[Sidenote: _The Royalist Army._]
Charles went to Oxford after the battle of Edge Hill, and there,
during the civil wars, set up his head quarters. Occasionally he was
absent with the army, but that central city, which was so convenient
for the purpose in many respects, he made his fortress and his home.
It underwent great alterations. Fortifications were contrived by
Richard Rallingson, who also drew "a mathematical scheme or plot of
the garrison;" and in an old print, by Anthony Wood, may be traced
the zig-zag lines of defence, which were drawn on every side about
the city.[465] Gownsmen transformed themselves into cavaliers, and
exchanged college caps for steel bonnets. Streets echoed with the tramp
of war horses and the clatter of iron-heeled hoots. Wagons, guarded
by pikemen, and laden with ammunition and stores, rolled through the
picturesque gateways; and valiant and loyal subjects rallied around
their Sovereign in the hour of his need, ready to shed their last
drop of blood beneath his standard. The colleges melted down their
plate to supply military chests; and Magdalen especially stood true to
the King's cause. Rupert took up his residence there, and the sound of
his trumpets calling to horse disturbed the silence of the beautiful
cloisters. Whilst most of the Fellows, being Divines, could only help
with their prayers and their purses, one of them, who was a doctor of
civil law, raised a troop of under-graduates, and fell fighting in his
Majesty's service.[466] Amidst the excitement which followed the King's
turns of fortune, he gathered together the relics of his court, and
established in Christ Church Hall a mock parliament, which was intended
to rival the real one at Westminster. Charles had grasped at absolute
power, now nothing remained but the shadow of dominion. At Oxford he
but played at kingship.
[Sidenote: _The Royalist Army._]
[Sidenote: 1643.]
In the Royal army, of which, perhaps, the worst portion might be
found at Oxford, the principal officers were men of high spirit and
courage, with a strong dash in them of old English chivalry; but, with
some of the virtues of mediæval knighthood, they possessed a more
than ordinary share of its vices. In retired parts of the country,
especially in Cornwall, yeomen and peasants, of pure life and artless
manners, followed Royalist commanders with a sort of feudal devotion;
but it must be admitted, with regard to most of the regiments who
fought for the King, that the men in the ranks were worse than those in
command--for, wanting that tone of manners which marks the well-bred
gentleman, they had nothing to check the ebullitions of coarse impiety
and brutal ruffianism. We are not concerned to vindicate the soldiers
on the other side. No doubt they were chargeable with excesses, some
of which have been indicated in these pages. Irreligious people mixed
with Puritans; tapsters and serving men appeared among patriots;
but, whatever the drawbacks on the reputation of the Parliamentary
forces, there is but little doubt that the moral character of the men
on the other side was far worse. Indeed, this is virtually admitted
by Royalists themselves; for Clarendon paints dark pictures of the
debauchery of the Lords Goring and Wilmot; and Chillingworth, in a
sermon preached at Oxford in the autumn of 1643, while charging the
enemy with Pharisaism, hypocrisy, falsehood, want of justice, and
pretence of reformation, is also unsparing in his reproofs of Royalist
profanity, irreligion, and blasphemy.[467]
Fiery resentment burned in both camps, and was industriously fanned by
the newspapers of the day. Parliamentary journals had nothing but what
was good to say of their own party, and nothing but what was bad of
their adversaries. Led away by idle rumours, editors and correspondents
made mountains of molehills, and often stated as facts what only
existed in their own distempered brains; all this the scribblers for
the Oxford press paid back with interest.
[Sidenote: _The Royalist Army._]
Reports were industriously circulated throughout the country affecting
the religious character of the King and court, upon the tender point
of popish sympathies. An Irish minister, who had spent seven weeks at
the University in the summer of 1643, afterwards declared that Irish
Papists, who had committed atrocious barbarities in the rebellion,
were received at court with signal favour; that Franciscans and
Jesuits encouraged the soldiers to fight against the Roundheads, and
were themselves enrolled as cornets; that Roman Catholic worship
was performed in every street, and, _he believed_, that for every
single sermon in the city there were four masses.[468] How much of truth
there might be in these broad accusations, it is impossible for us to
determine; but the adage no doubt is applicable here, that where there
is much smoke there is some fire.[469]
[Sidenote: 1643.]
Charles met all such charges with recriminations. He felt shocked,
he said, at the impieties and profanations which were committed in
sacred places; at the countenance which was given to ignorant and
scandalous laymen who had usurped the ministry; at the suspension and
reviling of Common Prayer which had become so prevalent; at religion
being made the cause and ground of rebellion; and at the destruction
of discipline in the "most unblemished Church of Christendom."[470]
Nothing could appear right in his estimation which the Parliament did,
and even their ordinances for national fasts were met with counter
ordinances for fasts at another season. Prelatists and Puritans would
not, even for the sins of the nation, fast on the same day; for as at
Westminster one party commanded that the last Wednesday in the month
should be devoted to humiliation and prayer, at Oxford the other
party denounced that appointment, and substituted the second Friday.
The Royalists threatened to sequester the estates of such clergymen
as would not obey their command; and, amidst all this most unseemly
strife, we hear Thomas Fuller exclaiming, in his "Meditations on the
Times," "Alas! when two messengers, being sent together on the same
errand, fall out and fight by the way, will not the work be worse
done than if none were employed? In such a pair of fasts, it is to
be feared that the divisions of our affections rather would increase
than abate God's anger towards us. Two negatives make an affirmative.
Days of humiliation are appointed for men to deny themselves and their
sinful lusts. But do not our two fasts more peremptorily affirm and
avouch our mutual malice and hatred? God forgive us: we have cause
enough to keep _ten_, but not care enough to keep _one_ monthly day of
humiliation."[471]
To rebut the charge of popery, the King publicly received the sacrament
at the hands of Archbishop Ussher, in Christ Church, at the same time
making a solemn protestation, that he had prepared his soul to be a
worthy receiver, that he derived comfort from the blessed sacrament,
and that he supported the true reformed Protestant religion, as it
stood in its beauty in the days of Elizabeth, without any connivance at
popery. He imprecated, in conclusion, Divine wrath upon himself, if his
heart did not join with his lips in this protestation.[472]
[Sidenote: _The King at Oxford._]
For his conduct on this occasion he is accused of hypocrisy, because
a few days afterwards he agreed to a truce with Ireland, and to the
toleration of Papists in that country. To grant such a truce and such
a toleration would not in the present day be deemed inconsistent with
the sincerest Protestantism; but the matter was otherwise regarded
at that time, and most advocates of religious liberty then denied
the privilege to Roman Catholics, because they knew that Catholics
would deny the privilege to them. Indeed, they reckoned such persons
no better than social incendiaries, and incorrigible rebels against
constitutional government; and, however unreasonable it may seem to
us, they considered that to allow any scope for popish worship was
to connive at the practices of popish treason. Charles himself was
by no means prepared to place the toleration of Roman Catholics on
its righteous grounds. He was willing, when it served his purpose, to
declare himself of one mind with those who condemned all religious
freedom; and he must have wished the declaration made by him, upon
receiving the Lord's supper from the hands of Ussher, to be understood
as meaning that he would not tolerate popery at all. Therefore,
to proclaim toleration to Irish Catholics immediately after this
declaration could not but lay him open to the charge of hypocrisy on
the part of his contemporaries. But at the same time we have no doubt
that his expression of attachment to the Protestant religion as it
stood in the days of Elizabeth, understanding by that expression a
religion both anti-papal and anti-puritanical, was perfectly sincere.
Prelacy was an essential principle in the reformed religion of Charles;
and with prelacy were associated in his mind forms of worship which
many of his subjects pronounced to be "flat popery." His notions of
reformation, perhaps, mainly hinged on a separation from Rome, with the
abolition of monachism and the removal of certain gross abuses which
had been prevalent in the mediæval church. He inherited, in fact, the
Protestantism of the Tudors: but at the same time he had none of the
magnanimity of Elizabeth, none of that religious patriotism which made
her the idol of her subjects, none of that indignation against popish
wrongs and cruelties, which she so strongly felt and expressed--as,
for example, when she dressed herself in deep mourning to receive the
gay French ambassador after the St. Bartholomew massacre:--in short,
Charles had none of that spirit which made Elizabeth appear, without
any tinge of hypocrisy, so much more of a Protestant than she really
was. And we may add, that he had a trick of saying and doing things
with a smooth artificial gravity which awakened suspicion, so that even
when really honest he found it difficult to obtain credit for sincerity.
[Sidenote: 1643.]
It is remarkable that we do not find any High Church Bishops with
the King at Oxford. Even Skinner, Bishop of the diocese, had retired
from the city to the rectory of Taunton. The absence of others may be
attributed to personal restraint, or the dangers of travelling in a
time of civil war, or a sense of duty towards their scattered flocks,
or a disinclination to throw themselves into a military camp. But some
other prelates and clergymen of a different character come under our
notice, as present at Oxford at this critical period.
[Sidenote: _Bishops at Oxford._]
Bryan Duppa, Bishop of Salisbury--whose fine face and silvery locks,
set off to advantage by the robes of the Garter, may be seen in his
portrait on the walls of Christ Church--upon being stripped of his
episcopal revenues waited on his Majesty, and was entrusted by him with
business of the greatest importance. Archbishop Ussher preached before
the court, carried on his literary labours in the University, and, as
an opponent of the toleration of Papists, took part in a discussion
held in the royal presence upon that subject. Soon afterwards he
further offended the Roman Catholics by a discourse from the words of
Nehemiah, iv. 11:--"And our adversaries said, they shall not know,
neither see, till we come in the midst among them, and slay them,
and cause the work to cease." In this discourse he contended, that
no dependence could be placed on Romanists, and that on the first
opportunity they would act towards the Protestants of England as
they had recently done towards the Protestants of Ireland. He also
preached sermons to his Royalist auditory in a tone of remarkable
fidelity and earnestness, dwelling upon the folly of expecting that
God would prosper the cause of those who provoked Him to anger by the
dissoluteness of their lives.[473]
Perhaps Jeremy Taylor also might be found at Oxford, after having lost
the rectory of Uppingham, in Rutlandshire. Wood says that he preached
before the King, and followed the Royal army in the capacity of a
chaplain; and probably it was during this part of his life that he
reaped some of those military allusions which we find in his sermons.
As, for example, when he compares the man who prays in a discomposed
spirit, to him that sets up his closet in the outquarters of an army,
and chooses a frontier garrison to be wise in: and when he speaks of
the poor soldier, standing in the breach, "almost starved with cold and
hunger," "pale and faint, weary and watchful," and of the same person
in his tent by dim lantern light, having a "bullet pulled out of his
flesh, and shivers from his bones, and enduring his mouth to be sewed
up, from a violent rent, to its own dimensions."[474]
[Sidenote: 1643.]
Dr. Thomas Fuller, we may add, after being deprived of his preferment
at the Savoy, and leaving behind him his library, found refuge in
Lincoln College, and preached before the King; the losses which this
cheerful Divine suffered at the time leading him to observe, with
his accustomed humour, "that his going to Oxford cost him all that
he had, a dear seventeen weeks compared with the seventeen years he
spent in Cambridge." Whilst Fuller tarried in the former University,
there arrived Lord Hopton, an eminent Royalist officer of moderate
opinions and of a pacific disposition. The ejected minister of the
Savoy became a chaplain to the regiment of this brave soldier and
sincerely religious man, and he hoped by filling this office to wipe
off the stain of disaffection with which his enemies had endeavoured
to spot his fame. He accompanied Hopton to the west, where he accepted
a nominal chaplaincy to the infant Princess Henrietta, who was born at
Bedford House, in the city of Exeter, on the 16th June, 1644.[475]
[Sidenote: _Clergy at Oxford._]
Another eminent churchman was now at Oxford. William Chillingworth,
after the raising of the siege of Gloucester, left the construction
of his Roman _testudines_, and more befittingly employed himself in
preaching before the University, and in writing polemical tracts,
especially one, entitled "The Apostolical Institution of Episcopacy."
This publication, which was not answered for years afterwards, is
very characteristic of its author, and takes a ground of defence for
the Church of England not at all agreeable to high Prelatists; for he
reduces Episcopal government to the smallest dimensions, specifying its
essence to be no more than the appointment of one person of eminent
sanctity, to take care of all the churches in a diocese--his authority
being bounded by law and moderated by assistants. Even this scantling
of rule he seems to defend rather than enforce--stating as the ground
of adopting it, that there is _no record of our Saviour against it_,
that it is _not repugnant_ to the apostolic government, and that it is
_as compliable_ with the reformation of the Church, as any other kind
of polity.[476] Chillingworth did not long survive his employment at
Oxford; and the short remaining history of his life is so curious, so
illustrative of the religious aspects of the war, and of the oddities
of people engaged in it, that we venture to transfer it to these pages.
[Sidenote: 1643.]
He was taken prisoner in Arundel Castle; whither, in the month of
January, 1644, he had repaired, to recover from an indisposition
brought on by the inclemency of the winter. As he was not fit to travel
to London with the captured garrison, the victorious Parliamentarians
removed the distinguished Episcopalian to Chichester, a favour for
which he was indebted to Mr. Cheynell, whose story is curiously
entwined with his own. Cheynell, a rigid, zealous Presbyterian,
"exactly orthodox, and very unwilling that any should be supposed
to go to heaven but in the right way," had been ejected from his
living in Sussex by the Royalists, and happened to be at Chichester
when Chillingworth reached it as a prisoner. With sympathy for his
old antagonist, Cheynell procured for him lodgings in the bishop's
palace. Chillingworth, who had never been violent enough to please
the Royalists, was infamously denounced by one of them; but Cheynell
defended his reputation, guarded his health, and, as he informs us,
took care of "something more precious than either, to wit, his beloved
soul." Yet he wearied him with interrogations and arguments about King
and Parliament, Prelate and Puritan. "I desired," he says, "to know
his opinion concerning that liturgy, which had been formerly so much
extolled, and even idolized amongst the people; but all the answer that
I could get was to this purpose, that there were some truths which
the ministers of the gospel are not bound, upon pain of damnation,
to publish to the people; and, indeed, he conceived it very unfit to
publish anything concerning the Common Prayer Book or the Book of
Ordination for fear of scandal." "When I found him pretty hearty one
day, I desired him to tell me whether he conceived that a man living
and dying a Turk, Papist, or Socinian; could be saved." No doubt the
question was so pointed, on account of the dying man's reputation for
latitudinarianism, or as he believed it to be, charity, and in this
respect Chillingworth was consistent to the last. "All the answer that
I could gain from him," says Cheynell, "was that he did not absolve
them, and would not condemn them." It is pleasant amidst all this
gossip, and much more of the same description, to find Cheynell telling
his old friend and controversialist that he prayed for him in private,
and asking him whether he desired public intercession as well. He
replied, "Yes, with all his heart, and he said withal, that he hoped he
should fare better for their prayers."[477]
[Sidenote: _Clergy at Oxford._]
After Chillingworth's death, Cheynell had the corpse laid out in a
coffin covered with a hearse-cloth. The friends of the deceased were
entertained, according to their own desire, with wine and cakes. Those
who bore his remains to the grave were Episcopalians; and--as a
further touch of description to illustrate those times--it may be added
that, according to the custom of the country, they had each a bunch of
rosemary, a mourning ribband, and a pair of gloves. Different opinions
were expressed as to where the churchman ought to be interred. It was
at last decided in favour of Chichester, liberty being granted to "all
the malignants" to attend the hearse. When they came to the grave,
Cheynell, as he held in his hand what he called the "_mortal_ book" of
the great Protestant advocate--the very book which has received the
praises of all generations since as _immortal_--proceeded with strange
infatuation to denounce it in terms of the most violent abuse, after
which he flung the volume into the open grave.[478]
[Sidenote: 1643.]
Charles, whilst remaining at Oxford, had amongst the Episcopal
clergy other staunch friends residing elsewhere. Of this number was
John Barwick, a Fellow of St. John's, Cambridge,[479] who acted as
chaplain to Bishop Morton during the civil wars, and who continued
with him as long as he remained in Durham House. This he did, his
biographer tells us, for the express purpose of being serviceable to
the King; concealing himself there "as in a great wood," carrying on
a private correspondence betwixt London and Oxford, conveying, on the
one hand, to the loyalists his Majesty's orders and commands, and,
on the other hand, to his royal master, what he could pick up of the
"designs and endeavours of the rebels." Resolving to tell no lies, but
rather "with silence to answer all captious and ensnaring questions,"
he yet clandestinely wrote and received letters in cypher, the key
to which he carefully kept. The letters were slid in by stealth,
amidst pedlar's wares, and carried to and fro, "as it were through
a lattice, and enveloped in mist." He employed adventurous women to
disperse everywhere, among friends and foes, books favourable to the
Royal cause; such emissaries trudging on foot, receiving the books
from bargemen on the Thames, and distributing them wherever they had
opportunity. Letters were sometimes sewed in the covers of volumes,
and secret marks were given to notify their insertion. When the Royal
cause became desperate, and the King was shut up "as in a net within
the walls of Oxford," he continued to write to Barwick to do what he
could, especially by securing, through favour of the Parliamentary
authorities, those individuals for his personal attendants, upon
whose faithfulness his Majesty could depend. These notices, extracted
from "Barwick's Life"--not, on the whole, a very trustworthy book,
though accurate enough, no doubt, in reference to his contrivances and
intrigues in favour of the King--throw an interesting light upon a
great deal which was clandestinely going on at the time in the royal
service.
[Illustration.]