=Source.=--Clarendon, _History of Rebellion_. Book I., § 159.
Now, I must be so just as to say, that, during the whole time that
these pressures were exercised, and these new and extraordinary
ways were run, that is from the dissolution of the Parliament in
the fourth year (1629) to the beginning of this Parliament which
was above 12 years, this kingdom and all his majesty's dominions
(of the interruption in Scotland somewhat shall be said in its due
time and place), enjoyed the greatest calm, and the fullest measure
of felicity, that any people in any age, for so long time together,
have been blessed with; to the wonder and envy of all the parts of
Christendom.
And in this comparison I am neither unmindful of, nor ungrateful
for the happy times of Queen Elisabeth, nor for those more happy
under King James. But for the former, the doubts, hazards, and
perplexities, upon a total change and alteration of religion, and
some confident attempts upon a further alteration by those who
thought not the reformation enough; the charge, trouble, and anxiety
of a long continued war (how prosperous and successful soever) even
during that Queen's whole reign; and (besides some domestic ruptures
into rebellion, frequently into treason, and besides the blemish of
an unparalleled act of blood upon the life of a crowned neighbour,
queen and ally) the fear and apprehension of what was to come (which
is one of the most unpleasant kinds of melancholy) from an unknown,
at least an unacknowledged successor to the crown, clouded much of
that prosperity then which now shines with so much splendour before
our eyes in chronicle.
And for the other under King James (which indeed were excellent times
_bona si sua norint_), the mingling with a stranger nation, (formerly
not very gracious with this,) which was like to have more interest
of favour: the subjection to a stranger prince, whose nature and
disposition they knew not; the noise of treason, (the most prodigious
that had ever been attempted), upon his first entrance into the
kingdom: the wants of the Crown not inferior to what it hath since
felt, (I mean whilst it sat right on the head of the King,) and the
pressures upon the subject of the same nature, and no less complained
of: the absence of the prince in Spain, and the solicitude that his
highness might not be disposed in marriage to the daughter of that
kingdom; rendered the calm and tranquillity of that time less equal
and pleasant. To which may be added the prosperity and happiness of
the neighbour kingdoms, not much inferior to that of this, which,
according to the pulse of states, is a great diminution of their
health; at least their prosperity is much improved, and more visible,
by the misery and misfortunes of their neighbours.
The happiness of the times I mentioned was enviously set off by this,
that every other kingdom, every other province were engaged, many
entangled, and some almost destroyed by the rage and fury of arms;
those which were ambitiously in contention with their neighbours
having the view and apprehensions of the miseries and desolation,
which they saw other states suffer by a civil war; whilst the
kingdoms we now lament were alone looked upon as the garden of the
world; Scotland (which was but the wilderness of that garden) in a
full, entire, undisturbed peace, which they had never seen, the rage
and barbarism (that is, the blood, for of the charity we speak not)
of their private feuds, being composed to the reverence or to the awe
of public justice; in a competency, if not in an excess of plenty,
which they had never hoped to see, and in a temper (which was the
utmost we desired and hoped to see) free from rebellion; Ireland,
which had been a sponge to draw and a gulf to swallow all that could
be spared, and all that could be got from England, merely to keep the
reputation of a kingdom, reduced to that good degree of husbandry
and government, that it not only subsisted of itself, and gave this
kingdom all that it might have expected from it; but really increased
the revenue of the crown forty or fifty thousand pounds a year,
besides much more to the people in the traffic and trade from thence;
arts and sciences fruitfully planted there; and the whole nation
beginning to be so civilized, that it was a jewel of great lustre in
the royal diadem.
When these outworks were thus fortified and adorned, it was no
wonder if England was generally thought secure, with the advantages
of its own climate; the court in great plenty, or rather (which is
the discredit of plenty) excess, and luxury; the country rich, and,
which is more, fully enjoying the pleasure of its own wealth, and
so the easier corrupted with the pride and wantonness of it; the
Church flourishing with learned and extraordinary men, and (which
other good times wanted) supplied with oil to feed those lamps,
and the protestant religion more advanced against the Church of
Rome by writing especially (without prejudice to other useful and
godly labours) by those two books of the late lord archbishop of
Canterbury his grace, and of Mr. Chillingworth, than it had been
from the Reformation; trade increased to that degree, that we were
the exchange of Christendom, (the revenue thereof to the crown being
almost double to what it had been in the best times), and the bullion
of all other kingdoms brought to receive a stamp from the mint of
England; all foreign merchants looking upon nothing as their own,
but what they had laid up in the warehouses of this kingdom; the
royal navy, in number and equipage much above former times, very
formidable at sea; and the reputation of the greatness and power of
the King much more with foreign princes than any of his progenitors;
for those rough courses, which made him haply less loved at home,
made him more feared abroad; by how much the power of kingdoms is
more reverenced than their justice by their neighbours: and it may
be, this consideration might not be the least motive, and may not be
the worst excuse, for those councils. Lastly, for a complement of
all these blessings, they were enjoyed by and under the protection
of a king, of the most harmless disposition and the most exemplary
piety, the greatest example of sobriety, chastity, and mercy, that
any prince hath been endued with, (and God forgive those that have
not been sensible of and thankful for those endowments) and who might
have said, that which Pericles was proud of, upon his deathbed, "that
no Englishman had ever worn a black gown through his occasion." In a
word, many wise men thought it a time, wherein those two adjuncts,
which Nerva was deified for uniting, were as well reconciled as is
possible.
But all these blessings could but enable, not compel us to be
happy: we wanted that sense, acknowledgement, and value of our own
happiness, which all but we had; and took pains to make, when we
could not find, ourselves miserable. There was in truth a strange
absence of understanding in most, and a strange perverseness of
understanding in the rest: the court full of excess, idleness, and
luxury; and the country full of pride, mutiny and discontent; every
man more troubled and perplexed at that they called the violation of
one law, than delighted or pleased with the observance of all the
rest of the Charter; never imputing the increase of their receipts,
revenue, and plenty, to the wisdom, virtue and merit of the Crown,
but objecting every little trivial imposition to the exorbitancy and
tyranny of the government; the growth of knowledge and learning being
disrelished for the infirmities of some learned men, and the increase
of grace and favour upon the Church, more repined and murmured at,
than the increase of piety and devotion in the Church, which was as
visible, acknowledged or taken notice of; whilst the indiscretion
and folly of one sermon at Whitehall was more bruited abroad and
commented upon than the wisdom, sobriety and devotion of a hundred.