FROM THE RESTORATION OF CHARLES THE SECOND TO THE FALL OF THE CABAL
ADMINISTRATION
_Popular joy at the restoration._--It is universally acknowledged that
no measure was ever more national, or has ever produced more
testimonies of public approbation, than the restoration of Charles II.
Nor can this be attributed to the usual fickleness of the multitude.
For the late government, whether under the parliament or the
protector, had never obtained the sanction of popular consent, nor
could have subsisted for a day without the support of the army. The
king's return seemed to the people the harbinger of a real liberty,
instead of that bastard commonwealth which had insulted them with its
name; a liberty secure from enormous assessments, which, even when
lawfully imposed, the English had always paid with reluctance, and
from the insolent despotism of the soldiery. The young and lively
looked forward to a release from the rigours of fanaticism, and were
too ready to exchange that hypocritical austerity of the late times
for a licentiousness and impiety that became characteristic of the
present. In this tumult of exulting hope and joy, there was much to
excite anxious forebodings in calmer men; and it was by no means safe
to pronounce that a change so generally demanded, and in most respects
so expedient, could be effected without very serious sacrifices of
public and particular interests.
_Proceedings of the convention parliament._--Four subjects of great
importance, and some of them very difficult, occupied the convention
parliament from the time of the king's return till their dissolution
in the following December; a general indemnity and legal oblivion of
all that had been done amiss in the late interruption of government;
an adjustment of the claims for reparation which the Crown, the
church, and private royalists had to prefer; a provision for the
king's revenue, consistent with the abolition of military tenures; and
the settlement of the church. These were, in effect, the articles of a
sort of treaty between the king and the nation, without some
legislative provisions as to which, no stable or tranquil course of
law could be expected.
_Act of indemnity._--The king, in his well-known declaration from
Breda, dated the 14th of April, had laid down, as it were, certain
bases of his restoration, as to some points which he knew to excite
much apprehension in England. One of these was a free and general
pardon to all his subjects, saving only such as should be excepted by
parliament. It had always been the king's expectation, or at least
that of his chancellor, that all who had been immediately concerned in
his father's death should be delivered up to punishment;[523] and, in
the most unpropitious state of his fortunes, while making all
professions of pardon and favour to different parties, he had
constantly excepted the regicides.[524] Monk, however, had advised in
his first messages to the king, that none, or at most not above four,
should be excepted on this account;[525] and the Commons voted that
not more than seven persons should lose the benefit of the indemnity,
both as to life and estate.[526] Yet, after having named seven of the
late king's judges, they proceeded in a few days to add several more,
who had been concerned in managing his trial, or otherwise forward in
promoting his death.[527] They went on to pitch upon twenty persons,
whom, on account of their deep concern in the transactions of the last
twelve years, they determined to affect with penalties, not extending
to death, and to be determined by some future act of parliament.[528]
As their passions grew warmer, and the wishes of the court became
better known, they came to except from all benefit of the indemnity
such of the king's judges as had not rendered themselves to justice
according to the late proclamation.[529] In this state the bill of
indemnity and oblivion was sent up to the Lords.[530] But in that
house, the old royalists had a more decisive preponderance than among
the Commons. They voted to except all who had signed the death-warrant
against Charles the First, or sat when sentence was pronounced, and
five others by name, Hacker, Vane, Lambert, Haslerig, and Axtell. They
struck out, on the other hand, the clause reserving Lenthall and the
rest of the same class for future penalties. They made other
alterations in the bill to render it more severe;[531] and with these,
after a pretty long delay, and a positive message from the king,
requesting them to hasten their proceedings (an irregularity to which
they took no exception, and which in the eyes of the nation was
justified by the circumstances), they returned the bill to the
Commons.
The vindictive spirit displayed by the upper house was not agreeable
to the better temper of the Commons, where the presbyterian or
moderate party retained great influence. Though the king's judges
(such at least as had signed the death-warrant) were equally guilty,
it was consonant to the practice of all humane governments to make a
selection for capital penalties; and to put forty or fifty persons to
death for that offence, seemed a very sanguinary course of proceeding,
and not likely to promote the conciliation and oblivion so much cried
up. But there was a yet stronger objection to this severity. The king
had published a proclamation, in a few days after his landing,
commanding his father's judges to render themselves up within
fourteen days, on pain of being excepted from any pardon or indemnity,
either as to their lives or estates. Many had voluntarily come in,
having put an obvious construction on this proclamation. It seems to
admit of little question, that the king's faith was pledged to those
persons, and that no advantage could be taken of any ambiguity in the
proclamation, without as real perfidiousness as if the words had been
more express. They were at least entitled to be set at liberty, and to
have a reasonable time allowed for making their escape, if it were
determined to exclude them from the indemnity.[532] The Commons were
more mindful of the king's honour and their own than his nearest
advisers.[533] But the violent royalists were gaining ground among
them, and it ended in a compromise. They left Hacker and Axtell, who
had been prominently concerned in the king's death, to their fate.
They even admitted the exceptions of Vane and Lambert; contenting
themselves with a joint address of both houses to the king, that, if
they should be attainted, execution as to their lives might be
remitted. Haslerig was saved on a division of 141 to 116, partly
through the intercession of Monk, who had pledged his word to him.
Most of the king's judges were entirely excepted; but with a proviso
in favour of such as had surrendered according to the proclamation,
that the sentence should not be executed without a special act of
parliament.[534] Others were reserved for penalties not extending to
life, to be inflicted by a future act. About twenty enumerated
persons, as well as those who had pronounced sentence of death in any
of the late illegal high courts of justice, were rendered incapable of
any civil or military office. Thus after three months' delay, which
had given room to distrust the boasted clemency and forgiveness of the
victorious royalists, the act of indemnity was finally passed.
_Execution of regicides._--Ten persons suffered death soon afterwards
for the murder of Charles the First; and three more who had been
seized in Holland, after a considerable lapse of time.[535] There can
be no reasonable ground for censuring either the king or the
parliament for their punishment; except that Hugh Peters, though a
very odious fanatic, was not so directly implicated in the king's
death as many who escaped; and the execution of Scrope, who had
surrendered under the proclamation, was an inexcusable breach of
faith.[536] But nothing can be more sophistical than to pretend that
such men as Hollis and Annesley, who had been expelled from parliament
by the violence of the same faction who put the king to death, were
not to vote for their punishment, or to sit in judgment on them,
because they had sided with the Commons in the civil war.[537] It is
mentioned by many writers, and in the Journals, that when Mr.
Lenthall, son of the late speaker, in the very first days of the
convention parliament, was led to say that those who had levied war
against the king were as blamable as those who had cut off his head,
he received a reprimand from the chair, which the folly and dangerous
consequence of his position well deserved; for such language, though
it seems to have been used by him in extenuation of the regicides, was
quite in the tone of the violent royalists.[538]
_Restitution of crown and church lands._--A question, apparently far
more difficult, was that of restitution and redress. The Crown lands,
those of the church, the estates in certain instances of eminent
royalists, had been sold by the authority of the late usurpers; and
that not at very low rates, considering the precariousness of the
title. This naturally seemed a material obstacle to the restoration of
ancient rights, especially in the case of ecclesiastical corporations,
whom men are commonly less disposed to favour than private persons.
The clergy themselves had never expected that their estates would
revert to them in full propriety; and would probably have been
contented, at the moment of the king's return, to have granted easy
leases to the purchasers. Nor were the House of Commons, many of whom
were interested in these sales, inclined to let in the former owners
without conditions. A bill was accordingly brought into the house at
the beginning of the session to confirm sales, or to give indemnity to
the purchasers. I do not find its provisions more particularly stated.
The zeal of the royalists soon caused the Crown lands to be
excepted.[539] But the house adhered to the principle of composition
as to ecclesiastical property, and kept the bill a long time in
debate. At the adjournment in September, the chancellor told them, his
majesty had thought much upon the business, and done much for the
accommodation of many particular persons, and doubted not but that,
before they met again, a good progress would be made, so that the
persons concerned would be much to blame if they received not full
satisfaction; promising also to advise with some of the Commons as to
that settlement.[540] These expressions indicate a design to take the
matter out of the hands of parliament. For it was Hyde's firm
resolution to replace the church in the whole of its property, without
any other regard to the actual possessors than the right owners
should severally think it equitable to display. And this, as may be
supposed, proved very small. No further steps were taken on the
meeting of parliament after the adjournment; and by the dissolution
the parties were left to the common course of law. The church, the
Crown, the dispossessed royalists, re-entered triumphantly on their
lands; there were no means of repelling the owners' claim, nor any
satisfaction to be looked for by the purchasers under so defective a
title. It must be owned that the facility with which this was
accomplished, is a striking testimony to the strength of the new
government, and the concurrence of the nation. This is the more
remarkable, if it be true, as Ludlow informs us, that the chapter
lands had been sold by the trustees appointed by parliament at the
clear income of fifteen or seventeen years' purchase.[541]
_Discontent of the royalists._--The great body however of the
suffering cavaliers, who had compounded for their delinquency under
the ordinances of the Long Parliament, or whose estates had been for a
time in sequestration, found no remedy for these losses by any process
of law. The act of indemnity put a stop to any suits they might have
instituted against persons concerned in carrying these illegal
ordinances into execution. They were compelled to put up with their
poverty, having the additional mortification of seeing one class,
namely, the clergy, who had been engaged in the same cause, not alike
in their fortune, and many even of the vanquished republicans
undisturbed in wealth which, directly or indirectly, they deemed
acquired at their own expense.[542] They called the statute an act of
indemnity for the king's enemies, and of oblivion for his friends.
They murmured at the ingratitude of Charles, as if he were bound to
forfeit his honour and risk his throne for their sakes. They conceived
a deep hatred of Clarendon, whose steady adherence to the great
principles of the act of indemnity is the most honourable act of his
public life. And the discontent engendered by their disappointed hopes
led to some part of the opposition afterwards experienced by the king,
and still more certainly to the coalition against the minister.
_Settlement of the revenue._--No one cause had so eminently
contributed to the dissensions between the Crown and parliament in the
two last reigns, as the disproportion between the public revenues
under a rapidly increasing depreciation in the value of money, and the
exigencies, at least on some occasions, of the administration. There
could be no apology for the parsimonious reluctance of the Commons to
grant supplies, except the constitutional necessity of rendering them
the condition of redress of grievances; and in the present
circumstances, satisfied, as they seemed at least to be, with the
securities they had obtained, and enamoured of their new sovereign, it
was reasonable to make some further provision for the current
expenditure. Yet this was to be meted out with such prudence as not to
place him beyond the necessity of frequent recurrence to their aid. A
committee was accordingly appointed "to consider of settling such a
revenue on his majesty as may maintain the splendour and grandeur of
his kingly office, and preserve the Crown from want, and from being
undervalued by his neighbours." By their report it appeared that the
revenue of Charles I. from 1637 to 1641 had amounted on an average to
about £900,000, of which full £200,000 arose from sources either not
warranted by law or no longer available. The house resolved to raise
the present king's income to £1,200,000 per annum; a sum perhaps
sufficient in those times for the ordinary charges of government. But
the funds assigned to produce this revenue soon fell short of the
parliament's calculation.[543]
_Abolition of military tenures. Excise granted instead._--One ancient
fountain that had poured its stream into the royal treasury, it was
now determined to close up for ever. The feudal tenures had brought
with them at the conquest, or not long after, those incidents, as they
were usually called, or emoluments of signiory, which remained after
the military character of fiefs had been nearly effaced; especially
the right of detaining the estates of minors holding in chivalry,
without accounting for the profits. This galling burthen, incomparably
more ruinous to the tenant than beneficial to the lord, it had long
been determined to remove. Charles, at the treaty of Newport, had
consented to give it up for a fixed revenue of £100,000; and this was
almost the only part of that ineffectual compact which the present
parliament were anxious to complete. The king, though likely to lose
much patronage and influence, and what passed with lawyers for a high
attribute of his prerogative, could not decently refuse a commutation
so evidently advantageous to the aristocracy. No great difference of
opinion subsisting as to the expediency of taking away military
tenures, it remained only to decide from what resources the
commutation revenue should spring. Two schemes were suggested; the
one, a permanent tax on lands held in chivalry (which, as
distinguished from those in socage, were alone liable to the feudal
burthens); the other, an excise on beer and some other liquors. It is
evident that the former was founded on a just principle; while the
latter transferred a particular burthen to the community. But the
self-interest which so unhappily predominates even in representative
assemblies, with the aid of the courtiers who knew that an excise
increasing with the riches of the country was far more desirable for
the Crown than a fixed land-tax, caused the former to be carried,
though by the very small majority of two voices.[544] Yet even thus,
if the impoverishment of the gentry, and dilapidation of their estates
through the detestable abuses of wardship, was, as cannot be doubted,
very mischievous to the inferior classes, the whole community must be
reckoned gainers by the arrangement, though it might have been
conducted in a more equitable manner. The statute 12 Car. II. c. 24.
takes away the court of wards, with all wardships and forfeitures for
marriage by reason of tenure, all primer seisins, and fines for
alienation, aids, escuages, homages, and tenures by chivalry without
exception, save the honorary services of grand sergeanty; converting
all such tenures into common socage. The same statute abolishes those
famous rights of purveyance and pre-emption, the fruitful theme of so
many complaining parliaments; and this relief of the people from a
general burthen may serve in some measure as an apology for the
imposition of the excise. This act may be said to have wrought an
important change in the spirit of our constitution, by reducing what
is emphatically called the prerogative of the Crown, and which, by its
practical exhibition in these two vexatious exercises of power,
wardship, and purveyance, kept up in the minds of the people a more
distinct perception, as well as more awe, of the monarchy, than could
be felt in later periods, when it has become, as it were, merged in
the common course of law, and blended with the very complex mechanism
of our institutions. This great innovation however is properly to be
referred to the revolution of 1641, which put an end to the court of
star-chamber, and suspended the feudal superiorities. Hence, with all
the misconduct of the two last Stuarts, and all the tendency towards
arbitrary power that their government often displayed, we must
perceive that the constitution had put on, in a very great degree, its
modern character during that period; the boundaries of prerogative
were better understood; its pretensions, at least in public, were less
enormous; and not so many violent and oppressive, certainly not so
many illegal, acts were committed towards individuals as under the two
first of their family.
_Army disbanded._--In fixing upon £1,200,000 as a competent revenue
for the Crown, the Commons tacitly gave it to be understood that a
regular military force was not among the necessities for which they
meant to provide. They looked upon the army, notwithstanding its
recent services, with that apprehension and jealousy which becomes an
English House of Commons. They were still supporting it by monthly
assessments of £70,000, and could gain no relief by the king's
restoration till that charge came to an end. A bill therefore was sent
up to the Lords before their adjournment in September, providing money
for disbanding the land forces. This was done during the recess; the
soldiers received their arrears with many fair words of praise, and
the nation saw itself, with delight and thankfulness to the king,
released from its heavy burthens and the dread of servitude.[545] Yet
Charles had too much knowledge of foreign countries, where monarchy
flourished in all its plenitude of sovereign power under the guardian
sword of a standing army, to part readily with so favourite an
instrument of kings. Some of his counsellors, and especially the Duke
of York, dissuaded him from disbanding the army, or at least advised
his supplying its place by another. The unsettled state of the kingdom
after so momentous a revolution, the dangerous audacity of the
fanatical party, whose enterprises were the more to be guarded
against, that they were founded on no such calculation as reasonable
men would form, and of which the insurrection of Venner in November
1660 furnished an example, did undoubtedly appear a very plausible
excuse for something more of a military protection to the government
than yeomen of the guard and gentlemen pensioners. General Monk's
regiment, called the Coldstream, and one other of horse, were
accordingly retained by the king in his service; another was formed
out of troops brought from Dunkirk; and thus began, under the name of
guards, the present regular army of Great Britain.[546] In 1662 these
amounted to about 5000 men; a petty force according to our present
notions, or to the practice of other European monarchies in that age,
yet sufficient to establish an alarming precedent, and to open a new
source of contention between the supporters of power and those of
freedom.
So little essential innovation had been effected by twenty years'
interruption of the regular government in the common law or course of
judicial proceedings, that, when the king and House of Lords were
restored to their places, little more seemed to be requisite than a
change of names. But what was true of the state could not be applied
to the church. The revolution there had gone much farther, and the
questions of restoration and compromise were far more difficult.
_Clergy restored to their benefices._--It will be remembered that such
of the clergy as steadily adhered to the episcopal constitution had
been expelled from their benefices by the long parliament under
various pretexts, and chiefly for refusing to take the covenant. The
new establishment was nominally presbyterian. But the presbyterian
discipline and synodical government were very partially introduced;
and, upon the whole, the church, during the suspension of the ancient
laws, was rather an assemblage of congregations than a compact body,
having little more unity than resulted from their common dependency on
the temporal magistrate. In the time of Cromwell, who favoured the
independent sectaries, some of that denomination obtained livings; but
very few, I believe, comparatively, who had not received either
episcopal or presbyterian ordination. The right of private patronage
to benefices, and that of tithes, though continually menaced by the
more violent party, subsisted without alteration. Meanwhile the
episcopal ministers, though excluded from legal toleration along with
papists, by the instrument of government under which Cromwell
professed to hold his power, obtained, in general, a sufficient
indulgence for the exercise of their function.[547] Once, indeed, on
discovery of the royalist conspiracy in 1655, he published a severe
ordinance, forbidding every ejected minister or fellow of a college to
act as domestic chaplain or schoolmaster. But this was coupled with a
promise to show as much tenderness as might consist with the safety of
the nation towards such of the said persons as should give testimony
of their good affection to the government; and, in point of fact, this
ordinance was so far from being rigorously observed, that episcopalian
conventicles were openly kept in London.[548] Cromwell was of a really
tolerant disposition, and there had perhaps, on the whole, been no
period of equal duration wherein the catholics themselves suffered so
little molestation as under the protectorate.[549] It is well known
that he permitted the settlement of Jews in England, after an
exclusion of nearly three centuries, in spite of the denunciations of
some bigoted churchmen and lawyers.
_Hopes of the presbyterians from the king._--The presbyterian clergy,
though co-operating in the king's restoration, experienced very just
apprehensions of the church they had supplanted; and this was in fact
one great motive of the restrictions that party was so anxious to
impose on him. His character and sentiments were yet very imperfectly
known in England; and much pains were taken on both sides, by short
pamphlets, panegyrical or defamatory, to represent him as the best
Englishman and best protestant of the age, or as one given up to
profligacy and popery.[550] The caricature likeness was, we must now
acknowledge, more true than the other; but at that time it was fair
and natural to dwell on the more pleasing picture. The presbyterians
remembered that he was what they called a covenanted king; that is,
that, for the sake of the assistance of the Scots, he had submitted to
all the obligations, and taken all the oaths, they thought fit to
impose.[551] But it was well known that, on the failure of those
prospects, he had returned to the church of England, and that he was
surrounded by its zealous adherents. Charles, in his declaration from
Breda, promised to grant liberty of conscience, so that no man should
be disquieted or called in question for differences of opinion in
matters of religion which do not disturb the peace of the kingdom, and
to consent to such acts of parliament as should be offered for him for
confirming that indulgence. But he was silent as to the church
establishment; and the presbyterian ministers, who went over to
present the congratulations of their body, met with civil language,
but no sort of encouragement to expect any personal compliance on the
king's part with their mode of worship.
_Projects for a compromise._--The moderate party in the convention
parliament, though not absolutely of the presbyterian interest, saw
the danger of permitting an oppressed body of churchmen to regain
their superiority without some restraint. The actual incumbents of
benefices were, on the whole, a respectable and even exemplary class,
most of whom could not be reckoned answerable for the legal defects of
their title. But the ejected ministers of the Anglican church, who had
endured for their attachment to its discipline and to the Crown so
many years of poverty and privation, stood in a still more favourable
light, and had an evident claim to restoration. The Commons
accordingly, before the king's return, prepared a bill for confirming
and restoring ministers; with the twofold object of replacing in their
benefices, but without their legal right to the intermediate profits,
the episcopal clergy who by ejection or forced surrender had made way
for intruders, and at the same time of establishing the possession,
though originally usurped, of those against whom there was no claimant
living to dispute it, as well as of those who had been presented on
legal vacancies.[552] This act did not pass without opposition of the
cavaliers, who panted to retaliate the persecution that had afflicted
their church.[553]
This legal security however for the enjoyment of their livings gave no
satisfaction to the scruples of conscientious men. The episcopal
discipline, the Anglican liturgy and ceremonies having never been
abrogated by law, revived of course with the constitutional monarchy;
and brought with them all the penalties that the act of uniformity and
other statutes had inflicted. The nonconforming clergy threw
themselves on the king's compassion, or gratitude, or policy, for
relief. The independents, too irreconcilable to the established church
for any scheme of comprehension, looked only to that liberty of
conscience which the king's declaration from Breda had held
forth.[554] But the presbyterians soothed themselves with hopes of
retaining their benefices by some compromise with their adversaries.
They had never, generally speaking, embraced the rigid principles of
the Scottish clergy, and were willing to admit what they called a
moderate episcopacy. They offered, accordingly, on the king's request
to know their terms, a middle scheme, usually denominated Bishop
Usher's Model; not as altogether approving it, but because they could
not hope for anything nearer to their own views. This consisted,
first, in the appointment of a suffragan bishop for each rural
deanery, holding a monthly synod of the presbyters within his
district; and, secondly, in an annual diocesan synod of suffragans and
representatives of the presbyters, under the presidency of the bishop,
and deciding upon all matters before them by plurality of
suffrages.[555] This is, I believe, considered by most competent
judges as approaching more nearly than our own system to the usage of
the primitive church, which gave considerable influence and
superiority of rank to the bishop, without destroying the
aristocratical character and co-ordinate jurisdiction of the
ecclesiastical senate.[556] It lessened also the inconveniences
supposed to result from the great extent of some English dioceses.
But, though such a system was inconsistent with that parity which the
rigid presbyterians maintained to be indispensable, and those who
espoused it are reckoned, in a theological division, among
episcopalians, it was, in the eyes of equally rigid churchmen, little
better than a disguised presbytery, and a real subversion of the
Anglican hierarchy.[557]
The presbyterian ministers, or rather a few eminent persons of that
class, proceeded to solicit a revision of the liturgy, and a
consideration of the numerous objections which they made to certain
passages, while they admitted the lawfulness of a prescribed form.
They implored the king also to abolish, or at least not to enjoin as
necessary, some of those ceremonies which they scrupled to use, and
which in fact had been the original cause of their schism; the
surplice, the cross in baptism, the practice of kneeling at the
communion, and one or two more. A tone of humble supplication pervades
all their language, which some might invidiously contrast with their
unbending haughtiness in prosperity. The bishops and other Anglican
divines, to whom their propositions were referred, met the offer of
capitulation with a scornful and vindictive smile. They held out not
the least overture towards a compromise.
The king however deemed it expedient, during the continuance of a
parliament, the majority of whom were desirous of union in the church,
and had given some indications of their disposition,[558] to keep up
the delusion a little longer, and prevent the possible consequences of
despair. He had already appointed several presbyterian ministers his
chaplains, and given them frequent audiences. But during the recess of
parliament he published a declaration, wherein, after some compliments
to the ministers of the presbyterian opinion, and an artful expression
of satisfaction that he had found them no enemies to episcopacy or a
liturgy, as they had been reported to be, he announces his intention
to appoint a sufficient number of suffragan bishops in the larger
dioceses; he promises that no bishop should ordain or exercise any
part of his spiritual jurisdiction without advice and assistance of
his presbyters; that no chancellors or officials of the bishops should
use any jurisdiction over the ministry, nor any archdeacon without the
advice of a council of his clergy; that the dean and chapter of the
diocese, together with an equal number of presbyters, annually chosen
by the clergy, should be always advising and assisting at all
ordinations, church censures, and other important acts of spiritual
jurisdiction. He declared also that he would appoint an equal number
of divines of both persuasions to revise the liturgy; desiring that in
the meantime none would wholly lay it aside, yet promising that no one
should be molested for not using it till it should be reviewed and
reformed. With regard to ceremonies, he declared that none should be
compelled to receive the sacrament kneeling, nor to use the cross in
baptism, nor to bow at the name of Jesus, nor to wear the surplice,
except in the royal chapel and in cathedrals, nor should subscription
to articles not doctrinal be required. He renewed also his declaration
from Breda, that no man should be called in question for differences
of religious opinion, not disturbing the peace of the kingdom.[559]
Though many of the presbyterian party deemed this modification of
Anglican episcopacy a departure from their notions of an apostolic
church, and inconsistent with their covenant, the majority would
doubtless have acquiesced in so extensive a concession from the ruling
power. If faithfully executed, according to its apparent meaning, it
does not seem that the declaration falls very short of their own
proposal, the scheme of Usher.[560] The high churchmen indeed would
have murmured, had it been made effectual. But such as were nearest
the king's councils well knew that nothing else was intended by it
than to scatter dust in men's eyes, and prevent the interference of
parliament. This was soon rendered manifest, when a bill to render the
king's declaration effectual was vigorously opposed by the courtiers,
and rejected on a second reading by 183 to 157.[561] Nothing could
more forcibly demonstrate an intention of breaking faith with the
presbyterians than this vote. For the king's declaration was repugnant
to the act of uniformity and many other statutes, so that it could not
be carried into effect without the authority of parliament, unless by
means of such a general dispensing power as no parliament would
endure.[562] And it is impossible to question that a bill for
confirming it would have easily passed through this House of Commons,
had it not been for the resistance of the government.
_Convention parliament dissolved._--Charles now dissolved the
convention parliament, having obtained from it what was immediately
necessary, but well aware that he could better accomplish his objects
with another. It was studiously inculcated by the royalist lawyers
that as this assembly had not been summoned by the king's writ, none
of its acts could have any real validity, except by the confirmation
of a true parliament.[563] This doctrine being applicable to the act
of indemnity left the kingdom in a precarious condition till an
undeniable security could be obtained, and rendered the dissolution
almost necessary. Another parliament was called of very different
composition from the last. Possession and the standing ordinances
against royalists had enabled the secluded members of 1648, that is,
the adherents of the long parliament, to stem with some degree of
success the impetuous tide of loyalty in the last elections, and put
them almost upon an equality with the court. But, in the new assembly,
cavaliers, and the sons of cavaliers, entirely predominated; the great
families, the ancient gentry, the episcopal clergy, resumed their
influence; the presbyterians and sectarians feared to have their
offences remembered; so that we may rather be surprised that about
fifty or sixty who had belonged to the opposite side found places in
such a parliament, than that its general complexion should be
decidedly royalist. The presbyterian faction seemed to lie prostrate
at the feet of those on whom they had so long triumphed, without any
force of arms or civil convulsion, as if the king had been brought in
against their will. Nor did the cavaliers fail to treat them as
enemies to monarchy, though it was notorious that the restoration was
chiefly owing to their endeavours.[564]
_Different complexion of the new parliament._--The new parliament gave
the first proofs of their disposition by voting that all their members
should receive the sacrament on a certain day according to the rites
of the church of England, and that the solemn league and covenant
should be burned by the common hangman.[565] They excited still more
serious alarm by an evident reluctance to confirm the late act of
indemnity, which the king at the opening of the session had pressed
upon their attention. Those who had suffered the sequestrations and
other losses of a vanquished party, could not endure to abandon what
they reckoned a just reparation. But Clarendon adhered with equal
integrity and prudence to this fundamental principle of the
restoration; and, after a strong message from the king on the subject,
the Commons were content to let the bill pass with no new
exceptions.[566] They gave indeed some relief to the ruined
cavaliers, by voting £60,000 to be distributed among that class; but
so inadequate a compensation did not assuage their discontents.
_Condemnation of Vane._--It has been mentioned above, that the late
House of Commons had consented to the exception of Vane and Lambert
from indemnity on the king's promise that they should not suffer
death. They had lain in the Tower accordingly, without being brought
to trial. The regicides who had come in under the proclamation were
saved from capital punishment by the former act of indemnity. But the
present parliament abhorred this lukewarm lenity. A bill was brought
in for the execution of the king's judges in the Tower; and the
attorney-general was requested to proceed against Vane and
Lambert.[567] The former was dropped in the House of Lords; but those
formidable chiefs of the commonwealth were brought to trial. Their
indictments alleged as overt acts of high treason against Charles II.
their exercise of civil and military functions under the usurping
government; though not, as far as appears, expressly directed against
the king's authority, and certainly not against his person. Under such
an accusation, many who had been the most earnest in the king's
restoration might have stood at the bar. Thousands might apply to
themselves, in the case of Vane, the beautiful expressions of Mrs.
Hutchinson, as to her husband's feelings at the death of the
regicides, that he looked on himself as judged in their judgment and
executed in their execution. The stroke fell upon one, the reproach
upon many.
The condemnation of Sir Henry Vane was very questionable even
according to the letter of the law. It was plainly repugnant to its
spirit. An excellent statute enacted under Henry VII., and deemed by
some great writers to be only declaratory of the common law, but
occasioned, no doubt, by some harsh judgments of treason which had
been pronounced during the late competition of the house of York and
Lancaster, assured a perfect indemnity to all persons obeying a king
for the time being, however defective his title might come to be
considered, when another claimant should gain possession of the
throne. It established the duty of allegiance to the existing
government upon a general principle; but in its terms it certainly
presumed that government to be a monarchy. This furnished the judges
upon the trial of Vane with a distinction, of which they willingly
availed themselves. They proceeded however beyond all bounds of
constitutional precedents and of common sense, when they determined
that Charles the Second had been king _de facto_ as well as _de jure_
from the moment of his father's death, though, in the words of their
senseless sophistry, "kept out of the exercise of his royal authority
by traitors and rebels." He had indeed assumed the title during his
exile, and had granted letters patent for different purposes, which it
was thought proper to hold good after his restoration; thus presenting
the strange anomaly, and as it were contradiction in terms, of a king
who began to govern in the twelfth year of his reign. But this had not
been the usage of former times. Edward IV., Richard III., Henry VII.,
had dated their instruments either from their proclamation, or at
least from some act of possession. The question was not whether a
right to the Crown descended according to the laws of inheritance; but
whether such a right, divested of possession, could challenge
allegiance as a bounden duty by the law of England. This is expressly
determined in the negative by Lord Coke in his third Institute, who
maintains a king "that hath right, and is out of possession," not to
be within the statute of treasons. He asserts also that a pardon
granted by him would be void; which by parity of reasoning must extend
to all his patents.[568] We may consider therefore the execution of
Vane as one of the most reprehensible actions of this bad reign. It
not only violated the assurance of indemnity, but introduced a
principle of sanguinary proscription, which would render the return of
what is called legitimate government, under any circumstances, an
intolerable curse to a nation.[569]
The king violated his promise by the execution of Vane, as much as the
judges strained the law by his conviction. He had assured the last
parliament, in answer to their address, that, if Vane and Lambert
should be attainted by law he would not suffer the sentence to be
executed. Though the present parliament had urged the attorney-general
to bring these delinquents to trial, they had never, by an address to
the king, given him a colour for retracting his promise of mercy. It
is worthy of notice that Clarendon does not say a syllable about
Vane's trial; which affords a strong presumption that he thought it a
breach of the act of indemnity. But we have on record a remarkable
letter of the king to his minister, wherein he expresses his
resentment at Vane's bold demeanour during his trial, and intimates a
wish for his death, though with some doubts whether it could be
honourably done.[570] Doubts of such a nature never lasted long with
this prince; and Vane suffered the week after. Lambert, whose
submissive behaviour had furnished a contrast with that of Vane, was
sent to Guernsey; and remained a prisoner for thirty years. The
royalists have spoken of Vane with extreme dislike; yet it should be
remembered that he was not only incorrupt, but disinterested,
inflexible in conforming his public conduct to his principles, and
averse to every sanguinary or oppressive measure: qualities not very
common in revolutionary chiefs, and which honourably distinguished him
from the Lamberts and Haslerigs of his party.[571]
_Acts replacing the Crown in its prerogatives._--No time was lost, as
might be expected from the temper of the Commons, in replacing the
throne on its constitutional basis after the rude encroachments of the
long parliament. They declared that there was no legislative power in
either or both houses without the king; that the league and covenant
was unlawfully imposed; that the sole supreme command of the militia,
and of all forces by sea and land, had ever been by the laws of
England the undoubted right of the Crown; that neither house of
parliament could pretend to it, nor could lawfully levy any war
offensive or defensive against his majesty.[572] These last words
appeared to go to a dangerous length, and to sanction the suicidal
doctrine of absolute non-resistance. They made the law of high treason
more strict during the king's life in pursuance of a precedent in the
reign of Elizabeth.[573] They restored the bishops to their seats in
the House of Lords; a step which the last parliament would never have
been induced to take, but which met with little opposition from the
present.[574] The violence that had attended their exclusion seemed a
sufficient motive for rescinding a statute so improperly obtained,
even if the policy of maintaining the spiritual peers were somewhat
doubtful. The remembrance of those tumultuous assemblages which had
overawed their predecessors in the winter of 1641, and at other times,
produced a law against disorderly petitions. This statute provides
that no petition or address shall be presented to the king or either
house of parliament by more than ten persons; nor shall any one
procure above twenty persons to consent or set their hands to any
petition for alteration of matters established by law in church or
state, unless with the previous order of three justices of the county,
or the major part of the grand jury.[575]
_Corporation act._--Thus far the new parliament might be said to have
acted chiefly on a principle of repairing the breaches recently made
in our constitution, and of re-establishing the just boundaries of the
executive power; nor would much objection have been offered to their
measures, had they gone no farther in the same course. The act for
regulating corporations is much more questionable, and displayed a
determination to exclude a considerable portion of the community from
their civil rights. It enjoined all magistrates and persons bearing
offices of trust in corporations to swear that they believed it
unlawful, on any pretence whatever, to take arms against the king, and
that they abhorred the traitorous position of bearing arms by his
authority against his person, or against those that are commissioned
by him. They were also to renounce all obligation arising out of the
oath called the solemn league and covenant; in case of refusal, to be
immediately removed from office. Those elected in future were, in
addition to the same oaths, to have received the sacrament within one
year before their election according to the rites of the English
church.[576] These provisions struck at the heart of the presbyterian
party, whose strength lay in the little oligarchies of corporate
towns, which directly or indirectly returned to parliament a very
large proportion of its members. Yet it rarely happens that a
political faction is crushed by the terrors of an oath. Many of the
more rigid presbyterians refused the conditions imposed by this act;
but the majority found pretexts for qualifying themselves.
_Repeal of the triennial act._--It could not yet be said that this
loyal assembly had meddled with those safeguards of public liberty
which had been erected by their great predecessors in 1641. The laws
that Falkland and Hampden had combined to provide, those bulwarks
against the ancient exorbitance of prerogative, stood unscathed;
threatened from afar, but not yet betrayed by the garrison. But one of
these, the bill for triennial parliaments, wounded the pride of
royalty, and gave scandal to his worshippers; not so much on account
of its object, as of the securities provided against its violation. If
the king did not summon a fresh parliament within three years after a
dissolution, the peers were to meet and issue writs of their own
accord; if they did not within a certain time perform this duty, the
sheriffs of every county were to take it on themselves; and, in
default of all constituted authorities the electors might assemble
without any regular summons to choose representatives. It was manifest
that the king must have taken a fixed resolution to trample on a
fundamental law, before these irregular tumultuous modes of redress
could be called into action; and that the existence of such provisions
could not in any degree weaken or endanger the legal and limited
monarchy. But the doctrine of passive obedience had now crept from the
homilies into the statute-book; the parliament had not scrupled to
declare the unlawfulness of defensive war against the king's person;
and it was but one step more to take away all direct means of
counteracting his pleasure. Bills were accordingly more than once
ordered to be brought in for repealing the triennial act; but no
further steps were taken till the king thought it at length necessary
in the year 1664 to give them an intimation of his desires.[577] A
vague notion had partially gained ground that no parliament, by virtue
of that bill, could sit for more than three years. In allusion to
this, he told them, on opening the session of 1664, that he "had often
read over that bill; and, though there was no colour for the fancy of
the determination of the parliament, yet he would not deny that he had
always expected them to consider the wonderful clauses in that bill,
which passed in a time very uncareful for the dignity of the Crown or
the security of the people. He requested them to look again at it. For
himself, he loved parliaments; he was much beholden to them; he did
not think the Crown could ever be happy without frequent parliaments.
But assure yourselves," he concluded, "if I should think otherwise I
would never suffer a parliament to come together by the means
prescribed by that bill."[578]
So audacious a declaration, equivalent to an avowed design, in certain
circumstances, of preventing the execution of the laws by force of
arms, was never before heard from the lips of an English king; and
would in any other times have awakened a storm of indignation from the
Commons. They were however sufficiently compliant to pass a bill for
the repeal of that which had been enacted with unanimous consent in
1641, and had been hailed as the great palladium of constitutional
monarchy. The preamble recites the said act to have been "in
derogation of his majesty's just rights and prerogative inherent in
the imperial Crown of this realm for the calling and assembling of
parliaments." The bill then repeals and annuls every clause and
article in the fullest manner; yet, with an inconsistency not unusual
in our statutes, adds a provision that parliaments shall not in future
be intermitted for above three years at the most. This clause is
evidently framed in a different spirit from the original bill, and may
be attributed to the influence of that party in the house, which had
begun to oppose the court, and already showed itself in considerable
strength.[579] Thus the effect of this compromise was, that the law of
the long parliament subsisted as to its principle, without those
unusual clauses which had been enacted to render its observance
secure. The king assured them, in giving his assent to the repeal,
that he would not be a day more without a parliament on that account.
But the necessity of those securities, and the mischiefs of that false
and servile loyalty which abrogated them, became manifest at the close
of the present reign; nearly four years having elapsed between the
dissolution of Charles's last parliament and his death.
Clarendon, the principal adviser, as yet, of the king since his
restoration (for Southampton rather gave reputation to the
administration than took that superior influence which belonged to his
place of treasurer), has thought fit to stigmatise the triennial bill
with the epithet of infamous. So wholly had he divested himself of the
sentiments he entertained at the beginning of the long parliament that
he sought nothing more ardently than to place the Crown again in a
condition to run into those abuses and excesses against which he had
once so much inveighed. "He did never dissemble," he says, "from the
time of his return with the king, that the late rebellion could never
be extirpated and pulled up by the roots till the king's regal and
inherent power and prerogative should be fully avowed and vindicated,
and till the usurpations in both houses of parliament, since the year
1640, were disclaimed and made odious; and many other excesses, which
had been affected by both before that time under the name of
privileges, should be restrained or explained. For all which
reformation the kingdom in general was very well disposed, when it
pleased God to restore the king to it. The present parliament had done
much, and would willingly have prosecuted the same method, if they had
had the same advice and encouragement."[580] I can only understand
these words to mean that they might have been led to repeal other
statutes of the long parliament, besides the triennial act, and that
excluding the bishops from the House of Peers; but more especially, to
have restored the two great levers of prerogative, the courts of
star-chamber and high-commission. This would indeed have pulled up by
the roots the work of the long parliament, which, in spite of such
general reproach, still continued to shackle the revived monarchy.
There had been some serious attempts at this in the House of Lords
during the session of 1661-2. We read in the Journals[581] that a
committee was appointed to prepare a bill for repealing all acts made
in the parliament begun the 3rd day of November 1640, and for
re-enacting such of them as should be thought fit. This committee some
time after[582] reported their opinion, "that it was fit for the good
of the nation, that there be a court of like nature to the late court
called the star-chamber; but desired the advice and directions of the
house in these particulars following: Who should be judges? What
matters should they be judges of? By what manner of proceedings should
they act?" The house, it is added, thought it not fit to give any
particular directions therein, but left it to the committee to proceed
as they would. It does not appear that anything further was done in
this session; but we find the bill of repeal revived next year.[583]
It is however only once mentioned. Perhaps it may be questionable
whether, even amidst the fervid loyalty of 1661, the House of Commons
would have concurred in re-establishing the star-chamber. They had
taken marked precautions in passing an act for the restoration of
ecclesiastical jurisdiction, that it should not be construed to
restore the high-commission court, or to give validity to the canons
of 1640, or to enlarge in any manner the ancient authority of the
church.[584] A tribunal still more formidable and obnoxious would
hardly have found favour with a body of men, who, as their behaviour
shortly demonstrated, might rather be taxed with passion and
vindictiveness towards a hostile faction, than a deliberate
willingness to abandon their English rights and privileges.
The striking characteristic of this parliament was a zealous and
intolerant attachment to the established church, not losing an atom of
their aversion to popery in their abhorrence of protestant dissent. In
every former parliament since the reformation, the country party (if I
may use such a word, by anticipation, for those gentlemen of landed
estates who owed their seats to their provincial importance, as
distinguished from courtiers, lawyers, and dependents on the
nobility), had incurred with rigid churchmen the reproach of
puritanical affections. They were implacable against popery, but
disposed to far more indulgence with respect to nonconformity than the
very different maxims of Elizabeth and her successors would permit.
Yet it is obvious that the puritan Commons of James I. and the high
church Commons of Charles II. were composed, in a great measure, of
the same families, and entirely of the same classes. But, as the
arrogance of the prelates had excited indignation, and the sufferings
of the scrupulous clergy begotten sympathy in one age, so the reversed
scenes of the last twenty years had given to the former, or their
adherents, the advantage of enduring oppression with humility and
fortitude, and displayed in the latter, or at least many of their
number, those odious and malevolent qualities which adversity had
either concealed or rendered less dangerous. The gentry, connected for
the most part by birth or education with the episcopal clergy, could
not for an instant hesitate between the ancient establishment, and one
composed of men whose eloquence in preaching was chiefly directed
towards the common people, and presupposed a degree of enthusiasm in
the hearer which the higher classes rarely possessed. They dreaded the
wilder sectaries, foes to property, or at least to its political
influence, as much as to the regal constitution; and not unnaturally,
though without perfect fairness, confounded the presbyterian or
moderate nonconformist in the motley crowd of fanatics, to many of
whose tenets he at least more approximated than the church of England
minister.
_Presbyterians deceived by the king._--There is every reason to
presume, as I have already remarked, that the king had no intention
but to deceive the presbyterians and their friends in the convention
parliament by his declaration of October 1660.[585] He proceeded,
after the dissolution of that assembly, to fill up the number of
bishops, who had been reduced to nine, but with no further mention of
suffragans, or of the council of presbyters, which had been announced
in that declaration.[586] It does indeed appear highly probable that
this scheme of Usher would have been found inconvenient and even
impracticable; and reflecting men would perhaps be apt to say that the
usage of primitive antiquity, upon which all parties laid so much
stress, was rather a presumptive argument against the adoption of any
system of church-government, in circumstances so widely different,
than in favour of it. But inconvenient and impracticable provisions
carry with them their own remedy; and the king might have respected
his own word, and the wishes of a large part of the church, without
any formidable danger to episcopal authority. It would have been,
however, too flagrant a breach of promise (and yet hardly greater than
that just mentioned) if some show had not been made of desiring a
reconciliation on the subordinate details of religious ceremonies and
the liturgy. This produced a conference held at the Savoy, in May
1661, between twenty-one Anglican and as many presbyterian divines:
the latter were called upon to propose their objections; it being the
part of the others to defend. They brought forward so long a list as
seemed to raise little hope of agreement. Some of these objections to
the service, as may be imagined, were rather captious and
hypercritical; yet in many cases they pointed out real defects. As to
ceremonies, they dwelt on the same scruples as had from the beginning
of Elizabeth's reign produced so unhappy a discordance, and had become
inveterate by so much persecution. The conference was managed with
great mutual bitterness and recrimination; the one party stimulated by
vindictive hatred and the natural arrogance of power; the other
irritated by the manifest design of breaking the king's faith, and
probably by a sense of their own improvidence in ruining themselves by
his restoration. The chief blame, it cannot be dissembled, ought to
fall on the churchmen. An opportunity was afforded of healing, in a
very great measure, that schism and separation which, if they are to
be believed, is one of the worst evils that can befall a christian
community. They had it in their power to retain, or to expel, a vast
number of worthy and laborious ministers of the gospel, with whom they
had, in their own estimation, no essential ground of difference. They
knew the king, and consequently themselves, to have been restored with
(I might almost say by) the strenuous co-operation of those very men
who were now at their mercy. To judge by the rules of moral wisdom, or
of the spirit of Christianity (to which, notwithstanding what might be
satirically said of experience, it is difficult not to think we have a
right to expect that a body of ecclesiastics should pay some
attention), there can be no justification for the Anglican party on
this occasion. They have certainly one apology, the best very
frequently that can be offered for human infirmity; they had sustained
a long and unjust exclusion from the emoluments of their profession,
which begot a natural dislike towards the members of the sect that had
profited at their expense, though not, in general, personally
responsible for their misfortunes.[587]
The Savoy conference broke up in anger, each party more exasperated
and more irreconcilable than before. This indeed has been the usual
consequence of attempts to bring men to an understanding on religious
differences by explanation or compromise. The public is apt to expect
too much from these discussions; unwilling to believe either that
those who have a reputation for piety can be wanting in desire to find
the truth, or that those who are esteemed for ability can miss it. And
this expectation is heightened by the language rather too strongly
held by moderate and peaceable divines, that little more is required
than an understanding of each other's meaning, to unite conflicting
sects in a common faith. But as it generally happens that the disputes
of theologians, though far from being so important as they appear to
the narrow prejudices and heated passions of the combatants, are not
wholly nominal, or capable of being reduced to a common form of words,
the hopes of union and settlement vanish upon that closer enquiry
which conferences and schemes of agreement produce. And though this
may seem rather applicable to speculative controversies than to such
matters as were debated between the church and the presbyterians at
the Savoy conference, and which are in their nature more capable of
compromise than articles of doctrine; yet the consequence of
exhibiting the incompatibility and reciprocal alienation of the two
parties in a clearer light was nearly the same.
A determination having been taken to admit of no extensive
comprehension, it was debated by the government whether to make a few
alterations in the liturgy, or to restore the ancient service in every
particular. The former advice prevailed, though with no desire or
expectation of conciliating any scrupulous persons by the amendments
introduced.[588] These were by no means numerous, and in some
instances rather chosen in order to irritate and mock the opposite
party than from any compliance with their prejudices. It is indeed
very probable, from the temper of the new parliament, that they would
not have come into more tolerant and healing measures.
_Act of uniformity._--When the act of uniformity was brought into the
House of Lords, it was found not only to restore all the ceremonies
and other matters to which objection had been taken, but to contain
fresh clauses more intolerable than the rest to the presbyterian
clergy. One of these enacted that not only every beneficed minister,
but fellow of a college, or even schoolmaster, should declare his
unfeigned assent and consent to all and everything contained in the
book of common prayer.[589] These words, however capable of being
eluded and explained away, as such subscriptions always are, seemed to
amount, in common use of language, to a complete approbation of an
entire volume, such as a man of sense hardly gives to any book, and
which, at a time when scrupulous persons were with great difficulty
endeavouring to reconcile themselves to submission, placed a new
stumbling-block in their way, which, without abandoning their
integrity, they found it impossible to surmount.
The malignity of those who chiefly managed church affairs at this
period displayed itself in another innovation tending to the same end.
It had been not unusual, from the very beginnings of our reformation,
to admit ministers ordained in foreign protestant churches to
benefices in England. No re-ordination had ever been practised with
respect to those who had received the imposition of hands in a regular
church; and hence it appears that the church of England, whatever
tenets might latterly have been broached in controversy, did not
consider the ordination of presbyters invalid. Though such ordinations
as had taken place during the late troubles, and by virtue of which a
great part of the actual clergy were in possession, were evidently
irregular, on the supposition that the English episcopal church was
then in existence; yet, if the argument from such great convenience
as men call necessity was to prevail, it was surely worth while to
suffer them to pass without question for the present, enacting
provisions, if such were required, for the future. But this did not
fall in with the passion and policy of the bishops, who found a
pretext for their worldly motives of action in the supposed divine
right and necessity of episcopal succession; a theory naturally more
agreeable to arrogant and dogmatical ecclesiastics than that of
Cranmer, who saw no intrinsic difference between bishops and priests;
or of Hooker, who thought ecclesiastical superiorities, like civil,
subject to variation; or of Stillingfleet, who had lately pointed out
the impossibility of ascertaining beyond doubtful conjecture the real
constitution of the apostolical church, from the scanty, inconclusive
testimonies that either Scripture or antiquity furnish. It was
therefore enacted in the statute for uniformity, that no person should
hold any preferment in England, without having received episcopal
ordination. There seems to be little or no objection to this
provision, if ordination be considered as a ceremony of admission into
a particular society; but, according to the theories which both
parties had embraced in that age, it conferred a sort of mysterious
indelible character, which rendered its repetition improper.[590]
_Ejection of nonconformist clergy._--The new act of uniformity
succeeded to the utmost wishes of its promoters. It provided that
every minister should, before the feast of St. Bartholomew, 1662,
publicly declare his assent and consent to everything contained in the
book of common prayer, on pain of being _ipso facto_ deprived of his
benefice.[591] Though even the long parliament had reserved a fifth
of the profits to those who were ejected for refusing the covenant, no
mercy could be obtained from the still greater bigotry of the present;
and a motion to make that allowance to nonconforming ministers was
lost by 94 to 87.[592] The Lords had shown a more temperate spirit,
and made several alterations of a conciliating nature. They objected
to extending the subscription required by the act to schoolmasters.
But the Commons urged in a conference the force of education, which
made it necessary to take care for the youth. The upper house even
inserted a proviso, allowing the king to dispense with the surplice
and the sign of the cross; but the Commons resolutely withstanding
this and every other alteration, they were all given up.[593] Yet next
year, when it was found necessary to pass an act for the relief of
those who had been prevented involuntarily from subscribing the
declaration in due time, a clause was introduced, declaring that the
assent and consent to the book of common prayer required by the said
act should be understood only as to practice and obedience, and not
otherwise. The Duke of York and twelve lay peers protested against
this clause, as destructive to the church of England as now
established; and the Commons vehemently objecting to it, the partisans
of moderate councils gave way as before.[594] When the day of St.
Bartholomew came, about 2000 persons resigned their preferments rather
than stain their consciences by compliance--an act to which the more
liberal Anglicans, after the bitterness of immediate passions had
passed away, have accorded that praise which is due to heroic virtue
in an enemy. It may justly be said that the episcopal clergy had set
an example of similar magnanimity in refusing to take the covenant.
Yet, as that was partly of a political nature, and those who were
ejected for not taking it might hope to be restored through the
success of the king's arms, I do not know that it was altogether so
eminent an act of self-devotion as the presbyterian clergy displayed
on St. Bartholomew's day. Both of them afford striking contrasts to
the pliancy of the English church in the greater question of the
preceding century, and bear witness to a remarkable integrity and
consistency of principle.[595]
No one who has any sense of honesty and plain dealing can pretend that
Charles did not violate the spirit of his declarations, both that from
Breda, and that which he published in October 1660. It is idle to say
that those declarations were subject to the decision of parliament, as
if the Crown had no sort of influence in that assembly, nor even any
means of making its inclinations known. He had urged them to confirm
the act of indemnity, wherein he thought his honour and security
concerned: was it less easy to obtain, or at least to ask for, their
concurrence in a comprehension or toleration of the presbyterian
clergy? Yet, after mocking those persons with pretended favour, and
even offering bishoprics to some of their number, by way of purchasing
their defection, the king made no effort to mitigate the provisions of
the act of uniformity; and Clarendon strenuously supported them
through both houses of parliament.[596] This behaviour in the minister
sprung from real bigotry and dislike of the presbyterians; but Charles
was influenced by a very different motive, which had become the secret
spring of all his policy. This requires to be fully explained.
_Hopes of the catholics._--Charles, during his misfortunes, had made
repeated promises to the pope and the great catholic princes of
relaxing the penal laws against his subjects of that religion--promises
which he well knew to be the necessary condition of their assistance.
And, though he never received any succour which could demand the
performance of these assurances, his desire to stand well with France
and Spain, as well as a sense of what was really due to the English
catholics, would have disposed him to grant every indulgence which
the temper of his people should permit. The laws were highly severe,
in some cases sanguinary; they were enacted in very different times,
from plausible motives of distrust, which it would be now both absurd
and ungrateful to retain. The catholics had been the most strenuous of
the late king's adherents, the greatest sufferers for their loyalty.
Out of about 500 gentlemen who lost their lives in the royal cause,
one-third, it has been said, were of that religion.[597] Their estates
had been selected for confiscation, when others had been admitted to
compound. It is however certain that after the conclusion of the war,
and especially during the usurpation of Cromwell, they declined in
general to provoke a government which showed a good deal of connivance
towards their religion by keeping up any connection with the exiled
family.[598] They had, as was surely very natural, one paramount
object in their political conduct, the enjoyment of religious liberty;
whatever debt of gratitude they might have owed to Charles I. had been
amply paid; and perhaps they might reflect that he had never scrupled,
in his various negotiations with the parliament, to acquiesce in any
prescriptive measures suggested against popery. This apparent
abandonment however of the royal interests excited the displeasure of
Clarendon, which was increased by a tendency some of the catholics
showed to unite with Lambert, who was understood to be privately of
their religion, and by an intrigue carried on in 1659, by the
machinations of Buckingham with some priests, to set up the Duke of
York for the Crown. But the king retained no resentment of the general
conduct of this party; and was desirous to give them a testimony of
his confidence, by mitigating the penal laws against their religion.
Some steps were taken towards this by the House of Lords in the
session of 1661; and there seems little doubt that the statutes at
least inflicting capital punishment would have been repealed without
difficulty, if the catholics had not lost the favourable moment by
some disunion among themselves, which the never-ceasing intrigues of
the Jesuits contrived to produce.[599]
There can be no sort of doubt that the king's natural facility, and
exemption from all prejudice in favour of established laws, would have
led him to afford every indulgence that could be demanded to his
catholic subjects, many of whom were his companions or his
counsellors, without any propensity towards their religion. But it is
morally certain that, during the period of his banishment, he had
imbibed, as deeply and seriously as the character of his mind would
permit, a persuasion that, if any scheme of Christianity were true, it
could only be found in the bosom of an infallible church; though he
was never reconciled, according to the formal profession which she
exacts, till the last hours of his life. The secret however of his
inclinations, though disguised to the world by the appearance, and
probably sometimes more than the appearance, of carelessness and
infidelity, could not be wholly concealed from his court. It appears
the most natural mode of accounting for the sudden conversion of the
Earl of Bristol to popery, which is generally agreed to have been
insincere. An ambitious intriguer, holding the post of secretary of
state, would not have ventured such a step without some grounds of
confidence in his master's wishes; though his characteristic
precipitancy hurried him forward to destroy his own hopes. Nor are
there wanting proofs that the protestantism of both the brothers was
greatly suspected in England before the restoration.[600] These
suspicions acquired strength after the king's return, through his
manifest intention not to marry a protestant; and still more through
the presumptuous demeanour of the opposite party, which seemed to
indicate some surer grounds of confidence than were yet manifest. The
new parliament in its first session had made it penal to say that the
king was a papist or popishly affected; whence the prevalence of that
scandal may be inferred.[601]
_Resisted by Clarendon and the parliament._--Charles had no assistance
to expect, in his scheme of granting a full toleration to the Roman
faith, from his chief adviser Clarendon. A repeal of the sanguinary
laws, a reasonable connivance, perhaps in some cases a dispensation--to
these favours he would have acceded. But, in his creed of policy, the
legal allowance of any but the established religion was inconsistent
with public order, and with the king's ecclesiastical prerogative.
This was also a fixed principle with the parliament, whose implacable
resentment towards the sectaries had not inclined them to abate in the
least of their abhorrence and apprehension of popery. The church of
England, distinctly and exclusively, was their rallying-point; the
Crown itself stood only second in their affections. The king therefore
had recourse to a more subtle and indirect policy. If the terms of
conformity had been so far relaxed as to suffer the continuance of the
presbyterian clergy in their benefices, there was every reason to
expect from their known disposition a determined hostility to all
approaches towards popery, and even to its toleration. It was
therefore the policy of those who had the interests of that cause at
heart, to permit no deviation from the act of uniformity, to resist
all endeavours at a comprehension of dissenters within the pale of the
church, and to make them look up to the king for indulgence in their
separate way of worship. They were to be taught that, amenable to the
same laws as the Romanists, exposed to the oppression of the same
enemies, they must act in concert for a common benefit.[602] The
presbyterian ministers, disheartened at the violence of the
parliament, had recourse to Charles, whose affability and fair
promises they were loth to distrust; and implored his dispensation for
their nonconformity. The king, naturally irresolute, and doubtless
sensible that he had made a bad return to those who had contributed so
much towards his restoration, was induced, at the strong solicitation
of Lord Manchester, to promise that he would issue a declaration
suspending the execution of the statute for three months. Clarendon,
though he had been averse to some of the rigorous clauses inserted in
the act of uniformity, was of opinion that, once passed, it ought to
be enforced without any connivance; and told the king likewise that it
was not in his power to preserve those who did not comply with it from
deprivation. Yet, as the king's word had been given, he advised him
rather to issue such a declaration than to break his promise. But, the
bishops vehemently remonstrating against it, and intimating that they
would not be parties to a violation of the law, by refusing to
institute a clerk presented by the patron on an avoidance for want of
conformity in the incumbent, the king gave way, and resolved to make
no kind of concession. It is remarkable that the noble historian does
not seem struck at the enormous and unconstitutional prerogative which
a proclamation suspending the statute would have assumed.[603]
_Declaration for indulgence._--Instead of this very objectionable
measure, the king adopted one less arbitrary, and more consonant to
his own secret policy. He published a declaration in favour of liberty
of conscience, for which no provision had been made, so as to redeem
the promises he had held forth at his accession. Adverting to these,
he declared that, "as in the first place he had been zealous to settle
the uniformity of the church of England in discipline, ceremony, and
government, and should ever constantly maintain it; so as for what
concerns the penalties upon those who, living peaceably, do not
conform themselves thereto, he should make it his special care, so far
as in him lay, without invading the freedom of parliament, to incline
their wisdom next approaching sessions to concur with him in making
some such act for that purpose as may enable him to exercise with a
more universal satisfaction that power of dispensing, which he
conceived to be inherent in him."[604]
The aim of this declaration was to obtain from parliament a mitigation
at least of all penal statutes in matters of religion, but more to
serve the interests of catholic than of protestant nonconformity.[605]
Except however the allusion to the dispensing power, which yet is
very moderately alleged, there was nothing in it, according to our
present opinions, that should have created offence. But the Commons,
on their meeting in February 1663, presented an address, denying that
any obligation lay on the king by virtue of his declaration from
Breda, which must be understood to depend on the advice of parliament,
and slightly intimating that he possessed no such dispensing
prerogative as was suggested. They strongly objected to the whole
scheme of indulgence, as the means of increasing sectaries, and rather
likely to occasion disturbance than to promote peace.[606] They
remonstrated, in another address, against the release of Calamy, an
eminent dissenter, who, having been imprisoned for transgressing the
act of uniformity, was irregularly set at liberty by the king's
personal order.[607] The king, undeceived as to the disposition of
this loyal assembly to concur in his projects of religious liberty,
was driven to more tedious and indirect courses in order to compass
his end. He had the mortification of finding that the House of Commons
had imbibed, partly perhaps in consequence of this declaration, that
jealous apprehension of popery, which had caused so much of his
father's ill fortune. On this topic the watchfulness of an English
parliament could never be long at rest. The notorious insolence of the
Romish priests, who, proud of the court's favour, disdained to respect
the laws enough to disguise themselves, provoked an address to the
king, that they might be sent out of the kingdom; and bills were
brought in to prevent the further growth of popery.[608]
Meanwhile, the same remedy, so infallible in the eyes of legislators,
was not forgotten to be applied to the opposite disease of protestant
dissent. Some had believed, of whom Clarendon seems to have been, that
all scruples of tender conscience in the presbyterian clergy being
faction and hypocrisy, they would submit very quietly to the law, when
they found all their clamour unavailing to obtain a dispensation from
it. The resignation of 2000 beneficed ministers at once, instead of
extorting praise, rather inflamed the resentment of their bigoted
enemies; especially when they perceived that a public and perpetual
toleration of separate worship was favoured by part of the court.
_Act against conventicles._--Rumours of conspiracy and insurrection,
sometimes false, but gaining credit from the notorious discontent both
of the old commonwealth's party, and of many who had never been on
that side, were sedulously propagated, in order to keep up the
animosity of parliament against the ejected clergy;[609] and these are
recited as the pretext of an act passed in 1664 for suppressing
seditious conventicles (the epithet being in this place wantonly and
unjustly insulting), which inflicted on all persons above the age of
sixteen, present at any religious meeting in other manner than is
allowed by the practice of the church of England, where five or more
persons besides the household should be present, a penalty of three
months' imprisonment for the first offence, of six for the second, and
of seven years' transportation for the third, on conviction before a
single justice of peace.[610] This act, says Clarendon, if it had
been vigorously executed, would no doubt have produced a thorough
reformation.[611] Such is ever the language of the supporters of
tyranny; when oppression does not succeed, it is because there has
been too little of it. But those who suffered under this statute
report very differently as to its vigorous execution. The gaols were
filled, not only with ministers who had borne the brunt of former
persecutions, but with the laity who attended them; and the hardship
was the more grievous, that the act being ambiguously worded, its
construction was left to a single magistrate, generally very adverse
to the accused.
It is the natural consequence of restrictive laws to aggravate the
disaffection which has served as their pretext; and thus to create a
necessity for a legislature that will not retrace its steps, to pass
still onward in the course of severity. In the next session
accordingly held at Oxford in 1665, on account of the plague that
ravaged the capital, we find a new and more inevitable blow aimed at
the fallen church of Calvin. It was enacted that all persons in holy
orders who had not subscribed the act of uniformity, should swear that
it is not lawful, upon any pretence whatsoever, to take arms against
the king; and that they did abhor that traitorous position of taking
arms by his authority against his person, or against those that are
commissioned by him, and would not at any time endeavour any
alteration of government in church or state. Those who refused this
oath were not only made incapable of teaching in schools, but
prohibited from coming within five miles of any city, corporate town,
or borough sending members to parliament.[612]
This infamous statute did not pass without the opposition of the Earl
of Southampton, lord treasurer, and other peers. But Archbishop
Sheldon, and several bishops, strongly supported the bill, which had
undoubtedly the sanction also of Clarendon's authority.[613] In the
Commons, I do not find that any division took place; but an
unsuccessful attempt was made to insert the word "legally" before
commissioned; the lawyers, however, declared that this word must be
understood.[614] Some of the nonconforming clergy took the oath upon
this construction. But the far greater number refused. Even if they
could have borne the solemn assertion of the principles of passive
obedience in all possible cases, their scrupulous consciences revolted
from a pledge to endeavour no kind of alteration in church and state;
an engagement, in its extended sense, irreconcilable with their own
principles in religion, and with the civil duties of Englishmen. Yet
to quit the towns where they had long been connected, and where alone
they had friends and disciples, for a residence in country villages,
was an exclusion from the ordinary means of subsistence. The church of
England had doubtless her provocations; but she made the retaliation
much more than commensurate to the injury. No severity, comparable to
this cold-blooded persecution, had been inflicted by the late powers,
even in the ferment and fury of a civil war. Encouraged by this easy
triumph, the violent party in the House of Commons thought it a good
opportunity to give the same test a more sweeping application. A bill
was brought in imposing this oath upon the whole nation; that is, I
presume (for I do not know that its precise nature is anywhere
explained), on all persons in any public or municipal trust. This
however was lost on a division by a small majority.[615]
It has been remarked that there is no other instance in history, where
men have suffered persecution on account of differences, which were
admitted by those who inflicted it to be of such small moment. But,
supposing this to be true, it only proves, what may perhaps be alleged
as a sort of extenuation of these severe laws against nonconformists,
that they were merely political, and did not spring from any
theological bigotry. Sheldon indeed, their great promoter, was so free
from an intolerant zeal that he is represented as a man who considered
religion chiefly as an engine of policy. The principles of religious
toleration had already gained considerable ground over mere bigotry;
but were still obnoxious to the arbitrary temper of some politicians,
and wanted perhaps experimental proof of their safety to recommend
them to the caution of others. There can be no doubt that all laws
against dissent and separation from an established church, those even
of the inquisition, have proceeded in a greater or less degree from
political motives; and these appear to me far less odious than the
disinterested rancour of superstition. The latter is very common among
the populace, and sometimes among the clergy. Thus the presbyterians
exclaimed against the toleration of popery, not as dangerous to the
protestant establishment, but as a sinful compromise with idolatry;
language which, after the first heat of the reformation had abated,
was never so current in the Anglican church.[616] In the case of these
statutes against nonconformists under Charles II., revenge and fear
seem to have been the unmixed passions that excited the church party
against those, whose former superiority they remembered, and whose
disaffection and hostility it was impossible to doubt.[617]