government the charm of government was gone; and now to the weariness of
power was added the weakness and feverish impatience of disease.
Vigorous and energetic as Cromwell's life had seemed, his health was by
no mean as strong as his will; he had been struck down by intermittent
fever in the midst of his triumphs both in Scotland and in Ireland, and
during the past year he had suffered from repeated attacks of it. "I
have some infirmities upon me," he owned twice over in his speech at the
reopening of the Parliament in January, 1658, after an adjournment of
six months; and his feverish irritability was quickened by the public
danger. No supplies had been voted, and the pay of the army was heavily
in arrear, while its temper grew more and more sullen at the appearance
of the new constitution and the reawakening of the royalist intrigues.
Cromwell had believed that his military successes would secure
compliance with his demands; but the temper of the Commons was even more
irritable than his own. Under the terms of the new constitution the
members excluded in the preceding year took their places again in the
House; and it was soon clear that the Parliament reflected the general
mood of the nation. The tone of the Commons became captious and
quarrelsome. They still delayed the grant for supplies. Meanwhile, a
hasty act of the Protector in giving to his nominees in "the other
House," as the new second chamber he had devised was called, the title
of "Lords," kindled a strife between the two Houses which was busily
fanned by Haselrig and other opponents of the government. It was
contended that the "other House" had under the new constitution simply
judicial, and not legislative, powers. Such a contention struck at once
at Cromwell's work of restoring the old political forms of English life:
and the reappearance of parliamentary strife threw him at last, says an
observer at his court, "into a rage and passion like unto madness."
What gave weight to it was the growing strength of the Royalist party,
and its hopes of a coming rising. Such a rising had in fact been
carefully prepared; and Charles, with a large body of Spanish troops,
drew to the coast of Flanders to take advantage of it. His hopes were
above all encouraged by the strife in the Commons, and their manifest
dislike of the system of the Protectorate. It was this that drove
Cromwell to action. Summoning his coach, by a sudden impulse, the
Protector drove on, February 4th, with a few guards to Westminster; and,
setting aside the remonstrance of Fleetwood, summoned the two Houses to
his presence. "I do dissolve this Parliament," he ended a speech of
angry rebuke, "and let God be judge between you and me."
Fatal as was the error, for the moment all went well. The army was
reconciled by the blow levelled at its opponents, and a few murmurers
who appeared in its ranks were weeded out by a careful remodelling. The
triumphant officers avowed to stand or fall with his highness. The
danger of a Royalist rising vanished before a host of addresses from the
counties. Great news, too, came from abroad, where victory in Flanders,
and the cession of Dunkirk in June, set the seal on Cromwell's glory.
But the fever crept steadily on, and his looks told the tale of death to
the Quaker, Fox, who met him riding in Hampton Court Park.
"Before I came to him," he says, "as he rode at the head of his
lifeguards, I saw and felt a waft of death go forth against him, and
when I came to him he looked like a dead man." In the midst of his
triumph Cromwell's heart was heavy in fact with the sense of failure. He
had no desire to play the tyrant; nor had he any belief in the
permanence of a mere tyranny. He clung desperately to the hope of
bringing over the country to his side. He had hardly dissolved the
Parliament before he was planning the summons of another, and angry at
the opposition which his council offered to the project. "I will take my
own resolutions," he said gloomily to his household; "I can no longer
satisfy myself to sit still, and make myself guilty of the loss of all
the honest party and of the nation itself." But before his plans could
be realized the overtaxed strength of the Protector suddenly gave way.
Early in August, 1658, his sickness took a more serious form. He saw too
clearly the chaos into which his death would plunge England to be
willing to die. "Do not think I shall die," he burst out with feverish
energy to the physicians who gathered round him; "say not I have lost my
reason! I tell you the truth. I know it from better authority than any
you can have from Galen or Hippocrates. It is the answer of God himself
to our prayers!"
Prayer indeed rose from every side for his recovery, but death grew
steadily nearer, till even Cromwell felt that his hour was come. "I
would be willing to live," the dying man murmured, "to be further
serviceable to God and his people, but my work is done! Yet God will be
with his people!" A storm which tore roofs from houses, and levelled
huge trees in every forest, seemed a fitting prelude to the passing away
of his mighty spirit. Three days later, on September 3d, the day which
had witnessed his victories of Worcester and Dunbar, Cromwell quietly
breathed his last.
So absolute even in death was his sway over the minds of men, that, to
the wonder of the excited Royalists, even a doubtful nomination on his
death-bed was enough to secure the peaceful succession of his son,
Richard Cromwell. Many in fact who had rejected the authority of his
father submitted peaceably to the new Protector. Their motives were
explained by Baxter, the most eminent among the Presbyterian ministers,
in an address to Richard which announced his adhesion. "I observe," he
says, "that the nation generally rejoice in your peaceable entrance upon
the government. Many are persuaded that you have been strangely kept
from participating in any of our late bloody contentions, that God might
make you the healer of our breaches, and employ you in that Temple work
which David himself might not be honored with, though it was in his
mind, because he shed blood abundantly and made great wars."
The new Protector was a weak and worthless man; but the bulk of the
nation were content to be ruled by one who was at any rate no soldier,
no Puritan, and no innovator. Richard was known to be lax and worldly in
his conduct, and he was believed to be conservative and even Royalist in
heart. The tide of reaction was felt even in his council. Their first
act was to throw aside one of the greatest of Cromwell's reforms and to
fall back in the summons which they issued for a new Parliament on the
old system of election. It was felt far more keenly in the tone of the
new House of Commons when it met in January, 1659. The republicans under
Vane, backed adroitly by the members who were secretly Royalists, fell
hotly on Cromwell's system. The fiercest attack of all came from Sir
Ashley Cooper, a Dorsetshire gentleman who had changed sides in the
civil war, had fought for the King and then for the Parliament, had been
a member of Cromwell's council, and had of late ceased to be a member of
it. His virulent invective on "his highness of deplorable memory, who
with fraud and force deprived you of your liberty when living and
entailed slavery on you at his death," was followed by an equally
virulent invective against the army. "They have not only subdued their
enemies," said Cooper, "but the masters who raised and maintained them!
They have not only conquered Scotland and Ireland, but rebellious
England too; and there suppressed a malignant party of magistrates and
laws."
The army was quick with its reply. Already in the preceding November it
had shown its suspicion of the new government by demanding the
appointment of a soldier as general in the place of the new Protector,
who had assumed the command. The tone of the council of officers now
became so menacing that the Commons ordered the dismissal of all
officers who refused to engage "not to disturb or interrupt the free
meetings of Parliament." Richard ordered the council of officers to
dissolve. Their reply was a demand for the dissolution of the
Parliament; and with this demand, on April 22d, Richard was forced to
comply. The purpose of the army, however, was still to secure a settled
government; and setting aside the new Protector, whose weakness was now
evident, they resolved to come to a reconciliation with the republican
party, and to recall the fragment of the Commons whom they had expelled
from St. Stephen's in 1653.
The arrangement was quickly brought about; and in May, of the one
hundred sixty members who had continued to sit after the King's death,
about ninety returned to their seats and resumed the administration of
affairs. The continued exclusion of the members who had been "purged"
from the House in 1648, proved that no real intention existed of
restoring a legal rule; and the soldiers trusted that the "Rump" which
they had restored to power would be bound to them by the growing danger
both to republicanism and to religious liberty. But not even their
passion for these "causes" could make men endure the rule of the sword.
The House was soon at strife with the soldiers.
In spite of Vane's counsels, it proposed a reform of the officers and
though a Royalist rising in Cheshire during August threw the disputants
for a moment together, the struggle revived as the danger passed away. A
new hope indeed filled men's minds. Not only was the nation sick of
military rule, but the army, unconquerable so long as it held together,
at last showed signs of division. In Ireland and Scotland the troops
protested against the attitude of their English comrades; and Monk, the
commander of the Scottish army, threatened to march on London and free
the Parliament from their pressure. The knowledge of these divisions
encouraged Haselrig and his coadjutors in the Commons to demand the
dismissal of Fleetwood and Lambert from their commands. They answered in
October by driving the Parliament again from Westminster, and by
marching under Lambert to the north to meet the army under Monk.
Lambert, however, suffered himself to be lured into inaction by
negotiations, while Monk gathered a convention at Edinburgh, and
strengthened himself with money and recruits. His attitude was enough to
rouse England to action. Portsmouth closed its gates against the
delegates of the soldiers. The fleet declared against them. So rapidly
did the tide of feeling rise throughout the country that the army at the
close of December was driven to undo the work by recalling the Rump. But
the concession only aided the force of resistance by showing the
weakness of the tyranny which England was resolute to throw off.
Lambert's men fell from him, and finding his path clear, Monk, without
revealing his purport, advanced rapidly to Coldstream, and crossed the
border in the first days of 1660. His action broke the spell of terror
which had weighed upon the country. The cry of "A free Parliament" ran
like fire through the country. Not only Fairfax, who appeared in arms in
Yorkshire, but the ships on the Thames and the mobs which thronged the
streets of London, caught up the cry.
Still steadily advancing, but lavishing protestations of loyalty to the
Rump, while he accepted petitions for a "Free Parliament," Monk on
February 3d entered London unopposed. From the moment of his entry the
restoration of the Stuarts became inevitable. The army, resolute as it
still remained for the maintenance of "the cause," was deceived by
Monk's declarations of loyalty to it, and rendered powerless by his
adroit dispersion of the troops over the country. At the instigation of
Ashley Cooper, those who remained of the members who had been excluded
from the House of Commons in 1648 again forced their way into
Parliament, and at once resolved on a dissolution and the election of a
new House of Commons.
The dissolution in March was followed by a last struggle of the army for
its old supremacy. Lambert escaped from the Tower and called his
fellow-soldiers to arms; but he was hotly pursued, overtaken, and routed
near Daventry; and on April 25th the new House, which bears the name of
the "Convention," assembled at Westminster. It had hardly taken the
solemn "league and covenant" which showed its Presbyterian temper, and
its leaders had only begun to draw up terms on which the King's
restoration might be assented to, when they found that Monk was in
negotiation with the exiled court.
All exaction of terms was now impossible; a declaration from Breda, in
which Charles promised a general pardon, religious toleration, and
satisfaction to the army, was received with a burst of national
enthusiasm; and the old constitution was restored by a solemn vote of
the convention, "that according to the ancient and fundamental laws of
this kingdom, the government is, and ought to be, by King, Lords, and
Commons." The King was at once invited to hasten to his realm; and on
May 25th Charles landed at Dover, and made his way amid the shouts of a
great multitude to Whitehall. "It is my own fault," laughed the new King
with characteristic irony, "that I had not come back sooner; for I find
nobody who does not tell me he has always longed for my return."
In his progress to the capital Charles passed in review the soldiers
assembled on Blackheath. Betrayed by their general, abandoned by their
leaders, surrounded as they were by a nation in arms, the gloomy silence
of their ranks awed even the careless King with a sense of danger. But
none of the victories of the "new model" were so glorious as the victory
which it won over itself. Quietly and without a struggle, as men who
bowed to the inscrutable will of God, the farmers and traders who had
dashed Rupert's chivalry to pieces on Naseby field, who had scattered at
Worcester the "army of the aliens," and driven into helpless flight the
sovereign that now came "to enjoy his own again," who had renewed beyond
sea the glories of Cressy and Agincourt, had mastered the Parliament,
had brought a king to justice and the block, had given laws to England,
and held even Cromwell in awe, became farmers and traders again, and
were known among their fellow-men by no other sign than their greater
soberness and industry.
And, with them, Puritanism laid down the sword. It ceased from the long
attempt to build up a kingdom of God by force and violence, and fell
back on its truer work of building up a kingdom of righteousness in the
hearts and consciences of men. It was from the moment of its seeming
fall that its real victory began. As soon as the wild orgy of the
Restoration was over, men began to see that nothing that was really
worthy in the work of Puritanism had been undone. The revels of
Whitehall, the scepticism and debauchery of courtiers, the corruption of
statesmen, left the mass of Englishmen what Puritanism had made
them--serious, earnest, sober in life and conduct, firm in their love of
Protestantism and of freedom. In the Revolution of 1688 Puritanism did
the work of civil liberty which it had failed to do in that of 1642. It
wrought out, through Wesley and the revival of the eighteenth century,
the work of religious reform which its earlier efforts had only thrown
back for a hundred years. Slowly but steadily it introduced its own
seriousness and purity into English society, English literature, English
politics. The history of English progress since the Restoration, on its
moral and spiritual sides, has been the history of Puritanism.
SAMUEL PEPYS
May 22, 1660. News brought that the two dukes are coming on board which,
by and by, they did, in a Dutch boat, the Duke of York in yellow
trimmings, the Duke of Gloucester in gray and red. My Lord[42] went in
a boat to meet them, the captain, myself, and others standing at the
entering port. So soon as they were entered we shot the guns off round
the fleet. After that they went to view the ship all over, and were most
exceedingly pleased with it. They seem to be very fine gentlemen. After
that done, upon the quarter-deck table, under the awning, the Duke of
York and my Lord, Mr. Coventry, and I, spent an hour at allotting to
every ship their service, in their return to England; which being done,
they went to dinner, where the table was very full; the two dukes at the
upper end, my Lord Opdam neat on one side, and my Lord on the other. Two
guns given to every man while he was drinking the King's health, and so
likewise to the Duke's health.
I took down Monsieur d'Esquier to the great cabin below, and dined with
him in state along with only one or two friends of his. All dinner the
harper belonging to Captain Sparling played to the dukes. After dinner,
the dukes and my Lord to sea, the vice and rear admirals and I in a boat
after them. After that done, they made to the shore in the Dutch boat
that brought them, and I got into the boat with them; but the shore was
full of people to expect their coming. When we came near the shore, my
Lord left them and come into his own boat, and Pen and I with him; my
Lord being very well pleased with this day's work. By the time we came
on board again, news is sent us that the King is on shore; so my Lord
fired all his guns round twice, and all the fleet after him. The gun
over against my cabin I fired myself to the King, which was the first
time that he had been saluted by his own ships since this change; but
holding my head too much over the gun, I had almost spoiled my right
eye. Nothing in the world but giving of guns almost all this day.
In the evening we began to remove cabins; I to the carpenter's cabin,
and Dr. Clerke with me. Many of the King's servants came on board
to-night; and so many Dutch of all sorts came to see the ship till it
was quite dark, that we could not pass by one another, which was a great
trouble to us all. This afternoon Mr. Downing (who was knighted
yesterday by the King) was here on board, and had a ship for his passage
into England, with his lady and servants. By the same token he called
me to him when I was going to write the order, to tell me that I must
write him Sir G. Downing. My Lord lay in the roundhouse to-night. This
evening I was late writing a French letter by my Lord's order to
Monsieur Wragh, Ambassador de Denmarke à la Haye, which my Lord signed
in bed.
23d. In the morning come infinity of people on board from the King to go
along with him. My Lord, Mr. Crewe, and others go on shore to meet the
King as he comes off from shore, where Sir R. Stayner, bringing his
majesty into the boat, I hear that his majesty did with a great deal of
affection kiss my Lord upon his first meeting. The King, with the two
dukes and Queen of Bohemia, Princess Royal, and Prince of Orange, come
on board, where I in their coming in kissed the King's, Queen's, and
Princess' hands, having done the other before. Infinite shooting off of
the guns, and that in a disorder on purpose, which was better than if it
had been otherwise. All day nothing but lords and persons of honor on
board, that we were exceeding full. Dined in a great deal of state, the
royal company by themselves in the coach, which was a blessed sight to
see.
After dinner the King and Duke altered the name of some of the ships,
viz., the Nazeby, into Charles; the Richard, James; the Speaker, Mary.
That done, the Queen, Princess Royal, and Prince of Orange took leave of
the King, and the Duke of York went on board the London, and the Duke of
Gloucester the Swiftsure. Which done, we weighed anchor, and with a
fresh gale and most happy weather we set sail for England. All the
afternoon the King walked here and there, up and down (quite contrary to
what I thought him to have been) very active and stirring. Upon the
quarter-deck he fell into discourse of his escape from Worcester, where
it made me ready to weep to hear the stories that he told of his
difficulties that he had passed through, as his travelling four days and
three nights on foot, every step up to his knees in dirt, with nothing
but a green coat and a pair of country breeches on, and a pair of
country shoes that made him so sore all over his feet that he could
scarce stir. Yet he was forced to run away from a miller and other
company, that took them for rogues.
His sitting at table at one place, where the master of the house that
had not seen him in eight years, did know him, but kept it private; when
at the same table there was one that had been of his own regiment at
Worcester, could not know him, but made him drink the King's health, and
said that the King was at least four fingers higher than he. At another
place he was by some servants of the house made to drink, that they
might know that he was not a Roundhead, which they swore he was. In
another place at his inn, the master of the house, as the King was
standing with his hands upon the back of a chair by the fireside,
kneeled down and kissed his hand, privately, saying, that he would not
ask him who he was, but bid God bless him whither he was going. Then the
difficulties in getting a boat to get into France, where he was fain to
plot with the master thereof to keep his design from the foreman and a
boy (which was all the ship's company), and so get to Fecamp in France.
At Rouen he looked so poorly, that the people went into the rooms before
he went away to see whether he had not stole something or other. In the
evening I went up to my Lord to write letters for England, which we sent
away, with word of our coming, by Mr. Edw. Pickering. The King supped
alone in the coach; after that I got a dish, and we four supped in my
cabin, as at noon. About bedtime my Lord Bartlett (who I had offered my
service to before) sent for me to get him a bed, who with much ado I did
get to bed to my Lord Middlesex in the great cabin below, but I was
truly troubled before I could dispose of him, and quit myself of him. So
to my cabin again, where the company still was, and were talking more of
the King's difficulties: as how he was fain to eat a piece of bread and
cheese out of a poor body's pocket; how, at a Catholic house, he was
fain to lie in the priest's hole a good while in the house for his
privacy. After that our company broke up. We have the lords
commissioners on board us, and many others. Under sail all night, and
most glorious weather.
24th. Up, and made myself as fine as I could, with the linen stockings
on and wide canons that I bought the other day at Hague. Extraordinary
press of noble company, and great mirth all the day. There dined with me
in my cabin (that is, the carpenter's) Dr. Earle, and Mr. Hollis, the
King's Chaplains, Dr. Scarborough, Dr. Quarterman, and Dr. Clerke,
Physicians, Mr. Daray, and Mr. Fox (both very fine gentlemen), the
King's servants, where we have brave discourse. Walking upon the decks,
were persons of honor all the afternoon, among others, Thomas Killigrew
(a merry droll, but a gentleman of great esteem with the King), who told
us many merry stories.
At supper the three doctors of physic again at my cabin; where I put Dr.
Scarborough in mind of what I heard him say, that children do, in every
day's experience, look several ways with both their eyes, till custom
teaches them otherwise. And that we do now see but with one eye, our
eyes looking in parallel lines. After this discourse I was called to
write a pass for my Lord Mandeville to take up horses to London, which I
wrote in the King's name, and carried it to him to sign, which was the
first and only one that ever he signed in the ship Charles. To bed,
coming in sight of land a little before night.
25th. By the morning we were come close to the land, and everybody made
ready to get on shore. The King and the two dukes did eat their
breakfast before they went, and there being set some ship's diet they
ate of nothing else but pease and pork, and boiled beef. Dr. Clerke, who
ate with me, told me how the King had given fifty pounds to Mr. Shepley
for my Lord's servants, and five hundred pounds among the officers and
common men of the ship. I spoke to the Duke of York about business, who
called me Pepys by name, and upon my desire did promise me his future
favor. Great expectation of the King's making some knights, but there
was none. About noon (though the brigantine that Beale made was there
ready to carry him), yet he would go in my Lord's barge with the two
dukes. Our captain steered, and my Lord went along bare with him. I
went, and Mr. Mansell, and one of the King's footmen, and a dog that the
King loved, in a boat by ourselves, and so got on shore when the King
did, who was received by General Monk with all imaginable love and
respect at his entrance upon the land of Dover.