5. =The Grand Remonstrance. 1641.=--The _A Student's History of England, v. 2: 1509-1689 From the Earliest Times to the Death of King Edward VII

led the Commons to draw up a statement of their case, known as the

Grand Remonstrance. They began with a long indictment of all

Charles's errors from the beginning of his reign, and, though the

statements were undoubtedly exaggerated, they were adopted by the

whole House. When, however, it came to the proposal of remedies,

there was a great division amongst the members. The party led by Pym

and Hampden, by which the Remonstrance had been drawn up, asked for

the appointment of ministers responsible to Parliament, and for the

reference of Church matters to an Assembly of divines nominated by

Parliament. The party led by Hyde and Falkland saw that the granting

of these demands would be tantamount to the erection of the

sovereignty of Parliament in Church and State; and, as they feared

that this in turn would lead to the establishment of Presbyterian

despotism, they preferred to imagine that it was still possible to

make Charles a constitutional sovereign. On November 23 there was a

stormy debate, and the division was not taken till after midnight. A

small majority of eleven declared against the king. The majority

then proposed to print the Remonstrance for the purpose of

circulating it among the people. The minority protested, and, as a

protest was unprecedented in the House of Commons, a wild uproar

ensued. Members snatched at their swords, and it needed all

Hampden's persuasive pleadings to quiet the tumult.

6. =The King's Return. 1641.=--Charles had at last got a party on

his side. When, on November 25, he returned to London, he announced

that he intended to govern according to the laws, and would maintain

the 'Protestant religion as it had been established in the times of

Elizabeth and his father.' He was at once greeted with enthusiasm in

the streets, and felt himself strong enough to refuse to comply with

the request of the Remonstrance. If only he could have kept quiet,

he would probably, before long, have had a majority, even in the

House of Commons, on his side. It was, however, difficult for

Charles to be patient. He was kept short of money by the Commons,

and he had not the art of conciliating opponents. On December 23 he

appointed Lunsford, a debauched ruffian, Lieutenant of the Tower,

and the opponents of the Court naturally saw in this unwarrantable

proceeding a determination to use force against themselves. On

December 26 they obtained Lunsford's dismissal, but on the following

day they heard that the rebellion in Ireland was spreading, and the

increased necessity of providing an army for Ireland impressed on

them once more the danger of placing under the orders of the king

forces which he might use against themselves.

7. =The Impeachment of the Bishops. 1641.=--In order to make sure

that the House of Lords would be on their side in the time of danger

which was approaching, the Commons and their supporters called out

for the exclusion of the bishops and the Roman Catholic peers from

their seats in Parliament. A mob gathered at Westminster, shouting,

No bishops! No Popish lords! The king gathered a number of disbanded

officers at Whitehall for his protection, and these officers sallied

forth beating and chasing the mob. Another day Williams, Archbishop

of York, having been hustled by the crowd, he and eleven other

bishops sent to the Lords a protest that anything done by the House

of Lords in their absence would be null and void. The Peers, who had

hitherto supported the king, were offended, and, for a time, made

common cause with the other House against him; whilst the Commons

impeached as traitors the twelve bishops who had signed the protest,

wanting, not to punish them, but merely to get rid of their votes.

8. =The Impeachment of the Five Members. 1642.=--Charles, on his

part, was exasperated, and fancied that he could strike a blow which

his opponents would be unable to parry. He knew that the most active

of the leaders of the opposition, Lord Kimbolton in the House of

Lords, and Pym, Hampden, Hazlerigg, Holles, and Strode in the

Commons, had negotiated with the Scots before they invaded England

in =1640=, and he believed that they had actually invited them to

enter the kingdom in arms. If this was true, they had legally been

guilty of treason, and on January 3, =1642=, Charles ordered the

Attorney-General to impeach them as traitors. Doubts were afterwards

raised whether the king had a right to impeach, but Charles does not

seem to have doubted at the time that he was acting according to

law.

9. =The Attempt on the Five Members. 1642.=--As the Commons showed

signs of an intention to shelter these five members from arrest,

Charles resolved to seize them himself. On the 4th of January,

followed by about 500 armed men, he betook himself to the House of

Commons. Leaving his followers outside, he told the House that he

had come to arrest five traitors. As they had already left the House

and were on their way to the city, he looked round for them in vain,

and asked Lenthall, the Speaker, where they were. "May it please

your Majesty," answered Lenthall, kneeling before him, "I have

neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak in this place, but as this

House is pleased to direct me." Charles eagerly looked round for his

enemies. "The birds are flown," he exclaimed, when he failed to

descry them. He had missed his prey, and, as he moved away, shouts

of "Privilege! privilege!" were raised from the benches on either

side.

10. =The Commons in the City. 1642.=--The Commons, believing that

the king wanted, not to try a legal question, but to intimidate the

House by the removal of its leaders, took refuge in the City. The

City, which had welcomed Charles in November, when it was thought

that he was come to maintain order according to law, now declared

for the Commons. On January 10 Lord Kimbolton and the five members

were brought back in triumph to Westminster by the citizens. Charles

had already left Whitehall, never to return till the day on which he

was brought back to be tried for his life.

11. =The Struggle for the Militia. 1642.=--There was little doubt

that if Charles could find enough support, the questions at issue

would have to be decided by arms. To gain time, he consented to a

Bill excluding the bishops from their seats in the House of Lords,

and he then sent the queen abroad to pawn or sell the Crown jewels

and to buy arms and gunpowder with the money. He turned his own

course to the north. A struggle arose between him and the Houses as

to the command of the militia. There was no standing army in

England, but the men of military age were mustered every year in

each county, the fittest of them being selected to be drilled for a

short time, at the expiration of which they were sent home to pursue

their ordinary avocations. These drilled men were liable to be

called out to defend their county against riots or invasion, and

when they were together were formed into regiments called trained

bands. All the trained bands in the country were spoken of as the

militia. The Houses asked Charles to place the militia under

officers of their choosing. "Not for an hour," replied Charles; "it

is a thing with which I would not trust my wife and children." The

feeling on both sides grew more bitter; Charles, after taking up his

quarters at York, rode to Hull, where there was a magazine of arms

of which he wished to possess himself. Sir John Hotham, the

Parliamentary commander, shut the gates in his face. Both Charles

and the Parliament began to gather troops. The Parliament appointed

the Earl of Essex, the son of Elizabeth's favourite, a steady,

honourable man, without a spark of genius, as their general. On

August 22, =1642=, Charles set up his standard at Nottingham as a

sign of war.

12. =Edgehill and Turnham Green. 1642.=--The richest part of

England--the south-east--took, on the whole, the side of the

Parliament; the poorer and more rugged north-west took, on the

whole, the side of the king. The greater part of the gentry were

cavaliers or partisans of the king; the greater part of the middle

class in the towns were partisans of the Parliament, often called

Roundheads in derision, because some of the Puritans cropped their

hair short. After a successful skirmish at Powick Bridge Charles

pushed on towards London, hoping to end the war at a blow. On

October 23 the first battle was fought at Edgehill. The king's

nephew, Prince Rupert, son of Elizabeth and the Elector Palatine,

commanded his cavalry. With a vigorous charge he drove before him

the Parliamentary horse in headlong flight; but he did not pull up

in time, and when he returned from the pursuit he found that the

royalist infantry had been severely handled, and that it was too

late to complete the victory which he had hoped to win. The fruits

of victory, however, fell to the king. The cautious Essex drew back

and Charles pushed on for London, reaching Brentford on November 12.

That he did not enter London as a conqueror was owing to the

resistance of the London trained bands, the citizen-soldiery of the

capital. On the 13th they barred Charles's way at Turnham Green. The

king hesitated to attack, and drew back to Oxford. He was never to

have such another chance again.

13. =The King's Plan of Campaign. 1643.=--Charles's hopes of

succeeding better in =1643= were based on a plan for overwhelming

London with superior force. He made Oxford the headquarters of his

own army, and he had a second army under Sir Ralph Hopton in

Cornwall, and a third army under the Earl of Newcastle in Yorkshire.

His scheme was, that whilst he himself attacked London in front,

Hopton should advance through the southern counties into Kent, and

Newcastle through the eastern counties into Essex. Hopton and

Newcastle would then be able to seize the banks on either side of

the Thames below London, and thus to interrupt the commerce of the

city, without which it would be impossible for it to hold out long.

14. =Royalist Successes. 1643.=--The weak point in Charles's plan

was that his three armies were far apart, and that the Earl of

Essex, now stationed in London, might fall upon his main army before

Newcastle and Hopton could come to its aid. Towards the end of

April, Essex besieged and took Reading, but his troops melted away

from disease, and he did not advance against Oxford till June, when

his cautious leadership was not likely to effect anything decisive.

In the meanwhile the king's party was gaining the upper hand

elsewhere. On May 16 Hopton completely defeated the Parliamentarians

at Stratton in Cornwall, and was then ready to march eastwards. On

June 18 Hampden received a mortal wound in a skirmish at Chalgrove

Field. On July 5 Hopton got the better of one of the most energetic

of the Parliamentary generals, Sir William Waller, on Lansdown, near

Bath, and on July 13 his army thoroughly overthrew the same

commander at Roundway Down, near Devizes. On July 26 Bristol was

stormed by Rupert. Hopton now hoped to be able to push on towards

Kent without difficulty. In the north, too, the king's cause was

prospering. On June 30, Newcastle defeated the Parliamentarians,

Lord Fairfax and his son, Sir Thomas Fairfax, at Adwalton Moor,

close to Bradford. He, too, hoped to be able to push on southwards.

It seemed as if the king's plan would be carried out before the end

of the summer, and that London would be starved into surrender.

15. =The Siege of Gloucester. 1643.=--Charles, however, failed to

accomplish his design, mainly because the armies of Hopton and

Newcastle were formed for the most part of recruits, levied

respectively in the west and in the north of England, who cared more

for the safety of their own property and families than for the

king's cause. In the west, Plymouth, and in the north, Hull, were

still garrisoned by the Parliament. Hopton's men were, therefore,

unwilling to go far from their homes in Cornwall as long as their

fields were liable to be ravaged by the garrison of Plymouth, and in

the same way, Newcastle's men would not go far from Yorkshire as

long as their fields were liable to be ravaged by the garrison of

Hull. The Welshmen, also, who served in the king's own army found

their homes endangered by a Parliamentary garrison at Gloucester,

and were equally unwilling to push forward. Charles had, therefore,

to take Plymouth, Hull, and Gloucester, if he could, before he could

attack London. In August he laid siege in person to Gloucester. The

London citizens at once perceived that, if Gloucester fell, their

own safety would be in peril, and amidst the greatest enthusiasm the

London trained bands marched out to its relief. On September 5 the

king raised the siege on their approach.

16. =The First Battle of Newbury. 1643.=--Charles did not, however,

give up the game. Hurrying to Newbury, and reaching it before Essex

could arrive there on his way back to London, he blocked the way of

the Parliamentary army. Essex, whose provisions were running short,

must force a passage or surrender. On September 20 a furious battle

was fought outside Newbury, but when the evening came, though Essex

had gained ground, the royal army still lay across the London road.

It had, however, suffered heavy losses, and its ammunition being

almost exhausted, Charles marched away in the night, leaving the way

open for Essex to continue his retreat to London. In this battle

Falkland was slain. He had sided with the king, not because he

shared the passions of the more violent Royalists, but because he

feared the intolerance of the Puritans. Charles's determination to

conquer or perish rather than to admit of a compromise had saddened

his mind, and he went about murmuring, 'Peace! peace!' He was weary

of the times, he said, on the morning of the battle, but he would

'be out of it ere night.' He threw himself into the thick of the

fight and soon found the death which he sought.

17. =The Eastern Association. 1643.=--Whilst in the south the

resistance of Gloucester had weakened the king's power of attack, a

formidable barrier was being raised against Newcastle's advance in

the east. Early in the war, certain counties in different parts of

the country had associated themselves together for mutual defence,

and of these combinations the strongest was the Eastern Association,

comprising the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Cambridge and

Hertford. These five counties raised forces in common and paid them

out of a common purse.

18. =Oliver Cromwell. 1642-1643.=--The strength which the Eastern

Association soon developed was owing to its placing itself under the

leadership of Oliver Cromwell, a member of Parliament, who had taken

arms when the civil war began, and who soon distinguished himself

by his practical sagacity. "Your troops," he said to Hampden after

the flight of the Parliamentary cavalry at Edgehill, "are, most of

them, old decayed serving men and tapsters, and such kind of

fellows, and their troops are gentlemen's sons, younger sons, and

persons of quality; do you think that the spirits of such base and

mean fellows will ever be able to encounter gentlemen that have

honour and courage and resolution in them? You must get men of a

spirit, and take it not ill what I say--I know you will not--of a

spirit that is likely to go on as far as gentlemen will go; or else

you will be beaten still." It was this idea which Cromwell, having

been appointed a colonel, put in execution in the Eastern

Association. He took for his soldiers sternly Puritan men, who had

their hearts in the cause; but he was not content with religious

zeal alone. Every one who served under him must undergo the severest

discipline. After a few months he had a cavalry regiment under his

orders so fiery and at the same time so well under restraint that no

body of horse on either side could compare with it.

19. =The Assembly of Divines. 1643.=--Whilst the armies were

fighting with varying success, Pym, with undaunted courage, was

holding the House of Commons to its task of resistance. After the

Royalist successes in June and July, the great peril of the

Parliamentary cause made him resolve to ask the Scots for help. The

Scots, thinking that if Charles overthrew the English Parliament he

would next fall upon them, were ready to send an army to fight

against the king, but only on the condition that the Church of

England should become Presbyterian like their own. Already some

steps had been taken in this direction, and on July 1 a Puritan

Assembly of divines met at Westminster to propose ecclesiastical

alterations, which were to be submitted to Parliament for its

approval.

20. =The Solemn League and Covenant. 1643.=--In August,

commissioners from the English Parliament, of whom the principal was

Sir Henry Vane, arrived in Edinburgh to negotiate for an alliance.

The result was a treaty between the two nations, styled the Solemn

League and Covenant--usually known in England simply as the

Covenant, but altogether different from the National Covenant,

signed by the Scots only in =1638= (see p. 525). The Scots wished

the English to bind themselves to 'the reformation of religion in

the Church of England according to the example of the best reformed

churches'; in other words, according to the Presbyterian system.

Vane, however, who was eager for religious liberty, insisted on

slipping in the words, 'and according to the Word of God.' The

Scots could not possibly refuse to accept the addition, though, by

so doing, they left it free to every Englishman to assert that any

part of the Presbyterian system which he disliked was not 'according

to the Word of God.' The Covenant, thus amended, was carried to

England, and on September 25, five days after the battle of Newbury,

was sworn to by the members of the House of Commons, and was soon

afterwards ordered to be sworn to by every Englishman. Money was

then sent to Scotland, and a Scottish army prepared to enter England

before the opening of the next campaign.

21. =The Irish War. 1641-1643.=--Whilst Parliament looked for help

to Scotland, Charles looked to Ireland. The insurrection in the

north of Ireland in October, =1641= (see p. 533) had been the affair

of the Celtic natives; but in December they were joined by the

Catholic lords and gentry of Norman or English descent. For the

first time in Ireland there was a contest between Catholic and

Protestant, instead of a contest between Celts on one side, and

those who were not Celts on the other. The allies were not likely to

be very harmonious, as the Celts wished to return to their old

tribal institutions, and the Catholic lords wished to be predominant

in Parliament in agreement with the king. For the present, however,

they were united by the fear that the Puritan Parliament in England

and the Puritan Government in Dublin (see p. 533) would attempt to

destroy them and their religion together. The outbreak of the Civil

War in England, in =1642=, made it impossible for either king or

Parliament to send sufficient troops to overpower them. In May they

had chosen a Supreme Council to govern revolted Ireland, and in

October a General Assembly of the Confederate Catholics, as they

styled themselves, was held at Kilkenny. The Assembly petitioned

Charles for the redress of grievances, and in January, =1643=,

Charles opened negotiations with them, hoping to obtain an Irish

army with which he might carry on war in England. In March they

offered him 10,000 men if he would consent to allow a Parliament

mainly composed of Catholics to meet at Dublin and to propose bills

for his approval. Charles, who liked neither to make this concession

nor to relinquish the hope of Irish aid, directed a cessation of

arms in Ireland, in the hope that an agreement of some kind might

ultimately be come to. In accordance with this cessation, which was

signed on September 15, the coast-line from Belfast to Dublin, and a

patch of land round Cork, was in the possession of the English

forces, whilst a body of Scots, under Monro, held Carrickfergus, but

all the rest of Ireland was in the hands of the Confederates.

22. =Winceby and Arundel. 1643-1644.=--As yet Charles had to depend

on his English forces alone. In the beginning of September,

Newcastle, lately created a Marquis, laid siege to Hull. If Hull

fell, he would be able to sweep down on the Eastern Association. The

Earl of Manchester--known as Lord Kimbolton at the time of the

attempt on the five members--had been appointed general of the army

of that Association, with Cromwell as his lieutenant-general. On

October 11 Cromwell defeated a body of Royalist horse at Winceby. On

the 12th, Newcastle raised the siege of Hull. All danger of

Newcastle's marching southwards was thus brought to an end. In the

South, Hopton succeeded in reaching Sussex, and, in December, took

Arundel Castle; but the place was retaken by Sir William Waller on

January 6, =1644=. Here, too, the Royalist attack received a check,

and there was no longer any likelihood that the king's forces would

be able to starve out London by establishing themselves on the banks

of the Thames.

23. =The Committee of Both Kingdoms. 1644.=--Pym, whose

statesmanship had brought about the alliance with the Scots, died on

December 8, =1643=. On January 19 the Scots crossed the Tweed again

under the command of Alexander Leslie (see p. 526), who had been

created Earl of Leven when Charles visited Edinburgh in =1641=. On

the 25th, Sir Thomas Fairfax defeated, at Nantwich, a force of

English soldiers who had been freed from service in Ireland by the

cessation of arms, and had been sent by Ormond, who had recently

been named by Charles Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, to support the

royalist cause in England. Pym's death, and the necessity of

carrying on joint operations with the Scots, called for the

appointment of some definite authority at Westminster, and, on

February 16, a Committee of Both Kingdoms, composed of members of

one or other of the two Houses, and also of Scottish Commissioners

sent to England by the Parliament of Scotland, was named to control

the operations of the armies of the two nations.

24. =The Campaign of Marston Moor. 1644.=--The spring campaign

opened successfully for Parliament. In March, indeed, Rupert

relieved Newark, which was hardly pressed by a Parliamentary force;

but in March Waller defeated Hopton at Cheriton near Alresford,

whilst in the North, Sir Thomas Fairfax, together with his father,

Lord Fairfax, seized upon Selby, and joined the Scots in besieging

York, into which Newcastle had been driven. In May, Manchester

stormed Lincoln, and he too joined the forces before York. At the

king's headquarters there was deep alarm. Essex and Waller were

approaching to attack Oxford, but Charles slipping out of the city

before it was surrounded despatched Rupert to the relief of York. At

Rupert's approach the besiegers retreated. On July 2 Rupert and

Newcastle fought a desperate battle on Marston Moor, though they

were decidedly outnumbered by their opponents. The whole of the

right wing of the Parliamentarians, and part of the centre, fled

before the Royalist attack; but on their left, Cromwell restored the

fight, and drove Rupert in flight before him. Cromwell did not,

however, as Rupert had done at Edgehill, waste his energies in the

pursuit of the fugitives. Promptly drawing up, he faced round, and

hurled his squadrons upon the hitherto victorious Royalists in the

other parts of the field. The result was decisive. "It had all the

evidence," wrote Cromwell, "of an absolute victory, obtained by the

Lord's blessing upon the godly party principally. We never charged

but we routed the enemy. God made them as stubble to our swords."

All the north of England, except a few fortresses, fell into the

hands of Parliament and the Scots.

25. =Presbyterians and Independents. 1644.=--Cromwell spoke of Marston

Moor as a victory of the 'godly party.' The Westminster Assembly of

Divines had declared strongly in favour of Presbyterianism, but there

were a few of its members--only five at first, known as the five

Dissenting Brethren--who stood up for the principles of the

Separatists (see p. 470) wishing to see each congregation independent

of any general ecclesiastical organisation. From holding these

opinions they were beginning to be known as Independents. These men

now attracted to themselves a considerable number of the

stronger-minded Puritans, such as Cromwell and Vane, of whom many,

though they had no special attachment to the teaching of the

Independent divines, upheld the idea of toleration, whilst others gave

their adherence to one or other of the numerous sects which had

recently sprung into existence. Cromwell, especially, was drawn in the

direction of toleration by his practical experience as a soldier. It

was intolerable to him to be forbidden to promote a good officer on

the ground that he was not a Presbyterian. On one occasion he was

asked to discard a certain officer because he was an Anabaptist.

"Admit he be," he had replied; "shall that render him incapable to

serve the public? Take heed of being too sharp, or too easily

sharpened by others, against those to whom you can object little but

that they square not with you in every opinion concerning matters of

religion." He had accordingly filled his own regiments with men of

every variety of Puritan opinion, choosing for promotion the best

soldier, and not the adherent of any special Church system. These he

styled 'the godly party,' and it was by the soldiers of 'the godly

party,' so understood, that Marston Moor had been won.

26. =Essex's Surrender at Lostwithiel. 1644.=--Essex was the hope of

the Presbyterians who despised the sects and hated toleration. Being

jealous of Waller, he left him to take Oxford alone, if he could,

and marched off to the West, to accomplish what he imagined to be

the easier task of wresting the western counties from the king.

Charles turned upon Waller, and fought an indecisive action with him

at Cropredy Bridge, after which Waller's army, being composed of

local levies with no heart for permanent soldiering, melted away.

Charles then marched in pursuit of Essex, and surrounded him at

Lostwithiel, in Cornwall. Essex's provisions fell short; and on

September 2, though his horse cut their way out, and he himself

escaped in a boat, the whole of his infantry capitulated.

27. =The Second Battle of Newbury. 1644.=--London was thus laid

bare, and Parliament hastily summoned Manchester and the army of the

Eastern Association to its aid. Manchester, being good-natured and

constitutionally indolent, longed for some compromise with Charles

which might bring about peace. Cromwell, on the other hand,

perceived that no compromise was possible with Charles as long as he

was at the head of an army in the field. A second battle of Newbury

was fought, on October 27, with doubtful results: Manchester showed

little energy, and the king was allowed to escape in the night.

Cromwell, to whom his sluggishness seemed nothing less than treason

to the cause, attacked Manchester in Parliament, not from personal

ill-will, but from a desire to remove an inefficient general from

his command in the army. Two parties were thus arrayed against one

another: on the one side the Presbyterians, who wanted to suppress

the sects and, if possible, to make peace; and on the other side the

Independents, who wanted toleration, and to carry on the war

efficiently till a decisive victory had been gained.

CHAPTER XXXV

THE NEW MODEL ARMY. 1644-1649

LEADING DATES

Reign of Charles I., 1625-1649

Battle of Naseby June 14, 1645

Glamorgan's Treaty Aug. 25, 1645

Charles in the hands of the Scots May 5, 1646

Charles surrendered by the Scots Jan. 30, 1647

Charles carried off from Holmby June 5, 1647

The Army in Military Possession of London Aug. 7, 1647

Charles's Flight from Hampton Court Nov. 11, 1647

The Second Civil War April to Aug., 1648

Pride's Purge Dec. 6, 1648

Execution of Charles Jan. 30, 1649

1. =The Self-denying Ordinance and the New Model. 1645.=--Cromwell

dropped his attack on Manchester as soon as he found that he could

attain his end in another way. A proposal was made for the passing

of a Self-denying Ordinance,[23] which was to exclude all members of

either House from commands in the army. The Lords, knowing that

members of their House would be chiefly affected by it, threw it

out, and the Commons then proceeded to form a New Model Army--that

is to say, an army newly organised, its officers and soldiers being

chosen solely with a view to military efficiency. Its general was to

be Sir Thomas Fairfax, whilst the lieutenant-general was not named;

but there can be little doubt that the post was intended for

Cromwell. After the Lords had agreed to the New Model, they accepted

the Self-denying Ordinance in an altered form, as, though all the

existing officers were directed to resign their posts, nothing was

said against their re-appointment. Essex, Manchester, and Waller

resigned, but when the time came for Cromwell to follow their

example, he and two or three others were appointed to commands in

the new army. Cromwell became Lieutenant-General, with the command

of the cavalry. The New Model was composed partly of pressed men,

and was by no means, as has been often said, of a sternly religious

character throughout; but a large number of decided Puritans had

been drafted into it, especially from the army of the Eastern

Association; and the majority of the officers were Independents,

some of them of a strongly Sectarian type. The New Model Army had

the advantage of receiving regular pay, which had not been the case

before; so that the soldiers, whether Puritans or not, were now

likely to stick to their colours.

[Footnote 23: An ordinance was at this time in all respects similar

to an Act of Parliament, except that it did not receive the Royal

assent. In the middle ages an ordinance was exactly the reverse,

being issued by the King without Parliamentary approval.]

2. =Milton's 'Areopagitica.' 1644.=--By Cromwell, who in consequence

of his tolerance was the idol of the Sectarians in the army,

religious liberty had first been valued because it gave him the

service of men of all kinds of opinions. On November 24, =1644=,

Milton, some of whose books had been condemned by the licensers of

the press appointed by Parliament, issued _Areopagitica_, in which

he advocated the liberty of the press on the ground that excellence

can only be reached by those who have free choice between good and

evil. "He that can apprehend," he wrote, "and consider vice with all

her baits and seeming pleasures, and yet abstain--he is the true

warfaring Christian. I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered

virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and seeks

her adversary, but slinks out of the race, when that immortal

garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat." Liberty was

good for religion as much as it was for literature. "These are the

men," he continued, "cried out against for schismatics and

sectaries, as if, while the temple of the Lord was building, there

should be a sort of irrational men who could not consider there must

be many schisms and many dissections made in the quarry and in the

timber ere the house of God can be built." The perfection of the

building consisted "in this--that out of many moderate varieties and

brotherly dissimilitudes that are not vastly disproportional, arises

the goodly and the graceful symmetry that commends the whole pile

and structure."

3. =The Execution of Laud. 1645.=--In Parliament, at least, there

was one direction in which neither Presbyterian nor Independent was

inclined to be tolerant. They had all suffered under Laud, and

Laud's impeachment was allowed to go on. The House of Lords

pronounced sentence against him, and on January 10, =1645=, he was

beheaded. The Presbyterians had the majority in the House of

Commons, and they were busy in enforcing their system, as far as

Parliamentary resolutions would go. The Independents had to wait for

better times.

4. =Montrose and Argyle. 1644.=--For the present, however, the two

parties could not afford to quarrel, as a powerful diversion in the

king's favour was now threatening them from Scotland. The Marquis of

Montrose, who, in the Bishops' Wars, had taken part with the

Covenanters, had grown weary of the interference of the Scottish

Presbyterian clergy with politics, and still more weary of the

supremacy in Scotland of the Marquis of Argyle, who had all the

organisation of the Presbyterian Church at his disposal. Montrose

saw that, though Argyle was too strong for him in the Lowlands, it

was possible to assail him with effect in the Highlands, where he

had made many enemies. In the Lowlands Argyle was regarded as a

Scottish nobleman. In the Highlands he was the chief of the clan of

the Campbells, which had often unscrupulously extended its borders

at the expense of its neighbours, especially at the expense of the

various clans of the Macdonalds. Montrose therefore hoped that if he

threw himself into the Highlands, he might make use of the enmity of

these clans against the Campbells to crush Argyle and to exalt the

king.

5. =Montrose in the Highlands. 1644-1645.=--In =1644=, shortly after

the battle of Marston Moor, Montrose made his way to the Highlands

with only two followers. He was the first to discover the capacity

of the Highlanders for war. With their help, and with the help of a

trained Irish contingent, mostly composed of the descendants of

Highlanders who had emigrated to Ireland, he beat the Scottish

forces at Tippermuir and Aberdeen, and then, crossing the mountains,

amidst the snows of winter, harried the lands of the Campbells. On

February 2, =1645=, he defeated Argyle's clansmen at Inverlochy,

whilst Argyle himself--who was no warrior--watched their destruction

from a boat. Wherever Montrose went the heavy Lowland troops toiled

after him in vain. On May 9 he overthrew another army under Baillie

at Auldearn. Leven's Scottish army in Yorkshire had enough to do to

bar the way against Montrose in case of his issuing from the

mountains and attempting to join forces with Charles in England.

With any other troops Montrose would probably have made the attempt

already; but his Highlanders were accustomed to return home to

deposit their booty in their own glens as soon as a battle had been

won, and, therefore, victorious as he had been, he was unable to

leave the Highlands.

6. =The New Model Army in the Field. 1645.=--The New Model army

started on its career in April. Cromwell, with his highly-trained

horse, swept round Oxford, cutting off Charles's supplies; whilst

Fairfax was sent by the Committee of Both Kingdoms (see p. 542) to

the relief of Taunton, which had been gallantly holding out under

Robert Blake. A detachment of Fairfax's force sufficed to set

Taunton free. His main force was stupidly sent by the Committee to

besiege Oxford, though the king was marching northwards, and might

fall upon Leven's Scots as soon as he reached them. On May 31,

however, Charles turned sharply round, and stormed Leicester. The

popular outcry in London compelled the Committee to allow their

commander-in-chief to act on his own discretion; and Fairfax,

abandoning the siege of Oxford, marched straight in pursuit of the

Royal army.

7. =The Battle of Naseby. 1645.=--On June 14 Fairfax overtook the

king at Naseby. In the battle which followed, the Parliamentary army

was much superior in numbers, but it was largely composed of raw

recruits (see p. 545), and its left wing of cavalry--under Ireton,

who, in the following year, became Cromwell's son-in-law--was routed

by the king's right, under Rupert. As at Edgehill, Rupert galloped

hard in pursuit, without looking back. The Parliamentary infantry in

the centre was by this time pressed hard, but Cromwell, on the

right, at the head of a large body of cavalry, scattered the enemy's

horse before him. Then, as at Marston Moor, he halted to see how the

battle went elsewhere. Sending a detachment to pursue the defeated

Royalists, he hurled the rest of his horse on the king's foot, who

were slowly gaining ground in the centre. In those days, when half

of every body of infantry fought with pikes, and the other half with

inefficient muskets, it was seldom that foot-soldiers could

withstand a cavalry charge in the open, and the whole of Charles's

infantry, after a short resistance, surrendered on the spot. Rupert

returned only in time to see that defeat was certain. The king, with

what horse he could gather round him, made off as fast as he could.

The stake played for at Naseby was the crown of England, and Charles

had lost it.

8. =The Results of Naseby. 1645.=--Disastrous as Charles's defeat

had been, he contrived to struggle on for some months. The worst

thing that befel him after the battle was the seizure of his cabinet

containing his correspondence, which revealed his constant intrigues

to bring alien armies--French, Lorrainers, and Irish--into England.

It was, therefore, in a more determined spirit than ever that

Parliament carried on the war. After retaking Leicester, on June 18,

Fairfax marched on to the West, where the king's eldest son,

Charles, Prince of Wales, had been since the summer of =1644=, and

where debauched and reckless Goring was at the head of a Royalist

army. On July 10 Fairfax routed him at Langport, and on July 23 took

Bridgwater. Then, leaving forces to coop up Goring's remaining

troops, Fairfax turned eastward, took Sherborne on August 2, whilst

the Scots, who after Naseby had marched southwards, were besieging

Hereford. On September 1, however, the king relieved Hereford, and

fancied he might still retrieve his fortunes. On September 10, he

received a severe blow. Fairfax stormed the outer defences of

Bristol, and Rupert, who commanded the garrison, at once

capitulated. There can be little doubt that he had no other choice;

but Charles would hear no excuse, and dismissed him from his

service.

9. =Charles's Wanderings. 1645.=--Charles's hopes were always

springing up anew, and now that Rupert had failed him, he looked to

Montrose for deliverance. Montrose, on July 2, had won another

victory at Alford, and, on August 15, a still more crushing victory

at Kilsyth, after which he had entered Glasgow, and received the

submission of the Lowlands. Charles marched northward to meet him,

but on the way was met and defeated by the Parliamentary general,

Poyntz, on Rowton Heath. Almost immediately afterwards he heard the

disastrous news that David Leslie, an able officer who had won

renown in the German wars, and had fought well at Marston Moor, had

been despatched from the Scottish army in England, had fallen upon

Montrose at Philiphaugh, at a time when he had but a scanty

following with him, and had utterly defeated him. After this

Cromwell reduced the South, capturing Winchester and Basing House,

whilst Fairfax betook himself to the siege of Exeter. In October,

Charles, misled by a rumour that Montrose had recovered himself,

made one more attempt to join him; but he was headed by the enemy,

and compelled to retreat to Oxford, where, with all his followers

ardently pleading for peace, he still maintained that his conscience

would not allow him to accept any terms from rebels, or to surrender

the Church of England into their hands.

10. =Glamorgan in Ireland. 1645-1646.=--Not one of Charles's

intrigues with foreign powers did him so much harm as his continued

efforts to bring over an Irish army to fight his battles in England.

In =1645= he despatched the Roman Catholic Earl of Glamorgan to

Ireland, giving him almost unlimited powers to raise money and men,

and to make treaties with this object, but instructing him to follow

the advice of Ormond. When Glamorgan arrived in Ireland, in August,

he found that the Confederate Catholics were resolved to demand that

all the churches in Ireland, except the few still in the hands of

the English, should be given permanently to the Catholics, and that

permission should be granted to their clergy to exercise

jurisdiction in matters spiritual and ecclesiastical. Though

Glamorgan knew that Charles had never approved of these concessions,

he signed a treaty, on August 25, =1645=, in which he granted all

that was asked, in consideration of an engagement by the

Confederates to place him at the head of 10,000 Irishmen destined

for England. Before anything had been done, a Papal Nuncio,

Rinuccini, landed in Ireland and required fresh concessions, to

which Glamorgan readily assented. On January 16, =1646=, however,

before Glamorgan's army was ready to start, the treaty which he had

made in August became known at Westminster; and, though Charles

promptly disavowed having authorised its signature, there remained a

grave suspicion that he was not as innocent as he pretended to be.

[Illustration: A gentleman. A gentlewoman.

Ordinary civil costume _temp._ Charles I.: from Speed's map of 'The

Kingdom of England,' 1646.]

11. =The King's Flight to the Scots. 1646.=--In the beginning of

=1646= the Civil War virtually came to an end. On March 14,

Charles's army in the West surrendered to Fairfax in Cornwall, and

in the same month the last force which held the field for him was

overthrown at Stow-on-the-Wold. Many fortresses still held out, but,

as there was no chance of relief, their capture was only a question

of time; and though the last of them--Harlech Castle--did not

surrender till =1647=, there was absolutely no doubt what the

result would be. Charles, now again at Oxford, had but to choose to

whom he would surrender. He chose to give himself up to the Scots,

whose army was at the time besieging Newark. He seems to have

calculated that they would replace him on the throne without

insisting on very rigorous conditions, thinking that they would

rather restore him to power than allow the English army, formidable

as it was, to have undisputed authority in England, and possibly to

crush the independence of Scotland. The Scots, on the other hand,

seem to have thought that, when Charles was once in their power, he

must, for his safety's sake, agree to establish Presbyterianism in

England, by which means the party which would of necessity lean for

support on themselves would have the mastery in England. On May 5,

=1646=, Charles rode in to the quarters of the Scottish army at

Southwell, a few miles from Newark.

[Illustration: A citizen. A citizen's wife.

Ordinary civil costume _temp._ Charles I.: from Speed's map of 'The

Kingdom of England', 1646.]

12. =Charles at Newcastle. 1646.=--Newark at once surrendered, and

Charles was conveyed to Newcastle, where, as he refused to consent

to the establishment of Presbyterianism in England, he was

practically treated as a prisoner. At the end of =1645= and the

beginning of =1646= there had been fresh elections to fill up seats

in the House of Commons left vacant by Royalists expelled for taking

the king's part; but, though many Independent officers were chosen,

there was still a decidedly Presbyterian majority. On July 14

propositions for peace were delivered to Charles on behalf of

Parliament and the Scots. He was to surrender his power over the

militia for twenty years, to take the Covenant, and to support

Presbyterianism in the Church. Charles, in his correspondence with

his wife, showed himself more ready to abandon the militia than to

abandon episcopacy; whilst she, being a Roman Catholic, and not

caring for bishops whom she counted as heretics, advised him at all

hazards to cling to the command of the militia. Charles hoped

everything from mere procrastination. "All my endeavours," he wrote

to the queen, "must be the delaying of my answer till there be

considerable parties visibly formed"--in other words, till

Presbyterians and Independents were ready to come to blows, and,

therefore, to take him at his own price. In order to hasten that

day, he made in October a proposal of his own, in which he promised,

in case of his being restored to power, to establish Presbyterianism

for three years, during which time the future settlement of the

Church might be publicly discussed. He, however, took care to make

no provision for the very probable event of the discussion leaving

parties as opposed to one another as they had been before the

discussion was opened, and it was obvious that, as he had never

given the royal assent to any Act for the abolition of episcopacy,

the whole episcopal system would legally occupy the field when the

three years came to an end. The Presbyterians would thus find

themselves checkmated by an unworthy trick.

[Illustration: A countryman. A countrywoman.

Ordinary civil costume _temp._ Charles I.: from Speed's map of 'The

Kingdom of England,' 1646.]

13. =The Removal of the King to Holmby. 1647.=--The Scots,

discontented with the king's refusal to accept their terms, began to

open their ears to an offer by the English Parliament to pay them

the money owing to them for their assistance, on the open

understanding that they would leave England, and the tacit

understanding that they would leave the king behind them. Once more

they implored Charles to support Presbyterianism, assuring him that,

if he would, they would fight for him to a man. On his refusal, they

accepted the English offer, took their money, and on January 30,

=1647=, marched away to their own country, leaving Charles in the

hands of Commissioners of the English Parliament, who conveyed him

to Holmby House, in Northamptonshire.

14. =Dispute between the Presbyterians and the Army. 1647.=--The

leading Presbyterians, of whom the most prominent was Holles (see p.

535), were so anxious to come to terms with the king, that before

the end of January they accepted Charles's illusory proposal of a

three years' Presbyterianism (see p. 552), offering to allow him to

come to London or its neighbourhood in order to carry on

negotiations. The fact was, that they were now more afraid of the

army than of the king, believing it to be ready to declare not

merely for toleration of the sects, but also for a more democratic

form of government than suited many of the noblemen and gentlemen

who sat on the benches of the Lords and Commons. In March the

Commons voted that only a small body of cavalry should be kept up in

England, and no infantry at all, except a small force needed to

garrison the fortresses, and also that when the infantry regiments

were broken up the disbanded soldiers should be asked to volunteer

for service in Ireland. Of the cavalry in England Fairfax was to be

general, but no officer under him was to hold a higher rank than

that of colonel, a rule which would enable Cromwell's opponents in

Parliament to oust him from his position in the army. So strong was

the feeling in the nation for peace, and for the diminution of the

heavy burden of taxation which the maintenance of the army required,

that the Presbyterians would probably have gained their object had

they acted with reasonable prudence, as a large number of soldiers

had no sympathy with the religious enthusiasts in the ranks. There

were, however, considerable arrears of pay owing to the men, and had

they been paid in ready money, and an ordinance passed indemnifying

them for acts done in war-time, most, if not all, would, in all

probability, either have gone home or have enlisted for Ireland.

Instead of doing this, Parliament only voted a small part of the

arrears, and fiercely denounced the army for daring to prepare a

petition to Fairfax asking for his support in demanding full pay and

indemnity. In a few weeks Parliament and army were angrily

distrustful of one another, and the soldiers, organising themselves,

chose representatives, who were called Agitators[24] or agents, to

consult on things relating to their present position.

[Footnote 24: The name 'Adjutator,' often given to these men, is

undoubtedly a mere blunder. The use of the verb 'to agitate' in the

sense of 'to act,' and of the noun 'agitator,' in the sense of an

agent, is now obsolete.]

15. =Cromwell and the Army. 1647.=--Cromwell's position during these

weeks was a delicate one. He sympathised not only with the demands

of the soldiers for full pay, but also with the demand of the

religious enthusiasts for toleration. Yet he had a strong sense of

the evil certain to ensue from allowing an army to overthrow the

civil institutions of the country,[25] and both as a member of the

House of Commons and as an officer he did his best to avert so dire

a catastrophe. In March he had even proposed to leave England and

take service in Germany under the Elector Palatine, the son of

Frederick and Elizabeth (see p. 488). As this plan fell through, he

was sent down, in May, with other commissioners, to attempt to

effect a reconciliation between the army and the Parliament. In this

he nearly succeeded; but a few days after his return to Westminster

Parliament decided to disband the army at once, without those

concessions which, in consequence of Cromwell's report, it at first

seemed prepared to make. The soldiers, finding that only a small

portion of their arrears was to be paid, refused to disband, and

before the end of May everything was in confusion.

[Footnote 25: Cromwell did not hold that, in fighting against the

king, he had himself been assailing the civil institutions of the

country. In his eyes, as in the eyes of all others on his side, the

king was the aggressor, attacking those institutions, and war

against him was therefore defensive, being waged to save the most

important part of them from destruction.]

16. =The Abduction of the King. 1647.=--The fact was that the

Presbyterian leaders fancied themselves masters of the situation.

Receiving a favourable answer from the king to the proposals made by

them in January (see p. 553), they entered into a negotiation with

the French ambassador and the Scottish commissioners to bring about

a Scottish invasion of England on the king's behalf, and this

invasion was to be supported by a Presbyterian and Royalist rising

in England. In the meanwhile Charles was to be conveyed away from

Holmby to preserve him from the army. This design was betrayed to

Cromwell, and, in consequence, he secretly gave instructions to a

certain Cornet Joyce to take a body of cavalry to hinder the Scots

and Presbyterians from carrying off the king, but only, as it seems,

to remove him from Holmby if force was likely to be used on the

other side. On June 3, Joyce, with a picked body of horse, appeared

at Holmby, where he received news which led him to think that a

Presbyterian body of troops was approaching with the intention of

taking possession of the king's person. Late in the evening,

therefore, imagining that the danger foreseen as possible in

Cromwell's instructions had really arrived, he invited the king to

leave Holmby the next morning. When the morning came Charles,

stepping out on the lawn, asked Joyce for a sight of the commission

which authorised him to give such unexpected orders. "There is my

commission," answered Joyce, pointing to his soldiers. There was no

resisting such an argument, and Charles was safely conducted to

Newmarket.

17. =The Exclusion of the Eleven Members. 1647.=--Parliament,

dissatisfied with this daring act, began to levy troops in London,

and reorganised the London trained bands, excluding all Independents

from their ranks. The army declared that eleven members of the House

of Commons--the leaders of the Presbyterian party--were making

arrangements for a new war, and sent in charges against them. The

eleven members, finding themselves helpless, asked leave of absence.

The City of London was as Presbyterian as Parliament. A mob burst

into the House, and, under stress of violence, the Independent

members, together with the Speakers of the two Houses, left

Westminster and sought protection with the army. The Presbyterians

kept their seats, and voted to resist the army by force. The army

took advantage of the tumult to appear on the scene as the

vindicators of the liberties of Parliament and, marching upon

London, passed through the City on August 7, leaving sufficient

forces behind to occupy Westminster and the Tower. The eleven

Presbyterian members sought refuge on the Continent.

18. =The Heads of the Proposals. 1647.=--In the meanwhile Cromwell

was doing his best to come to an understanding with Charles. A

constitutional scheme, to which was given the name of _The Heads of

the Proposals_, was drawn up by Ireton and presented in the name of

the army to the king. It provided for a constant succession of

biennial Parliaments with special powers over the appointment of

officials, and it proposed to settle the religious difficulty by

giving complete religious liberty to all except Roman Catholics.

Those who chose to do so might submit to the jurisdiction of

bishops, and those who chose to do so might submit to the

jurisdiction of a presbytery; but no civil penalties were to be

inflicted on those who objected either to Episcopacy or to

Presbyterianism or to both.

19. =The King's Flight to the Isle of Wight. 1647.=--No proposals so

wise and comprehensive had yet been made, but neither Charles nor

the Parliament was inclined to accept them. Many of the Agitators,

finding that there was still a Presbyterian majority in Parliament,

talked of using force once more and of purging the Houses of all the

members who had sat in them whilst the legitimate Speakers were

absent. In the meanwhile the king grew more hostile to Cromwell

every day, and entered secretly into a fresh negotiation with the

Scottish commissioners who formed part of the Committee of both

Kingdoms, asking them for the help of a Scottish army. The more

advanced Agitators proposed a still more democratic constitution

than _The Heads of the Proposals_, under the name of _The Agreement

of the People_, and attempted to force it upon their officers by

threats of a mutiny. At the same time, they and some of the officers

talked of bringing the king to justice for the bloodshed which he

had caused. Charles, becoming aware of his danger, fled on November

11 to the Isle of Wight, thinking that it would be easy to escape

whenever he wished. He was, however, detained in Carisbrooke Castle,

where he was treated very much as a prisoner.

20. =The Scottish Engagement, and the Vote of No Addresses.

1647-1648.=--Cromwell put down the mutiny in the army, but he learnt

that the king was intriguing with the Scots, and at last abandoned

all hope of settling the kingdom with Charles's help. On December

26, =1647=, Charles entered into an _Engagement_ with the Scottish

commissioners. On the condition of having toleration for his own

worship, according to the Prayer Book, he agreed to establish

Presbyterianism in England for three years, and to suppress all

heresy. The Scottish army was then to advance into England to secure

the king's restoration to power in accordance with the wishes of a

free Parliament, to be chosen after the existing one had been

dissolved. The English Parliament, indeed, had no knowledge of this

engagement, but finding that Charles refused to accept their terms,

they replied, on January 17, =1648=, by a Vote of No Addresses,

declaring that they would make no more proposals to the king.

21. =The Second Civil War. 1648.=--The majority of Englishmen were,

on the contrary, ready to take Charles at his word. Men were weary

of being controlled by the army, and still more of paying the taxes

needed for the support of the army. There were risings in Wales and

Kent, and a Scottish army prepared to cross the borders under the

Duke of Hamilton. The English army had, however, made up its mind

that Charles should not be restored. Fairfax put down the rising in

Kent after a sharp fight at Maidstone, and drove some of the

fugitives across the Thames into Essex, where being outnumbered they

took refuge in Colchester. Fairfax, following them up, laid siege to

Colchester, though the Londoners threatened to rise in his rear, and

a great part of the fleet deserted to the Prince of Wales, who came

from France to take the command. In the meanwhile Cromwell

suppressed the insurrection in Wales, and then marched northwards.

On August 17, with less than 9,000 men, he fell upon the 24,000 who

followed Hamilton, and, after three days' fighting, routed them

utterly. On August 28 Colchester surrendered to Fairfax.

22. =Pride's Purge. 1648.=--The army had lost all patience with the

king, and it had also lost all patience with Parliament. Whilst

Fairfax and Cromwell were fighting, the Houses passed an ordinance

for the suppression of heresy, and opened the negotiations with the

king which bear the name of the Treaty[26] of Newport. The king only

played with the negotiations, trying to spin out the time till he

could make his escape, in order that he might, with safety to his

own person, obtain help from Ireland or the Continent. The army was

tired of such delusions, seeing clearly that there could be no

settled government in England as long as Charles could play

fast-and-loose with all parties, and it demanded that he should be

brought to justice. By military authority he was removed on December

1 from Carisbrooke to the desolate Hurst Castle, where no help could

reach him. On December 5 the House of Commons declared for a

reconciliation with the king. On the 6th a body of soldiers, under

the command of Colonel Pride, forced it to serve the purposes of the

army by forcibly expelling all members who took the side of the

king. This act of violence is commonly known as Pride's Purge.

[Footnote 26: A treaty then meant a negotiation, not, as now, the

document which results from a successful negotiation.]

[Illustration: View of the west side of the Banqueting House,

Whitehall: from an engraving by Terasson, dated 1713. It is believed

that Charles came out through the window above which a crown is

marked.]

23. =The High Court of Justice. 1649.=--On January 1, =1649=, the

purged House proposed to appoint a High Court of Justice to try

Charles, but the Lords refused to take part in the act. On the 4th

the Commons declared that the people were, under God, the source

of all just power, and that the House of Commons, being chosen by

the people, formed the supreme power in England, having no need of

either king or House of Lords. Never was constitutional pedantry

carried further than when this declaration was issued by a mere

fragment of a House which, even if all its members had been present,

could only claim to have represented the people some years before.

On January 6 a special High Court of Justice was constituted by the

mutilated House of Commons alone, for the trial of the king. On

January 19 Charles was brought up to Westminster. Only the sternest

opponents of Charles would consent to sit on the Court which tried

him. Of 135 members named, only 67 were present when the trial

began. Fairfax was amongst those appointed, but he absented himself,

and when his name was called, his wife cried out, "He is not here,

and will never be; you do wrong to name him."

[Illustration: Execution of King Charles I., January 30, 1649: from

a contemporary broadside.]

24. =The King's Trial and Execution. 1649.=--Charles's accusers had

on their side the discredit which always comes to those who, using

force, try to give it the appearance of legality. Charles had all

the credit of standing up for the law, which, in his earlier life,

he had employed to establish absolutism. He refused to plead before

the Court, on the ground that it had no jurisdiction over a king.

His assailants fell back on the merest technicalities. Instead of

charging him with the intrigues to bring foreign armies into

England, of which he had been really guilty, they accused him of

high treason against the nation, because, forsooth, he had appeared

in arms against his subjects in the first Civil War. The Court, as

might have been expected, passed sentence against him, and, on

January 30, he was beheaded on a scaffold in front of his own palace

at Whitehall.

25. =Results of Charles's Execution. 1649.=--With the king's

execution all that could be permanently effected by his opponents

had been accomplished. When the Long Parliament met, in November

=1640=, all Englishmen had combined to bring Charles to submit to

Parliamentary control. After the summer of =1641= a considerable

part of the nation, coming to the conclusion that Charles was ready

to use force rather than to submit, took arms against him to compel

him to give way. Towards the end of =1647= a minority of Englishmen,

including the army, came to the conclusion that it was necessary to

deprive Charles of all real power, if the country was not to be

exposed to constantly recurring danger whenever he saw fit to

re-assert his claims to the authority which he had lost. In =1648= a

yet smaller minority came to the conclusion that security could only

be obtained if he were deprived of life. In depriving the king of

life all had been done which force could do. The army could guard a

scaffold, but it could not reconstruct society. The vast majority of

that part of the nation which cared about politics at all disliked

being ruled by an army even more than it had formerly disliked being

ruled by Charles, and refused its support to the new institutions

which, under the patronage of the army, were being erected in the

name of the people.

CHAPTER XXXVI

THE COMMONWEALTH AND PROTECTORATE. 1649-1660

LEADING DATES

The Establishment of the Commonwealth 1649

Cromwell in Ireland 1649

Battle of Dunbar Sept. 3, 1650

Battle of Worcester Sept. 3, 1651

The Long Parliament dissolved by Cromwell April 20, 1653

The so-called Barebones Parliament July 4 to Dec. 11, 1653

Establishment of the Protectorate Dec. 16, 1653

The First Protectorate Parliament Sept. 3, 1654, to Jan. 22, 1655

Treaty of Alliance with France Oct. 24, 1655

The Second Protectorate Parliament Sept. 17, 1656, to Feb. 4, 1658

Death of Oliver Cromwell Sept. 3, 1658

Richard Cromwell's Protectorate Sept. 3, 1658, to April 22, 1659

The Long Parliament Restored May 7 to Oct. 13, 1659

Military Government Oct. 13 to Dec. 26, 1659

The Long Parliament a Second Time

Restored Dec 26, 1659, to March 16, 1660

The Declaration of Breda April 4, 1660

Meeting of the Convention Parliament April 14, 1660

Resolution that the Government is by King, Lords,

and Commons May 1, 1660

1. =Establishment of the Commonwealth. 1649.=--It was not to be

expected that the men in Parliament or in the army by whom great

hopes of improvement were entertained should discover that they had

done all that it was possible for them to do. They believed it to be

still in their power to regenerate England. The House of Commons

declared England to be a Commonwealth, 'without a king or House of

Lords,' and, taking the name of Parliament for itself, appointed

forty-one persons to be a Council of State, charged with the

executive government, and renewed annually. Most members of the

Council of State were also members of Parliament; and, as the

attendance in Parliament seldom exceeded fifty, the Councillors of

State (if they agreed together) were able to command a majority in

Parliament, and thus to control its decisions. Such an arrangement

was a mere burlesque on Parliamentary institutions, and could hardly

have existed for a week if it had not been supported by the

ever-victorious army. In the army, indeed, it had its opponents,

who, under the name of Levellers, called out for a more truly

democratic government; but they had no man of influence to lead

them. Cromwell had too much common sense not to perceive the

difficulty of establishing a democracy in a country in which that

form of government had but few admirers, and he suppressed the

Levellers with a strong hand. In quiet times, Cromwell would

doubtless have made some attempt to place the constitution of the

Commonwealth on a more satisfactory basis, but for the present it

needed to be defended rather than improved.

2. =Parties in Ireland. 1647-1649.=--In Ireland the conjunction

formed at the end of =1641= between the Catholic lords and the

native Irish broke down in =1647=. Rinuccini, the Papal Nuncio (see

p. 550), discovered that Ireland could only be organised to resist

English Puritanism under the authority of the Papal clergy, as there

was not sufficient union amongst the Irish themselves to admit the

existence of lay national institutions. He was unable to carry his

idea into effect. Ormond, the king's Lord-lieutenant, who was

himself a Protestant, left Ireland, and handed over Dublin to the

Parliamentary troops under Michael Jones, rather than see it in the

hands of Rinuccini and the Celts. Even the Catholic lords objected

to become the servants of a clerical State, and Rinuccini, baffled

on every side, was obliged to return to Italy. In September, =1648=,

Ormond returned to Ireland, where he soon afterwards entered into a

close alliance with the Catholic lords, who were to receive

religious toleration, and in return to defend the king. After the

king's execution, Charles II. was proclaimed in Ireland. Ormond,

having now an army in which Irish Catholics and English Royalist

Protestants were combined, hoped to be able to overthrow the

Commonwealth both in Ireland and in England.

3. =Cromwell in Ireland. 1649-1650.=--To Cromwell such a situation

was intolerable. His Puritan zeal led him to regard with loathing

Ormond's league with the Catholics, and he was too thorough an

Englishman not to resolve that, if there was to be a struggle,

England must conquer Ireland, and not Ireland England. On August 15

he landed at Dublin. On September 11 he stormed Drogheda, where he

put 2,000 men to the sword, a slaughter which was in strict

accordance with the laws of war of that day, which left garrisons

refusing, as that of Drogheda had done, to surrender an indefensible

post, when summoned to do so, to the mercy or cruelty of the enemy.

Cromwell had a half-suspicion that some farther excuse was needed.

"I am persuaded," he wrote, "that this is a righteous judgment of

God upon those barbarous wretches who have imbrued their hands in

so much innocent blood; and that it will tend to prevent the

effusion of blood for the future--which are the satisfactory grounds

to such actions, which otherwise cannot but work remorse and

regret." At Wexford, where the garrison continued to defend itself

after the walls had been scaled, there was another slaughter. Town

after town surrendered. In the spring of =1650= Cromwell left

Ireland. The conquest was prosecuted by his successors, Ireton and

Ludlow, with savage effectiveness; and when at last, in =1652=, the

war came to an end, a great part of three out of the four provinces

of Ireland was confiscated for the benefit of the conquering race.

The Catholic landowners and other persons who had borne arms against

the Parliament were driven into the wilds of Connaught, to find

there what sustenance they could.

4. =Montrose and Charles II. in Scotland. 1650.=--In =1650=

Cromwell's services were needed in Scotland. In the spring, Montrose

reappeared in the Highlands, but was betrayed, carried to Edinburgh,

and executed as a traitor. On June 24 Charles II. landed in

Scotland, and, on his engaging to be a Presbyterian king, found the

whole nation ready to support him. Fairfax declined to lead the

English army against Charles, on the plea that the Scots had a right

to choose their own form of government. Cromwell had no such

scruples, knowing that, if Charles were once established in

Scotland, the next thing would be that the Scots would try to impose

their form of government on England. Cromwell, being appointed

General in the room of Fairfax, marched into Scotland, and attempted

to take Edinburgh; but he was out-manoeuvred by David Leslie (see p.

549), who was now the Scottish commander, and, to save his men from

starvation, had to retreat to Dunbar.

5. =Dunbar and Worcester. 1650-1651.=--Cromwell's position at Dunbar

was forlorn enough. The Scots seized the passage by which alone he

could retreat to England by land, whilst the mass of their host was

posted inaccessibly on the top of a long hill in front of him. If he

sailed home, his flight would probably be the signal for a rising of

all the Cavaliers and Presbyterians in England. The Scots, however,

relieved him of his difficulties. They were weary of waiting, and,

on the evening of September 2, they descended the hill. Early on the

morning of the 3rd, Cromwell, crying "Let God arise; let His enemies

be scattered," charged into their right wing before the whole army

had time to draw up in line of battle, and dashed them into utter

ruin. Edinburgh surrendered to him, but there was still a large

Scottish army on foot, and, in August =1651=, its leaders, taking

Charles with them, pushed on into England, where they hoped to raise

an insurrection before Cromwell could overtake them. On they

marched, with Cromwell following hard upon their heels. Fear kept

those who sympathised with Charles from rising, and, at Worcester,

on September 3--the anniversary of the battle of Dunbar--Cromwell

absolutely destroyed the Scottish army. Those who were not slain

were taken prisoners, and many of the prisoners sent as slaves to

Barbadoes. "The dimensions of this mercy," wrote Cromwell, "are

above my thoughts. It is, for aught I know, a crowning mercy." He

spoke truly. Never again was he called on to draw sword in England.

Charles succeeded in making his escape to France, on one occasion

concealing himself amidst the thick leafage of an oak, whilst his

pursuers rode unwittingly below.

[Illustration: A coach of the middle of the seventeenth century:

from an engraving by John Dunstall.]

6. =The Navigation Act. 1651.=--Ever since the days of James I.

there had existed a commercial rivalry between England and the Dutch

Republic, and disputes relating to trade constantly arose. Latterly

these disputes had been growing more acute. Early in =1648= Spain

came to terms with the Dutch by acknowledging their independence,

and, later in the same year, the Thirty Years' War in Germany was

brought to an end by the Peace of Westphalia, though war between

France and Spain still continued. Henceforth religion was no longer

made the pretext for war on the Continent; and States contended with

one another because they wished either to annex territory, or to

settle some trade dispute in their own favour. In =1650= the

Stadholder, William II.--the son-in-law of Charles I.--died, and the

office which he held was abolished, the government of the Dutch

Republic falling completely under the control of the merchants of

the Province of Holland, in which were situated the great commercial

ports of Amsterdam and Rotterdam. The Dutch had got into their hands

the carrying trade of Europe. In =1651= the English Parliament

passed the Navigation Act, to put an end to this state of things.

English vessels alone were to be allowed to import goods into

England, except in the case of vessels belonging to the country in

which the goods which they carried were produced.

7. =The Dutch War. 1652-1653.=--War with the Dutch soon followed.

Vane, the leading man in the Committee of the Council of State which

managed the navy, had put the fleet into excellent condition. Its

command was given to Blake, who had been noted as a soldier by the

defence of Taunton (see p. 547) in the Civil War, but who never went

to sea till =1649=, when he was over fifty. Yet Blake soon found

himself at home on board ship, and won the confidence of officers

and men. Battle after battle was fought between the English and

Dutch fleets. The sturdy antagonists were well matched, though the

English ships were larger and more powerfully armed. In November

=1652=, Tromp (the Dutch Admiral) got the better of Blake, but in

February =1653= there was another battle, in which Blake got the

upper hand; but it was no crushing victory, like Dunbar and

Worcester. In the summer of =1653= the English gained two more

victories, but though they attempted to blockade the Dutch ports,

they were obliged to give up the attempt.

8. =Unpopularity of the Parliament. 1652-1653.=--At home, the

truncated Parliament was becoming increasingly unpopular. Ever since

the end of the first Civil War, Parliament had supplied itself with

money by forcing Royalists to compound--that is to say, to pay down

a sum of money, without which they were not allowed to enjoy their

estates; and these compositions, as they were called, were still

exacted from men who had joined in the second Civil War, or had

favoured the invasion by Charles II. The system, harsh in itself,

was not fairly carried out. Members of Parliament took bribes, and

let the briber off more easily than they did others who neglected to

give them money. Those who were not Royalists had grievances of

their own. Many of the members used their power in their own

interest, disregarding justice, and promoting their sons and nephews

in the public service.

9. =Vane's Reform Bill. 1653.=--For a long time Cromwell and the

officers had been urging Parliament to dissolve itself and to

provide for the election of a new Parliament, which would be more

truly representative. Vane had, indeed, brought in a Reform Bill,

providing for a redistribution of seats, depriving small hamlets of

the franchise, and conferring it upon populous towns and counties;

but the discussion dragged on, and the army was growing impatient.

Yet, impatient as the army was, officers and politicians alike

recognised that a freely-elected Parliament would probably overthrow

the Commonwealth and recall the king. Cromwell suggested that a

committee of officers and politicians should be formed to consult on

securities to be taken against such a catastrophe. The securities

which pleased the members of Parliament were, that all members then

sitting should continue to sit in the next Parliament, without fresh

election, and should be formed into a committee having power to

reject any new member whom they considered it desirable to exclude.

10. =Dissolution of the Long Parliament by Cromwell.

1653.=--Cromwell, who disliked this plan, was assured, on April 19,

by one of the leading members of Parliament that nothing would be

done in a hurry. On the next day, April 20, he heard that the House

was passing its bill in the form which he disliked. Going to the

House, when the last vote on the bill was about to be taken he rose

to speak. Parliament, he said, had done well in its care for the

public good, but it had been stained with 'injustice, delays of

justice, self-interest.' Being interrupted by a member, he blazed up

into anger. "Come, come!" he cried; "we have had enough of this. I

will put an end to this. It is not fit you should sit here any

longer." He called in his soldiers, and bade them clear the House,

following the members with words of obloquy as they passed out.

"What shall we do with this bauble?" he asked, taking up the mace.

"Take it away." "It is you," he said to such of the members as still

lingered, "that have forced me to do this. I have sought the Lord

night and day, that He would rather slay me than put me upon the

doing of this work."

[Illustration: Oliver Cromwell: from the painting by Samuel Cooper

at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge.]

11. =The so-called Barebone's Parliament. 1653.=--Cromwell and the

officers shrank from summoning an elected Parliament. They gathered

an assembly of their own nominees, to which men gave, in derision,

the title of the Barebone's Parliament, because a certain Praise-God

Barebone sat in it. In a speech at its opening, on July 4, Cromwell

told them that England ought to be governed by godly men, and that

they had been selected to govern it because they were godly.

Unfortunately, many of these godly men were crotchety and

unpractical. A large number of them wanted to abolish the Court of

Chancery without providing a substitute, and a majority resolved to

abolish tithes without providing any other means for the support of

the clergy. At the same time, enthusiasts outside Parliament--the

Fifth Monarchy men, as they were called--declared that the time had

arrived for the reign of the saints, and that they were themselves

the saints. All who had anything to lose were terrified, and turned

to Cromwell for support, as it was known that no man in England had

stronger common sense, or was less likely to be carried away by such

dreamers. In the Parliament itself there was a strong minority which

thought it desirable that, if tithes were abolished, support should

be provided for the clergy in some other way. These men, on December

11, got up early in the morning, and, before their opponents knew

what they were about, declared Parliament to be dissolved, and

placed supreme authority in the hands of Cromwell.

12. =The Protectorate, and the Instrument of Government. 1653.=--On

December 16 a constitutional document, known as _The Instrument of

Government_, was drawn up by Cromwell's military supporters, and

accepted by himself. Cromwell was to be styled Lord Protector, a

title equivalent to that of Regent, of which the last instance had

been that of the Protector Somerset (see p. 412). The Protector was

to enter, to some extent, upon the duties which had formerly

devolved on the king. There was to be a Parliament consisting of a

single House, which was to meet once in three years, from which all

who had taken the king's part were excluded, as they also were from

voting at elections. The constituencies were to be almost identical

with the reformed ones established by Vane's Reform Bill (see p.

566). The Protector was to appoint the executive officials, and to

have a fixed revenue sufficient to pay the army and navy and the

ordinary expenses of Government; but if he wanted more for

extraordinary purposes he could only obtain it by means of a

Parliamentary grant. New laws were to be made by Parliament alone,

the Protector having no veto upon them, though he was to have an

opportunity of criticising them, if he wished to urge Parliament to

change its purpose. The main lines of the constitution were,

however, laid down in the Instrument itself, and Parliament had no

power given it to make laws contrary to the Instrument. In the

executive government the Protector was restrained, not by

Parliament, but by a Council of State, the members of which he could

not dismiss as the king had dismissed his Privy Councillors. The

first members were nominated in the Instrument, and were appointed

for life; but when vacancies occurred, Parliament was to give in six

names, of which the Council was to select two, leaving to the

Protector only the final choice of one out of two. Without the

consent of this entirely independent Council, the Protector could

take no step of importance.

13. =Character of the Instrument of Government.=--The Instrument of

Government allowed less Parliamentary control than had been given

to the Long Parliament after the passing of the Triennial Act and

the Tonnage and Poundage Act (see pp. 530, 531): as, though

Parliament could now pass laws without any check corresponding to

the necessity of submitting them to the royal assent, it could not

pass laws on the constitutional points which the Instrument of

Government professed to have settled for ever. Neither--except when

there was an extraordinary demand for money--could it stop the

supplies, so as to bring the executive under its power. It was,

rather, the intention of the framers of the Instrument to prevent

that Parliamentary absolutism which had proved so hurtful in the

later years of the Long Parliament. On the other hand, they gave to

the Council of State a real control over the Protector; and it is

this which shows that they were intent on averting absolutism in the

Protector, as well as absolutism in Parliament, though the means

taken by them to effect their end was different from anything

adopted by the nation in later years.

14. =Oliver's Government. 1653-1654.=--Before meeting Parliament,

Oliver had some months in which he could show the quality of the new

Government. On April 5, =1654=, he brought the war with the Dutch to

a close, and subsequently concluded treaties with other European

powers. On July 10 he had Dom Pantaleon Sa, the brother of the

Portuguese ambassador, beheaded for a murder. He had more than

enough domestic difficulties to contend with. The Fifth-Monarchy

men, and other religious enthusiasts, attacked him for treachery to

republicanism, whilst Charles II. incited his followers to rise in

insurrection against the usurper. Some republicans were imprisoned,

and the royalists Gerard and Vowel, who tried to assassinate Oliver,

were executed. In the meanwhile, the Protector and Council moved

forward in the path of conservative reform. The Instrument allowed

them to issue ordinances, which would be valid till Parliament could

examine them; and, amongst others which he sent forth, was one to

reform the Court of Chancery, and another to establish a Commission

of Triers, to reject all ministers presented to livings, if it

considered them to be unfit, and another Commission of Ejectors, to

turn out those who, being in possession, were deemed unworthy.

Oliver would have nothing to say to the Voluntary system. Tithes

were to be retained, and religious worship was to be established;

but there was to be no inquiry whether the ministers were

Presbyterians, Independents, or anything else, provided they were

Puritans. There was to be complete toleration of other Puritan

congregations not belonging to the established churches; whilst the

Episcopalians, though not legally tolerated, were as yet frequently

allowed to meet privately without notice being taken of them. Other

ordinances decreed a complete Union with Scotland and Ireland, both

countries being ordered to return members to the Parliament at

Westminster. As far as the real Irish were concerned, the Union was

entirely illusory, as all Roman Catholics were excluded from the

franchise.

15. =The First Protectorate Parliament. 1654-1655.=--On September 3,

=1654=, the First Protectorate Parliament met. Its first act was to

question the authority of private persons to frame a constitution

for the State, on which Oliver required the members of Parliament to

sign a paper acknowledging the government as established in a single

person and in Parliament, and turned out of the House those who

refused to sign it. The House, thus diminished, drew up a new

constitution, altering the balance in favour of Parliament, and

expressly declaring that the constitution was liable to revision

whenever the Protector and Parliament agreed to change it. It is

probable that Oliver would have consented to this change, but a

dispute arose upon the control of the army. Oliver wished that it

should permanently remain under the Protector, and that Parliament

should be unable to withdraw the sums of money fixed for its

maintenance. Parliament, on the other hand, insisted on voting the

money only for five years, thus claiming to determine, at the end of

that time, whether the army should be disbanded or not. The only

real solution of the difficulty lay in a frank acknowledgment that

the nation must be allowed to have its way for evil or for good.

Oliver, however, suspected--doubtless with truth--that, if the

nation were freely consulted, it would sweep away not only the

Protectorate, but Puritanism itself. Practically, therefore, the

question at issue was whether the Government should be controlled by

Parliament or by the army. On January 22, finding that the House was

not likely to give way, he dissolved Parliament.

16. =The Major-Generals. 1655.=--The Instrument of Government

authorised the Protector to levy sufficient taxes without consent of

Parliament to enable him to meet the expenditure in quiet times, and

after the dissolution Oliver availed himself of this authorisation.

Many people, however, refused to pay, on the ground that the

Instrument, unless recognised by Parliament, was not binding; and,

as some of the judges agreed with them, Oliver could only enforce

payment by turning out those judges who opposed him, and putting

others in their places. Moreover, the Government was embarrassed by

attempts to overthrow it. There were preparations for resistance by

the republicans in the army--suppressed, indeed, by the arrest and

imprisonment of the leaders--and there was an actual Royalist

outburst, with wide ramifications, which showed itself openly in the

South of England, where a Royalist gentleman named Penruddock rode

into Salisbury at the head of 200 men, and seized the judges who had

come down for the assizes. In the face of such danger, Oliver

abandoned all pretence of constitutional government. He divided

England into eleven military districts, over each of which he set a

Major-General, with arbitrary powers for maintaining order, and, by

a mere stroke of the pen, ordered a payment of 10 per cent. on the

incomes of Royalists. Military rule developed itself more strongly

than before. On November 27 Oliver, in his fear of the Royalists,

ordered the suppression of the private worship of those who clung to

the Book of Common Prayer; perceiving rightly that the most

dangerous opponents of his system were to be found amongst sincere

Episcopalians. He also made use of the Major-Generals to suppress

vice and immorality by shutting up alehouses and imprisoning persons

whose lives were disorderly.

17. =Oliver's Foreign Policy. 1654-1655.=--Partly, perhaps, because

he hoped to divert attention from his difficulties at home, partly

because he wished his country to be great in war as well as in

peace, Oliver had for some time been engaging in naval enterprise.

In the early part of his career he had been friendly to Spain,

because France intrigued with the Presbyterians and the king. France

and Spain were still at war, and when Cromwell became Protector he

offered his alliance to Spain, on condition that Spain would help

him to reconquer Calais, and would place Dunkirk in his hands as a

pledge for the surrender of Calais after it had been taken. He also

asked that commerce between England and her own West Indian colonies

should be free from Spanish attacks, and for more open liberty of

religion for the English in the Spanish dominions than had been

offered by Spain in its treaty with Charles I. The Spanish

ambassador replied that to ask these two things was to ask his

master's two eyes, and plainly refused to admit an English garrison

into Dunkirk. Upon this, Cromwell sent out, in the end of =1654=,

two fleets, one--under Blake--to go to the Mediterranean, to get

reparation from the pirates of Tunis and Algiers for wrongs done to

English commerce; and the other--under Penn and Venables--to seize

a Spanish island in the West Indies. Blake was successful, but Penn

and Venables failed in an attempt on San Domingo, though they took

possession of Jamaica, which at that time was not thought to be of

much value.

18. =The French Alliance. 1655.=--As Oliver could not get what he

wanted from Spain, he agreed to a treaty with France to end what had

been virtually a maritime war, in which trading-ships had been

seized on both sides. Freedom of religion was to be accorded to

Englishmen in France. Before any treaty had been signed, news

arrived that the Duke of Savoy had sent his soldiers to compel his

Vaudois subjects to renounce their religion, which was now similar

to that of the Protestants, though they had revolted from the Papacy

long before Luther's Reformation. These soldiers committed terrible

outrages amongst the peaceful mountaineers. Those who escaped the

sword were carried off as prisoners, or fled to the snowy mountains,

where they perished of cold and hunger. Milton's voice was raised to

plead for them. "Avenge," he wrote--

"O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones

Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold--

Even men who kept thy truth, so pure of old,

When all our fathers worshipped stocks and stones."

Cromwell at once told Mazarin that, if he cared for peace with

England, this persecution must stop. Mazarin put pressure on the

Duke of Savoy, and liberty of worship was secured to the Vaudois.

Then, on October 24, =1655=, Oliver concluded the treaty with

France.

19. =Oliver's Second Parliament, and the Humble Petition and Advice.

1656.=--War with Spain was a necessary consequence of the seizure of

Jamaica, and, in =1656=, Oliver called a second Parliament, to give

him money. Yet it was certain that any freely-elected Parliament

would try to grasp authority for itself. When Parliament met, on

September 17, Cromwell began by excluding about a hundred members

who were likely to oppose him. After this, his relations with the

House were smoother than they had been in =1654=--especially as news

arrived that Stainer, with some of Blake's ships, had captured part

of the Spanish treasure-fleet on its way from America; and, soon,

thirty-eight waggons laden with Spanish silver, rolled through the

London streets. Parliament voted the money needed, and Oliver, in

return, withdrew the Major-Generals. Then there was discovered a

plot to murder the Protector, and Parliament, anxious for security,

drew up amendments to the Constitution, known as _The Humble

Petition and Advice_. Members of the Council of State were to be

approved by Parliament, and the power of excluding members from the

House of Commons was to be renounced by the Protector. There was

also to be a second House named in the first instance by the

Protector, who was given power to exclude members subsequently named

by himself or his successors from taking their seats. The object of

this curious provision was to secure a house which might be trusted

for all time to throw out measures opposed to Puritanism, even when

they were supported by the House of Commons. Oliver was asked to

take the title of king, with the right of naming his own successor.

He refused the kingship, as the army disliked it, and also, perhaps,

because he felt that there would be an incongruity in its assumption

by himself. The rest of the terms he accepted, and, on June 26,

=1657=, before the end of the session, he was installed as Lord

Protector with greater solemnity than before. It was already known

that, on April 20, Blake had destroyed a great Spanish fleet at

Santa Cruz, in Teneriffe. On his way back, on August 7, he died at

sea, and was brought home to be buried in Westminster Abbey.

20. =The Dissolution of the Second Protectorate Parliament.

1658.=--On January 20, =1658=, Parliament met for its second

session. The House of Commons had to take back the hundred excluded

members who were enemies of Oliver, and to lose a large number of

Oliver's warmest supporters, who were removed to the other House.

The Commons had no longer an Oliverian majority, and, without

attacking the Protector himself, they now attacked the second House,

which gave itself the airs of the ancient House of Lords. On

February 4, in a speech of mingled sadness and irritation, Oliver

dissolved his second Parliament. "The Lord," he said, "judge between

me and you."

21. =Victory Abroad and Failure at Home. 1657-1658.=--Abroad,

Oliver's policy was crowned with success. In =1657=, a treaty of

alliance was made with France, and 6,000 English troops,

co-operating with the French army, captured Mardyke. On June 4,

=1658=, they defeated the Spanish army in a great battle on the

Dunes, and on the 14th Dunkirk surrendered, and was placed in the

hands of the English. It has often been doubted whether these

successes were worth gaining. France was growing in strength, whilst

Spain was declining, and it would not be long before France would

become as formidable to England as Spain had been in the days of

Elizabeth. Cromwell, however, was not the man to base his policy on

the probabilities of the future. At home and abroad he faced the

present, and, since the day on which the king had mounted the

scaffold, the difficulties at home had been overwhelming. Though his

efforts to restore constitutional order had been stupendous, and his

political aims had been noble, yet he was attempting that which he,

at least, could never do. Men will submit to the clearly expressed

will of the nation to which they belong, or to a government ruling

in virtue of institutions which they and their ancestors have been

in the habit of obeying, but they will not long submit to a

successful soldier, even though, like Oliver, he be a statesman as

well.

22. =Oliver's Death. 1658.=--Oliver was growing weary of his

unending, hopeless struggle. On August 6, =1658=, he lost his

favourite daughter, and soon afterwards he sickened. There were

times when old doubts stole over his mind: "It is a fearful thing,"

he repeated, "to fall into the hands of the living God." Such fears

did not retain their hold on his brave spirit for long: "I am a

conqueror," he cried, "and more than a conqueror, through Christ

that strengtheneth me." On August 30 a mighty storm passed over

England. The devil, said the Cavaliers, was fetching home the soul

of the usurper. Oliver's own soul found utterance in one last prayer

of faith: "Lord," he murmured, "though I am a miserable and wretched

creature, I am in covenant with Thee through grace; and I may, I

will come to Thee, for Thy people. Thou hast made me, though very

unworthy, a mean instrument to do them some good, and Thee service;

and many of them have set too high a value upon me, though others

wish, and would be glad of, my death.... Pardon such as desire to

trample upon the dust of a poor worm, for they are Thy people too;

and pardon the folly of this short prayer, even for Jesus Christ's

sake, and give us a good night, if it be Thy pleasure. Amen." For

three days more Oliver lingered on. On September 3, the anniversary

of Dunbar and Worcester, he passed away to the rest which he had

never known on earth.

23. =Richard Cromwell. 1658-1659.=--On his deathbed Oliver named, or

was said to have named, his eldest son Richard as his successor. The

nation preferred Richard to his father, because he was not a

soldier, and was very little of a Puritan. On January 27, =1659=, a

new Parliament met, chosen by the old, unreformed constituencies, as

they had existed in the time of Charles I.; and not by those

reformed ones appointed by the Instrument of Government, though

Royalists were still excluded both from voting at the elections and

from sitting in Parliament. In this Parliament a majority supported

Richard, hoping that he would consult the wishes of the army less

than his father had done. For that very reason the officers of the

army turned against him, and asked not only that Fleetwood, Oliver's

son-in-law, should be their commander, but that he should be

entirely independent of the authority of the Protector. Richard

nominated Fleetwood, but insisted upon his acting under the

Protector as his Lieutenant-General. Parliament upheld the control

of the civil power over the army. On April 22 the soldiers forced

Richard to dissolve Parliament. On May 25 Richard abdicated and the

Protectorate came to an end.

24. =The Long Parliament Restored. 1659.=--Already on May 7, at the

invitation of the soldiers, forty-two members of the so-called

Rump--the portion of the Long Parliament which had continued sitting

till it was ejected by Cromwell in =1653= (see p. 566)--had

installed themselves at Westminster. No hereditary king was ever

more tenacious of his rights than they. They told the officers 'that

the Parliament expected faithfulness and obedience to the Parliament

and Commonwealth,' and, declaring all Oliver's acts to have been

illegal, resolved that all who had collected taxes for him must

repay the money. The officers, many of whom had, as Major-Generals,

gathered taxes by authority from Oliver, were naturally indignant.

"I know not," said Lambert--one of the most distinguished of

Oliver's officers--"why they should not be at our mercy as well as

we at theirs." Before anything could be done, news arrived that Sir

George Booth had risen in Cheshire for Charles II. Lambert marched

against him, and defeated him at Winnington Bridge. When he

returned, the officers made high demands of Parliament, and, when

these were rejected, they sent troops, on October 13, to keep the

members out of the House. "Do you not know me?" said the Speaker,

Lenthall. "If you had been with us at Winnington Bridge," said a

soldier, "we should have known you."

25. =Military Government. 1659.=--The soldiers had come to despise

civilians merely because they were civilians. They tried to govern

directly, without any civilian authority whatever. The attempt

proved an utter failure. It was discovered that taxes were paid less

readily than when there had been a civilian Government to exact

them. The soldiers quarrelled amongst themselves, and the officers,

finding themselves helpless, restored the Rump a second time. On

December 26 it resumed its sittings at Westminster.

26. =Monk and the Rump. 1660.=--George Monk, who commanded the

forces in Scotland, had little inclination to meddle with politics;

but he was a thorough soldier, and being a cool, resolute man, was

determined to bear this anarchy no longer. On January 1, =1660=, he

crossed the Border with his army, and on January 11 was joined by

Fairfax at York, who brought with him all the weight of his

unstained name and his high military reputation. On February 3 Monk

entered London, evidently wishing to feel his way. On February 6 the

City of London, which had no members sitting in the Rump, declared

that it would pay no taxes without representation. Monk was ordered

by the Rump to suppress the resistance of the City. On the 10th he

reached Guildhall. Keeping his ears open, he soon convinced himself

that the Rump was detested by all parties, and, on the morning of

the 16th, declared for a free Parliament.

27. =End of the Long Parliament. 1660.=--It was easy to coerce the

Rump, without the appearance of using violence. On February 26,

under pressure from Monk, it called in the Presbyterian members shut

out by Pride's Purge (see p. 557). After they had taken their seats,

a dissolution, to be followed by new elections, was voted. At last,

on March 16, the Long Parliament came, by its own act, to its

unhonoured end. The destinies of England were to be placed in the

hands of the new Parliament, which was to be freely elected. The

Restoration was a foregone conclusion. The predominant wish of

Englishmen was to escape from the rule of soldiers, and, as every

recent form of civil government had been discredited, it was natural

to turn back to that which had flourished for centuries, and which

had fallen rather through the personal demerits of the last king

than through any inherent vices of the system.

28. =The Declaration of Breda. 1660.=--On April 4 Charles signed a

declaration, known as the Declaration of Breda. He offered a general

pardon to all except those specially exempted by Parliament, and

promised to secure confiscated estates to their new owners in

whatever way Parliament should approve. He also offered to consent

to a bill for satisfying the arrears of the soldiers, and to another

bill for the establishment of 'a liberty for tender consciences.' By

the Declaration of Breda, Charles had carefully thrown upon

Parliament the burden of proposing the actual terms on which the

settlement was to be effected, and at the same time had shaken

himself free from his father's policy of claiming to act

independently of Parliament. The new Parliament, composed of the

two Houses of Lords and Commons, was known as the Convention

Parliament, because, though conforming in every other respect to the

old rules of the Constitution, the House of Commons was chosen

without the king's writs. It met on April 25. The Declaration of

Breda reached it on May 1. After unanimously welcoming the

Declaration, Parliament resolved that, 'according to the ancient and

fundamental laws of this kingdom, the Government is, and ought to

be, by King, Lords, and Commons.' The Puritan Revolution had come to

an end.

_Books recommended for further study of Part VI._

RANKE, L. History of England (English Translation). Vol. i. p.

386--vol. iii. p. 308.

HALLAM, H. Constitutional History of England. Chaps. VI.-X.

GARDINER, S. R. History of England from 1603-1642.

--------- History of the Great Civil War.

MASSON. Life of Milton, and History of his Time. Vols. i.-v.

FORSTER, J. Life of Sir John Eliot.

---------- The Grand Remonstrance.

---------- Arrest of the Five Members.

GUIZOT, F. Charles I.

---------- Cromwell.

---------- Richard Cromwell.

HANNAY, D. Admiral Blake.

MONTAGUE, F. C. The Political History of England. Vol. vii. From the

Accession of James I. to the Restoration (1603-1660).

PART VII

_THE POLITICAL REVOLUTION._ 1660-1689

CHAPTER XXXVII

CHARLES II. AND CLARENDON. 1660-1667

LEADING DATES

Reign of Charles II., 1660-1685.

Charles II. lands at Dover May 25, 1660

Dissolution of the Convention Parliament Dec. 29, 1660

Meeting of the Cavalier Parliament May 8, 1661

Corporation Act 1661

Act of Uniformity 1662

Expulsion of the Dissenting Ministers Aug. 24, 1662

The King declares for Toleration Dec. 26, 1662

Repeal of the Triennial Act 1664

Conventicle Act 1664

First Dutch War of the Restoration 1665

The Plague 1665

Five Mile Act 1665

Fire of London 1666

Peace of Breda July 31, 1667

Clarendon's Fall 1667

1. =Return of Charles II. 1660.=--On May 25, =1660=, Charles II.

landed at Dover, amidst shouting crowds. On his thirtieth birthday,

May 29, he entered London, amidst greater and equally enthusiastic

crowds. At Blackheath was drawn up the army which had once been

commanded by Cromwell. More than anything else, the popular

abhorrence of military rule had brought Charles home, whilst the

army itself, divided in opinion, and falling under the control of

Monk, was powerless to keep him away. When the king reached

Whitehall he confirmed Magna Carta, the Petition of Right, and other

statutes by which the royal power had at various times been

limited.

[Illustration: Charles II.: from the portrait by Sir Peter Lely in

Christ's Hospital, London.]

2. =King and Parliament. 1660.=--Something more than Acts of

Parliament was needed to limit the power of the king. It had been

found useless to bind Charles I. by Acts of Parliament, because he

tried again and again to introduce foreign armies into England to

set Parliament at naught. Charles II. was, indeed, a man of far

greater ability than his father, and was quite as ready as his

father to use foreign help to get his way at home. In the first year

after his return he tried to get money both from the Dutch and from

the Spaniards in order to make himself independent of Parliament,

but his character was very different from his father's, in so far as

he always knew--what Charles I. never knew--how much he could do

with impunity. Having none of his father's sense of duty, he was

always inclined to give way whenever he found it unpleasant to

resist. He is reported to have said that he was determined that,

whatever else happened, he would not go on his travels again, and he

was perfectly aware that if a single foreign regiment were brought

by him into England, he would soon find himself again a wanderer on

the Continent. The people wished to be governed by the king, but

also that the king should govern by the advice of Parliament. The

restoration was a restoration of Parliament even more than a

restoration of the king.

3. =Formation of the Government. 1660.=--The Privy Council of

Charles II. was, at the advice of Monk, who was created Duke of

Albemarle in July, composed of Cavaliers and Presbyterians. It was,

however, too numerous to direct the course of government, and

Charles adopted his father's habit of consulting, on important

matters, a few special ministers, who were usually known as the

Junto. Albemarle, as he knew little and cared less about politics,

soon lost the lead, and the supreme direction of affairs fell to

Hyde, the Lord Chancellor. Charles was too indolent and too fond of

pleasure to control the government himself, and was easily guided by

Hyde, who was thoroughly loyal to him, and an excellent man of

business. Hyde stood to the king's other advisers very much in the

position of a modern Prime Minister, but he carefully avoided

introducing the name, though it was already in vogue in France, and

contented himself with the real influence given him by his superior

knowledge. In religion and politics he was still what he had been in

=1641= (see pp. 533, 534). He was a warm supporter of episcopacy and

the Prayer Book. As a lawyer, he applauded the political checks upon

the Crown which had been the work of the first months of the Long

Parliament, whilst he detested all the revolutionary measures by

which, in the autumn of =1641=, attempts had been made to establish

the supremacy of Parliament over the king.

4. =The Political Ideas of the Convention Parliament. 1660.=--Hyde's

position was the stronger because, in politics at least, the

Convention Parliament agreed with him. The Cavaliers in it naturally

accepted the legislation of the Long Parliament, up to August

=1641=, when Charles I. left for Scotland (see p. 532), as their own

party had concurred in it. The Presbyterians, on the other hand, who

now represented the party which had formerly been led by Pym and

Hampden, saw no reason to distrust Charles II. as they had

distrusted his father, and were, therefore, ready to abandon the

demand for further restrictions on the royal power, on which they

had vehemently insisted in the latter part of =1641= and in the

earlier part of =1642= (see p. 534). In constitutional matters,

therefore, Cavaliers and Presbyterians were fused into one, on the

basis of taking up the relations between the Crown and Parliament as

they stood in August =1641=. This view of the situation was favoured

by the lawyers, one of whom, Sir Orlando Bridgman, pointed out that,

though the king was not responsible, his ministers were; and, for

the time, every one seemed to be satisfied with this way of keeping

up the indispensable understanding between king and Parliament. What

would happen if a king arose who, like Charles I., deliberately set

himself against Parliament, no one cared to inquire.

[Illustration: Edward Hyde, first Earl of Clarendon, 1608-1674: from

an engraving by Loggan.]

5. =Execution of the Political Articles of the Declaration of

Breda. 1660.=--Of the four articles of the Declaration of Breda,

three were concerned with politics, and these were adopted by

Parliament, with such modifications as it pleased to make. The

estates of the king and of the bishops and chapters were taken out

of the hands of those who had acquired them, but all private sales

were declared valid, though Royalists had often sold their land in

order to pay the fines imposed on them by the Long Parliament. An

Act of Indemnity was passed, in which, however, there were many

exceptions, and, in the end, thirteen regicides, together with Vane,

were executed, and the bodies of Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw dug

up and hanged. The bodies of other noted persons, including those of

Pym and Blake, which had been buried in Westminster Abbey, were also

dug up, and thrown into a pit outside. Many regicides and other

partisans of the Commonwealth and Protectorate were punished with

imprisonment and loss of goods, whilst others, again, who escaped,

remained exiles till their death. Money was raised in order that the

army might be paid as had been promised, after which it was

disbanded. Feudal dues and purveyance were abolished, and an excise

voted to Charles in their place. The whole revenue of the Crown was

fixed at 1,200,000_l._

[Illustration: A mounted nobleman and his squire: from Ogilby's

_Coronation Procession of Charles II._]

[Illustration: Dress of the Horse Guards at the Restoration: from

Ogilby's _Coronation Procession of Charles II._]

[Illustration: Yeoman of the Guard: from Ogilby's _Coronation

Procession of Charles II._]

6. =Ecclesiastical Debates. 1660.=--On ecclesiastical matters the

two parties were less harmonious. The cavaliers wanted to restore

episcopacy and the Prayer Book. The Presbyterians were ready to go

back in religion, as in politics, to the ideas of August, =1641=,

and to establish a modified episcopacy, in which bishops would be

surrounded with clerical councillors, whose advice they would be

bound to take. To this scheme Charles gave his approval, and it is

probable that if nothing else had been in question Parliament would

have accepted it. Charles, however, had an object of his own. His

life was dissolute, and, being without any religious convictions, he

cherished, like some other dissolute men of that time, a secret

attachment to the Church of Rome. In order to do that Church a good

turn, he now asked for a toleration in which all religions should be

included. The proposal to include Roman Catholics in the proposed

toleration wrecked the chances of modified episcopacy. Cavaliers and

Presbyterians were so much afraid of the Roman Catholics that when

a bill for giving effect to the scheme for uniting episcopacy and

Presbyterianism was brought into Parliament, it was rejected through

fear lest it should be a prelude to some other tolerationist measure

favouring the Roman Catholics. On December 29, =1660=, the

Convention Parliament was dissolved.

[Illustration: Shipping in the Thames, _circa_ 1660: from Pricke's

_South Prospect of London_.]

7. =Venner's Plot and its Results. 1661.=--No one in the Convention

Parliament had had any sympathy with the Independents, and still

less with the more fanatical sects which had received toleration

when the Independents were in power. The one thing which the people

of England as a body specially detested was the rule of the

Cromwellian army, and the two parties therefore combined to

persecute the Independents by whom that army had been supported. In

January, =1661=, a party of fanatics, knowing that they at least had

nothing to hope, rose in insurrection in London under one Venner, a

cooper. The rising was easily put down, but it gave an excuse to

Charles--who was just then paying off the army--to retain two

regiments, one of horse and one of foot, besides a third, which was

in garrison at Dunkirk. There was thus formed the nucleus of an army

the numbers of which, before long, amounted to 5,000. To have an

armed force at all was likely to bring suspicion upon Charles,

especially as his revenue did not suffice for the payment of 5,000

men without having recourse to means which would cause ill-feeling

between himself and Parliament.

8. =The Cavalier Parliament, and the Corporation Act. 1661.=--On May

8, =1661=, a new Parliament, sometimes known as the Cavalier

Parliament, met. In times of excitement, nations are apt to show

favour to the party which has a clear and decided opinion; and, on

this occasion, nine-tenths of the new members were Cavaliers. The

new Parliament voted that neither House could pretend to the command

of the militia, nor could lawfully make war upon the king. Before

the end of =1661= it passed the Corporation Act, which was aimed at

the Presbyterians as well as at the Independents. All who held

office in municipal corporations were to renounce the Covenant, and

to take an oath of non-resistance, declaring it to be unlawful to

bear arms against the king; and no one in future was to hold

municipal office who had not received the Sacrament according to the

rites of the Church of England. This Act did more than exclude from

corporations those who objected to submit to its injunctions. In

many towns the corporations elected the members of the House of

Commons, and hence, by excluding non-conformists from corporations

in towns, Parliament indirectly excluded them from many seats in the

House of Commons.

9. =The Savoy Conference, and the Act of Uniformity.

1661-1662.=--After the dissolution of the Convention Parliament, the

old number of bishops was filled up, and, in April =1661=, a

conference between some bishops and some Presbyterian clergy was

held at the Savoy Palace, and has therefore been known as the Savoy

Conference. The two parties differed too much to come to terms, and

the whole question of the settlement of the Church was left to the

Cavalier Parliament. In =1662= Parliament decided it by passing the

Act of Uniformity. Every clergyman and every schoolmaster refusing

to express, by August 24, his unfeigned consent to everything

contained in the Book of Common Prayer, was to be precluded from

holding a benefice. On August 24 (St. Bartholomew's day), about

2,000 clergy resigned their cures for conscience' sake, as their

opponents had, in the time of Puritan domination, been driven from

their cures, rather than take the Covenant.

10. =The Dissenters. 1662.=--The expulsion of the dissenting clergy,

as they were now called, made a great change in the history of English

Christianity. The early Puritans wished, not to separate from the

national Church, but to mould the national Church after their own

fashion. The Independents set the example of separating from the

national Church, in order to form communities outside it. The

Presbyterian clergy who kept up the tradition of the early Puritans

were now driven out of the national Church, and were placed in very

much the same position as the Independents. Hence, these two bodies,

together with the Baptists and the Society of Friends--popularly known

as Quakers--and other sects which had recently arisen, began to be

known by the common name of Dissenters. The aim of those who had

directed the meeting of the Savoy Conference had been to bring about

comprehension, that is to say, the continuance within the Church of

those who, after its close, became Dissenters. Their failure had

resulted from the impossibility of finding any formularies which could

satisfy both parties; and in consequence of this failure the

Dissenters now abandoned all thought of comprehension, and contented

themselves with asking for toleration, that is to say, for permission

to worship apart from the Church, in their own assemblies.

11. =The Parliamentary Presbyterians. 1662.=--The Presbyterian

clergy were followed by most of their supporters among the tradesmen

and merchants of the towns. They were not followed by the

Presbyterians among the gentry. The party in Parliament, which had

hitherto styled itself Presbyterian, had originally become so mainly

through dislike of the power of the bishops. They now consented to

accept the Prayer Book, when they found that the regulation of the

Church was to depend on Acts of Parliament and not either on the

bishops or the king. The few members of the House of Commons who had

hitherto been known as Presbyterians formed the nucleus of a party

of toleration, asking for a modification of the law against

Dissenters, though refusing to become Dissenters themselves.

12. =Profligacy of the Court. 1662.=--On the other hand, the members

of the Cavalier party had, in =1641=, become Royalists because they

desired the retention of the doctrine and discipline of the Church

of England, and, in =1662=, the Cavaliers were supporters of the

Church even more than they were Royalists. As soon as Charles

expressed his approval of the Act of Uniformity, and not before, the

House of Commons voted him a chimney tax of two shillings on every

chimney. If Charles had been an economical man, instead of an

extravagant one, he might possibly have contrived to live within his

income. He was, however, beyond measure extravagant. The reaction

against Puritanism was not political only. There were plenty of

sober men amongst the English gentry, but there were also many who

had been so galled by the restrictions of Puritanism that they had

thrown off all moral restraint. Riot and debauchery became the

fashion, and in this bad fashion Charles's court led the way.

13. =Marriage of Charles II., and Sale of Dunkirk. 1662.=--In =1662=

Charles married Catharine of Braganza, a Portuguese Princess. He

professed his intention of leading a new life, but he was weak as

water, and he soon returned to his evil courses. Politically alone

was the marriage of importance. Catharine brought with her the

possessions of Tangier, and of Bombay, the first spot on the soil of

India acquired by the English Crown. It was also a seal of

friendship between Charles and Louis XIV. of France. Louis had made

peace with Spain by the Treaty of the Pyrenees in =1659=, but he

still sympathised with the efforts of Portugal to maintain the

independence of which Spain had robbed her in =1580= (see p. 454),

and which she had recovered in =1640=. Charles's marriage was,

therefore, a declaration in favour of France. In November, =1662=,

after Parliament had dispersed for a vacation, he further showed his

attachment to France, by selling Dunkirk to Louis for 200,000_l._ By

abandoning Dunkirk, Charles saved an annual cost of 120,000_l._,

which he would be able, if he pleased, to spend on an army. It may

be doubted whether the possession of Dunkirk was of any real use,

but there was a howl of indignation, in consequence of its loss,

especially directed against Hyde, who had been created Earl of

Clarendon in =1661=, and was building a town house on a scale

commensurate with his dignity. This house was popularly called

Dunkirk House, it being falsely supposed that Clarendon received

from Louis bribes which were expended upon it.

14. =The Question of Toleration Raised. 1662-1663.=--Before

Parliament met, Charles, on December 26, =1662=, issued a

declaration in favour of toleration. He asked Parliament to pass an

Act enabling him to mitigate the rigour of the Act of Uniformity by

exercising that dispensing power 'which he conceived to be inherent

in him.' Again and again, in former reigns, the king had dispensed

from the penalties imposed by various laws, though there had been

times when Parliament had remonstrated in cases where those

penalties were imposed to restrain the Roman Catholic religion. When

Parliament met again in =1663=, the Cavaliers rejected the king's

proposal. They would hear nothing of toleration for Dissenters, and

still less of toleration for 'Papists.' The fear of a restoration of

'Popery' was the strongest motive of Englishmen of that day, and

Charles, who, unlike his father, always recoiled from strong

opposition, even consented to banish all Roman Catholic priests. Yet

it was in their interest and not in that of the Dissenters that he

had issued his declaration. This affair sowed the first seeds of

ill-will between Charles and Clarendon, as the latter had warmly

supported the opposition to the Declaration.

15. =The Conventicle Act. 1664.=--Parliament was roused to proceed

still farther in its course of intolerance. The Act of Uniformity

had turned the Dissenting clergy out of the Church, but had not

prevented them from holding meetings for worship. In May =1664= a

Conventicle Act was passed, by which any adult attending a

conventicle was made liable to an ascending scale of penalties,

ending in seven years' transportation, according to the number of

times that the offence had been committed. A conventicle was defined

as being a religious meeting not in accordance with the practice of

the Church of England, at which more than four persons were present

in addition to the household. The sentence of transportation was,

indeed, a terrible one, as it implied working like a slave,

generally under the burning sun in Barbadoes or some West India

colony. The simple-minded Pepys, whose Diary throws light on the

social conditions of the time, met some of the worshippers on their

way to the inevitable sentence. "They go like lambs," he writes,

"without any resistance. I would to God they would conform, or be

more wise and not be catched." It was fear which produced the

eagerness of English gentlemen to persecute Dissenters. They

remembered how they had themselves been kept under by Cromwell's

Puritan army, and, knowing that most of Cromwell's soldiers were

still in the prime of life, they feared lest, if the Dissenters were

allowed to gather head, they might become strong enough to call

again to arms that ever-victorious army.

16. =The Repeal of the Triennial Act. 1664.=--In the spring of

=1664=, before the passing of the Conventicle Act, the Cavalier

Parliament had been alarmed lest it should be thought that it ought

to be dissolved in the following May, because it would then have sat

three years, in compliance with the Triennial Act. In reality there

was nothing in the Triennial Act or in any other Act which rendered

Parliament liable to dissolution, as long as the king lived, unless

he chose to dissolve it; but Charles, who did not like the fetters

which that Act imposed upon him, took the opportunity to ask

Parliament to repeal it. This was promptly done, though in the Act

of Repeal was included a clause to the effect that there should, in

future, be no intermission of Parliaments for more than three years.

As the whole of the machinery invented by the Long Parliament for

giving effect to such a clause (see p. 530) had vanished, no king

could now be compelled to summon Parliament unless he wished to do

so.

17. =Growing Hostility between England and the Dutch.

1660-1664.=--It was not fear, but commercial rivalry, which made

England hate the Dutch. In =1660= the Convention Parliament had

re-enacted the Navigation Act (see p. 565). Legislation alone,

however, could not prevent the Dutch from driving the English out of

the markets of the world, either by superior trading capacity, or by

forcibly excluding them from ports in which Dutch influence was

supreme. Besides this, the Dutch refused to surrender Pularoon, a

valuable spice-bearing island in the East Indies, though they had

engaged to do so by treaty. If there was anything about which

Charles II. was in earnest it was in the spread of English colonies

and commerce. He had also private reasons for bearing ill-will

against the Dutch, who by abolishing the office of Stadholder (see

p. 565) in =1650=, had deprived the young William of Orange, the son

of Charles's sister Mary, of any post in the Republic. The seven

provinces were held together by the necessity of following the

counsels of the Province of Holland, by far the most extensive and

the wealthiest of the seven, if they were to preserve any unity at

all. The opinion of this Province was the more readily accepted

because the provincial states by which it was governed submitted to

be led by their pensionary, John de Witt, one of the most vigorous

and most prudent statesmen of the age. A pensionary was only an

officer bound to carry out the orders of the States, but the fact

that all business passed through his hands made a man of John de

Witt's ability, the director of the policy which he was supposed to

receive from others.

18. =Outbreak of the First Dutch War of the Restoration.

1664-1665.=--In =1664= hostilities broke out between England and the

Dutch Republic, without any declaration of war. English fleets

captured Dutch vessels on the coast of Africa, seized islands in the

West Indies, and took possession of the Dutch settlement in America

called by its founders New Amsterdam, but re-named by the English

New York, after the king's only surviving brother, the Duke of York,

who was Lord High Admiral. Later in the year, De Ruyter, one of the

best of the Dutch admirals, retaliated by seizing most of the

English forts on the coast of Guinea, and in =1665= war was openly

declared. Parliament made what was then the enormous grant of

2,500,000_l._, and on June 3 a battle was fought off Lowestoft in

which the English were completely victorious.

19. =The Plague. 1665.=--The rejoicing in England was marred by a

terrible calamity. For more than half a century the Plague had

appeared in England, at intervals of five years. It now broke out

with unusual virulence, especially in London. The streets there were

narrow and dirty, and the air was close, because the upper storeys

of the houses overhung the lower ones. No medical aid appeared to

avail anything against the Plague. On the door of every house in

which it appeared was painted a red cross with the words, "The Lord

have mercy upon us." Every one rich enough fled into the country and

spread the infection. "How fearful," wrote a contemporary, "people

were, thirty or forty, if not a hundred miles from London, of

anything that they brought from any mercer's or draper's shop; or of

any goods that were brought to them; or of any persons that came to

their houses! How they would shut their doors against their friends:

and if a man passed over the fields, how one would avoid another!"

The dead were too numerous to be buried in the usual way, and carts

went their rounds at night, accompanied by a man ringing a bell and

calling out, "Bring out your dead." The corpses were flung into a

huge pit without coffins, there being no time to provide them for so

many. It was not till winter came that the sickness died away.

20. =The Five Mile Act. 1665.=--In October, Parliament met at

Oxford, through fear of the Plague. It offered the king

1,250,000_l._ for the war if he would consent to fresh persecution

of the Dissenters. He took the money, and gave his assent to the

Five Mile Act. The Conventicle Act had been largely evaded, and,

during the Plague, Dissenting ministers had preached in pulpits from

which the clergy had fled through fear of infection. The Five Mile

Act was to strike at the ministers ejected on St. Bartholomew's day.

Not one of them was allowed to come within five miles of a borough

town, or of any place in which he had once held a cure, and was

therefore likely to find a congregation, unless he would take the

oath of non-resistance, and swear that he would never endeavour to

alter the government in Church or State, a condition to which few,

if any, of the Dissenters were willing to submit.

[Illustration: Old St. Paul's, from the east, showing its condition

just before the Great Fire from an engraving by Hollar.]

21. =Continued Struggle with the Dutch. 1665-1666.= In the autumn of

=1665= the ravages of the Plague kept the English fleet in the

Thames, and the Dutch held the sea. On land they were exposed to

some peril. Ever since their peace with Spain, in =1648=, they had

allowed their military defences to fall into decay, on the

supposition that they would have no more enemies who could dispose

of any formidable land-force. Now even a petty prince like the

Bishop of Münster, hired by Charles, was able, in October, to

over-run two of their eastern provinces. The Dutch called upon the

king of France, Louis XIV., for help, and he, being bound by treaty

to assist them, declared war against England in January =1666=. If

he had given earnest support to the Dutch the consequences would

have been serious for England, but though he and other continental

allies of the Dutch frightened off the Bishop of Münster from his

attack on the Republic, Louis had no wish to help in the destruction

of the English navy. What he wanted was to see the Dutch and English

fleets destroy one another in order that his own might be mistress

of the sea. Through the first four days of June a desperate naval

battle was fought between the English and the Dutch, off the North

Foreland, at the end of which the English fleet, under Albemarle and

Rupert, was driven to take shelter in the Thames, whilst the Dutch

had been so crippled as to be forced to put back to refit. On July

25 and 26 there was another battle off the mouth of the Thames. This

time the Dutch had the worst, and in August the English fleet sailed

along the islands at the entrance of the Zuyder Zee, destroying 160

merchant ships and burning a town. The struggle had been a terrible

one. The sailors of both nations were equally brave, and equally at

home in a sea-fight, but the English ships were better built and the

English guns were better, whilst the Dutch commanders did not work

well together in consequence of personal and political jealousies.

22. =The Fire of London. 1666.=--In September, =1666=, London

suffered a calamity only second to that of the Plague. A fire broke

out, and burnt for three days. All the City from the Tower to the

Temple, and from the Thames to Smithfield, was absolutely destroyed.

Old St. Paul's, the longest cathedral in England, perished in the

flames. Great as the suffering caused by the fire was, it was not

without its benefits, as the old houses with their overhanging

storeys were destroyed by it, and were replaced by new ones built in

the modern fashion, so that there was more air in the streets. After

this reconstruction of London it was never again visited by the

Plague.

23. =Designs of Louis XIV. 1665-1667.=--Soon after the fire died

down Parliament voted 1,800,000_l._ for continuing the war, but the

country was exhausted, and it was known that it would be impossible

to collect so large a sum. Both king and Parliament were therefore

anxious for peace, and there were now reasons which made the Dutch

also ready to make peace. In =1665= Philip IV. of Spain died, and

was succeeded by his only surviving son, Charles II., as yet a mere

child, hopelessly weak in body and mind. Philip also left two

daughters, the elder, Maria Theresa, a child of his first wife,

being the wife of Louis, whilst the younger, Margaret Theresa, the

wife of the Emperor Leopold I., was, with Charles II., the offspring

of a second marriage.[27] Both of the daughters had renounced all

future claim to the Spanish Crown, but Louis, knowing that the

young Charles II. of Spain was so sickly as to make his early death

probable, was prepared to assert his wife's claim whenever that

event took place. In the meanwhile he put forward a demand that the

greater part of the Spanish Netherlands should be immediately handed

over to her, because in those countries there was a law, known as

the law of devolution, enacting that the daughter of a first wife

should receive a larger share of her father's property than a son of

the second. Louis chose to construe a right to succeed to property

as though it implied a right to govern. In March, =1667=, he made a

secret treaty with Charles II. of England, in which, on condition of

his engaging not to help the Dutch, he was allowed to do as he

pleased in the Spanish Netherlands. In May he began what is known as

the War of Devolution, with Spain. Spain had neither money nor means

to defend her territory in the Netherlands, and the French armies

captured one place after another.

[Footnote 27: Genealogy of the surviving children of Philip IV:--

1. Elizabeth of France = Philip IV. = 2. Mary of Austria.

| |

+----------------+ +---+------------------------+

| | |

Maria Theresa = Louis XIV. Margaret Theresa = Leopold I. Charles II.]

24. =The Dutch in the Medway, and the Peace of Breda. 1667.=--The

advance of Louis into the Spanish Netherlands and the establishment

of the French armies so near their frontier in the place of the now

exhausted forces of Spain greatly alarmed the Dutch. The mere risk

of this danger had, even before the war between France and Spain

began, inclined them to peace with England, and a conference was

opened at Breda to consider the terms. All was quickly agreed on

except the question about the right of England to Pularoon (see p.

589), and Charles, imagining that this would be settled in his

favour, dismissed his sailors and dismantled his fleet, in order to

save money to spend on his own extravagant pleasures. The Dutch

fleet at once entered the Thames, sailed up the Medway, burnt three

men-of-war, and carried off a fourth. For some days it blockaded the

Thames, so that the Londoners could get no coals. Men openly said

that such things would not have happened if Oliver had been living.

Orders were sent to the English ambassadors at Breda to give up

Pularoon, and on July 31 the Treaty of Breda was signed. It was not

wholly disastrous. If England lost her last hold on the spice

islands of the East, she gained New York and all the territory

formerly Dutch in the West, which had broken up the continuity of

her colonies in America.

25. =Clarendon and the House of Commons. 1667.=--The events of the

last months of the war had produced important effects upon the

temper of Parliament. Long before the Dutch appeared in the Medway,

the House of Commons had demanded an inquiry into the expenditure

of the money granted to the Crown, suspecting that much of the

supply distinctly intended for purposes of war had been diverted to

pay for the amusements of the Court. This demand, which opened a new

chapter in the history of the financial struggle between the House

of Commons and the Crown, brought the Commons into collision with

Clarendon. It had been settled by the Long Parliament that the king

was to levy no taxes without a grant from Parliament. The Cavalier

Parliament, Royalist as it was, was beginning to ask that the king

should not spend the proceeds of taxes without the approbation of

Parliament. When once this had been secured, Parliament would

indubitably become supreme. Against this attempt to obtain the

mastery Clarendon struggled. He was a good lawyer and an excellent

man of business, but he was not a statesman of genius. He wanted

each part of the government to act in harmony with the others; but

he could never understand the meaning of the saying that if two men

ride on horseback, one must ride in front. He wanted the king and

Parliament both to ride in front, both--that is to say--to have

their own way in certain directions. His notion of a king was that

of one prudently doing his best for his people, always ruling

according to law, and irresponsible in everything, even in the

expenditure of money. A wasteful, riotous Charles II. was a

phenomenon for the control of which his constitutional formulas were

not prepared.

26. =The Fall of Clarendon. 1667.=--Though Clarendon was unable to

concur in any diminution of the power of the Crown, his eyes were

widely open to the profligacy of Charles's life. Again and again he

had remonstrated with him, and had refused to pass under the great

seal grants in favour of Lady Castlemaine, to whom, amongst his many

mistresses, Charles was at this time most completely subjugated. As

might have been expected, this abandoned woman irritated her

paramour against his upright Chancellor, telling him that he was no

king as long as he was ruled by Clarendon. As Parliament continued

its attacks, Charles, on August 30, dismissed Clarendon from office.

On October 10, the fallen minister was impeached by the House of

Commons, on charges the greater part of which were ridiculously

untrue. He tried to rouse Charles to support him, reminding him

that, after Charles I. allowed Strafford to die, the king's own head

had fallen on the scaffold. Charles II., an easy-going but clever

politician, probably thought that he could always escape his

father's fate by refraining from imitating his father's stiffness.

He gave Clarendon a strong hint to withdraw, and on November 29 the

minister who had done more than any other man to establish the

restored monarchy, fled to France, never to return alive.

27. =Scotland and Ireland. 1660.=--At the Restoration, the close

connection established by Cromwell between England and Scotland was

necessarily broken up. Scotland hated English control even when it

came in the guise of a union of Parliaments, and the old relation of

separate states united only by the Crown was at once resumed. Argyle

and his principal followers were executed as traitors. The main

profit of the restoration in Scotland, however, fell to the

nobility. The clergy was discredited by its divisions, and the

noblemen, whose fathers had supported Presbyterianism against

Charles I., now supported Charles II. against Presbyterianism. Once

more, as in the days of James I., the clergy were muzzled by the

restoration of episcopacy and the assertion of the authority of the

Crown. In Ireland the main question was how to satisfy alike the

recent English immigrants who had received lands from Cromwell and

the Irish proprietors who had been deprived of their lands in favour

of the intruders. In =1661=, at the king's desire, an Act of

Settlement was passed, making, in elaborate detail, an attempt to

satisfy as many as possible of both parties; but as men of English

descent and Protestant religion filled the Irish House of Commons,

the English settlers contrived to maintain, by constitutional

authority, much of what they had taken with the strong hand.

According to the best evidence now procurable, whereas before =1641=

about two-thirds of Irish lands fit for cultivation had been in the

hands of Catholics, before the end of the reign of Charles II.

two-thirds were in the hands of Protestants.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

CHARLES II. AND THE CABAL. 1667-1674

LEADING DATES

Reign of Charles II., 1660-1685

Treaty of Dover June 1, 1670

Second Dutch War of the Restoration March 13, 1672

Declaration of Indulgence March 15, 1672

Test Act March 29, 1673

Dismissal of Shaftesbury Nov. 9, 1673

Peace with the Dutch Feb. 19, 1674

1. =Milton and Bunyan.=--Whilst Clarendon and his allies were

fortifying the legal position of the Church of England, the old

Puritanism which they attempted to crush found a voice in

literature. Milton, who had become blind, in consequence of his

intense devotion to the service of the State, as the secretary of

Cromwell, at last, after long preparation, gave to the world

'Paradise Lost,' in =1667=. The poem was Puritan, not only because

its main theme was the maintenance or destruction of the purity of a

single human soul, but because it based that purity on obedience to

the commands of the great Taskmaster; whilst, in the solemn cadence

of its blank verse there is something to remind the reader of the

stern world of duty, in the midst of which the nobler spirits of the

Commonwealth and Protectorate had moved. As Milton was the poet of

Puritanism, John Bunyan was the prose-poet of Dissent. He had

himself fought as a soldier on the side of Parliament in the Civil

War, and, having become an earnest Baptist preacher, he continued to

preach after the Restoration, and, boldly defying the law, was

requited with a long imprisonment. His masterpiece, 'The Pilgrim's

Progress,' was probably not written till =1675=, but many of his

religious writings were published before that date. His force of

imagination made him the greatest allegorist the world has seen. His

moral aim lay in the preservation of a few choice souls from the

perils and temptations of a society wholly given up to evil.

[Illustration: John Milton in 1670.]

A Student's History of England, v. 2: 1509-1689 From the Earliest Times to the Death of King Edward VII · 第 9 / 11 章

5. =The Grand Remonstrance. 1641.=--The perception of this danger