The Scotch congregation continued to evince their zeal for their

religion by throwing sticks, stones, and dirt (of which they had a good

deal always on their hands) at the unprotected prelate, and cries of

"stone him!" "at him again!" "give it him!" "throw him over!" "turn him

out!" resounded through the sacred edifice. The religious ruffians kept

up their ferocity without intermission wherever the new service was

commenced, and thus, though they might easily have satisfied their

consciences by abstaining from attendance at the churches where

innovation had been introduced, they preferred to intimidate and

brutally attack the inoffensive ministers. This was another of the

innumerable instances history has to record of the name of religion

being desecrated by its being applied to acts utterly at variance with

every religious principle.

Charles, who in this instance evinced a keen perception of Scotch

character, resolved to punish the people of Edinburgh in a manner they

would be sure to feel; and by threatening to remove the council of

government from that city to Linlithgow, he touched them in what is the

Scotchman's tenderest point--his pocket. Whether it was from fear of a

general stoppage to business, and the consequent loss of its profits,

or from some more exalted cause, the Scotch desisted from physical

violence, and took a great moral resolution, which is in every way

respectable. A document, called the Covenant, was drawn up, and its

sentiments were put forth with the eloquence of enthusiasm from the home

of John O'Groat--by-the-by, who was this Jack Fourpence, Esq.,

of whom we have heard so much?--to the hills of Cheviot. The

Covenanters had exchanged the brickbat and bludgeon style of argument

for the lighter but more pointed and effective weapon--the pen--though

they still acted in the most unchristian spirit of intolerance and

persecution towards those who would not adopt their sentiments.

The Marquis of Hamilton was sent to Scotland with instructions to do all

he could, and a great deal that he couldn't. He was to apprehend all the

rebels, if possible; but not being of a very lively apprehension, it was

not likely he would succeed greatly in this portion of his enterprise.

He was to overturn the Covenant in six weeks, if he found it convenient

to do so, or in less if he found it otherwise. In fact, his instructions

might be summed up into an order to go and make the best of a bad

job--an attempt which frequently ends in leaving the matter much worse

than one originally found it.

On his arrival at Holyrood his first effort to persuade the people

to give up the Covenant was met by an attempt to cram it down his own

throat, but he refused the proffered dose, and finding himself in a very

awkward fix, he could only hope to temporise. Charles wrote to him

to say, "he would rather die than give in," but Hamilton, knowing his

master would have to die by deputy, and that the deputy would be no

other than himself, entreated his majesty not to be too open in his

demonstrations of force against his Scotch subjects. The Covenanters on

the other hand declared they meant nothing disrespectful to the throne,

and that their pelting, shouting, bullying, stoning, and protesting,

were all to be considered as acts performed in the most loyal spirit,

and without the smallest idea of disobedience to the royal mandate.

Some negotiations ensued between the two parties, and it was resolved

that a General Assembly should be held in Glasgow forthwith, while a

proclamation was issued for a Parliament to meet at Edinburgh a few

months afterwards. Hamilton knew the Assembly would do no good, and

wrote to the king to say so; but Charles answered, that it would at all

events gain time, and the Scotch might perhaps, if they met together in

large numbers, come to the scratch among themselves--a result that was

exceedingly probable.

The Marquis of Hamilton reached Glasgow on the 17th of November, 1638;

and the General Assembly commenced on the 21st with a sermon of such

tremendous length, that the audience were pretty well exhausted by the

time it was concluded. The Assembly would have then chosen a moderator;

but Hamilton starting up with a polite "I beg your pardon," told them

there was a little Commission to read in order to explain by what

authority he was sitting there. The Commission was exceedingly long, and

all in Latin, which enabled the officer entrusted with the commission of

reading the Commission, to extemporise rather extensively, by adding to

the original Latin a considerable quantity of Dog, which spun out the

time amazingly. The Assembly then again prepared to choose a moderator,

when Hamilton starting up, exclaimed--"I'm very sorry to be so

troublesome, but I must interrupt you again, for I wish you to hear this

letter from his majesty."

Charles had purposely despatched a most unintelligible scrawl, and

the functionary employed to read it prolonged the painful operation of

deciphering it as long as he could, until at length the reading of the

letter was concluded. The Assembly being again about to proceed to elect

a moderator, Hamilton once more was upon his legs, with a "Dear

me, you'll think me very tiresome, but I have really something very

particular to say;" and off he went into a speech which seemed almost

interminable, from its excessive wordiness.

As all things must come to a conclusion, if not to an end--Hamilton's

speech, for example, came to no end at all--the oration of the marquis

was terminated at last, and for the fourth time the Assembly had begun

to choose a moderator, when Hamilton interfered with a "Stop! stop!

stop! Before you go any further, remember that I protest against

anything you may do that will be prejudicial to the king's prerogative."

At length he was formally asked if he had quite done with his

interruptions, and having exhausted all his resources, he was

constrained to admit that he had no further remark to make, when the

election of a moderator was proceeded with. Alexander Henderson, a

minister of Fife,--which might well have been called, in the strong

language of Shakespeare, the "ear-piercing Fife," for it was determined

to make itself heard,--was chosen to the office, and Hamilton was again

on his legs to read a protest, but a general cry of "Down! down! Come!

come! we've had enough of that," prevented the marquis from proceeding

further in his obstructive policy. The Assembly then chose one Archibald

Johnston as clerk, and Hamilton, determined to give the Covenanters one

more lesson on the Hamiltonian system, commenced protesting against

the last appointment they had made. The marquis was, however, most

unceremoniously pooh-poohed, and the Assembly adjourned.

On the next day Hamilton began the old game of entering more protests

against the return of lay elders to the Assembly, but he was treated

with no more respect than if he had been a lay figure, and was compelled

to hold his tongue. Being checked in every attempt to enter a protest

on his own account, he insisted on patronising ana adopting a protest of

the bishops who denied the jurisdiction of the Assembly, but one of the

clerks of session thundering out a declaration that they would go on

with the proceedings, Hamilton started up once more, "begging pardon

for being so very troublesome, but adding that he really must protest to

that." Finding his protestations utterly useless, he thought it better

to protest to the whole thing _en masse_, and he accordingly dissolved

the General Assembly on the ensuing day. Henderson, the moderator--so

called, on the _lucus a non lucendo_ principle, from his being no

moderator at all--declared he was sorry they were going to lose the

pleasure of Hamilton's company, but the Assembly, being assembled, had

no intention to disperse. The marquis, who had gone about muttering to

himself "Oh, you know, this is quite absurd! I'm no use here," made the

best of his way to England. He urged Charles to take military measures

against the Scotch, but they were very active in making warlike

preparations, and had already got up a magazine at Edinburgh--no

relation to Blackwood or Tait--which was full of pikes, muskets,

halberts, and other striking but very offensive articles. In the

meantime the coffers of Charles were standing perfectly empty, nobody in

the city would take his paper upon any terms, and indeed he could

accept no bills, for there was no Parliament in existence to draw the

documents. He called upon the judges, the clergy, and even the humbler

servants of the crown, to contribute part of their salaries to his

necessities--a process very like borrowing a portion of the wages of

one's cook to pay one's butcher.

[Illustration: 527]

The Covenanters had got together a tolerably large number of troops,

under General Leslie, and Hamilton was sent with five thousand men

to take Leith, but by the time he got into the waters of Leith(e) his

soldiers seemed to be oblivious of their duties, for they all deserted

him.

Charles now thought it high time to go and see about the Scotch business

himself, and he started, per coach, for York, with the Duke of Lennox

and the Earl of Holland as inside passengers. He was met at that city

by the recorder, as the coach drew up to the inn door, and that

functionary, in a fulsome speech, told him he had built his throne on

two columns of diamond--the parasite forgetting that the old notion of

"diamond cut diamond" might unpleasantly suggest itself. At York Charles

enacted an oath of fidelity from the nobles, which was taken by all but

Lord Saye and Brook, the former declaring he should be a mere do if he

consented to say what he did not mean, and the latter intimating that he

was far too deep a Brook to commit himself in the manner that the king

required.

On the 29th of April Charles left York and repaired to Durham, where the

bishop feasted him famously, giving him Durham mustard every day, as a

condiment to the delicious dishes that were prepared for him. He next

advanced to Newcastle, where the mayor entertained him sumptuously;

but while the king went to dinner he heard that many of his troops were

going to desert, and by the time he got to Berwick he was glad to listen

to a proposition for a truce, which, after a good deal of trumpeting on

both sides, was arranged without a blow--except those conveyed through

the trumpet--on either.

A conference was next agreed upon, between the deputies of the

Covenanters and the Commissioners of the king; but, just as they were

commencing business, Charles walked in, saying, "I am told you complain

that you can't be heard! Now then, fire away, for I am here to hear

you." Lord Loudon, who was loud without being effective, began to make

a speech, but the king cut him short, and Loudon, with all his loudness,

remained inaudible during the rest of the sitting. The parties to the

negotiation were pretty well matched, for royal roguery had to contend

with Scotch cunning. "We must give and take," said Charles. "Yes, that's

all very well, but you want us to do nothing but give, that you may do

nothing but take," was the keen reply of the Caledonians. The assemblies

of the Kirk were to be legalised, and an act of oblivion was to be

passed, which was very unnecessary on the king's side, at least, for

he was very apt to forget himself. Castles, forts, ammunition, and even

money, were to be delivered up to the king, but part of the money having

been spent, the cunning Scotchmen accounted for the deficiency by saying

to his majesty, "You can't eat your cake and have it--that is very

well known; and as we have eaten your cake, that you can't have it is a

natural consequence."

Charles was puzzled, though not quite convinced, by this reasoning; but

he thought it best to acquiesce for the sake of peace and quietness in

all the proposed arrangements. The two armies were disbanded on the

24th of June, and Charles having stopped at Berwick to buy a Tweedish

wrapper, returned to England. The king was now seized very seriously

with a fit of his old complaint--the want of money--and he called

in Laud and Hamilton to consult with Wentworth about a cure for the

distressing malady. It was agreed, after some hesitation, to try another

Parliament, and Wentworth suggested that an Irish Parliament might be

tried first, upon which he was named Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, with

the title of Earl of Strafford, to give him more weight in making the

experiment. The Irish Parliament promised four subsidies off-hand, and

two more if required; but an Irish promise to pay, is little better than

a bill without a stamp, a promissory note without a date, or an I O U

without a signature.

At length on the 13th of April, 1640, the English Parliament met, and it

contained many eminent men, among whom Hampden, who sat for the town

of Buckingham, was one of the most conspicuous. Finch, who had been

formerly Speaker, was now Lord Keeper, a position he was most anxious to

keep, and Mr. Serjeant Glanvil was chosen to fill the Speaker's chair,

upon which he made a long tedious speech that annoyed everyone by its

premises, as much as it gratified every one by its conclusion. The

debates very soon assumed a most important air; and Pym--who, from his

effeminate voice, had got the name of Niminy Pyminy from some parasites

of the king--held forth with wondrous power, on the subject of national

grievances. Charles, who hated the word grievance--it is a pity he did

not abhor and avoid the act--ordered Parliament to attend him next day

in the Banqueting Hall, not to give them an opportunity of filling

their mouths, but for the purpose of stopping them. Charles said nothing

himself, but set Finch at them, who told them that they must first vote

the supplies, and that then they might luxuriate in their grievances to

their hearts' content, and having given the king his cash, they would be

at liberty to look out for their own consolation. The Commons were not

to be so cajoled, and on the 30th of April resolved themselves into a

committee of the whole House on the question of ship-money.

The Lords, who were servile to the king, no sooner heard of this than

they sent down to request a conference, but the Commons, who could get

no satisfactory answer to the questions "why?" and "what about?" of

course, on seeing the trap, declined tumbling into it. In vain did

Charles send down to say he had a large amount to make up, and would

be glad to know when it would be convenient to let him have "_that_

subsidy," and even Sir Henry Vane, his treasurer, came--it can't be

helped, the wretched pun must out--Yes! even Vane presented himself in

vain to know when the supplies would be ready. The usual mode of getting

rid of a pertinacious dun was resorted to by saying that an answer

should be sent; and on the 5th of May, 1640, Charles, having asked the

Speaker to breakfast, and as some say, made him exceedingly drunk, ran

down to the House of Lords and dissolved the Parliament.

The state of the money-market was now truly frightful, and the

emissaries of Charles ran about in all directions crying out "Cash!

Cash! We must have Cash!"

Bullion was got from the Tower by bullying the people who had charge of

it, and when no more good money was to be got, a proposition for coining

four hundred thousand pounds' worth of bad was coolly suggested. "By

Jove!" said the king, "when we can't snow white, we must snow brown, and

if we can't snow silver, we must snow copper." Such snow would,

however, have been equivalent tobits Latin appellation of _nix_, and the

merchants foreseeing the danger of depreciating the coinage, prevented

the uttering of base money, which would have been a source of

unutterable confusion. The swindling resorted to for supplying the

necessities of the king was something quite unsurpassed even in the

annals of the most modern of fraudulent bankruptcies. Charles got goods

on credit at a high price, and sold them for ready from the Tower by

bullying money at a low one; horses were lugged out of carriages or

carts, leaving the owners to draw their own vehicles and their own

conclusions; and indeed the king's emissaries went about like a clown in

a pantomime, appropriating and pocketing everything they could lay their

hands upon. "See what I have found!" was a common cry at the snatching

of a purse or anything else for the use of the king, and the example of

robbery being set in high quarters, was sure to be followed in low

with the utmost activity. The London apprentices were invited by a

posting-bill stuck upon the Royal Exchange to a _soirée_ at Lambeth, for

the purpose of sacking the palace of the archbishop, but Laud was ready

with cannon, loaded with grape, and the apprentices muttering that the

grapes were sour, abandoned their formidable intention.

Hostilities with Scotland having again broken out, Charles had his hands

quite full, and his pockets quite empty. The disputants on both sides

were ultimately glad to come to another truce, for they found themselves

after a great deal of fighting exactly where they were before they

began, except some of the killed and wounded, who, unfortunately for

them, were anything but just as they were at the commencement of the

contest. The Scots were to receive, according to treaty, the sum of £850

per day for two months, and Charles, wondering where the money was to

come from, recollected that the Commons had the glorious privilege of

voting the supplies, together with the glorious privilege of raising the

money.

CHAPTER THE FIFTH CHARLES THE FIRST (CONCLUDED).

Such an unfortunate sovereign as Charles is a melancholy subject to

dwell upon, but we must not cut him short though his contemporaries

cruelly served him so. With a melancholy forboding of what was to come,

the king, on the 3rd of November, 1640, opened the Long Parliament. One

of its earliest acts was to release from prison our learned friend Mr.

Prynne, and to give him £5000 damages for his detention. On hearing the

decision he declared he would live no longer like a Prynne, but like a

prince; and by way of a beginning he came down one flight of stairs, and

had "2 pair, Mr. Prynne," instead of "3 pair, Mr. Prynne," marked on the

door-post of his chambers.

Strafford, who felt that his turn would very soon come, remained out of

town as long as he could, under the idea that, in conformity with the

proverb, "Out of sight out of mind," the Commons, if they did not see

him, would never think of him. Charles, however, wrote to him, telling

him that "to keep so long out of sight he must, indeed, be out of

his mind," and insisted on his coming up to town to take his place in

Parliament. He had scarcely entered the House of Lords before Mr. Pym

appeared at the bar to impeach Thomas Earl Strafford in the name of all

the Commons of England. The earl was taken to the Tower; and the chief

secretary, Windebank, had he not discovered something in the wind,

which caused him to take to flight, would assuredly have been obliged to

follow the favourite, or even to come in with him neck and neck, which

means, in this instance, neck or nothing. Finch, the Lord Keeper, was

next proceeded against, but, having made one speech in his own defence,

he availed himself of the natural qualities of the Finch family, by

taking to flight, or to speak more characteristically, he "hopped

the twig," and fled to Holland. Several others were threatened with

Parliamentary vengeance, and Berkeley was actually arrested while

sitting as a peer in his ermine, which he said had been done because the

mob had resolved to undermine the Constitution.

On the 19th of January, 1641, Mr. Prideaux brought in a bill to regulate

the holding of Parliaments. Its object was to provide for their being

summoned by the Lords in case of the refusal of the king, or by the

Sheriffs in default of the Lords, or on the failure of King, Lords, and

Sheriffs, the thing was to be done by the people. There was, by this

measure, to be a new Parliament once in three years, which was allowing

rather amply for wear and tear; and though Charles was very reluctant,

he ultimately gave his consent to the arrangement. Those very ill-used

gentlemen, the bishops, who are always selected as a mark when the

spirit of revolution is abroad taking random shots at everything

venerable, were of course not allowed on this occasion to escape, and

the Commons voted them most unceremoniously out of Parliament.

The great event of the session, however, was the trial of Lord

Strafford, who on the morning of Monday, the 22nd of March, boated it,

or rather barged it, up from the Tower to Westminster. Everything, even

the tide was against him, and the Earl of Arundel, who was notoriously

his enemy, acted as High Steward at the trial. The impeachment contained

twenty-eight articles, every one of them being capital, so that if

Strafford had possessed twenty heads, it is quite clear that the deep

revenge of his accusers "had stomach for them all." Strafford's reply

was written out on two hundred sheets of paper, but a good bold text

hand must have been employed, for the two hundred sheets, as well as the

articles of impeachment, were all got through on the first day of the

trial.

It is rather a strange way of proceeding to take the reply before

hearing evidence in support of the charge; but such was the practice on

this momentous occasion. Arundel next called upon the managers of the

Commons to bring forward their proofs, and Pym began a very roundabout

address in the fashion of the period. The speech of Pym was a

reiteration of the charges in the impeachment, served up with

a _garniture_ of his own eloquence. Strafford declared it was a

conspiracy, of course, for it is a curious fact that the most flagrant

criminals have always been--if they are to be believed, which we need

scarcely say they are not--the victims of a cruel combination against

injured innocence. Strafford asked for time to plead, but he had not

taken out a summons in the regular way, and accordingly only half an

hour was awarded him. He nevertheless made such good use of this short

time, that he made a capital speech, and concluded with a puzzle almost

as good as the old original inquiry, with reference to the red

herring and the sack of coals. * "For if," said he, "the one thousand

misdemeanors will not make a felony, how will twenty-eight misdemeanors

make a treason?"

* Every one knows, or ought to know, the question of the

arithmetical enthusiast: "If a red herring costs three-

halfpence, what will a sack of coals come to?" Ans.--

_Ashes_..

The trial was continued from day to day, and on the 10th of April Pym

walked knowingly up to the bar with a variety of nods and winks, to

intimate that he had a matter of vast importance to communicate. The

assembly having ordered the door to be locked to prevent intrusion--as

if the housemaid might have wandered in with her broom--there was a

general cry of "Now then, what is it? Let's have it out without all this

mystery." Pym hereupon produced a copy of notes taken at a meeting of

the privy council, in which Strafford was reported to have told the king

that he was "'absolved and loosed from all rule and government.'" The

point was considered a strong one; but if Strafford had told Charles he

was the Emperor of Morocco, and might turn all his subjects into morocco

slippers by trampling them under his feet, the ministers having merely

said so would not have made the fact, and he could not have been liable

for it unless it had really happened. _Verba non acta_ seemed, however,

to be the motto of his judges, who took the word for the deed in

numerous instances. Strafford having made the best answer he could to

this part of the charge, was told by Arundel, that if he had anything

more to say, the sooner he said it the better, for his judges were very

anxious to have the pleasure of condemning him. The fact was, that

the customary sympathy of Englishmen for a poor fellow in a mess, was

beginning to show itself, and the Commons feared that the trial would

not "keep" a great deal longer if they did not speedily make an end of

it. The matter was accordingly hurried on, and on the 21st of April,

the bill of attainder passed the Commons by a very large majority.

The numbers were 204 against 59, which of course did not include the

"tellers," for if it had done so, Hume, Hallam, and the rest of us,

must have been comprised, for we are all of us the "tellers" of this sad

story.

When the bill went up to the peers, their lordships were not at all in

a hurry to despatch it, and the Commons kept sending up messages to know

"How about that little Bill?" and begging that the Upper House would

immediately settle it. It was rumoured that Strafford intended to

escape, but it was rather idle to speculate upon the intentions of a man

who was utterly unable to accomplish them. He offered a bribe of £22,000

to Balfour, the Lieutenant of the Tower; but that virtuous individual

scorned the filthy dross, though some brute, who has no appreciation of

the great and good, has hinted that Balfour either expected more, or was

afraid that what was offered would not be forthcoming.

Charles, who was very anxious to make the favourite safe, though the

odds were terribly against him, sent for the Lords and Commons, whom he

begged, when drawing up their sentence, to draw it as mild as possible.

He said he had listened to the evidence, and he really did not see how

they could commit the earl. But Pym replied, _sotto voce_, that "none

are so blind as those who won't see;" and Charles could elicit nothing

satisfactory. At the next sitting of the Parliament a furious mob

was collected outside, and the Lords naturally expressed their

disinclination to being bullied into haste on the subject of the bill

of attainder. Upon this, one Dr. Burgess, who had some weight with the

people, went out to disperse them, and though he said some sharp things

which caused that intolerable nuisance--a wag--to cry out, "Come,

Burgess, none of your sauce!" he succeeded in his object.

The state of nervous agitation in which the whole country was plunged at

about this period may be conceived by a little anecdote which is told

on the best authority--that is to say, the best that happens to be

available. Sir Walter Earl was in the midst of a cock-and-bull story

about some plot that had been hatching to make a sort of girandola of

the Parliament, by blowing it up with a splendid display of fireworks,

in the midst of which the Speaker was to have gone off like a

Jack-in-the-box, when the members, who were shivering and shaking like

a grove of aspens, were startled by the following incident:--Two very

corpulent members happening to stand upon one plank, which was rather

the worse for wear, caused the floor to crack, and the Commons thought

it was all up, or rather all down, with them. The utmost confusion

prevailed, and somebody at once started off to fetch the train-bands,

who acted as the police of the period. It turned out to be a false

alarm, or to speak more correctly, a real alarm resting on false

premises, for the flaw in the floor had been the cause of this not

altogether groundless terror.

On the 7th of May the Lords passed the bill of attainder against

Strafford, as well as another bill, abrogating the power of the king to

dissolve the Parliament. The House was thin, and it may have happened

that the recent accident with the two fat members in the Commons

operated as a warning to corpulent peers not to attend till their locus

_standi_ had been looked to by the carpenter.

It now remained to be seen whether Charles would give his consent to

the execution of the favourite, and poor Strafford feeling that his life

hung upon a thread, sent a long yarn, in the shape of a letter, to his

royal master. The king summoned his privy council to advise him what

step to take, when honest Jack Juxon, the plain-sailing Bishop of

London, exclaimed, bluntly, "I'll tell you what it is, your majesty;

if you've any doubts about his guilt don't you go and sign his bill

of attainder for all the Bills--no, nor the Bobs, nor the Dicks--in

Christendom." Others, however, gave him opposite advice, and the scene

ended by his resolving to give his assent, though he did so with his

pocket-handkerchief before his eyes, but whether from emotion or a cold

in his head is still an "open question" with all historians. On the 12th

of May, 1641, poor Strafford met his doom with such heroic fortitude

that, though he became shorter by a head in a physical sense, his moral

stature was considerably heightened in the eyes of posterity.

The death of Strafford was the signal for the abandonment of office by

several of his friends, who thought it better to live with resignation

than die with resignation at this very trying juncture. Bills

were passed for abolishing the Star-Chamber, and the Court of High

Commission, as well as for preventing the Parliament from being

dissolved, except by its own consent; so that Charles became like a king

in a game of skittles, whose downfall was only a question of time and

circumstance.

Being dreadfully in want of a little loyalty to comfort him, and finding

very little in England--and that of the weakest kind--the sovereign paid

a visit to Scotland, where he knew he could have as much as he wanted,

if he chose to pay for it. His visit to that country was fast coming

to a close when news reached him of a rebellion in Ireland, where the

descendants of the early settlers, who were for settling everybody, and

had taken the name of the "Loras of the Pale," were causing numbers to

"kick the bucket."

The republican spirit had now broken out in full force; and the more the

king went on doing what he was asked, the more the Commons went on being

dissatisfied. At length he determined to try a bit of firmness, and

walked into the House of Commons one morning to demand the impeachment

of five members, two of whom were Pym and Hampden. Charles entered the

assembly quite alone, and walking up to the chair of the Speaker, who

had risen on the king's arrival, his majesty glided into it. He stated

that he had come to take the five members into custody; but there

was something so derogatory in the idea of "every monarch his own

policeman," that the Commons Were rather disgusted, and greeted him with

shouts of "Privilege! Privilege!"

Having made up his mind that "this sort of thing would not do," he

determined to go out of town, and repaired to York, where he was soon

joined by a party of volunteers more select than numerous. Charles was

in that state of cashlessness so often ascribed by history to kings,

who, nominally possessed of a crown, are positively not worth a

shilling.

He had sold his wife's jewels, and laid out the produce in arms and

ammunition, which he gave out as far as they would go to his few

friends; but the distribution was a mournful business. There were

scarcely swords enough to go round, and the gunpowder was served out

in little packets like so many doses of salts to the small band of

royalists. They mustered the money for a manifesto, in which Essex, one

of his apostate generals, was denounced in very large type; and the

king having corrected the proof of the poster, ordered one hundred to

be worked off and stuck up at the earliest opportunity. His majesty

and suite--which Strype tells us was short and suite--repaired to

Nottingham, where the cause of the sovereign got a sort of lift by the

hoisting of the royal standard.

When Charles found it necessary to draw the sword, he felt that he had

nothing else to draw, for his funds were quite exhausted. Everything

seemed to go against him, and even the elements themselves were

unfavourable, for the standard which his friends had found it so

difficult to hoist, was blown down, and came rattling through a skylight

on to the heads of the royalists. The civil war had now regularly

commenced, and the first battle was fought at Edge Hill, in

Warwickshire, where Prince Rupert--the inventor of mezzotinto

engraving--left the print of his sword, and several proofs of his

valour, on the ranks of the king's enemies. After fighting all day the

two armies put up for the night, and facing each other the next morning,

they evidently did not like each other's looks, for both parties

retired. Had the king's troops gone to London, they might have done

some good; but they loitered about Reading, and by the time they got

to Turn-ham Green, it was occupied by twenty-four thousand men,

though where they managed to turn 'em in at Turnham Green is somewhat

mysterious.*

* It seems more probable that the twenty-four thousand

Parliamentary troops were stationed in London than that so

many were crammed into the little suburb specified.

On the 15th of April, the Parliamentarians invested Reading, but the

king having nothing to invest, could not compete for this eligible

investment. Essex, who had managed the transaction, did not continue

long a holder, but fell back to Thame, where a skirmish took place that

would have been literally a tame affair if the illustrious Hampden had

not perished in the _mêlée_.

Essex was one of the worst men possible to be chosen as a leader, for he

had an unconquerable propensity to gib--which was the only invincibility

he possessed--and he was consequently falling back whenever he should

have been going forward. He had gibbed from Reading to Thame, and he now

gibbed again from Thame to London, where it became a saying among the

common people, "Oh, that's Essex: I know him by the cut of his jib."

[Illustration: 536]

The civil war continued to rage with varying success until the battle

of Marston Moor, where the royalists, under Prince Rupert, sustained a

defeat they never recovered from, and the only use they could make of

their right and left wing was to fly for safety. After this reverse,

Charles attempted to get up a treaty called the Treaty of Uxbridge,

which, after twenty days of wrangling between the Commissioners of the

Parliament and those sent by the king--the former wanting everything and

the latter conceding nothing--fell completely to the ground. Cromwell

had contrived that Sir Thomas, now Lord Fairfax, should be appointed

General of the Parliamentary Army, so that the responsibility of failure

should rest upon that individual; while the wily brewer, who knew how to

take his measures, would have artfully secured the merit of any success

for himself. The battle of Naseby was the last decisive blow, which, in

the graphic words of one of our early writers, "put the nasal organ of

royalty completely out of joint." Charles behaved very gallantly, and

so did Rupert; but when the former cried out to his cavalry, "One

charge more and we win the day!" he might just as well have exclaimed,

"Twopence more, and up goes the donkey!" for his words produced no

effect. "Thank you, we've had enough of it," seemed to be imprinted on

every countenance; and after a few more reverses, Charles formed the

rash deliberation of throwing himself upon the generosity of the Scotch.

He might just as well have thrown himself on the pavement beneath the

Monument, as the sequel proved; for the Scotch at once set to work to

see what profit was to be made by the sale of the royal fugitive. After

a good deal of haggling, they sold the sovereign, who had thrown himself

upon their generosity, for £400,000; and they no doubt silenced their

consciences--if they ever had any--by saying, "It's just a matter of

beesness, ye ken," to any one who remonstrated with them upon their

mercenary baseness.

The royal prisoner was shut up for some weeks at Holmby Castle, in

Northamptonshire, but after a few weeks, Cromwell sent one Joyce,

formerly his tailor, and afterwards a cornet in Fairfax's troop of

horse, to "smug" the unhappy king and carry him to the army.

The House of Commons became exceedingly jealous of the military

influence that prevailed, but the people rather sided with the soldiers;

for the Parliament had, of course, in its great love of liberty, taken

the liberty to lay on taxes to an extent unprecedented in the annals

of royal rapacity. It is a fact worth remembering, that the people

frequently find their friends more costly than their enemies.

In the autumn of 1647, the king was sent to Hampton Court, where he was

allowed some indulgences, such as going out to spend the day at Sion

House, where two of his children were remaining as parlour boarders with

the Duke of Northumberland. Some Puritans having given indications of

their imagining that they had a spiritual call to do some mischief to

the king, his majesty resolved not to be at home to such a call if he

could possibly help it, and leaving Hampton Court with three attendants

he reached the coast of Hampshire. It was noticed at the time that

Charles had probably heard of the celebrated Hampshire hogs, and fancied

therefore that Hampshire must be the best place for him to go to in the

hope of saving his bacon. He resigned himself to Colonel Hammond,

the Governor of the Isle of Wight, who placed the royal fugitive in

Carisbrook Castle; where a bowling-green was arranged and a summerhouse

built, so that Charles could fancy himself, if he liked, in a suburban

tea-garden. The king was a capital bowler, and when sorrow came across

his mind he would try and "drown it in the bowls" which Colonel Hammond

was so good as to provide him with.

In the September of 1648, another conference was attempted, and Charles

took a furnished lodging at a private house in Newport, where the

commissioners came to consult with him. They found him much altered, and

with his hair so grey as to bespeak the fact that care had been busy in

peppering his head, which he declared had got into that state during

his anxious sojourn at Oxford; and this peculiar combination of tints

retains to this day the title of the Oxford Mixture.

The Parliament would have been glad to diminish the influence of the

army by a successful negotiation with the king; but while terms were

being discussed, Cromwell, who never brewed half-and-half, struck a blow

at both parties. He sent one of his draymen named Pride, who had risen

from a seat on the shafts of his dray to a colonelcy in the army, to

blockade the Parliament-house with a body of troops, and let in only

those members who were favourable to the views of his late employer. We,

who cannot imagine Barclay or Perkins going the entire in the style of

their predecessor in trade, nor conceive Meux and Co. meddling with the

Crown, except to supply it with beer, are of course astonished at the

insolence of Cromwell. He nevertheless gained his point, for he set the

Parliament at defiance, and had the king removed to Hurst Castle, in

Hampshire, which was so dull that Charles could not help remarking that

coming to Hurst was like going to be buried. He was again removed to

Windsor, and subsequently to St. James's Palace, where the guards were

ordered to call him Charles Stuart, in order to show the magnanimity

of the revenge of such a man as Cromwell. The king was exposed to every

petty insult that littlemindedness could suggest or coarse brutality

execute. In this respect the "liberals" of England in 1649 set an

example which the "liberals" of France followed in the treatment

of their own fallen and powerless sovereign upwards of a century

afterwards. The only comfort he enjoyed was the society of poor old Jack

Juxon, the bishop who had been faithful to him in all his adversity.

It was now determined to bring the king to trial, and on the 20th of

January the proceedings commenced in Westminster Hall, when upon its

being declared that Charles was accused in the name of the people,

a shrill voice exclaimed "Pooh, pooh! not a tenth part of them." The

ushers looked in vain to see who was disturbing the audience, and

the soldiers were ordered to fire into the corner whence the voice

proceeded, until it turned out that Lady Fairfax was the individual by

whom the proceedings had been interrupted. She was a warm politician,

and with her husband had espoused the parliamentary cause, but was

disgusted like him with the brutal use that the "liberals" were making

of their triumph. Charles demurred to the jurisdiction of his judges for

three days, but, on the 27th, they found him guilty, and sentenced

him to be beheaded three days afterwards. The "people," imitating the

conduct of some of their "friends," insulted the fallen monarch in his

misfortune, and many a malicious, low-bred ass, tried to get a kick at

the chained lion. Happily the people in our own days are very superior

to the people of the time ol Charles, and there is no sympathy among

the masses with ungenerous persecution, whatever may be the rank of the

victim.

As Charles quitted the hall after his conviction, a wretched miscreant

displayed a toad-like venom by spitting in the king's face, which drew

from the sovereign the true remark, "Poor souls! they would treat their

generals in the same manner for sixpence." While chronicling an act

disgraceful to human nature, we must not forget to put down what is on

the credit side--namely, a blessing instead of an insult from one of the

guard, who was struck to the ground for giving way to this creditable

impulse.

We draw a veil over the closing scene, for our history is not a register

of murders; but whoever reads attentively the details of the sacrifice

of Charles the First will see the original of one of the darkest scenes

in the French Revolution.

The death-warrant for the execution of Charles the First was signed

by fifty-nine of his judges, the list beginning with the name of James

Bradshaw, and ending with that of Miles Corbet. Few of them rose to much

distinction, and still fewer have left descendants capable of acquiring

fame, for there is scarcely a renowned patronymic in the entire

catalogue. A man in a visor performed the murderous ceremony of striking

off the king's head; and we cannot be surprised that the executioner was

ashamed to show his face on such an occasion.

Though the nation had stood by, in the most apathetic manner, while the

mischief was doing, it was no sooner done than everybody became

very indignant and very sorrowful. Women went into fits, men took to

drinking, and some went so far as to commit suicide rather than survive

their murdered sovereign. This sympathy was all peculiarly English, and,

in fact, a little too much so; for it is the fault of our countrymen to

make a great deal too much of the dead and too little of the living.

Frequently the fate of one who, after his decease, has his merits

recognised by subscription and a monument. Genius not unfrequently asks

in vain for bread when living, but when dead gets a stone awarded him.

Charles was in the forty-ninth year of his age, and the twenty-fourth of

his reign, when he was brought to the scaffold. We regret that we cannot

give a favourable character of this unfortunate person out of place--for

he certainly was completely out of place on the throne of England. His

disposition was mixed, like human nature in general; and indeed, what

is mankind, as the philosopher would ask, but the "mixture as before"

incessantly repeated? He was dignified, it is true, but so is the

representative of the "fifth noble" Neglect, or even starvation, is

freor "tenth senator," in an opera or play, and he was temperate also to

an extent that might have fitted him for the chair of a teetotal lodge,

but not for the throne of a vast empire. He was not avaricious, but if

he spent money freely it was because he freely helped himself to the

money of other people. He was humane to such an extent, that "he would

not have hurt a fly;" but it may be said that a fly never did him any

harm, and hostility therefore, to that imbecile insect, would have been

at once brutal and undignified. The man who would hurt a fly must indeed

be very hard up for a victim to his malevolence, and Charles cannot,

therefore, have much credit given him for his amiability towards that

humble member of the class of _diptera_. The manners of Charles were not

much in his favour; "but it would not have mattered much," says the

incorrigible Strype, "that he was a bit of a bear, had he been otherwise

bearable."

In a commercial country, like ours, his swindling propensities will

always tell against him, and his insatiable desire to obtain money,

under false pretences, was quite unworthy of his exalted station, or,

indeed, of any station but that where the police are paramount. It is

true that his subjects would have kept him rather hard up for cash; and

he often declared that the Long Parliament reduced him repeatedly to

very short commons. Hume has endeavoured to give Charles the reputation

of being a man of "probity and honour;" but it must have been the sort

of honour said to prevail among thieves, for when he could not get money

by honest means--which he seldom could--he never scrupled to rob for it.

In person, Charles had a sweet but melancholy expression, a sort of

_agro dolce_, which made his portrait not quite a _Carlo Dolce_ to look

upon. His features were regular, but he was not vain; and he would often

say or think "that he should not care about a regular nose or chin, so

that he could make both ends meet by having a regular salary." He was an

excellent horseman; but it is one thing to be skilful in the management

of the bridle, and another to be adroit in holding the reins of power.

His equestrian accomplishments would have been useful to him had fate

thrown him into another circle, where his favourite, Buckingham as clown

to the ring, would also have been in his proper position.

The men of letters of Charles' reign were numerous and illustrious.

Ford, the dramatist, whose depth it is difficult to fathom; Ben Jonson,

surnamed the Rare, and as it has been prettily said by somebody, "the

rarer the better;" with Philip Massinger, belonged to the period. Speed,

the topographer, commonly called the "slow coach;" Burton, the famous

anatomist of melancholy, and familiarly known as the sad dog; Spelman,

whose writings possess no particular spell; Cotton, who has furnished

a lot of printed stuffs; and a few others, constituted the literary

illuminators of the age, by their moral and intellectual moulds, dips,

or rushlights.

CHAPTER THE SIXTH. THE COMMONWEALTH.

The king being now dead, the republican beggars were on horseback, and

began at a rapid pace the ride whose terminus we need not mention. On

the 5th of February, 1649, a week after the execution of Charles, the

Commons had the impudence to vote the House of Peers "both useless and

dangerous." One of the next steps of the lower House was to vent a sort

of brutal malignity upon unfeeling objects, and having no longer a king

to butcher, it was resolved to break up all his statues. The Commons

thought, no doubt, to pave the way to a republic by macadamising the

road with the emblems of royalty.

Considerable discussion has been raised upon the question of the right

of a nation to decapitate its king; and, of course, if the people may

do as they please with their own, they may do anything. The judgment

of posterity has very properly pronounced a verdict of "Wilful Murder"

against the regicides, and we have no wish to disturb this very fair

decision. It is very unlikely that a similar state of things will ever

arise again in England; but, if such were to be unhappily the case,

there are, in these enlightened times, numerous pacific and humane modes

of meeting the emergency. "Between dethroning a prince and punishing

him, there is," as Hume well observes, "a wide difference;" and unless

the professed humanity-mongers should get fearfully ahead--unless

the universal philanthropists should gain an ascendency over public

opinion--there is no fear that kings or aristocrats will ever

be butchered again, for the promotion of "universal love" and

"brotherhood."

When Charles was no more, the republicans continued to show their paltry

malevolence by making insulting propositions as to the disposal of his

family. It was suggested that the Princess Elizabeth should be bound

apprentice to a button-maker; but the honest artificer to whom the

proposal was made generously hoped that his buttons might be dashed

before he became a party to so petty an arrangement. Happily for the

princess, death, by making a loophole for her escape, saved her from

being reduced to the necessity of making buttons.

A Committee of Government had been hitherto sitting at Derby House,

which was now changed into the Executive Council, with Bradshaw as

president, and Milton, the poet, as his secretary: the latter having

being employed no doubt on account of his powerful imagination to

conceive some possible justification for the conduct of the regicides.

Duke Hamilton, the Earl of Holland and Capel, the last of whom had

bounded away like a stag, but was seized at the corner of Capel Court,

were all tried and beheaded.

The usual consequences of the triumph of the "great cause of liberty,"

as advocated by noisy demagogues, and of the ascendency of the

_soi-disant_ friends of the people, very soon became evident. It was

declared treason to deny the supremacy of Parliament, which might

indeed lay claim to supremacy in oppression, pride, and intolerance. The

"freedom of the press" was completely stopped; and, in fact, there was

the customary direct antagonism between principle and practice which too

frequently marks the conduct of the hater of all tyranny except his

own, and the ardent friend of his kind, which is a kind that we do not

greatly admire.

The king's eldest son was proclaimed as Charles the Second, in Scotland

and Ireland, which caused Cromwell to say, "I must go and see about

that," and to start at once for Dublin. Having done considerable damage,

notwithstanding the resistance of some of the Irish youth, who went by

the name of the Dublin Stout, he left his son-in-law, Ireton, to look

after Ireland, thinking, perhaps, he would be acceptable from the

semi-nationality of his name, while he himself returned to England. He

took up his abode in London, at a place called the Cockpit, where he

was visited by several persons of consequence; and the new lord of the

Cockpit enjoyed the Gallic privilege of having a good crow upon his own

dunghill.

Montrose now made an attempt in Scotland in favour of Charles the

Second, but being defeated, he fled and sought refuge with a Scotch

friend, who, of course, sold him for what he would fetch, and made £2000

by the business transaction. Poor Montrose was hanged at Edinburgh, on a

gallows thirty feet high, which justifies us in saying that cruelty

was carried to an immense height, on this deplorable occasion. Charles

himself now took the field, having landed at the Frith of Cromarty, and

had collected a tolerably large army under Lesley. Cromwell instantly

started for Scotland, with a considerable force, and attacked the

royalists at Dunbar, where he encouraged his own troops by a quantity of

religious cant, which contrasted strangely with the sanguinary nature

of his object. After cutting to pieces all that fell in their way, the

Puritan humbugs set to at psalm-singing with tremendous vehemence.

This mixture of butchery and bigotry was one of the most disgusting

characteristics of Cromwell and his ferocious followers. Charles, having

fled towards the Highlands, intended leaving Scotland: but some people

there asked him to stop and take a bit of dinner, with the promise of a

coronation in the evening.

The _réunion_ took place, but it was rather dull, and Charles determined

to make his way towards England. Cromwell resolved to pursue him, and

this active friend of religion and humanity, having met a few royalists

on the road, deliberately "cut them to pieces." On the 3rd of September,

1651, the Battle of Worcester was fought, with success to the republican

force; and poor Charles was obliged to escape as well as he could

by assuming a variety of disguises, though how he got the extensive

wardrobe his dramatic assumptions entailed a necessity for, is not quite

obvious. He arrived at Shoreham, near Brighton, in a footman's livery,

and "the lad with the white cockade," as the old song called him,

obtained a situation in a coal barge, in which he was carried to France.

The captain of the collier must have been an odd sort of person, to take

a footman with him on the voyage, but perhaps the coal-heavers of that

day were more refined than they are at present.

Cromwell was triumphantly received in London, and the cloven foot

soon began to peep out from the high-low of the crafty republican. He

accepted Hampton Court Palace as his residence, and an estate of £4000 a

year was voted to him, without the purity of his intentions offering any

obstacle to his receiving it.

The Parliament was now getting into disrepute, and Cromwell thought

he would take advantage of its loss of popularity, to increase his own

stock, whereupon the game of "diamond cut diamond" was commenced between

them. The Parliament had now been sitting for some years, and people

began to think there might be too much of a good thing, even in an

assembly of red-hot patriots, that had hanged a king, and sent the

country into a fit of melancholy, by prohibiting, by law, everything in

the shape of cheerfulness.

In those days, a joke would lead the perpetrator to the gibbet, and a

pun was so highly penal--as, perhaps, it ought to be--that a dull dog

who had dropped one by mistake, was called upon to find heavy securities

for his good behaviour. The nation was thrown into the dismals by Act of

Parliament, and England became--to use a simile that would, at the time,

have sent our heads smack to the block--the very centre of gravity.

Cromwell, seeing that the Parliament was going down in favour every day,

resolved to raise himself by giving the finishing blow to it. He sounded

Whitelock, to whom he put the question, "What if a man should take

upon himself to be king?" and thus Whitelock got a key to Cromwell's

intentions. The old man--Silverplate, as some call him,--did not take

to the notion, and Cromwell was exceedingly cool to him ever afterwards.

There was a meeting at Oliver's lodgings, on the 20th of April, to

discuss the best method of getting rid of the Parliament; and Cromwell,

hearing the Commons were in the act of passing a very obnoxious bill,

got up from his chair, in a very excited state, and told some soldiers

to follow him. He swelled his little band with the sentinels on duty,

whom he called out of their sentry boxes, as he passed, and entered the

House, attended by Lambert, a file of musketeers, and a few officers.

He took his seat, and listened to the debate, but when the Speaker was

going to put the motion, he started up, saying to Harrison--"Now's

the time; I must--indeed I must!" when Harrison pulled him back by the

skirts of his coat, saying to him, "Can't you be quiet? Just think what

you're doing." He then proceeded to address the assembly, but soon got

dreadfully unparliamentary in his language, and rushing from his seat to

the floor of the House, got very personal. He next stamped on the floor,

when his musketeers entered, and, pointing to the Speaker, who was,

of course, raised above the rest, he cried, "Fetch him down!" when

the Speaker was seized by the robe and pulled into the midst of the

assembly. Pointing to Algernon Sydney, Cromwell next cried, "Put him

out!" and out he went like a farthing rushlight.

Algernon was very young, and exhibited at first a degree of boyish

obstinacy, mixed with infantine insolence, which caused him to be

refractory, or--to use a simile in conformity with the image of the

rushlight--to flare up in the socket. He, for a moment, refused to go;

which caused Harrison to tap him gently on the shoulder, and say to him,

in a mild, but resolute tone, "Come, come, young gentleman; if you don't

go out quietly, we must put you out." The child seemed doubtful whether

to turn refractory or not, when it suddenly appeared to occur to him

that it would be useless to resist; and, just as Harrison had his hands

on the lad's shoulders, to impart to him sufficient momentum to have

sent him flying through the door, young Algernon made up his mind that

he would go quietly. Cromwell stood, in fact, like a dog in the midst

of so many rats; a position he had perhaps learned to assume, from his

residence at the Cockpit; and he next flew at the mace, exclaiming,

"Take away that bauble!" The mace was most unceremoniously hurried off,

when, after a little more abuse against several of his old friends,

the House was completely cleared, and there was an end to the Long

Parliament.

[Illustration: 544]

Nothing could exceed the well-bred dogism or utter curishness of the

Commons on this occasion, for not one of them offered the smallest

resistance to the violence of Cromwell. When they had all sneaked out,

he locked and double locked the door, put the keys in his pocket, and

carried them to his lodgings. He admitted that he had not intended

to have gone so far when he first entered the House, but the

mean-spiritedness of the members had urged him on to the course he had

adopted.

Thinking that he might as well make a day of it, he proposed to Harrison

and Lambert to walk with him to Derby House, and the three stalked

into the room where the Council of State was sitting. Cromwell at first

pretended to listen with attention to what was going on, and gave an

occasional loud ejaculation of "Hear!" but Bradshaw, who was presiding,

soon felt that the cheer was ironical. Business was permitted to proceed

in this way for a few minutes, when the Council felt it was being

"quizzed," and Bradshaw, giving an incredulous look at Cromwell, the

latter made no longer a secret of his intention. "Come, come," he cried,

"there's been enough of this; go home, and get to bed, and don't come

here again until you've a message from me that you're wanted." The hint

was immediately taken by Bradshaw, who started up and ran for it--for he

was afraid of rough treatment--and he presently had close at his heels

the whole of his colleagues. Thus, within the space of a few hours,

Cromwell had broken up the Council of State, and dissolved the Long

Parliament.

Cromwell, having made short work of the Long Parliament, proceeded to

supply its place by a legislature of his own composition, and the enemy

of absolute monarchy proved himself an absolute humbug by acts of the

most arbitrary and designing character. His pretended patriotism had

in fact been a struggle on his part to decide whether the business of

despotism should remain in the hands that were "native and to the

manner born" to it, or whether he should start on his own account as a

monopolist of tyranny to be practised for his own aggrandisement. The

new Parliament was a miscellaneous collection of impostors and scamps,

with a slight mixture of honest men, but these were too few to make the

thing respectable. Cromwell now began to put on the external semblance

of religion, with an extravagance of display that gives us every reason

to doubt his sincerity. As the man of straw frequently covers himself

with jewellery, a good deal of which may be sham; so Cromwell enveloped

himself in all the externals of sanctity, which we firmly believe

penetrated no further than the surface.

[Illustration: 547]

One of the principal members of the new Parliament was a fellow named

Barbone or Barebone, a leather-seller and currier, who attempted to

curry favour by an affectation of extreme holiness. The legislative

assembly subsequently got the name of the Barebones Parliament from the

person we have named, and the whole pack of humbugs usurped the powers

of the State by pretending they "had a call" to take upon them the

duties of government.

It may generally be observed that they who make piety a profession look

very sharply out for professional profits, and if they are desirous

of taking what is not justly their own, they soon get up an imaginary

"call" to urge them to the robbery. Cromwell formally handed over to

them the supreme authority--which, by-the-by, was not his to give--and

the first day of their meeting was devoted to praying and preaching,

with a view to giving the public an idea of their excessive sanctity.

They soon set to work in their career of mischief, and began by

abolishing the Court of Chancery, on account of its delays, which was

like killing a horse because it did not happen to go at full gallop.

They certainly expedited the suits, and brought them to a conclusion

about as effectually as one would accelerate a steam-engine by shutting

up the safety valve, and allowing it to go to smash with the utmost

possible rapidity. They nominated as judges a new set of lawyers, whose

qualification was that they were not in the law; and there is no doubt

the Parliament would have dissolved every institution in the kingdom if

the members had not dissolved themselves on the 12th of December, 1654,

at the suggestion of Cromwell.

The old constitutional principle, that "too many cooks spoil the broth,"

having been rapidly exemplified, it was declared expedient to have "a

commonwealth in a single person," or, in other words, to have a king

with a democratic name, which is the invariable result of the policy

of red-hot republicans. Cromwell was, of course, the unit who had put

himself down as A1 for the new office, and he succeeded in choosing

himself or getting himself chosen by the title of _Lord Protector of

England, Scotland and Ireland_. Thus, though the people had cut off the

head of a real king, another head grew in in its place, for Government

is like the hydra, which must have a head, however often the process

of decapitation may be carried into execution. The brewer had, in fact,

mashed up the constitution as completely as if he had used one of his

own mash-tubs for the purpose, and his upstart insolence reached such a

point, that the now well-known expression, "He doesn't think small beer

of himself," was first applied in reference to this dealer in ale and

stout, who, it was clumsily observed, had "gone the entire" in his great

audacity.

While these things were going on at home, the English fleet had been

engaged with Von Tromp, or Trump, abroad, and the Dutch sailor behaved

like the article which his name delicately indicates. The Dutch for some

time, though they only had this Von Trump, carried off all the honours,

and sometimes succeeded even by tricks; but at length the distinguished

Trump was obliged to "shuffle off the mortal coil," and though he would

gladly have revoked his determination to "cut in" to such a desperate

game as an engagement with the English, he played it out to the

last with all his wonted courage. The only remaining Trump, looking

whistfully round him, fell by a blow from a knave who was in the suit

and service of the English. When the last breath was blown out of the

highly respectable Trump, the war between the Dutch and the English was

at an end, and the Protector had time to follow out his principles

by protecting himself with the utmost vigilance. One of his chief

difficulties arose from the eagerness of the various liberal sects

in religion to oppress each other in the name of brotherly love and

universal harmony. This difficulty in quieting the demands of each to

exterminate the others taught him lessons of diplomacy, and Cromwell

soon became the most accomplished "do" that ever had a place in the

pages of history. Though he recommended great tolerance in their

quarrels with each other, they no sooner began to abuse him than he

threw some of them into prison, reminding us of the celebrated apostle

of temperance who, in a fit of intoxication, broke the windows of a

public-house for the purpose of assisting the triumph of the "grand

principle."

Cromwell, who was a clever man, and, though a brewer, was averse to

doing things by half-and-half, made some legal appointments that gave

general satisfaction. He promoted Hale--with whom he was hale fellow

well met--to the Bench of the Common Pleas, and he was fortunate enough

to obtain a recognition of his protectorate from the Governments of

France, Spain and Portugal.

On the 3rd of September, 1654, which was Sunday, Cromwell, as Protector,

first met his new Parliament, and played the part of a king in all its

most essential points, even down to the delivery of a speech from the

throne, remarkable for the badness of its grammar, the antiquity of its

language, and the utter emptiness of most of its sentences. He abused

the levellers, for, with the skill of political engineering, he desired

to level down no lower than the "dumpy level" at which he had arrived;

and while eulogising liberty of conscience, he admitted it to be a

capital thing so long as it did not extend to the formation of opinions

unfavourable to the Protector's own position. He spoke glowingly of the

beauty of free thoughts, but hinted that, lest these thoughts should

be more free than welcome, the people had better keep their thoughts to

themselves as much as possible.

At the close of Cromwell's speech, the Commons sneaked back to their

House, where they elected Lenthall their Speaker, and appointed the 13th

of September a day of humiliation, as if there had not been humiliation

enough for the country in the conduct it had been recently pursuing. The

Protector soon began to put his despotic principles in force, for his

position having been debated rather freely, he sent for the members of

Parliament to the Painted Chamber, and told them very plainly that he

had made up his mind to stand no impertinence. "You wanted a republic,"

said he, "and you have got it; so you had better be satisfied." In vain

did they venture to urge that liberty, equality, and all the rest of it

had been the purpose they had in view, for he replied that "they were

all equally bound to show subservience to him, and that as to liberty,

they were at perfect liberty to do, say, or think anything that would

not be offensive to him, their master." He followed up this announcement

by placing a guard at the door of the Parliament, whose duty it was to

exclaim to each member "You can't go in, sir, until you have signed this

paper," and on its being produced, it turned out to be an agreement not

to question in any manner Cromwell's authority. Though this was a piece

of tyranny and impertinence more disgusting than anything that had been

attempted by Charles, one hundred and thirty of the members yielded to

it at once; for it is a curious fact that, though the people will often

show the susceptibility of the blood-horse at the slightest check of

the rein when it is held by a royal hand, they will manifest the

stolid patience of the ass under the most violent treatment from one of

themselves, who has risen to the position of their master.

On the 14th of September Cromwell's door-keepers played their part so

well, and barred the entrance so effectually against all but those who

would sign the paper, that a great many more agreed to do so, and when

the number of consenting parties was sufficiently respectable to make

up a fair average House, Cromwell's creatures proceeded to vote that

subscribing the recognition of the Protector should be a necessary

preliminary to taking a seat in Parliament.

The Protector having done everything he could for himself, proceeded to

show his protecting influence--of course--over several of his relatives.

Fleetwood, who had married his daughter--the widow of Ireton--was sent

as governor to Ireland, and the Protector's own son afterwards succeeded

to this high and lucrative office. Not only did he provide snugly for

his living kindred, but he gave them most inappropriate honours when

dead, and his mother happening to go off about this time, he

actually insisted on the "old woman's" being entombed in the Abbey of

Westminster. What the dowager Mrs. Cromwell had done to deserve this

distinction, we have yet to learn, and as we have learnt everything

connected with the subject on which we write, our instruction on this

point will, we fear, be postponed to a very distant period.

Among the incidents of the Protector's domestic life, there is one

which we will insert on account of its amusing and perhaps instructive

character. Cromwell's vanity had so increased with his success, that

he one day said to himself, "I can drive a whole people; I can drive a

bargain as well as any man; and, odds, bobs, and buttercups! why should

I not be able to drive my own carriage?" The cattle having been put to,

he mounted the box with a jaunty air to enjoy a jaunt, and was tooling

the cattle down Tooley Street, when, in consequence of the friskiness of

one of the nags, Cromwell began nagging at his mouth with much violence.

The horses not being so easily guided and controlled as the Parliament,

soon turned restive, and ran away; which threw the Protector from

his seat, and his own poll came into collision with the pole of his

carriage. To add to the unpleasantness of the situation, a loaded

pistol, which Cromwell always carried about him, went off, in sympathy,

no doubt, with the steeds; or, perhaps, the charge could no longer

contain itself, and exploded with a burst of indignation at the pride of

its owner, who, however, was not wounded by the accident.

The Protector continued to feather his nest with unabated zeal, and he

got the Parliament to vote him half a dozen different abodes, including

three or four in London itself; so that, unless he took breakfast at

one, at a second, and took "his tea" at a third, he could not have

occupied the metropolitan residences set apart for him. Multiplicity

of lodgings appears to have been a _faiblesse_ of the Protector: for,

notwithstanding these six places of sojourn, there is scarcely a

suburb that has not a house or apartments to let that, according to a

landlord's myth, once served for the palace or residence of Cromwell. If

we may trust to tradition, he once lived at a surgeon's in the Broadway,

Hammersmith; once in a lane at Brompton; once in Little Upper James

Street, North; and once in or near Piebald Row on the confines of

Pimlico. Having got an allotment of plenty of houses, to an extent

reminding us of the extravagant order of "some more gigs" which an

anonymous spendthrift once commanded of his coachmaker, Cromwell began

to think about getting a grant to pay the expenses of his numerous

establishments.

An allowance of £200,000 a year was settled on himself and his

successors, which, we find from a document of the period, * was exactly

one entire sixth of the whole aggregate revenue of the three kingdoms

put together.

* Statement of a sub-committee of the Commons.

Thus, though poor Charles had experienced the utmost difficulty in

getting money granted for the payment of his debts, or even for the

costs of his living like a king and a gentleman, the usurper Cromwell

obtained at once the concession of a most liberal salary.

Notwithstanding the subservience the Parliament had in the first

instance shown, symptoms of refractoriness in that quarter soon became

visible. The Protector had made up his mind to go on changing it, as he

would have done a set of domestic servants, until he could thoroughly

suit himself; and accordingly, on the 22nd of January, 1656, he rang the

bell, desired the legislature to appear before him, and announced

that he had no further use for it. The members were desired to find

themselves situations elsewhere; and though some of them had courage

enough to hint that they "would be sure to better themselves, for

they were tired of the quantity of dirty work they had had to do," the

Parliament evinced, on the whole, a spirit, or rather a want of spirit,

that was quite contemptible. Some of the malcontents ventured on a

little revolutionary rising; but the levellers were speedily reduced to

their old level. Major Wildman, a man rendered wild at the success of

Cromwell's ambition, and hating the protectorate, had been heard to

declare that he would "take the linch-pin out of the common-weal," and

notwithstanding the flaw in the orthography, he was imprisoned on this

evidence of hostility to the ruling power. At the moment when Wildman

was arrested, he was sitting alone in his own back-parlour, evincing

the same sort of enthusiasm that has immortalised the three tailors

of Tooley Street, and drawing up "a declaration of the free and

well-affected people of England now in arms against the tyrant Oliver

Cromwell, Esquire." The major thought he had accomplished something very

stinging, in adding "Esquire" to Cromwell's name; and he was in the act

of roaring out, "Hear, hear! Bravo, bravo!" after he had written out the

title of his tremendous manifesto, when a sudden bursting open of the

door, and a cry of "You must come along with us," threw the major into a

state of surprise from which he had not recovered when he found himself

put for safe keeping in the keep of Chepstowe Castle.

[Illustration: 552]

A few other insurrectionary movements were made, but all of them were of

a very trifling character. Penruddock, Grove, and Lucas got up a little

royalist trio, but their movement was soon turned into a dis-concerted

piece, by a regiment of Cromwell's horse, who rode rough-shod over the

three conspirators, and they were executed instead of their project.

The Protector was no less imperious towards foreign nations than towards

his own, and having made some demands upon Spain, to which that country

refused to accede, he sent Admiral Penn, familiarly termed his Nibs, to

write his name upon some of the Spanish possessions. Assisted by General

Venables, Penn, who may be distinguished as a steel-pen, for he carried

a pointed sword, and never showed a white feather, took the island of

Jamaica after a contest, in which he found among the inhabitants of

Jamaica some rum customers. Blake worried the Spaniards in another

quarter, and the Protector spread so much consternation among some of

the European governments, that the celebrated Cardinal Mazarin, who

greatly feared him, began to look so very blue, that a Mazarine blue

retains to this very day a character for intensity.

Emboldened by his good fortune, Cromwell thought he might venture

on another Parliament, which met on the 17th of September, 1656,

the members having undergone at the door an examination as to their

servility to the Protector's purposes. The first sitting was like the

first night of any novelty at the pit of Her Majesty's Theatre, and two

of Cromwell's creatures officiated as check-takers. Every member who

presented himself at the doors was obliged to produce his credentials,

and upon this being satisfactorily done, a cry of "Pass one," was raised

to the officer in charge of the inner barrier. Nearly one hundred new

members were sent back, after more or less altercation; and the words

"I can't help it, sir; those are my orders; you must go back, sir,"

were being continually heard above the din of "Pass one," or "It's all

right," which confirmed the privilege of admission claimed by many of

the applicants.

A legislature with only one House soon began to be considered as a

sort of sow with one ear, and even the ear that remained was closed

by Cromwell's art against what he used to call in private "the swinish

multitude." A suggestion was made by several that the House of Lords

should be restored, and many began to sigh for a return to the old

constitution, which had been broken up before there had been time to try

the effect of a new one.

At length an alderman of London, one Sir Christopher Pack, started up,

without any preliminary notice, and moved that the title of king should

be offered to the Protector. Pack's proposition set off the entire pack

of republicans in full cry against him, and they all continued to give

tongue from the 23rd of February to the 26th of March, 1657, when Pack's

motion was carried by a large majority. A deputation was appointed to

request that "his Highness would be pleased to magnify himself with the

title of king,"--a proposition almost as absurd as an offer to place

Barclay and Perkins on the throne, or entreat Meux and Co. to write

Henry IX. over the door of their brewery.

Cromwell gave an evasive reply to the requisition, approving most fully

of the proposition to restore the House of Lords, but was hanging back

about the "other little matter," when a declaration from some of his

former friends and tools, that they had fought against monarchy and

would do so again if required, completely settled him in his wavering

refusal of the royal title. He was therefore inaugurated with much pomp

as Lord Protector--and, indeed, he might well have been satisfied, for

he had secured everything except the name of royalty. His manner of life

and his Court were marked by no extravagant show, but he had everything

very comfortable: and he was accustomed to say to his intimate friends,

"What do I want with the gilt, for haven't I got the gingerbread?" He

did not give very large parties at Hampton Court, but used to have a

"few friends" to tea, and "a little music" in the evening.

[Illustration: 554]

He occasionally attempted a joke, "But this," says Whitelock, "was

always a very ponderous business." One of his frolics--we start

instinctively at the idea of Cromwell being frolicsome--was to order a

drum to beat in the middle of dinner, falling unpleasantly on the drums

of his guests' ears, and at the signal the Protector's guards were

allowed to rush into the room, clear the table, pocket the poultry, and,

on a certain signal from the drum, make off with the drumsticks.

Cromwell had the good taste to delight in the society of clever men, and

there was always a knife and fork at Hampton Court for Milton, or for

that marvel of his age, the celebrated Andrew Marvel. Waller, the poet,

was welcome always; Dryden now and then; John Biddle sometimes; and

Archbishop Usher, whom Cromwell use to call the only real gentleman

usher of his day, was constantly kicking his heels under the Protector's

mahogany.

We have now to record the death of poor Blake, who, having fluttered

the Canaries in the isles of that name, was returning safe into Plymouth

Sound, when he died of the scurvy, which, according to a wag of that

day--happily the wretch is not a wag of this--showed that fortune had in

store for him but scurvy treatment. Poor Blake had been in early life a

candidate for an Oxford fellowship, but lost it from the lowness of his

stature, * for in Blake's time very little fellows were not academically

recognised. There is no doubt that with his general ability he would

have taken a very high degree if he had been only big enough. He was

buried at the Protector's expense, in Henry the Seventh's chapel, for

Cromwell was a great undertaker, and was very fond of providing his

friends with splendid funerals.

* Brodic, Brit. Emp., iv. 317.

While these things were happening at home, the Protector was fortifying

his position abroad, and had persuaded the French to abandon Charles the

Second, known to the world in general, and to playgoers in particular,

as the "merry monarch." This fugitive scamp--of whom more hereafter--was

mean enough to offer to marry one of the Misses Cromwell, a daughter

of the usurper, who had the good sense and spirit to turn up his

puritanical nose at the idea of such a son-in-law. Orrery, whom Charles

consulted with the vague idea that consulting an orrery was in fact

consulting the stars, took the message to Cromwell, who replied,

haughtily, "I am more than a match for Charles, but Charles is less than

a match for my daughter." The Protector had what he called something

better in view for his "gal," who, on the 17th of November, was wedded

to Lord Falconbridge. The ceremony was described in the _Morning Post_

of the period, which was then called the _Court Gazette_, and a column

was devoted to an account of the festivities. We see from facts like

these how ready are the declaimers against aristocracy to adopt the ways

and even the weaknesses of a class that is ridiculed and abused chiefly

by those who would, if they could, belong to it.

The ascendency of the puritan Protector was marked by the grossest

corruption that ever prevailed under the most licentious of regal

governments. Unlimited bribery of one portion of the people was effected

by the unlimited robbery of the other, and thus the dupes were made to

pay the knaves who sold themselves and betrayed their fellow-subjects

for the sake of Cromwell's aggrandisement.

On the 20th of January, 1658, the Parliament met again, and fraternised

with a little batch of peers, amounting to sixty in all, whom Cromwell

had created, and who might, indeed--upon our honour, we don't say so

for the sake of the pun--be justly called his creatures. Two of the

Protector's sons, namely, Richard and Henry, were among the batch of

anything but thoroughbreds, that formed the roll of Oliver's peerage.

The number, however, included some highly respectable names, among whom

we may particularly notice Lord Mulgrave, who took the family name of

Phipps, because in the civil wars he would not at one time have given

Phippence for his life; Lord John Claypole, whose head was as thick and

whose brains were as muddy as his title implies; and a few old military

friends of Cromwell. Colonel Pride, who had been a drayman, was also

among the new peers; and the drayman of course offered a fair butt to

the royalists, who threw his dray in his face and assailed him with the

shafts of ridicule.

Scarcely any of the genuine nobles who had been called to Parliament

condescended to come, and the Protector made his appearance before a

house almost as poor as some of those in which the farce of legislation

is enacted in these days at nearly the close of a very long session.

Cromwell was really indisposed, or shammed indisposition on account of

the scantiness of the audience, for, after having said a few words, he

turned to his Lord Speaker Fiennes, exclaiming, "Fiennes! you know my

mind pretty well; so just give it them as strongly as you like, for

I'm too tired to talk to them." Fiennes, taking the hint, proceeded

to rattle on at very rapid rate, mixing up a quantity of religious

quotations and a vast deal of vulgar abuse, in the prevailing style of

the period.

The Commons retired to their chamber in a huff; and four days

afterwards, receiving a message mentioning the Upper House, refused

to recognise the peers except as the "other house,"--for the little

Shakspearean fable of the rose, the odour, and the name, was not at that

time popular. The Protector, who always sent for the Parliament as he

would have sent for his tailor, desired that the legislature should be

shown into the banqueting or dining-room, where he advised them not to

quarrel, and, producing the public accounts, he impressed upon them that

things were very bad in the city. He exhorted them not to increase the

panic by any dissensions among themselves, but he could not persuade

them to change their note; and he accordingly got out of bed--some say,

wrong leg first--very early on the 4th of February, when, calling for

his hot water and his Parliament, he dissolved the latter without a

moment's warning. The legislative body had enjoyed a short but not very

merry life of fourteen days, when an end was thus put to its too weak

existence.

The Protector was now in need of all his protective powers in

consequence of the dangers that on all sides threatened him. The

republicans were ready, as they generally are, to draw anything, from a

sword to a bill; and the army, with its pay in arrear, did nothing but

grumble. The royalists were being inspirited by the Marquis of Ormond,

who was "up in town," quite _incog_.; and the levellers were, of course,

ready to sink to any level, however degraded, in the cause of the first

leader who was willing and able to purchase them.

Notwithstanding the gathering storm, Cromwell boldly stuck up the sword

of vengeance by his side, as a sort of lightning conductor to turn aside

the destruction that threatened him. A pamphlet, called "Killing no

Murder," put him to the expense of a steel shirt, the collar of

which, by the way, could have required no starch; and he kept himself

continually "armed in proof," but we do not know whether he selected

an author's proof, which might have been truly impregnable armour, for

getting through an author's proof is frequently quite impossible. He

carried pistols in his pockets, to be let off when occasion required--a

provision of which he never gave his enemies the benefit. Poor Dr.

Hunt was cruelly cut off--or, at least, his head was--which amounted to

much the same thing; and others were treated with similar severity.

On the Continent the Protector was very successful, and the English

serving under Turenne, or, as some have called him, Tureen, poured down

upon Dunkirk, which was overwhelmed and taken. Cromwell, however, lived

a miserable life at home, being suspicious of every one about him,

and he never dared sleep more than two consecutive nights in the same

place--a circumstance that may account for the multiplicity of lodgings

we have already alluded to. This continual changing of apartments must

have rendered him very liable to get put into damp sheets, and, as

hydropathy had not yet been reduced to a system, he caught the ague,

instead of profiting by the moisture of the bed-clothes. On the 2nd of

September he grew very bad indeed, and, in the presence of four or five

of the Council, he named his son Richard to succeed him; but this youth

was so complete a failure, that to talk of his succeeding was utterly

ridiculous. Oliver Cromwell died between three and four o'clock in the

afternoon of the 3rd of September, the day on which he always expected

good luck, for it was the anniversary of some of his greatest victories.

Death, however, is an enemy not to be overcome, and, in spite of

the prestige of success which belonged to the day, the Protector

was compelled to yield to the universal conqueror. He died in the

fifty-ninth year of his age; and it is a singular coincidence that

Nature brewed a tremendous storm--as if in compliment to the brewer--at

the very moment of his dissolution.

[Illustration: 557]

The character of Cromwell was, as we have already intimated, a species

of half-and-half, in which the smaller description One, Two, Three, and

finder of beer appeared to preponderate. He had, like a pot of

porter, a good head; but to draw a simile from the same refreshing

fount, he was rather frothy than substantial in his political qualities.

His speeches had the wonderful peculiarity of meaning nothing, and

instead of saying a great deal in a few words, he managed to say very

little in a great many. * Cromwell wrote almost as obscurely as he

spoke, and could do little more than sign his name, for which he used

to make the old excuse of the illiterate, that his education had been

somewhat neglected; and indeed it seemed to have gone very little beyond

those primitive pothooks intended for the hanging up of future more

important acquisitions. The Protector's wit was exceedingly coarse, or

rather particularly fine, for it was scarcely perceptible. It savoured

much of the Scotch humourist, whose fun might be exceedingly good

sometimes, if it were not always invisible. His practical jokes wore

not particularly happy, and his smearing the chairs with sweetmeats

at Whitehall, to dirty the dresses of the ladies, was a piece of

facetiousness worthy of an eccentric scavenger, but highly unbecoming to

the chief magistrate, for the time being, of such a country as England.

* The following is an extract from one of the Protector's

speeches, which even Captain Bunsby, the naval oracle in

"Dombey and Son," might be proud of: "I confess. I would

say, I hope, I may be understood in this, for indeed I must

be tender in what I say to such an audience as this;--I say,

I would be understood that in this argument I do not make a

parallel between men of a different mind."

--_Original Speech of Oliver Cromwell._

Though Cromwell could scarcely read the characters of caligraphy, he

could peruse the characters of men with great acuteness. He was well

acquainted with all the variations of human types, and could easily

distinguish the capitals from the lower-case. In private life he was

playful, though in his public capacity he was severe even to cruelty;

and it has hence been prettily remarked, that, though he was a kitten

in the bosom of his family, the puss became a tiger in the arena of

politics. He never turned his back upon any of his children, except at

leap-frog, in which he would often indulge with his sons, who had little

of that vaulting ambition for which their parent was conspicuous.

[Illustration: 558]

CHAPTER THE SEVENTH. RICHARD CROMWELL.

[Illustration: 559]

CONSIDERING all things, we have some hesitation in devoting a chapter to

this contemptible imbecile; but in taking up the thread of the history,

we promise to wind him off in a very few pages.

The ceremony of proclamation was performed in London and Westminster,

as well as in every city of the kingdom, and congratulatory addresses

poured in upon the new Protector, as they would upon Brown, Jones,

Robin-son, or any other piece of scum that the tide of chance might

have thrown up to the same position. There was the usual junction of

condolence on the death of the parent, and joy at the accession of

the son; but both expressions were equally affected and hypocritical.

Richard Cromwell was, however, such a mere nonentity, that he could

not turn to account the advantages of his position: and when the army

promised to stand by him to a man he had nothing to say beyond "Dear me!

how very kind of the army!" He had, it is true, been born, as the saying

is, with a "silver spoon in his mouth," and the qualities of the spoon

had become incorporated with his being.

The soldiers soon began to discover that the brewer's son knew

more about barrels of beer than barrels of gunpowder, and that his

acquaintance with the musket was limited to the butt end of it. A

petition was got up among the troops requesting him to resign; but he

replied, that though he was very willing to do anything to oblige, he

was sure his people did not wish him to relinquish the command of the

army.

Richard had sent, as usual, for the coffers of the State, which have

been generally the first object of solicitude to one attaining the

post of chief magistrate. Some small change was all that the coffers

contained, and he resolved to call a Parliament in order to replenish

them. The legislative assembly met on the 27th of January, 1659, but

was very soon torn by factions of every sort, except satisfaction,

which there were no symptoms of in any quarter whatever. Fleetwood, the

brother-in-law of Richard Cromwell, and Desborough, his uncle-in-law,

who had married his aunt, got up a movement against him among the

soldiers who resented their want of pay, and avowed their determination

not to draw their swords until they had drawn their salaries. Finding

there was nothing to be got out of the Parliament, Richard dissolved it,

and the old one that Oliver had forcibly ejected had the impudence to

resume its sittings. The new Protector beginning to think, like his

father, that self-protection was the first duty he had to perform,

withdrew to Hampton Court, and sent in his resignation, which was

accepted immediately.

The Parliament, though very long of date, was very short of cash, and

coolly proposed selling the three royal palaces to ease the pecuniary

pressure which the tightness in the city was occasioning. Royalists'

plots, however, disturbed the plans of the assembly, whose members

quarrelled fiercely with each other, and were terribly bamboozled by

Monk, who had a large amount of monkish deception in his character.

He wrote letters to cajole Parliament, while he was in treaty with the

king; but the former being very short of cash soon decided, whatever

doubts he might have entertained as to which was the best investment for

his allegiance.

It having become tolerably sure that Charles the Second would be sent

for, there was a sudden rush of competitors for the honour or dishonour,

as the case may be, of bringing him back to England. Even Fleetwood, the

brother-in-law of Richard Cromwell and the son-in-law of Oliver, was

on the point of undertaking the job; but having entered into a sort of

tacit agreement with Lambert, to give him a share in any job that he

(Fleetwood) might undertake, the latter could not make up his mind to

sell himself in the former's absence.

Monk continued to deceive the Parliament with so much success that he

was invited by that body to come to London, and accept the situation of

keeper of St. James's Park, a post of honour rather than of active duty;

for, in those days, "the boys" had not gained such ascendency as to call

for activity in the metropolitan beadlery. Monk used his new position

for the purpose of promoting the object for the furtherance of which

he had in fact sold himself to the king; and his majesty having sent

a letter to the Parliament, in which the lords had again mustered very

strong, a favourable answer was returned to it.

Charles was voted a sum of £50,000 to pay his expenses home, and the

evening was spent in bell-ringing, beer, and bonfires. Royalty rushed up

to a premium as exorbitant and unhealthy as the discount to which it

had fallen in the days of the Commonwealth; and on the 8th of May, 1660,

Charles was proclaimed at the gate of Westminster Hall, amidst loud

cries of "Hats off!" "Down in front! Long live the king!" and "Where are

you shoving to?"

Richard Cromwell made himself not the least obstacle to any arrangements

that might be made for deposing him, and indeed begged the parties

concerned would not "consider him" in any alterations that circumstances

might require. His chief anxiety was to get a guarantee against the

expenses of his father's funeral, for which "poor Richard" feared he

was legally responsible. He sneaked eventually out of the kingdom, and

making a call abroad on a foreign prince, who did not know him, was

told to his face, in the course of a casual conversation, that "Oliver

Cromwell, though a villain and a traitor, was fit to command, but that

Richard was a mere poltroon and an idiot." * "What has become of the

fellow?" added the prince; upon which Richard suddenly withdrew, and the

conversation ended. He eventually returned to England, and taking the

name of Clark, died unknown at a little place in Cheshunt.

* Universal Biography, vol. i., "Life of Richard Cromwell."

The Prince of Conte is the individual with whom the

conversation was held in which Richard received, unasked,

this true but not flattering character.

We may as well finish off the Cromwells at once, while we are about

them, by mentioning that the last known descendant of the family, who

died in 1821, was on the roll of attorneys. From the throne of England

to the stool in a solicitor's office, is undoubtedly a dreadful drop;

and if Oliver Cromwell could have seen the last of his race making out

a bill of costs, the Protector would have received a lesson by which he

might have profited.

CHAPTER THE EIGHTH. ON THE NATIONAL INDUSTRY AND THE LITERATURE,

MANNERS, CUSTOMS, AND CONDITION OP THE PEOPLE.

That improvement was not stationary during the period we have just been

describing, will be inferred from the fact that, in 1625, Science called

a hackney-coach into existence. Though in these days invention would

seem to be at a stand if it went no further than the point we have

indicated, still the hackney-carriage was a decided advance on the slow

coaches of previous centuries. From a print of the period we perceive

that the newly-invented vehicles resembled in shape something between a

steam locomotive and a covered railway luggage-van, or in other

words, exhibited a sort of combination of the 'bus and the boiler. The

hackney-coachman did not long enjoy a monopoly, for in 1634 Sir Sanders

Duncomb thrust a pair of poles through an old sentry-box, and calling

it a sedan, started it as a "turn out" for his own convenience. The

arrangement seeming to give satisfaction, he obtained a patent for

fourteen in all, and S. D. advertised the careful removal of ladies and

gentlemen by means of his new invention.

In the year 1630, London began to exhibit symptoms of outgrowing its

strength, and fresh buildings within three miles of the gates were

prohibited. So long as the metropolis extended on all sides alike, there

could have been nothing to fear, for it would have been as broad as it

was long, at any rate. It is a curious fact that those persons who had

money in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries did not know what to

do with it. They had been in the habit of keeping it in the Royal Mint,

till Charles the First got into the ugly habit of going down to that

establishment, clearing off the whole of the cash it contained, calling

it a loan, and never paying it back again. The capitalists next tried

the experiment of lodging their cash with their clerks and apprentices,

and unfortunately it soon became current coin of the realm, for the

clerks and apprentices all ran away with it. "The moneyed men, listening

at last," says Anderson, "to these admoney-tory lessons, began to place

their cash in the hands of goldsmiths," but these gentlemen used to pick

out the heaviest coins and make a profit by the sweating process, so

that instead of living by the sweat of their own brows, they lived by

the sweating of other people's money. This was the origin of the

banking business, which began in, or near, Sweeting's Alley, then called

Sweating's Alley, from the practices we have mentioned.

Gardening industry made wonderfully rapid strides during this era, for

the peas were well drilled, the cabbages made to stand at ease in the

open air, and the turnips to take close order at the commencement of

the seventeenth century. Cherries soon after came amongst the English

people, with a degree of cherry bounce that the beauty and delicacy of

the fruit perhaps warranted. The apple was welcomed with enthusiasm,

and Samuel Hartlib, a gardener of the day--week, month or year--was so

affected by the flourishing growth of an apple-tree he had planted, that

the well-known expression, "Go it, my pippin!" burst from his lips,

and has taken its place in popularity with the Eureka of the old

philosopher. The hops also presented themselves as candidates for

British favour, and were soon at the top of the poll in all directions.

The woollen manufacturers of England acquired importance at a very early

date; but the secret of dyeing the cloth could never be discovered, and

every failure only threw a wretched stain upon national ingenuity. At

length a Dutchman settled himself, in 1643, at Bow, and announced, by a

notice in his bow-window, his intention to get a living by dyeing upon

an entirely new principle. Hitherto the English had miserably failed in

this branch of art, for when they attempted to master the dye and keep

it under their control, it was always sure to come off with flying

colours. The Dutchman of Bow had determined to conquer, even in dyeing,

and he not only succeeded in producing a single shade, but he made such

hits with his shots, that customers might safely stand the hazard of the

dye, if they brought their orders to his establishment. He taught the

art to the English, the fastness of whose colours had been previously

shown in the extreme rapidity of their running.

In 1622. hemp and flax having been introduced ready dressed into

this country, the rope manufacture twined itself with the industrial

institutions of England. There had been always a prejudice against the

use of coal for domestic purposes; but on its value in manufactures

being discovered, it acquired a higher character, though its best

friends were never able to say that coal after all is not so black as

it had been painted. It was extensively employed in iron manufactories,

which had greatly advanced; and we have seen an old woodcut of a saw

which is one of those very "wise saws" that maybe considered equal to

the best of our "modern instances."

Knowing the danger of playing with edge tools, we forbear to speak of

them any longer in a sportive strain, and turn to the state of music in

the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Henry the Eighth himself was a

composer, if we are to believe Sir John Hawkins, but we suspect that the

monarch's well-known overtures to the Pope may have misled the

musical historian. There were several writers of madrigals, a class of

production whose name has been ingeniously but ignorantly supposed to

have reference to the mad wriggles into which the music throws itself.

Charles the First was an adept in the pleasing science, and pretended

to play on the viol, though not without a sad viol-ation of some of

the rules of harmony. He was, however, fond of melody, which, like

everything else of a cheerful and agreeable nature, received a sad blow

from the dull puritanical humbugs who rose into importance at the time

of the Commonwealth. These psalm-singing sycophants were so fond

of hearing their own melancholy and monotonous voices, that no

accompaniments were allowed: and thus, to use the impassioned pun of

Smith, * "one of the most disgusting specimens of an organised hypocrisy

that the world ever saw was carried on entirely without the use of

organs."

The Fine Arts flourished in England under Charles the First, who was a

scholar, a man of taste, a gentleman, and, in fact, everything but what

he ought to have been--namely, a good sovereign. He employed Vandyke

to take off his head, or rather multiply it frequently, as if he felt a

foreboding of his eventually losing it. He was also the patron of

Inigo Jones, the architect of several public buildings, and of his own

fortune.

The drama is a subject so exciting to antiquarian speculation, that we

are afraid of losing ourselves in the mists of ages by plunging into it.

We cannot hope to surpass in sagacity some of those ingenious annotators

of the present day, who have had such a keen eye to Gammer Gurton's

needle, that they actually trace its existence to so remote a date

as some few years before the birth of its author. ** We need not

particularise the various dramatic authors who gave lustre to the

Elizabethan period, nor shall we fall into the affectation of

talking about Master Beaumont, Master Fletcher, Master Jonson, Master

Shakspeare, Master Deekes, and Master Hey wood, as if they had been

so many precocious young gentlemen or juvenile prodigies of which the

present age is somewhat prodigal.

* For further particulars of Smith, see the "London

Directory."

** See Wright--who, by the way, was generally wrong--in his

"Historia Histrionica."

The Long Parliament put down all stage plays, for the miserable mummers

of whom that assembly was composed were desirous of having all the

acting to themselves, though they made a very poor burlesque of the

parts of statesmen and patriots. It has been ingeniously suggested by

Mr. Collier, in his History of Dramatic Poetry, that the Puritanical

Parliament suppressed the drama and dramatists less on conscientious

grounds than from the fear of being made the subject of well-merited

satire. The same feeling which would urge a legislature of pickpockets

to abolish the police might have actuated the Republicans in their zeal

to get rid of that moral watch which a well regulated state will always

keep over cant and villainy.

[Illustration: 564]

If, however, dramatic performances were scarce during the ascendency of

Cromwell and the Puritans, the public--had they known how to appreciate

it--would not have been without food for mirth in the very ludicrous

exhibitions which the events of the day were perpetually furnishing. The

career of Cromwell himself might have suggested an amusing spectacle

to those who are in the habit of turning to the ridiculous side of

everything. A brewer on the throne, endeavouring to unite republican

simplicity with royal state, presents to the imagination a figure almost

as grotesque as that of an elephant on the tight-rope--an idea in

which there is that rare combination of ponderosity and levity, which

Cromwell's conduct on the protectorat elbow, or supreme arm-chair, will

be found to have realised. His unwieldy gambols and great preponderance

over all below him, were most fatal to that balance of power which can

never be sustained without an equality of pressure and an equality of

resistance on all sides.

Our survey of the literature of the seventeenth century would be

incomplete if we were to omit to notice the 3rd of November, 1640, as

being the date of the earliest English newspaper. It bore the name of

the "Diurnal Occurrences; or, Daily Proceedings of Both Houses," but

though it professed to give daily news, it was only a weekly periodical.

There arose rapidly a provincial press, but its pretensions were slight,

and _News from Hull, Truths from York, Warranted Tidings from Ireland_,

were the names of some of the chief of these country newspapers. Their

leading articles were not much in the style we are accustomed to at the

present day; but the ancient order of penny-a-liners seemed to be ever

agog for these precocious gooseberries, showers of frogs, and fading

reminiscences of oldest inhabitants, that are still the staple of the

productions of this humble class of contributors. It is a remarkable

coincidence that the circulation of the blood and the circulation of

newspapers should both have belonged to this period of our country's

history.

Furniture and costume improved wonderfully in this age, and the wealthy

became less chary of expense in their chairs, while they began to

sleep on down, or, in other words, to feather their nests with great

luxuriance. The clothes of the times of the two Charles's were made much

too large for the wearers, and may be considered characteristic of the

loose habits of the period. The hair was cut short by the Republican

party, or Roundheads, in memory of whom the culprits at Clerkenwell and

other prisons are cropped exceedingly close, though this is not the only

point of resemblance between the modern rogues and the old regicides.

The condition of the people was not very enviable in the era we have

described, and it is a remarkable as well as a most instructive fact,

that commonwealth is usually synonymous with common poverty. Wages were

invariably low, for a man-servant who could thrash a cornfield and kill

a hog, received only fifty shillings per annum. Poverty and knavery,

begging and filching, were at their height under the reign of the

Puritans; for "Like master, like man" was at all times a proverb that

could be thoroughly relied upon.