[Sidenote: THE REGICIDES.]
The treatment of the men who had been foremost in what the Royalists
called the Great Rebellion, affords a further and a critical instance
of the temper of Parliament. At first, and for some little time
afterwards, the majority supported a large measure of oblivion. Not
more than seven persons were excepted from the Act of Indemnity. But
the number speedily increased to twenty-nine.[159] Afterwards it was
proposed that all who sat on the trial of Charles I., and had not
surrendered according to a late Proclamation, were to be excluded from
the Act of Oblivion,--a point carried without any division. The Lords
made the Bill more stringent. They determined to exclude all who had
signed the death-warrant, or were sitting in the court when sentence
was pronounced, whether they had submitted since the Restoration or
not; to these the Lords added the names of Hacker, Vane, Lambert,
Haselrig, and Axtell. Yet they struck out a clause, reserving Lenthall
and others for future punishment. The Commons had been slow with the
Act of Indemnity, notwithstanding the salvation of many of their
old friends was involved in it. The Lords were slower still, and
both had to be spurred on by Royal messages. When the Bill, in its
increased severity, came down from the Lords, the Commons resisted the
sweeping amendment which excluded all the members of the High Court of
Justice from the general amnesty. They pleaded that such an exclusion
would violate the promise from Breda, and the terms of the recent
Proclamation. Repeated conferences took place between the Houses, and
it is visible that the spirit of resistance to the vindictiveness of
the Lords gradually gave way, and that the violent Royalists were
gaining ground amongst them. The Commons entered into a compromise.
Most of the judges were excepted; others were reserved for lesser
penalties. About twenty persons, besides those who had pronounced
sentence in the High Court of Justice, were incapacitated for any civil
or military office.[160]
The regicides being excluded from the Act of Oblivion, some of them
were tried at the Old Bailey, in the month of October, 1660. Amongst
those who then stood at the bar were four persons who have appeared,
more or less conspicuously, in connection with the Ecclesiastical
History of the Civil Wars and the Commonwealth.
[Sidenote: 1660.]
Major-General Harrison, the famous Republican, who, in the Little
Parliament had opposed the tithe system, who had plunged deeply into
the study of prophecy, had been for some time expecting the reign of
the saints, and had been involved in the revolutionary schemes of the
Fifth Monarchy men, was arraigned for having sat upon the trial of his
"late Sovereign Lord King Charles I., of ever blessed memory," and for
having signed and sealed the warrant for his execution.[161] He was
found guilty, and condemned to die. With his political fanaticism there
blended other feelings; and the propriety of his demeanour in prison
was such, that the woman, who cleaned his cell, and kindled his fire,
declared she could not conceive how he deserved to be there, for he
was a man "full of God--there was nothing but God in his mouth--and
his discourse and frame of heart would melt the hardest of their
hearts."[162] He died expressing transports of religious joy.
[Sidenote: THE REGICIDES.]
Hugh Peters, the military Divine, who had beat up for recruits
at country market crosses, and carried messages of victory from
the Army to the Commons, was now condemned for stirring up the
soldiery to demand the Monarch's execution, and for giving publicity
to the Proclamation for the High Court of Justice. As he was
going to execution, he replied to a person--who abused him as a
regicide--"Friend, you do not well to trample upon a dying man, you are
greatly mistaken. I had nothing to do with the death of the King."
Peters, although coarse, vulgar, and violent, has been painted in
darker colours than he deserves. It is certain that he approved of
the execution of the King; but whether his complicity in the deed was
legally proved is another question. That he was one of the masked
headsman on the 30th of January, 1649, is an idle tale; and of the
charges against his moral character no adequate proof has ever been
adduced. Without any respect for his memory I wish to do him justice.
He has been commonly represented by Royalists as an unprincipled and
cruel villain, steeped in vice, and laden with crime. The facts of his
history do not support that indictment; they rather show him to have
been a sincere, misguided, and unhappy enthusiast.[163]
Isaac Pennington--who presented to the Long Parliament in 1640 the
famous "Root and Branch" Petition of the London citizens--was at this
time also charged with compassing the Monarch's death. The Lord Chief
Baron alluded to him in merciful terms, and although found guilty,
his life was spared through the intercession of influential friends.
He died a prisoner in the Tower, December the 17th, 1661. His son
Isaac had embraced Quakerism; and a daughter of his wife, by a former
husband, became the wife of William Penn.
[Sidenote: 1660.]
By the side of Isaac Pennington stood another prisoner with whom we are
already acquainted--Henry Marten.[164] Of his Revolutionary opinions,
and of his active part in the Whitehall tragedy, there could be no
question--perhaps he had as much to do with it as any one; yet after
he had been convicted, he threw himself upon the mercy of Parliament.
In the petition which he presented he observed, with the careless wit
which no misfortune could subdue, that he had surrendered himself upon
the Restoration in consequence of the King's "Declaration of Breda,"
and that "since he had never obeyed any Royal proclamation before
this, he hoped that he should not be hanged for taking the King's word
now?"[165] The Commons do not appear to have attempted anything in his
favour; but his cause received warm advocacy when it came before the
Lords. With a dash of invincible humour, the Republican pleaded, that
since the honourable House of Commons, which he before so idolized,
had given him up to death, the honourable House of Peers, which he had
so much opposed, especially in their power of judicature, was now left
as a sanctuary to which he fled for life. He had submitted himself to
His Majesty's gracious Proclamation, he took hold of it, and hoped to
receive pardon through it. He now submitted himself to His Majesty and
to the House for mercy.[166] Marten obtained what was denied to men
more worthy; but although his life was spared, he spent twenty years in
prison, and expired in Chepstow Castle, at the age of 78.[167]
The growth of vindictive loyalty was rapid; it rose to an alarming
height, and assumed a frantic mien, when, after re-assembling in
November, the Commons resolved, that the carcases of Oliver Cromwell,
Henry Ireton, John Bradshaw, and Thomas Pride, whether buried in
Westminster Abbey or elsewhere, should with all expedition be taken up,
drawn upon a hurdle to Tyburn, there hanged up in their coffins for a
time, and afterwards buried under the gallows.[168]
[Sidenote: NEW BISHOPS.]
Leaving this horrid subject, we notice that at the close of the year a
consecration of new Bishops took place. Of the nine prelates remaining
alive at the time, Juxon, who had been Bishop of London, was translated
to Canterbury; Frewen, who had been nominated by Charles I. to the
see of Lichfield and Coventry, was promoted to the Archbishopric of
York; and Duppa, who had held the see of Salisbury, was transferred
to the diocese of Winchester. To the Bishopric of London, vacated
by the translation of Juxon, Sheldon succeeded--a reward considered
due for unceasing vigilance over Episcopalian interests during the
Commonwealth. Morley, who had attended Charles at the Hague, was
appointed Bishop of Worcester; and Henchman, who had aided His
Majesty's escape after the battle near that city, became Bishop of
Salisbury.[169]
Seven new prelates together were consecrated at Westminster on Sunday,
the 2nd of December:--Cosin, the patristic scholar, who had been
chaplain in the household of Queen Henrietta,--as Bishop of Durham; and
Walton, the editor of the _Polyglott_,--as Bishop of Chester. Gauden
also was one of the number. Though he had remained in Cromwell's Broad
Church, it is said that upon all occasions he had taken worthy pains
in the pulpit and by the press to rescue His Majesty and the Church
of England, from all mistaken and heterodox opinions of several and
different factions, as well as from the sacrilegious hands of false
brethren whose scandalous conversation was consummate, in devouring
Churchlands, and in impudently making sacrilege lawful.
[Sidenote: 1660.]
He received for these services the Bishopric of Exeter;[170] and
at the same time there was consecrated with him--as Bishop of
Carlisle--Richard Sterne, who had suffered much from the Presbyterians,
and had attended on the scaffold his friend, Archbishop Laud. Laney
designated to Peterborough, Lloyd to Llandaff, and Lucy to St. David's,
complete the seven.
Sancroft, then domestic chaplain to Bishop Cosin, preached the sermon,
in which he defended diocesan Episcopacy from the words of St. Paul to
Titus: "For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set
in order the things that are wanting, and ordain elders in every city,
as I had appointed thee." He who appointed him, said the preacher, was
"not a suffragan of St. Peter," "not a disciple of Gamaliel," "not a
delegate of the civil magistrate," but "an apostle of Jesus Christ."
And he who was appointed was "a single person; not a consistory of
Presbyters, or a bench of elders," and his office was to supply
defects--to correct what might be amiss--and to exercise the power
of ordination; "our most reverend Titus" being "a genuine son and
successor of the apostles." The theological reader will infer at once
what were the arguments under each head, and he may judge of the style
and spirit of the discourse from the following passage--"And blessed be
this day (let God regard it from above, and a more than common light
shine upon it!) in which we see the Phœnix arising from her funeral
pile, and taking wing again; our Holy Mother, the Church, standing up
from the dust and ruins in which she sate so long, taking beauty again
for ashes, and the garments of praise for the spirit of heaviness,
remounting the Episcopal throne, bearing the keys of the kingdom of
heaven with her, and armed (we hope) with the rod of discipline; her
hands spread abroad, to bless and to ordain, to confirm the weak, and
to reconcile the penitent; her breasts flowing with the sincere milk of
the word, and girt with a golden girdle under the paps, tying up all by
a meet limitation and restriction to primitive patterns, and prescripts
apostolical. A sight so venerable and august, that methinks, it
should at once strike love and fear into every beholder, and an awful
veneration. I may confidently say it. It was never well with us, since
we strayed from the due reverence we owed to Heaven and her; and it is
strange we should no sooner observe it, but run a maddening after other
lovers that ruined us, till God hedged in our way with thorns, that we
could no longer find them, and then we said, I will go and return to my
former husband, for then was it better with me than now."[171]
[Sidenote: NEW BISHOPS.]
Eight Bishops of the Irish Church were still living. Bramhall was
translated to the primacy as Archbishop of Armagh. Nominations to
vacant Sees followed; including that of Jeremy Taylor to the diocese
of Down and Conner, upon Henry Lesley being translated to Meath; but
his consecration was delayed until the 27th of January, 1661, when
ten new Bishops, and two old ones promoted to the Archiepiscopate,
were solemnly set apart in Saint Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin. The
consecration of so many at one time has been pronounced, "an event
probably without a parallel in the Church."[172]
[Sidenote: 1660.]
We have crossed, almost unconsciously, from England to Ireland. Between
lies the Isle of Man; and this reminds us of what was going on there, a
short time before the remarkable consecration at Dublin. In the autumn
of 1660, Commissioners were engaged in reducing to order ecclesiastical
affairs. They summoned the clergy before them to exhibit their letters
of orders and of presentation; they enforced the use of the Prayer
Book, and of catechizing, the keeping also of feasts and fast days,
including the 30th of January, the day of King Charles' martyrdom, and
the 15th of October, the day of Earl James' martyrdom. The observance
of Lent was afterwards enjoined, with the customary penalties and
with provision for dispensations. Parish discipline was established
according to canon law; and, without any ejectment or any opposition,
the portion of the Church existing in that island submitted at once to
Episcopalian rule.[173]
[Sidenote: PERSECUTION.]
Returning to England, we remark that since certain old laws were deemed
by Churchmen as still in force, notwithstanding the legislature of the
last twenty years, they constituted an arsenal of weapons, with which
magistrates and others could, if they were disposed, grievously disturb
their Puritan neighbours. The _Canon law_ prohibited dissent from the
Church under pain of excommunication. The same penalty was threatened
against all who affirmed that ministers not subscribing to the form of
worship in the Communion Book, might "truly take unto them the name of
another Church not established by law," or that religious assemblies
other than such as by the law of the land were allowed, might
rightly challenge the name of true Churches, or that it was lawful
for any sort of ministers or lay persons, to join together to make
ecclesiastical rules or constitutions without the King's authority.
No minister, without license of the Bishop, could presume to hold
meetings for sermons. As all conventicles were hurtful to the state
of the Church, no ministers or other persons were to assemble in any
private house or elsewhere for ecclesiastical purposes, under pain of
excommunication.[174] As to _Statute law_, the 1 Eliz. c. 2, required
all persons to resort to Church every Sunday and every day ordained a
holiday. The penalty of disobedience was a shilling fine, with Church
censure for every offence. The 23 Eliz. c. 1, made the fine twenty
pounds a month, and the offender who persevered for twelve months had
to be bound to good behaviour with two sureties in two hundred pounds,
until he conformed. To keep a schoolmaster who did not attend Church,
incurred a monthly fine of ten pounds. The 29 Eliz. c. 6, empowered
the Queen, by process out of the Exchequer, to seize the goods and
two parts of the real property of offenders, upon default of paying
their fines. The 35 Eliz. c. 1, made the frequenting of conventicles
punishable by imprisonment. Those who after conviction would not submit
were to abjure the realm. Refusal to abjure was felony, without benefit
of clergy.[175]
[Sidenote: 1660.]
These laws, however, do not suggest a full idea of all the
inconvenience and suffering to which Nonconformists, before the Civil
War, had been exposed. That we may understand fully the circumstances
in which they were placed, we must add the activity of spiritual
courts, the jurisdiction of the High Commission, and the indefinite
powers of the Crown. Nor do these laws, statute and canon, exhibit
all the forces of oppression which continued to exist after the
Restoration, and before the passing of the Act of Uniformity--forces
which could be brought into play at any moment, and in any situation.
Spiritual courts, it is true, had not yet been re-established; the
High Commission no longer existed. The power of the Crown had received
a check; but in addition to laws prohibitory of religious gatherings
outside the Establishment, there stood the law of Royal Supremacy,
which could not be taken by Papists, and was objected to by some
Protestant Dissenters. The statute, which had sent More and Fisher to
the block, brought sorrow upon a large number of unknown persons, who,
on a different principle from that adopted by those sufferers, objected
strongly to Royal Supremacy over causes ecclesiastical as well as
civil. Their resistance and their trouble, together with the perplexity
of magistrates respecting them, are illustrated in the following
extract of a letter written from Bristol, in the autumn of 1660:--"Be
pleased to take notice that no Quaker, or rarely any Anabaptist, will
take these oaths; so that the said oaths are refused by many hundreds
of their judgment, being persons of very dangerous principles, and
great enemies in this city to His Majesty's royal person, government,
and restoration--and some of them [are] petitioners to bring his
martyred Majesty, of blessed memory, to his trial,--and will
undoubtedly fly out again and kick up the heel against his sovereign
authority, should it be in their power, therefore [they] are not worthy
His Majesty's protection, refusing to swear loyalty to him. Besides,
their said refusal, if suspended or connived at, will cause a general
discontent and repining in, by those His Majesty's loyal subjects who
have already taken, or are to take the said oaths; for 'tis already the
language of many of them, and these not a few, 'Why should any oaths be
imposed on or required of us? and the Quakers, Anabaptists, and others,
His Majesty's enemies, be gratified with a suspension thereof.' And
'tis the answer of others, 'If the Quakers, Anabaptists, and others of
dangerous practices and principles do, or are enforced to, take the
said oaths, then will we. In the interim, we want the same liberty
which is to them afforded.'" The writer next asks instructions to guide
him in his perplexity. "Sir," he continues, "these, I had almost said,
monsters of men with us are, yea more numerous than in all the West
of England; and here they all centre and have their meetings, at all
seasons till 9 of the clock at night, and later;--sometimes about 1,000
or 1,200 at a time,--to the great affrightening of this city as to what
will be consequent thereof if not restrained, or should a suspension of
the said oaths be to them given."[176]
[Sidenote: PERSECUTION.]
[Sidenote: 1660.]
Many persons had to suffer severely. In Wales the fire was first
kindled, and burnt most fiercely. Before the King landed at Dover the
Episcopalians in the Principality busied themselves in persecuting
Quakers. Several Nonconformists were imprisoned at Caermarthen, and the
gaol at Montgomery was so filled with them that the gaoler had to pack
them into garrets. Pitiful stories, with some exaggerations perhaps,
are told of sufferers in the May and June of 1660, who were dragged
out of their beds to prison, or like stray cattle driven into parish
pounds, or led in chains to the Quarter Sessions.[177] If violence with
so wide a sweep did not rage on our side the border, the confessors for
conscience' sake in England were nevertheless numerous enough. In that
transitional state of things all sorts of irregular proceedings took
place. Even Philip Henry could not preach in quiet, but was presented
in the month of September, at the Flint assizes, for not reading the
Common Prayer. John Howe also fell into trouble for what he had said
in the pulpit; and it is not generally remembered that long before
the Uniformity, the Conventicle, and the Five Mile Acts were passed,
John Bunyan was cast into Bedford gaol.[178] In England, as well as in
Wales, many Quakers and Anabaptists suffered a loathsome imprisonment.
If, in London, Nonconformity was strong, in the provinces it was
rapidly becoming otherwise. Bishops were busy; Episcopalian Rectors
were being restored, and Loyal Corporations were getting more and more
noisy in their demonstrations of zeal for Church and Crown. Grey-headed
squires, and nobles in Cavalier plumes and doublets, with their courtly
dames in rustling silks, and with their children in bright-coloured
sashes, and attended by servants clothed in gay liveries, sat with joy
before the crackling yule log that merry Christmas; and when the boar's
head and the roast beef had been despatched, they related stories of
their virtuous and devout King,[179] and told their sons and daughters
of the gay doings and merry games of their own young days. The
mistletoe hanging in the hall corresponded with the holly suspended in
the Church; and the service, which members of these merry parties had
heard that Christmas morning for the first time, as they sat in the old
family pew, sustained worthy association with the pleasant festivities
of the afternoon and evening. Puritanism had been to them a religion
of restraint, and now the return of Bishops and Prayer Books brought
freedom and joy. Of course there were sentiments of a far higher order
cherished at that season, but the existence of much of the humbler
feeling now described may be taken for granted.
[Sidenote: REACTION AGAINST PURITANISM.]
Other ceremonies besides those immediately connected with Christmas
time appeared that winter. Newspaper letters from Exeter, dated the
29th of December, 1660, announced the joyful welcome of Dr. Gauden, the
new Bishop of the diocese, who had been met by most of the gentry, to
the number of one hundred and twenty, and escorted by the High Sheriff,
with nearly five times as many horse; the Mayor and Aldermen in scarlet
and fur, waiting on His Lordship, amidst the ringing of bells. A week
later, Londoners saw, in the public prints, a glowing account of a
public Episcopalian christening at Dover--a most significant service
in a town where Anabaptists were numerous. So great a concourse, it
is reported, had seldom been seen, the Mayor being obliged to make
way that the children might reach the font, which had not been used
for nearly twenty years, and had now, by the care and prudence of the
Churchwardens, been set up for this solemnity.
[Sidenote: 1660.]
The reaction against the Puritanism of the Commonwealth, visible in so
many ways, received a fresh impulse from the insurrection of Venner
and his associates. This fanatical wine-cooper had been before laying
plots: in the month of April, 1657, he and his confederates, after
conferring at a Meeting House in Swan Alley, had assembled on Mile End
Green, when Cromwell sent a troop of horse, and seized him, with twenty
other ringleaders. The cause of Fifth Monarchism, during the season of
confusion consequent upon the resignation of the Protector Richard,
reappeared, and made itself heard through its irrepressibly loquacious
advocates, Rogers and Feake. The revival of their tenets, in connection
with a renewal of pure Republicanism under Sir Henry Vane and his
party, was of short duration; and there is nothing noticeable, in
connection with this form of religious sentiment, until Venner's second
outbreak.
Instead of narrating that incident in words of my own, I shall simply
use a letter, written respecting it in the midst of the excitement. The
circumstances mentioned at the close, although below the dignity of
history, are too amusing to be omitted.
[Sidenote: VENNER'S INSURRECTION.]
[Sidenote: 1661.]
The writer is Sir John Finch; he directs his letter to Lord
Conway:--"My dearest and best Lord,--As for news, my last acquainted
you with the Duchess of York's coming to Court. I forgot to tell
you that the child was christened Charles, and created Duke of
Cambridge, and that His Majesty in person and the Duke of Albemarle
were godfathers, and my Lady of Ormond personated the Queen for
godmother. Our great news here is, that since His Majesty's departure
to Portsmouth there have been two great alarms. Upon Sunday night
about fifty Fifth Monarchy men, at ten o'clock, came to Mr. Johnson,
a bookseller at the north gate of St. Paul's, and there demanded the
keys of the Church, which he either not having, or refusing, they broke
open the door, and, setting their sentries, examined the passengers
who they were for, and one with a lantern replying that he was for
King Charles, they answered that they were for King Jesus, and shot
him through the head, where he lay as a spectacle all the next day.
This gave the alarm to the mainguard at the Exchange, who sent four
files of musketeers to reduce them. But the Fifth Monarchy men made
them run, which so terrified the City, that the Lord Mayor in person
came with his troop to reduce them. Before he arrived they drew off,
and at Aldersgate forced the constable to open the gate, and so marched
through Whitecross Street, where they killed another constable, and
so went into the woods near Highgate, where being almost famished, on
Wednesday morning, about five of the clock, fell again into the City,
and, with a mad courage, fell upon the guard and beat them, which put
the City into such confusion, that the King's Life and all the City
regiments advanced against them. These forty men beat the Life Guard
and a whole regiment for half an hour's time. They refused all quarter;
but at length, Venner, their captain, a wine-cooper, after he had
received three shots, was taken, and nine more, and twenty slain. Six
got into a house, and refusing quarter, and with their blunderbusses
defending themselves, were slain. The Duke and the Duke of Albemarle,
with 700 horse, fell into the City; but all was over before they came.
This, my Lord, is strange, that all that are alive, being maimed, not
one person will confess anything concerning their accomplices, crying
that they will not betray the servants of the Lord Jesus to the kings
of the earth. Ludlow Major is committed close to the Tower for saying
he would kill the King. These things have produced their effects: that
no man shall have any arms that are not registered; that no man shall
live in the City that takes not the Oath of Allegiance; that no person
of any sect shall, out of his own house, exercise religious duties,
nor admit any into his house under penalty of arrest, which troubles
the Quakers and Anabaptists, who profess they knew not of this last
business. And, besides all this, His Majesty is resolved to raise a
new Army, and the general is not known; but I believe it will be the
Duke of Albemarle, rather than the Duke of York or Prince Rupert, in
regard he hath the office by patent, and in regard of his eminent
services. The Duke took it very unkind of my Lord Chamberlain that upon
information of Prince Rupert's attendants, his Lordship, in the Duke's
absence, searched his cellar for gunpowder, it being under the King's
seat at the Cockpit, and the Duke with his own hands so cudgelled the
informer that he hath almost maimed him; and Prince Rupert assured the
Duke that he so resented it, that he was not content to put away his
servant, but offered to fight any person that set the design on foot.
However, the business is not made up, though my Lord Chamberlain told
the Duke he had done over hastily. The Princess Henrietta is sick of
the measles on shipboard; but out of danger of wind. Dr. Frasier hath
let her blood; I hope with better success than the rest of the royal
blood have had."[180]
[Sidenote: VENNER'S INSURRECTION.]
It may be mentioned, that this insurrection had been hatched at the
same place as the former one; and the conspirators are said to have
marched first to Rogers' old quarters at St. Thomas the Apostle, to
join nine of the party, and thence to Whitecross Street. It came as
the expiring flash of a fanatical creed, which had blended itself with
Puritanism, greatly to the detriment of the latter; and, dying out
rather slowly, it left behind the quiet element of Millenarianism,
which, at the present day, we find largely infused into the tenets of a
considerable class of Christians.
Venner's explosion occurred on the 6th of January; but it is
remarkable, that four days before that date, an order was issued from
Council, forbidding the meetings of Anabaptists, Quakers, and other
sectaries, in large numbers, and at unusual times, and restricting
their assembling to their own parishes. Rumours of plots are alleged
as reasons for the decision thus adopted upon the 2nd of January;
but that decision plainly shows, that ere the insane enthusiasts of
Coleman Street had fired a shot, whatever liberty had been conceded
at Worcester House was now to suffer great abridgment. Venner's
insurrection could not be the cause of curtailing the liberty of
the subject at that moment, though it proved a plausible argument
for the Proclamation which followed. The Proclamation appeared four
days after the riot; yet the terms of the document agree so closely
with those employed in the records of Council, as to indicate that,
with the exception of a reference to the disturbance of the peace
by bloodshed and murder, and some mention of Fifth Monarchy men,
little or no alteration could have been made in the phraseology. All
meetings, except those held in parochial churches and chapels, or in
private houses by the inhabitants, were declared seditious, and were
peremptorily forbidden.[181]
[Sidenote: 1661.]
Against Venner's insurrection the Independents protested; disowning
"the principles of a Fifth Monarchy, or the personal reign of King
Jesus on earth, as dishonourable to him and prejudicial to His Church,"
and abhorring "the propagating this or any other opinion by force or
blood."[182] The Baptists declared their obedience to Government, and
expressed a hope that they might enjoy what had been granted by His
Majesty's Declaration, and be protected, like other subjects, from
injury and violence.[183] The Quakers also expressed their loyalty;
praying that their meetings might not be broken up, and that their
imprisoned members might be set at liberty. But these addresses neither
blunted the edge of Royal displeasure, nor removed the public suspicion
that many Nonconformists sympathized with the Fifth Monarchists.
Peaceable subjects, therefore, suffered insult and interruption. Horns
were blown at the doors of their houses, and stones were thrown at them
whilst they were at prayer; also, magistrates enforced the Oath of
Allegiance, which many Nonconformists, on different grounds, declined
to take.[184]
[Sidenote: BAXTER.]
[Sidenote: 1661.]
Amongst other methods of annoyance was that of opening suspected
letters--a practice of which numerous illustrations will presently
appear. "I wrote a letter at this time," says Richard Baxter, "to
my mother-in-law, containing nothing but our usual matter. Even
encouragements to her in her age and weakness, fetched from the
nearness of her rest, together with the report of the news, and some
sharp and vehement words against the rebels. By the means of Sir John
Packington, or his soldiers, the post was searched, and my letter
intercepted, opened, and revised, and by Sir John sent up to London
to the Bishop and the Lord Chancellor, so that it was a wonder, that
having read it, they were not ashamed to send it up; but joyful would
they have been, could they but have found a word in it which could
possibly have been distorted to an evil sense, that malice might have
had its prey. I went to the Lord Chancellor and complained of this
usage, and that I had not the common liberty of a subject, to converse
by letters with my own family. He disowned it, and blamed men's
rashness, but excused it from the distempers of the times; and he and
the Bishops confessed they had seen the letter, and there was nothing
in it but what was good and pious. And two days after came the Lord
Windsor, Lord-Lieutenant of the County, and Governor of Jamaica, with
Sir Charles Littleton, the King's cupbearer, to bring me my letter
again to my lodgings; and the Lord Windsor told me, the Lord Chancellor
appointed him to do it. After some expression of my sense of the abuse,
I thanked him for his great civility and favour. _But I saw how far
that sort of men were to be trusted._"[185]