence made a last effort, and undertook to show that the words of which complaint was made would not bear the construc- tion put on them by the information. With this view he began to reac^ the context. In a moment he was roared down. " You sha'n't turn the court into a conventicle." The noise of weeping was heard from some of those who surrounded Baxter. " Snivelling calves ! " said the Judge. Witnesses to character were in attendance, and among them were several clergymen of the Established Church. But the Chief Justice would hear nothing. " Does your Lordship think," said Baxter, " that any jury will convict a man on such a trial as this ? " "I warrant you, Mr. Baxter," said Jeffreys : " don't trouble yourself about that." Jeffreys was right. The Sheriffs were the tools of the government. The jurymen, selected by the Sheriffs from among the fiercest zeal- ots of the Tory party, conferred for a moment, and returned a verdict of Guilty. " My Lord," said Baxter, as he left the court, " there was once a Chief Justice who would have treated me very differently." He alluded to his learned and virtuous friend Sir Matthew Hale. " There is not an honest man in England," answered Jeffreys, "but looks on thee as a knave." * The sentence was, for those times, a lenient one. What passed in conference among the judges cannot be certainly known. It was believed among the Nonconformists, and is highly probable, that the Chief Justice was overruled by his three brethren. He proposed, it is said, that Baxter should * See the Oliservator of February 25, 1685, the information in the Collection of State Trials, the account of what passed in court given by Calaniy, Life of Bax- ter, chap, xiv., and the very curious extracts from the Baxter MSS. in the Life, by Orme, published in 1830. ^46 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. be whipped through London at the cart's tail. The majority thought that an eminent divine, who, a quar'ter of a century before, had been offered a mitre, and who was now in his seventieth year, would be sufficiently punished for a few sharp words by fine and imprisonment.* The manner in which Baxter ^vas treated by a judge, wlio was a memlier of the cabinet and a favourite of the Sove- reign, indicated, in a manner not to be mistaken, the feeling with which the government at this time regarded the Pro- testant Nonconformists. But already that feeling had been indicated by still stronger and more terril)l8 signs. The Par- liament of Scotland had met. James liad purposely hastened the session of this body, and had postponed the session of the English Houses, in the hope that the example set at Edinburgh would produce a good effect at Westminster. For the legislature of his northern kingdom was as obsequious as those provincial Estates which Lewis the Fourteenth still suf- fered to play at some of their ancient functions in Britanny and Burgundy. None but an Episcopalian could sit in the Scottish Parliament, or could even vote for a member, and in Scotland an Episcopalian was always a Tory or a timeserver. From an assembly thus constituted, little opposition to the royal wishes was to be apprehended ; and even the assembly thus constitu ted could pass no law which had not been previously approved by a committee of courtiers. All that the government asked was readily granted. Tn a financial point of view, indeed, the liberality of the Scottish Es- tates was of little consequence. They gave, however, what their scanty means permitted. They annexed in perpetuity to the crown tlie duties which had been granted to the late King, and which in his time had been estimated at forty thousand pounds sterling a year. They also settled on .James for life an addi- tional annual income of two hundred and sixteen thousand pounds Scots, equivalent to eighteen thousand pounds sterling. The whole sum which they were able to bestow was about sixty * Baxter MS. cited by Orme, JAMES THE SECOND. 447 thousand a year, little more than what was poured into the English Exchequer every fortnight.* Having little money to give, the Estates supplied the defect by loyal professions and barbarous statutes. The King, in a letter which was read to them at the opening of their ses- sion, called on them in vehement language to provide new pe- nal laws against the refractory Presbyterians, and expressed his regret that business made it impossible for him to propose such laws in person from the throne. His commands were obeyed. A statute framed by his ministers was promptly passed, a stat- ute which stands forth even among the statutes of that unhappy country at that unhappy period, preeminent in atrocity. It was enacted, in few but emphatic words, that whoever should preach in a conventicle under a roof, or should attend, either as preacher or as hearer, a conventicle in the open air, should be punished with death and confiscation of property.! This law, passed at the King's instance by an assembly devoted to his will, deserves especial notice. For he has been frequent- ly represented by ignorant writers as a prince rash, indeed, and injudicious in his choice of means, but intent on one of the noblest ends which a ruler can pursue, the establishment of entire religious liberty. Nor can it be denied that some portions of his life, when detached from the rest and superficially con- sidered, seem to warrant this favourable view of his character. While a subject he had been, during many years, a persecuted man ; and persecution had produced its usual effect on him. His mind, dull and narrow as it was, had profited under that sharp discipline. While he was excluded from the Court, from the Admiralty, and from the Council, and was in danger of being also excluded from the throne, only because he could not help believing in tran substantiation and in the authority of the see of Rome, he made such rapid progress in the doctrines of toleration that he left Milton and Locke behind. What, he often said, could be more unjust, than to visit speculations with penalties which • Act Pari. Car. H. March 29, 1661; Jac. VII. April 28, 1685, and May 13, 1685. t Act Pari. Jac. VII. May 8, 1685 ; Observator, June 20, 1685 ; Lestrange evi- dently wished to see the precedent followed in England. 44S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. ought to be reserved for acts ? What more impolitic than to reject the services of good soldiers, seamen, lawyers, diplo- matists, financiers, because they hold unsound opinions about the number of the sacraments or the pluripresence of saints ? He learned by rote those commonplaces which all sects repeat so fluently when they are enduring oppression, and forget so easily when they are able to retaliate it. Indeed he rehearsed his lesson so well, that those who chanced to hear him on this subject gave him credit for much more sense and much readier elocution than he really possessed. His professions imposed on some charitable persons, and perhaps imposed on him- self. But his zeal for the rights of conscience ended with the predominance of the Whig party. When fortune changed, when he was no longer afraid that others would persecute him, when he had it in his power to persecute others, his real pro- pensities began to show themselves. He hated the Puritan sects with a manifold hatred, theological and political, hereditary and personal. He regarded them as the foes of Heaven, as the foes of all legitimate authority in Church and State, as his great- grandmother's foes and his grandfather's, his father's and his mother's, his brother's and his own. Pie, who had complain- ed so loudly of the laws against Papists, now declared him- self unable to conceive how men could have the impudence to propose the repeal of the laws against Puritans.* He, whose favourite theme had been the injustice of requiring civil func- tionaries to take religious tests, established jn Scotland, when he resided there as Viceroy, the most rigorous religious test that has ever been known in the empire. f He, who had expressed just indignation when the priests of his own faith were hanged and quartered, amused himself with hearing Covenanters shriek and seeing them writhe while their knees were beaten flat in the boots.l In this mood he became King-; and he immediately * His own words reported by himself. Life of James the Second, i. 666. Orig. Mem. t Act Pari. Car. IL August 3t. 1681. t Burnet, i. 583 ; 'Wodrow, III. v. 2. Unfortunately the Acta of the Scottish Privy Council during almost the whole administration of the Buke of York ax9 JAMES THE SECOND. 449 demanded and obtained from the obsequioas Estates of Scotland as the surest pledge of their loyalty, the most sanguinary law that has ever in our island been enacted against Protestant Nonconformists. With this law the whole spirit of his administration was in perfect harmony. The fiery persecution, which had raged when he ruled Scotland as vicegerent, waxed hotter than ever from the day on which he became sovereign.^ Those shires m which the Covenanters were most numerous were given up to the license of the army. With the army was mingled a militia, composed of the most violent and profligate of those who called themselves Episcopalians. Preeminent among the bands which oppressed and wasted these unhappy districts were the dra- goons commanded by John Graham of Claverhouse. The story ran that these wicked men used in their revels to play at the torments of hell, and to call each other by the names of devils and damned souls.* The chief of this Tophet, a soldier of distinguished courage and professional skill, but rapacious and profane, of violent temper and of obdurate heart, has left a name which, wherever the Scottish race is settled on the face of the globe, is mentioned with a peculiar energy of hatred. To recapitulate all the crimes, by which this man, and men like him, goaded the peasantry of the Western Lowlands into mad- ness, would be an endless task. A few instances must suffice ; and all those instances shall be taken from the his- tory of a single fortnight, that very fortnight in which the Scottish Parliament, at the urgent request of James, enacted a new law of unprecedented severity against Dissenters. ^ John Brown, a poor carrier of Lanarkshire, was, for his singular piety, commonly called the Christian carrier. Many years later, when Scotland enjoyed rest, prosperity, and reli- gious freedom, old men who remembered the evil days described wanting. (1848.) "fhis assertion has been met by a direct contradiction. But the fact ia exactly as I >javd stated it. There is in he A eta of the Scottish Privy Coun- cil a hiatus extendiiig from August 1678 to August 1682. The Duiie of York began to reside in Scotlancl in December 1679. Ho left Scotland, never to return iu May 1682. (1857. • Wodrow, III. U. «, 29 450 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. him as one versed in divine things, blameless in life, and so peaceable that the tyrants could find no offence in him except that he absented himself from the public worship of the Epis- • copalians. On the first of May he was cutting turf, when he was seized by Claverhouse's dragoons, rapidly examired, con- victed of nonconformity, and sentenced to death. It is said that, even among the soldiers, it was not easy to find an execu- tioner. For the wife of the poor man was present ; she led one little child by the hand : it was easy to see that she was about to give birth to another ; and even those wild and hardhearted men, who nicknamed one another Beelzebub and Apollyon, shrank from the great wickedness of butchering her husband before her face. The prisoner, meanwhile, raised above him- self by the near prospect of eternity, prayed loud and fervently as one inspired, till Claverhouse, in a fury, shot him dead. It was reported by credible witnesses that the widow cried out in her agony, " Well, sir, well ; the day of reckoning will come ; " and that the murderer replied, " To man I can answer for what I have done ; and as for God, I will take him into mine own hand." Yet it was rumoured that even on his seared conscience and adamantine heart the dying ejaculations of his victim made an impression which was never effaced.* On the fifth of May two artisans, Peter Gillies and John Bryce, wei-e tried in Ayrshire by a military tribunal consisting of fifteen soldiers. The indictmept is still extant. The prison- ers were charged, not with any act of rebellion, but with hold- ing the same pernicious doctrines which had impelled others to rebel, and with wanting only opportunity to act upon those aoctrines. The proceeding was summary. In a few hours the two culprits were convicted, hanged, and flung together into a hole under the gallows. t * "Wod> ow. III. ix. C. The editor of the Oxford edition of Burnet attempts to ex- cuse this act l)y alleging that Claverhouse was then employed to intercept all com- muiiicatiou between Argyleand Monmouth, and by supposing that John Brown may have been detected in conveying intelligence between the rebel camps. Un- fortunately for this hypothesis John Brown was shot on the first of May, when both Argyie and Monmouth were in Holland, and when there was no insurreo- tion in any part of our islaud, t Wodrow, III. ix. 6. JAMES THE SECOND. 451 The eleventh of May was made remarkable by more than one great crime. Some rigid Calvinists bad from the doctrine of reprobation drawn the consequence that to pray for any person who had been predestined to perdition was an act of mutiny against the eternal decrees of the Supreme Being. Three poor labouring men, deeply imbued with this unamiable divinity, were stopped by an officer in the neighbourhood of Glasgow. They were asked whether they would pray for King James the Seventh. They refused to do so except under the con- dition that he was one of the elect. A file of musketeers was drawn out. The prisoners knelt down ; they were blindfolded ; and within an hour after they had been arrested, their blood was lapped up by the dogs.* While this was done in Clydesdale, an act not less horrible was perpetrated in Eskdale. One of the proscribed Covenan- ters, overcome by sickness, had found shelter in the house of a respectable widow, and had died there. The corpse was dis- covered by the Laird of Wester hall, a petty tyrant who had, in the days of the Covenant, professed inordinate zeal for the Presbyterian Church, who had, since the Restoration, purchased the favour of the government by apostasy, and who felt towards the party which he had deserted the implacable hatred of an * Wodrow, III. ix. 6. It has been confidently asserted, by persons wholiave not taken the trouble to 1 ook at the authority to which I liave referred, that I have gross- ly calumniated these unfortunate men ; that I do not understand the Calvinistic theology ; and that it is impossible that members of the Church of Scotland can have refused to pray for any man on the ground that he viras not one of the elect. I can only refer to the narrative which Wodrow has inserted in his history, and which he justly calls plain and natural. That narrative is signed by two eyewitnesses, and Wodrow, before he published it, submitted it to a third eye- witness, who pronounced it strictly accurate. From that narrative I will ex- tract the only words which bear on the point in question : " When all the three were taken, the officers consulted among themselves, and, withdrawing to the west side of the town, questioned the prisoners, particularly if they would pray for King James VII. They answered, they would pray for all witliin the election of grace. Balfour said Do you question the King's election ? They answered, sometimes they questioned their own. Upon which he swore dreadfully, and said they should die presently, because they would not pray for Christ's vicegerent, and so without one word more, commanded Thomas Cook to go to his prayers, for he should die. In this narrative Wodrow saw nothing improbable ; and I shall not easily be convinced that any writer now living understands the feelings and opiuious of tJie Ck)veiianters better than Wodrow did. (1857.) 452 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. apostate. This man pulled down the house of the poor woman, carried away her furniture, and, leaving her and her younger children to wander in the fields, dragged her son Andrew, who was still a lad, before Claverhouse, who happened to be march- ing through that part of the country. Claverhouse was just then strangely lenient. Some thought that he had not been quite himself since tlie death of the Christian carrier, ten days before. But Westerhall was eager to signalise his loyalty, and extorted a sullen consent. The guns were loaded, and the youth was told to pull his bonnet over his face. He refused, and stood confronting his murderers with the Bible in his hand. " I can look you in the face," he said ; " I have done nothing of which I need be ashamed. But how will you look in that day when you shall be judged by what is written in this book ? " He fell dead, and was buried in the moor.* On the same day two women, Margaret Maclachlin and Mar- garet Wilson, the former an aged widow, the latter a maiden of eiofhteen, suffered death for their religion in Wijjtonshire. They were offered their lives if they would consent to abjure the cause of the insurgent Covenanters, and to attend tlie Epis- copal worship. They refused ; and they were s,entenced to be drowned. They were carried to a spot which the Sol way over- flows twice a day, and were fastened to stakes fixed in the sand between high and low water mark. The elder sufferer was placed near to the advancing flood, in the hope that her last agonies might terrify the younger into submission. The sight was dreadful. But the courage of the survivor was sustained by an enthusiasm as lofty as any that is recorded in martyrology. She saw the sea draw nearer and nearer, but gave no sign of alarm. She prayed and sang verses of psalms tiH the waves choked her voice. After she had tasted the bitterness of death, she was, by a cruel mercy unbound and restored to life. When she came to herself, pitying friends and neighbours implored her to yield. " Dear Margaret, only say, God save the King ! " The poor girl, true to her stern theology, gasped out, " May God save him, if it be God's will ! " Her friends crowded round » Wodrow, III. ix. 6 Cloud of Wituessea. JAMES TIIF, .SECOND. 453 the presiding officer. " She has said it ; indeed, sir, she has said it." " Will she take the abjuration ? " he demanded. " Never! " she exclaimed. "I am Christ's : let me go ! " And the waters closed over her for the last time.* Thus was Scotland governed by that prince whom ignoranf men have represented as a frtend of religious liberty, whose misfortune it was to be too wise and too sood for the awe in which he lived. Nay, even those laws which authorised him to govern thus were in his judgment reprehensibly lenient. While his officers were committing the murders which have just been related, he was urging the Scottish Parliament to pass a new Act compared with which all former Acts might be called merciful. In England his authority, though great, was circumscribed by ancient and noble laws which even the Tories would not patiently have seen him infringe. Here he could not hurry Dissenters before military tribunals, or enjoy at Council the luxury of seeing them swoon in the boots. Here he could not drown young girls for refusing to take the abjuration, or shoot poor countrymen for doubting whether he was one of the elect. Yet even in England he coiltinued to persecute the Puritans as far as his power extended, till events which will hereafter be related induced him to form the design of uniting Puritans and Papists in a coalition for the humiliation and spoliation of the established Church. One sect of Protestant Dissenters indeed he, even at this early period of his reign, regarded with some tenderness, the Society of Friends. His partiality for that singular fraternity cannot be attributed to religious sympathy ; for, of all who acknowledge the divine mission of Jesus, the Roman Catholic and the Quaker differ most widely. It may seem paradoxical to say that this very circumstance constituted a tie between the * Wodrow, III. ix. 6. The epitaph of Margaret Wilson, in the churchyard at Wigton, is printed in the Appendix to the Cloud of Witnesses ; " Murdered for owning Christ supreme Head of his Church, and no more crime, But her not owning Prelacy, And not nhjurin^ Presbytery, Within the sea, tied to a stake, She suffered for Christ Jesus' sake." 454 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Roman Catholic and the Quaker ; yet such was really the case. For they deviated in opposite directions so far from what the great body of the nation regarded as right, that even liberal men generally considered them both as lying beyond the pale of the largest toleration. Thus the two extreme sects, precisely because they were extreme s^cts, had a common interest dis- tinct from the interest of the intermediate sects. The Quakers were also guiltless of all offence against James and his House. They had not been in existence as a community till the war between his father and the Long Parliament was drawing to- wards a close. They had been cruelly persecuted by some of the revolutionary governments. They had, since the Restora- tion, in spite of much ill usage, submitted themselves meekly to the royal authority. For they had, though reasoning on prem- ises which the Anglican divines regarded as heterodox, arrived, like the Anglican divines, at the conclusion, that no excess of tyranny on the part of a prince can justify active resistance on the part of a subject. No libel on the government had ever been traced to a Quaker.* In no conspiracy against the govern- ment had a Quaker been implicated. The society had not joined in the clamour for the Exelusion Bill, and had solemnly condemned the Rye House plot as a hellish design and a work of the devil.f Indeed, the friends then took very little part in civil contentions ; for they were not, as now, congregated in large towns, but were generally engaged in agriculture, a pur- suit from which they have been gradually driven by the vexa- tions consequent on their strange scruple about paying tithe. They were, therefore, far removed from the scene of political strife. They also, even in domestic privacy, avoided on prin- ciple all political conversation. For such conversation was, in their opinion, unfavourable to their spirituality of mind, and tended to disturb the austere composure of their deportment. The yearly meetings of that age repeatedly admonished tha brethren not to hold discourse touching affairs of state. J Even *See the letter to King Charles H. prefixed to Barclays Apology, t Sewel'8 History of the Quakers, book x. J Miuutes of Yearly Meetings, 1689, 1600, JAMES THE SECOND. 455 within the memory of persons now living those grave elders who retained the habits of an earlier generation systematically discouraged such worldly talk.* It was natural that James should make a wide distinction between these harmless people and those fierce and reckless sects which considered resistance to tyranny as a Christian duty which had, in Germany, France, and Holland, made war on legitimate princes, and which had, during four generations, borne peculiar enmity to the House of Stuart. It happened, moreover, that it was possible to grant large relief to the Roman Catholic and to the Quaker without mitb gating the sufferings of the Puritan sects. A law was in forc« which imposed severe penalties on every person who refused to take the oath of supremacy when required to do so. This law did not affect Presbyterians, Independents, or Baptists ; for they were all ready to call God to witness that they renounced all spiritual connection with foreign prelates and potentates. But the Roman Catholic would not swear that the Pope had no jurisdiction in England, and the Quaker would not swear to anything. On the other hand, neither the Roman Catholic no> the Quaker was touched by the Five Mile Act, which, of all the laws in the Statute Book, was perhaps the most annoying to the Puritan Nonconformists. f The Quakers had a powerful and zealous advocate at court. Though, as a class, they mixed little with the world, and shunned politics as a pursuit dangerous to their spiritual in- terests, one of them, widely distinguished from the rest by station and fortune, lived in the highest circles, and had con- stant access to the royal ear. This was the celebrated William Penn. His father had held great naval commands, had been a * Clarkson on Quakerism ; Peculiar Customs, chapter v. t After this passage was written, I found in the British Museunv, a manuscript (Harl. MS. 7506) entitled, "An Account of the Seizures, Sequestrations, great Spoil and Havock made upon the Estates of the several Protestant Dissenters called Quakers, upon Prosecution of old Statutes made against Papist and Popish Recusants." The manuscript is marked as havin^belonged to James, and appears to have been' given by his confidential servant, Colonel Graham, to Lord Oxford- This circumstance appears to me to confirm the view which I have taken of the King's conduct towards the Quakers. 456 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Commissioner of the Admiralty, hatl sate in Parliament, had received the honour of knighthood, and had been encouraged to expect a peerage. The son had been liberally educated, and had been designed for the profession of arras, but had, while still young, injured his prospects and disgusted his friends by joining what was then generally considered as a gang of crazy heretics. He had been sent sometimes to the Tower, and sometimes to Newgate. He had been tried at the Old Bailey for preaching in defiance of the law. After a time, however, he had been reconciled to his family, and had succeeded in obtaining such powerful protection tliat, while all the gaols of England were filled with his brethren, he was permitted, during many years, to profess his opinions without molestation. Towards the close of the late reign he had obtained, in satisfac- tion of an old debt due to him from the crown, the grant of an immense region in North America. In this tract, then peopled only by Indian hunters, he had invited his persecuted friends to settle. His colony was still in its infancy when James mounted the throne. Between James and Penn there had long been a familiar ac- quaintance. The Quaker now became a courtier, and almost a favourite. He was every day summoned from the gallery into the closet, and sometimes had long audiences while peers were kept waiting in the antechambers. It was noised abroad that he had more real power to help and hurt than many nobles who filled high offices. He was soon surrounded by flatterers and suppliants. His house at Kensington was sometimes thronged, at his hour of rising, by more than two hundred suitors.* He paid dear, however, for this seeming prosperity. Even his own sect looked coldly on him, and requited his services with obloquy. He was loudly accused of being a Papist, * Penn's visits to Whitehall, and levees at Kensington", are described with great vivacity, though in very bad Latin, by Gerard Croese. " Sumebat," he says, "rex ssepe secretum. non horarium, vero horarum plnrium, in quo de vaviis rebus cum Penno serio sermonem conferebat, et interim differebat audire prjecip- uorum nobilium ordinom, qui h«c interim spatio in proeoetone, in proximo, regem conventum prsesto erant." Of the crowd of suitors at Penn's house,- Croese says. " Visi quandoque de hoc genere hominum non minus bis centum."— HistoriaQua- keriana, lib. ii. 1695. JAMES THE SECOND. 457 nay, a Jesuit. Some affirmed that he had been educated at St. Omers, and others that he had been ordained at Rome. These calumnies, indeed, could find credit only with the undiscerning multitude ; but with these calumnies were mingled accusations much better fovuided. m To speak the whole truth concerning Penn is a task which requires some courage ; for he is rather a mythical than a historical person. Rival nations and hostile sects have agreed in canonising him. England is pFoud of his name. A great commonwealth beyond the Atlantic regards him with a rever- ence similar to that which the Athenians felt for Theseus, and the Romans for Quirinus. The respectable society of which he was a member honours him as an apostle. By pious men of other persuasions he is generally regarded as a bright pattern of Christian virtue. Meanwhile admirers of a very different sort have sounded his praises. The French philosophers of the eighteenth century pardoned what they regarded as his super- stitious fancies in consideration of his contempt for priests, and of his cosmopolitan benevolence, impartially extended to all races and to all creeds. His name has thus become, throughout all civilised countries, a synonyme for probity and philanthropy. Nor is this high reputation altogether unmerited, Penn was without doubt a man of* eminent virtues. He had a strong sense of religious duty and a fervent desire to promote the hap- piness of mankirtd. On one or two points of high importance, he had notions more correct than were, in his day, common even among men of enlarged minds : and as the proprietor and legislator of a province which, being almost uninhabited when it came into his possession, afforded a clear field for moral ex- periments, he had the rare good fortune of being able to carry his theories into practice without any compromise, and yet'with- out any shock to existing institutions. He will always be men- tioned with honour as a founder of a colony, who did not, in his dealings with a savage people, abuse the strength derived from civilisation, and as a lawgiver who, in an age of persecution, made religious liberty the corner stone of a polity. But his writings and his life furnish abundant proofs that he was not a 458 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. man of strong sense. He had no skill in reading the character? of others. His confidence in persons less virtuous than himself led him into great errors and misfortunes. His enthusiasm for one great principle sometimes impelled him to violate other great principles which he ought to have held sacred. Nor was his rectitude altogether proof against the temptations to which it was exposed in that splendid and polite, but deeply corrupted society, with which he now mingled. The whole court was in a ferment with intrigues of gallantry and intrigues of ambition. The traffic in honours, places, and pardons was incessant. It was natural that a man who was daily seen at the palace, and who was known to have free access to majesty, should be fre- quently importuned to use his influence for purposes which a rigid morality must condemn. The integrity of Penn had stood firm against obloquy and persecution. But now, attacked by royal smiles, by female blandishments, by the insinuating elo- quence and delicate flattery of veteran diplomatists and courtiers, his resolution began to give way. Titles and jihrases against which he had often borne his testimony dropped occasionally from his lips and his pen. It would be well if he had been guilty of nothing worse than such compliances with the fashions of the world. Unhappily it cannot be concealed that he bore a chief part in some transactions condemned, not merely by the rigid code of the society to which he belonged, but by the gen- eral sense of all honest- men. He afterwards solemnly protest- ed that his hands were pure from illicit gain, and that he had never received any gratuity from those whom he had obliged, though he might easily, while his influence at court lasted, have made a hundred and twenty thousand pounds.* To this asser- tion full credit is due. But bribes may be offered to vanity as well £fs to cupidity ; and it is impossible to deny that Penn was cajoled into bearing a part in some unjustifiable transactions of which others enjoyed the profits. The first use which he made of his credit was highly com- mendable. He strongly represented the sufferings of his * " Twenty thousand into my pocket ; and a hundred thousand into my province." — Penn's Letter to Popple." JAMES THE SECOND, 459 brethren to the new King, who saw with pleasure that it was possible to grant indulgence to these quiet sectaries and to the Roman Catholics, without showing similar favour to other classes which were then under persecution. A list was framed of prisoners against whom proceedings had been instituted for not taking the oaths, or for not going to church, and of whose loyalty certificates had been produced to the government. These persons were discharged, and orders were given that no similar proceeding should be instituted till the royal pleasure should be further signified. In this way about fifteen hundred Quakers, and a still greater number of Roman Catholics, regained their liberty.* And now the time had arrived when the English Parliament was to meet. The members of the House of Commons who had repaired to the capital were so numerous that there was much doubt whether their chamber, as it was then fitted up, would afford sufficient accommodation for them. They em- ployed the days which immediately preceded the opening of the session in talking over public affairs with each other and with the agents of the government. A great meeting of the loyal party was held at the Fountain Tavern in the Strand; and Roger Lestrange, who had recently been knighted by the King, and returned to Parliament by the city of Winchester, took a leading part in their consultations. f It soon appeared that a large portion of the Commons had views which did not altogether airree with those of the Court. The Tory country gentlemen were, with scarcely one exception, desirous to maintain the Test Act and the Habeas Corpus Act ; and some among them talked of voting the revenue only for a term of years. But they were perfectly ready to enact severe laws against the Whigs, and would gladly have seen all the sup- * These orders, signed by Sunderland, will be found in Sewel's History. They bear date April 18,1685. They are written in a style singularly obscure and intri- cate ; but I think that I have exhibited the meaning correctly. I have not been able to find any proof that any person, not a Roman Catholic or a Quaker, re- gained his freedom under these orders. See Neal's History of the Puritans, vol. ii. chap. ii. ; Gerard Croese, lib. ii. Croese estimates the number of Quakers liber- ated at fourteen hundred and sixty. May 28, + Barillon, j-^^^ 1685. Observatof , May 27, 1685 ; Sir J. Reresby's Memoirs. 460 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. I>orters of the Exclusion Bill made incapable of holding office. The King, on the other hand, desired to obtain from the Par- liament a revenue for life, the admission of Roman Catholics to office, and the repeal of the Habeas Corpus Act. On these three objects his heart was set ; and he was by no means dis- posed to accept as a substitute for them a penal law against Exclusionists. Such a law, indeed, would have been positively unpleasing to him ; for one class of Exclusionists stood liigh in his favourj that class of which Sunderland was the representa- tive, that class which had joined the Whigs in the days of the plot, merely because the Whigs were predominant, and which had changed with the change of fortune. James justly regarded these renesrades as- the most serviceable tools that he could employ. It was not from the stouthearted Cavaliers, who had been true to him in his adversity, that he could expect abject and unscrupulous obedience in his prosperity. The men who, impelled, not by zeal for liberty or for religion, but merely by selfish cupidity and selfish fear, had assisted to oppress him when he was weak, were the very men who, impelled by the same cupidity and the same fear, would assist him to oppress his people now that he was strong.* Though vindictive, he was not indiscriminately vindictive. Not a single instance can be mentioned in which he showed a generous compassion to those who had opposed him honestly and on public grounds. But he frequently spared and promoted those whom some vile motive had induced to injure him. For tliat meanness which marked them out as fit implements of tyranny was so precious in his estimation that he regarded it with some indulgence even when it was exhibited at his own expense. The King's wishes were communicated through several channels to the Tory members of the Lower House. The ma- jority was easily persuaded to forego all thoughts of a penal law against the Exclusionists, and to consent that His Majesty should have the revenue for life. But about the Test Act and * Lewis wrote to Barilloii about this class of Exclusionists as follows : " L'iu- terSt qu'ils auront k effacer cette t&.che par des services considerables les portera, selon toutes les apparences, k le servir plus utilement que ne pourraient faire ceux qui ont toujours ete les plus attaches i'sa personne." May 15-26 1685. JAMES THE SECOND. 461 the Habeas Corpus Act the emissaries of the Court could ob- tain no satisfactory assurances.* Ou the nineteenth of May the session was opened. The oenches of the Commons presented a singular spectacle. That great party, which, in the last three Parliaments, had been pre- dominant, had now dwindled to a pitiable minority, and was indeed little more than a fifteenth part of the House. Of the five hundred and thirteen knights and burgesses only a hun- dred and thirty-five had ever sate in that place before. It is evident that a body of men so raw and inexperienced must have been, in some important qualities, far below the average of our representative assemblies. f The management of the House was confided by James to two peei's of the kingdom of Scotland. Ona of them, Charles Middleton, Earl of Middleton, after holding high office at P^din- burgh, had, shortly before the death of the late King, been sworn of the English Privy Council, and appointed one of the Secretaries of State. With him was joined Richard Graham, Viscount Preston, who had long held the post of Envoy at Versailles. The first business of the Commons was to elect a Speaker. Who should be the man, was a question which had been much debated in the cabinet. Guildford had recommended Sir Thomas Meres, who, like himself, ranked among the Trimmers. Jeffreys, who missed no opportunity of crossing the Lord Keeper, had pressed the claims of Sir John Trevor. Trevor had been bred half a pettifogger and half a gambler, had brought to political life sentiments and principles worthy of both his callings, had become a parasite of the Chief Justice, and could, on occasion, imitate, not unsuccessfully, the vituperative style of his patron. The minion of Jeffreys was, as might have been expected, preferred by James, was proposed by Middleton, and was chosen without opposition. $ Thus far all went smoothly. But an adversary of no common * Barillon, May 4-14, 1685; Sir John Reresby's Memoirs t Buniet, i. 626 ; Evelyn's Diary, May, 22, 1685. t Roger North's Life of Guildford, 218 ; Bramston's Memoirs. • HISTORY OF ENGLAND. prowess was watcliing his time. This was Edward Seymour of Ben-y Pomeroy Custle, member for the city of Exeter, Sey- mour's birth put him on a level with the noblest subjects in Europe. He was the right heir male of the body of that. Duke of Somerset who had been brother iu law of King Henry the Eighth, and Protector of the realm of England. In the limitation of the dukedom of Somerset, the elder son of the Protector had been postponed to the younger son. From the younger son the Dukes of Somerset were descended. From the elder son was descended the family whicli dwelt at Berry Pomeroy. Seymour's fortune was large, and his influence in the West of England extensive. Nor was the importance derived from descent and wealth the only importance which belonged to him. He was one of the most skilful debaters and men of business in the kingdom. He had sate many years in the House of Commons, had studied all its rules and usages, and thorough- ly understood its peculiar temper. He had been elected speaker in the late reign under circumstances which made thett distinc- tion peculiarly honourable. During several generations none but lawyers had been called to the chair ; and he was the first country gentleman whose abilities and acquirements had enabled him to break that long prescription. He had subsequently held high political office, and had sate in the Cabinet. But his haughty and unaccommodating temper had given so much dis- gust that he had been forced to retire. He was a Tory and a Churchman : he had strenuously opposed the Exclusion Bill : he had been persecuted by the Whigs in the day of their pros- perity ; and he could therefore safely venture to hold language for which any person suspected of republicanism would have been sent to the Tower, He had long been at the head of a strong parliamentary connection, which was called the Western Alliance, and which included many gentlemen of Devonshire, Somersetshire, and Cornwall.* In every House of Commons, a member who unites eloquence, knowledge, and habits of business, to opulence and illustrious descent, must be highly considered. But in a House of Com- North's Life of Guildford, 228 ; News from Westminster. JAMES THE SECOND. 463 mons from which many of the most eminent orators and par- liamentary tacticians of the age were excluded, and which was crowded with people who had never heard a debate, the influ- ence of such a man was peculiarly formidable. Weight of moral character was indeed wanting to Edward Seymour. He was licentious, profane, corrupt, too proud to behave with com- mon politeness, yet not too proud to pocket illicit gain. But he was so useful an ally, and so mischievous an enemy, that he was frequently courted even by those who most detested him.* He was now in bad humour with the government. His in- terest had been weakened in some places by the remodelling ot the western boroughs : his pride had been wounded by the ele- vation of Trevor to the chair ; and he took an early opportunity of revenging himself. On the twenty-second of May the Commons were summoned to the bar of the Lords ; and the King, seated on his throne, made a speech to both Houses. He declared himself resolved to maintain the established government in Church and State. But he weakened the effect of this declaration by addressing an extraordinary admonition to the Commons. He was apprehen- sive, he said, that they might be inclined to dole out money to him from time to time, in the hope that they should thus force him to call them frequently together. But he must warn them that he was not to be so dealt with, and that, if they wished him to meet them often they must use him well. As it was evident that without money the government could not be carried on, these expressions plainly implied that, if they did not give him as much money as he wished, he would take it. Strange to say, this harangue was received with loud cheers by the Tory gentlemen at the bar. Such acclamations were then usual. It has now been, during many years the grave and decorous usage of Parliaments to hear, in respectful silence, all expressions, acceptable or unacceptable, which are uttered from the thf one.f It was then the custom that, after the King had concisely * Burnet, i. 382 ; Letter from Lord Conway to Sir George Kawdon, Dec. 28, 167T* in the Rawdon Papers, t London Gazette, May 25, 1685 ; Evelyn's Diary, May 22, 1685. 464 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. explained his reasons for calling Parliament together, the mfn» ister who held the Great Seal should, at more length, explain to the Houses the state of i^ublic affairs. Guildford, in imitation of his predecessors, Clarendon, Bridgeman, Shafteslmry, and Nottingham, had prepared an elaborate oration, but found, to his great mortification, that his services were not wanted.* As soon as the Commons had returned to their own chamber, it was proposed that they should resolve themselves into a Committee, for the purpose of settling a revenue on the King. Then Seymour stood up. How he stood, looking like what lie was, the chief of a dissolute and high spirited gentry, with the artificial ringlets clustering in fashionable profusion round kis shoulders, and a mingled expression of voluptuousness and disdmu in his eye and on his lip, the likenesses of him which still remain enable us to imagine. It was not, the haughty Cavalier said, his wish that the Parliament should withhold from the crown the means of carrying on the government. But was there indeed a Parliament ? Were there not on the benches many men who had, as all the world knew, no right to sit there, many men whose elections were tainted by corruption,many men forced by intimida- tion on reluctant voters, and many men returned by corporations which had no legal existence? Had not constituent bodies been remodelled, in defiance of royal charters and of immemorial prescription? Had not returning oflUcers been everywhere the unscrupulous agents of the Court? Seeing that the very principle of representation had been thus systenratically at« tacked, he knew not how to call the throng of gentlemen which he saw around him by tfie honourable name of a House of Commons. Yet never was there a time when it more concerned the public weal that the character of Parliament should stand high. Great dangers impended over the ecclesiastical and civil constitu- tion of the realm. It was matter of vulgar notoriety, it was matter which required no proof, that the Test Act, the rampart of religion, and tlie Habeas Corpus Act, the rampart of li^Verty, were marked out for destruction. " Before we proceed t«. leg* islute on questions so momentous, let us at least asc&rtAin • North's Life o£ GuUdford. 25& JAMES THE SECOND. 465 whether we really are a legislature. Let our first proceeding be to enquire into the manner in which the elections have been conducted. And let us look to it that the enquirj^ be impartial. For, if the nation shall find that no redress is to be obtained by peaceful methods, we may perhaps er^ long suffer the justice which we refuse to do." He concluded by moving that, before any supply was granted, the House would take into consideration petitions against returns, and that no member whose right to sit was disputed should be allowed to vote. Not a cheer was heard. Not a member ventured to second the motion. Indeed, Seymour had said much that no other man could have said with impunity. The proposition fell to the ground and was not even entered on the journals. But a mighty effect had been produced. Barillon informed his master that many who had not dared to applaud tliat remarkable speech had cordially approved of it, that it was the universal subject of conversation throughout London, and that the impression made on the public mind seemed likely to be durable.* The Commons went into committee without delay, an^ voted to the King, for life, the whole revenue enjoyed by his brother.f The zealous churchmen who formed the majority of the House seem to have been of opinion that the promptitude with which they had met the wish of James, touching the revenue, entitled them to expect some concession on his part. They said that much had been done to gratify him, and that they must now do something to gratify the nation. The House therefore, resolved itself into a Grand Committee of Religion, in order to consider the best means of providrng for the security of the ecclesiastical establishment. In that Committee two resolutions were unanimously adopted. The first expressed fervent attachment to the Church of England. The second called on the King to put in execution the penalslaws against all persons who were not members of that Church. $ May 23 May 25 • Burnet, 1, 639 ; Evelyn's Diary, May 22, 1G85 ; BarUlon, j^^^ ^ and j^j^^ 1685. The silence of the journals perplexed Mr. Fox : but it is explained by the circumstance that Seymour's motion was not seconded. t Journals, May 22. Stat. Jac. IT. i. 1. t Jonraaia, May ?6, 27. Sir J. Reresby's Memoirs 466 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. The Whigs would doubtless have wished to see the Protestant dissenters tolerated, and the Roman Catholics alone persecuted. But the Whigs were a small and a disheartened minority. They therefore kept themselves as much as possible out of sight, dropped thek- party name, abstained from obtruding their peculiar opinions on a hostile audience, and steadily supported every proposition tending to disturb the harmony which as yet subsist- ed between the Parliament and the Court. When the proceedings of the Committee of Eeligion were known at "Wliitehall, the King's anger was great. Nor can we justly blame hira for resenting the conduct of the Tories. If they were disposed to require the rigorous execution of the penal code, they clearly ought to have supported the Exclusion Bill. For to place a Papist on the throne, and then to insist on his persecuting to the death the teachers of that faith in which alone, on his princij^les, salvation could be found, was monstrous. In mitigating by a lenient administration the severity of the bloody laws of Elizabeth, the King violated no constitutional principle. He only exerted a power which lias always belono-ed to the crown. Nay, he only did what was afterwards done by a succession of sovereigns zealous for Protestantism, by William, by Anne, and by the princes of the House of Brunswick. Had he suffered Roman Catholic priests, whose lives he could save without infringing any law, to be hanged, drawn, and quartered for discharging what he considered as their first duty, he would have drawn on himself the hatred and contempt even of those to whose prejudices he had made so shameful a concession ; and, had he contented himself with granting to the members of his own Church a practical toleration by a large exercise of his un- questioned prerogative of mercy, posterity would have unani- mously applauded him. The Commons probably felt on reflection that they had acted absurdly. They were also disturbed by learning that the King, to whom they looked up with superstitious reverence, was greatly provoked. They made haste, therefore, to atone for their of- fence. In the House, they unanimously reversed the decision whicbf in the Cormuittee, they had unanimously adopted, and JAMES THE SECOND. 467 passed a resolution importing that they relied with entire confi- dence on His Majesty's gracious promise to protect that religion which was dearer to them than life itself.* Three days later the King informed the House that his brother had left some debts, and that the stores of the navy and ordnance were nearly exhausted. It was proniptly resolved that new taxes should be imposed. The person on whom devolved the task of devising ways and means was Sir Dudley North, younger brother of the Lord Keeper. Dudley North was one of the ablest men of his time. He had early in life been sent to the Levant, and had there been long engaged in mercantile pursuits. Most men would, in such a situation, have allowed their faculties to rust. For at Smyrna and Constantinople there were few books and few intelligent companions. But the young factor had one of those vigorous understandings which are independent of external aids. In his solitude he meditated deeply on the philosophy of trade, and thought out by degrees a complete and admirable theory, substantially the same with that which, a century later, was expounded by Adam Smith. After an exile of many years, Dudley North returned to England with a large fortune, and commenced business as a Turkey merchant in the City of London. His profound knowledge, both specu- lative and practical, of commercial matters, and the perspicuity and liveliness with which he explained his views, speedily in- troduced him to the notice of statesmen. The government found in him at once an enlightened adviser and an unscrupulous slave. For with his rare mental endowments were joined lax principles and an unfeeling heart. When the Tory reaction was in full progress, he had consented to be made Sheriff for the express purpose of assisting the vengeance of the court. His juries had never failed to find verdicts of Guilty ; and, on a day of judicial butchery, carts, loaded with the legs nd arms of quartered Whigs, were, to the great discomposure of his lady, driven to his fine house in Basinghall Street for orders. His services had been rewarded with the honour of knighthood, with * Commons' Journals, May 27, 1685. 468 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. an Alderman's gown, and with the office of Commissioner of the Customs. He had been brought into Parliament for Ban- bury, and though a new member, was the person on whom the Lord Treasurer chiefly relied for the conduct of financial busi- ness in the Lower House.* Tbouffh the Commons were unanimous in their resolution to grant a further supply to the crown, they were by no means agreed as to the sources from which that supply should be drawn. It wa« speedily determined that part of the sum which was required should be raised by laying an additional impost, for a term oi eight years, on wine and vinegar : but something more than this fvas needed. Several absurd schemes were suggested. Many country gentlemen were disposed to put a heavy tax on all new buildings in the capital. Such a tax, it was hoped, would check the growth of a city which had long been regarded with jealousy and aversion by the rural aristocracy. Dudley North's plan was that additional duties should be imposed, for a term of eight years, on sugar and tobacco. A great clamour was raised. Colonial merchants, grocers, sugar bakers and tobacconists, pe- titioned the House and besieged the public offices. The people of Bristol, who were deeply interested in the trade with Virginia and Jamaica, sent up a deputation which was heard at the bar of the Commons. Rochester was for a moment staggered ; but North's ready wit and perfect knowledge of trade prevailed, both in the Treasury and in the Parliament, against all opposi- tion. The old members were amazed at seeing a man who had not been a fortnight in the House, and whose life had been chiefly passed in foreign countries, assume with confidence, and discharge with ability, all the functions of a Chancellor of the Exchequer.f His plan was adopted ; and thus the Crown was in possession of a clear income of about nineteen hundred thousand pounds, derived from England alone. Such an income was then more than sufficient for the support of the government in time of peace. $ * Roger North's Life of Sir Dudley North ; Life of Lord Guilford, 166 ; Mr. M'Cullough's Literature of Political Economj'. t Life of Dudley North, 1T6 ; LMisdale's Memoirs ; Van Citters, June 12-22, 1686. t Commons' Journals, Mar<^ 1, 1689, JAMES THE SECOND. 469 The Lords had, in the meantime, discussed several important questions. Tiie Tory party had always been strong among the peers. It included the whole bench of Bishops, and had been reinforced during the four years which had elapsed since the last dissolution, by several fresh creations. Of the new nobles, the most- conspicuous were the Lord Treasurer Rochester, the Lord Keeper Guildfoi'd, the Lord Chief Justice Jeffreys, the Loi-d Godolphin, and the Lord Churcliill, who, after his return from Versailles, had been made a Baron of England. The peers early took into consideration the case of four members of their body who had been impeached in the late reign, but had never been brought to trial, and had, after a long confinement, been admitted to bail by the Court of King's Bench. Three of the noblemen who were thus under recog- nisances were Roman Catholics. The fourth was ' a Protestant of great note and influence, the Earl of Danby. Since he had fallen from power and had been accused of treason by the Commons, four Parliaments had been dissolved ; but he had been neither acquitted nor condemned. In 1679 the Lords had considered, with reference to his situation, the question whether an impeachment was or was not terminated by a dissolution. They had resolved, after long debate and full examination of >recedents, that the impeachment was still pending. That resolution they now rescinded. A few Whig nobles protested against this step, but to little purpose. The Commons silently acquiesced in the decision of the Upper House. ^Danby again took his seat among his peers, and became an active and powerful member of the Tory party.* The constitutional question on which the Lords thus, in the short space of six years, pronounced two diametricalljl opposite decisions, slept during more than a century, and wal at length revived by the dissolution which took place durmg the lon<^ trial of Warren Hastings. It was then necessary to determine whether the rule laid down in 1679, or the opposite rule laid down in 1685, was to be accounted the law * Lords' Journals, March 18, 19, 1679. May 22, 1685- 470 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, of the land. The point was long debated in both houses j and the best legal and parliamentary abilities which an age preeminently fertile both in legal and in parliamentary ability could supply were employed in the discussion. The lawyers were not unequally divided. Thurlow, Kenyon, Scott, and Erskine maintained that the dissolution had put an end to the impeachment. The contrary doctrine was held by Mansfield,, Camden, Loughborough, and Grant. But among those states- men who grounded their arguments, not on precedents andi technical analogies, but on