indescribable. "I wished myself out of these daily hazards, but knew
not how to get free of them," is Whitlocke's entry in his diary for
Dec. 20; and, under Dec. 22, he writes, "Most of the soldiery about
London declared their judgment to have the Parliament sit again, in
honour, freedom, and safety; and now those who formerly were most
eager for Fleetwood's party became as violent against them, and for
the Parliament to sit again." In other words, the soldiers of
Fleetwood's own London regiments were tired of being insulted and
jeered at, and had come to the conclusion, with their brethren
everywhere else, that Lambert's _coup d'état_ of Oct. 13 had
been a blunder and that the Rump must be reinstated.--In these
circumstances, Whitlocke, after consultation with Lord Willoughby of
Parham, the Presbyterian Major-General Browne, and others, thought
himself justified in going to Fleetwood with a very desperate
project. It was evident, Whitlocke told him, that Monk's design was
to bring in the King; if so, the King's return was inevitable; and,
if the King should return by Monk's means, the lives and fortunes of
all in the Wallingford-House connexion were at the King's or Monk's
mercy. Would not Fleetwood be beforehand with Monk, and himself be
the agent of the unavoidable restoration? He might adopt either of
two plans, an indirect or a direct. The indirect plan would be to
fraternize with the City, declare for "a full and free
Parliament"--not that Parliament for which Whitlocke was preparing
writs, but the fuller and freer one, unfettered by Wallingford-House
"qualifications," for which the Royalists had been astutely calling
out,--and then either take the field with his forces under that
banner, or else, if the forces he could rally proved too small, shut
himself up in the Tower, and trust to the City itself till the effect
were seen. The other way would be to dispatch an envoy to the King at
once with offers and instructions. Whitlocke himself was equally
willing to go into the Tower with Fleetwood or to be his envoy to
Charles. After some rumination, Fleetwood, as Whitlocke understood,
had concluded for the latter plan, and Whitlocke was taking leave of
him, with that understanding, to prepare for his journey, when they
found Vane, Desborough, and Berry, in the ante-chamber. At
Fleetwood's request Whitlocke waited there, while the new comers and
Fleetwood consulted in the other room. In less than a quarter of an
hour, says Whitlocke, Fleetwood came out, telling him passionately "I
cannot do it, I cannot do it." The reason he gave was that he had
just been reminded that he was under a pledge to Lambert to take no
such step without his consent. To Whitlocke's remonstrance that,
Lambert being absent, and the matter being one of life or death, only
instant action could prevent ruin to Fleetwood himself and his
friends, the answer was "I cannot help it"; and so they parted.--This
was on Thursday the 22nd of December. The next day, though Whitlocke
had a call from Colonel Ingoldsby, Colonel Howard, and another,
suggesting that, as Keeper of the Great Seal, he might fitly go to
the King on his own account, he went on sealing writs, he tells us,
for the new Wallingford-House Parliament. Meanwhile, the uproar in
the City being at its maximum, such members of the late Council of
the Rump as were in town met at Speaker Lenthall's house and issued
orders for a rendezvous of Fleetwood's regiments in Lincoln's Inn
Fields under the command of Okey, Alured, Markham, and Mosse.
Fleetwood, applied to for the keys of the Parliament house, willingly
gave them up and resigned all charge. On Saturday the 24th the mass
of the soldiers were gladly at the appointed rendezvous, and were
marched down Chancery Lane, where the Speaker came out to them at the
Rolls, and was received with shouts of joy and repentance. On Monday
the 26th all the members of the Rump who were at hand met the Speaker
in the Council-Chamber at Whitehall, and walked thence to Westminster
Hall, the mace carried before them, and the soldiers and populace
cheering as they passed. They constituted the House and proceeded at
once to business. They had been excluded two months and fourteen
days.[1]
[Footnote 1: Whitlocke, IV. 380-384; Phillips, 676; Letter of M. de
Bordeaux to Mazarin of Dec. 28, 1659 (English reckoning), Guizot,
318-322.]
CHAPTER I.
Second Section (continued).
THE ANARCHY, STAGE III.: OR SECOND RESTORATION OF THE RUMP, WITH
MONK'S MARCH FROM SCOTLAND: DEC. 26, 1659--FEB. 21, 1659-60.
THE RUMP AFTER ITS SECOND RESTORATION: NEW COUNCIL OF STATE:
PENALTIES ON VANE, LAMBERT, DESBOROUGH, AND THE OTHER CHIEFS OF THE
WALLINGFORD-HOUSE INTERREGNUM: CASE OF LUDLOW: NEW ARMY REMODELLING:
ABATEMENT OF REPUBLICAN FERVENCY AMONG THE RUMPERS: DISPERSION OF
LAMBERT'S FORCE IS THE NORTH: MONK'S MARCH FROM SCOTLAND: STAGES AND
INCIDENTS OF THE MARCH: HIS HALT AT ST. ALBAN'S AND MESSAGE THENCE TO
THE RUMP: HIS NEARER VIEW OF THE SITUATION: HIS ENTRY INTO LONDON,
FEB. 3, 1659-60: HIS AMBIGUOUS SPEECH TO THE RUMP, FEB. 6: HIS
POPULARITY IN LONDON: PAMPHLETS AND LETTERS DURING HIS MARCH AND ON
HIS ARRIVAL: PRYNNE'S PAMPHLETS ON BEHALF OF THE SECLUDED MEMBERS:
TUMULT IN THE CITY: TUMULT SUPPRESSED BY MONK AS SERVANT OF THE RUMP:
HIS POPULARITY GONE: BLUNDER RETRIEVED BY MONK'S RECONCILIATION WITH
THE CITY AND DECLARATION AGAINST THE RUMP: ROASTING OF THE RUMP IN
LONDON, FEB. 11, 1659-60: MONK MASTER OF THE CITY AND OF THE RUMP
TOO: CONSULTATIONS WITH THE SECLUDED MEMBERS: BILL OF THE RUMP FOR
ENLARGING ITSELF BY NEW ELECTIONS: BILL SET ASIDE BY THE RESEATING OF
THE SECLUDED MEMBERS: RECONSTITUTION OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT UNDER
MONK'S DICTATORSHIP.
The Rump, as restored the second time, never recovered even its
former small dimensions. On a division taken the day after its
restoration there were only thirty-seven present and voting, nor in
any subsequent division did the number exceed fifty-three. This arose
from the fact that Rumpers who had been conspicuous in the
Wallingford-House defection now absented themselves. On the other
hand, the Journals show an accession of at least five members not
visible in the previous session: viz. Colonel Alexander Popham, Sir
Anthony Ashley Cooper, Colonel Henry Markham, Mr. John Lassell, and
Mr. Robert Cecil (second son of the Earl of Salisbury). Ashley
Cooper, not an original Rumper, came in by the recognition, Jan. 7,
1659-60, of his right to sit for Downton in Wilts. Lassell, whose
name is not on the list of the Long Parliament, may have found a seat
in the same way. Prynne and some others of the secluded members
renewed their attempt to get into the House, but were again
refused.[1]
[Footnote 1: Commons Journals (Divisions and Committees) from Dec.
26, 1659 to Feb. 21, 1659-60.]
A new Council of State was, of course, appointed at once. It was to
consist, as before, of _twenty-one_ Parliamentaries and
_ten_ non-Parliamentaries, and to hold office from Jan. 1,
1659-60 to April 1, 1660. The following is the list, the order in
each section being that of preference as shown by the numbers of
votes obtained in the ballot, and the asterisk again denoting a
Regicide.
PARLIAMENTARIES.
Sir Arthur Hasilrig, Bart.
Colonel Herbert Morley
Robert Wallop
*Colonel Valentine Walton
*Thomas Scott
Nicholas Love
Chief Justice St. John
Colonel William White
John Weaver
Robert Reynolds
Sir James Harrington
Sir Thomas Widdrington
Colonel George Thompson
*John Dixwell
Henry Neville
Colonel John Fagg
John Corbet
*Thomas Challoner
*Henry Marten
*William Say
Luke Robinson (a tie between him and Carew Raleigh, decided by lot).
NON-PARLIAMENTARIES.
Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, Bart. (appointed before his election as M.P.)
Josiah Berners
General Monk
Vice-Admiral Lawson
Alderman Love
Thomas Tyrrell
Lord Fairfax
Alderman Foote
Robert Rolle
Slingsby Bethell.[1]
[Footnote 1: Commons Journals, Dec. 31, 1659 and Jan. 2, 1659-60.]
The proceeding's of the House for the first month showed no
diminution of self-confidence by the late interruption. Hasilrig, who
was now the chief man in the Parliament and in the Council, was in
such a state of elevation that his friends were a little alarmed.
Next in activity, and more a man of business, was Scott, whose merits
were acknowledged by his appointment first to an informal
Secretaryship of State (Jan. 10), and then to that office fully and
formally, with charge of the foreign and domestic intelligence (Jan.
17). He was to be for the Rump government what Thurloe had been for
the Protectorate.
A good deal of the first month's business consisted in votes of
approbation for those who had been faithful during the interruption
and votes condemning the Wallingford-House "usurpers" and their acts.
Monk, of course, was the hero among the faithful. Messages of thanks
were sent to him again and again, and on the 16th of January it was
resolved to bestow on him and his heirs £1000 a year. But there were
thanks as well to Admiral Lawson, Whetham, and Fairfax; to Hasilrig,
Scott, Neville, Morley, Walton, and the other members of the Council
of State who had laboured for the good old cause in the interim; and
to Sir Hardress Waller, Sir Charles Coote, and Colonel Theophilus
Jones, for what they had done in Ireland. In the censure of
delinquents there was nothing very revengeful. The Committee of
Safety was styled "the late pretended Committee of Safety," and all
their doings were voted null; but an indemnity for life and estate
was assured to the men themselves, and to all officers who had acted
under them, on condition of present submission. This indemnity was
not so complete but that a few of the late chief's might expect some
punishment. Accordingly, on the 9th of January Vane was brought
before the House, disabled from sitting there any longer, and ordered
into private life at his estate of Raby in Durham; and on the same
day it was voted that Colonels Lambert, Desborough, Berry, Ashfield,
Kelsay, Cobbet, Barrow, Packer, and Major Creed, all of whom were
still at large, should seclude themselves in whatever houses of
theirs were farthest from London. Vane, Lambert, and the rest not
having complied sufficiently, there were subsequent votes, with
little or no effect, for apprehending and compelling them; and on the
18th of January Sydenham and Salway were added to the list of the
reproved, the former by being expelled from the House and the latter
by being suspended. Whitlocke and the Laird of Warriston, though
unanimously regarded as among the prime culprits, escaped without
punishment. Whitlocke even ventured to appear in the House, but was
received so coolly that he soon withdrew into the country, leaving
instructions to his wife to burn a quantity of his papers and to
deliver the great seal to the Speaker. So far was Fleetwood from
being in danger that they were considering whether he might not be
retained as Commander-in-chief. Ludlow, much to his surprise, found
himself among the accused. This, however, was not because of the
middle course he had taken in London through the late interruption,
though he had lost some credit by that with his Republican friends.
He had unfortunately left London on his way back to Ireland on the
very eve of that happy restitution of the Rump which he had despaired
of seeing, and it was in Ireland that his enemies were most numerous
and violent. He had hardly arrived among them and attempted to resume
his command when he received notice from the House that he and
Colonel John Jones, with Miles Corbet and Matthew Tomlinson, were
required to come over to answer certain charges against them relating
to their Irish government (Jan. 5). Ludlow and the others obeyed, and
found, on their arrival in London in February, that Sir Charles Coote
and other officers in Ireland had lodged an impeachment against them
for nothing less than high treason.[1]
[Footnote 1: Commons Journals of dates, and generally from Dec. 26,
1659 to Feb. 1659-60; Ludlow, 783-806; Whitlocke, IV. 384-392.]
Another business, natural in the circumstances, was the now too
familiar one of "re-modelling." Men not now satisfactory had to be
removed from all departments of the public service and more proper
men substituted. Whitlocke's great seal was given into new keeping,
and there were new judicial appointments. To supply vacancies caused
by the removal of defaulting officers in regiments, there began
again, too, on a considerable scale, that process of nomination for
new commissions and of delivery of the commissions by the Speaker
which had been so wearisome in the former session of the House. To
Whetham, Walton, Morley, Okey, Mosse, Alured, Hasilrig, Rich, Eyre,
Hacker, and others, retaining their former colonelcies, or promoted
to farther military trusts, there were added Colonels Camfield,
Streater, Smithson, Sanders, &c.; and now, as heretofore, one is
puzzled by the appearance of many persons as "colonels" who had the
title only from their places in the militia of their counties, or
from the courtesy custom of designating a retired army-man by his
former name of honour. Lambert, Desborough, and the eight others
ordered into seclusion, were, of course, among the discharged; so
also was Robert Lilburne; but Hewson seems to have been forgiven.[1]
[Footnote 1: Commons Journals, Dec, 1659 and Jan. 1659-60; Whitlocke
as before.]
Through all these proceedings of the first month there had been signs
of a curious abatement of that thorough-going Republican fervency
which had characterized the House in its previous session. The
essential Republican principle had indeed been at once re-proclaimed.
It had been resolved that each member of the new Council of State,
before assuming office, should take an oath renouncing "the pretended
title or titles of Charles Stuart and the whole line of the late King
James, and of every person, as a single person, pretending or which
shall pretend," &c. The very next day, however, when Hasilrig brought
in a Bill enacting that every member of the House itself, or of any
succeeding House, should take the same oath, a minority, among whom
were Ingoldsby, Colonel Hutchinson, Colonel Fielder, and Colonel
Fagg, opposed very strongly. Not, of course, that they were other
than sound Commonwealth's men; but that oaths were becoming
frightfully frequent, and this one would be "a confining of
Providence," &c.! The first reading of the Bill was carried only by a
majority of twenty-four (Neville and Garland tellers) against fifteen
(Colonel Hutchinson and Colonel Fagg tellers). The effect was that,
after a second reading, the Bill went into Committee and remained
there, the members meanwhile sitting on without any engagement. About
a half of those nominated to the Council of State, including Fairfax,
St. John, Morley, Weaver, and Fagg, remained out of the Council
rather than submit to the qualification made essential in
_their_ case. This was symptomatic enough; but it was also
evident that, on such important questions as Tithes, an Established
Church, and Liberty of Conscience, the House was in no disposition to
persevere in what had hitherto been believed to be radical and
necessary articles of the Republican policy. The instructions given
to a Committee on the 21st of January indicate very comprehensively
the prevalence of a conservative temper in the House on these and
other questions. The Committee were to prepare a declaration for the
public "That the Parliament intends forthwith to proceed to the
settlement of the government, and will uphold a learned and pious
Ministry of the nation and their maintenance by Tithes: and that they
will proceed to fill up the House as soon as may be, and to settle
the Commonwealth without a King, Single Person, or House of Peers;
and will promote the Trade of the nation; and will reserve due
Liberty to tender consciences: and that the Parliament will not
meddle with the executive power of the Law, but only in cases of
mal-administration and appeals, &c." Such a declaration was adopted
and ordered to be published on the 23rd. It was of a nature to
conciliate the Presbyterian and Independent clergy of the
Establishment and the conservative mass of the people generally, but
to disappoint grievously those various sectarian enemies of the
Church Establishment who had hitherto been the most enthusiastic
exponents of the "good old cause." The very phrase "the good old
cause," one observes, was now passing into disrepute, and the word
"fanatics" as a name for its extreme supporters was coming into use
within the circle of the Rump politicians themselves. Hasilrig,
Neville, and the rest of the ultra-Republicans, mast have felt the
power going from their hands.[1]
[Footnote 1: Commons Journals of dates; Phillips, 678; Ludlow,
807-809; Letters of M. de Bordeaux, Guizot, II. 325-839.]
While much of this cooling of the original Republican fervency was
owing to the recent experience of the public fickleness and of the
necessity of not "confining Providence" too much in the decision of
what to-morrow should bring forth, there was a special cause in the
relations now subsisting between the House and Monk.
The House having been restored by Monk's agency, but without that
march to London which he had proposed for the purpose, the majority
were by no means anxious to see him in London. Monk, on the other
hand, to whom it had been a disappointment that the House had been
restored without his presence to see it done, was resolved
nevertheless that the march should take place. He was already within
England when the news of the premature restitution of the Rump
reached him, having advanced through the snow from Coldstream to
Wooler in Northumberland on the 2nd of January, to fight Lambert at
last. He was at Morpeth on the 4th, and at Newcastle on the 5th, to
find that there was to be no necessity for fighting Lambert after
all. Lambert's army had melted away with the utmost alacrity on
orders from London, leaving their leader to submit and shift for
himself. After remaining three days at Newcastle, Monk resumed his
march, by Durham and Northallerton, receiving addresses and
deputations by the way, and was at York on the 11th. Here he remained
five days, besieged with more addresses and deputations, but having a
conference also with Lord Fairfax, followed by a visit to his
Lordship at his house of Nunappleton. Fairfax had been in arms to
attack Lambert's rear, in accordance with the understanding he had
come to with Monk; and it was part of Monk's business at York to
reform the wreck of Lambert's forces, incorporating some of them with
his own and putting the rest under the command of officers who had
declared for Fairfax. He arranged also for leaving one of his own
regiments at York and for sending Morgan back with two others to take
charge of Scotland. By these changes his army for farther advance was
reduced to 4000 foot and 1800 horse. Hitherto his march had been by
his own sole authority; but at York he received orders from the
Council of State to come on to London. Dreading what might happen
from his conjunction with the great Fairfax, and not daring to order
him back to Scotland, the Rump leaders had assented to what they
could not avoid. From York, accordingly, he resumed his advance on
the 16th, the country before him, like that he had left behind, still
covered thick with snow. On the 18th, at Mansfield in
Nottinghamshire, he met Dr. Gumble, whom he had sent on to London
about ten days before with letters to the Parliament and the Council
of State, and who had returned with valuable information. Next day,
at Nottingham, his brother-in-law De Clarges also met him, bringing
farther information for his guidance. On the 22nd, as he was
approaching Leicester, Messrs. Scott and Robinson, who had been sent
from London as Commissioners from the Rump to attend him in the rest
of his march, made their appearance ceremoniously and were duly
received. They had come really as anxious spies on Monk's conduct,
and were very inquisitive and loquacious; but they relieved him
thenceforth of much of the trouble of answering the deputations and
addresses by which he was still beset on his route. They were with
him at Northampton, where he was on the 24th; at Dunstable, where he
was on the 27th; and at St. Alban's, where he arrived on the 28th.
Here, twenty miles from London, he rested for five days, to see the
issue of a very important message he had been secretly preparing for
the Parliament and which he now sent on by Dr. Clarges. It was a
request to the House to clear London of all but two of the regiments
then in it, on the ground that, having so recently served Fleetwood
and the Wallingford-House party in their usurpation, they were not to
be trusted. The message was of a kind to surprise and perplex the
House, and Monk had purposely reserved it to this late stage of his
march that there might be the less time for discussion. While waiting
at St. Alban's, he had to endure, we are told, "amongst the rest of
his interruptions," a long fast-day sermon from Hugh Peters, who had
come to his quarters, with two other ministers. Monk's chaplain, Dr.
Price, who was present at the sermon, has left an account of it. The
text was Psalm cvii. 7, "And He led them forth by the right way, that
they might go to a city of habitation"; and Peters, in discoursing on
this text, drew from it the assurance of a happy settlement of the
Commonwealth at last. "With his fingers on the cushion," says Dr.
Price, "he measured the right way from the Red Sea, through, the
Wilderness, to Canaan; told us it was not forty days' march, but God
led Israel forty years through the Wilderness before they came
thither; yet this was still the Lord's right way, who led his people
_crinkledum cum crankledum_." Monk's present march was to be one
of the last of the windings.[1]
[Footnote 1: Skinner's Life of Monk, 175-199; Phillips, 677-680;
Parl. Hist., III. 1574 (quotation from Dr. Price).]
While Monk is at St. Alban's, we may inquire into his real
intentions. They connect themselves with the purport of those
addresses with which he had been troubled along his whole route. Not
only had there been addresses from the inhabitants or authorities of
the towns he passed through; but there had been letters to him at
Morpeth from the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Common Council, of the
City of London, followed by an address presented to him on the
borders of Northamptonshire by a deputation of three commissioners
from the City, two of them Aldermen. Now, almost all the addresses
had been in one strain. Thanking Monk for what he had already done,
they prayed him to earn the farther gratitude of his countrymen
either by (1) securing that the present House should be converted
into a real Parliament by the restoration of the secluded members of
1642-1648 to their seats and the filling up of other vacancies, or
(2) securing that a full and free new Parliament should be called at
once. Both these methods implied the restoration of Charles, though
mention of that consequence, and by some even the thought of it, was
most studiously avoided. A full and free new Parliament meant, in the
present mood of the country, a recall of Charles rapidly and
unhesitatingly. The filling up of the present Parliament by the
restoration of the secluded members, and by new elections for other
vacancies, meant the reconstituting of the Long Parliament entire,
just as it had been while negotiations with Charles I. were going on,
and before the Army, in order to stop these negotiations and bring in
the Republic, ejected the Royalist and Presbyterian members. Such a
reconstituted Parliament, if time were given it, would also
inevitably recall Charles II., though it might do so after a
preliminary compact with him on the basis of that Treaty of Newport
which had been going on with his father late in 1648, and which might
be regarded as still embodying the views of the Presbyterians
respecting Royalty and its limits. Of the two methods the Cavaliers
or Old Royalists naturally preferred that which would bring in
Charles most speedily and with the fewest conditions; but, as they
were outnumbered by the Presbyterians or New Royalists, they were
willing to accept _their_ method. To the genuine Rumpers, of
course, either proposal was dreadful. To retain the power themselves,
enlarging their House, if at all, only by new elections permitted by
themselves, and not to part with their power unless to a new
Parliament the qualifications for which should have been carefully
pre-determined by themselves, was the only procedure by which they
could hope to preserve the Commonwealth. Hence, on the one hand,
their willingness to throw overboard all that was not absolutely
essential to a Republican policy; but hence, on the other, their
anxiety to enforce an oath among themselves abjuring Charles and the
Stuarts utterly. It had been to feel Monk's inclinations in this
matter of the abjuration oath, and also to watch his attitude to the
deputations and their requests, that they had despatched their two
commissioners, Scott and Robinson, to be in attendance on him. He had
baffled them by his matchless taciturnity. Very probaby, his
intention, when he first projected his march to London, had been to
restore the Rump and to insist at the same time on the re-admission
of the secluded members; and this had been recommended to him by
Fairfax. But, now that the Rump was again sitting without the
secluded members, and determined to keep them out, not even to
Fairfax had he committed himself by a definite promise on that point.
To the deputations he would reply only in curt generalities, or
indeed, after Scott and Robinson had joined him, in generalities
which would have been thought crusty and uncivil, had not Gumble, or
Price, or the physician Dr. Barrow, been always at hand to explain
privately to disappointed persons that the General's way was
peculiar. Only in one matter was he explicit himself. He would not
permit the least insinuation that he designed to bring in Charles. At
York he had caned one of his officers for having said something
imprudent to that effect.[1]
[Footnote 1: Skinner and Phillips _ut supra_; Letter of M. de
Bordeaux to Mazarin, of date Jan. 21, in Guizot, II. 336-340.]
On the 30th of January, with whatever reluctance, the House did
comply with Monk's request, by issuing orders for the removal of
Fleetwood's regiments from London; and on the 1st of February the way
was farther cleared by the appointment of Clarges to be
commissary-general of the musters for England and Scotland. There was
a mutiny among Fleetwood's soldiers on account of the disgrace put
upon them, and also on account of their dislike of country quarters
after the pleasures of London; but the mutiny only quickened the
desire to get rid of them. They were marched out by their officers;
and on Friday the 3rd of February, Monk, who had come on to Barnet
the day before, marched in with his army, by Gray's Inn Lane,
Chancery Lane, and the Strand. They appeared to the citizens a very
rough and battered soldiery indeed after their month's march through
the English snows, the horses especially lean and ragged. That night,
and all Saturday and Sunday, Monk was in quarters at Whitehall,
receiving distinguished visitors. Though asked to take his seat in
the Council of State on Saturday, he declined to do so till he should
see his way more clearly on the disputed question of the abjuration
oath.[1]
[Footnote 1: Commons Journals of dates; Skinner, 199-206; Phillips,
680-682.]
On Monday, Feb. 6, the House was assembled in state to see Monk
introduced into it by Messrs. Scott and Robinson. His designation
among them was only "Commissioner Monk"; for, though he had been
appointed Commander-in-Chief of all the Forces of England, Scotland,
and Ireland, by a secret commission sent him by Hasilrig and a few
other members of the old Council of State during the late
interruption, that commission did not now hold, and he had really no
other authority than that implied by his appointment before Lambert's
_coup d'état_ to be fellow-commissioner with Fleetwood, Ludlow,
Hasilrig, Walton, and Morley for the regulation of the Army. The last
three of these, as still acting in the commission, were nominally his
equals. But every care was taken to testify to Monk the sense of his
extraordinary services. A chair was set for him opposite the Speaker;
at the back of which, as he declined the invitation to be seated, he
stood while the Speaker addressed him in a harangue of glowing
thanks. Then, with his hand on the chair, he spoke in return the
speech he had carefully conned. "Sir, I shall not trouble you with
large narratives," he said; "only give me leave to acquaint you that,
as I marched from Scotland hither, I observed the people in most
counties in great and earnest expectations of Settlement, and they
made several applications to me, with numerous subscriptions. The
chiefest heads of their desires were:--for a free and full
Parliament, and that you would determine your sitting; a Gospel
Ministry; encouragement of Learning and Universities; and for
admittance of the members secluded before 1648, without any previous
oath or engagement. To which I commonly answered, That you are now in
a _free_ Parliament, and, if there were any force remaining upon
you, I would endeavour to remove it; and that you had voted to fill
up your House, and then you would be a _full_ Parliament
also...; but, as for those gentlemen secluded in 1648, I told them
you had given judgment in it and all people ought to acquiesce in
that judgment; but to admit any members to sit in Parliament without
a previous oath or engagement to secure the Government in being, it
was never yet done in England. And, although I said it not to them, I
must say it with pardon to you, that the less oaths and engagements
are imposed (with respect had to the security of the common cause)
your settlement will be the sooner attained to." He was now half
through his speech; and the rest consisted of general recommendations
of a policy in accordance with "the sober interest," with care that
"neither the Cavalier nor Fanatic party" should have a share of the
civil or military power. He ended with a glance at Ireland and
Scotland, bespeaking particular attention to the Scots, as "a nation
deserving much to be cherished," and sure to appreciate the late
declaration in favour of a sober and conservative Church policy,
inasmuch as no nation more dreaded "to be overrun with fanatic
notions." Having thus delivered himself, Monk withdrew, leaving the
House wholly mystified, but also a good deal distempered, by his
ambiguities. It seems to have been on this occasion that Henry Marten
vented that witty description of Monk which is one of the best even
of _his_ good sayings. "Monk," he said, "is like a man that,
being sent for to make a suit of clothes, should bring with him a
budget full of carpenter's tools, and, being told that such things
were not at all fit for the work he was desired to do, should answer,
'It matters not; I will do your work well enough, I warrant you.'"
Monk was now on the spot with his budget of carpenter's tools, and he
meant to make a tolerable suit of clothes with them somehow.[1]
[Footnote 1: There is a hiatus in the Journals at the point of
Monk's reception and speech in the House; but the speech was printed
separately, and is given in the Parl. Hist. III. 1575-7. The original
authority for Henry Marten's witticism is, I believe, Ludlow
(810-811).]
There was no lack of advices for his direction. Through the month of
his march and of the anxious sittings of the House in expectation of
him, the London press had teemed with pamphlets for the crisis. _The
Rota, or a Model of a Free State or Equal Commonwealth_ was another
of Harrington's, published Jan. 9, when Monk was between Newcastle
and York; and on the 8th of February, when Monk had been five days in
London, he was saluted by _The Ways and Means whereby an Equal and
lasting Commonwealth may be suddenly introduced_, also by Harrington.
_A Coffin for the Good Old Cause_ was another, in a different strain;
and there were others and still others, some of them in the form of
letters expressly addressed to Monk. From the moment of his arrival
at St. Alban's, indeed, he had become the universal target for
letter-writers and the universal object of popular curiosity. _The
Pedigree and Descent of his Excellency General Monk_ was on the
book-stalls the day before his entry into London, and his speech to
the Parliament was in print the day after its delivery. All were
watching to see what "Old George" would do. He did not yet know that
himself, but was trying to find out. What occupied him was that
question of the means towards a full and free Parliament which had
been pressed upon him all along his march, and about which he had
hitherto been so provokingly ambiguous. Of all the pamphlets that
were coming out only those that could give him light on this question
can have been of the least interest to his rough common sense. Now,
as it happened, he could be under no mistake, after his arrival in
London, as to the strength and massiveness of that current of opinion
which had set in for a re-seating of the secluded members. Since the
first restoration of the Rump in May 1659, Prynne had been keeping
the case of the secluded members perpetually before the public in
pamphlets; and Prynne, more than any other man, had created the
feeling that now prevailed. "Conscientious, Serious, Theological and
Legal Queries propounded to the twice dissipated, self-erected,
Anti-Parliamentary Westminster Juncto"; "Six Important Queries
proposed to the Re-sitting Rump of the Long Parliament"; "Seven
Additional Queries in behalf of the Secluded Members"; "Case of the
Old secured, secluded, and twice excluded Members"; "Three Seasonable
Queries proposed to all those Cities, Counties, and Boroughs, whose
respective citizens have been forcibly excluded," &c.; "Full
Declaration": such are the titles of those of Prynne's pamphlets, the
last of a long series in one and the same strain, which were
delighting or tormenting London when Monk arrived. Many of the
secluded members were in town to await the issue, and the last-named
of Prynne's pamphlets (published Jan. 30) contained an alphabetical
list of the whole body of them. There were, it appears, 194 secluded
members then alive, besides forty who had died since 1648. If Monk
was to do anything at all, was not Prynne's way the safest and most
popular? Practically, at all events, he could now see that the
possible courses had reduced themselves to two,--(1) The Rump's own
way, or self-enlargement of the present House by new writs, issued
with all Republican precautions; (2) The City's way, or Prynne's way,
which proposed to re-insert the secluded members into the present
House, so as to make it legally the Long Parliament over again, with
its rights and engagements precisely as they had been at the time of
the last negotiations with Charles I. in 1648. For which of these two
courses he should declare himself was the question Monk had to
ponder.[1]
[Footnote 1: Thomason Pamphlets, and Catalogue of the same; Wood's
Ath. III. 870-871.]
He nearly blundered. The Rump, having him and his Army at hand, had
become more firm in their determination to proceed in their own way.
On the 4th of February, the day after Monk's arrival, they resolved
that the present House should be filled up to the number of 400
members in all for England and Wales, and that the returning
constituencies should be as in 1653; and, having referred certain
details to a Committee, they proceeded on subsequent days to settle
some of the qualifications for voting or eligibility. The Londoners,
tumultuous already, were enraged beyond bounds by these new signs of
the Rump's obstinacy. It was again debated in the Common Council
"whether the City should pay the taxes ordered by the Government";
influential citizens urged the Lord Mayor to put himself at the head
of a resistance to the Rump at all hazards; there were riots in the
streets and skirmishes between the militia and the apprentices.
Thus, instead of having time to deliberate, Monk found himself in the
midst of such a clash between the House and the City that instant
decision for the one or the other was imperative.--On the night of
the 8th, two days after his speech in Parliament, he received orders
from the Council of State to go into the City with his regiments and
reduce it to obedience. He was to take away the posts and chains in
the streets, unhinge the City gates, and wedge the portcullises; he
was to use any force necessary for the purpose; and he was to arrest
eleven citizens named, and others at his discretion. The orders,
though addressed nominally to all the four Army-Commissioners, were
really intended for Monk; and there was the utmost anxiety among the
leaders of the Rump to see whether he would execute them. To the
surprise of all, to the surprise of his own soldiers even, he did
execute them. On the 9th the House had three sittings; and in the
second of these it was announced that Monk had marched his regiments
that morning into the City, that he was then at Guildhall, that he
had nine of the eleven citizens already in custody, and that he had
removed the posts and chains. All being now quiet, and the Lord Mayor
and Aldermen having undertaken to hold a meeting of the Common
Council and give the Parliament every satisfaction, he had thought it
best not to incense the City by the extreme insult of unhinging the
gates and wedging the portcullises. The Rumpers were in ecstasies.
Monk had committed himself, and was irredeemably theirs. "All is our
own: he will be honest," said Hasilrig to the friends beside him. In
their triumph, they rose once more for a moment to the full height of
Republican confidence. It happened that a deputation of London
citizens, headed by Mr. Praise-God Barebone, had come to the House
that day with a petition and address, signed by some thousands of
"lovers of the good old cause," who were anxious to disclaim all
connexion with the City tumults and with "the promoters of regal
interest" in the City or elsewhere. The petitioners demanded nothing
less than that the House should at once impose an oath abjuring
Charles Stuart upon all clergymen and other persons in public
employment; but even this did not prevent the House from thanking
them cordially. As for the City generally, now that Monk had brought
it to submission, the House would trample it under foot! The Lord
Mayor, having behaved discreetly through the tumults, was to be
thanked; but it was voted that the present Common Council should be
dissolved and a new one elected by such citizens only as the House
should deem worthy of the franchise. Nor was Monk to hesitate any
longer about the city gates and portcullises. Orders were sent to
him, not only to unhinge the gates and wedge the portcullises, as
the Council had already ordered, but to break them in pieces. The
City was to be overmastered utterly and finally, and Monk was to be
the agent.--Not even yet did Monk rebel. The gates and portcullises
were broken in pieces by his soldiers, and every other order was
punctually carried out. The soldiers were in indignation over their
base employment, and the citizens were stupefied. In vain were
Clarges, Dr. Barrow, and others of Monk's friends going about and
assuring the Lord Mayor and Aldermen that the General was a man of
very peculiar ways and must not be too hastily judged. "Very
peculiar ways indeed," thought the citizens, mourning for their
honours lost, and their broken gates and portcullises. On the night
of Friday, Feb. 10, when Monk returned to Whitehall, after his two
days of rough work in the city, it was, as it seemed, with his
reputation ruined for ever among the Londoners. A few days before
he had been the popular demigod, the man on whom all depended, and
who had all in his power. Now what was he but the slave and hireling
of the Rump?[1]
[Footnote 1: Commons Journals of dates; Phillips, 684-685; Skinner,
211-219; Whitlocke, IV. 394-396.]
It was afterwards represented by Monk's admirers that his City
proceedings of Feb. 9 and 10 were the effects of consummate judgment.
He could not then have disobeyed the Rump without resigning his
command; Hasilrig and Walton, two of his fellow-commissioners, would
have executed the orders independently; though by a disagreeable
process, he had felt the temper of his officers and soldiers, and
ascertained that they were as disgusted with the Rump as he was
himself! It may be doubted, however, whether he had not only been
handling his carpenter's tools with too sluggish caution. Certain it
is that he had returned to Whitehall in a sullen mood, and that,
after a consultation overnight with his officers, his conclusion was
that he must at once retrieve himself. That was a night of busy
preparations between him and his officers. A letter was drafted, to
be sent to the House next day; and a copy was taken, that it might be
in the printer's hands before the House had received the original.
Next morning, Saturday Feb. 11, Monk and his regiments were again in
the City, drawn up in Finsbury Fields. He had left the letter for the
House, signed by himself, seven of his colonels, one
lieutenant-colonel, and six majors, to be delivered to the House by
two of the signing colonels, Clobery and Lydcott; and he had come to
make his peace with the City. This was not very easy. The Lord Mayor,
to whom Clarges had been sent to announce the return of the
regiments, and to say that the General meant to dine with his
Lordship that day, was naturally suspicious and distant; but, having
taken counsel with some of the chief citizens, he could do no less
than answer that he would expect the General. At the early
dinner-hour, accordingly, Monk was at his Lordship's house in
Leadenhall Street, coldly received at first, but gradually with more
of curiosity and goodwill as his drift was perceived. He begged
earnestly that his Lordship would send out summonses for an immediate
meeting of the Common Council in Guildhall, notwithstanding the
dissolution of that body by the Rump, saying he would accompany his
Lordship thither and make certain public explanations. Dinner over,
and the Lord Mayor and Common Council having met in Guildhall about
five o'clock, Monk did surprise them. He apologised for his
proceedings of the two preceding days, declaring that the work was
the most ungrateful he had ever performed in his life, and that he
would have laid down his power rather than perform it, unless he had
seen that by such a step he would only have given advantage to the
dominant faction. He was come now, however, to make amends. He had
that morning sent a letter to the House, requiring them to issue out
writs within seven days for the filling up of vacancies in their
ranks, and also, that being done, to dissolve themselves by the 6th
of May at latest, that they might be succeeded by a full and free
Parliament! Till he should receive ample satisfaction in reply to
these demands and otherwise, he meant to remain in the City of London
with his regiments, making common cause with the faithful citizens!
Guildhall rang with acclamations; and, as the news was dispersed
thence through the City, confirmed by the printed copies of Monk's
letter to the Rump that were by this time in circulation, the
dejection of the two last days passed into a phrenzy of joy.
Housewives ran out to Monk's soldiers, who had been standing all day
under arms, carrying them food and drink without stint; crowds of
apprentices danced everywhere like delirious demons; the bells of all
the churches were set a-ringing; the houses of several "fanatics"
were besieged, and the windows in Barebone's all smashed; and far
into the night and into the Sunday morning the streets blazed with
long rows of bonfires. Whatever piece of flesh, in butcher's stall or
in family-safe, bore resemblance to a rump, or could be carved into
something of that shape, was hauled to one of these bonfires to be
flung in and burnt; and for many a day afterwards the 11th of
February 1659-60 was to be famous in London as _The Roasting of the
Rump_.[1]
[Footnote 1: Phillips, 685-687; Skinner, 219-230; Parl. Hist. III.
1578-9; Letter of M. de Bordeaux, Guizot, II. 350-351; Pepys's Diary,
Feb. 11, 1659-60.]
On receiving Monk's letter early in the forenoon of Saturday the
House had temporized. They had sent Messrs. Scott and Robinson into
the City after Monk, to thank him for his faithful service of the two
previous days, and to assure him "that, as to the filling up of the
House, the Parliament were upon the qualifications before the receipt
of the said letter, and the same will be despatched in due time." But
at an evening sitting, with candles brought in, the House, informed
by that time of Monk's proceedings in the City, had shown their
resentment by reconstituting the Commission for regulation of the
Army. They did not dare to turn Monk out; but they negatived by
thirty (Marten and Neville tellers) to fifteen (Carew Raleigh and
Robert Goodwyn tellers) a proposal of his partisans to make Sir
Anthony Ashley Cooper one of his colleagues. The colleagues they did
appoint were Hasilrig, Morley, Walton, and Alured; and, in settling
the quorum at three, they rejected a proposal that Monk should always
be one of the quorum.--Through the following week, however, efforts
were still made to come to terms with Monk. On Monday the 13th the
Council of State begged him to return to Whitehall and assist them
with his presence and counsels. His reply was that, so long as the
Abjuration Oath was required of members of the Council, he would not
appear in it, and that meanwhile there were sufficient reasons for
his remaining in the City. Accordingly, he kept his quarters there,
first at the Glass House in Broad Street, and then at Drapers' Hall
in Throgmorton Street, holding _levées_ of the citizens and
city-clergy, and receiving also visits from Hasilrig and other
members of the House. Even Ludlow, though one of the complaints in
Monk's letter was that the House was allowing Ludlow to sit in it
notwithstanding the charge of high treason lodged against him from
Ireland, ventured to go into the den of the lion. He was shy at
first, Ludlow tells us, but became very civil, and, when Ludlow had
discoursed on the necessity of union to keep out Charles Stuart,
"Yea," said he, "we must live and die together for a Commonwealth."
The interest that was now pressing closest round Monk, however, was
that of the Secluded Members. The applications on their behalf by the
Presbyterians of the City and of the counties round were incessant.
Monk even yet had his hesitations. On the one hand, to avert, if
possible, the re-seating of the secluded among them, the Rumpers had
been acting through the week in the spirit of their answer to Monk's
letter. They had been pushing on their Bill of Qualifications, so
that there might be no delay in the issue of writs for filling up
their House to the number of 400, as formerly decided. They had,
moreover, tried to pacify Monk in other ways. They had resolved
(Feb. 14) that the engagement to be taken by members of Parliament
should simply be, "I will be true and faithful to the Commonwealth of
England and the Government thereof in the way of a Commonwealth and
Free State, without a King, Single Person, or House of Lords"; and
they had resolved that this simple declaration should be substituted
for the stronger abjuration oath even for members of the Council of
State. They had also complied with Monk's demands that there should
be more severe reprimand of the late Committee of Safety and
especially of Vane and Lambert. All this was to induce Monk to accept
the proffered _Self-Enlargement of the present House_, rather
than yield to the popular and Presbyterian demand for _the Long
Parliament reconstituted_. Nor were there wanting objections to
the latter plan in Monk's own mind. If a House with the secluded
members re-seated in it would confine itself to questions of present
exigency and future political order, there might be no harm. But
would it do so? With a Presbyterian majority in it, looking on all
that had been done since 1648 as the illegal acts of pretended
Governments, might it not be tempted to a revengeful revision of all
those acts? Might it not thus unsettle those arrangements for the
sale, purchase, gift, and conveyance of property upon which the
fortunes of many thousands, including the Army officers and the
soldiery in England, in Scotland, and especially in Ireland, now
depended? Would Monk's own officers risk such a consequence? To come
to some understanding with the secluded members on these points, Monk
himself, and Clarges and Gumble for him, had been holding interviews
with such of the secluded members as were in London; and matters had
been so far ripened that at length, on Saturday the 18th, by Monk's
invitation, there was a conference at his quarters between about a
dozen of the leading Rumpers and as many representatives of the
Secluded. Hasilrig was one of the Rumpers present; but, as most of
the others were of the Monk party, the conference was not unamicable.
Even the Rumpers who were favourable to the re-admission of the
Secluded, however, could only speak for themselves, and the
representatives of the Secluded could hardly undertake for their
absent brethren; and so there was no definite agreement.----Monk then
took the matter into his own hands. Having, in the course of the
Sunday and Monday, secured the concurrence of his officers, and made
a rough compact in writing with a few of the secluded members, he
marched his Army out of the City on the morning of Tuesday the 21st;
and, the secluded members having met him by appointment at Whitehall,
to the number of about sixty, he made a short speech to them, caused
a longer "Declaration" which he had taken the precaution of putting
on paper to be read to them, and then sent them, under the conduct of
Captain Miller and a sufficient guard, to the doors of the Parliament
House. The incident had been expected; there were soldiers all round
the House already; and the procession walked through cheering crowds
of spectators. Monk remained at Whitehall himself, to hold a General
Council of his officers later in the day.[1]
[Footnote 1: Commons Journals of dates; Phillips, 687-688; Skinner,
233-242; Ludlow, 832-836; Letters of M. de Bordeaux in Guizot, II.
347-365.]
The Rump, which had been still busy on Saturday with the Bill of
Qualifications or "Disabling Bill," but whose sitting on Monday is
marked only by a hiatus in the Journals, had not formed the House on
Tuesday morning when the procession of secluded members, swelled to
about eighty by stragglers on the way, entered and took their seats.
A few of the Rumpers, seeing what had occurred, ruefully left the
House, to return no more; but most remained and amalgamated
themselves easily with the more numerous new comers. The
reconstituted House then plunged at once into business
thus:-"PRAYERS: _Resolved_, &c., That the Resolution of this
House of the 18th of December, 1648, 'that liberty be given to the
members of this House to declare their dissent to the vote of the 5th
of December 1648 that the King's Answer to the Propositions of both
Houses was a ground for this House to proceed upon for settlement of
the Peace of the Kingdom,' be vacated, and made null and void, and
obliterated." In other words, here was the Long Parliament, like a
Rip Van Winkle, resuming in Feb. 1659-60 the work left off in Dec.
1648, and acknowledging not an inch of gap between the two dates.
There were seven other similar Resolutions, cancelling votes and
orders standing in the way; and these, with orders for the discharge
of the citizens recently imprisoned by the Rump, and resolutions for
annulling the late new Army Commission of the Rump, and for
appointing Monk to be "Captain-General and Commander-in-Chief, under
the Parliament, of all the land-forces of England, Scotland, and
Ireland," and continuing Vice-Admiral Lawson, in his naval command,
were the sum and substance of the business of the first sitting.[1]
[Footnote 1: Commons Journals of date.]
Before night Monk and his officers had drafted a Letter to all the
regiments and garrisons of England, Scotland, and Ireland, explaining
to them that, by the grace of God and good London management, they
had passed through another revolution. The Letter began "Dear
Brethren and Fellow-Soldiers," and bore Monk's signature, followed by
those of Colonels Ralph Knight, John Clobery, Thomas Read, John
Hubblethorn, Leonard Lydcott, Thomas Sanders, William Eyre, John
Streater, Richard Mosse, William Parley, Arthur Evelyn, and sixteen
inferior officers. It was vague, but intimated that the Government
was still to be that of a Commonwealth, and that all disturbances of
the peace "in favour of Charles Stuart or any other pretended
authority" were to be put down. More explicit had been Monk's speech
at Whitehall that morning to the secluded members on their way to the
House, published copies of which were also distributed by Monk's
authority. He had assured the secluded members, "and that in God's
presence," that he had nothing before his eyes "but God's glory and
the settlement of these nations upon Commonwealth foundations"; and
he had pointed out the interest of the Londoners especially in the
preservation of a Commonwealth, "that Government only being capable
to make them, through the Lord's blessing, the metropolis and bank of
trade for all Christendom." On the Church question he had been very
precise. "As to a Government in the Church," he had said, "the want
whereof hath been no small cause of these nations' distractions, it
is most manifest that, if it be monarchical in the State, the Church
must follow and Prelacy must be brought in--which these nations, I
know, cannot bear, and against which they have so solemnly sworn; and
indeed moderate, not rigid, Presbyterian Government, with a
sufficient liberty for consciences truly tender, appears at present
to be the most indifferent and acceptable way to the Church's
settlement." It is not uninteresting to know that Monk's chief
ecclesiastical adviser at this moment, and probably the person who
had formulated for him the description of the kind of Church that
would be most desirable, was Mr. James Sharp, from Crail in Scotland.
He had followed Monk to London with a commission from the leaders of
the Scottish Resolutioner clergy; and from his arrival there he had
been, Baillie informs us, "the most wise, faithful, and happy
counsellor" Monk had, keeping him from all wrong steps by his
extraordinary Banffshire sagacity.[1]
[Footnote 1: Phillips, 688-689; Parl. Hist. III, 1579-1581 (Monk's
Speech and Declaration); Baillie, III. 440-441. How uncertain it was
yet whether Monk would ever desert the Commonwealth, and how anxious
the Royalists were on the subject, appears from a letter of Mordaunt
to Charles, dated Feb. 17, 1659-60, or four days before the
Restoration of the Secluded Members (_Clar. State Papers_, III.
683). Speaking of Monk, Mordaunt writes thus:--"The visible
inclination of the people; the danger he foresees from so many
enemies; his particular pique to Lambert; the provocation of the
Anabaptists and Sectaries, with whom I may now join the Catholics;
the want of money to continue standing armies; the divisions of the
chief officers in those respective armies; the advices of those near
him--I mean, in particular, Clobery and Knight...; the admonitions
daily given him by Mr. Annesley and Alderman Robinson;--unless God
has fed him to the slaughter, cannot but move him."]
CHAPTER I.
Third Section.
MONK'S DICTATORSHIP, THE RESTORED LONG PARLIAMENT, AND THE DRIFT TO
THE RESTORATION: FEB. 21, 1659-60--APRIL 25, 1660.
THE RESTORED LONG PARLIAMENT: NEW COUNCIL OF STATE: ACTIVE MEN OF THE
PARLIAMENT: PRYNNE, ARTHUR ANNESLEY, AND WILLIAM MORRICE:
MISCELLANEOUS PROCEEDINGS OF THE PARLIAMENT: RELEASE OF OLD ROYALIST
PRISONERS: LAMBERT COMMITTED TO THE TOWER: REWARDS AND HONOURS FOR
MONK: "OLD GEORGE" IN THE CITY: REVIVAL OF THE SOLEMN LEAGUE AND
COVENANT, THE WESTMINSTER CONFESSION OF FAITH, AND ALL THE APPARATUS
OF A STRICT PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH-ESTABLISHMENT: CAUTIOUS MEASURES FOR
A POLITICAL SETTLEMENT: THE REAL QUESTION EVADED AND HANDED OVER TO
ANOTHER PARLIAMENT: CALLING OF THE CONVENTION PARLIAMENT AND
ARRANGEMENTS FOR THE SAME: DIFFICULTY ABOUT A HOUSE OF LORDS: HOW
OBVIATED: LAST DAY OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT, MARCH 16, 1659-60: SCENE
IN THE HOUSE.--MONK AND THE COUNCIL OF STATE LEFT IN CHARGE: ANNESLEY
THE MANAGING COLLEAGUE OF MONK: NEW MILITIA ACT CARRIED OUT:
DISCONTENTS AMONG MONK'S OFFICERS AND SOLDIERS: THE RESTORATION OF
CHARLES STILL VERY DUBIOUS: OTHER HOPES AND PROPOSALS FOR THE MOMENT:
THE KINGSHIP PRIVATELY OFFERED TO MONK BY THE REPUBLICANS: OFFER
DECLINED: BURSTING OF THE POPULAR TORRENT OF ROYALISM AT LAST, AND
ENTHUSIASTIC DEMANDS FOR THE RECALL OF CHARLES: ELECTIONS TO THE
CONVENTION PARLIAMENT GOING ON MEANWHILE: HASTE OF HUNDREDS TO BE
FOREMOST IN BIDDING CHARLES WELCOME: ADMIRAL MONTAGUE AND HIS FLEET
IN THE THAMES: DIRECT COMMUNICATIONS AT LAST BETWEEN MONK AND
CHARLES: GREENVILLE THE GO-BETWEEN: REMOVAL OF CHARLES AND HIS COURT
FROM BRUSSELS TO BREDA: GREENVILLE SENT BACK FROM BREDA WITH A
COMMISSION FOR MONK AND SIX OTHER DOCUMENTS.--BROKEN-SPIRITEDNESS OF
THE REPUBLICAN LEADERS, BUT FORMIDABLE RESIDUE OF REPUBLICANISM IN
THE ARMY: MONK'S MEASURES FOR PARALYSING THE SAME: SUCCESSFUL DEVICE
OF CLARGES: MONTAGUE'S FLEET IN MOTION: ESCAPE OF LAMBERT FROM THE
TOWER: HIS RENDEZVOUS IN NORTHAMPTONSHIRE: GATHERING OF A WRECK OF
THE REPUBLICANS FOUND HIM: DICK INGOLDSBY SENT TO CRUSH HIM: THE
ENCOUNTER NEAR DAVENTRY, APRIL 22, 1660, AND RECAPTURE OF LAMBERT:
GREAT REVIEW OF THE LONDON MILITIA, APRIL 24, THE DAY BEFORE THE
MEETING OF THE CONVENTION PARLIAMENT: IMPATIENT LONGING FOR CHARLES:
MONK STILL IMPENETRABLE, AND THE DOCUMENTS FROM BREDA RESERVED.
In the nomination of a new Council of State the House adhered to the
now orthodox number of thirty-one. Monk was named first of all, by
special and open vote, on the 21st of February; and the others were
chosen by ballot, confirmed by open vote in each case, on the 23rd,
when the number of members present and giving in voting-papers was
114. The list, in the order of preference, was then, as follows:--
General GEORGE MONK
William Pierrepoint
John Crewe
Colonel Edward Rossiter (Rec.)
Richard Knightley
Colonel Alexander Popham
Colonel Herbert Morley
Lord Fairfax
Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, Bart.
Sir Gilbert Gerrard, Bart.
Lord Chief Justice St. John
Lord Commissioner Widdrington
Sir John Evelyn of Wilts
Sir William Waller
Sir Richard Onslow
Sir William Lewis, Bart.
Colonel (Admiral) Edward Montague (_Rec._)
Colonel Edward Harley (_Sec._)
Richard Norton (_Rec._)
Arthur Annesley (_Rec._)
Denzil Holles
Sir John Temple (_Rec._)
Colonel George Thompson (_Sec._)
John Trevor (_Rec._)
Sir John Holland, Bart.
Sir John Potts, Bart.
Colonel John Birch (_Rec._)
Sir Harbottle Grimstone
John Swinfen (_Rec._)
John Weaver (_Rec._)
Serjeant John Maynard.
With the exception of Monk and Fairfax, who were not members of the
Parliament, and the latter of whom was absent in Yorkshire, these
Councillors are to be imagined as also active in the business of the
House. About nine of them were Residuary Rumpers who had accepted
willingly or cheerfully the return of the secluded. The proportion of
Residuary Rumpers in the whole House was even larger. Though it had
been reported by Prynne that as many as 194 of the secluded were
still alive, and a contemporary printed list gives the names of 177
as available,[1] the present House never through its brief session
attained to a higher attendance than 150, the average attendance
ranging from 100 to 120; and I have ascertained by actual counting
that more than a third of these were Residuary Rumpers. It is strange
to find among them such of the extreme Republicans as Hasilrig,
Scott, Marten, and Robinson. They left the House for a time, but
re-appeared in it, whereas Ludlow and Neville and others would not
re-appear--Ludlow, as he tells us, making a practice of walking up
and down in Westminster Hall outside, partly in protest, partly to
show that he had not fled.[2] Actually six Regicides remained in the
House: viz. Scott, Marten, Ingoldsby, Millington, Colonel Hutchinson,
and Sir John Bourchier. The majority of the Residuary Rumpers,
however,--represented by such men as Lenthall, St. John, Ashley
Cooper, Colonel Thompson, Colonel Fielder, Carew Raleigh,
Attorney-General Reynolds, Solicitor-General Ellis, and Colonel
Morley, and even by two of the Regicides mentioned (Ingoldsby and
Hutchinson),--were now in harmony with the Secluded, and by no means
disposed to abet Hasilrig, Scott, and Marten in any farther contest
for Rump principles. In other words, the House was now led really by
the chiefs of the reinstated members. Prominent among these, besides
Crewe, Knightley, Gerrard, Sir John Evelyn of Wilts, Sir William
Waller, Sir William Lewis, Arthur Annesley, Sir Harbottle Grimston,
and others named as of the Council, were Prynne, Sir Anthony Irby,
Major-General Browne, Sir William Wheeler, Lord Ancram (member for a
Cornish burgh), William Morrice, and some others, not of the
Council.--Prynne, who ought to have been on the Council, if courage
for the cause of the Secluded and indefatigable assiduity in pleading
it were sufficient qualifications, had not been thought fit for that
honour; but he was a very busy man in the House. He had taken his
place there very solemnly the first day, with an old basket-hilt
sword on; and he was much in request on Committees.--Of more
aristocratic manners and antecedents, and therefore fitter for the
Council, was Arthur Annesley, a man of whom we have not heard much
hitherto, but who, from this point onwards, was to attract a good
deal of notice. The eldest son of the Irish peer Viscount Valentia
and Baron Mountnorris, he had come into the Long Parliament in 1640
as member for Radnorshire; he had gone with the King in the beginning
of the Civil War; but he had afterwards done good service for the
Parliament in Ireland during the Rebellion, and had at length
conformed to the Commonwealth and the Protectorate. While the
Protectorate lasted he had been really a Cromwellian; but, like so
many other Cromwellians, he was now a half-declared Royalist. He had
been one of the chief negotiators with Monk for the re-seating of the
Secluded, and he took at once a foremost place among them, both in
the House and in the Council. He was now about forty-fire years of
age.--An accession to the House, after it had sat for a week or more,
was Mr. William Morrice. He was a Devonshire man, like Monk, to whom
he was related by marriage. He had been sent into the Long Parliament
in 1645 as Recruiter for Devonshire, and had been afterwards
secluded; and he had been returned to Oliver's two Parliaments and to
Richard's. Living in Devonshire as a squire "of fair estate," he had
acquired the character of an able and bookish man of enlightened
Presbyterian principles; he had been of use to Monk in the management
of his Devonshire property; there had been constant correspondence
between them; and there was no one for whom Monk had a greater
regard. Now, accordingly, at the age of about five and fifty, Morrice
had left his books and come from Devonshire to London at Monk's
request, not only to take his place in Parliament, but also to be a
kind of private adviser and secretary to Monk, more in his intimacy
than even Dr. Clarges.--To complete this view of the composition of
the new Government, we may add that on Feb. 24 Thomas St. Nicholas
was made Clerk of the Parliament, and that on the 27th the House
appointed Thurloe and a John Thompson to be joint-secretaries of
State. There was a division on Thurloe's appointment, but it was
carried by sixty-five votes to thirty-eight. The tellers against
Thurloe were Annesley and Sir William Waller, but he was supported by
Sir John Evelyn of Wilts and Colonel Hutchinson. Thurloe's former
subordinate, Mr. William Jessop, was now clerk to the Council of
State.[3]
[Footnote 1: A single folio fly-leaf, dated March 26 in the Thomason
copy, and called "_The Grand Memorandum: A True and Perfect
Catalogue of the Secluded Members of the House of Commons," &c._
It was printed by Husbands on the professed "command" of one of the
members (Prynne?).]
[Footnote 2: The fly-leaf mentioned in last note gives the names of
thirty-three Rumpers who did not sit in the House after the
readmission of the secluded members. Arranged alphabetically they
were:--Anlaby, Bingham, John Carew, Cawley, James Challoner,
Crompton, Darley, Fleetwood, John Goodwyn, Nicholas Gold, John
Gurdon, Sir James Harrington, Hallows, Harvey, Heveningham, John
Jones, Viscount Lisle, Livesey, Ludlow, Christopher Martin,
Neville, Nicholas, Pigott, Pyne, Sir Francis Russell, the Earl of
Salisbury, Algernon Sidney, Walter Strickland, Sir William
Strickland, Wallop, Sir Thomas Walsingham, and Whitlocke. Compare
with the list of the Restored Rump, ante pp. 453-455.]
[Footnote 3: Commons Journals of dates, and generally from Feb. 21
to March 16, 1659-60, with examination of the lists of all the
Committees through that period; Ludlow, 845-846; Wood's Ath. IV. 181
et seq. (Annesley), and III. 1087 et seq. (Morrice); Clarendon, 891
and 895.]
By the rough compact made with Monk, the House was to confine itself
to the special work for which it was the indispensable instrument,
and to push on as rapidly as possible, through that, to an act for
its own dissolution. The majority was such that the compact was
easily fulfilled. Six-and-twenty days sufficed for all that was
required from this reinstated fag-end of the famous Long Parliament.
Naturally much of the work of the House took the form (1) of redress
of old or recent injuries, and (2) of rewards and punishments.
Almost the first thing done by the House was to restore the
privileges of the City of London, release the imprisoned Common
Council men and citizens, and issue orders for the repair of the
broken gates and portcullises. The City and the Parliament were now
heartily at one, and there was a loan from the City of £60,000 in
token of the happy reconciliation. Sir George Booth, who had been
recommitted to the Tower by the Rump, was finally released, though
still on security. There were several other releases of prisoners and
removals of sequestrations, and at length (Feb. 27) it was referred
to a Committee to consider comprehensively the cases of all persons
whatsoever then in prison on political grounds. On the 3rd of March
particular orders were given for the discharge of the Earl of
Lauderdale, the Earl of Crawford, and Lord Sinclair, from their
imprisonment in Windsor Castle; and thus the last of the Scottish
prisoners from Worcester Battle found themselves free men once more.
Twelve days afterwards the House went to the extreme of the merciful
process by ordering the release of poor Dr. Matthew Wren, the Laudian
ex-Bishop, who had been committed by the Long Parliament early in
1641 along with Laud and Strafford, and who had been lying in the
Tower, all but forgotten, through the intervening nineteen years. At
the same time discretionary powers were given to the Council of State
to discharge any political prisoners that might be still left.--In
the article of _punishments_ the House was very temperate
indeed. Notorious Rumpers were removed, of course, from military and
civil offices, and there were sharper inquiries after Colonel Cobbet,
Colonel Ashfield, Major Creed, and others too suspiciously at large;
but, with one exception, there seemed to be no thought of the serious
prosecution of any for what had been done either under the Rump
Government or during the Wallingford-House interruption. The
exception was Lambert. Brought before the Council, and unable or
unwilling to find the vast bail of £20,000 which they demanded for
his liberty, he was committed by them to the Tower; and the House, on
the 6th of March, confirmed the act, and ordered his detention for
future trial. While Lambert was thus treated as the chief criminal,
the rewards and honours went still, of course, mainly to Monk. To his
Commandership-in-chief of all the Armies there was added the
Generalship of the whole Fleet, though in this command, to Monk's
disappointment, Montague was conjoined with him (March 2). He was
also made Keeper of Hampton Court; and the £1000 a year in lands
which the Rump had voted him was changed by a special Bill into
£20,000 to be paid at once (March 16), As the Bill was first drafted,
the reward was said to be "for his signal services"; but by a vote on
the third reading the word "signal" was changed into "eminent."
Perhaps Annesley, Sir William Waller, and the other new chiefs at
Whitehall were becoming a little tired of the praises of so peculiar
an Aristides. But he was still a god among the Londoners. From St.
James's, which was now his quarters, he would go into the City every
other day, to attend one of a series of dinners which they had
arranged for him in the halls of the great companies, and at which he
found himself so much at ease in his morose way that he would hardly
ever leave the table "till he was as drunk as a beast." Ludlow, who
tells us so, would not have told an untruth even about Monk; and
Ludlow was then in London, knowing well what went on. Let us suppose,
however, that he exaggerated a little, and that old George was the
victim of circumstances.[1]
[Footnote 1: Commons Journals of dates, and generally from Feb. 21
to March 16; Ludlow, 855-856.]
A large proportion of the proceedings of the House and the Council
may be described as simply a re-establishment of Presbyterianism. The
secluded members being Presbyterians to a man, there was at once an
enthusiastic recollection of the edicts of the Long Parliament
between 1643 and 1648, setting up Presbytery as the national
Religion, with a determination to revert in detail to those symbols
and forms of the Presbyterian system which the triumph of
Independency had set aside during the Commonwealth, and which had
been allowed only partially, and side by side with their contraries,
in the broad Church-Establishment of the Protectorate. The unanimity
and rapidity of the House in their votes in this direction must have
alarmed the Independents and Sectaries. It was on Feb. 29 that the
House appointed a Committee of twenty-nine on the whole subject of
Religion and Church affairs--Annesley, Ashley Cooper, Prynne, and Sir
Samuel Luke (i.e. Butler's Presbyterian "Sir Hudibras") being of the
number; and on the 2nd of March, on report from this Committee, the
Westminster Assembly's Confession of Faith, as it had been under
discussion in the Long Parliament in 1646 (Vol. III. p. 512), was
again brought before the House, and passed bodily at once, with the
exception of chapter 30, "_Of Church Censures_," and chapter 31,
"_Of Synods and Councils_"--which two chapters it was thought as
well to keep still in Committee. The same day there were other
resolutions of a Presbyterian tenor. But the climax was on March 5,
in this form: "_Ordered_, That the SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT be
printed and published, and set up and forthwith read in every church,
and also read once a year according to former Act of Parliament, and
that the said SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT be also set up in this
House." Thus, when the bones of Alexander Henderson had been for more
than thirteen years in their tomb in Grey Friars churchyard in
Edinburgh, was the great document which he had drafted in that city
in August 1643, as a bond of religious union for the Three Kingdoms,
and only the first fortunes of which he had lived to see,
resuscitated in all its glory. What more could Presbyterianism
desire? That nothing might be wanting, however, there followed, on
the 14th of March, a Bill "for approbation and admittance of
ministers to public benefices and lectures," one of the clauses of
which prescribed means for the immediate division of all the counties
of England and Wales into classical Presbyteries, according to those
former Presbyterianizing ordinances of the Long Parliament which had
never been carried into effect save in London and Lancashire. The
Universities were to be constituted into presbyteries or inserted
into such; and the whole of South Britain was to be patterned
ecclesiastically at last in that exact resemblance to North Britain
which had been the ideal before Independency burst in. What measures
of "liberty for consciences truly tender" might be conceded did not
yet appear. Anabaptists, Quakers, Fifth Monarchy enthusiasts, and
Monk's "Fanatics" generally, might tremble; and even moderate and
orthodox Independents might foresee difficulty In retaining their
livings in the State Church. Indeed Owen was already (March 13)
displaced from his Deanery of Christ Church, Oxford, by a vote of the
House recognising a prior claim of Dr. Reynolds to that post.[1]
[Footnote 1: Commons Journals of dates; Neal, IV. 224-225.]
In the matter of a political settlement the proceedings were equally
rapid and simple. Celerity here was made possible by the fact that
the House considered itself quite precluded from discussing the whole
question of the future Constitution. Had they entered on that
question, the probability is that they would have decided for a
negotiation with Charles II., with a view to his return to England
and assumption of the Kingship on terms borrowed from the old Newport
Treaty with his father, or at all events on strictly expressed terms
of some kind, limiting his authority and securing the Presbyterian
Church-Establishment. Even this, however, was problematical. There
were still Republicans and Cromwellians in the Parliament, and not a
few of the Presbyterians members had been Commonwealth's men so long
that it might well appear doubtful to them whether a return to
Royalty now was worth the risks, or whether, if there must be a
return to Royalty, it was in the least necessary to fix it again in
the unlucky House of Stuart. Then the difficulties out of doors! No
one knew what might be the effect upon Monk's own army, or upon the
numerous Republican sectaries, of a sudden proposal in the present
Parliament to restore Charles. On the other hand, the Old Royalists
throughout the country had no wish to hear of such a proposal.
_They_ dreaded nothing so much, short of loss of all chance of
the King's return, as seeing him return tied by such terms as the
present Presbyterian House would impose. It was a relief to all
parties, therefore, and a satisfactory mode of self-delusion to some,
that the present House should abstain from the constitutional
question altogether, and should confine itself to the one duty of
providing another Parliament to which that question, with all its
difficulties, might be handed over.--On the 22nd of February, the
second day of the restored House, it was resolved that a new
Parliament should be summoned for the 25th of April, and a Committee
was appointed to consider qualifications. The Parliament was to be a
"full and free" one, by the old electoral system of English and Welsh
constituencies only, without any representation of Scotland or
Ireland. But what was meant by "full and free"? On this question
there was some light on the 13th of March, when the House passed a
resolution annulling the obligation of members of Parliament to take
the famous engagement to be faithful to "the Commonwealth as
established, without King or House of Lords," and directing all
orders enjoining that engagement to be expunged from the Journals.
This was certainly a stroke in favour of Royalty, in so far as it
left Royalty and Peerage open questions for the constituencies and
the representatives they might choose; but, taken in connexion with
the order, eight days before, for the revival of the Solemn League
and Covenant--in which document "to preserve and defend the King's
Majesty's person and authority" is one of the leading phrases--it was
received generally as a positive anticipation of the judgment on
these questions. There was yet farther light, however, between March
13 and March 16, when the House, on report from the Committee,
settled the qualifications of members and electors. All Papists and
all who had aided or abetted the Irish Rebellion were to be incapable
of being members, and also all who, or whose fathers, had advised or
voluntarily assisted in any war against the Parliament since Jan. 1,
1641-2, unless there had been subsequent manifestation of their good
affections. This implied the exclusion of all the very conspicuous
Royalists of the Civil Wars and the sons of such; and the present
House, as the lineal representative of the Parliamentarians in those
wars, could hardly have done less, especially as there was a
saving-clause of which moderate Royalists would have the benefit, and
as the electors were sure to interpret the saving-clause very
liberally. For there was not even the same guardedness in the
qualifications of the electors themselves. It was proposed, indeed,
by the Committee to disfranchise all "that have been actually in arms
for the late King or his son against the Parliament or have
compounded for his or their delinquency" with an exception only in
favour of manifest penitents; but this was negatived by the House by
ninety-three votes (Lord Ancram and Mr, Herbert tellers) to fifty-six
votes (Scott and Henry Marten tellers). Thus, active Royalists of the
Civil Wars, if they might not be elected, might at least elect; and,
as another regulation disqualified from electing or being elected all
"that deny Magistracy or Ministry or either of them to be the
Ordinances of God "--viz. all Fifth Monarchy men, extreme
Anabaptists, and Quakers--the balance was still towards the
Royalists. In short, as finally passed, the Bill was one tending to
bring in a Parliament the main mass of which should consist of
Presbyterians, though there might be a large intermixture of Old
Royalists, Cromwellians, and moderate Commonwealth's men. To such a
Parliament it might be safely left to determine what the future form
of Government should be, whether Commonwealth continued, restored
Kingship, or a renewal of the Protectorate. The present House had not
itself decided anything. It had not decided against a continuance of
the Commonwealth, should that seem best. It had only assumed that
possibly that might not seem the best, and had therefore removed
obstacles to the free deliberation of either of the other schemes.
The revival of the Solemn League and Covenant might seem to imply
more; but the phraseology of a document of 1643 might admit of
re-interpretation in 1660.--A special perplexity of the present House
was in the matter of the Other House or House of Lords. They were now
sitting themselves as a Single House, notwithstanding that the
Long Parliament, of which they professed themselves to be a
continuation, consisted of two Houses. This was an anomaly in itself,
nay an illegality; and there had been a hot-headed attempt of some of
the younger Peers to remove it by bursting into the House of Lords at
the same time that the secluded members took their seats in the
Commons. Monk's soldiers had, by instructions, prevented that; and,
with the full consent of all the older and wiser peers at hand, the
management of the crisis had been left to the one reconstituted
House. The anomaly, however, had been a subject of serious discussion
in that House. On the one hand, they could not pass a vote for the
restitution of the House of Peers without trenching on that very
question of the future form of Government which they had resolved not
to meddle with. On the other hand, absolute silence on the matter was
impossible. How could the present single House, for example, even if
its other acts were held valid, venture on, an Act for the
dissolution of that Long Parliament whose peculiar privilege, wrung
from Charles I. in May 1641, was that it should never be dissolved
except by its own consent, i.e. by the joint-consent of the two
component Houses? Yet this was the very thing--that had to be done
before way could be made for the coming Parliament. The course
actually taken was perhaps the only one that the circumstances
permitted. When the House, at their last sitting, on Friday, March
16, did pass the Act dissolving itself and-calling the new
Parliament, it incorporated with the Act a proviso in these words:
"Provided always, and be it declared, that the single actings of this
House, enforced by the pressing necessities of the present times, are
not intended in the least to infringe, much less take away, the
ancient native right which the House of Peers, consisting of those
Lords who did engage in the cause of the Parliament against the
forces raised in the name of the late King, and so continued until
1648, had and have to be a part of the Parliament of England." Here
again there was not positive prejudgment so much as the removal of an
obstacle.--It did seem, however, as if the House would not separate
without passing the bounds it had prescribed for itself. It had
already been debated in whose name the writs for the new Parliament
should issue? "In King Charles's" had been the answer of the
undaunted Prynne. He had been overruled, and the arrangement was that
the writs should issue, as under a Commonwealth, "in the name of the
Keepers of the Liberties of England." At the last sitting of the
House, just as the vote for the dissolution was being put, the
Presbyterian Mr. Crewe, provoked by some Republican utterance of
Scott, moved that the House, before dissolving, should testify its
abhorrence of the murder of the late King by a resolution disclaiming
all hand in that affair. The untimely proposal caused a great
excitement, various members starting up to protest that they at least
had never concurred in the horrid act, while others, who had been
King's judges or regicides, betrayed their uneasiness by
prevarications and excuses. Not so Scott. "Though I know not where to
hide my head at this time," he said boldly, "yet I dare not refuse
to own that not only my hand, but my heart also, was in that action";
and he concluded by declaring he should consider it the highest
honour of his existence to have it inscribed on his tomb: "_Here
lieth one who had a hand and a heart in the execution of Charles
Stuart_." Having thus spoken, he left the House, most of the
Republicans accompanying him. The Dissolution Act was passed, and
there was an end of the Long Parliament. Their last resolution was
that the 6th of April should be a day of general fasting and
humiliation.[1]
[Footnote 1: Commons Journals of dates; Ludlow, 863-864; Noble's
Lives of the Regicides, II. 169-199 (Life of Scott, with evidence of
Lenthall and others at his trial); Phillips, 694; Guizot, II.
167-168.]
Though the House was dissolved, the Council of State was to sit on,
with full executive powers, till the meeting of the new Parliament.
Annesley was now generally, if not habitually, the President of the
Council, and in that capacity divided the principal management of
affairs with Monk.
The Parliament having provided for expenses by an assessment of
£100,000 a month for six months, the Council could give full
attention to the main business of preserving the peace till the
elections should be over. Conjoined with this, however, was the
important duty of carrying out a new Militia Act which the Parliament
had framed. It was an Act disbanding all the militia forces as they
had been raised and officered by the Rump, and ordering the militia
in each county to be reorganized by commissioners of Presbyterian or
other suitable principles. The Act had given great offence to the
regular Army, naturally jealous at all times of the civilian
soldiery, but especially alarmed now by observing into what hands the
Militia was going. It would be a militia of King's men, they said,
and the Commonwealth would be undone! So strong was this feeling in
the Army that Monk himself had remonstrated with the House, and the
Militia Act, though passed on the 12th of March, was not printed till
the House had removed his objections. This had been done by pointing
to the clause of the Act which required that all officers of the new
Militia should take an acknowledgment "that the war undertaken by
both Houses of Parliament in their defence against the forces raised
in the name of the late King was just and lawful." When Monk had
professed himself satisfied, the re-organization of the Militia went
on rapidly in all the counties. Monk was one of the Commissioners for
the Militia of Middlesex, and to his other titles was added that of
Major-General and Commander-in-chief of the Militia of London.
Meanwhile the Council had issued proclamations over the country
against any disturbance of the peace, and most of the active
politicians had left town to look after their elections. The
Harringtonian or Rota Club, one need hardly say, was no more in
existence. After having been a five months' wonder, it had vanished,
amid the laughter of the Londoners, as soon as the secluded members
had added themselves to the Rump. Theorists and their "models" were
no longer wanted.[1]
[Footnote 1: Commons Journals, March 10-16; Phillips, 694;
Whitlocke, IV. 405-406; Wood's Ath. III. 1120.]
Not even yet was there any positive intimation that the Commonwealth
was defunct. No one could declare that authoritatively, and every one
might hope or believe as he liked. The all but universal conviction,
however, even among the Republicans, was that the Republic was
doomed, and that, if the last and worst consummation in a return of
Charles Stuart was to be prevented, it could only be by consenting to
some single-person Government of a less fatal kind. O that Richard's
Protectorate could be restored! The thing was talked of by St. John
and others, but the possibility was past. But might not Monk himself
be invested with the sovereignty? Hasilrig and others actually went
about Monk with the offer, imploring him to save his country by this
last means; and the chance seemed so probable that the French
ambassador, M. de Bordeaux, tried to ascertain through Clarges
whether Monk's own inclinations ran that way. Monk was too wary for
either the Rumpers or the Ambassador. He declined the offers of
Hasilrig and his friends, allowing Clarges privately to inform the
Council that such had been made; and, though he received the
Ambassador, it was but gruffly. "The French ambassador visited
General Monk, whom he found no accomplished courtier or statesman,"
writes Whitlocke sarcastically under March 24; and the ambassador's
own account is that he could get nothing more from Monk, in reply to
Mazarin's polite messages and requests for confidence, than a
reiterated statement that he had no information to give. And so, a
Single Person being inevitable, and the momentary uncertainty whether
it would be "Charles, George, or Richard again" being out of the way,
the long-dammed torrent had broken loose. And what a torrent! "King
Charles! King Charles! King Charles!" was the cry that seemed to
burst out simultaneously and irresistibly over all the British
Islands. Men had been long drinking his health secretly or
half-secretly, and singing songs of the old Cavalier kind in their
own houses, or in convivial meetings with their neighbours; openly
Royalist pamphlets had been frequent since the abolition of Richard's
Protectorate; and, since the appearance of the Presbyterian
Parliament of the secluded members, there had been hardly a pretence
of suppressing any Royalist demonstrations whatever. On the evening
of the 15th of March, the day before the Parliament dissolved
itself, some bold fellows had come with a ladder to the Exchange in
the City of London, where stood the pedestal from which a statue of
Charles I. had been thrown down, and had deliberately painted out
with a brush the Republican inscription on the pedestal, "_Exit
tyrannus, Regum ultimus_," a large crowd gathering round them and
shouting "God bless Charles the Second" round an extemporized
bonfire. That had been a signal; but for still another fortnight,
though all knew what all were thinking, there had been a hesitation
to speak out. It was in the end of March or the first days of April
1660, when the elections had begun, that the hesitation suddenly
ceased everywhere, and the torrent was at its full. They were
drinking Charles's health openly in taverns; they were singing songs
about him everywhere; they were tearing down the Arms of the
Commonwealth in public buildings, and putting up the King's
instead.[1]
[Footnote 1: Phillips, 695; Letters of M. de Bordeaux, Guizot, II.
381-395; Whitlocke, IV. 405; Pepys's Diary, from beginning to April
11, 1660.]
Popular feeling having declared itself so unmistakeably for Charles,
it was but ordinary selfish prudence in all public men who had
anything to lose, or anything to fear, to be among the foremost to
bid him welcome. No longer now was it merely a rat here and there of
the inferior sort, like Downing and Morland,[1] that was leaving the
sinking ship. So many were leaving, and of so many sorts and degrees,
that Hyde and the other Councillors of Charles had ceased to count,
on their side, the deserters as they clambered up. He received now,
Hyde tells us, "the addresses of many men who had never before
applied themselves to him, and many sent to him for his Majesty's
approbation and leave to sit in the next Parliament." Between London
and Flanders messengers were passing to and fro daily, with perfect
freedom and hardly any disguise of their business. Annesley, the
President of the Council of State, was in correspondence with the
King; Thurloe, now back in the Secretaryship to the Council, was in
correspondence with him, and by no means dishonourably; and in the
meetings of the Council of State itself, though it was bound to be
corporately neutral till the Parliament should assemble, the drift of
the deliberations was obvious. The only two men whose resistance even
now could have compelled a pause were Monk and Montague. What of
them?----It was no false rumour that Montague, the Cromwellian among
Cromwellians, the man who would have died for Cromwell or perhaps for
his dynasty, had been holding himself free for Charles. Under a cloud
among the Republicans since his suspicious return from the Baltic in
September last, but restored to command by the recent vote of the
Parliament of the secluded members making him joint chief Admiral
with Monk, he was at this moment (i.e. from March 23 onwards) in the
Thames with his fleet, in receipt of daily orders from the Council
and guarding the sea-passage between them and Flanders. He had on
board with him, as his secretary, a certain young Mr. Samuel Pepys,
who had been with him already in the Baltic, had been meanwhile in a
clerkship in the Exchequer office, but had now left his house in Axe
Yard, Westminster, and his young wife there, for the pleasure and
emoluments of being once more secretary to so kind and great a
master. In cabin talk with the trusty Pepys the Lord Admiral made no
secret of his belief that the King would come in; but it was only by
shrewd observations of what passed on board, and of the strange
people that came and went, that Pepys then guessed what he afterwards
knew to be the fact. "My Lord," as Pepys always affectionately calls
his patron, was pledged to the King, and was managing most discreetly
in his interest.[2]--But the power of Montague, as Commander-in-chief
of the Navy only, was nothing in comparison with Monk's. How was Monk
comporting himself? Most cautiously to the last. Though it was the
policy of his biographers afterwards, and agreeable to himself, that
his conduct from the date of his march out of Scotland should be
represented as a slow and continuous working on towards the one end
of the King's restoration, the truth seems to be that he clung to the
notion of some kind of Commonwealth longer than most people, and made
up his mind for the King only when circumstances absolutely compelled
him. With the Army, or a great part of it, to back him, he might
resist and impede the restoration of Charles; but, as things now
were, could he prevent it ultimately? Why not himself manage the
transaction, and reap the credit and advantages, rather than leave it
to be managed by some one else and be himself among the ruined? That
he had been later than others in sending Charles his adhesion was no
matter. He had gained consequence by the very delay. He was no longer
merely commander of an Army in Scotland, but centre and chief of all
the Armies; he was worth more for Charles's purposes than all the
others put together; and Charles knew it! So Monk had been reasoning
for some time; and it was on the 17th of March, the day after the
dissolution of the Parliament of the Secluded Members, that his
ruminations had taken practical effect. Even then his way of
committing himself was characteristic. His kinsman, Sir John
Greenville, the same who had been commissioned to negotiate with him
when he was in Scotland, was again the agent. With the utmost
privacy, only Mr. Morrice being present as a third party, Monk had
received Greenville at St. James's, acknowledged his Majesty's
gracious messages, and given certain messages for his Majesty in
return. He would not pen a line; Greenville was to convey the
messages verbally. They included such recommendations to his Majesty
as that he should smooth the way for his return by proclaiming a
pardon and indemnity in as wide terms as possible, a guarantee of
all sales and conveyances of lands under the Commonwealth, and a
liberal measure of Religious Toleration; but the most immediate and
practical of them all was that his Majesty should at once leave the
Spanish dominions, take up his quarters at Breda, and date all his
letters and proclamations thence. For the rest, as there were still
many difficulties and might be slips, the agreement between his
Majesty and Monk was to be kept profoundly secret.[3]
[Footnote 1: These two of the late public servants of Oliver--Downing
his minister at the Hague, and Morland his envoy in the business of
the Piedmontese massacre of 1655--had behaved most dishonourably.
Both, for some months past, had been establishing friendly relations
with Charles by actually betraying trusts they still held with the
government of the Commonwealth--Morland by communicating papers and
information which came into his possession confidentially in
Thurloe's office (_Clar. Hist._ 869), and Downing by
communicating the secrets of his embassy to Charles, and acting in
his interests in that embassy, on guarantee that he should retain
it, and have other rewards, when Charles came to the throne
(_Clar. Life_, 1116-1117). There was to be farther proof that
Downing was the meaner rascal of the two.]
[Footnote 2: Pepys's Diary, from beginning to April 11, 1660.
Montague seems to have first positively and directly pledged himself
to Charles in a letter of April 10, beginning "May it please your
excellent Majesty,--From your Majesty's incomparable goodness and
favour, I had the high honour to receive a letter from you when I was
in the Sound last summer, and now another by the hands of my cousin"
(Clar. State Papers). But the cousin had been already negotiating.]
[Footnote 3: Clarendon, 891-896; Thurloe, VII. 807-898; Skinner,
266-275; Phillips, 695-696.]
Over the seas went Greenville, as fast as ship could carry him, with
the precious messages he bore. At Ostend, where he arrived on the
23rd of March, he reduced them to writing; and the next day, and for
several days afterwards, Charles, Hyde, Ormond, and Secretary
Nicholas, were in joyful consultation over them in Brussels. The
advice of an instant removal to Breda fitted in with their own
intentions. Neither the Spanish territory nor the French was a good
ground from which to negotiate openly with England; nor indeed was
Spanish territory quite safe for Charles at a time when, seeing his
restoration possible, Spain might detain him as a hostage for the
recovery of Dunkirk and Mardike. To Breda, accordingly, as Monk
advised, the refugees went. They went in the most stealthy manner,
and just in time to avoid being detained by the Spanish authorities.
Before they reached Breda, however, but when Greenville could say
that he had seen them safe within Dutch territory, he left them, to
post back to England with a private letter to Monk in the King's own
hand, enclosing a commission to the Captaincy-General of all his
Majesty's forces, and with six other documents, which had been
drafted by Hyde, and were all dated by anticipation "_At Our Court
at Breda, this 4/14th of April 1660, in the Twelfth Year of Our
Reign_." One was a public letter "To our trusty and well-beloved
General Monk," to be by him communicated to the President and Council
of State and to the Army officers; another was to the Speaker of the
House of Commons in the coming Parliament; a third was a general
"Declaration" for all England, Scotland, and Ireland; a fourth was a
short letter to the House of Lords, should there be one; a fifth was
for Admirals Monk and Montague, to be communicated to the Fleet; and
the sixth was to the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Common Councilmen of
the City of London. Besides the originals, copies of all were sent to
Monk, that he might keep the originals unopened or suppress any of
them.[1]
[Footnote 1: Clarendon, 896-902; Phillips, 696; Skinner, 276-280.]
It could be an affair now only of a few weeks, more or less. There,
at Breda, was his swarthy, witty, good-humoured, utterly profligate
and worthless, young Majesty, with his refugee courtiers round him;
at home, over all Britain and Ireland, they were ready for him,
longing for him, huzzahing for him, Monk and the Council managing
silently in London; and between, as a moveable bridge, there was
Montague and his fleet. When would the bridge move towards the
Continent? That would depend on the newly-elected Parliament, which
was to meet on the 25th. Could there be any mischance in the
meantime?
It did not seem so. The late politicians of the Rump were dispersed
and powerless. Hasilrig sat by himself in London, moaning "_We are
undone: we are undone_"; Scott was in Buckinghamshire, if
perchance they might elect him for Wycombe: Ludlow hid in Wiltshire
and Somersetshire, also nominated for a seat, but careless about it;
the rest absconded one knows not where. The "Fanatics," as the
Republican Sectaries were now called collectively, were silenced and
overwhelmed. Even Mr. Praise-God Barebone, tired of having his
windows broken, was under written engagement to the Council to keep
himself quiet. The same written engagement had been exacted from
Hasilrig and Scott.--But what of the Army, the original maker of the
Commonwealth, its defender and preserver through good report and bad
report for eleven years, and with strength surely to maintain it yet,
or make a stand in its behalf? The question is rather difficult. It
may be granted that something of the general exhaustion, the fatigue
and weariness of incessant change, the longing to be at rest by any
means, had come upon the Army itself. Not the less true is it that
Republicanism was yet the general creed of the Army, and that, could
a universal vote have been taken through the regiments in England,
Scotland, and Ireland, it would have kept out Charles Stuart. Nay, so
engrained was the Republican feeling in the ranks of the soldiery,
and so gloomily were they watching Monk, that, could any suitable
proportion of them have been brought together, and could any fit
leader have been present to hold up his sword for the Commonwealth,
they would have rallied round him with acclamations. Precisely to
prevent this, however, had been Monk's care. One remembers his advice
from Scotland to Richard Cromwell nineteen months ago, when Richard
was entering on his Protectorate. It was to cashier boldly. Not an
officer in the Army, he had said, would have interest enough, if he
were once cashiered, to draw two men after him in opposition to any
existing Government. The very soul of Monk lies in that maxim, and he
had been acting on it himself. Not only, as we have seen, had he
reofficered his own army in Scotland with the utmost pains before
venturing on his march into England; but, since his coming into
England, he had still been discharging officers, and appointing or
promoting others. He had done so while still conducting himself as
the servant of the Restored Rump; and he had done so again very
particularly after he had become Commander-in-chief for the
Parliament of the Secluded Members. The consequence was most apparent
in that portion of the Army which was more especially his own,
consisting of the regiments he had brought from Scotland, and that
were now round him in London. The officers--Knight, Read, Clobery,
Hubblethorn, &c.--were all men accustomed to Monk, or of his latest
choosing. His difficulty had been greater with the many dispersed
regiments away from London, once Fleetwood's and Lambert's. Not only
was there no bond of attachment between them and Monk; they were full
of bitterness against him, as an interloper from Scotland who had put
them to disgrace, and had turned some of them out of London to make
room for his own men. But with these also Monk had taken his
measures. Besides quartering them in the manner likeliest to prevent
harm, he had done not a little among them too by discharges and new
appointments. One of his own colonels, Charles Fairfax, had been left
at York; Colonel Rich's regiment had been given to Ingoldsby;
Walton's regiment to Viscount Howard; a Colonel Carter had been made
Governor of Beaumaris, with command in Denbighshire; the Republican
Overton had been removed from the Governorship of Hull; Mr. Morrice
had been converted into a soldier, and made Governor of Plymouth; Dr.
Clarges was Commissary General of the Musters for England, Scotland,
and Ireland; and colonelcies were found for Montague, Rossiter,
Sheffield, and Lord Falconbridge. When it is remembered that
Fleetwood, Lambert, Desborough, Berry, Kelsay, and others of the old
officers, Rumpers or Wallingford-House men, were already
incapacitated, and either in prison or under parole to the Council of
State, it will be seen that the English Army of April 1660 was no
longer its former self. There were actually Royalists now among the
colonels, men in negotiation with the King as Monk himself was.
Still, if Monk and these colonels had even now gone before most of
the regiments and announced openly that they meant to bring in the
King, they would have been hooted or torn in pieces. Even in
colloquies with the officers of his own London regiments Monk had to
keep up the Republican phraseology. Suspicions having arisen among
them, with meetings and agitations, his plan had been to calm them by
general assurances, reminding them at the same time of that principle
of the submission of the military to the civil authority which he and
they had accepted. On this principle alone, and without a word
implying desertion, of the Commonwealth, he prohibited any more
meetings or agitations, and caused strict orders to that effect from
the Council of State to be read at the head of every regiment. But an
ingenious device of Clarges went further than such prohibitions. It
was that as many of the officers as possible should be got to sign a
declaration of their submission to the civil authority, not in
general terms merely, but in the precise form of an engagement to
agitate the question of Government no more among themselves, but
abide the decision of the coming Parliament. Many who could not have
been brought to declare for Charles Stuart directly could save their
consciences by signing a document thus conditionally in his interest;
and the device of Clarges was most successful. On the 9th of April a
copy of the engagement signed by a large number of officers in or
near London was in Monk's hands, and copies were out in England,
Scotland, and Ireland, for additional signatures. As to the response
from Scotland there could be little doubt. Morgan, the
commander-in-chief in Scotland, had already reported the complete
submission of the Army there to the order established by the
Parliament of the Secluded Members. Only a single captain had been
refractory, and he far away in the Orkneys. From Ireland, where Coote
and Broghill were now managing, the report was nearly as good.
Altogether, by the 9th of April, Monk could regard the Republicanism
of the Army as but the stunned and paralysed belief of so many
thousands of individual red-coats.--It was no otherwise with the
Navy. Moored with his fleet in the Thames, or cruising with it
beyond, Montague could assure Pepys in private that he knew most of
his captains to be Republicans, and that he was not sure even of the
captain of his own ship; and, studying a certain list which Montague
had given him, Pepys could observe that the captains Montague was
most anxious about were all or nearly all of the Anabaptist
persuasion. Still there was no sign of concerted mutiny; and it was a
great thing at such a time that Vice-Admiral Lawson, Montague's
second in command, and the pre-eminent Republican of the whole Navy,
had shown an example of obedience.[1]
[Footnote 1: Phillips, 694-698; Skinner, 263-265; Ludlow, 865-873;
Whitlocke, IV. 405-406; Pepys's Diary, March 28-April 9.]