THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND
FROM THE ACCESSION OF JAMES II,

VOLUME 1 (of 5)

by Thomas Babington Macaulay.

Philadelphia
Porter & Coates

VOL. I.

Contents

DETAILED CONTENTS

CHAPTER I.

CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER IV.

CHAPTER V.

HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

CHAPTER I.

I PURPOSE to write the history of England from the accession of King James
the Second down to a time which is within the memory of men still living.
I shall recount the errors which, in a few months, alienated a loyal
gentry and priesthood from the House of Stuart. I shall trace the course
of that revolution which terminated the long struggle between our
sovereigns and their parliaments, and bound up together the rights of the
people and the title of the reigning dynasty. I shall relate how the new
settlement was, during many troubled years, successfully defended against
foreign and domestic enemies; how, under that settlement, the authority of
law and the security of property were found to be compatible with a
liberty of discussion and of individual action never before known; how,
from the auspicious union of order and freedom, sprang a prosperity of
which the annals of human affairs had furnished no example; how our
country, from a state of ignominious vassalage, rapidly rose to the place
of umpire among European powers; how her opulence and her martial glory
grew together; how, by wise and resolute good faith, was gradually
established a public credit fruitful of marvels which to the statesmen of
any former age would have seemed incredible; how a gigantic commerce gave
birth to a maritime power, compared with which every other maritime power,
ancient or modern, sinks into insignificance; how Scotland, after ages of
enmity, was at length united to England, not merely by legal bonds, but by
indissoluble ties of interest and affection; how, in America, the British
colonies rapidly became far mightier and wealthier than the realms which
Cortes and Pizarro had added to the dominions of Charles the Fifth; how in
Asia, British adventurers founded an empire not less splendid and more
durable than that of Alexander.

Nor will it be less my duty faithfully to record disasters mingled with
triumphs, and great national crimes and follies far more humiliating than
any disaster. It will be seen that even what we justly account our chief
blessings were not without alloy. It will be seen that the system which
effectually secured our liberties against the encroachments of kingly
power gave birth to a new class of abuses from which absolute monarchies
are exempt. It will be seen that, in consequence partly of unwise
interference, and partly of unwise neglect, the increase of wealth and the
extension of trade produced, together with immense good, some evils from
which poor and rude societies are free. It will be seen how, in two
important dependencies of the crown, wrong was followed by just
retribution; how imprudence and obstinacy broke the ties which bound the
North American colonies to the parent state; how Ireland, cursed by the
domination of race over race, and of religion over religion, remained
indeed a member of the empire, but a withered and distorted member, adding
no strength to the body politic, and reproachfully pointed at by all who
feared or envied the greatness of England.

Yet, unless I greatly deceive myself, the general effect of this chequered
narrative will be to excite thankfulness in all religious minds, and hope
in the breasts of all patriots. For the history of our country during the
last hundred and sixty years is eminently the history of physical, of
moral, and of intellectual improvement. Those who compare the age on which
their lot has fallen with a golden age which exists only in their
imagination may talk of degeneracy and decay: but no man who is correctly
informed as to the past will be disposed to take a morose or desponding
view of the present.

I should very imperfectly execute the task which I have undertaken if I
were merely to treat of battles and sieges, of the rise and fall of
administrations, of intrigues in the palace, and of debates in the
parliament. It will be my endeavour to relate the history of the people as
well as the history of the government, to trace the progress of useful and
ornamental arts, to describe the rise of religious sects and the changes
of literary taste, to portray the manners of successive generations and
not to pass by with neglect even the revolutions which have taken place in
dress, furniture, repasts, and public amusements. I shall cheerfully bear
the reproach of having descended below the dignity of history, if I can
succeed in placing before the English of the nineteenth century a true
picture of the life of their ancestors.

The events which I propose to relate form only a single act of a great and
eventful drama extending through ages, and must be very imperfectly
understood unless the plot of the preceding acts be well known. I shall
therefore introduce my narrative by a slight sketch of the history of our
country from the earliest times. I shall pass very rapidly over many
centuries: but I shall dwell at some length on the vicissitudes of that
contest which the administration of King James the Second brought to a
decisive crisis. 1

Nothing in the early existence of Britain indicated the greatness which
she was destined to attain. Her inhabitants when first they became known
to the Tyrian mariners, were little superior to the natives of the
Sandwich Islands. She was subjugated by the Roman arms; but she received
only a faint tincture of Roman arts and letters. Of the western provinces
which obeyed the Caesars, she was the last that was conquered, and the
first that was flung away. No magnificent remains of Latin porches and
aqueducts are to be found in Britain. No writer of British birth is
reckoned among the masters of Latin poetry and eloquence. It is not
probable that the islanders were at any time generally familiar with the
tongue of their Italian rulers. From the Atlantic to the vicinity of the
Rhine the Latin has, during many centuries, 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 continental provinces
of the Roman empire, Alaric, Theodoric, Clovis, Alboin, were zealous
Christians. The followers of Ida 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, Arles, 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 kingdoms 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 shores were, to the polished race which
dwelt by the Bosphorus, objects of a mysterious horror, such as that with
which the Ionians of the age of Homer had regarded the Straits of Scylla
and the city of the Laestrygonian cannibals. There was one province of our
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 the spirits of the departed were ferried over from
the land of the Franks at midnight. A strange race of fishermen performed
the ghastly office. The speech of the dead was distinctly heard by the
boatmen, their weight made the keel sink deep in the water; but their
forms were invisible to mortal eye. Such were the marvels which an able
historian, the contemporary of Belisarius, of Simplicius, and of
Tribonian, 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. Roman 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
purify 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, among her chief merits. That the sacerdotal order should
encroach on the functions of the civil magistrate would, in our time, be a
great evil. But that which in an age of good government is an evil may, in
an ago of grossly bad government, be a blessing. It is better that mankind
should be governed by wise laws well administered, and by an enlightened
public 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 ascendancy. 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
corporeal strength. We read in our Saxon chronicles of tyrants, who, when
at the height of greatness, were smitten with remorse, who abhorred the
pleasures and dignities which they had purchased by guilt, who abdicated
their crowns, and who sought to atone for their offences by 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-minded 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
system which, however deformed by superstition, 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 meanest bondman, a responsible
being, might have seemed to deserve a more respectful mention from
philosophers and philanthropists.

The same observations will apply to the 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 should never
see anything but those squalid cabins and uncleared woods amidst which he
was born. In times when life and when female honour were exposed to daily
risk from tyrants and marauders, it was better that the precinct of a
shrine should be regarded 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 that 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
transcribing the Æneid of Virgil, and another in meditating the Analytics
of Aristotle, in which he who had a genius for art might illuminate a
martyrology 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 peasantry, and the castles of a ferocious aristocracy,
European society would have consisted merely of beasts of burden and
beasts of prey. 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 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 pristine 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 amphitheatre, not yet degraded into a quarry, told to
the rude English pilgrims some part of the story of that great civilised
world which had passed away. The islanders returned, with awe deeply
impressed on their half opened minds, and told the wondering 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 ninth century, began the last great migration of the
northern barbarians.

During many years Denmark and Scandinavia continued to pour forth
innumerable 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; nor was any shire so far distant from the sea as to be secure
from attack. The same atrocities which had attended the victory of the
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
adventurers from the Baltic established themselves on the eastern shores
of our island, spread gradually westward, and, supported by constant
reinforcements from beyond the sea, aspired to the dominion of the whole
realm. The struggle between the two fierce Teutonic breeds lasted through
six generations. Each was alternately paramount. Cruel massacres followed
by cruel retribution, provinces 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
depredators; and from that time the mutual aversion of the races began 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 slavery
and degradation, at the feet of a third people.

The Normans were then the foremost race of Christendom. Their valour and
ferocity had made them conspicuous among the rovers whom Scandinavia had
sent forth to ravage Western Europe. Their sails were long the terror of
both coasts of the Channel. Their arms were repeatedly carried 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 Maine. Without laying
aside that dauntless valour which had been the terror of every land from
the Elbe to the Pyrenees, the Normans rapidly acquired all, and more than
all, the knowledge and refinement which they found in the country where
they settled. Their courage secured 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. They 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
legislation, in poetry, and in romance. They renounced that brutal
intemperance to which all the other branches of the great German family
were too much inclined. The 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,
banquets 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 influence on the politics,
morals, and manners of all the European nations, was found in the highest
exaltation among the Norman nobles. Those nobles were distinguished by
their graceful bearing and insinuating address. They were distinguished
also by their skill in negotiation, and by a natural eloquence 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 discipline and
valour. One Norman knight, at the head of a handful of warriors, 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 third, the Ulysses of the first crusade, was invested by his fellow
soldiers with the sovereignty of Antioch; and a fourth, the Tancred whose
name lives in the great poem of Tasso, was celebrated through Christendom
as the bravest and most generous of the deliverers of the Holy Sepulchre.

The vicinity of so remarkable a people early began to produce an effect on
the public mind of England. Before the Conquest, English princes received
their education in Normandy. English sees and English estates were
bestowed on Normans. 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 Versailles long afterwards was
to the court of 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 the 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
underfoot, still made its sting felt. Some bold men, the favourite heroes
of our oldest ballads, betook themselves to the woods, and there, in
defiance 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 violence. 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 screen them. It was
at length thought necessary to lay a heavy fine on every Hundred in which
a person of French extraction should be found slain; and this regulation
was followed up by another regulation, providing that every person who was
found slain should be supposed to be a Frenchman, unless he was proved to
be a Saxon.

During the century and a half which followed the Conquest, there is, to
speak strictly, no English history. The French Kings of England rose,
indeed, to an 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 dazzled by the power and
glory of our tyrants. Arabian chroniclers 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 lionhearted Plantagenet. At one time it seemed that
the line of Hugh Capet was about to end as the Merovingian and
Carlovingian lines had ended, and that a single great monarchy would
spread from the Orkneys to the Pyrenees. So strong an association is
established in most minds between the greatness of a sovereign and the
greatness of the nation which he rules, that almost every historian of
England has expatiated with a sentiment of exultation on the power and
splendour of her foreign masters, and has lamented the decay of that power
and splendour as a calamity to our country. This is, in truth, as absurd
as it would be in a Haytian negro of our time to dwell with national pride
on the greatness of Lewis the Fourteenth, and to speak of Blenheim and
Ramilies with patriotic regret and shame. The Conqueror and his
descendants to the fourth generation were not Englishmen: most of them
were born in France: they spent the greater part of their lives in France:
their ordinary speech was French: almost every high office in their gift
was filled by a Frenchman: every acquisition which they made on the
Continent estranged them more and more from the population of our island.
One of the ablest among them indeed attempted to win the hearts of his
English subjects by espousing an English princess. But, by many of his
barons, this marriage was regarded as a marriage between a white planter
and a quadroon girl would now be regarded in Virginia. In history he is
known by the honourable surname of Beauclerc; but, in his own time, his
own countrymen called him by a Saxon nickname, in contemptuous allusion to
his Saxon connection.

Had the Plantagenets, as at one time seemed likely, succeeded in uniting
all France under their government, it is probable that England would never
have had an independent existence. Her princes, her lords, her prelates,
would have been men differing in race and language from the artisans and
the tillers of the earth. The revenues of her great proprietors would have
been spent in festivities and diversions on the banks of the Seine. The
noble language of Milton and Burke would have remained a rustic dialect,
without a literature, a fixed grammar, or a fixed orthography, and would
have been contemptuously abandoned to the use of boors. No man of English
extraction would have risen to eminence, except by becoming in speech and
habits a Frenchman.

England owes her escape from such calamities to an event which her
historians have generally represented as disastrous. Her interest was so
directly opposed to the interests of her rulers that she had no hope but
in their errors and misfortunes. The talents and even the virtues of her
first six French Kings were a curse to her. The follies and vices of the
seventh were her salvation. Had John inherited the great qualities of his
father, of Henry Beauclerc, or of the Conqueror, nay, had he even
possessed the martial courage of Stephen or of Richard, and had the King
of France at the same time been as incapable as all the other successors
of Hugh Capet had been, the House of Plantagenet must have risen to
unrivalled ascendancy in Europe. But, just at this conjuncture, France,
for the first time since the death of Charlemagne, was governed by a
prince of great firmness and ability. On the other hand England, which,
since the battle of Hastings, had been ruled generally by wise statesmen,
always by brave soldiers, fell under the dominion of a trifler and a
coward. From that moment her prospects brightened. John was driven from
Normandy. The Norman nobles were compelled to make their election between
the island and the continent. Shut up by the sea with the people whom they
had hitherto oppressed and despised, they gradually came to regard England
as their country, and the English as their countrymen. The two races, so
long hostile, soon found that they had common interests and common
enemies. Both were alike aggrieved by the tyranny of a bad king. Both were
alike indignant at the favour shown by the court to the natives of Poitou
and Aquitaine. The great grandsons of those who had fought under William
and the great grandsons of those who had fought under Harold began to draw
near to each other in friendship; and the first pledge of their
reconciliation was the Great Charter, won by their united exertions, and
framed for their common benefit.

Here commences the history of the English nation. The history of the
preceding events is the history of wrongs inflicted and sustained by
various tribes, which indeed all dwelt on English ground, but which
regarded each other with aversion such as has scarcely ever existed
between communities separated by physical barriers. For even the mutual
animosity of countries at war with each other is languid when compared
with the animosity of nations which, morally separated, are yet locally
intermingled. In no country has the enmity of race been carried farther
than in England. In no country has that enmity been more completely
effaced. The stages of the process by which the hostile elements were
melted down into one homogeneous mass are not accurately known to us. But
it is certain that, when John became King, the distinction between Saxons
and Normans was strongly marked, and that before the end of the reign of
his grandson it had almost disappeared. In the time of Richard the First,
the ordinary imprecation of a Norman gentleman was “May I become an
Englishman!” His ordinary form of indignant denial was “Do you take me for
an Englishman?” The descendant of such a gentleman a hundred years later
was proud of the English name.

The sources of the noblest rivers which spread fertility over continents,
and bear richly laden fleets to the sea, are to be sought in wild and
barren mountain tracts, incorrectly laid down in maps, and rarely explored
by travellers. To such a tract the history of our country during the
thirteenth century may not unaptly be compared. Sterile and obscure as is
that portion of our annals, it is there that we must seek for the origin
of our freedom, our prosperity, and our glory. Then it was that the great
English people was formed, that the national character began to exhibit
those peculiarities which it has ever since retained, and that our fathers
became emphatically islanders, islanders not merely in geographical
position, but in their politics, their feelings, and their manners. Then
first appeared with distinctness that constitution which has ever since,
through all changes, preserved its identity; that constitution of which
all the other free constitutions in the world are copies, and which, in
spite of some defects, deserves to be regarded as the best under which any
great society has ever yet existed during many ages. Then it was that the
House of Commons, the archetype of all the representative assemblies which
now meet, either in the old or in the new world, held its first sittings.
Then it was that the common law rose to the dignity of a science, and
rapidly became a not unworthy rival of the imperial jurisprudence. Then it
was that the courage of those sailors who manned the rude barks of the
Cinque Ports first made the flag of England terrible on the seas. Then it
was that the most ancient colleges which still exist at both the great
national seats of learning were founded. Then was formed that language,
less musical indeed than the languages of the south, but in force, in
richness, in aptitude for all the highest purposes of the poet, the
philosopher, and the orator, inferior to the tongue of Greece alone. Then
too appeared the first faint dawn of that noble literature, the most
splendid and the most durable of the many glories of England.

Early in the fourteenth century the amalgamation of the races was all but
complete; and it was soon made manifest, by signs not to be mistaken, that
a people inferior to none existing in the world had been formed by the
mixture of three branches of the great Teutonic family with each other,
and with the aboriginal Britons. There was, indeed, scarcely anything in
common between the England to which John had been chased by Philip
Augustus, and the England from which the armies of Edward the Third went
forth to conquer France.

A period of more than a hundred years followed, during which the chief
object of the English was to establish, by force of arms, a great empire
on the Continent. The claim of Edward to the inheritance occupied by the
House of Valois was a claim in which it might seem that his subjects were
little interested. But the passion for conquest spread fast from the
prince to the people. The war differed widely from the wars which the
Plantagenets of the twelfth century had waged against the descendants of
Hugh Capet. For the success of Henry the Second, or of Richard the First,
would have made England a province of France. The effect of the successes
of Edward the Third and Henry the Fifth was to make France, for a time, a
province of England. The disdain with which, in the twelfth century, the
conquerors from the Continent had regarded the islanders, was now retorted
by the islanders on the people of the Continent. Every yeoman from Kent to
Northumberland valued himself as one of a race born for victory and
dominion, and looked down with scorn on the nation before which his
ancestors had trembled. Even those knights of Gascony and Guienne who had
fought gallantly under the Black Prince were regarded by the English as
men of an inferior breed, and were contemptuously excluded from honourable
and lucrative commands. In no long time our ancestors altogether lost
sight of the original ground of quarrel. They began to consider the crown
of France as a mere appendage to the crown of England; and, when in
violation of the ordinary law of succession, they transferred the crown of
England to the House of Lancaster, they seem to have thought that the
right of Richard the Second to the crown of France passed, as of course,
to that house. The zeal and vigour which they displayed present a
remarkable contrast to the torpor of the French, who were far more deeply
interested in the event of the struggle. The most splendid victories
recorded in the history of the middle ages were gained at this time,
against great odds, by the English armies. Victories indeed they were of
which a nation may justly be proud; for they are to be attributed to the
moral superiority of the victors, a superiority which was most striking in
the lowest ranks. The knights of England found worthy rivals in the
knights of France. Chandos encountered an equal foe in Du Guesclin. But
France had no infantry that dared to face the English bows and bills. A
French King was brought prisoner to London. An English King was crowned at
Paris. The banner of St. George was carried far beyond the Pyrenees and
the Alps. On the south of the Ebro the English won a great battle, which
for a time decided the fate of Leon and Castile; and the English Companies
obtained a terrible preeminence among the bands of warriors who let out
their weapons for hire to the princes and commonwealths of Italy.

Nor were the arts of peace neglected by our fathers during that stirring
period. While France was wasted by war, till she at length found in her
own desolation a miserable defence against invaders, the English gathered
in their harvests, adorned their cities, pleaded, traded, and studied in
security. Many of our noblest architectural monuments belong to that age.
Then rose the fair chapels of New College and of Saint George, the nave of
Winchester and the choir of York, the spire of Salisbury and the majestic
towers of Lincoln. A copious and forcible language, formed by an infusion
of French into German, was now the common property of the aristocracy and
of the people. Nor was it long before genius began to apply that admirable
machine to worthy purposes. While English warriors, leaving behind them
the devastated provinces of France, entered Valladolid in triumph, and
spread terror to the gates of Florence, English poets depicted in vivid
tints all the wide variety of human manners and fortunes, and English
thinkers aspired to know, or dared to doubt, where bigots had been content
to wonder and to believe. The same age which produced the Black Prince and
Derby, Chandos and Hawkwood, produced also Geoffrey Chaucer and John
Wycliffe.

In so splendid and imperial a manner did the English people, properly so
called, first take place among the nations of the world. Yet while we
contemplate with pleasure the high and commanding qualities which our
forefathers displayed, we cannot but admit that the end which they pursued
was an end condemned both by humanity and by enlightened policy, and that
the reverses which compelled them, after a long and bloody struggle, to
relinquish the hope of establishing a great continental empire, were
really blessings in the guise of disasters. The spirit of the French was
at last aroused: they began to oppose a vigorous national resistance to
the foreign conquerors; and from that time the skill of the English
captains and the courage of the English soldiers were, happily for
mankind, exerted in vain. After many desperate struggles, and with many
bitter regrets, our ancestors gave up the contest. Since that age no
British government has ever seriously and steadily pursued the design of
making great conquests on the Continent. The people, indeed, continued to
cherish with pride the recollection of Cressy, of Poitiers, and of
Agincourt. Even after the lapse of many years it was easy to fire their
blood and to draw forth their subsidies by promising them an expedition
for the conquest of France. But happily the energies of our country have
been directed to better objects; and she now occupies in the history of
mankind a place far more glorious than if she had, as at one time seemed
not improbable, acquired by the sword an ascendancy similar to that which
formerly belonged to the Roman republic.

Cooped up once more within the limits of the island, the warlike people
employed in civil strife those arms which had been the terror of Europe.
The means of profuse expenditure had long been drawn by the English barons
from the oppressed provinces of France. That source of supply was gone:
but the ostentatious and luxurious habits which prosperity had engendered
still remained; and the great lords, unable to gratify their tastes by
plundering the French, were eager to plunder each other. The realm to
which they were now confined would not, in the phrase of Comines, the most
judicious observer of that time, suffice for them all. Two aristocratical
factions, headed by two branches of the royal family, engaged in a long
and fierce struggle for supremacy. As the animosity of those factions did
not really arise from the dispute about the succession it lasted long
after all ground of dispute about the succession was removed. The party of
the Red Rose survived the last prince who claimed the crown in right of
Henry the Fourth. The party of the White Rose survived the marriage of
Richmond and Elizabeth. Left without chiefs who had any decent show of
right, the adherents of Lancaster rallied round a line of bastards, and
the adherents of York set up a succession of impostors. When, at length,
many aspiring nobles had perished on the field of battle or by the hands
of the executioner, when many illustrious houses had disappeared forever
from history, when those great families which remained had been exhausted
and sobered by calamities, it was universally acknowledged that the claims
of all the contending Plantagenets were united in the house of Tudor.

Meanwhile a change was proceeding infinitely more momentous than the
acquisition or loss of any province, than the rise or fall of any dynasty.
Slavery and the evils by which slavery is everywhere accompanied were fast
disappearing.

It is remarkable that the two greatest and most salutary social
revolutions which have taken place in England, that revolution which, in
the thirteenth century, put an end to the tyranny of nation over nation,
and that revolution which, a few generations later, put an end to the
property of man in man, were silently and imperceptibly effected. They
struck contemporary observers with no surprise, and have received from
historians a very scanty measure of attention. They were brought about
neither by legislative regulations nor by physical force. Moral causes
noiselessly effaced first the distinction between Norman and Saxon, and
then the distinction between master and slave. None can venture to fix the
precise moment at which either distinction ceased. Some faint traces of
the old Norman feeling might perhaps have been found late in the
fourteenth century. Some faint traces of the institution of villenage were
detected by the curious so late as the days of the Stuarts; nor has that
institution ever, to this hour, been abolished by statute.

It would be most unjust not to acknowledge that the chief agent in these
two great deliverances was religion; and it may perhaps be doubted whether
a purer religion might not have been found a less efficient agent. The
benevolent spirit of the Christian morality is undoubtedly adverse to
distinctions of caste. But to the Church of Rome such distinctions are
peculiarly odious; for they are incompatible with other distinctions which
are essential to her system. She ascribes to every priest a mysterious
dignity which entitles him to the reverence of every layman; and she does
not consider any man as disqualified, by reason of his nation or of his
family, for the priesthood. Her doctrines respecting the sacerdotal
character, however erroneous they may be, have repeatedly mitigated some
of the worst evils which can afflict society. That superstition cannot be
regarded as unmixedly noxious which, in regions cursed by the tyranny of
race over race, creates an aristocracy altogether independent of race,
inverts the relation between the oppressor and the oppressed, and compels
the hereditary master to kneel before the spiritual tribunal of the
hereditary bondman. To this day, in some countries where negro slavery
exists, Popery appears in advantageous contrast to other forms of
Christianity. It is notorious that the antipathy between the European and
African races is by no means so strong at Rio Janerio as at Washington. 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 blood 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 English found among 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 the Conqueror, the despised race learned, with
transports of delight, that one of themselves, Nicholas Breakspear, had
been 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
national 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,
represented 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 villenage 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 successfully 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 revolutions 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 Plantagenets 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, agricultural and commercial. There was still, it may be,
more inequality 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.

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 controversy.

The historical literature of England has indeed suffered grievously from a
circumstance which 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 which she flourished five hundred years ago, what the
tree is to the sapling, what the man is to the boy. The alteration has
been great. Yet there never was a moment at which the chief part of what
existed 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 one of those
drawbacks is that every source of information as to our early history has
been poisoned by party spirit. As 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 things, indeed, there is a natural connection. Where 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 irresistible. A Frenchman is not
now impelled by any strong interest either to exaggerate or to underrate
the power of the Kings of the house of Valois. The privileges of the
States General, of the States of Britanny, 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.
With 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 on the results of the researches of antiquaries. The
inevitable consequence was that our antiquaries conducted their researches
in the spirit of partisans.

It is therefore not surprising that those who have written, concerning the
limits of prerogative and liberty in the old polity of England should
generally have shown the temper, not of judges, but of angry and uncandid
advocates. For they were discussing, not a speculative matter, but a
matter which had a direct and practical connection with the most momentous
and exciting disputes of their own day. From the commencement of the long
contest between the Parliament and the Stuarts down to the time when the
pretensions of the Stuarts ceased to be formidable, few questions were
practically more important than the question whether the administration of
that family had or had not been in accordance with the ancient
constitution of the kingdom. This question could be decided only by
reference to the records of preceding reigns. Bracton and Fleta, the
Mirror of Justice and the Rolls of Parliament, were ransacked to find
pretexts for the excesses of the Star Chamber on one side, and of the High
Court of Justice on the other. During a long course of years every Whig
historian was anxious to prove that the old English government was all but
republican, every Tory historian to prove that it was all but despotic.

With such feelings, both parties looked into the chronicles of the middle
ages. Both readily found what they sought; and both obstinately refused to
see anything but what they sought. The champions of the Stuarts could
easily point out instances of oppression exercised on the subject. The
defenders of the Roundheads could as easily produce instances of
determined and successful resistance offered to the Crown. The Tories
quoted, from ancient writings, expressions almost as servile as were heard
from the pulpit of Mainwaring. The Whigs discovered expressions as bold
and severe as any that resounded from the judgment seat of Bradshaw. One
set of writers adduced numerous instances in which Kings had extorted
money without the authority of Parliament. Another set cited cases in
which the Parliament had assumed to itself the power of inflicting
punishment on Kings. Those who saw only one half of the evidence would
have concluded that the Plantagenets were as absolute as the Sultans of
Turkey: those who saw only the other half would have concluded that the
Plantagenets had as little real power as the Doges of Venice; and both
conclusions would have been equally remote from the truth.

The old English government was one of a class of limited monarchies which
sprang up in Western Europe during the middle ages, and which,
notwithstanding many diversities, bore to one another a strong family
likeness. That there should have been such a likeness is not strange The
countries in which those monarchies arose had been provinces of the same
great civilised empire, and had been overrun and conquered, about the same
time, by tribes of the same rude and warlike nation. They were members of
the same great coalition against Islam. They were in communion with the
same superb and ambitious Church. Their polity naturally took the same
form. They had institutions derived partly from imperial Rome, partly from
papal Rome, partly from the old Germany. All had Kings; and in all the
kingly office became by degrees strictly hereditary. All had nobles
bearing titles which had originally indicated military rank. The dignity
of knighthood, the rules of heraldry, were common to all. All had richly
endowed ecclesiastical establishments, municipal corporations enjoying
large franchises, and senates whose consent was necessary to the validity
of some public acts.

Of these kindred constitutions the English was, from an early period,
justly reputed the best. The prerogatives of the sovereign were
undoubtedly extensive. The spirit of religion and the spirit of chivalry
concurred to exalt his dignity. The sacred oil had been poured on his
head. It was no disparagement to the bravest and noblest knights to kneel
at his feet. His person was inviolable. He alone was entitled to convoke
the Estates of the realm: he could at his pleasure dismiss them; and his
assent was necessary to all their legislative acts. He was the chief of
the executive administration, the sole organ of communication with foreign
powers, the captain of the military and naval forces of the state, the
fountain of justice, of mercy, and of honour. He had large powers for the
regulation of trade. It was by him that money was coined, that weights and
measures were fixed, that marts and havens were appointed. His
ecclesiastical patronage was immense. His hereditary revenues,
economically administered, sufficed to meet the ordinary charges of
government. His own domains were of vast extent. He was also feudal lord
paramount of the whole soil of his kingdom, and, in that capacity,
possessed many lucrative and many formidable rights, which enabled him to
annoy and depress those who thwarted him, and to enrich and aggrandise,
without any cost to himself, those who enjoyed his favour.

But his power, though ample, was limited by three great constitutional
principles, so ancient that none can say when they began to exist, so
potent that their natural development, continued through many generations,
has produced the order of things under which we now live.

First, the King could not legislate without the consent of his Parliament.
Secondly, he could impose no tax without the consent of his Parliament.
Thirdly, he was bound to conduct the executive administration according to
the laws of the land, and, if he broke those laws, his advisers and his
agents were responsible.

No candid Tory will deny that these principles had, five hundred years
ago, acquired the authority of fundamental rules. On the other hand, no
candid Whig will affirm that they were, till a later period, cleared from
all ambiguity, or followed out to all their consequences. A constitution
of the middle ages was not, like a constitution of the eighteenth or
nineteenth century, created entire by a single act, and fully set forth in
a single document. It is only in a refined and speculative age that a
polity is constructed on system. In rude societies the progress of
government resembles the progress of language and of versification. Rude
societies have language, and often copious and energetic language: but
they have no scientific grammar, no definitions of nouns and verbs, no
names for declensions, moods, tenses, and voices. Rude societies have
versification, and often versification of great power and sweetness: but
they have no metrical canons; and the minstrel whose numbers, regulated
solely by his ear, are the delight of his audience, would himself be
unable to say of how many dactyls and trochees each of his lines consists.
As eloquence exists before syntax, and song before prosody, so government
may exist in a high degree of excellence long before the limits of
legislative, executive, and judicial power have been traced with
precision.

It was thus in our country. The line which bounded the royal prerogative,
though in general sufficiently clear, had not everywhere been drawn with
accuracy and distinctness. There was, therefore, near the border some
debatable ground on which incursions and reprisals continued to take
place, till, after ages of strife, plain and durable landmarks were at
length set up. It may be instructive to note in what way, and to what
extent, our ancient sovereigns were in the habit of violating the three
great principles by which the liberties of the nation were protected.

No English King has ever laid claim to the general legislative power. The
most violent and imperious Plantagenet never fancied himself competent to
enact, without the consent of his great council, that a jury should
consist of ten persons instead of twelve, that a widow’s dower should be a
fourth part instead of a third, that perjury should be a felony, or that
the custom of gavelkind should be introduced into Yorkshire. 2
But the King had the power of pardoning offenders; and there is one point
at which the power of pardoning and the power of legislating seem to fade
into each other, and may easily, at least in a simple age, be confounded.
A penal statute is virtually annulled if the penalties which it imposes
are regularly remitted as often as they are incurred. The sovereign was
undoubtedly competent to remit penalties without limit. He was therefore
competent to annul virtually a penal statute. It might seem that there
could be no serious objection to his doing formally what he might do
virtually. Thus, with the help of subtle and courtly lawyers, grew up, on
the doubtful frontier which separates executive from legislative
functions, that great anomaly known as the dispensing power.

That the King could not impose taxes without the consent of Parliament is
admitted to have been, from time immemorial, a fundamental law of England.
It was among the articles which John was compelled 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 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 procure 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 universally recognised.

The principle that the King of England was bound to conduct 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 without 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.
Nevertheless, 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 diffused by means of the press and of the post
office that any 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 with great difficulty did the wrongs of
individuals come to the knowledge 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 cannot without danger suffer any breach of the constitution to
pass unnoticed. It is therefore now universally held that a government
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 with pure intentions, has exceeded its powers, ought
without delay to apply to Parliament for an act of indemnity. But such
were not the feelings of the Englishmen 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 acknowledged to be good, he exerted a
vigour beyond the law, they not only forgave, but applauded him, and while
they enjoyed security and prosperity under his rule, were but too ready to
believe that whoever had incurred his displeasure had deserved 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 were so
serious as to excite alarm. If, not content with occasionally oppressing
individuals, he cared 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 century 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 knowledge of that
art is confined to a particular class. A hundred thousand soldiers, well
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 subverted 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 exaggeration 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
resistance 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, though doubtless sharp at the moment,
produced no deep or lasting ill effects. If 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 year, and in the simple buildings inhabited by the people. All the
furniture, the stock of shops, the machinery which could be found in the
realm was of less value than the property which some single parishes now
contain. Manufactures 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 executions 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 of the Roses, nine Kings reigned in
England. Six of these nine Kings were deposed. Five lost their lives as
well as their crowns. It is evident, therefore, that any comparison
between our 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 constantly imposed
on the Plantagenets. As our ancestors had against tyranny a most important
security which we want, they might 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 beginnings of encroachment, and never to
suffer irregularities, even when harmless in themselves, to pass
unchallenged, lest 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 liberties,
connive at some illegal acts on the part of a prince whose general
administration was good, and whose throne was not defended 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 depravity; though
the exactions of Henry the Seventh caused great repining; it is certain
that our ancestors, under 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 Liverpools of
the fifteenth century. He had visited Florence, recently adorned by the
magnificence of Lorenzo, and Venice, not yet bumbled by the Confederates
of Cambray. This eminent man deliberately pronounced England to be the
best governed country of which he had any knowledge. Her constitution he
emphatically designated as a just and holy thing, which, while it
protected 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 cities.

It was not only by the efficiency of the restraints imposed on the royal
prerogative that England was advantageously distinguished 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
hereditary aristocracies 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 members 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 Mowbray Duke of Norfolk. Sir Richard Pole married the Countess of
Salisbury, daughter of George, Duke of Clarence. Good blood was indeed
held in high respect: but between good blood and the 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 were Bohuns, Mowbrays, DeVeres, nay, kinsmen of the House of
Plantagenet, with no higher addition than that of Esquire, and with no
civil privileges beyond those enjoyed by every farmer and shopkeeper.
There was therefore here no line like that which in some other countries
divided the patrician from the plebeian. 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 connected 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 circumstance. In the year 1451 Henry the Sixth
summoned fifty-three temporal Lords to parliament. The temporal Lords
summoned by Henry the Seventh to the parliament of 1485 were only
twenty-nine, and of these several had recently been elevated to the
peerage. During the following century the ranks of the nobility were
largely recruited from among the gentry. The constitution 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, drapers, 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, offered
himself as candidate for a seat in the House of Commons, 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
democratic 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 degree explain the difference; for courage and force
of will were common 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 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 occasionally 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 a certain point: for
they had no armed force, and they were surrounded by an armed people.
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 treating an individual in an arbitrary and even in a
barbarous manner, but which effectually secured the nation against general
and long continued 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 when, without the
consent of Parliament, he demanded of his subjects a contribution
amounting 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 thousand 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. He not only
cancelled his illegal commissions; he not only granted a general pardon to
all the malecontents; but he publicly and solemnly apologised for his
infraction of the laws.

His conduct, on this occasion, well illustrates the whole policy of his
house. The temper of the princes of that line was hot, and 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
discontents: but the government 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 general 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 Elizabeth, England
grew and flourished under a polity which contained the germ of our present
institutions, and which, though not very exactly defined, or very exactly
observed, was yet effectually 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 distinct 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 army, the
bordering states must imitate the example, or must submit to a foreign
yoke. But, where a great regular army exists, limited monarchy, such as it
was in the middle ages, can exist no longer. The sovereign is at once
emancipated from what had been the chief restraint on his power; and he
inevitably becomes absolute, unless he is subjected to checks such as
would be superfluous 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 expenses 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
constitutional 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
weakness. 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 battalions of Charles the Fifth. As
vainly, in the next generation, 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 than those which 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 still without a
standing army. At the commencement of the seventeenth century political
science had made considerable progress. The fate of the Spanish Cortes and
of the French States General had given solemn warning to our Parliaments;
and our Parliaments, fully aware of the nature and magnitude of the
danger, adopted, in good time, a system of tactics 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 longer 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. What 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 coercion 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 produce 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 disorders which had given scandal to
Christendom, and the princes 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 Protestant,
it is true, will naturally be on the side of the Albigensians and of the
Lollards. Yet an enlightened and temperate Protestant 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 of
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.
Books were few and costly. The art of printing was unknown. Copies of the
Bible, inferior in beauty and clearness to those which every cottager may
now command, sold for prices which many priests could not afford to give.
It was obviously impossible 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 sixteenth century was comparatively a
time of light. Yet even in the sixteenth century a considerable number of
those who quitted the old religion followed the first confident and
plausible guide who offered himself, and were soon led into errors far
more serious than those which they had renounced. Thus Matthias 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 superstition, 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 Reformation 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
development of the powers of the modern languages, the unprecedented
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 ascendency was naturally regarded by men born on our side of the
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 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 submission and faith, such as at a later period 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 ascendancy of the sacerdotal order was long the ascendancy
which naturally and properly belongs to intellectual superiority. The
priests, with all their faults, were by far the wisest portion of society.
It was, therefore, on the whole, good that they should be respected 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 in 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
generally 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 advance
has been made in knowledge, in freedom, in wealth, and in the arts of
life, has been made in spite of her, and has everywhere 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 torpor, 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 judgment 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 Protestants 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 continent 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
entitled 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 different grounds, in rebellion against the Papal domination, all
that belongs to the Protestants, all that belongs to the assertors of the
Gallican liberties, all that belongs to the Jansenists, and all that
belongs to the philosophers, how much will be left?

It is difficult to say whether England owes more to the Roman Catholic
religion or to the Reformation. For the amalgamation of races and for the
abolition of villenage, she is chiefly indebted to the influence which the
priesthood in the middle ages exercised over the laity. For political and
intellectual 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 priesthood.

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, during 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 thankfulness, the dictation of an able ruler
who spared them the trouble of judging for themselves, and, raising a firm
and commanding voice above the uproar of controversy, told them how to
worship and what to believe. It is not strange, therefore, that the Tudors
should have been able to exercise a great influence on ecclesiastical
affairs; nor is it strange that their influence 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 both the
extreme parties, to burn as heretics those who avowed the tenets of the
Reformers, and to hang as traitors those who owned the authority of the
Pope. But Henry’s system died with him. Had his life 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; nor could Elizabeth
venture to return to it. It was necessary to make a choice. The government
must either submit to Rome, or must obtain the aid of the Protestants. The
government and the Protestants had only one thing in common, hatred of 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 reluctantly abandoned. 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 manfully at 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 ordered 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. Archbishop Grindal long
hesitated about accepting a mitre from dislike of what he regarded as the
mummery of consecration. Bishop Parkhurst 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 belonged to the extreme
section of the Protestant party, it cannot be doubted that, if the general
sense of that party had been followed, the work of reform would have been
carried on as unsparingly in England as in Scotland.

But, as the government needed the support of the protestants, 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 most important 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 who took the chief part in settling the condition, of the alliance
which produced the Anglican Church was Archbishop Cranmer. He was the
representative of both the parties which, at that 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 desirous 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 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 Scripture. 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 important occasion, plainly avowed his conviction
that, in the primitive 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. Their prayers, therefore, 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 chanted the same ancient confessions, supplications,
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 vulgar tongue, and invited the illiterate
multitude to join its voice to that of the minister.

In every part of her system the same policy may be traced. Utterly
rejecting the doctrine of transubstantiation, and condemning 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 surrounded 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 pantomimic 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
sacraments. 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 understanding, 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 monarchy. 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 rudely and in general terms. If, for the purpose of
ascertaining 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 constant 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 had 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 kingdom, the vicar of God, the
expositor of Catholic verity, the channel of sacramental graces. He
arrogated 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 appointed, 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
dispense 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 was the
opinion of Cranmer given in the plainest words,—might in virtue of
authority derived from God, make a priest; and the priest so made needed
no ordination whatever. These opinions the Archbishop, in spite of the
opposition of less courtly 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 determined by a
demise of the crown. When Henry died, therefore, the Primate and his
suffragans took out fresh commissions, empowering them to ordain and to
govern the Church till the new sovereign 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. 3

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 crown, 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 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 administration of things political. 4 The
thirty-seventh article of religion, framed under Elizabeth, declares, in
terms as emphatic, that the ministering of God’s word does not belong to
princes. The Queen, however, still had over the Church a visitatorial
power of vast and undefined extent. She was entrusted by Parliament with
the office of restraining and punishing heresy and every sort of
ecclesiastical abuse, and was permitted to delegate her authority to
commissioners. The Bishops were little more than her ministers. Rather
than grant to the civil magistrate the absolute power of nominating
spiritual pastors, the Church of Rome, in the eleventh century, 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 hundreds. 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, regulated, 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 lawfully 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 infancy, 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 attachments, common enmities, bound her to the throne. All her
traditions, all 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 resisted 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 English 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 Protestants as a scheme for serving two
masters, as an attempt to unite the worship of the Lord with the worship
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 difficulties 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 Strasburg, 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 far less searching and extensive
than the interests of pure religion required. But it was in vain that they
attempted to obtain any concession from Elizabeth. Indeed her system,
wherever 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 superstition; 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 the earth, as before a present God, they had learned
to treat the mass as an idolatrous 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 expected 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 Christendom. 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 interest 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 natural 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 concerning the relation
of ruler and subject were widely different from those which were
inculcated in the Homilies. His favourite 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 respecting 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 the 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 Crown and the
Parliament would instantly have commenced. But that was no season for
internal dissensions. 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 English
Government was at the head of the Protestant interest, and, while
persecuting Presbyterians at home, extended a powerful protection to
Presbyterian 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 armies repeatedly marched to Paris,
and whose fleets kept the coasts of 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 treason at home. For in
that age it had become a point of conscience 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
the 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 kept from the dagger 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. 5

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 government. But, when the
defeat of the Armada, the successful resistance of the United Provinces to
the Spanish power, the 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 from abroad, an obstinate
struggle, 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 always 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 authority 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,
vinegar, 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
minister 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 glorious reign of Elizabeth would have a
shameful and disastrous end. She, however, with admirable judgment and
temper, declined the contest, put herself at the head of the reforming
party, redressed the grievance, thanked the Commons, in touching and
dignified language, for their 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 Robert 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 invaders; but she had struggled against them long and
fiercely. During the fourteenth and fifteenth 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 Connaught 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 sixteenth century, the
English power had made great progress. The half savage chieftains who
reigned beyond the pale had submitted one after another to the lieutenants
of the Tudors. At length, 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 English 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 assizes in every part of Ireland; and
the English 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 England in 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
Ireland.

The population of Scotland, with the exception of the Celtic 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 Lancashire differed from each other. In
Ireland, on the contrary, the population, with the exception of the small
English colony near the coast, was Celtic, and still kept the Celtic
speech and manners.

In natural courage and intelligence both the nations which now became
connected with England ranked high. In perseverance, 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
Europe they had the susceptibility, the vivacity, the natural turn for
acting and rhetoric, which are indigenous 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 countries.
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, with
which her aboriginal inhabitants were largely endowed’ showed itself as
yet only in ballads which wild and rugged as they were, seemed to the
judging eye of Spenser to contain a portion of the pure gold of poetry.

Scotland, in becoming part of the British monarchy, preserved her dignity.
Having, during many generations, courageously withstood the English arms,
she was now joined to her stronger neighbour 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 pertinacious 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 kingdom, 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 English colonists submitted
to the dictation of the mother country, without whose support they could
not exist, and indemnified 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 legislature 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
part of Europe had the movement of the popular mind against the Roman
Catholic Church been so rapid and violent. The Reformers had 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, the 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
privileges 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 had no sooner mounted the English
throne than he began to show an intolerant zeal for the government and
ritual of the English Church.

The Irish were the only people of northern Europe who had remained true to
the old religion. This is to be partly ascribed to the circumstance that
they were some centuries behind their neighbours in knowledge. But other
causes had cooperated. 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 language 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 object 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 Elizabeth. During the vain struggle which two
generations of Milesian princes maintained against the Tudors, religious
enthusiasm and national enthusiasm became inseparably blended in the minds
of the vanquished race. The new feud of Protestant and Papist inflamed the
old feud of Saxon and Celt. The English conquerors meanwhile, neglected
all legitimate means of conversion. No care was taken to provide the
vanquished nation with instructors capable of making themselves
understood. No translation of the Bible was put forth in the Irish
language. The government contented itself with setting up a vast hierarchy
of Protestant archbishops, bishops, and rectors, who did nothing, and who,
for doing nothing, were paid out of the spoils of a Church loved and
revered by the great body of the people.

There was much in the state both of Scotland and of Ireland which might
well excite the painful apprehensions of a farsighted statesman. As yet,
however, there was the appearance of tranquillity. For the first time all
the British isles were peaceably united under one sceptre.

It should seem that the weight of England among European nations ought,
from this epoch, to have greatly increased. The territory which her new
King governed was, in extent, nearly double that which Elizabeth had
inherited. His empire was the most complete within itself and the most
secure from attack that was to be found in the world. The Plantagenets and
Tudors had been repeatedly under the necessity of defending themselves
against Scotland while they were engaged in continental war. The long
conflict in Ireland had been a severe and perpetual drain on their
resources. Yet even under such disadvantages those sovereigns had been
highly considered throughout Christendom. It might, therefore, not
unreasonably be expected that England, Scotland, and Ireland combined
would form a state second to none that then existed.

All such expectations were strangely disappointed. On the day of the
accession of James the First, England descended from the rank which she
had hitherto held, and began to be regarded as a power hardly of the
second order. During many years the great British monarchy, under four
successive princes of the House of Stuart, was scarcely a more important
member of the European system than the little kingdom of Scotland had
previously been. This, however, is little to be regretted. Of James the
First, as of John, it may be said that, if his administration had been
able and splendid, it would probably have been fatal to our country, and
that we owe more to his weakness and meanness than to the wisdom and
courage of much better sovereigns. He came to the throne at a critical
moment. The time was fast approaching when either the King must become
absolute, or the parliament must control the whole executive
administration. Had James been, like Henry the Fourth, like Maurice of
Nassau, or like Gustavus Adolphus, a valiant, active, and politic ruler,
had he put himself at the head of the Protestants of Europe, had he gained
great victories over Tilly and Spinola, had he adorned Westminster with
the spoils of Bavarian monasteries and Flemish cathedrals, had he hung
Austrian and Castilian banners in Saint Paul’s, and had he found himself,
after great achievements, at the head of fifty thousand troops, brave,
well disciplined, and devotedly attached to his person, the English
Parliament would soon have been nothing more than a name. Happily he was
not a man to play such a part. He began his administration by putting an
end to the war which had raged during many years between England and
Spain; and from that time he shunned hostilities with a caution which was
proof against the insults of his neighbours and the clamours of his
subjects. Not till the last year of his life could the influence of his
son, his favourite, his Parliament, and his people combined, induce him to
strike one feeble blow in defence of his family and of his religion. It
was well for those whom he governed that he in this matter disregarded
their wishes. The effect of his pacific policy was that, in his time, no
regular troops were needed, and that, while France, Spain, Italy, Belgium,
and Germany swarmed with mercenary soldiers, the defence of our island was
still confided to the militia.

As the King had no standing army, and did not even attempt to form one, it
would have been wise in him to avoid any conflict with his people. But
such was his indiscretion that, while he altogether neglected the means
which alone could make him really absolute, he constantly put forward, in
the most offensive form, claims of which none of his predecessors had ever
dreamed. It was at this time that those strange theories which Filmer
afterwards formed into a system and which became the badge of the most
violent class of Tories and high churchmen, first emerged into notice. It
was gravely maintained that the Supreme Being regarded hereditary
monarchy, as opposed to other forms of government, with peculiar favour;
that the rule of succession in order of primogeniture was a divine
institution, anterior to the Christian, and even to the Mosaic
dispensation; that no human power, not even that of the whole legislature,
no length of adverse possession, though it extended to ten centuries,
could deprive a legitimate prince of his rights, that the authority of
such a prince was necessarily always despotic; that the laws, by which, in
England and in other countries, the prerogative was limited, were to be
regarded merely as concessions which the sovereign had freely made and
might at his pleasure resume; and that any treaty which a king might
conclude with his people was merely a declaration of his present
intentions, and not a contract of which the performance could be demanded.
It is evident that this theory, though intended to strengthen the
foundations of government, altogether unsettles them. Does the divine and
immutable law of primogeniture admit females, or exclude them? On either
supposition half the sovereigns of Europe must be usurpers, reigning in
defiance of the law of God, and liable to be dispossessed by the rightful
heirs. The doctrine that kingly government is peculiarly favoured by
Heaven receives no countenance from the Old Testament; for in the Old
Testament we read that the chosen people were blamed and punished for
desiring a king, and that they were afterwards commanded to withdraw their
allegiance from him. Their whole history, far from countenancing the
notion that succession in order of primogeniture is of divine institution,
would rather seem to indicate that younger brothers are under the especial
protection of heaven. Isaac was not the eldest son of Abraham, nor Jacob
of Isaac, nor Judah of Jacob, nor David of Jesse nor Solomon of David Nor
does the system of Filmer receive any countenance from those passages of
the New Testament which describe government as an ordinance of God: for
the government under which the writers of the New Testament lived was not
a hereditary monarchy. The Roman Emperors were republican magistrates,
named by the senate. None of them pretended to rule by right of birth;
and, in fact, both Tiberius, to whom Christ commanded that tribute should
be given, and Nero, whom Paul directed the Romans to obey, were, according
to the patriarchal theory of government, usurpers. In the middle ages the
doctrine of indefeasible hereditary right would have been regarded as
heretical: for it was altogether incompatible with the high pretensions of
the Church of Rome. It was a doctrine unknown to the founders of the
Church of England. The Homily on Wilful Rebellion had strongly, and indeed
too strongly, inculcated submission to constituted authority, but had made
no distinction between hereditary end elective monarchies, or between
monarchies and republics. Indeed most of the predecessors of James would,
from personal motives, have regarded the patriarchal theory of government
with aversion. William Rufus, Henry the First, Stephen, John, Henry the
Fourth, Henry the Fifth, Henry the Sixth, Richard the Third, and Henry the
Seventh, had all reigned in defiance of the strict rule of descent. A
grave doubt hung over the legitimacy both of Mary and of Elizabeth. It was
impossible that both Catharine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn could have been
lawfully married to Henry the Eighth; and the highest authority in the
realm had pronounced that neither was so. The Tudors, far from considering
the law of succession as a divine and unchangeable institution, were
constantly tampering with it. Henry the Eighth obtained an act of
parliament, giving him power to leave the crown by will, and actually made
a will to the prejudice of the royal family of Scotland. Edward the Sixth,
unauthorised by Parliament, assumed a similar power, with the full
approbation of the most eminent Reformers. Elizabeth, conscious that her
own title was open to grave objection, and unwilling to admit even a
reversionary right in her rival and enemy the Queen of Scots, induced the
Parliament to pass a law, enacting that whoever should deny the competency
of the reigning sovereign, with the assent of the Estates of the realm, to
alter the succession, should suffer death as a traitor: But the situation
of James was widely different from that of Elizabeth. Far inferior to her
in abilities and in popularity, regarded by the English as an alien, and
excluded from the throne by the testament of Henry the Eighth, the King of
Scots was yet the undoubted heir of William the Conqueror and of Egbert.
He had, therefore, an obvious interest in inculcating the superstitions
notion that birth confers rights anterior to law, and unalterable by law.
It was a notion, moreover, well suited to his intellect and temper. It
soon found many advocates among those who aspired to his favour, and made
rapid progress among the clergy of the Established Church.

Thus, at the very moment at which a republican spirit began to manifest
itself strongly in the Parliament and in the country, the claims of the
monarch took a monstrous form which would have disgusted the proudest and
most arbitrary of those who had preceded him on the throne.

James was always boasting of his skill in what he called kingcraft; and
yet it is hardly possible even to imagine a course more directly opposed
to all the rules of kingcraft, than that which he followed. The policy of
wise rulers has always been to disguise strong acts under popular forms.
It was thus that Augustus and Napoleon established absolute monarchies,
while the public regarded them merely as eminent citizens invested with
temporary magistracies. The policy of James was the direct reverse of
theirs. He enraged and alarmed his Parliament by constantly telling them
that they held their privileges merely during his pleasure and that they
had no more business to inquire what he might lawfully do than what the
Deity might lawfully do. Yet he quailed before them, abandoned minister
after minister to their vengeance, and suffered them to tease him into
acts directly opposed to his strongest inclinations. Thus the indignation
excited by his claims and the scorn excited by his concessions went on
growing together. By his fondness for worthless minions, and by the
sanction which he gave to their tyranny and rapacity, he kept discontent
constantly alive. His cowardice, his childishness, his pedantry, his
ungainly person, his provincial accent, made him an object of derision.
Even in his virtues and accomplishments there was something eminently
unkingly. Throughout the whole course of his reign, all the venerable
associations by which the throng had long been fenced were gradually
losing their strength. During two hundred years all the sovereigns who had
ruled England, with the exception of Henry the Sixth, had been
strongminded, highspirited, courageous, and of princely bearing. Almost
all had possessed abilities above the ordinary level. It was no light
thing that on the very eve of the decisive struggle between our Kings and
their Parliaments, royalty should be exhibited to the world stammering,
slobbering, shedding unmanly tears, trembling at a drawn sword, and
talking in the style alternately of a buffoon and of a pedagogue.

In the meantime the religious dissensions, by which, from the days of
Edward the Sixth, the Protestant body had been distracted, had become more
formidable than ever. The interval which had separated the first
generation of Puritans from Cranmer and Jewel was small indeed when
compared with the interval which separated the third generation of
Puritans from Laud and Hammond. While the recollection of Mary’s cruelties
was still fresh, while the powers of the Roman Catholic party still
inspired apprehension, while Spain still retained ascendency and aspired
to universal dominion, all the reformed sects knew that they had a strong
common interest and a deadly common enemy. The animosity which they felt
towards each other was languid when compared with the animosity which they
all felt towards Rome. Conformists and Nonconformists had heartily joined
in enacting penal laws of extreme severity against the Papists. But when
more than half a century of undisturbed possession had given confidence to
the Established Church, when nine tenths of the nation had become heartily
Protestant, when England was at peace with all the world, when there was
no danger that Popery would be forced by foreign arms on the nation, when
the last confessors who had stood before Bonner had passed away, a change
took place in the feeling of the Anglican clergy. Their hostility to the
Roman Catholic doctrine and discipline was considerably mitigated. Their
dislike of the Puritans, on the other hand, increased daily. The
controversies which had from the beginning divided the Protestant party
took such a form as made reconciliation hopeless; and new controversies of
still greater importance were added to the old subjects of dispute.

The founders of the Anglican Church had retained episcopacy as an ancient,
a decent, and a convenient ecclesiastical polity, but had not declared
that form of church government to be of divine institution. We have
already seen how low an estimate Cranmer had formed of the office of a
Bishop. In the reign of Elizabeth, Jewel, Cooper, Whitgift, and other
eminent doctors defended prelacy, as innocent, as useful, as what the
state might lawfully establish, as what, when established by the state,
was entitled to the respect of every citizen. But they never denied that a
Christian community without a Bishop might be a pure Church. 6
On the contrary, they regarded the Protestants of the Continent as of the
same household of faith with themselves. Englishmen in England were indeed
bound to acknowledge the authority of the Bishop, as they were bound to
acknowledge the authority of the Sheriff and of the Coroner: but the
obligation was purely local. An English churchman, nay even an English
prelate, if he went to Holland, conformed without scruple to the
established religion of Holland. Abroad the ambassadors of Elizabeth and
James went in state to the very worship which Elizabeth and James
persecuted at home, and carefully abstained from decorating their private
chapels after the Anglican fashion, lest scandal should be given to weaker
brethren. An instrument is still extant by which the Primate of all
England, in the year 1582, authorised a Scotch minister, ordained,
according to the laudable forms of the Scotch Church, by the Synod of East
Lothian, to preach and administer the sacraments in any part of the
province of Canterbury. 7 In the year 1603, the Convocation
solemnly recognised the Church of Scotland, a Church in which episcopal
control and episcopal ordination were then unknown, as a branch of the
Holy Catholic Church of Christ. 8 It was even held that Presbyterian
ministers were entitled to place and voice in oecumenical councils. When
the States General of the United Provinces convoked at Dort a synod of
doctors not episcopally ordained, an English Bishop and an English Dean,
commissioned by the head of the English Church, sate with those doctors,
preached to them, and voted with them on the gravest questions of
theology. 9
Nay, many English benefices were held by divines who had been admitted to
the ministry in the Calvinistic form used on the Continent; nor was
reordination by a Bishop in such cases then thought necessary, or even
lawful. 10

But a new race of divines was already rising in the Church of England. In
their view the episcopal office was essential to the welfare of a
Christian society and to the efficacy of the most solemn ordinances of
religion. To that office belonged certain high and sacred privileges,
which no human power could give or take away. A church might as well be
without the doctrine of the Trinity, or the doctrine of the Incarnation,
as without the apostolical orders; and the Church of Rome, which, in the
midst of all her corruptions, had retained the apostolical orders, was
nearer to primitive purity than those reformed societies which had rashly
set up, in opposition to the divine model, a system invented by men.

In the days of Edward the Sixth and of Elizabeth, the defenders of the
Anglican ritual had generally contented themselves with saying that it
might be used without sin, and that, therefore, none but a perverse and
undutiful subject would refuse to use it when enjoined to do so by the
magistrate. Now, however, that rising party which claimed for the polity
of the Church a celestial origin began to ascribe to her services a new
dignity and importance. It was hinted that, if the established worship had
any fault, that fault was extreme simplicity, and that the Reformers had,
in the heat of their quarrel with Rome, abolished many ancient ceremonies
which might with advantage have been retained. Days and places were again
held in mysterious veneration. Some practices which had long been disused,
and which were commonly regarded as superstitious mummeries, were revived.
Paintings and carvings, which had escaped the fury of the first generation
of Protestants, became the objects of a respect such as to many seemed
idolatrous.

No part of the system of the old Church had been more detested by the
Reformers than the honour paid to celibacy. They held that the doctrine of
Rome on this subject had been prophetically condemned by the apostle Paul,
as a doctrine of devils; and they dwelt much on the crimes and scandals
which seemed to prove the justice of this awful denunciation. Luther had
evinced his own opinion in the clearest manner, by espousing a nun. Some
of the most illustrious bishops and priests who had died by fire during
the reign of Mary had left wives and children. Now, however, it began to
be rumoured that the old monastic spirit had reappeared in the Church of
England; that there was in high quarters a prejudice against married
priests; that even laymen, who called themselves Protestants, had made
resolutions of celibacy which almost amounted to vows; nay, that a
minister of the established religion had set up a nunnery, in which the
psalms were chaunted at midnight, by a company of virgins dedicated to
God. 11

Nor was this all. A class of questions, as to which the founders of the
Anglican Church and the first generation of Puritans had differed little
or not at all, began to furnish matter for fierce disputes. The
controversies which had divided the Protestant body in its infancy had
related almost exclusively to Church government and to ceremonies. There
had been no serious quarrel between the contending parties on points of
metaphysical theology. The doctrines held by the chiefs of the hierarchy
touching original sin, faith, grace, predestination, and election, were
those which are popularly called Calvinistic. Towards the close of
Elizabeth’s reign her favourite prelate, Archbishop Whitgift, drew up, in
concert with the Bishop of London and other theologians, the celebrated
instrument known by the name of the Lambeth Articles. In that instrument
the most startling of the Calvinistic doctrines are affirmed with a
distinctness which would shock many who, in our age, are reputed
Calvinists. One clergyman, who took the opposite side, and spoke harshly
of Calvin, was arraigned for his presumption by the University of
Cambridge, and escaped punishment only by expressing his firm belief in
the tenets of reprobation and final perseverance, and his sorrow for the
offence which he had given to pious men by reflecting on the great French
reformer. The school of divinity of which Hooker was the chief occupies a
middle place between the school of Cranmer and the school of Laud; and
Hooker has, in modern times, been claimed by the Arminians as an ally. Yet
Hooker pronounced Calvin to have been a man superior in wisdom to any
other divine that France had produced, a man to whom thousands were
indebted for the knowledge of divine truth, but who was himself indebted
to God alone. When the Arminian controversy arose in Holland, the English
government and the English Church lent strong support to the Calvinistic
party; nor is the English name altogether free from the stain which has
been left on that party by the imprisonment of Grocius and the judicial
murder of Barneveldt.

But, even before the meeting of the Dutch synod, that part of the Anglican
clergy which was peculiarly hostile to the Calvinistic Church government
and to the Calvinistic worship had begun to regard with dislike the
Calvinistic metaphysics; and this feeling was very naturally strengthened
by the gross injustice, insolence, and cruelty of the party which was
prevalent at Dort. The Arminian doctrine, a doctrine less austerely
logical than that of the early Reformers, but more agreeable to the
popular notions of the divine justice and benevolence, spread fast and
wide. The infection soon reached the court. Opinions which at the time of
the accession of James, no clergyman could have avowed without imminent
risk of being stripped of his gown, were now the best title to preferment.
A divine of that age, who was asked by a simple country gentleman what the
Arminians held, answered, with as much truth as wit, that they held all
the best bishoprics and deaneries in England.

While the majority of the Anglican clergy quitted, in one direction, the
position which they had originally occupied, the majority of the Puritan
body departed, in a direction diametrically opposite, from the principles
and practices of their fathers. The persecution which the separatists had
undergone had been severe enough to irritate, but not severe enough to
destroy. They had been, not tamed into submission, but baited into
savageness and stubborness. After the fashion of oppressed sects, they
mistook their own vindictive feelings for emotions of piety, encouraged in
themselves by reading and meditation, a disposition to brood over their
wrongs, and, when they had worked themselves up into hating their enemies,
imagined that they were only hating the enemies of heaven. In the New
Testament there was little indeed which, even when perverted by the most
disingenuous exposition, could seem to countenance the indulgence of
malevolent passions. But the Old Testament contained the history of a race
selected by God to be witnesses of his unity and ministers of his
vengeance, and specially commanded by him to do many things which, if done
without his special command, would have been atrocious crimes. In such a
history it was not difficult for fierce and gloomy spirits to find much
that might be distorted to suit their wishes. The extreme Puritans
therefore began to feel for the Old Testament a preference, which,
perhaps, they did not distinctly avow even to themselves; but which showed
itself in all their sentiments and habits. They paid to the Hebrew
language a respect which they refused to that tongue in which the
discourses of Jesus and the epistles of Paul have come down to us. They
baptized their children by the names, not of Christian saints, but of
Hebrew patriarchs and warriors. In defiance of the express and reiterated
declarations of Luther and Calvin, they turned the weekly festival by
which the Church had, from the primitive times, commemorated the
resurrection of her Lord, into a Jewish Sabbath. They sought for
principles of jurisprudence in the Mosaic law, and for precedents to guide
their ordinary conduct in the books of Judges and Kings. Their thoughts
and discourse ran much on acts which were assuredly not recorded as
examples for our imitation. The prophet who hewed in pieces a captive
king, the rebel general who gave the blood of a queen to the dogs, the
matron who, in defiance of plighted faith, and of the laws of eastern
hospitality, drove the nail into the brain of the fugitive ally who had
just fed at her board, and who was sleeping under the shadow of her tent,
were proposed as models to Christians suffering under the tyranny of
princes and prelates. Morals and manners were subjected to a code
resembling that of the synagogue, when the synagogue was in its worst
state. The dress, the deportment, the language, the studies, the
amusements of the rigid sect were regulated on principles not unlike those
of the Pharisees who, proud of their washed hands and broad phylacteries,
taunted the Redeemer as a sabbath-breaker and a winebibber. It was a sin
to hang garlands on a Maypole, to drink a friend’s health, to fly a hawk,
to hunt a stag, to play at chess, to wear love-locks, to put starch into a
ruff, to touch the virginals, to read the Fairy Queen. Rules such as
these, rules which would have appeared insupportable to the free and
joyous spirit of Luther, and contemptible to the serene and philosophical
intellect of Zwingle, threw over all life a more than monastic gloom. The
learning and eloquence by which the great Reformers had been eminently
distinguished, and to which they had been, in no small measure, indebted
for their success, were regarded by the new school of Protestants with
suspicion, if not with aversion. Some precisians had scruples about
teaching the Latin grammar, because the names of Mars, Bacchus, and Apollo
occurred in it. The fine arts were all but proscribed. The solemn peal of
the organ was superstitious. The light music of Ben Jonson’s masques was
dissolute. Half the fine paintings in England were idolatrous, and the
other half indecent. The extreme Puritan was at once known from other men
by his gait, his garb, his lank hair, the sour solemnity of his face, the
upturned white of his eyes, the nasal twang with which he spoke, and above
all, by his peculiar dialect. He employed, on every occasion, the imagery
and style of Scripture. Hebraisms violently introduced into the English
language, and metaphors borrowed from the boldest lyric poetry of a remote
age and country, and applied to the common concerns of English life, were
the most striking peculiarities of this cant, which moved, not without
cause, the derision both of Prelatists and libertines.

Thus the political and religious schism which had originated in the
sixteenth century was, during the first quarter of the seventeenth
century, constantly widening. Theories tending to Turkish despotism were
in fashion at Whitehall. Theories tending to republicanism were in favour
with a large portion of the House of Commons. The violent Prelatists who
were, to a man, zealous for prerogative, and the violent Puritans who
were, to a man, zealous for the privileges of Parliament, regarded each
other with animosity more intense than that which, in the preceding
generation, had existed between Catholics and Protestants.

While the minds of men were in this state, the country, after a peace of
many years, at length engaged in a war which required strenuous exertions.
This war hastened the approach of the great constitutional crisis. It was
necessary that the King should have a large military force. He could not
have such a force without money. He could not legally raise money without
the consent of Parliament. It followed, therefore, that he either must
administer the government in conformity with the sense of the House of
Commons, or must venture on such a violation of the fundamental laws of
the land as had been unknown during several centuries. The Plantagenets
and the Tudors had, it is true, occasionally supplied a deficiency in
their revenue by a benevolence or a forced loan: but these expedients were
always of a temporary nature. To meet the regular charge of a long war by
regular taxation, imposed without the consent of the Estates of the realm,
was a course which Henry the Eighth himself would not have dared to take.
It seemed, therefore, that the decisive hour was approaching, and that the
English Parliament would soon either share the fate of the senates of the
Continent, or obtain supreme ascendency in the state.

Just at this conjuncture James died. Charles the First succeeded to the
throne. He had received from nature a far better understanding, a far
stronger will, and a far keener and firmer temper than his father’s. He
had inherited his father’s political theories, and was much more disposed
than his father to carry them into practice. He was, like his father, a
zealous Episcopalian. He was, moreover, what his father had never been, a
zealous Arminian, and, though no Papist, liked a Papist much better than a
Puritan. It would be unjust to deny that Charles had some of the qualities
of a good, and even of a great prince. He wrote and spoke, not, like his
father, with the exactness of a professor, but after the fashion of
intelligent and well educated gentlemen. His taste in literature and art
was excellent, his manner dignified, though not gracious, his domestic
life without blemish. Faithlessness was the chief cause of his disasters,
and is the chief stain on his memory. He was, in truth, impelled by an
incurable propensity to dark and crooked ways. It may seem strange that
his conscience, which, on occasions of little moment, was sufficiently
sensitive, should never have reproached him with this great vice. But
there is reason to believe that he was perfidious, not only from
constitution and from habit, but also on principle. He seems to have
learned from the theologians whom he most esteemed that between him and
his subjects there could be nothing of the nature of mutual contract; that
he could not, even if he would, divest himself of his despotic authority;
and that, in every promise which he made, there was an implied reservation
that such promise might be broken in case of necessity, and that of the
necessity he was the sole judge.

And now began that hazardous game on which were staked the destinies of
the English people. It was played on the side of the House of Commons with
keenness, but with admirable dexterity, coolness, and perseverance. Great
statesmen who looked far behind them and far before them were at the head
of that assembly. They were resolved to place the King in such a situation
that he must either conduct the administration in conformity with the
wishes of his Parliament, or make outrageous attacks on the most sacred
principles of the constitution. They accordingly doled out supplies to him
very sparingly. He found that he must govern either in harmony with the
House of Commons or in defiance of all law. His choice was soon made. He
dissolved his first Parliament, and levied taxes by his own authority. He
convoked a second Parliament, and found it more intractable than the
first. He again resorted to the expedient of dissolution, raised fresh
taxes without any show of legal right, and threw the chiefs of the
opposition into prison At the same time a new grievance, which the
peculiar feelings and habits of the English nation made insupportably
painful, and which seemed to all discerning men to be of fearful augury,
excited general discontent and alarm. Companies of soldiers were billeted
on the people; and martial law was, in some places, substituted for the
ancient jurisprudence of the realm.

The King called a third Parliament, and soon perceived that the opposition
was stronger and fiercer than ever. He now determined on a change of
tactics. Instead of opposing an inflexible resistance to the demands of
the Commons, he, after much altercation and many evasions, agreed to a
compromise which, if he had faithfully adhered to it, would have averted a
long series of calamities. The Parliament granted an ample supply. The
King ratified, in the most solemn manner, that celebrated law, which is
known by the name of the Petition of Right, and which is the second Great
Charter of the liberties of England. By ratifying that law he bound
himself never again to raise money without the consent of the Houses,
never again to imprison any person, except in due course of law, and never
again to subject his people to the jurisdiction of courts martial.

The day on which the royal sanction was, after many delays, solemnly given
to this great Act, was a day of joy and hope. The Commons, who crowded the
bar of the House of Lords, broke forth into loud acclamations as soon as
the clerk had pronounced the ancient form of words by which our princes
have, during many ages, signified their assent to the wishes of the
Estates of the realm. Those acclamations were reechoed by the voice of the
capital and of the nation; but within three weeks it became manifest that
Charles had no intention of observing the compact into which he had
entered. The supply given by the representatives of the nation was
collected. The promise by which that supply had been obtained was broken.
A violent contest followed. The Parliament was dissolved with every mark
of royal displeasure. Some of the most distinguished members were
imprisoned; and one of them, Sir John Eliot, after years of suffering,
died in confinement.

Charles, however, could not venture to raise, by his own authority, taxes
sufficient for carrying on war. He accordingly hastened to make peace with
his neighbours, and thenceforth gave his whole mind to British politics.

Now commenced a new era. Many English Kings had occasionally committed
unconstitutional acts: but none had ever systematically attempted to make
himself a despot, and to reduce the Parliament to a nullity. Such was the
end which Charles distinctly proposed to himself. From March 1629 to April
1640, the Houses were not convoked. Never in our history had there been an
interval of eleven years between Parliament and Parliament. Only once had
there been an interval of even half that length. This fact alone is
sufficient to refute those who represent Charles as having merely trodden
in the footsteps of the Plantagenets and Tudors.

It is proved, by the testimony of the King’s most strenuous supporters,
that, during this part of his reign, the provisions of the Petition of
Right were violated by him, not occasionally, but constantly, and on
system; that a large part of the revenue was raised without any legal
authority; and that persons obnoxious to the government languished for
years in prison, without being ever called upon to plead before any
tribunal.

For these things history must hold the King himself chiefly 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 different departments of the administration.

Thomas Wentworth, successively created Lord Wentworth and Earl of
Strafford, a man of great abilities, eloquence, 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 confounded 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 authority, even in ordinary questions of civil right
between man and man; and to punish with merciless rigour all who murmured
at the acts of the government, or who applied, even in the most decent and
regular manner, to any tribunal for relief against those acts. 12

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 high 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 aboriginal 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. 13

The ecclesiastical administration was, in the meantime, principally
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 ends. But his understanding was
narrow; and his commerce with the world had been small. He was by 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 direction 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 single dissenter was to be found within their
jurisdiction. 14

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 efficient 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 inquisition.
Neither was a part of the old constitution of England. The Star Chamber
had been remodelled, and the High Commission created, by the Tudors. The
power which these boards had possessed before the accession of Charles had
been extensive and formidable, but had been small indeed when compared
with that which they now usurped. Guided chiefly by the violent spirit of
the primate, and free 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 at York, under the presidency of Wentworth, was armed,
in defiance of law, by a pure act of prerogative, with almost boundless
power over the northern counties. All these tribunals insulted 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 important. There was still no
standing army. There was therefore, no security that the whole fabric of
tyranny might not be subverted 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 which more than any other perplexed Wentworth. The Lord Keeper
Finch, in concert with other lawyers who were employed 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. This old
practice it was now determined, 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 was 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 with supplies which might be increased
at his discretion to any amount, and expended at his discretion for any
purpose.

The whole nation was alarmed and incensed. John Hampden, 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 forward, 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 arguments 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
interpreters of the law had pronounced that one great and productive tax
might be imposed by the royal authority. Wentworth justly observed that it
was impossible to vindicate their judgment except by reasons directly
leading to a conclusion which they had not ventured to draw. If money
might legally be raised without the consent of Parliament for the support
of a fleet, it was not easy to deny that money might, without consent of
Parliament, be legally raised for the support of an army.

The 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 readily as in an earlier age take
the form of rebellion. 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, during 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 nation were in the
greatest peril. The opponents of the government began to despair of the
destiny of their country; and 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, villages 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 was 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. Constitutional 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
predecessors. The three Estates sate in one house. The commissioners 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, though the Scottish Parliament was obsequious, the Scottish people
had always been singularly turbulent and ungovernable. They had butchered
their first James in his bedchamber: 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 highlands 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 the Calvinistic
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 already, 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 people, had not yet been attempted. The public worship of God was
still conducted 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 from that of England,
differed, in the judgment of all rigid Protestants, for the worse.

To this step, taken in the mere wantonness of tyranny, and in criminal
ignorance or more criminal contempt 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. 15 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 insurrection 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 restored, 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 to the chiefs of
the opposition: but it was the uniform practice of Charles, a practice
equally impolitic and ungenerous, to refuse all compliance with the
desires of his people, till those desires were expressed in a menacing
tone. As soon as the Commons showed a disposition to take into
consideration 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 and 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 nation, 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 parliamentary 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 imprisonment for remissness in collecting the payments.
Soldiers were enlisted 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 military operations
against the Scots. Among his troops there was little of that feeling which
separates 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 himself than to the enemy.
The Scots, encouraged by the heads of the English opposition, and feebly
resisted by the English forces, marched across the Tweed and the Tyne, and
encamped on the borders of Yorkshire. And now the murmurs of discontent
swelled into an uproar by which all spirits save one were overawed.

But the voice of Strafford was still for Thorough; 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 flattered himself,
might save him from the misery of facing another House of Commons. 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
administration, they were, as a class, so deeply interested in the
maintenance 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, without 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 ecclesiastical 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 enacted
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 constituent bodies together for the choice of
representatives. The Star Chamber, the High Commission, the Council of
York were 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. Strafford
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, prorogue, or dissolve the existing Parliament without its own
consent.

After ten months of assiduous toil, the Houses, in September 1641,
adjourned for a short vacation; and the King visited Scotland. He with
difficulty pacified that kingdom by consenting, 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 English Parliament lasted six weeks. The day on which
the Houses met again is one of the most remarkable epochs in our history.
From that day dates the corporate existence of the two great parties which
have ever since alternately governed the country. In one sense, indeed,
the distinction 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 novelty. Not only in
politics but in literature, in art, in science, in surgery and 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 overpowering 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
imperfections of whatever exists, disposed to think lightly of the risks
and inconveniences which attend improvements and disposed to give every
change credit for being an improvement. In the sentiments of both classes
there is something to approve. But of both the best specimens will be
found not far from the common frontier. 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 preserve, 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.
During 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
opponents, and to attribute the Act which restrained the King from
dissolving or proroguing the Parliament, the Triennial Act, the
impeachment of the ministers, and the attainder of Strafford, to the
faction which afterwards made war on the King. But no artifice could be
more disingenuous. Every one of those strong measures was actively
promoted by the men who were afterward 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 impeachment 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 Strafford was
proposed did the signs of serious disunion become visible. Even against
that law, a law which 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 inflicting 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 are still contending, for the
direction of public affairs, appeared confronting each other. During some
years they were designated as Cavaliers and Roundheads. They were
subsequently called Tories and Whigs; nor does it seem that these
appellations are likely soon to become obsolete.

It would not be difficult to compose a lampoon or panegyric on either of
these renowned factions. For no man not utterly destitute of judgment and
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 illustrious 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, England 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 alternate victories of two rival confederacies of
statesmen, a confederacy 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 difference rather of
degree than of principle. There were certain limits on the right and on
the left, which were very rarely overstepped. A few enthusiasts on one
side were ready to lay all our laws and franchises at the feet of our
Kings. A few enthusiasts 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 seventeenth century, the two parties
suspended their dissensions, and united their strength in a common cause.
Their first coalition restored hereditary monarchy. Their second coalition
rescued constitutional freedom.

It is also to be noted that these two parties have never been the 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 sides, merely because it was tired of
supporting the same men, sometimes because it was dismayed by its own
excesses, sometimes because it had expected impossibilities, and had been
disappointed. But whenever it has leaned with its whole weight in either
direction, that weight has, for the time, been irresistible.

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
majority of the nobles, and of those opulent and well descended gentlemen
to whom nothing was wanting 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 austerity drove to the king’s faction all who made
pleasure their business, who affected gallantry, splendour of dress, or
taste in the higher arts. With these went all who live by amusing the
leisure of others, from the painter and the comic poet, down to the
ropedancer and the Merry Andrew. For these artists well knew that they
might thrive under a superb and luxurious despotism, 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 husband was known to be strongly attached to her, and not a
little in awe of her. Though undoubtedly a 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 sanguinary laws enacted against Papists in the reign
of Elizabeth, would be severely enforced. The Roman Catholics were
therefore induced by the strongest motives to espouse the cause of 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 shopkeepers 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 party 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 been vindicated and surrounded with new securities. The sittings of
the Estates of the realm have 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 Commission, the Council of
York, oppressed end plundered 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 with his head. The Primate 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 Lord Keeper
sanctioned a plan by which the property 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 government. Now that those institutions
have fallen, we must hasten 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 apparent 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 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. The recent statutes were surely not of more authority than
the Great Charter or the Petition of Right. Yet neither the Great Charter,
hallowed by the veneration of four centuries, nor the Petition of Right,
sanctioned, after mature reflection, and for valuable consideration, by
Charles himself, had been found effectual for the protection of the
people. If once the check of fear were withdrawn, if once the spirit of
opposition were suffered to slumber, all the securities for English
freedom resolved themselves into a single one, the royal 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 cautious 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, submitted to the royal authority, had not long brooked the
humiliation 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: but, when that strong pressure was withdrawn,
when Scotland had set the example of successful 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 provinces. The castle of Dublin was scarcely thought
secure. Every post brought to London exaggerated accounts of outrages
which, without any exaggeration were sufficient to move pity end 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 stronger reasons than ever
for thwarting and restraining him. That the commonwealth was in danger was
undoubtedly 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 there 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, 1641. 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. After a hot debate of many hours,
the remonstrance was carried by 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
success, but that the King should, in all his conduct, show respect for
the laws and scrupulous 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
confidence. 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 selling 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 contempt 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 order were mingled, though in
different proportions. The advisers whom necessity had compelled him to
call round him were by no means after his own heart. They had joined in
condemning 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 thought of reviving Wentworth’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 them with shame and dismay. He sent the
Attorney General to impeach Pym, Hollis, Hampden, and other members of the
House of Commons of high treason at the bar of the House 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 arbitrary designs
as a crime to be expiated only by blood. He had broken faith, not only
with his Great Council and with 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 whole 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 Westminster 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 found 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 which occupied many
months. Accusations and recriminations passed backward and forward between
the contending parties. All accommodation had become impossible. The sure
punishment which waits on habitual perfidy had at length overtaken the
King. It was to no purpose that he now pawned his royal word, and invoked
heaven to witness the sincerity of his professions. The distrust with
which his adversaries regarded 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 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 hereditary 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 on 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 in 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 office is hated and distrusted, it should seem that the course
which ought to be taken is obvious. The dignity of the office should be
preserved: the person should be discarded. 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 the 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 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 conspicuously 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 institutions, though
it seems exorbitant, when distinctly set forth and digested into articles
of capitulation, really amounts to little more than the change which, in
the next generation, was effected by the Revolution. It is true that, at
the Revolution, the sovereign was not deprived by law of the power of
naming his ministers: but it is equally true that, since the Revolution,
no minister has been able to retain office six months in opposition 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 power 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 Parliament a supreme control over the
executive administration. The statesmen of the Revolution effected this
indirectly by changing the dynasty. The Roundheads of 1642, being unable
to change the dynasty, were compelled to take a direct course towards
their end.

We cannot, however, wonder that the demands of the opposition, 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 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
had 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 condemned, and whose word inspired them
with little confidence, than to suffer the regal 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 formidable. 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 produced, it is probable, a sum far less than that which the
Parliament 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
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 mismanagement, gave him, during some months, a
superiority in the war. His troops at first fought much better than those
of the Parliament. 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 which 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 Cavaliers 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. But 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 the war of the Palatinate did
not save him from the disgrace of being surprised 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 living, made war on a great scale by land, generals of
tried skill and valour were not to be found. It was necessary, therefore,
in 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 business, disgraced himself by the pusillanimous surrender of
Bristol. Indeed, of all the statesmen who at this juncture accepted high
military commands, Hampden alone appears to have carried into the camp the
capacity and strength of mind which had made him eminent in politics.

When the war had lasted a year, the advantage was decidedly with the
Royalists. They were victorious, both in the western and in the northern
counties. They had wrested Bristol, the second city in the kingdom, from
the Parliament. They had won several battles, and had not sustained a
single serious or ignominious defeat. Among the Roundheads adversity had
begun to produce dissension and discontent. The Parliament was kept in
alarm, sometimes by plots, and sometimes by riots. It was thought
necessary to fortify London against the royal army, and to hang some
disaffected citizens at their own doors. Several of the most distinguished
peers who had hitherto remained at Westminster fled to the court at
Oxford; nor can it be doubted that, if the operations of the Cavaliers
had, at this season, been directed by a sagacious and powerful mind,
Charles would soon have marched in triumph 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 inhabitants 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 required. A great force was speedily collected, and
began to move westward. The siege of Gloucester was raised: the Royalists
in every part of the kingdom were disheartened: the spirit of the
parliamentary party revived: and the apostate Lords, who had lately fled
from Westminster 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 minds 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
congregation 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, or, to use the kindred phrase of our own
time, radicals. Not content with 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 became him, while
vainly endeavouring, by his heroic example, to inspire his followers with
courage to face the fiery cavalry of Rupert. Bedford had been untrue to
the cause. Northumberland 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 years of age, accepted a commission in the
parliamentary army. No sooner had he become a soldier 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 purpose, 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 mercenaries, 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 nature
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 shameful disasters; but in the north the victory
of Marston Moor fully compensated for all that had been lost elsewhere.
That victory 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 Presbyterians, had been
retrieved by the energy of Cromwell, and by the steady valour of the
warriors whom he had trained.

These events produced the Selfdenying 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 first
great encounter between the Royalists and the remodelled army of the
Houses. The victory of the Roundheads 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 kingdom.
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 event 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 work, 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 extirpation 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
remodelled. 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 Cavaliers found it expedient 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 of 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 fortress 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 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 commands. The ranks were accordingly composed of
persons superior in station and education to the multitude. These persons,
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 efficiency, be indulged
in some liberties which, if allowed to any other troops, would have proved
subversive of all discipline. In general, 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 admonish 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 steadiness, 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 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 enthusiasm. His troops moved to victory with the precision of
machines, while burning with the wildest fanaticism of Crusaders. 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 difficulties, sometimes 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 his 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
passage into a counterscarp which had just been pronounced impregnable 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 servant girl complained of
the rough gallantry of the redcoats. Not an ounce of plate was taken from
the shops of the goldsmiths. But a Pelagian sermon, or a window on which
the Virgin and Child were painted, produced in the Puritan ranks an
excitement 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 pulpits 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 regarded 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 submissive to the Parliament. Indeed, the Parliament itself
abhorred its old defenders more than its old enemies, and was desirous to
come to terms of accommodation with Charles at the expense of the troops.
In Scotland at the same time, a coalition was formed between the Royalists
and a large body of Presbyterians who regarded the doctrines of the
Independents with detestation. At length the storm burst. There were
risings 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 might well be suspected that these movements were
contemplated with secret complacency 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 followed. An
administration, hostile to the King, was formed at Edinburgh; and
Cromwell, more than ever the darling of his soldiers, returned in triumph
to London.

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 perfect 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 without
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 has been the
fashion to consider these professions 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. They are therefore bound to show
that he had some purpose to serve by secretly stimulating 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 wantonly 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 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 transferred, 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 proportion of those who yet shuddered at the thought of slaying him:
Charles the Second would excite all the interest which belongs to
distressed youth and innocence. It is impossible to believe that
considerations so obvious, and so important, escaped 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 to reorganise the
distracted State by the power of the sword, under 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 difficult 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 perplexities 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 dissembler. There never was a
politician to whom so many 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 people: he privately solicited aid from
France, from Denmark, and from Lorraine. 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 his wife, that he intended to tolerate Popery
in England; and he authorised Lord Glamorgan 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
intended 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
which 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 sentiment of the nation,
the King should expiate his crimes with his blood. He for a time expected
a death like that of his unhappy predecessors, Edward the Second and
Richard the Second. But he was in no danger of such treason. Those who had
him in their gripe were not midnight stabbers. What they did they did in
order that 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 regicide seem strangely
fascinating to a party bent on effecting a complete political and social
revolution. In order to accomplish their purpose, it was necessary that
they should first break in pieces every part of the machinery of 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 excluded 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 public 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 confronting death
with dauntless courage, gave utterance to the feelings of his oppressed
people, manfully refused to plead before a court unknown to 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 his weeping hearers that he was defending, not only
his own cause, but theirs. His long misgovernment, his innumerable
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 institutions
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, 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
Commons, reduced to a small number of members, was nominally the supreme
power 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 other, 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 his genius and resolution that he was
able to overpower 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 generations under the rule of her legitimate
Kings.

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 Cromwell. 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 that which Israel waged on the Canaanites, smote the idolaters
with the edge of the 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 everywhere seen. The
rent 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 Young King was there. He had consented to profess himself a
Presbyterian, and to subscribe the Covenant; and, in return for these
concessions, the austere Puritans who bore sway at Edinburgh had permitted
him to assume the crown, and to hold, under their 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 independence, 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 Scotland. 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 between 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 the
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 representatives 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 on with patience, if not with complacency.

King, Lords, and Commons, had now in turn been vanquished 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 venerated furnished them with a
precedent which was 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
contemned 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 Parliament, brought with him from his rural retreat little
knowledge of books, no experience of great affairs, and a temper 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 opposed to the
general feeling of the country, and that, if he persevered in those
schemes, he had nothing before him but constant troubles, 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
Stuart. 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 numbers of honest and quiet men 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 Second, would soon kiss the hand of King Oliver. The peers,
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 possession, gladly resume their ancient functions.
Northumberland and Bedford, Manchester and Pembroke, would be proud to
bear the crown and the spurs, the sceptre and the globe, before the
restorer of aristocracy. A sentiment of loyalty would gradually 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 restored. 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 support their general, as
elective first magistrate of a commonwealth, 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 personal merit, should be declared hereditary in his family. All that
was left to him was to give to the new republic a constitution 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
partly of persons whose opposition he might safely defy. This assembly,
which he called a Parliament, and which the populace nicknamed, from one
of the most conspicuous members, Barebonesa’s Parliament, after 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 hew
names and forms. The title of King was not revived; but the kingly
prerogatives were intrusted to a Lord High 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 presented with a rich Bible, in
Westminster Hall. His office was not declared hereditary: but he was
permitted to name his successor; 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 system, though by no means so serious as they afterwards
became, had already been remarked by farsighted men. Cromwell reformed
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. Of
those towns the most considerable were 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 possessed of
freehold estates in land or not, had a vote for the county in which he
resided. A few Scotchmen and a few of the English colonists settled in
Ireland were summoned to the assembly which was to legislate, at
Westminster, for every part of the British isles.

To create a House of Lords was a less easy task. Democracy 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
commonalty as any nobility has ever been. Had he, as King of 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; and it was to no purpose that he offered to the chiefs of
illustrious families 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, therefore,
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 respect 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 nobles 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 defiance of their opposition. His wish seems
to have been to govern constitutionally, and to substitute the empire of
the laws for that of the sword. But he soon found that, hated as he was,
both by Royalists and Presbyterians, he could be safe only by being
absolute. The first House of Commons which the people elected by his
command, questioned his authority, and was dissolved without 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 nowise 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 wisdom,
the sobriety, and the magnanimity of the despot. The country was divided
into military districts. Those districts were placed under the command of
Major Generals. Every insurrectionary movement was promptly put down and
punished. The fear inspired 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 Royalists 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, whenever he
moved beyond the walls of his palace, the drawn swords and cuirasses of
his trusty bodyguards encompassed him thick on 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. 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
welfare 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 resources of England.
Property was secure. Even the Cavalier, who refrained from giving
disturbance to the new settlement, enjoyed in peace whatever the civil
troubles had left hem. The laws were violated only in cases where the
safety of the Protector’s person and government was concerned. Justice was
administered between man and man with an exactness and purity not before
known. Under no English government since the Reformation, had there 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
politics. 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, permitted 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 national pride for the 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 moderation 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 nothing
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 have been with him. His victories would have been hailed 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 moderation 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, 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 Prince of Wales.

During five months, the administration of Richard Cromwell 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 advantageous than that of his father. The young man had
made no enemy. His hands were unstained by civil blood. The Cavaliers
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 attempted 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: Manchester, 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 should have submitted
with patience and even with complacency, to this change: but though
speculative men might, even in that age, discern the vices of the old
representative system, and predict that those vices would, sooner or
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, consisting 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 Parliament without any new creation.

Thus far the statesmen by whose advice Richard acted had been successful.
Almost all the parts of the government were now constituted as they had
been constituted at the commencement 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 subjects approved by the
military saints. That he was a good man 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 in 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 conduct in the field, but destitute of the wisdom and civil
courage which had been conspicuous in their deceased leader. Some of 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
imagination. 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 mediocrity. 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 professional feelings of the
army were deeply wounded. It seemed that the Independents were 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, and
without a struggle. He was used by the army as an instrument 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 members
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 expressly 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 began to treat them as subjects. Again the doors of the House of
Commons were closed by military violence; and a provisional government,
named by the officers, assumed the direction of affairs.

Meanwhile the sense of great evils, and the strong apprehension of still
greater evils close at hand, had 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 choice only was left, the Stuarts
or the army. The banished family had committed great faults; but it had
dearly expiated those faults, and had undergone a long, and, it might be
hoped, a salutary training in the school of adversity. 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
compromised, and some risks might well be incurred. It seemed but too
likely that England would fall under the most odious and degrading of all
kinds of government, under a government uniting all the evils of despotism
to all the evils of anarchy. Anything was preferable to the yoke of a
succession of incapable and inglorious tyrants, raised to power, like the
Deys of Barbary, by military 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 bestowing 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. For
the dread of that invincible army was on all the inhabitants of the
island; and the Cavaliers, taught by a hundred disastrous fields how
little numbers can effect against discipline, were even more completely
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 liberty: That mighty force which had,
during many years, acted as one man, and which, while so acting, had been
found irresistible, was at length divided against itself. The army of
Scotland had done good service to the Commonwealth, and was in the highest
state of efficiency. It had borne no part in the late revolutions, 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 Praetorian Guards. It was
intolerable that certain regiments should, merely because they happened to
be quartered near Westminster, take on themselves to make and unmake
several governments in the course of half a year. If it were fit that the
state should be regulated by 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 garrisoned the Tower of London. There appears to have
been less fanaticism among the troops stationed in Scotland than in any
other part of the army; and their general, George Monk, was himself the
very opposite of a zealot. He had at the commencement of the civil war,
borne arms for the King, had been made prisoner by the Roundheads, had
then accepted a commission 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 expulsion of the Long
Parliament, if the provisional government had abstained from giving him
cause of offence and apprehension. For his nature was cautious and
somewhat sluggish; nor was he at all disposed to hazard sure and moderate
advantages for the chalice 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 his motives, he declared himself the champion 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 people everywhere
refused to pay taxes. The apprentices of the City assembled by thousands
and clamoured for a free Parliament. 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 separate peace. Lambert, who had
hastened northward to encounter the army of Scotland, was abandoned by his
troops, and became a prisoner. During 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 the country which
had any 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 Parliament; 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 the country, arrayed against each
other. On the very day before Monk reached London, there was a fight in
the Strand between the cavalry and the infantry. An united army had long
kept down a divided nation; but the nation 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 round 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 members of the House
of Commons who had many years before been expelled by the army, returned
to their seats, and were hailed with acclamations by great multitudes,
which filled Westminster Hall and Palace Yard. The Independent leaders no
longer 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
dissolution.

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 certain; 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
Prelacy more. They saw with bitter indignation that the close of their
long domination was approaching, and that a life of inglorious 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 might even now restore the glory which had departed. Betrayed,
disunited, and left without any chief in whom they could confide, they
were yet to be dreaded. It was no light thing to encounter the rage and
despair of fifty thousand fighting men, whose backs no enemy had ever
seen. Monk, and those with whom he acted, were well aware that the crisis
was most perilous. They employed every art to soothe and to divide the
discontented warriors. At the same time vigorous preparation was made for
a conflict. The army of Scotland, now quartered in London, was kept in
good humour by bribes, praises, and promises. The wealthy citizens grudged
nothing to a redcoat, and were indeed so liberal of their best wine, that
warlike saints were sometimes seen in a condition not very honourable
either to their religious or to their military character. Some refractory
regiments Monk ventured to disband. In the mean time the greatest
exertions were made by the provisional government, with the strenuous aid
of the whole body of the gentry and magistracy, to organise the militia.
In every county the trainbands were held ready to march; and this force
cannot be estimated at less than a hundred and twenty thousand men. In
Hyde Park twenty thousand citizens, well armed and accoutred, passed in
review, and showed a spirit which justified the hope that, in case of
need, they would fight manfully for their shops and firesides. The fleet
was heartily with the nation. It was a stirring time, a time of anxiety,
yet of hope. The prevailing opinion was that England would be delivered,
but not without a desperate and bloody struggle, and that the class which
had so long ruled by the sword would perish by the sword.

Happily the dangers of a conflict were averted. There was indeed one
moment of extreme peril. Lambert escaped from his confinement, and called
his comrades to arms. The flame of civil war was actually rekindled; but
by prompt and vigorous exertion it was trodden out before it had time to
spread. The luckless imitator of Cromwell was again a prisoner. The
failure of his enterprise damped the spirit of the soldiers; and they
sullenly resigned themselves to their fate.

The new Parliament, which, having been called without the royal writ, is
more accurately described as a Convention, met at Westminster. The Lords
repaired to the hall, from which they had, during more than eleven years,
been excluded by force. Both Houses instantly invited the King to return
to his country. He was proclaimed with pomp never before known. A gallant
fleet convoyed him from Holland to the coast of Kent. When he landed, the
cliffs of Dover were covered by thousands of gazers, among whom scarcely
one could be found who was not weeping with delight. The journey to London
was a continued triumph. The whole road from Rochester was bordered by
booths and tents, and looked like an interminable fair. Everywhere flags
were flying, bells and music sounding, wine and ale flowing in rivers to
the health of him whose return was the return of peace, of law, and of
freedom. But in the midst of the general joy, one spot presented a dark
and threatening aspect. On Blackheath the army was drawn up to welcome the
sovereign. He smiled, bowed, and extended his hand graciously to the lips
of the colonels and majors. But all his courtesy was vain. The
countenances of the soldiers were sad and lowering; and had they given way
to their feelings, the festive pageant of which they reluctantly made a
part would have had a mournful and bloody end. But there was no concert
among them. Discord and defection had left them no confidence in their
chiefs or in each other. The whole array of the City of London was under
arms. Numerous companies of militia had assembled from various parts of
the realm, under the command of loyal noblemen and gentlemen, to welcome
the King. That great day closed in peace; and the restored wanderer
reposed safe in the palace of his ancestors.

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 public 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 seen that the politicians who were
at the head of the Long Parliament 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 parties: 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 Restoration as a disastrous
event, and to condemn the folly or baseness of that Convention, which
recalled the royal family without 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.
England 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, Episcopalians 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 statesmen 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, withdrew from his capital. All
those acts of the Long Parliament 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 discharged veterans would be seen 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 indicating
that the most formidable army in the world had just been absorbed into the
mass of the community. The Royalists themselves confessed that, in every
department of honest industry the discarded warriors prospered beyond
other men, that none 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
attracted notice by his diligence and sobriety, he was in all probability
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 feeling was even stronger among
the Cavaliers than among 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 Cromwell, there would have been
little hope indeed for the liberties of England. Happily that instrument
by which alone the monarchy could be made absolute became an object of
peculiar horror and disgust to the monarchical party, and long continued
to be inseparably 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 1786, a minister who enjoyed no common measure of their
confidence found it impossible to overcome their aversion to his scheme of
fortifying 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 before him
were forced to content themselves with the miserable satisfaction of
digging up, hanging, quartering, and burning the remains of the greatest
prince that has ever ruled England.

Other objects of vengeance, few indeed, yet too many, were found among the
republican chiefs. Soon, however, the conquerors, glutted 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 wished for a quiet
and prosperous reign, he must confide in those who, though they had drawn
the sword in defence of the invaded privileges of Parliament, 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 a man had, by his recent 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 who had
borne the burden and heat of the day? Was he to 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 gratitude? Above all, was he to be suffered to
retain a fortune raised out of the 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 the nation, in the blessings of that mild government of which
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
previously 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 bestowed on some converts who had
been 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 proscription.

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 Falkland, which deprived the Bishops of
their seats in the House of Lords: but Episcopacy and the Liturgy had
never been abolished by law. The Long Parliament, however, had passed
ordinances 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 the accomplished Selden, had determined to keep the spiritual
power strictly subordinate to the temporal power. They had refused to
declare 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
Bishops and Archbishops. The Liturgy gave place to the Presbyterian
Directory. But scarcely had the new regulations been framed, when 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 ordinances, therefore, were never carried into
full execution. The Presbyterian system was fully established nowhere but
in Middlesex and Lancashire. In the other fifty counties almost every
parish seems to have been unconnected with the neighbouring parishes. In
some districts, indeed, the ministers formed themselves 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
arbitrary 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,
without some such precaution, the country would be overrun by ignorant and
drunken reprobates, bearing the name and receiving 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 book or surplice, and administered the Eucharist to communicants
seated at long tables.

Thus the ecclesiastical polity of the realm was in inextricable confusion.
Episcopacy was the form of government prescribed 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 established 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 government.

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 dissensions which had long agitated England.
Between the bigoted 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 permanent president, and that
this president might lawfully be called a Bishop. There might be a revised
Liturgy which should not exclude extemporaneous prayer, a baptismal
service in which the sign of the cross might be used or omitted at
discretion, a communion service at which the faithful might sit if their
conscience forbade 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 their
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
during the season of trial, had such a charm for them that they were
unwilling to part with a single response. Other Royalists, who made little
presence to piety, yet loved the episcopal 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, and were so far from being disposed to
purchase union by concession that they objected 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 the 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 of 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 punishments
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 thousands, but were frequently exposed to the
outrages of a fanatical rabble. Churches 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 Puritan stonemasons to be made decent.
Against the lighter vices the 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 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 wrestling matches and grinning matches on village greens, were
vigorously attacked. One ordinance directed that all the Maypoles 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 regarded 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 common 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 bearbaiting, 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. 16

Perhaps no single circumstance more strongly illustrates the temper of the
precisians than their conduct respecting Christmas day. Christmas had
been, from time immemorial, the season of joy and domestic affection, the
season when families assembled, when children came home from school, when
quarrels were made up, when carols were heard in every street, when every
house was 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
peculiarly acceptable on account of the shortness of the days and of the
severity of the weather. At that season, the interval between 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
whole, the spirit in which the holiday was kept was not unworthy of a
Christian festival. The long Parliament gave orders, in 1644, that the
twenty-fifth of December should be strictly observed as a fast, and that
all men should pass it in humbly bemoaning the great national sin which
they and their fathers had so often committed on that day by romping under
the mistletoe, 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 festival formidable riots
broke out in many places. The constables 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 Presbyterian 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 Hudibras,
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. In every village where they appeared there was an
end of dancing, bellringing, 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 contempt 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 mockers. But these peculiarities appeared far more
grotesque in a faction which ruled a great empire than in obscure and
persecuted 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 had sprung into existence, whose eccentricities
surpassed anything that had before been seen in England. A mad tailor,
named Lodowick Muggleton, wandered from pothouse to pothouse, 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. 17 George Fox
had raised a tempest of derision by proclaiming that it was a violation of
Christian sincerity to designate a single person 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 estimation. 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 persecuted 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 extravagant whimsies about dress, diversions and
postures. Widely as 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
generally, 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 obvious. It is seldom that a man enrolls himself in a proscribed body
from any but conscientious motives. Such a body, therefore, is composed,
with scarcely an exception, of sincere persons. The most rigid discipline
that can be enforced within a religious society is a very feeble
instrument of purification, when compared 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 congregations at
the risk of being 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 prevent 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 favour was to be gained only by exchanging with them the
signs and passwords of spiritual fraternity. One of the first resolutions
adopted by Barebone’s Parliament, the most intensely 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 debauchery. 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 thus 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 politics and in religion,
again opposed to each other. The great body of the nation leaned to the
Royalists. The crimes of Strafford and Laud, the excesses of the Star
Chamber and of the High Commission, the great services which the Long
Parliament 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 sullen tyranny of the Rump, the violence of the army, were
remembered with loathing; and the multitude 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 general sense of the people. Most of
the members, while execrating 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 kind cut 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 averse.

The restored King was at this time more loved by the people than any of
his predecessors had ever been. The calamities of his house, the heroic
death of his father, his own long sufferings and romantic adventures, made
him an object of tender interest. 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 temper. 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 recalled 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 who should shelter him,
cottagers and serving men had kept his secret truly, and had kissed his
hand under his mean 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 exertion, without faith in human virtue or
in human attachment without desire of renown, and without sensibility to
reproach. 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 country, 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 deserve 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 he did not hate them. Nay, he was so far humane that it was
highly disagreeable to him to see their sufferings or to hear their
complaints. This, however, 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 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
undeserving of his confidence, could easily wheedle him out of titles,
places, domains, state secrets and pardons. He bestowed much; yet he
neither enjoyed the pleasure nor acquired the fame of beneficence. He
never gave spontaneously; but it was painful to him to refuse. The
consequence was that his bounty generally went, not to those who deserved
it best, nor even to those whom he liked best, but to the most shameless
and importunate suitor who could obtain an audience.

The motives which governed the political conduct of Charles the Second
differed widely from those by which his predecessor 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. He detested business, and would 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
maladministration 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 disturb his luxurious repose.
For these ends, and for these ends alone, he wished to obtain arbitrary
power, if it could be obtained without risk or trouble. In the religious
disputes which divided his Protestant subjects his conscience was not at
all interested. For his opinions oscillated in contented suspense between
infidelity and Popery. But, though his conscience was neutral in the
quarrel between the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians, his taste was by
no means so. His favourite vices were precisely those to which the
Puritans were least indulgent. 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 mirth 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 Presbyterians. 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 follies. 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 frailties, of his father’s tyranny, and of his mother’s idolatry.
Indeed 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 influence 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 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 member of the Anglican
Church but he had already shown inclinations which had seriously alarmed
good Protestants.

The person on whom devolved at this time the greatest part of the labour
of governing was Edward Hyde, Chancellor of the realm, who was soon
created Earl of Clarendon. The respect which we justly feel for Clarendon
as a writer must not blind us to the faults which he committed as a
statesman. Some of those faults, however, are explained and excused by the
unfortunate position in which he stood. He had, during the first year of
the Long Parliament, been honourably distinguished among the senators who
laboured to redress the grievances of the nation. One of the most odious
of those grievances, the Council of York, had been removed in consequence
chiefly of his exertions. When the great schism took place, when the
reforming 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 affinity to the
royal house. His daughter had become, by a secret marriage, 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 character with a more discriminating eye. It
must be added that he had a strong sense of moral and religious
obligation, a sincere 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, who 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 1646 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 he 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
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
statesman or as a Christian.

While the House of Commons which had recalled the royal family was
sitting, it was impossible to effect the re-establishment of the old
ecclesiastical system. Not only were the intentions of the court strictly
concealed, but assurances which quieted 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
compromise 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 dissolved the
Parliament. 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 people 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 fought 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. The House of Commons was, during some years, more
zealous for royalty than the King, more zealous for episcopacy 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 which 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
fulfill the promises which he had made to the Presbyterians, 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 without mercy all that
they had suffered.

The Commons began by resolving that every member should, 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. Another
act was passed which required every officer of a corporation to receive
the Eucharist according to the rites of the Church of England, 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,
violent as it was, did not proceed quite to this length. It still
continued to be the law that a Parliament should be held every three
years: but the stringent clauses which directed the returning officers to
proceed to election at the proper time, even without the royal writ, were
repealed. The Bishops were restored to their seats in the Upper House. The
old ecclesiastical polity 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 preferment. 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 sufferers 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 Parliament had at least
allowed to the divines whom it ejected a provision sufficient to keep them
from starving; and this example the Cavaliers, intoxicated with animosity,
had not the justice and humanity to follow.

Then came penal statutes against Nonconformists, 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 important crisis of his life, to those on whom
his fate depended. The Presbyterians, in extreme distress and terror, fled
to the foot of the throne, and pleaded their recent services and the royal
faith solemnly and repeatedly plighted. The King wavered. He could not
deny his own hand and seal. He could not but be conscious that he owed
much to the petitioners. He was little in the habit of resisting
importunate solicitation. His temper was not that of a persecutor. He
disliked the Puritans indeed; but in him dislike was a languid feeling,
very little resembling the energetic hatred which had burned in the heart
of Laud. He was, moreover, partial to the Roman Catholic religion; and he
knew that it would be impossible to grant liberty of worship to the
professors of that religion without extending the same indulgence to
Protestant dissenters. He therefore made a feeble attempt to restrain the
intolerant zeal of the House of Commons; but that House was under the
influence of far deeper convictions and far stronger passions than his
own. After a faint struggle he yielded, and passed, with the show of
alacrity, a series of odious acts against the separatists. It was made a
crime to attend a dissenting place of worship. A single justice of the
peace might convict without a jury, and might, for the third offence, pass
sentence of transportation beyond sea for seven years. With refined
cruelty it was provided that the offender should not be transported to New
England, where he was likely to find sympathising friends. If he returned
to his own country before the expiration of his term of exile, he was
liable to capital punishment. A new and most unreasonable test was imposed
on divines who had been deprived of their benefices for nonconformity; and
all who refused to take that test were prohibited from coming within five
miles of any town which was governed by a corporation, of any town which
was represented in Parliament, or of any town where they had themselves
resided as ministers. The magistrates, by whom these rigorous statutes
were to be enforced, were in general men inflamed by party spirit and by
the remembrance of wrongs suffered in the time of the commonwealth. The
gaols were therefore soon crowded with dissenters, and, among the
sufferers, were some of whose genius and virtue any Christian society
might well be proud.

The Church of England was not ungrateful for the protection which she
received from the government. From the first day of her existence, she had
been attached to monarchy. But, during the quarter of a century which
followed the Restoration, her zeal for royal authority and hereditary
right passed all bounds. She had suffered with the House of Stuart. She
had been restored with that House. She was connected with it by common
interests, friendships, and enmities. It seemed impossible that a day
could ever come when the ties which bound her to the children of her
august martyr would be sundered, and when the loyalty in which she gloried
would cease to be a pleasing and profitable duty. She accordingly
magnified in fulsome phrase that prerogative which was constantly employed
to defend and to aggrandise her, and reprobated, much at her ease, the
depravity of those whom oppression, from which she was exempt, had goaded
to rebellion. Her favourite theme was the doctrine of non-resistance. That
doctrine she taught without any qualification, and followed out to all its
extreme consequences. Her disciples were never weary of repeating that in
no conceivable case, not even if England were cursed with a King
resembling Busiris or Phalaris, with a King who, in defiance of law, and
without the presence of justice, should daily doom hundreds of innocent
victims to torture and death, would all the Estates of the realm united be
justified in withstanding his tyranny by physical force. Happily the
principles of human nature afford abundant security that such theories
will never be more than theories. The day of trial came; and the very men
who had most loudly and most sincerely professed this extravagant loyalty
were, in every county of England arrayed in arms against the throne.

Property all over the kingdom was now again changing hands. The national
sales, not having been confirmed by Act of Parliament, were regarded by
the tribunals as nullities. The bishops, the deans, the chapters, the
Royalist nobility and gentry, reentered on their confiscated estates, and
ejected even purchasers who had given fair prices. The losses which the
Cavaliers had sustained during the ascendency of their opponents were thus
in part repaired; but in part only. All actions for mesne profits were
effectually barred by the general amnesty; and the numerous Royalists,
who, in order to discharge fines imposed by the Long Parliament, or in
order to purchase the favour of powerful Roundheads, had sold lands for
much less than the real value, were not relieved from the legal
consequences of their own acts.

While these changes were in progress, a change still more important took
place in the morals and manners of the community. Those passions and
tastes which, under the rule of the Puritans, had been sternly repressed,
and, if gratified at all, had been gratified by stealth, broke forth with
ungovernable violence as soon as the check was withdrawn. Men flew to
frivolous amusements and to criminal pleasures with the greediness which
long and enforced abstinence naturally produces. Little restraint was
imposed by public opinion. For the nation, nauseated with cant, suspicious
of all pretensions to sanctity and still smarting from the recent tyranny
of rulers austere in life and powerful in prayer, looked for a time with
complacency on the softer and gayer vices. Still less restraint was
imposed by the government. Indeed there was no excess which was not
encouraged by the ostentatious profligacy of the King and of his favourite
courtiers. A few counsellors of Charles the First, who were now no longer
young, retained the decorous gravity which had been thirty years before in
fashion at Whitehall. Such were Clarendon himself, and his friends, Thomas
Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, Lord Treasurer, and James Butler, Duke
of Ormond, who, having through many vicissitudes struggled gallantly for
the royal cause in Ireland, now governed that kingdom as Lord Lieutenant.
But neither the memory of the services of these men, nor their great power
in the state, could protect them from the sarcasms which modish vice loves
to dart at obsolete virtue. The praise of politeness and vivacity could
now scarcely be obtained except by some violation of decorum. Talents
great and various assisted to spread the contagion. Ethical philosophy had
recently taken a form well suited to please a generation equally devoted
to monarchy and to vice. Thomas Hobbes had, in language more precise and
luminous than has ever been employed by any other metaphysical writer,
maintained that the will of the prince was the standard of right and
wrong, and that every subject ought to be ready to profess Popery,
Mahometanism, or Paganism, at the royal command. Thousands who were
incompetent to appreciate what was really valuable in his speculations,
eagerly welcomed a theory which, while it exalted the kingly office,
relaxed the obligations of morality, and degraded religion into a mere
affair of state. Hobbism soon became an almost essential part of the
character of the fine gentleman. All the lighter kinds of literature were
deeply tainted by the prevailing licentiousness. Poetry stooped to be the
pandar of every low desire. Ridicule, instead of putting guilt and error
to the blush, turned her formidable shafts against innocence and truth.
The restored Church contended indeed against the prevailing immorality,
but contended feebly, and with half a heart. It was necessary to the
decorum of her character that she should admonish her erring children: but
her admonitions were given in a somewhat perfunctory manner. Her attention
was elsewhere engaged. Her whole soul was in the work of crushing the
Puritans, and of teaching her disciples to give unto Caesar the things
which were Caesar’s. She had been pillaged and oppressed by the party
which preached an austere morality. She had been restored to opulence and
honour by libertines. Little as the men of mirth and fashion were disposed
to shape their lives according to her precepts, they were yet ready to
fight knee deep in blood for her cathedrals and places, for every line of
her rubric and every thread of her vestments. If the debauched Cavalier
haunted brothels and gambling houses, he at least avoided conventicles. If
he never spoke without uttering ribaldry and blasphemy, he made some
amends by his eagerness to send Baxter and Howe to gaol for preaching and
praying. Thus the clergy, for a time, made war on schism with so much
vigour that they had little leisure to make war on vice. The ribaldry of
Etherege and Wycherley was, in the presence and under the special sanction
of the head of the Church, publicly recited by female lips in female ears,
while the author of the Pilgrim’s Progress languished in a dungeon for the
crime of proclaiming the gospel to the poor. It is an unquestionable and a
most instructive fact that the years during which the political power of
the Anglican hierarchy was in the zenith were precisely the years during
which national virtue was at the lowest point.

Scarcely any rank or profession escaped the infection of the prevailing
immorality; but those persons who made politics their business were
perhaps the most corrupt part of the corrupt society. For they were
exposed, not only to the same noxious influences which affected the nation
generally, but also to a taint of a peculiar and of a most malignant kind.
Their character had been formed amidst frequent and violent revolutions
and counterrevolutions. In the course of a few years they had seen the
ecclesiastical and civil polity of their country repeatedly changed. They
had seen an Episcopal Church persecuting Puritans, a Puritan Church
persecuting Episcopalians, and an Episcopal Church persecuting Puritans
again. They had seen hereditary monarchy abolished and restored. They had
seen the Long Parliament thrice supreme in the state, and thrice dissolved
amidst the curses and laughter of millions. They had seen a new dynasty
rapidly rising to the height of power and glory, and then on a sudden
hurled down from the chair of state without a struggle. They had seen a
new representative system devised, tried and abandoned. They had seen a
new House of Lords created and scattered. They had seen great masses of
property violently transferred from Cavaliers to Roundheads, and from
Roundheads back to Cavaliers. During these events no man could be a
stirring and thriving politician who was not prepared to change with every
change of fortune. It was only in retirement that any person could long
keep the character either of a steady Royalist or of a steady Republican.
One who, in such an age, is determined to attain civil greatness must
renounce all thoughts of consistency. Instead of affecting immutability in
the midst of endless mutation, he must be always on the watch for the
indications of a coming reaction. He must seize the exact moment for
deserting a falling cause. Having gone all lengths with a faction while it
was uppermost, he must suddenly extricate himself from it when its
difficulties begin, must assail it, must persecute it, must enter on a new
career of power and prosperity in company with new associates. His
situation naturally developes in him to the highest degree a peculiar
class of abilities and a peculiar class of vices. He becomes quick of
observation and fertile of resource. He catches without effort the tone of
any sect or party with which he chances to mingle. He discerns the signs
of the times with a sagacity which to the multitude appears miraculous,
with a sagacity resembling that with which a veteran police officer
pursues the faintest indications of crime, or with which a Mohawk warrior
follows a track through the woods. But we shell seldom find, in a
statesman so trained, integrity, constancy, any of the virtues of the
noble family of Truth. He has no faith in any doctrine, no zeal for any
cause. He has seen so many old institutions swept away, that he has no
reverence for prescription. He has seen so many new institutions, from
which much had been expected, produce mere disappointment, that he has no
hope of improvement. He sneers alike at those who are anxious to preserve
and at those who are eager to reform. There is nothing in the state which
he could not, without a scruple or a blush, join in defending or in
destroying. Fidelity to opinions and to friends seems to him mere dulness
and wrongheadedness. Politics he regards, not as a science of which the
object is the happiness of mankind, but as an exciting game of mixed
chance and skill, at which a dexterous and lucky player may win an estate,
a coronet, perhaps a crown, and at which one rash move may lead to the
loss of fortune and of life. Ambition, which, in good times, and in good
minds, is half a virtue, now, disjoined from every elevated and
philanthropic sentiment, becomes a selfish cupidity scarcely less ignoble
than avarice. Among those politicians who, from the Restoration to the
accession of the House of Hanover, were at the head of the great parties
in the state, very few can be named whose reputation is not stained by
what, in our age, would be called gross perfidy and corruption. It is
scarcely an exaggeration to say that the most unprincipled public men who
have taken part in affairs within our memory would, if tried by the
standard which was in fashion during the latter part of the seventeenth
century, deserve to be regarded as scrupulous and disinterested.

While these political, religious, and moral changes were taking place in
England, the Royal authority had been without difficulty reestablished in
every other part of the British islands. In Scotland the restoration of
the Stuarts had been hailed with delight; for it was regarded as the
restoration of national independence. And true it was that the yoke which
Cromwell had imposed was, in appearance, taken away, that the Scottish
Estates again met in their old hall at Edinburgh, and that the Senators of
the College of Justice again administered the Scottish law according to
the old forms. Yet was the independence of the little kingdom necessarily
rather nominal than real; for, as long as the King had England on his
side, he had nothing to apprehend from disaffection in his other
dominions. He was now in such a situation that he could renew the attempt
which had proved destructive to his father without any danger of his
father’s fate. Charles the First had tried to force his own religion by
his regal power on the Scots at a moment when both his religion and his
regal power were unpopular in England; and he had not only failed, but had
raised troubles which had ultimately cost him his crown and his head.
Times had now changed: England was zealous for monarchy and prelacy; and
therefore the scheme which had formerly been in the highest degree
imprudent might be resumed with little risk to the throne. The government
resolved to set up a prelatical church in Scotland. The design was
disapproved by every Scotchman whose judgment was entitled to respect.
Some Scottish statesmen who were zealous for the King’s prerogative had
been bred Presbyterians. Though little troubled with scruples, they
retained a preference for the religion of their childhood; and they well
knew how strong a hold that religion had on the hearts of their
countrymen. They remonstrated strongly: but, when they found that they
remonstrated in vain, they had not virtue enough to persist in an
opposition which would have given offence to their master; and several of
them stooped to the wickedness and baseness of persecuting what in their
consciences they believed to be the purest form of Christianity. The
Scottish Parliament was so constituted that it had scarcely ever offered
any serious opposition even to Kings much weaker than Charles then was.
Episcopacy, therefore, was established by law. As to the form of worship,
a large discretion was left to the clergy. In some churches the English
Liturgy was used. In others, the ministers selected from that Liturgy such
prayers and thanksgivings as were likely to be least offensive to the
people. But in general the doxology was sung at the close of public
worship; and the Apostles’ Creed was recited when baptism was
administered. By the great body of the Scottish nation the new Church was
detested both as superstitious and as foreign; as tainted with the
corruptions of Rome, and as a mark of the predominance of England. There
was, however, no general insurrection. The country was not what it had
been twenty-two years before. Disastrous war and alien domination had
tamed the spirit of the people. The aristocracy, which was held in great
honour by the middle class and by the populace, had put itself at the head
of the movement against Charles the First, but proved obsequious to
Charles the Second. From the English Puritans no aid was now to be
expected. They were a feeble party, proscribed both by law and by public
opinion. The bulk of the Scottish nation, therefore, sullenly submitted,
and, with many misgivings of conscience, attended the ministrations of the
Episcopal clergy, or of Presbyterian divines who had consented to accept
from the government a half toleration, known by the name of the
Indulgence. But there were, particularly in the western lowlands, many
fierce and resolute men who held that the obligation to observe the
Covenant was paramount to the obligation to obey the magistrate. These
people, in defiance of the law, persisted in meeting to worship God after
their own fashion. The Indulgence they regarded, not as a partial
reparation of the wrongs inflicted by the State on the Church, but as a
new wrong, the more odious because it was disguised under the appearance
of a benefit. Persecution, they said, could only kill the body; but the
black Indulgence was deadly to the soul. Driven from the towns, they
assembled on heaths and mountains. Attacked by the civil power, they
without scruple repelled force by force. At every conventicle they
mustered in arms. They repeatedly broke out into open rebellion. They were
easily defeated, and mercilessly punished: but neither defeat nor
punishment could subdue their spirit. Hunted down like wild beasts,
tortured till their bones were beaten flat, imprisoned by hundreds, hanged
by scores, exposed at one time to the license of soldiers from England,
abandoned at another time to the mercy of troops of marauders from the
Highlands, they still stood at bay in a mood so savage that the boldest
and mightiest oppressor could not but dread the audacity of their despair.

Such was, during the reign of Charles the Second, the state of Scotland.
Ireland was not less distracted. In that island existed feuds, compared
with which the hottest animosities of English politicians were lukewarm.
The enmity between the Irish Cavaliers and the Irish Roundheads was almost
forgotten in the fiercer enmity which raged between the English and the
Celtic races. The interval between the Episcopalian and the Presbyterian
seemed to vanish, when compared with the interval which separated both
from the Papist. During the late civil troubles the greater part of the
Irish soil had been transferred from the vanquished nation to the victors.
To the favour of the Crown few either of the old or of the new occupants
had any pretensions. The despoilers and the despoiled had, for the most
part, been rebels alike. The government was soon perplexed and wearied by
the conflicting claims and mutual accusations of the two incensed
factions. Those colonists among whom Cromwell had portioned out the
conquered territory, and whose descendants are still called Cromwellians,
asserted that the aboriginal inhabitants were deadly enemies of the
English nation under every dynasty, and of the Protestant religion in
every form. They described and exaggerated the atrocities which had
disgraced the insurrection of Ulster: they urged the King to follow up
with resolution the policy of the Protector; and they were not ashamed to
hint that there would never be peace in Ireland till the old Irish race
should be extirpated. The Roman Catholics extenuated their offense as they
best might, and expatiated in piteous language on the severity of their
punishment, which, in truth, had not been lenient. They implored Charles
not to confound the innocent with the guilty, and reminded him that many
of the guilty had atoned for their fault by returning to their allegiance,
and by defending his rights against the murderers of his father. The
court, sick of the importunities of two parties, neither of which it had
any reason to love, at length relieved itself from trouble by dictating a
compromise. That system, cruel, but most complete and energetic, by which
Oliver had proposed to make the island thoroughly English, was abandoned.
The Cromwellians were induced to relinquish a third part of their
acquisitions. The land thus surrendered was capriciously divided among
claimants whom the government chose to favour. But great numbers who
protested that they were innocent of all disloyalty, and some persons who
boasted that their loyalty had been signally displayed, obtained neither
restitution nor compensation, and filled France and Spain with outcries
against the injustice and ingratitude of the House of Stuart.

Meantime the government had, even in England, ceased to be popular. The
Royalists had begun to quarrel with the court and with each other; and the
party which had been vanquished, trampled down, and, as it seemed,
annihilated, but which had still retained a strong principle of life,
again raised its head, and renewed the interminable war.

Had the administration been faultless, the enthusiasm with which the
return of the King and the termination of the military tyranny had been
hailed could not have been permanent. For it is the law of our nature that
such fits of excitement shall always be followed by remissions. The manner
in which the court abused its victory made the remission speedy and
complete. Every moderate man was shocked by the insolence, cruelty, and
perfidy with which the Nonconformists were treated. The penal laws had
effectually purged the oppressed party of those insincere members whose
vices had disgraced it, and had made it again an honest and pious body of
men. The Puritan, a conqueror, a ruler, a persecutor, a sequestrator, had
been detested. The Puritan, betrayed and evil entreated, deserted by all
the timeservers who, in his prosperity, had claimed brotherhood with him,
hunted from his home, forbidden under severe penalties to pray or receive
the sacrament according to his conscience, yet still firm in his
resolution to obey God rather than man, was, in spite of some unpleasing
recollections, an object of pity and respect to well constituted minds.
These feelings became stronger when it was noised abroad that the court
was not disposed to treat Papists with the same rigour which had been
shown to Presbyterians. A vague suspicion that the King and the Duke were
not sincere Protestants sprang up and gathered strength. Many persons too
who had been disgusted by the austerity and hypocrisy of the Saints of the
Commonwealth began to be still more disgusted by the open profligacy of
the court and of the Cavaliers, and were disposed to doubt whether the
sullen preciseness of Praise God Barebone might not be preferable to the
outrageous profaneness and licentiousness of the Buckinghams and Sedleys.
Even immoral men, who were not utterly destitute of sense and public
spirit, complained that the government treated the most serious matters as
trifles, and made trifles its serious business. A King might be pardoned
for amusing his leisure with wine, wit, and beauty. But it was intolerable
that he should sink into a mere lounger and voluptuary, that the gravest
affairs of state should be neglected, and that the public service should
be starved and the finances deranged in order that harlots and parasites
might grow rich.

A large body of Royalists joined in these complaints, and added many sharp
reflections on the King’s ingratitude. His whole revenue, indeed, would
not have sufficed to reward them all in proportion to their own
consciousness of desert. For to every distressed gentleman who had fought
under Rupert or Derby his own services seemed eminently meritorious, and
his own sufferings eminently severe. Every one had flattered himself that,
whatever became of the rest, he should be largely recompensed for all that
he had lost during the civil troubles, and that the restoration of the
monarchy would be followed by the restoration of his own dilapidated
fortunes. None of these expectants could restrain his indignation, when he
found that he was as poor under the King as he had been under the Rump or
the Protector. The negligence and extravagance of the court excited the
bitter indignation of these loyal veterans. They justly said that one half
of what His Majesty squandered on concubines and buffoons would gladden
the hearts of hundreds of old Cavaliers who, after cutting down their oaks
and melting their plate to help his father, now wandered about in
threadbare suits, and did not know where to turn for a meal.

At the same time a sudden fall of rents took place. The income of every
landed proprietor was diminished by five shillings in the pound. The cry
of agricultural distress rose from every shire in the kingdom; and for
that distress the government was, as usual, held accountable. The gentry,
compelled to retrench their expenses for a period, saw with indignation
the increasing splendour and profusion of Whitehall, and were immovably
fixed in the belief that the money which ought to have supported their
households had, by some inexplicable process, gone to the favourites of
the King.

The minds of men were now in such a temper that every public act excited
discontent. Charles had taken to wife Catharine Princess of Portugal. The
marriage was generally disliked; and the murmurs became loud when it
appeared that the King was not likely to have any legitimate posterity.
Dunkirk, won by Oliver from Spain, was sold to Lewis the Fourteenth, King
of France. This bargain excited general indignation. Englishmen were
already beginning to observe with uneasiness the progress of the French
power, and to regard the House of Bourbon with the same feeling with which
their grandfathers had regarded the House of Austria. Was it wise, men
asked, at such a time, to make any addition to the strength of a monarchy
already too formidable? Dunkirk was, moreover, prized by the people, not
merely as a place of arms, and as a key to the Low Countries, but also as
a trophy of English valour. It was to the subjects of Charles what Calais
had been to an earlier generation, and what the rock of Gibraltar, so
manfully defended, through disastrous and perilous years, against the
fleets and armies of a mighty coalition, is to ourselves. The plea of
economy might have had some weight, if it had been urged by an economical
government. But it was notorious that the charges of Dunkirk fell far
short of the sums which were wasted at court in vice and folly. It seemed
insupportable that a sovereign, profuse beyond example in all that
regarded his own pleasures, should be niggardly in all that regarded the
safety and honour of the state.

The public discontent was heightened, when it was found that, while
Dunkirk was abandoned on the plea of economy, the fortress of Tangier,
which was part of the dower of Queen Catharine, was repaired and kept up
at an enormous charge. That place was associated with no recollections
gratifying to the national pride: it could in no way promote the national
interests: it involved us in inglorious, unprofitable, and interminable
wars with tribes of half savage Mussulmans and it was situated in a
climate singularly unfavourable to the health and vigour of the English
race.

But the murmurs excited by these errors were faint, when compared with the
clamours which soon broke forth. The government engaged in war with the
United Provinces. The House of Commons readily voted sums unexampled in
our history, sums exceeding those which had supported the fleets and
armies of Cromwell at the time when his power was the terror of all the
world. But such was the extravagance, dishonesty, and incapacity of those
who had succeeded to his authority, that this liberality proved worse than
useless. The sycophants of the court, ill qualified to contend against the
great men who then directed the arms of Holland, against such a statesman
as De Witt, and such a commander as De Ruyter, made fortunes rapidly,
while the sailors mutinied from very hunger, while the dockyards were
unguarded, while the ships were leaky and without rigging. It was at
length determined to abandon all schemes of offensive war; and it soon
appeared that even a defensive war was a task too hard for that
administration. The Dutch fleet sailed up the Thames, and burned the ships
of war which lay at Chatham. It was said that, on the very day of that
great humiliation, the King feasted with the ladies of his seraglio, and
amused himself with hunting a moth about the supper room. Then, at length,
tardy justice was done to the memory of Oliver. Everywhere men magnified
his valour, genius, and patriotism. Everywhere it was remembered how, when
he ruled, all foreign powers had trembled at the name of England, how the
States General, now so haughty, had crouched at his feet, and how, when it
was known that he was no more, Amsterdam was lighted up as for a great
deliverance, and children ran along the canals, shouting for joy that the
Devil was dead. Even Royalists exclaimed that the state could be saved
only by calling the old soldiers of the Commonwealth to arms. Soon the
capital began to feel the miseries of a blockade. Fuel was scarcely to be
procured. Tilbury Fort, the place where Elizabeth had, with manly spirit,
hurled foul scorn at Parma and Spain, was insulted by the invaders. The
roar of foreign guns was heard, for the first time, by the citizens of
London. In the Council it was seriously proposed that, if the enemy
advanced, the Tower should be abandoned. Great multitudes of people
assembled in the streets crying out that England was bought and sold. The
houses and carriages of the ministers were attacked by the populace; and
it seemed likely that the government would have to deal at once with an
invasion and with an insurrection. The extreme danger, it is true, soon
passed by. A treaty was concluded, very different from the treaties which
Oliver had been in the habit of signing; and the nation was once more at
peace, but was in a mood scarcely less fierce and sullen than in the days
of shipmoney.

The discontent engendered by maladministration was heightened by
calamities which the best administration could not have averted. While the
ignominious war with Holland was raging, London suffered two great
disasters, such as never, in so short a space of time, befel one city. A
pestilence, surpassing in horror any that during three centuries had
visited the island, swept away, in six mouths, more than a hundred
thousand human beings. And scarcely had the dead cart ceased to go its
rounds, when a fire, such as had not been known in Europe since the
conflagration of Rome under Nero, laid in ruins the whole city, from the
Tower to the Temple, and from the river to the purlieus of Smithfield.

Had there been a general election while the nation was smarting under so
many disgraces and misfortunes, it is probable that the Roundheads would
have regained ascendency in the state. But the Parliament was still the
Cavalier Parliament, chosen in the transport of loyalty which had followed
the Restoration. Nevertheless it soon became evident that no English
legislature, however loyal, would now consent to be merely what the
legislature had been under the Tudors. From the death of Elizabeth to the
eve of the civil war, the Puritans, who predominated in the representative
body, had been constantly, by a dexterous use of the power of the purse,
encroaching on the province of the executive government. The gentlemen
who, after the Restoration, filled the Lower House, though they abhorred
the Puritan name, were well pleased to inherit the fruit of the Puritan
policy. They were indeed most willing to employ the power which they
possessed in the state for the purpose of making their King mighty and
honoured, both at home and abroad: but with the power itself they were
resolved not to part. The great English revolution of the seventeenth
century, that is to say, the transfer of the supreme control of the
executive administration from the crown to the House of Commons, was,
through the whole long existence of this Parliament, proceeding
noiselessly, but rapidly and steadily. Charles, kept poor by his follies
and vices, wanted money. The Commons alone could legally grant him money.
They could not be prevented from putting their own price on their grants.
The price which they put on their grants was this, that they should be
allowed to interfere with every one of the King’s prerogatives, to wring
from him his consent to laws which he disliked, to break up cabinets, to
dictate the course of foreign policy, and even to direct the
administration of war. To the royal office, and the royal person, they
loudly and sincerely professed the strongest attachment. But to Clarendon
they owed no allegiance; and they fell on him as furiously as their
predecessors had fallen on Strafford. The minister’s virtues and vices
alike contributed to his ruin. He was the ostensible head of the
administration, and was therefore held responsible even for those acts
which he had strongly, but vainly, opposed in Council. He was regarded by
the Puritans, and by all who pitied them, as an implacable bigot, a second
Laud, with much more than Laud’s understanding. He had on all occasions
maintained that the Act of indemnity ought to be strictly observed; and
this part of his conduct, though highly honourable to him, made him
hateful to all those Royalists who wished to repair their ruined fortunes
by suing the Roundheads for damages and mesne profits. The Presbyterians
of Scotland attributed to him the downfall of their Church. The Papists of
Ireland attributed to him the loss of their lands. As father of the
Duchess of York, he had an obvious motive for wishing that there might be
a barren Queen; and he was therefore suspected of having purposely
recommended one. The sale of Dunkirk was justly imputed to him. For the
war with Holland, he was, with less justice, held accountable. His hot
temper, his arrogant deportment, the indelicate eagerness with which he
grasped at riches, the ostentation with which he squandered them, his
picture gallery, filled with masterpieces of Vandyke which had once been
the property of ruined Cavaliers, his palace, which reared its long and
stately front right opposite to the humbler residence of our Kings, drew
on him much deserved, and some undeserved, censure. When the Dutch fleet
was in the Thames, it was against the Chancellor that the rage of the
populace was chiefly directed. His windows were broken; the trees of his
garden were cut down; and a gibbet was set up before his door. But nowhere
was he more detested than in the House of Commons. He was unable to
perceive that the time was fast approaching when that House, if it
continued to exist at all, must be supreme in the state, when the
management of that House would be the most important department of
politics, and when, without the help of men possessing the ear of that
House, it would be impossible to carry on the government. He obstinately
persisted in considering the Parliament as a body in no respect differing
from the Parliament which had been sitting when, forty years before, he
first began to study law at the Temple. He did not wish to deprive the
legislature of those powers which were inherent in it by the old
constitution of the realm: but the new development of those powers, though
a development natural, inevitable, and to be prevented only by utterly
destroying the powers themselves, disgusted and alarmed him. Nothing would
have induced him to put the great seal to a writ for raising shipmoney, or
to give his voice in Council for committing a member of Parliament to the
Tower, on account of words spoken in debate: but, when the Commons began
to inquire in what manner the money voted for the war had been wasted, and
to examine into the maladministration of the navy, he flamed with
indignation. Such inquiry, according to him, was out of their province. He
admitted that the House was a most loyal assembly, that it had done good
service to the crown, and that its intentions were excellent. But, both in
public and in the closet, he, on every occasion, expressed his concern
that gentlemen so sincerely attached to monarchy should unadvisedly
encroach on the prerogative of the monarch. Widely as they differed in
spirit from the members of the Long Parliament, they yet, he said,
imitated that Parliament in meddling with matters which lay beyond the
sphere of the Estates of the realm, and which were subject to the
authority of the crown alone. The country, he maintained, would never be
well governed till the knights of shires and the burgesses were content to
be what their predecessors had been in the days of Elizabeth. All the
plans which men more observant than himself of the signs of that time
proposed, for the purpose of maintaining a good understanding between the
Court and the Commons, he disdainfully rejected as crude projects,
inconsistent with the old polity of England. Towards the young orators,
who were rising to distinction and authority in the Lower House, his
deportment was ungracious: and he succeeded in making them, with scarcely
an exception, his deadly enemies. Indeed one of his most serious faults
was an inordinate contempt for youth: and this contempt was the more
unjustifiable, because his own experience in English politics was by no
means proportioned to his age. For so great a part of his life had been
passed abroad that he knew less of that world in which he found himself on
his return than many who might have been his sons.

For these reasons he was disliked by the Commons. For very different
reasons he was equally disliked by the Court. His morals as well as his
polities were those of an earlier generation. Even when he was a young law
student, living much with men of wit and pleasure, his natural gravity and
his religious principles had to a great extent preserved him from the
contagion of fashionable debauchery; and he was by no means likely, in
advanced years and in declining health, to turn libertine. On the vices of
the young and gay he looked with an aversion almost as bitter and
contemptuous as that which he felt for the theological errors of the
sectaries. He missed no opportunity of showing his scorn of the mimics,
revellers, and courtesans who crowded the palace; and the admonitions
which he addressed to the King himself were very sharp, and, what Charles
disliked still more, very long. Scarcely any voice was raised in favour of
a minister loaded with the double odium of faults which roused the fury of
the people, and of virtues which annoyed and importuned the sovereign.
Southampton was no more. Ormond performed the duties of friendship
manfully and faithfully, but in vain. The Chancellor fell with a great
ruin. The seal was taken from him: the Commons impeached him: his head was
not safe: he fled from the country: an act was passed which doomed him to
perpetual exile; and those who had assailed and undermined him began to
struggle for the fragments of his power.

The sacrifice of Clarendon in some degree took off the edge of the public
appetite for revenge. Yet was the anger excited by the profusion and
negligence of the government, and by the miscarriages of the late war, by
no means extinguished. The counsellors of Charles, with the fate of the
Chancellor before their eyes, were anxious for their own safety. They
accordingly advised their master to soothe the irritation which prevailed
both in the Parliament and throughout the country, and for that end, to
take a step which has no parallel in the history of the House of Stuart,
and which was worthy of the prudence and magnanimity of Oliver.

We have now reached a point at which the history of the great English
revolution begins to be complicated with the history of foreign politics.
The power of Spain had, during many years, been declining. She still, it
is true held in Europe the Milanese and the two Sicilies, Belgium, and
Franche Comte. In America her dominions still spread, on both sides of the
equator, far beyond the limits of the torrid zone. But this great body had
been smitten with palsy, and was not only incapable of giving molestation
to other states, but could not, without assistance, repel aggression.
France was now, beyond all doubt, the greatest power in Europe. Her
resources have, since those days, absolutely increased, but have not
increased so fast as the resources of England. It must also be remembered
that, a hundred and eighty years ago, the empire of Russia, now a monarchy
of the first class, was as entirely out of the system of European politics
as Abyssinia or Siam, that the House of Brandenburg was then hardly more
powerful than the House of Saxony, and that the republic of the United
States had not then begun to exist. The weight of France, therefore,
though still very considerable, has relatively diminished. Her territory
was not in the days of Lewis the Fourteenth quite so extensive as at
present: but it was large, compact, fertile, well placed both for attack
and for defence, situated in a happy climate, and inhabited by a brave,
active, and ingenious people. The state implicitly obeyed the direction of
a single mind. The great fiefs which, three hundred years before, had
been, in all but name, independent principalities, had been annexed to the
crown. Only a few old men could remember the last meeting of the States
General. The resistance which the Huguenots, the nobles, and the
parliaments had offered to the kingly power, had been put down by the two
great Cardinals who had ruled the nation during forty years. The
government was now a despotism, but, at least in its dealings with the
upper classes, a mild and generous despotism, tempered by courteous
manners and chivalrous sentiments. The means at the disposal of the
sovereign were, for that age, truly formidable. His revenue, raised, it is
true, by a severe and unequal taxation which pressed heavily on the
cultivators of the soil, far exceeded that of any other potentate. His
army, excellently disciplined, and commanded by the greatest generals then
living, already consisted of more than a hundred and twenty thousand men.
Such an array of regular troops had not been seen in Europe since the
downfall of the Roman empire. Of maritime powers France was not the first.
But, though she had rivals on the sea, she had not yet a superior. Such
was her strength during the last forty years of the seventeenth century,
that no enemy could singly withstand her, and that two great coalitions,
in which half Christendom was united against her, failed of success.

The personal qualities of the French King added to the respect inspired by
the power and importance of his kingdom. No sovereign has ever represented
the majesty of a great state with more dignity and grace. He was his own
prime minister, and performed the duties of a prime minister with an
ability and industry which could not be reasonably expected from one who
had in infancy succeeded to a crown, and who had been surrounded by
flatterers before he could speak. He had shown, in an eminent degree, two
talents invaluable to a prince, the talent of choosing his servants well,
and the talent of appropriating to himself the chief part of the credit of
their acts. In his dealings with foreign powers he had some generosity,
but no justice. To unhappy allies who threw themselves at his feet, and
had no hope but in his compassion, he extended his protection with a
romantic disinterestedness, which seemed better suited to a knight errant
than to a statesman. But he broke through the most sacred ties of public
faith without scruple or shame, whenever they interfered with his
interest, or with what he called his glory. His perfidy and violence,
however, excited less enmity than the insolence with which he constantly
reminded his neighbours of his own greatness and of their littleness. He
did not at this time profess the austere devotion which, at a later
period, gave to his court the aspect of a monastery. On the contrary, he
was as licentious, though by no means as frivolous and indolent, as his
brother of England. But he was a sincere Roman Catholic; and both his
conscience and his vanity impelled him to use his power for the defence
and propagation of the true faith, after the example of his renowned
predecessors, Clovis, Charlemagne, and Saint Lewis.

Our ancestors naturally looked with serious alarm on the growing power of
France. This feeling, in itself perfectly reasonable, was mingled with
other feelings less praiseworthy. France was our old enemy. It was against
France that the most glorious battles recorded in our annals had been
fought. The conquest of France had been twice effected by the
Plantagenets. The loss of France had been long remembered as a great
national disaster. The title of King of France was still borne by our
sovereigns. The lilies of France still appeared, mingled with our own
lions, on the shield of the House of Stuart. In the sixteenth century the
dread inspired by Spain had suspended the animosity of which France had
anciently been the object. But the dread inspired by Spain had given place
to contemptuous compassion; and France was again regarded as our national
foe. The sale of Dunkirk to France had been the most generally unpopular
act of the restored King. Attachment to France had been prominent among
the crimes imputed by the Commons to CIarendon. Even in trifles the public
feeling showed itself. When a brawl took place in the streets of
Westminster between the retinues of the French and Spanish embassies, the
populace, though forcibly prevented from interfering, had given
unequivocal proofs that the old antipathy to France was not extinct.

France and Spain were now engaged in a more serious contest. One of the
chief objects of the policy of Lewis throughout his life was to extend his
dominions towards the Rhine. For this end he had engaged in war with
Spain, and he was now in the full career of conquest. The United Provinces
saw with anxiety the progress of his arms. That renowned federation had
reached the height of power, prosperity, and glory. The Batavian
territory, conquered from the waves and defended against them by human
art, was in extent little superior to the principality of Wales. But all
that narrow space was a busy and populous hive, in which new wealth was
every day created, and in which vast masses of old wealth were hoarded.
The aspect of Holland, the rich cultivation, the innumerable canals, the
ever whirling mills, the endless fleets of barges, the quick succession of
great towns, the ports bristling with thousands of masts, the large and
stately mansions, the trim villas, the richly furnished apartments, the
picture galleries, the summer rouses, the tulip beds, produced on English
travellers in that age an effect similar to the effect which the first
sight of England now produces on a Norwegian or a Canadian. The States
General had been compelled to humble themselves before Cromwell. But after
the Restoration they had taken their revenge, had waged war with success
against Charles, and had concluded peace on honourable terms. Rich,
however, as the Republic was, and highly considered in Europe, she was no
match for the power of Lewis. She apprehended, not without good cause,
that his kingdom might soon be extended to her frontiers; and she might
well dread the immediate vicinity of a monarch so great, so ambitious, and
so unscrupulous. Yet it was not easy to devise any expedient which might
avert the danger. The Dutch alone could not turn the scale against France.
On the side of the Rhine no help was to be expected. Several German
princes had been gained by Lewis; and the Emperor himself was embarrassed
by the discontents of Hungary. England was separated from the United
Provinces by the recollection of cruel injuries recently inflicted and
endured; and her policy had, since the restoration, been so devoid of
wisdom and spirit, that it was scarcely possible to expect from her any
valuable assistance

But the fate of Clarendon and the growing ill humour of the Parliament
determined the advisers of Charles to adopt on a sudden a policy which
amazed and delighted the nation.

The English resident at Brussels, Sir William Temple, one of the most
expert diplomatists and most pleasing writers of that age, had already
represented to this court that it was both desirable and practicable to
enter into engagements with the States General for the purpose of checking
the progress of France. For a time his suggestions had been slighted; but
it was now thought expedient to act on them. He was commissioned to
negotiate with the States General. He proceeded to the Hague, and soon
came to an understanding with John De Witt, then the chief minister of
Holland. Sweden, small as her resources were, had, forty years before,
been raised by the genius of Gustavus Adolphus to a high rank among
European powers, and had not yet descended to her natural position. She
was induced to join on this occasion with England and the States. Thus was
formed that coalition known as the Triple Alliance. Lewis showed signs of
vexation and resentment, but did not think it politic to draw on himself
the hostility of such a confederacy in addition to that of Spain. He
consented, therefore, to relinquish a large part of the territory which
his armies had occupied. Peace was restored to Europe; and the English
government, lately an object of general contempt, was, during a few
months, regarded by foreign powers with respect scarcely less than that
which the Protector had inspired.

At home the Triple Alliance was popular in the highest degree. It
gratified alike national animosity and national pride. It put a limit to
the encroachments of a powerful and ambitious neighbour. It bound the
leading Protestant states together in close union. Cavaliers and
Roundheads rejoiced in common: but the joy of the Roundhead was even
greater than that of the Cavalier. For England had now allied herself
strictly with a country republican in government and Presbyterian in
religion, against a country ruled by an arbitrary prince and attached to
the Roman Catholic Church. The House of Commons loudly applauded the
treaty; and some uncourtly grumblers described it as the only good thing
that had been done since the King came in.

The King, however, cared little for the approbation of his Parliament or
of his people. The Triple Alliance he regarded merely as a temporary
expedient for quieting discontents which had seemed likely to become
serious. The independence, the safety, the dignity of the nation over
which he presided were nothing to him. He had begun to find constitutional
restraints galling. Already had been formed in the Parliament a strong
connection known by the name of the Country Party. That party included all
the public men who leaned towards Puritanism and Republicanism, and many
who, though attached to the Church and to hereditary monarchy, had been
driven into opposition by dread of Popery, by dread of France, and by
disgust 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 studious of fame, he
was galled by the taunts which were sometimes uttered in the discussions
of the Commons, and on one occasion attempted to restrain the freedom of
speech by disgraceful means. Sir John Coventry, a country gentleman, had,
in debate, sneered at the profligacy of the court. In 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 numerous enough to excite great jealousy and apprehension
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, indeed to be dreaded; for it was calculated that in the
capital and its suburbs dwelt not less than twenty thousand 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 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 expect substantial proofs 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 resemble 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,
defensive 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 are permitted to dispose of large
revenues, to fill their palaces with beautiful women, to besot themselves
in the company of their favourite revellers, and to oppress with impunity
any subject who may incur their displeasure. 18 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 unpleasing.

That the Duke of York should have concurred in the design 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 two passions could hardly be distinguished from each
other. It seemed highly improbable that, without foreign aid, he would be
able to obtain ascendency, or even toleration, for his own faith: and he
was in a temper to see nothing humiliating in any step which might promote
the interests 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, and a favourite with both. The King of England offered to
declare himself a Roman Catholic, to dissolve the Triple Alliance, 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 to receive these 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 establishing 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 during 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
neighbouring nations. At present a great party zealous for popular
government has ramifications in every civilised country. And important
advantage gained anywhere by that party is almost certain to be the signal
for general commotion. It is not wonderful 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
institutions 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 English volume in his library, or knew
Shakespeare, 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 Roundheads:
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 therefore be a great error to ascribe
the conduct of Lewis to apprehensions at all resembling those which, in
our age, induced the Holy Alliance to interfere in the internal troubles
of Naples and Spain.

Nevertheless, the propositions made by the court of Whitehall were most
welcome to him. He already meditated gigantic designs, which were destined
to keep Europe in constant fermentation 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 coalition. But
for any continental coalition France singlehanded was a match. England
could turn the scale. On the course which, in such a crisis, England might
pursue, the destinies of the world would depend; and it was notorious that
the English Parliament and nation were strongly attached to the policy
which had dictated the Triple Alliance. Nothing, therefore, could be more
gratifying to Lewis than to learn that 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 without risk or inconvenience spare. In this way,
at an expense very much less than that which he incurred in building and
decorating 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 San 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 withstand
the seditious encroachments of the Parliament, and conveyed to the
Parliament intimations of the arbitrary designs of the 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 his leisure. Indeed a husband would be justly derided who should
bear from a wife of exalted rank and spotless virtue half the insolence
which the King of England bore from concubines who, while they owed
everything to his 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, a lady of the House 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 were
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 profession 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 England, by land and sea, in support of the rights of
the House of Bourbon to the vast monarchy of Spain. Lewis, on the other
hand, engaged to pay a large subsidy, and promised that, if any
insurrection should break out in England, he would send an army at his own
charge to support 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 a 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 the confederates.

The Duke of York, too dull to apprehend danger, or too fanatical to care
about it, was impatient to see the article touching the Roman Catholic
religion carried into immediate execution: 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, daughter 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 himself 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 person who first suggested the
most disgraceful articles which it contained; 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 to which the law assigned
many important functions and duties. During several centuries this body
deliberated on the gravest and most delicate affairs. But by degrees its
character changed. It became too large for despatch and secrecy. The rank
of Privy Councillor was often bestowed as an honorary distinction on
persons to whom nothing was confided, and whose opinion was never asked.
The sovereign, on the most important occasions, resorted for advice to a
small knot of leading ministers. The advantages and disadvantages of this
course were 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 existence ever been recognised by
any Act of Parliament.

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 of 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 which is often
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 which he felt a preference, it was that of Rome.
He had some talent for conversation, and some talent also for transacting
the ordinary business of office. He had learned, during a life passed in
travelling and negotiating, the art of accommodating 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 retainers.

Buckingham, Ashley, and Lauderdale were men in whom the immorality which
was epidemic among the politicians of that age appeared in its most
malignant type, but variously modified by greet diversities of temper and
understanding. Buckingham was a sated man of pleasure, who had turned to
ambition as to a pastime. As he had tried to amuse himself with
architecture and music, with writing farces and with seeking for the
philosopher’s stone, so he now tried to amuse himself with a secret
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 maintaining a treasonable correspondence with
the remains of the Republican party in the city. He was now again a
courtier, and was eager to win the favour of the King by services from
which the most illustrious of those who had fought and suffered 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 Ashley’s versatility was the
effect, not of levity, but of deliberate selfishness. He had served and
betrayed a succession of governments. 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 unchangeable, 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 of God.

Lauderdale, loud and coarse both in mirth and anger, was, perhaps, under
the outward show of boisterous frankness, the most dishonest man in the
whole Cabal. He had made himself conspicuous among the Scotch insurgents
of 1638 by his zeal for the Covenant. He was accused of having been deeply
concerned in the sale of Charles the First to the English Parliament, and
was therefore, in the estimation of good Cavaliers, a traitor, if
possible, of a worse 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 forcing episcopacy on his reluctant countrymen; nor
did he in that cause shrink from the unsparing 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 preferred the Presbyterian form of
church government to every other.

Unscrupulous as Buckingham, Ashley, and Lauderdale were, it was not
thought safe to intrust to them the King’s intention of declaring himself
a Roman Catholic. A false treaty, in which the article concerning religion
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 which 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 probably suspected more than was distinctly
avowed to them. They were certainly privy to all the political engagements
contracted with France, and were not ashamed to receive large
gratifications 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 vices belonging to two different ages 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 extensively 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 which was
afterwards practiced by Walpole. They soon perceived, however, that,
though the House of Commons 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 principles of the Triple
Alliance, and pretended that, in order to hold the ambition of France in
check, it would be necessary to augment the fleet. The Commons fell into
the snare, and voted a grant of eight hundred thousand pounds. The
Parliament was instantly prorogued; and the court, thus emancipated from
control, proceeded to the execution of the great design.

The financial difficulties however were serious. A war with Holland could
be carried on only at enormous cost. The ordinary revenue was not more
than sufficient to support the government 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
hostilities. After the terrible lesson given by the Long Parliament, even
the Cabal did not venture to recommend benevolences or shipmoney. In this
perplexity Ashley and Clifford proposed a flagitious breach of public
faith. The goldsmiths of London were then not only dealers in the precious
metals, but also bankers, 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 pay 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, appeared 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 Indulgence, 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 federation
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 exercised
within its own sphere, many of the rights of sovereignty. 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
Stadtholder 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 Stadtholders was an object of extreme jealousy to the municipal
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 Caesar. The Stadtholder commanded the forces of the commonwealth,
disposed of all military 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 1650, amidst great civil
troubles. He died childless: the adherents 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
General.

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 William 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 first magistrate was, to a great
extent, supplied by the Grand Pensionary of the Province of Holland, John
De Witt, whose abilities, firmness, and integrity had raised him to
unrivalled authority in the councils of the municipal oligarchy.

The French invasion produced a complete change. The suffering and
terrified people raged fiercely against the government. In their madness
they attacked the bravest captains and the ablest statesmen of the
distressed commonwealth. De Ruyter was insulted by the rabble. De Witt was
torn in pieces before the gate of the palace of the States General at the
Hague. The Prince of Orange, who had no share in the guilt of the murder,
but who, on this occasion, as on another lamentable occasion twenty years
later, extended to crimes perpetrated in his cause an indulgence which has
left a stain on his glory, became chief of the 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 the 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, would have been the noblest subject
for epic song that is to be found in the whole compass of modern history.
He told the deputies that, even if their natal soil and the marvels with
which human industry 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 thousand emigrants to the Indian Archipelago.
There the Dutch commonwealth might commence a new and more glorious
existence, and might rear, under the Southern Cross, amidst the sugar
canes and nutmeg trees, the Exchange of a wealthier Amsterdam, and the
schools of a more learned Leyden. The national spirit swelled and rose
high. The terms offered by the allies were firmly rejected. The dykes were
opened. The whole country was turned into one great lake from which the
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 preferred a palace to a camp, had already returned
to enjoy the adulation of poets and the smiles of ladies in the newly
planted alleys of Versailles.

And now the tide turned fast. The event of the maritime war had been
doubtful; by land the United Provinces had obtained a respite; and a
respite, though short, was of infinite importance. Alarmed by the vast
designs of Lewis, both the branches of the great House of Austria sprang
to arms. Spain and Holland, divided by the memory of ancient wrongs and
humiliations, were reconciled by the nearness of the common danger. From
every part of Germany troops poured towards the Rhine. The English
government had already expended all the funds which had been obtained by
pillaging the public creditor. No loan could be expected from the City. An
attempt to raise taxes by the royal authority would have at once produced
a rebellion; and Lewis, who had now to maintain a contest against half
Europe, was in no condition to furnish the means of coercing the people of
England. It was necessary to convoke the Parliament.

In the spring of 1673, therefore, the Houses reassembled after a recess of
near two years. Clifford, now a peer and Lord Treasurer, and Ashley, now
Earl of Shaftesbury and Lord Chancellor, were the persons on whom the King
principally relied as Parliamentary managers. The Country Party instantly
began to attack the policy of the Cabal. The attack was made, not in the
way of storm, but by slow and scientific approaches. The Commons at first
held out hopes that they would give support to the king’s foreign policy,
but insisted that he should purchase that support by abandoning his whole
system of domestic policy. Their chief object was to obtain the revocation
of the Declaration of Indulgence. Of all the many unpopular steps taken by
the government the most unpopular was the publishing of this Declaration.
The most opposite sentiments had been shocked by an act so liberal, done
in a manner so despotic. All the enemies of religious freedom, and all the
friends of civil freedom, found themselves on the same side; and these two
classes made up nineteen twentieths of the nation. The zealous churchman
exclaimed against the favour which had been shown both to the Papist and
to the Puritan. The Puritan, though he might rejoice in the suspension of
the persecution by which he had been harassed, felt little gratitude for a
toleration which he was to share with Antichrist. And all Englishmen who
valued liberty and law, saw with uneasiness the deep inroad which the
prerogative had made into the province of the legislature.

It must in candour be admitted that the constitutional question was then
not quite free from obscurity. Our ancient Kings had undoubtedly claimed
and exercised the right of suspending the operation of penal laws. The
tribunals had recognised that right. Parliaments had suffered it to pass
unchallenged. That some such right was inherent in the crown, few even of
the Country Party ventured, in the face of precedent and authority, to
deny. Yet it was clear that, if this prerogative were without limit, the
English government could scarcely be distinguished from a pure despotism.
That there was a limit was fully admitted by the King and his ministers.
Whether the Declaration of Indulgence lay within or without the limit was
the question; and neither party could succeed in tracing any line which
would bear examination. Some opponents of the government complained that
the Declaration suspended not less than forty statutes. But why not forty
as well as one? There was an orator who gave it as his opinion that the
King might constitutionally dispense with bad laws, but not with good
laws. The absurdity of such a distinction it is needless to expose. The
doctrine which seems to have been generally received in the House of
Commons was, that the dispensing power was confined to secular matters,
and did not extend to laws enacted for the security of the established
religion. Yet, as the King was supreme head of the Church, it should seem
that, if he possessed the dispensing power at all, he might well possess
that power where the Church was concerned. When the courtiers on the other
side attempted to point out the bounds of this prerogative, they were not
more successful than the opposition had been.

The truth is that the dispensing power was a great anomaly in politics. It
was utterly inconsistent in theory with the principles of mixed
government: but it had grown up in times when people troubled themselves
little about theories. 19 It had not been very grossly
abused in practice. It had therefore been tolerated, and had gradually
acquired a kind of prescription. At length it was employed, after a long
interval, in an enlightened 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 employed in an
arduous struggle on the Continent, might be available 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 Strafford. He
therefore turned suddenly round, and acknowledged, in the House of Lords,
that the Declaration was illegal. The 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 Indulgence, next extorted his
unwilling assent to a celebrated law, which continued in force down 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 transubstantiation, and
should publicly receive the sacrament according to the rites of the Church
of England. The preamble expressed 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 withhold 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 Lauderdale from his councils
forever, and appointed a committee to consider the propriety of impeaching
Arlington. In a short time the Cabal was no more. Clifford, 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.
Arlington quitted the post of Secretary of State for a quiet and dignified
employment in the Royal household. Shaftesbury and Buckingham made their
peace with the opposition, and appeared at the head of the stormy
democracy of the city. Lauderdale, however, still continued to be minister
for Scotch affairs, with which the English Parliament could not interfere.

And now the Commons urged the King to make peace with Holland, and
expressly declared that no more supplies should 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. Temple, who, during 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 soon
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 had merely purchased orators: but every man who
had a vote, might sell himself to Danby. Yet the new minister must not be
confounded with the negotiators of Dover. He was not without the feelings
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
establishing arbitrary power, by calling in the aid of foreign arms, and
by reducing the kingdom to the rank of a dependent principality, 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.

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 country 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 Shaftesbury, 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 domestic 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 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
insatiably 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 politics, and the
minister towards a system diametrically opposite. Neither the sovereign
nor the minister, indeed, was of a temper to pursue any object with
undeviating constancy. Each occasionally yielded to the importunity of the
other; and their jarring inclinations and mutual concessions gave to the
whole administration a strangely capricious character. Charles sometimes,
from levity and indolence, suffered Danby to take steps which 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 stubborn 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 feelings in two
opposite directions. The popular leaders were 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 they 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. The conflict between
these apprehensions, both of which were perfectly legitimate, 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 place 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 arming. 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 be considered
as a proof of dishonesty 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.
But the unsteadiness and faithlessness of Charles were such that the
French Government and the English opposition, agreeing 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 upright 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 without 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 terminated 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, and especially among the English,
who regarded him as one of their own princes, and rejoiced to see him the
husband 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
expended. To loyal enthusiasm had succeeded profound disaffection. The
public mind had now measured back again the space over which it had passed
between 1640 and 1660, 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 expected that she would have been at least as highly considered in
Europe under a legitimate King, strong in the affection and 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 commonwealth 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 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 doctrine. 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 Protestants
from conviction. 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 commemorations, 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 for their benefices; the landed gentry for their abbeys and great
tithes. While the memory of the reign 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 accurately 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
presumptive was known to be a bigoted Roman Catholic. The first Duchess of
York had died a Roman Catholic. James had then, in defiance 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 fear that they might be bred Roman Catholics, and that
a long succession of princes, hostile to the established 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 that 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 mortal enemy, artfully
contrived to ruin him by making 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 Parliament, not on account of his
delinquencies, but on account of his merits; not because he had been an
accomplice in a criminal transaction, but because he had been a most
unwilling and unserviceable accomplice. But of the circumstances, which
have, in the judgment of posterity, greatly extenuated his fault, his
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 Oates, a clergyman of the Church of
England, had, by his disorderly life and heterodox doctrine, drawn on
himself the 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 hideous
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 the Jesuits. The Jesuits had, by commissions
under the seal of their society, appointed Roman Catholic clergymen,
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 neighbours. 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 assassinating the
King. He was to be stabbed. He was to be poisoned 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 escaped contained some passages such as, to minds
strongly prepossessed, might seem to confirm the evidence of Oates. Those
passages indeed, when candidly construed, appear to express little more
than the hopes which the posture of affairs, the predilections of Charles,
the still stronger predilections of James, and the relations existing
between the French and English courts, might naturally excite in the mind
of a Roman Catholic strongly attached to the interests of his Church. But
the country was not then inclined to construe the letters of Papists
candidly; 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 carefully committed to the flames.

A few days later it was known that Sir Edmondsbury Godfrey, an eminent
justice of the peace who had taken the depositions 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 day a secret. Some think that he perished by his own hand; some, that
he was slain by a private enemy. The most improbable 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 multitude, and not nicely
distinguishing between the perjured accuser and the innocent magistrate,
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 wickedness 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. Everywhere 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 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 shall 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 required 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 Protestants. 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 number of Cavaliers than were likely to find seats again. But it
was thought that a dissolution would put a stop to the prosecution 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 embarrassment to Charles. Accordingly, in January,
1679, the Parliament, which had been in existence ever since the beginning
of the year 1661, was dissolved; and writs were issued for a general
election.

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 remarked by the pamphleteers of that 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 struggle.
Dissenting 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 people of
God. The tide ran strong against the government. Most of the new members
came up to Westminster in a mood little differing from that of their
predecessors 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 Oates, 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.
For, by the old law of England, two witnesses are necessary to establish a
charge of treason. But the success of the first impostor produced its
natural consequences. In a few weeks he had been raised from penury and
obscurity to opulence, to power which made him the 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. One 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 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. Oates, 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 resolved to give her consent to
the assassination of her husband. The vulgar believed, and the highest
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
among them, indeed, were themselves so far deluded as to believe 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 partridge. The juries partook of the feelings then common
throughout the nation, and were encouraged by the bench to indulge those
feelings without restraint. The multitude applauded Oates 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 conscientious 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 justice, 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 Strafford, 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 Danby was resumed. 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 madness, 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 millions who had, at the time of the
Restoration, leaned towards the side of prerogative. Of the old Cavaliers
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, mortified and alarmed by the apostasy of the
Duke of York, so far countenanced the opposition as to join cordially 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 preserved 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
affairs, 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
numerous crimes and blunders of the last eighteen years none could be
imputed to him. His private life, though not austere, was decorous: his
manners were popular; and he was not to be 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
responsibility 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 official 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 different
from those which qualify a politician to lead the House of Commons in
agitated times.

The scheme which he proposed showed considerable ingenuity. 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 foreign travel. He seems to have discerned more
clearly than most of his contemporaries one cause of the difficulties 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
becoming 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 successively from the direction of
affairs. The theory of the constitution 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 venture to rescue from the gallows men whom he well knew to be
the innocent victims of perjury.

Temple, it should seem, was desirous to secure to the legislature its
undoubted constitutional powers, and yet to prevent it, if possible, from
encroaching further on the province of the executive administration. With
this view he determined to interpose 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 chief 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 Parliament. It was, on one hand, highly
improbable 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, content 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
half a Parliament, and, like almost every other contrivance, whether
mechanical or political, which is meant to serve two purposes altogether
different, failed of accomplishing either. It was too large and too
divided to be a good administrative body. It was too closely connected
with the Crown to be a good checking body. 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 Parliament 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 people 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
himself 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 ministers, Arthur Capel, Earl
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 character, that he had been connected with the
Country Party, and that he was at this time honestly desirous to effect,
on terms 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 House of Lords. His conversation overflowed with thought,
fancy, and wit. His political tracts well deserve to be studied for their
literary merit, and fully entitle him to a place among English classics.
To the weight derived from talents so great and various he united all the
influence which belongs to rank and ample possessions. Yet he was less
successful in politics than many who enjoyed smaller advantages. Indeed,
those intellectual peculiarities 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 the point of view in which, after the
lapse of many years, they appear to the philosophic historian. With such a
turn of mind he could not long continue to act cordially with any body of
men. All the prejudices, all the exaggerations, of both the great parties
in the state moved his scorn. He despised the mean arts and unreasonable
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 when his dread of anarchy and his disdain for
vulgar delusions 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 hereditary monarchy were sometimes such as would have
better become a member of the Calf’s Head Club than a Privy Councillor of
the Stuarts. In religion he was so far from being a zealot that he was
called by the uncharitable an atheist: but this imputation he vehemently
repelled; and in truth, though he sometimes gave scandal by the way in
which he exerted his rare powers both of reasoning and of ridicule on
serious subjects, he seems to have been by no means unsusceptible of
religious impressions.

He was the chief of those politicians whom the two great parties
contemptuously called Trimmers. Instead of quarrelling with this nickname,
he assumed it as a title of honour, and vindicated, with great vivacity,
the dignity of the appellation. Everything good, he said, trims between
extremes. The temperate zone trims between the climate in which men are
roasted and the climate in which they are frozen. The English Church trims
between the Anabaptist madness and the Papist lethargy. The English
constitution trims between Turkish despotism and Polish anarchy. Virtue is
nothing but a just temper between propensities any one of which, if
indulged to excess, becomes vice. Nay, the perfection of the Supreme Being
himself consists in the exact equilibrium of attributes, none of which
could preponderate without disturbing the whole moral and physical order
of the world. 20 Thus Halifax was a Trimmer on
principle. He was also a Trimmer by the constitution both of his head and
of his heart. His understanding was keen, sceptical, inexhaustibly fertile
in distinctions and objections; his taste refined; his sense of the
ludicrous exquisite; his temper placid and forgiving, but fastidious, and
by no means prone either to malevolence or to enthusiastic admiration.
Such a man could not long be constant to any band of political allies. He
must not, however, be confounded with the vulgar crowd of renegades. For
though, like them, he passed from side to side, his transition was always
in the direction opposite to theirs. He had nothing in common with those
who fly from extreme to extreme, and who regard the party which they have
deserted with all animosity far exceeding that of consistent enemies. His
place was on the debatable ground between the hostile divisions of the
community, and he never wandered far beyond the frontier of either. The
party to which he at any moment belonged was the party which, at that
moment, he liked least, because it was the party of which at that moment
he had the nearest view. He was therefore always severe upon his violent
associates, and was always in friendly relations with his moderate
opponents. Every faction in the day of its insolent and vindictive triumph
incurred his censure; and every faction, when vanquished and persecuted,
found in him a protector. To his lasting honour it must be mentioned that
he attempted to save those victims whose fate has left the deepest stain
both on the Whig and on the Tory name.

He had greatly distinguished himself in opposition, and had thus drawn on
himself the royal displeasure, which was indeed so strong that he was not
admitted into the Council of Thirty without much difficulty and long
altercation. As soon, however, as he had obtained a footing at court, the
charms of his manner and of his conversation made him a favourite. He was
seriously alarmed by the violence of the public discontent. He thought
that liberty was for the present safe, and that order and legitimate
authority were in danger. He therefore, as was his fashion, joined himself
to the weaker side. Perhaps his conversion was not wholly disinterested.
For study and reflection, though they had emancipated him from many vulgar
prejudices, had left him a slave to vulgar desires. Money he did not want;
and there is no evidence that he ever obtained it by any means which, in
that age, even severe censors considered as dishonourable; but rank and
power had strong attractions for him. He pretended, indeed, that he
considered titles and great offices as baits which could allure none but
fools, that he hated business, pomp, and pageantry, and that his dearest
wish was to escape from the bustle and glitter of Whitehall to the quiet
woods which surrounded his ancient mansion in Nottinghamshire; but his
conduct was not a little at variance with his professions. In truth he
wished to command the respect at once of courtiers and of philosophers, to
be admired for attaining high dignities, and to be at the same time
admired for despising them.

Sunderland was Secretary of State. In this man the political immorality of
his age was personified in the most lively manner. Nature had given him a
keen understanding, a restless and mischievous temper, a cold heart, and
an abject spirit. His mind had undergone a training by which all his vices
had been nursed up to the rankest maturity. At his entrance into public
life, he had passed several years in diplomatic posts abroad, and had
been, during some time, minister in France. Every calling has its peculiar
temptations. There is no injustice in saying that diplomatists, as a
class, have always been more distinguished by their address, by the art
with which they win the confidence of those with whom they have to deal,
and by the ease with which they catch the tone of every society into which
they are admitted, than by generous enthusiasm or austere rectitude; and
the relations between Charles and Lewis were such that no English nobleman
could long reside in France as envoy, and retain any patriotic or
honourable sentiment. Sunderland came forth from the bad school in which
he had been brought up, cunning, supple, shameless, free from all
prejudices, and destitute of all principles. He was, by hereditary
connection, a Cavalier: but with the Cavaliers he had nothing in common.
They were zealous for monarchy, and condemned in theory all resistance.
Yet they had sturdy English hearts which would never have endured real
despotism. He, on the contrary, had a languid speculative liking for
republican institutions which was compatible with perfect readiness to be
in practice the most servile instrument of arbitrary power. Like many
other accomplished flatterers and negotiators, he was far more skilful in
the art of reading the characters and practising on the weaknesses of
individuals, than in the art of discerning the feelings of great masses,
and of foreseeing the approach of great revolutions. He was adroit in
intrigue; and it was difficult even for shrewd and experienced men who had
been amply forewarned of his perfidy to withstand the fascination of his
manner, and to refuse credit to his professions of attachment. But he was
so intent on observing and courting particular persons, that he often
forgot to study the temper of the nation. He therefore miscalculated
grossly with respect to some of the most momentous events of his time.
More than one important movement and rebound of the public mind took him
by surprise; and the world, unable to understand how so clever a man could
be blind to what was clearly discerned by the politicians of the coffee
houses, sometimes attributed to deep design what were in truth mere
blunders.

It was only in private conference that his eminent abilities displayed
themselves. In the royal closet, or in a very small circle, he exercised
great influence. But at the Council board he was taciturn; and in the
House of Lords he never opened his lips.

The four 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 Exclusion 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 his intention in Council, and prorogued the Parliament.

The day of that prorogation, the twenty-sixth of May, 1679, is a great era
in our history. For on that day the Habeas Corpus Act received the royal
assent. From the time of the Great Charter the substantive law respecting
the personal liberty 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 light, 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 which was in
the highest degree popular.

On the same day the press of England became for a short time free. In old
times printers had been strictly controlled by the Court of Star Chamber.
The Long Parliament had abolished the Star Chamber, but had, in spite of
the philosophical and eloquent expostulation of Milton, established and
maintained a censorship. Soon after the Restoration, an Act had been
passed which prohibited the printing of unlicensed books; and it had been
provided that this 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 strength 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 which was
heard with regret and alarm by all judicious friends of freedom. Not only
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 became his mistress, and presented him with a
son. A suspicious lover might have had his doubts; for the lady had
several admirers, and was not supposed to be cruel to any. Charles,
however, 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 several 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 lavished on him. He was made Duke of Monmouth in England, 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 manners 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 on Sir John Coventry, he easily
obtained the forgiveness of the Country Party. Even austere moralists
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 insult offered to his father. And soon the stain
left by loose amours and midnight brawls was effaced by honourable
exploits. When Charles 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 popular man in the kingdom. Nothing
was withheld from him but the crown; nor did even the crown seem to be
absolutely beyond his reach. The distinction which had most injudiciously
been made between him and the highest nobles had produced evil
consequences. 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 purple
cloak, which no other subject, except the Duke of York and Prince Rupert,
was permitted to wear. It was natural that these things should lead him to
regard 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, 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 Monmouth 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 slightest evidence.
Against it there was the solemn asseveration of the King, made before his
Council, and by his order communicated to his people. But the multitude,
always fond of romantic adventures, drank in eagerly the tale of the
secret espousals and the black box. Some chiefs of the opposition acted on
this occasion as they acted with respect to the more odious fables of
Oates, and countenanced a story which they must have despised. The
interest which the populace took in him whom they regarded as the champion
of the true religion, and the rightful heir of the British throne, was
kept up by every artifice. When Monmouth arrived in London at midnight,
the watchmen were ordered by the magistrates to proclaim the joyful event
through the streets of the City: the people left their beds: bonfires were
lighted: the windows were illuminated: the churches were opened; and a
merry peal rose from all the steeples. When he travelled, he was
everywhere received with not less pomp, and with far more enthusiasm, than
had been displayed when Kings had made progresses through the realm. He
was escorted from mansion to mansion by long cavalcades of armed gentlemen
and yeomen. Cities poured forth their whole population to receive him.
Electors thronged round him, to assure him that their votes were at his
disposal. To 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 heraldry,
they should have been debruised in token of his illegitimate birth, but
ventured 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 peasantry, mingled
in every rustic sport, wrestled, played at quarterstaff, and won footraces
in his boots against fleet runners in shoes.

It is a curious circumstance that, at two of the greatest conjunctures 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
enemy 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 hundred 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 present 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.

Temple’s plan of government was now avowedly abandoned and very soon
forgotten. The Privy Council again became what 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 board 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 of aspirants. Two
statesmen, who subsequently rose to the highest eminence which a British
subject can reach, soon began to attract a large share of the public
attention. These were Lawrence Hyde and Sidney Godolphin.

Lawrence Hyde was the second son of the Chancellor Clarendon, and was
brother of the first Duchess of York. He had excellent parts, which had
been improved by parliamentary and diplomatic experience; 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
mortification doubled the triumph of his enemies: very slight provocations
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 business 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 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 he 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 the 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 opinions 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 intelligence.

Before the new Parliament was suffered 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 had 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 public mind. All the
presses and pulpits of the realm took part in the conflict. 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 interrupted. The dearest ties of
friendship and of blood were sundered. 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 besieged the throne with petitions, demanding 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
effigy. 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. 21
Opponents of the court were called Birminghams, Petitioners, and
Exclusionists. Those who took the King’s side were Antibirminghams,
Abhorrers, and Tantivies. These appellations soon become obsolete: but at
this time were first heard two nicknames which, though originally given 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 whose ferocity was heightened by religions 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 Bridge. These zealots were most numerous among the rustics of 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 politicians 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 throne.

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 continued 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
public opinion was gradually changing. The persecution of the Roman
Catholics went on; but convictions were no longer matters of course. A new
brood of false witnesses, among whom a villain named Dangerfield was the
most conspicuous, infested the courts: but the stories of these men,
though better constructed than that of Oates, found less credit. Juries
were no longer so easy of belief as during the panic which had followed
the murder 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 Exclusion Bill went through all its
stages there without difficulty. The King scarcely knew on what members of
his own cabinet he could 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 pass. 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 royal lover 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 which 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 important colleagues, and
opposed to a crowd of able antagonists, he defended the cause of the Duke
of York, in a succession of speeches which, many years later, were
remembered as masterpieces 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, true to their doctrines, supported the principle
of hereditary right, and the bill was rejected by a great majority. 22

The party which preponderated in the House of Commons, bitterly mortified
by this defeat, found some consolation in shedding the blood of Roman
Catholics. William Howard, Viscount Stafford, one of the unhappy men who
had been accused of a share in the plot, was impeached; and on the
testimony of Oates and of two other false witnesses, Dugdale and
Turberville, 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 execrations, 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 predicted 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 Oxford, in March, 1681. 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
conjuncture seemed to require extraordinary precautions. If the Parliament
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 London. 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 danger. 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 sharply 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 country. It should seem that the sagacious and
versatile Shaftesbury ought to have foreseen the 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, would 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 meeting at Oxford resembled rather that of a
Polish Diet than that of an English Parliament. The Whig members were
escorted by great numbers of their armed and mounted tenants and serving
men, who exchanged looks of defiance with the royal Guards. The slightest
provocation might, under such circumstances, have produced a civil war;
but neither side dared to strike the first blow. The King again offered to
consent to anything but the Exclusion Bill. The Commons were determined to
accept nothing but the Exclusion Bill. In a few days the Parliament was
again dissolved.

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 hurried 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 Christians. 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 House 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 refused 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 reigning
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 his morals, he had,
on this occasion, acted from a sense of duty and honour. And, if so, would
the nation compel him to do what he thought criminal and disgraceful? To
apply, even by strictly constitutional means, a violent pressure to his
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 discernible which portended the
approach of great troubles. Men, who, in the time of the civil war and of
the Commonwealth, had acquired 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 everywhere, 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
such 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 this 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 suffered 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 ascendancy which they
had lost. Fortunately for himself, 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 adversaries. He was not bound to convoke a Parliament till three years
should have elapsed. He was not much distressed for money. The produce 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 from 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 juries were nominated by
the Sheriffs; and, in almost all the counties of England, the Sheriffs
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. 23 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 Turberville, 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 barbarous 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
Sheriffs of London, chosen by the citizens, were zealous Whigs. They named
a Whig grand jury, which threw out the bill. This defeat, far from
discouraging those who advised the King, 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 irregularities 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 Restoration, been
enacted against Nonconformists, and which had remained dormant during the
ascendency of the Whigs, were enforced all over the kingdom with extreme
rigour.

Yet 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 proportioned to their real force. Animated by the
recollection of past triumphs, and by the sense of present oppression,
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 Exclusion Bill, they had thrown it out in the
exercise of a right coeval with the constitution. If the King had
dissolved the Oxford Parliament, he had done so by virtue of a prerogative
which had never been questioned. If he had, since the dissolution, 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 produced for the crown was at least as worthy of credit as
the evidence on which the noblest blood of England had lately been shed by
the opposition. The treatment which an accused Whig had now to expect from
judges, advocates, sheriffs, juries and spectators, was no worse than the
treatment which had lately been thought by 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 respected. Even the Test Act was enforced. The opposition,
therefore, could not bring home to the King that species of misgovernment
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 Whigs 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 dissolved. The opponents of
Charles the Second were private men. Almost all the military and naval
resources of the kingdom 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 punishment 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. Unhappily they
took a very different course. Unscrupulous and hot-headed chiefs of the
party formed and discussed schemes of resistance, and were heard, if not
with approbation, yet with the show 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.
Communications 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 vindicating
the Protestant religion and the liberties of England. 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
Monmouth, 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 was 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 established: but, as the two conspiracies ran into
each other, it was not difficult for the government to confound them
together. 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 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 government
which 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 perished 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 evidence
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. Numerous prosecutions for misprision of treason,
for libel, and for conspiracy were instituted. Convictions were obtained
without difficulty from Tory juries, and rigorous punishments were
inflicted 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 imprisonment 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
this great victory, the government proceeded to attack the constitutions
of other corporations which were governed by Whig officers, and which had
been in the habit of returning Whig members to Parliament. Borough after
borough 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 semblance 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 Anne, younger daughter of the Duke of York by
his first 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 therefore did all that a censorship
could have done. Meanwhile, the pulpits resounded with harangues against
the sin of rebellion. The treatises in which Filmer maintained that
hereditary despotism was the form of government ordained by God, and that
limited monarchy was a pernicious absurdity, had recently appeared, 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 Parliament 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 Commons. 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.

In a short time the law was 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 struggling to deprive him of his birthright. He had
therefore been sent to govern Scotland, where the savage 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 power 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 hardhearted 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 inflicted, but watched the
agonies of the sufferers with that sort of interest and complacency with
which men observe a curious experiment 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: but he was
still excluded by the Test Act from all public employment; 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 murmurs among
the moderate Tories, and were not unanimously 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 provision 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 regretted 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 forfeited. 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 representative 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 ministry, in the sense in which we use it, was then
unknown. 24
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 understood to be on terms of
friendly confidence with each other, and to agree as to the main
principles on which the executive administration 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 the seventeenth century, the heads of the various branches
of the administration were bound together in no such partnership. 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 consulted, 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
strictly within his 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 relations of the
kingdom were in an unsatisfactory state. It was, therefore, by no means
unusual to see in high office, at the same time, men who avowedly differed
from one another as widely as ever Pulteney differed from Walpole, or Fox
from Pitt.