[Sidenote: DUKE OF MONMOUTH.]
Readers of English history will remember the important political part
played in the last years of Charles’ reign, by his illegitimate son,
the Duke of Monmouth. When public feeling ran so high against the Duke
of York, and so many Protestants were zealous for the Exclusion Bill,
some amongst the latter favoured certain pretensions to the crown
which had been put forward on behalf of his nephew. The pretensions
were founded upon the alleged existence of a black box containing a
contract of marriage between the King and the Duke’s mother, Lucy
Walters, which black box made no small stir throughout the country in
the year 1680.[102] Two years afterwards, when the Popish plot had
ceased to alarm the public, and when the Duke of York’s prospects had
begun to brighten, Monmouth endeavoured to revive his popularity, and
to reinforce his claims by a progress in the North of England, during
which journey he assumed a degree of state proper only to an heir
apparent. Attended by a hundred horsemen,--fifty of whom rode before
and fifty behind--he occupied a space in the midst of the cavalcade,
mounted on a noble charger, and bowing with royal condescension to the
crowds, who rent the air with shouts, “A Monmouth, a Monmouth, and no
York!” Bells fired from the church steeples, and musketry roared from
gates and ramparts, as the gay procession entered town after town.
He might be found at fairs and races, rousing the men and wooing the
women, and in town halls dining with the burgesses; always affecting
royal etiquette, and actually going so far as to touch for the King’s
evil. His movements closely watched, were duly reported to the
Secretary of State by persons ill-affected towards the bold aspirant,
including Shakerley, Governor of Chester Castle, who industriously
wrote, day after day, minute descriptions of all Monmouth did in that
old city,--a city in which, it may be recollected, Nonconformists had
been found to be very numerous some years before.[103]
[Sidenote: 1682.]
According to reports, the whole company of horsemen who rode with
the Duke into Chester did not exceed 150, most of them being noted
Dissenters. They came shouting, with a company of rabble on foot, whom
they had induced to join them by providing drink. The bells rang,
except at the Cathedral and St. Peter’s; and there were some bonfires.
The Duke went first to the Mayor’s house, where he lodged; and, after
a short stay there, he repaired to an inn, where he and his companions
sat down at the ordinary, the chaplain being Dr. Fogg, one of the
prebendaries. The Duke proceeded to the Cathedral, where he heard a
sermon not very pleasant to him or to his associates. The same writer
complains of the rabble making a riot, breaking into the Church of St.
Peter’s, forcing open the steeple door, and ringing the bells, amongst
the rest the fire bell. “Another company,” he adds, “at a bonfire, made
by a great Presbyterian, broke the glass windows of an honest Churchman
opposite.” Two or three days later, after accustomed healths, such
as “Confusion to Popery, and to those that would not be enemies to
the Duke of York,” Monmouth’s party expressed great displeasure at a
sermon preached before His Grace, in the choir of the Cathedral; and,
in general, uttered loud exclamations against the clergy. Having, it is
said, spit their venom that way, without one syllable of opposition,
they fell to magnifying the last Parliament, and to commending their
votes.[104]
At such times as I am describing, people exist who are possessed by
an inordinate love of writing, and of publishing what they write, and
whose pens resemble the sting of wasps, and of other still more ignoble
insects. Pamphleteers of this kind wrote against Dissenters, some
whose malignity was greater than their wit, some whose wit kept pace
with their malignity. Sir Roger L’Estrange, perhaps, may be reckoned
as the most gifted, the most formidable, the most unscrupulous, and
the most fierce of this tribe of tormentors. He had narrowly escaped
being executed as a spy during the Civil Wars,--he had been shut up in
Newgate for several years; and now the memory of his sufferings made
him perfectly savage in his attacks upon those whom he identified with
his former enemies. He perpetually rang changes upon the miseries of
the year ’41, which he accused the popular party of having determined
to revive. In his _Foxes and Firebrands_, and in his _Citt and
Bumkin_, he vilified and lampooned all men of liberal opinions,
whether those opinions happened to be ecclesiastical or political.
Nonconformists were fools and rebels, and their toleration was
inconsistent with order and peace. By abuse of one kind, he sought
to force them into the Church, and then, when they had entered, he
by another kind of abuse endeavoured to drive them out. Outside they
were traitors, inside they were trimmers, so that it was impossible
such people as L’Estrange could ever be pleased, let the conduct of
Nonconformists be what it might. His career as a party writer, which
began after the Restoration, attained its highest point at the period
we have reached; and as a reward for his services to the cause of
despotism, he obtained from his Royal master the honour of knighthood,
an honour more than counterbalanced by the almost universal execration
of posterity.[105]
[Sidenote: ROYAL DESPOTISM.]
Charles, in playing the despot, went on from bad to worse. Municipal
corporations, whose freedom is always of primary importance to the
interests of this country, were then still more intimately connected
with our national liberties than at present--for not only was the
administration of justice in cities and boroughs lodged in their hands,
not only were juries in Middlesex returned by the City Sheriffs, but
the right of election for members of Parliament rested, in a number of
cases, not with the citizens and burgesses generally, but with those
who were mayors, aldermen, and common councilmen. In many large places,
especially London, the Corporation opposed the Court; and therefore
no representatives subservient to the Crown could be expected to
come from such a quarter. The King, relying upon legal advisers, who
preferred cunning to equity, determined to try whether he could not
deprive his subjects of their municipal rights by the process of _quo
warranto_.[106] The attempt, made in the Metropolis first, so far
succeeded, that the Court of King’s Bench gave judgment against the
Corporation; and,--although it allowed the Corporation to retain its
privileges, under certain restrictions,--from that time the capital of
the kingdom remained powerless in the hands of the sovereign.
[Sidenote: 1683.]
[Sidenote: LORD W. RUSSELL.]
Constitutional methods of expressing public opinion being suspended,
there were men whom desperation drove to think of the patriot’s last
resort. They talked of war. Shaftesbury, whose erratic ability and
eloquence sometimes helped the cause of liberty, had disappeared from
the stage of public affairs, and had, as we have seen, gone over to
Holland, where he died. But his restless brain, employed in concocting
schemes of insurrection, which at the time came to nothing, had left
behind, amongst many Englishmen with whom he had been associated,
seeds of discontent, ready to grow into acts of violence. The seeds
did grow, and the harvest proved “a heap in the day of grief, and of
desperate sorrow.” The Rye House Plot is well known. With any design
of assassinating the King, Sidney and Russell--who came within the
complications of a plan for forcibly resisting the despotism of
Government--had nothing to do. Nothing could be more idle than to talk,
as some did, of certain ministers--Owen, Mead, and Griffiths--being
engaged in revolutionary designs. The King, when Mead had been
summoned, ordered him to be discharged; but Sidney and Russell, it
cannot be contradicted, were present at conversations turning upon the
subject of an appeal to arms in the cause of freedom. These illustrious
men were, as all readers of English history know, tried,[107]
condemned, and executed; and as the story of Russell’s last moments
belongs to the religious annals of our country, it claims some space on
these pages.[108]
[Sidenote: 1683.]
[Sidenote: LORD W. RUSSELL.]
In prison he devoted most of his time to meditation, receiving his
death-warrant with calmness, and anticipating his departure with
hope. Six or seven times, upon the last morning of his life (July
21), he engaged in prayer; and, on parting from Lord Cavendish, urged
upon that nobleman the importance of personal piety: then, winding
up his watch, he remarked--that he had done with time, and was going
to eternity. As the mourning coach, which conveyed him to the place
of execution, turned the corner by Little Queen Street, he remarked,
“I have often turned to the other hand with great comfort (alluding
to the proximity of Southampton Square, where he resided), but now
I turn to this with greater.” As he saw some persons weeping, and
others manifesting disrespect, he appreciated the commiseration of the
former, and evinced no resentment at the conduct of the latter. He sang
“within himself,” scarcely articulating words, observing, he hoped
soon to sing better; and, as he looked upon the dense throng around
him, he expressed the hope of soon beholding nobler multitudes. As
he entered Lincoln’s Inn Fields, observing it rained, he said to his
friends in the coach, “this may do you hurt that are bare-headed;” and
as he caught sight of the familiar place he exclaimed, in allusion to
his early days, “this has been to me a place of sinning, and God now
makes it the place of my punishment.” Having expressed wonder at the
crowds assembled, he placed in the Sheriff’s hand a long paper, and
declared at the same time, that he had never intended to plot against
the King’s life or reign. After praying that God would preserve His
Majesty and the Protestant religion, he expressed an earnest wish that
all Protestants would love one another, and not by mutual animosities
open a way for the re-entrance of Popery. In the paper just mentioned,
he avowed his attachment to the Church of England, and expressed a
desire that Conformists would be less severe, and that Dissenters would
be less scrupulous. He said he had always been ready to venture his
life for his country and his religion; and he avowed his sincerity and
earnestness in supporting the Bill of Exclusion, as the best means of
defending the Crown and the Church: he forgave his enemies, although
he thought killing by forms and subtilties of law to be “the worst
sort of murder.” When he had knelt down, Tillotson, who with Burnet
stood by him on the scaffold, offered intercession on his behalf. The
sufferer then unfastened his dress, took off his outer garment, bared
his neck, and laid it on the block, without change of countenance. The
executioner, to ensure his aim, touched him with the axe, but he did
not shrink; and after two strokes Russell’s soul went where vindictive
passions could not follow him.[109]
It has been justly remarked that when his memory ceases to be an object
of veneration “it requires no spirit of prophecy to foretell that
English liberty will be fast approaching to its final consummation;”
and we may add, that no less a Christian than a patriot, he has left
behind a name as dear to English Christians as it is to English
patriots.
We have seen the spirit which prevailed two years before--we have
proofs of its continuance in connection with the last days of Lord
William Russell. That nobleman tenaciously held the principle, that in
some cases it was lawful to resist Government by force. But Churchmen,
who, at the Revolution, in practice approved, if they did not in theory
uphold the doctrine, condemned it at this early period not only as
impolitic, but as irreligious. Tillotson wrote to Russell just before
his execution a letter, in which he said that Christianity plainly
discountenanced the resistance of authority, that in the same law
which establishes our religion, it is declared to be unlawful, under
any pretence whatsoever, to take up arms; and that his Lordship’s
opinion was contrary to the doctrine of all Protestant Churches. He
also pronounced the same opinion to be an offence of a heinous nature,
calling “for a very particular and deep repentance.”[110]
[Sidenote: 1683.]
Tillotson, in this letter, committed himself to the doctrine of passive
obedience; and its publication, without any subsequent denial or
recantation, places him before the world as upholding one main-prop
of the Stuart despotism. Burnet also, by his conduct at the time,
lent his influence to the same side; for, with characteristic haste,
and with that inaccuracy, into which haste so often betrayed him, he
rushed from Russell’s cell at Newgate, saying, that he had converted
his noble friend, who declared his satisfaction in that point to which
Tillotson’s letter relates. Such conduct indicated sympathy at the
time with the opinions in the letter now mentioned; and, therefore, it
involves Burnet in the same responsibility with Tillotson. Russell,
however, soon undeceived both his advisers, insisting that the notion
which he had of the laws, and of the English Government, differed from
that of the two Divines. He died a martyr to the faith, which placed
the Crown of England on the head of the Prince of Orange, whose claims
Tillotson and Burnet afterwards vindicated, and whose conduct they ever
delighted to eulogize.
When Churchmen, of moderation and liberality, acted in this way, what
could be expected from Churchmen of a different order? The University
of Oxford having collected from the writings of Puritans, from
Independents, and from political philosophers, sentences which plainly,
or by implication, justified under certain circumstances resistance
to Government, decreed by a vote of Convocation, such propositions to
be false, seditious, and impious,--and most of them also heretical and
blasphemous, infamous to the Christian religion, and destructive of all
good government in Church and State. The books containing such opinions
were forbidden to be read, and ordered to be burnt.[111]
[Sidenote: CONTROVERSY.]
At this juncture it happened that Nonconformists were silent, as
respected political and ecclesiastical controversy, except that John
Howe published a beautiful sermon on the question, “What may most
hopefully be attempted to allay animosities among Protestants, that
our divisions may not be our ruin?” Owen had been overtaken by his
last illness, and Baxter had become tired of disputation. Many of his
brethren were suffering from persecution; and those who were not,
could have controverted the political doctrines of the Church only by
incurring the risk of losing their property, their liberty, or their
life. The Government did everything it could to prevent the expression
of liberal opinions. The quiet habits of most Dissenters, the
cultivation of calm endurance, especially by Quakers, and by others in
a less conspicuous manner, served to promote this remarkable silence--a
silence which, compared with the subsequent Revolution, resembles the
smoothness of the torrent on the edge of the abyss. Nor should it be
forgotten that men who comprehended the dangers of the hour felt,
notwithstanding, immense perplexity as to what they ought to say or do;
since Charles II. pertinaciously professed the greatest moderation,
and declared a love for Parliaments and for the liberties of his
country,--thus by cunning and artifice, showing as great a proficiency
in king-craft as ever his father had done.
[Sidenote: 1683.]
A little more than one month after Lord William Russell’s execution,
Dr. John Owen, whose illness we just now mentioned, entered his rest.
He closed his days in the little village of Ealing, where he possessed
an estate. In his seclusion he wrote _The Glory of Christ_.
Transported by his theme he poured forth reflections like “a sea of
glass mingled with fire,” and in conversation with his friends devoutly
expressed his hopes and desires. “I am going,” he said, “to Him, whom
my soul has loved; or rather who has loved me with an everlasting love,
which is the whole ground of all my consolation. I am leaving the ship
of the Church in a storm, but while the Great Pilot is in it the loss
of a poor under-rower will be inconsiderable. Live and pray, and hope
and wait patiently, and do not despond: the promise stands invincible
that He will never leave us nor forsake us.” The first sheet of his
last book had passed through the press, under the superintendence of
Mr. Payne, an eminent Dissenting minister at Saffron Walden; and as
he informed Owen of the circumstance the latter exclaimed “I am glad
to hear it; but, O! brother Payne, the long-wished-for day is come at
last, in which I shall see that glory in another manner than I have
ever done, or was capable of doing in this world.”[112] As the dying
man inherited a strong constitution, he had much to endure when the
last struggle came, and the attendants upon his dying bed were deeply
affected, both by the intensity of his pains and the brightness of his
peace. In silence, with uplifted eyes and hands, this eminent man left
the world; and--which is a remarkable coincidence--he did so on St.
Bartholomew’s Day.
[Sidenote: PERSECUTION.]
Throughout the last three or four years of the reign of Charles II.
the persecutions carried on against the Nonconformists increased in
violence; and the cause is to be found, not only in the religious
character of the victims, but in the political course which they felt
it their duty to pursue. Indeed the latter in some cases mainly excited
the party in power. Nonconformists generally had supported members of
the Opposition, at the last three elections. They were known to be
advocates of constitutional liberty against the despotic designs of men
in high places. “Which alone,” observed John Howe--and his testimony
is most trustworthy--“and not our mere dissent from the Church of
England in matters of religion, wherein Charles II. was sufficiently
known to be a Prince of great indifferency, drew upon us, soon after
the dissolution of the last of those Parliaments, that dreadful storm
of persecution that destroyed not a small number of lives in gaols, and
ruined multitudes of families.”[113]
The Presbyterians, who had often received promises of comprehension,
were persecuted in common with the rest of the Nonconformists. If ever
a man lived in the world inoffensively, as well as usefully, it was
Oliver Heywood; yet he did not escape imprisonment. His case exposes
the wicked intolerance of the rulers far beyond that of some others,
where partial ignorance of the circumstances might leave room for the
idea, that a measure of imprudence provoked opposition. No provocation,
we are sure, could have been given to the authorities of the country
by this eminently amiable and holy person.
[Sidenote: 1684.]
The case of Thomas Rosewell, a Presbyterian minister, in Rotherhithe,
differs from that of Heywood; but his treatment was not less unjust.
Charged with uttering treason in his discourses, the jury, after an
address from Judge Jeffreys, who presided at the trial, brought him in
guilty. When the prisoner moved for an arrest of judgment, the King,
being informed of the circumstances, felt so convinced of the infamous
character of the witnesses, and of the loyalty of Rosewell, that he
pardoned him at once.[114]
[Sidenote: PERSECUTION.]
From the evidence elicited during Rosewell’s trial we are enabled to
form a distinct picture of one of the Nonconformist places of worship
in those days, and of several interesting circumstances connected with
the services. The place in which he preached was situated in Salisbury
Street, Rotherhithe, near the preacher’s dwelling, and consisted of
a tenement or tenements, so altered as to adapt the building for
accommodating a large number of people. “The rooms were but of a low
height.” “There was a low parlour, and a little room up six steps;”
and where the preacher stood “was a large room and a garret.” He stood
“in the door-case of that room, that the sound might go up and down.”
The chamber was hung with sad-coloured paper, and a sad-coloured bed
was in the room. Upon the left hand of the speaker “was a chest of
sweet wood, and a little cabinet upon it; and a glass over that; and
upon the right hand, on the side of the chimney, was a closet.” Three
or four hundred people commonly attended--some “people of quality;”
and a “store of watermen and seamen” from Deptford, Rotherhithe, and
thereabouts. There were shutters in the windows, and the sun came in,
and Rosewell was afraid lest the people that went by should hear him.
Upon the occasion in question, at first there was not light enough let
into the apartment, and he desired that one part of the shutters should
be opened; then he requested that half might be shut again, for fear he
should be overheard. The congregation met at seven in the morning, and
did not break up until a little after two in the afternoon,--a pause
taking place in the middle, when the preacher went in to dinner, and
“left us there,” says the witness; “and abundance in the congregation
ate sweetmeats, or biscuits, or such things.” A man, who was a brazier,
acted as door-keeper, and was angry at a woman’s “coming with pattens,
for they made an impression on the ground, and gave notice to others
that there was company there.” She found out the place only “by dogging
of people as they went along;” and by inquiries made of certain persons
“set commonly at a place called Cherry Garden Stairs.”[115]
[Sidenote: 1684.]
[Sidenote: PERSECUTION.]
Thomas Delaune, a Baptist schoolmaster, and a person of considerable
learning, appears as an eminent sufferer in those dark days. He
published _A Plea for the Nonconformists_, in answer to a sermon
entitled _A Scrupulous Conscience_, published by Dr. Benjamin
Calamy, Rector of St. Lawrence Jewry. Delaune simply endeavoured to
prove that certain observances in the Episcopal establishment more
resembled what is found in the Popish Communion than what is found
in primitive antiquity. The publication being treated as a criminal
offence, the author was committed to Newgate in November, 1683, and
indicted for “a false, seditious, and scandalous libel concerning
the Lord the King and the Book of Common Prayer.” The Jury, imbued
with the spirit of the age, found him guilty, after which the Judge
sentenced him to pay a fine of one hundred marks, to be kept a
close prisoner until he paid the money, and to find security for
good behaviour during twelve months afterwards. Delaune remained in
confinement fifteen months, at the end of which time nature broke down
under hardship and suffering. The poor man died, and it is shocking
to add, his wife and two small children also expired during the same
period within the walls of Newgate.[116] In the same prison Francis
Bampfield, a Baptist minister, and an Oxford man, who had suffered
repeatedly for his Nonconformity, perished in the month of February,
1684.[117] Of all sects, perhaps, the Quakers suffered most. Their
meetings were disturbed by drums and fiddles; women were insulted,
their hoods and scarfs torn, and little boys were beaten or whipped
with a cat-o’-nine-tails. Seven hundred Friends were reported as being
imprisoned in the year 1683.