The Fire of London broke out on the 1st of September, in a baker's shop
in Pudding Lane. It rushed down Fish Street Hill, and soon enveloped
the dwellings by London Bridge and on the banks of the Thames. Fanned
by the winds, the conflagration swept westward and northward. It passed
in leaps from house to house, and flowed in streams from street to
street. Torrents of flame coming over Cornhill met others dashing up
from Walbrook and Bucklersbury. Along Cheapside, Ludgate, the Strand,
the furious element advanced, curling round the edge of Smithfield,
before its frightful circuit was complete. Thatched roofs, timber
walls, cellars of oil, warehouses filled with inflammable material fed
the tremendous pyre. Lead, iron, glass, were melted; water in cisterns
was boiled, adding vapour to smoke; stones were calcined, and the
ground became so hot that people walking over it burnt their shoes.
The libraries of St. Paul's, and Sion College, with large collections
of books and papers, were consumed; half-burnt leaves fell by Baxter's
house at Acton, and were blown even as far as Windsor.[506] Public
buildings shone like palaces of fine gold or burnished brass, and
glowed like coals in a furnace, heated seven times hotter than usual.
Blazing fragments were swept, like flakes in a snow storm, over the
City; whilst the dense conflagration underneath resembled a bow--"a
bow which had God's arrow in it with a flaming point." The cloud of
smoke was so great that travellers at noon-day rode six miles under its
shadow. At night the moon shone from a crimson sky. Young Taswell, a
Westminster boy, stood on Westminster Bridge, with his little pocket
edition of _Terence_ in his hand, which he could see to read plainly by
the light of the burning City.[507]
[Sidenote: 1666.]
[Sidenote: FIRE OF LONDON.]
People were distracted. Everybody endeavoured to remove what he
could--all sorts of things being conveyed away in carts and waggons,
barges and wherries. Poor people near the bridges stayed in their
houses so long that the fire touched them; and then they ran into
boats, or clambered from one pair of stairs, by the waterside, to
another. The pigeons were loath to leave their cots, and hovered
about windows and balconies, until they scorched their wings, and
fell. Churches were filled with furniture and articles of all kinds.
Holes were dug in gardens to receive casks and bottles of wine, boxes
of documents, and other treasures. The sick were carried in litters
to places of safety, and multitudes encamped in the fields beyond
Finsbury, in the village of Islington, and on the slopes of Highgate.
Such was the eagerness to obtain the means of removing goods, that £4
a load for a carter, or 10s. a day for a porter, was counted poor pay.
At the Temple, neither boat, barge, coach, nor cart, could be had for
love or money; all the streets were crowded with appropriated vehicles
of various kinds.
The constables of the respective parishes were required to attend
at Temple Bar, Clifford's Inn Gardens, Fetter Lane, Shoe Lane, and
Bow Lane, with 100 men each; at every post were stationed 130 foot
soldiers, with a good officer; and three gentlemen, empowered to
reward the diligent, by giving them one shilling apiece, whilst five
pounds--in bread, cheese, and beer--were allowed to every party. The
King and the Duke of York were bold and persevering in their endeavours
to extinguish the conflagration, ordering the use of great hooks, kept
in churches and chapels, for pulling down houses--the only means of
stopping the fire being to cut off the fuel. The militia were called
to aid these efforts and to prevent disturbance. They marched out of
Hertfordshire, and other counties, with food for forty-eight hours, and
with carts full of pickaxes, ropes, and buckets. These troops encamped
at Kingsland, near Bishopsgate. Markets were held in Bishopsgate
Street, upon Tower Hill, in Leadenhall Street, and in Smithfield. Bread
and cheese were supplied to the famishing, and means were adopted to
stimulate charity towards the homeless poor. Multitudes having taken
refuge in the houses and fields about Islington, the King requested
that strict watch might be kept in all the ways within the limits of
the town and parish, and charitable and Christian reception, with
lodging and entertainment, given to strangers. He further ordered,
that bread should be brought both to the new and old markets; that all
churches, chapels, schools, and public buildings, should be open to
receive the property of such as were burnt out of house and home; and
that other towns should receive sufferers who fled to them for refuge,
and permit them to exercise their callings--promise being given that
they should afterwards be no burthen.
[Sidenote: 1666.]
Three hundred and seventy-three acres within the walls, and
seventy-three acres three roods without the walls, were left covered
with ruins from the Tower to the Temple, from the North-east gate of
the City wall to Holborn Bridge. Besides Guildhall, and other public
edifices, eighty-nine parish churches, and thirteen thousand two
hundred dwellings were destroyed. The loss of property was estimated at
_eleven millions_ sterling.[508]
The miseries of the fire did not end with its extinction. In
addition to the losses which arose from the destruction of
property--manufacturers at Coventry, for example, being greatly injured
by the burning of goods which they had sent to London for sale--and to
other evils of various kinds incident after such a visitation, there
were certain lamentable consequences of a peculiar nature.
This visitation, as might be expected, was construed as a Divine
judgment for the sins of the City; different parties of course
pointing at the iniquities of their opponents as the cause of the
fiery overthrow. Fanatics believed that it was the vengeance of Heaven
against English barbarity in burning the Islands of Vlie and Schelling,
and against national sins in general. A Quaker, near Windsor, was
reported to have heard a miraculous voice saying, that "they have
had the pestilence, and fire, and other calamities, and yet are not
amended; but a worse plague has yet to come on them and the nation."
"They clearly intimate in their letters," it was said of the same sect,
"no sorrow for the late burning down so many steeple-houses (as they
call them) in all the City."[509]
[Sidenote: FIRE OF LONDON.]
Yet human agency of some kind was, of course, admitted to be at the
bottom. The Republicans, the Dutch, and the French, were suspected;
the opinion most prevalent being that the Papists were authors of the
mischief.
This idea extensively prevailed. Probably it helped to induce the
House of Commons first to present a petition to His Majesty asking
for the banishment of priests and Jesuits, for the enforcement of the
laws against them, and all other Roman Catholics, and for disarming
everybody who refused the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy; and
secondly, to resolve that all the members of the House should receive
the Lord's Supper, under penalty of imprisonment for refusal.[510]
Certainly, upon the return of Gunpowder Plot Day, the inculpation of
the Papists kindled anew the eloquence of the clergy, and strengthened
the stock argument that the "Mother of Abominations" remained
unchanged. Yet the evidence adduced to establish the guilt of the
accused was utterly unsatisfactory. The only person convicted was a
Frenchman, and his conviction rested on his own assertion that he had
fired the City--an assertion which must have proceeded from a morbid
love of notoriety, or from some other unaccountable freak--for the
fellow, at the gallows, just before being turned off, acknowledged
that what he had said was altogether a lie. No doubt, the conclusion
reached by the Government is correct,--"That, notwithstanding that many
examinations have been taken, with great care, by the Lords of the
Council and His Majesty's Ministers, yet nothing hath been yet found
to argue it to have been other than the hand of God upon us, a great
wind, and the season so very dry."[511]
[Sidenote: 1666.]
Baxter, speaking of the state of London just before the fire, observes,
that in the larger parishes--for example, St. Martin's, St. Giles'
Cripplegate, and Stepney--there were 60,000 inhabitants each; that
in others, as in St. Giles'-in-the-Fields and St. Sepulchre's, there
were about 30,000, in others about 20,000. For these parishes the
churches afforded insufficient accommodation; indeed, the fourth part
of the people would not have found room in them had such a proportion
been disposed to attend public worship. He speaks of a sixth or a
tenth, as the proportion for which space in the parochial edifices was
available.[512] The fire, by destroying so many buildings, deprived
very many people of instruction and worship in the Establishment; and
little was done immediately towards repairing the evil. Houses were
restored, but churches were neglected. Burnet relates, that in 1669,
"when the City was pretty well rebuilt, they began to take care of the
churches, which had lain in ashes some years;"[513] and Baxter, writing
in the year 1675, affirms that few of the churches burnt in the fire
had been re-edified.[514]
The Nonconformists exerted themselves in this emergency.[515] The
parish Incumbents having left London for want of incomes and of
dwelling-places, the ejected ministers came forward to occupy the
deserted fields of labour, and resolved, that amidst the ruins they
would preach until they were imprisoned. Dr. Manton opened his rooms
in Covent Garden, and there gathered a congregation. Dr. Jacomb,
for that purpose, used an apartment in the house of the Countess of
Exeter. Dr. Annesley, Messrs. Vincent, Doolittle, and Franklin, and
other Presbyterians, either occupied chapels, with pulpits, seats,
and galleries, hastily erected, to supply the deficiency--"churches
of boards," called "tabernacles,"[516]--or large rooms fitted up in
some extempore fashion for a like purpose. What had been before done
covertly was now done openly; and the Independents, allowing for their
numbers, were not behind the Presbyterians in activity. Owen, Goodwin,
Nye, Brooke, Caryl, and Griffiths, to mention no more, publicly engaged
in religious ministrations wherever they were able, at a time when the
parish churches were lying in ruins.
[Sidenote: SCOTLAND.]
Scarcely had the ashes grown cold when tidings came of a religious
rising north of the Tweed. A Proclamation was issued at Edinburgh on
the 11th of October, 1666, enforcing the laws against Papists and
against Protestant Nonconformists, and requiring that masters, who were
all held responsible for their families, and that landlords, who were
all made accountable for their tenants, should abstain from repairing
to Conventicles, and should attend the Established Church. Sir James
Turner was despatched to execute the mandate, and he accomplished its
execution with a severity which provoked most violent opposition.
Declaring for liberty of conscience, and also for what was perhaps
still more popular--freedom from taxation--the insurgents, although
armed, and of formidable appearance, avoided collision with the
soldiers, and employed tactics simply defensive. They cut down
bridges, and destroyed boats to avoid pursuit, and then hastened
towards the Scotch capital, hoping to receive assistance from the
citizens. Disappointed in this respect, they retreated to the Pentland
Hills, where they were attacked by the Royal Army, and completely
routed, after leaving 500 of their comrades dead on the field. Horrid
tortures were inflicted on those who were taken prisoners; sixteen of
them were executed at Edinburgh, and four at Glasgow--all with their
dying breath denouncing Prelacy, laying the shedding of their blood
at the Bishops' doors, praying for the King, and begging the Almighty
to take away the wicked from about the throne. The disgusting details
are related with still more disgusting barbarity by correspondents in
Scotland, who sent to London intelligence upon the subject.[517]
[Sidenote: 1666.]
The report in England of fanaticism on the one hand, and cruelty on
the other, exasperated both Churchmen and Nonconformists. The former
had their suspicions strengthened as to the rebellious intentions
attributed to Presbyterians; and the latter were indignant at the
vengeance wreaked upon men whom they believed to be sufferers for
conscience' sake.
Traces are left of contemporary gossip in letters written at the time.
There is, said one, a general gaping of the Nonconformists as to
the issue of the disturbances in Scotland. There are, said another,
reports of a stir in Hereford, about hearth-money; and an eminent
Presbyterian wrote, that thousands of Scots were up and declaring
for King and Covenant, having Colonel Carr, an old Kirk-man, amongst
them. Other correspondents affirmed they did not wish the Scots for
guides, and then they reported "high differences among great persons
murmuring, and fears of the oath."[518] Churchmen protested that they
had forewarned their sober friends of the other party, and described
how the folly and insolence of Nonconformist guides would provoke the
authorities to check them.[519]
[Sidenote: FANATICS.]
Mormonism was then unknown. There were in existence no agents of that
strangely-compounded system, inviting emigrants to the Western world;
but there were people wandering about England who tried to persuade the
credulous and simple to repair to the Palatinate, saying that there
the kingdom of Christ was to be restored, and that England, whose sins
were so great, was on the edge of destruction. These apostles framed
a covenant,--which they concealed from those who were not likely to
subscribe it,--to renounce such powers and rulers as were contrary to
Christ, and to His Government, to refuse their money, and to separate
themselves entirely from all anti-Christian religions. They promised to
obey God's laws, especially those relating to the Sabbath, and never to
intermarry with strangers--to devote themselves wholly to the service
of the Almighty, and try to find a place where they might become a
distinct people. Explanations were added to the effect, that the powers
renounced were persecuting powers, but that God's laws, if practised
by them, were not to be renounced; that no ruler was to be allowed by
them, who did not enter into communion with themselves; and that coins
bearing images or superscriptions contrary to God's Word should be cast
away.[520]
[Sidenote: 1667.]
The Dutch, who had alarmed the Government in 1666, alarmed them again,
and the whole nation besides, much more, in 1667. One division of the
enemy's fleet swept up the Medway past Sheerness--the other, to divert
attention, sailed up the Thames. The former burst the chain hung across
the stream, fired at the batteries, reduced to ashes three first-rate
men-of-war, and then returned unmolested to join the rest of their own
vessels at the Nore.
The influence produced by this unprecedented invasion is vividly
reflected in the following letter:--"The merchants are undone. Our
great bankers of money have shut up their shops. People are ready to
tear their hair off their heads. Great importunity hath been used
at Whitehall for a Parliament, and more particularly by Sir George
Saville, but nothing will prevail; there is one great gownsman against
it, and all the Bishops and Papists, and all those who have cozened
and cheated the King. News came this day to the King, the French are
come from Brest, and appear before the Isle of Wight; some at Court
give out that they are friends, and not enemies. We expect the Dutch
as far as Woolwich. People are fled from Greenwich and Blackwall with
their families and children. We are betrayed, let it light where it
will."[521] And a few days afterwards the nation, from end to end, was
agitated by the intelligence of the Dutch attack--many Dissenters idly
attributing the success of the daring manœuvre to the teaching of the
Government and to Popish counsels at headquarters.[522]
[Sidenote: EMPTY EXCHEQUER.]
An empty exchequer was the chronic disease of Charles II.'s reign, and
so low did the Royal revenue sink this year that twenty-six footmen in
His Majesty's establishment were forced to petition for wages, which
had been due the previous Michaelmas. To meet the exigences of the
moment, letters were written to the Lord Chancellor, as the head of the
legal profession, to the Lord-Lieutenants of Counties, as representing
the landed interest; and to the Archbishop of Canterbury, to procure
loans and voluntary contributions at that "time of public danger." "We
are the rather," it is observed in the letter to His Grace, "induced
to believe labour herein will be successful, because you are to deal
with a sort of persons endued with discretion and ingenuity, who cannot
forget what tenderness we have for them, what care to protect and
support them, and how much their interest and welfare is involved in
ours; but arguments and motives of this nature we leave to your prudent
management."[523]
The damage actually done by the Dutch fleet was small; and nothing
compared with the dangers threatened by the audacity of its advance.
The treaty of peace, which speedily followed, relieved the nation
from alarm, but it by no means wiped out the disgrace which the nation
had to bear, and which its rulers had incurred.[524]
[Sidenote: 1667.]
Within three months after the booms had been broken by the Dutch in the
Medway, Clarendon's term of power was at an end.
A bad harvest is a bad thing for an English Ministry, especially for
the Chief of the Cabinet. The visitations of Heaven are set down to
his account, and all the weak points of his administration, all the
errors of his policy, all the faults of his character, are brought out
most vividly in the light of adverse circumstances. So it was, that
after the Plague and the Fire of London--with which Clarendon could
have had nothing to do--the eyes of the people were strangely opened
to the defects of his government; and, when the English Lion was
bearded by the insolence of the Hollanders, there fell upon the great
statesman the anger of the whole people. To meet the evil, which he
had failed to prevent, he counselled the King to dissolve Parliament,
and maintain the defences of the country by forced contributions. This
private advice was blown abroad, inspiring indignation in the people,
and bringing discomfiture to the Prime Minister. He did not want
courage, but it was now useless. What he hoped would appear to the King
the firmness of an upright mind, was regarded by His Majesty as the
obstinacy of a stubborn will. In vain the Duke of York pleaded in his
behalf. The Chancellor was forced to resign the Great Seal on the 30th
of August.[525]
[Sidenote: CLARENDON.]
Clarendon, in the impeachment which followed in the month of November,
was charged with unconstitutional acts; but, of all the seventeen heads
under which the charges were arranged, not more than three, seriously
affecting his character as a statesman, contained matters which could
be clearly proved. The first allegation--that he had encouraged the
King to raise a standing army, and to govern the country without
Parliaments--although an exaggerated statement, had some foundation.
Respecting the truth of the fourth article--that he had procured the
imprisonment of divers persons contrary to law--there could be no
doubt whatever. The eleventh charge, touching the sale of Dunkirk to
the French for no greater amount than the worth of the ammunition and
stores, was false with regard to his being content with the price,
but it was true as it respects his promoting the sale. Nor did the
impeachment, so far as it could be established, fix upon the Minister
the guilt of high treason; but, short of that, it proved him to be
a person dangerous to the country, and unfitted to continue in the
office which he had filled. Virtuous and patriotic men might fairly
have insisted upon the degradation of the Chancellor; but it must be
confessed that virtuous and patriotic men were not the prime movers
in his punishment. The intrigues of women, anything but virtuous,
had most to do with it; for Clarendon had unfortunately excited the
wrath of Charles' mistresses, who, by working upon the Monarch's too
easy temper, had implanted in his bosom a dislike to his old friend.
The object of these ladies was promoted by the assistance of Cavalier
gentlemen who never forgave Clarendon for the Act of Indemnity, and
who considered that he had, at the Restoration, largely neglected
the personal interests of the Royalists. Three Bishops were numbered
amongst the Peers who protested against the refusal of the Upper House
to commit the Minister upon the charge of treason.[526] The Catholics
owed him no gratitude, for they knew his dislike to their religion--and
with the nation generally, he had become unpopular for many reasons,
particularly for the part which he had taken in the sale of Dunkirk.
It is a little surprising, that Presbyterians, who, perhaps, had more
reason than any class to complain of his administration, were not
amongst his inveterate adversaries. Colonel Birch, who belonged to
that religious denomination, was, indeed, one of the Tellers on the
side of impeachment; but Baxter notices, as a providence of God, in
reference to Clarendon, that the man who had dealt so cruelly with
the Nonconformists was cast out by his own friends, "while those that
he had persecuted were the most moderate in his cause, and many for
him."[527]
[Sidenote: 1667.]
In writing a letter to his daughter, the Duchess of York, just after
her conversion to Popery, the necessities of Clarendon's argument
forced him to adopt a position, which, if he had sincerely taken it
up at an earlier period, must have diverted him from that persecuting
course, which is one of the greatest blots on his history. "The
common argument," he remarks, "that there is no salvation out of the
Church, and that the Church of Rome is that only Church, is both
irrational and untrue." "There are many Churches in which salvation may
be attained, as well as in any one of them; and were many even in the
apostolic time; otherwise they would not have directed their Epistles
to so many several Churches, in which there were different opinions
received and very different doctrines taught. There is, indeed, but
one faith in which we can be saved--the steadfast belief of the birth,
passion, and resurrection of our Saviour. _And every Church that
receives and embraces that faith is in a state of salvation._"[528]
[Sidenote: CLARENDON.]
[Sidenote: 1667.]
The whole history of the Chancellor must be considered, if we would
form a just estimate of his character. That he was a man of great
ability; that he possessed those talents and accomplishments which
contribute to form distinguished statesmen; that he performed services
valuable to the nation, at a very critical period of its history; that
he had a sense of religion, and was heartily attached to the Episcopal
Church, there can be no doubt. Those who glory in the constitution of
that Church as established upon the Act of Uniformity will praise him
for his wisdom; those who form a different opinion of that Church,
and of its legal basis, must withhold such laudation. But, apart from
all ecclesiastical questions, and also putting aside the motives by
which Clarendon was influenced throughout his career, with all its
lights and shadows--here are two aspects of his conduct, at least, upon
which the historian must pronounce a severe censure. To say nothing
of his pride and avarice--there remain, first, his persecution of
the Nonconformists; and next, the dissimulation which he practised, in
connection with measures professedly intended for their relief. His
persecution of the Nonconformists is a fact which speaks for itself.
Whatever notions he might have of what the Church should be it was a
gratuitous course, and it betrayed revenge and injustice, to treat
Dissenters in the manner which he did: revenge, for he crushed them as
conquered foes; injustice, for he dealt with them all as disaffected
subjects, whilst the loyalty of the vast majority of them was above
suspicion. If his clever diplomacy did not sink into downright
dissimulation in the business of the Worcester House Declaration, the
circumstances of which have been so fully described--if there was not
also much deceptiveness in the promises from Breda, and in the plan of
the Savoy Conference, both of which Clarendon, as Charles' Minister,
must have advised, it is hard to prove that such qualities have ever
belonged to any human being. Many a Jesuit has been a martyr--and I
give the Chancellor credit for such an attachment to the Episcopal
Church as would have led him to suffer on its behalf, but no man
could be more Jesuitical than he was in the course of policy which he
adopted for its establishment. So dark a fate as covered the last days
of Strafford, Laud, and Charles I., did not attend the final destiny
of the great Minister of Charles II.; still, calamities overtook him
after the sunshine of his prosperity--his sun set in a cloud; and thus,
like his predecessors in the defence of the Church, he has secured
from posterity, through sympathy with him in his misfortunes, gentler
treatment than the defects of his character would otherwise have
received.[529]
[Sidenote: CLARENDON.]
[Sidenote: 1667.]
By an obvious association we are led to compare the political
founder of the Church of England in the seventeenth century with his
predecessor in the same capacity a hundred years before. Both Cecil,
Lord Burleigh, and Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, had great difficulties
in securing the stability of the civil government--in dealing with
political discontent and disaffection, in defending the Throne against
perils, and in providing revenues for the Crown. Both statesmen, in
laying the corner stones of their ecclesiastical polity, had to build
in troublous times, and each, "with one of his hands wrought in the
work, and with the other hand held a weapon." Both of them, blind to
the principle of religious liberty, employed persecuting laws in the
service of what they deemed the best form of Christianity; and both
also, together with other crooked means of ruling, employed spies,
wherewith to see what was done at a distance, and agents wherewith to
put in action secret and remote machinery. The contrast between the
two, however, is more striking than the resemblance. If difficulties
encompassed the navigation of the vessel, the helm of which rested in
the hand of Clarendon, far greater difficulties of the same and other
kinds--political and ecclesiastical, Popish and Puritan,--surrounded
the course of Burleigh. Clarendon was not as cautious, not as timid,
as Burleigh. Perhaps neither of them exhibited a lofty order of
genius; but Clarendon appears inferior in originality of plan, and in
consistency of method. Cecil struck out ideas in commerce too wise
for the age in which he lived; and as the fruit of careful meditation
in retirement, he laid down a comprehensive scheme of government on
the accession of Elizabeth, from the fundamental principles of which
he did not deviate in his long administration; but Hyde never showed
himself to be more than an experimentalist, adopting expedients as
circumstances arose. Cecil was more intolerant towards Papists than
towards Puritans. Hyde seemed more averse to Protestant Nonconformists
than to Popish recusants. Cecil had broad Protestant sympathies,
which led him, as far as possible, to promote the cause of the
Reformation abroad; Hyde manifested no zeal for the welfare of the
Reformed Churches on the Continent. Burleigh did not enrich himself
with the spoils of office,--praise which cannot be given to Clarendon.
Yet justice demands the admission that Clarendon did suffer for his
principles, at least the inconvenience of exile, which is more than can
be said of Burleigh. Finally, success attendant upon the policy of the
former lasted long enough to demonstrate the sagacity of the author;
but the policy of the latter failed so early as to show, that he did
not anticipate what was sure almost immediately to arise--that he did
not thoroughly understand the character of his fellow-countrymen.[530]
The illustration of this latter point is required by the conditions of
our History.
[Sidenote: EXTENT OF NONCONFORMITY.]
The Chancellor's object had been not merely to establish the
Episcopal Church, but to crush every form of Dissent. Indeed, his
notion of an establishment was that it should have an exclusive
existence in the country--that Nonconformity should have no place
whatever under its shadow. Yet, at the time of his fall, only five
years after the Act of Uniformity was passed, and within two years of
the passing of the Five Mile Act--not only did Popery continue to lurk
within these dominions, not only did it make its way amongst the upper
classes, but Presbyterianism recovered itself from the blows which it
had received, and Independents, Baptists, and Quakers, secretly or
openly, promoted the spread of their opinions. Of this fact, passages
from contemporaries afford striking proofs.
On the 4th of August, 1666, a correspondent at Chester, stated that
the City swarmed with "cardinal Nonconformists," and that they were so
linked into the Magistracy, by alliance, that it was very difficult to
bring them to punishment;--only a few of them attended Divine service,
and even they were absent during the prayers. Experience proved that
these great pretenders to piety and religion, who would not conform to
the Prince's ecclesiastical power, only submitted to the civil until
they could get power to refuse it.
On the 31st of August, 1667, the day after Clarendon resigned the Great
Seal, a letter reached Sir Joseph Williamson complaining of "crowds of
fanatics," about Bath and Frome. The gentry, as well as the ignorant
and ill-affected classes, helped to beget a jealousy of Popery, and
were apparently fallen back to the spirit of 1642. Even some who looked
big in Court, and in Parliament, had sheltered the unlawful vessels of
the malcontented and the furious within their allotments, and in their
own families, more especially, since the late exigencies had arisen.
[Sidenote: 1667.]
On the 10th of September the same year, another person at Bath declared
that the Nonconformists grew in numbers and insolence, saying they
should have liberty of conscience, and that the Government, which could
not stand much longer, could do no otherwise than allow them their
freedom. They had reached such a degree of insolence as to break open
church doors, and to get into the buildings to vent their sedition
and rebellion. The minister at Marshfield often returned from church
for want of a congregation, even of two or three, whereas, at the
same time, 500 met in a barn within the town. They transformed such
buildings into the likeness of churches, with seats for the convenience
of speaking and hearing. The writer, who was a clergyman, declared that
he had taken all ways imaginable to keep his people within the bounds
of sobriety and obedience, and had preached constantly twice a day to
suit their humour in all things lawful, descending to the plainest
and most practical speaking, and had never used a note, or so much as
wrote a word. Moreover, he had treated the party with all civility and
kindness, and been very pacificatory in public and in private, yet all
seemed in vain, and he saw that a minister must be a martyr.[531]
[Sidenote: EXTENT OF NONCONFORMITY.]
A contemporary author affirms that the Nonconformists everywhere
spread through city and country; they made no small part of all ranks
and sorts of men; by relations and commerce they were so woven into
the nation's interest, that it was not easy to sever them without
unravelling the whole skein. They were not excluded from the nobility,
among the gentry they were not a few, yet none were of more importance
than mere tradesmen, and such as lived by their own industry. To
suppress them would beget a general insecurity, and might help to
drive trade out of the country, and send it to find a home with an
emulous and encroaching nation. If no greater latitude could be
allowed than existed at that time, a race of Nonconformists would,
in all probability, run parallel with Conformists to the end of the
world.[532]