Oak Street UNCLASSIFIED v-\ ELLEN J. STRADER'S PRIVATE LIBRARY. = Sa ——- ms —— a =a ai x BILE res x i tay i U i * \ IN ee Hl NA / lh ia HH HD : AT MENT whi ities ¢ me ast ON \ Z _ x SSS < Wh \ a / YY . ; y NYS I Ya fy , SS . ? ao ~~ ~ 2 % ~ ny 5 Py \S E WSs 7 Ys \ SSS A \ S Ss s HONS f SS > Sy ZZ y \ ~S 5, Be, af, TANS SS S BE ‘ / : S SES x zs Uff; NA S SS 7 LE eae I SSS SF hes LSA, \ OG \ She Ai Zi > = Fe i 4 8 = Tl } y wets <—— , ae \t a \ =e *\ } AS E LOY Pi iy. ut i Hy \ ‘ i * iy, i] A kee ; Yi ‘ 5 y BN Fa y a \ 4 Mii Yy) a L, LLL: a v ‘ = Y A ? q s ’ i x peers j \s ' ~ 3 = . ANY ay = = = oe dp fe HISTORY OF ENGLAND FROM THE ACCESSION OF JAMES II, x THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY VOTE, New Yor«K 8. W. GREEN’S SON, PUBLISHER 74 anp 76 BEEKMAN STREET 1882 \ een Lh re ee "S. W. GREEN'S SON a fy: gf aii) on 8 i: ae! psi 76 Beekman and 13 and am et vay ap s ‘ i < , io? . - a , J » , ep “ Se?” 1x ‘ > ae > f ee a eee HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAPTER I. _I PURPOSE to write the history of England from the accession of King James the Second down toa time which is within the memory - of men still living. I shali recount the errors which, in a few months, alienated a loyal gentry and priesthood from the House of Stuart. I shall trace the course of that revolution which terminated the long struggle between our sovereigns and their parliaments, and bound up together the rights of the people and the title of the reigning dynasty. I shall relate how the new settlement was, during many troubleu ears, successfully defended against foreign and domestic enemies; ow, under that settlement, the authority of law and the security of property were found to be compatible with a liberty of discussion and of individual action never before known; how, from the au- spicious union of order and freedom, sprang a prosperity of which the annals of human affairs had furnished no example; how our country, from a state of ignominious vassalage, rapidly rose to the place of umpire among European powers; how her opulence and her martial glory grew together; how, by wise and resolute good faith, was gradually established a public credit fruitful of marvels which to the statesmen of auy former age would have seemed incredible; how a gigantic commerce gave birth to a maritime power, compared with which every other maritime power, ancient or modern, sinks into in- significance; how Scotland, after ages of enmity, was at length united to England, not merely by legal bonds, but by indissoluble ties of interest and affection; how, in America, the British colonies rapidly became far mightier and wealthier than the realms which Cortes and Pizarro had added to the dominions of Charles the Fifth; how, in Asia, British adventurers founded an empire not less splendid and more durable than that of Alexander. Nor will it be less my duty faithfully to record disasters mingled _ with triumphs, and great national crimes and follies far more humili- ating than any disaster. It will be seen that even what we justly account our chief blessings were not without alloy. It will be seen that the system which effectually secured our liberties against the encroachments of kingly power gave birth to a new class of abuses from which absolute monarchies areexempt. It will beseen that, in consequence partly of unwise interference, and partly of unwise 2 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. neglect, the increase of wealth and the extension of trade produced, together with immense good, some evils from which poor and rude ~ societies are free. It will be seen how, in two important dependen- cies of the crown, wrong was followed by just retribution; how im prudence and obstinacy broke the ties whieh bound the North American colonies to the parent state; how Ireland, cursed by the domination of race over race, and of religion over religion, remained indeed a member of the empire, but a withered and distorted mem- ber, adding no strength to the body politic, and reproachfully pointed at by all who feared or envied the greatness of England. Yet, unless I greatly deceive myself, the general effect of this chequered narrative will be to excite thankfulness in all religious minds, and hope in the breasts of all patriots. For the history of our country during the last hundred and sixty years is eminently the his- tory of physical, of moral, and of intellectual improvement. Those- who compare the age on which their lot has fallen with a golden age ~ - which exists only in their imagination may talk of degeneracy and decay: but no man who is correctly informed as to the past will be~ disposed to take a morose or desponding view of the present. I should very imperfectly execute the task which I have under: taken if I were merely to treat of battles and sieges, of the rise and fall of administrations, of intrigues in the palace, and of debates in the parliament. It will be my endeavour to relate the history of the people as well as the history of the government, to trace the progress of useful and ornamental arts, to describe the rise of religious sects and the changes of literary taste, to portray the manners of successive generations and not to pass by with neglect even the revolutions which have taken place in dress, furniture, repasts, and public amusements. I shall cheerfully bear the reproach of having de- scended below the dignity of history, if 1 can succeed in placing be fore the English of the nineteenth century a true picture of the life of © their ancestors, The events which I propose to relate form only a single act of a great and eventful drama extending through ages, and must he very imperfectly understood unless the plot of the preceding acts be well known. I shall therefore introduce my narrative by a slight sketch of the history of our country from the earliest times. I shall pass very - rapidly over many centuries: but I shall dwell at some length on the vicissitudes of that contest which the administration of King James the Second brought to a decisive crisis. * Nothing in the early existence of Britain indicated the greatness * In this, and in the next chapter, I have very seldom thought it necessary to cite authorities: for, in these chapters, I have not detailed events minutely, or used recondite materials; and the facts which I mention are for the most part such that a person tolerably well read in English history, if not already ap prised of them, will at least know where to look for evidence of them. In the subsequent chapters I shall carefully indicate the sources of my information, 7 7 “— + ie « Sie HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 3 which she was destined to attain. Her inhabitants when first they became known to the Tyrian mariners, were little superior to the na- tives of the Sandwich Islands. She was subjugated by the Roman arms; but she received only a faint tincture of Roman arts and let- ters. Of the western provinces which obeyed the Cesars, she was the last that was conquered, and the first that was flung away. No magnificent remains of Latin porches and aqueducts are to be found in Britain. No writer of British birth is reckoned among the masters of Latin poetry andeloquence, It is not probable that the islanders were at any time generally familiar with the tongue of their Italian rulers. From the Atlantic to the vicinity of the Rhine the Latin has, during many centuries, been predominant. It drove out the Celtic; it was not driven out by the Teutonic; and it is at this day the basis of the French, Spanish and Portuguese languages. In our island the Latin appears never to have superseded the old Gaelic speech, and could not stand its ground against the German. The scanty and superficial civilisation which the Britons had de- rived from their southern masters was effaced by the calamities of the fifth century. In the continental kingdoms into which the Roman empire was then dissolved, the conquerors Jearned much from the conquered race. In Britain the conquered race became as barbarous as the conquerors. All the chiefs who founded Teutonic dynasties in the continental provinces of the Roman empire, Alaric, Theodoric, Clovis, Alboin, were zealous Christians. The followers of Ida and Cerdic, on the other hand, brought to their settlements in Britain all the supersti- tions of the Elbe. While the German princes who reigned at Paris, Toledo, Arles, and Ravenna listened with reverence to the instruc- tions of bishops, adored the relics of martyrs, and took part eagerly in disputes touching the Nicene theology, the rulers of Wessex and Mercia were still performing savage rites in the temples of Thor and Woden. The continental kingdoms which had risen on the ruins of the Western Empire kept up some intercourse with those eastern prov- inces where the ancient civilisation, though slowly fading away un- der the influence of misgovernment, might still astonish and instruct barbarians, where the court still exhibited the splendour of Diocle- tian and Constantine, where the public buildings were still adorned with the sculptures of Polycletus and the paintings of Apelles, and where laborious pedants, themselves destitute of taste, sense,-and spirit, could still read and interpret the masterpieces of Sophocles, of Demosthenes, and of Plato. From this communion Britain was cut oft. Her shores were, to the polished race which dwelt by the Bos- orus, objects of a mysterious horror, such as that with which the onians of the age of Homer had regarded the Straits of Scylla and the city of the Ltestrygonian cannibals, There was one province of our island in which, as Procopius had been told, the ground was cov- % 4 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. ered with serpents, and the air was such that no man could inhale it | and live. To this desolate region the spirits of the departed were ferried over from the land of the Franks at midnight. A strange race of fishermen performed the ghastly office. The speech of the dead was distinctly heard by the boatmen: their weight made the keel sink deep in the water; but their forms were invisible to mortal eye. Such were the marvels which an able historian, the contemporary of Belisarius, of Simplicius, and of Trihbonian, gravely related in the rich and polite Constantinople, touching the country in which the founder of Constantinople had assumed the imperial purple. Con- cerning all the other provinces of the Western Empire we have con- tinuous information. It is only in Britain that an age of fable com pletely separates two ages of truth. Odoacer and Totila, Euric and. Thrasimund, Clovis, Fredegunda, and Brunechi'd, are historical mep and women. But Hengist and Horsa, Vortigerr and Rowena, Ar- thur and Mordred are mythical persons, whose very existence may be questioned, and whose adventures must be classed with those ot Liercules and Romulus. At length the darkness begins to break; and the country which hag been lost to view as Britain reappears as England. 'The conversion of the Saxon colonists to Christianity was the first of a long series of salutary revolutions. It is true that the Church had been deeply cor: rupted both by that superstition and by that philosophy against which she had long contended, and over which she had at last tiiumphed. She had given a too easy admission to doctrines borrowed from the ancient schools, and to rites borrowed from the ancient temples. Ro man policy and Gothic ignorance, Grecian ingenuity and Syrian asceticism, had contributed to deprave her. Yet she retained enough of the sublime theology and benevolent morality of her earlier days to elevate many intellects, and to purify many hearts. Some things also which at a later period were justly regarded as among her chief blemishes were, in the seventh century, and long afterwards, among her chief merits. That the sacerdotal order should encroach on the functions of the civil magistrate would, in our time, be a great evil. But that which in an age of good government is an evil may, in ar age of grossly bad government, be a blessing. It is better that man: kind should be governed by wise laws well administered, and by an enlightened public opinion, than by priestcraft: but it is better that men should be governed by priestcraft than by brute violence, m such a prelate as Dunstan than by such a warrior as Penda. society sunk in ignorance, and ruled by mere physical force, has great reason to rejoice when a class, of which the influence is intellectual and moral, rises to ascendency. Such a class will acubtless abuse its power: but mental power, even when abused, is still a nobler and better power than that which consists merely in corporeal strength. We read in our Saxon chronicles of tyrants, who, when at the height of greatness, were smitten with remorse, who abhorred the pleasares HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 5 and dignities which they had purchased by guilt, who abdicated their _», crowns, and who sought to atone for their offences by cruel penances ~wnd incessant prayers. These stories have drawn forth bitter expres- sions of contempt from some writers who, while they boasted of liberality, were in truth as narrow-minded as any monk of the dark ages, and whose habit was to apply to all events in the history of the world the standard received in the Parisian society of the eighteenth century. Yet surely a system which, however deformed by superstition, introduced strong moral restraints into communities previously governed only by vigour of muscle and by audacity of spirit, a system which taught the fiercest and mightiest ruler that he was, like his meanest bondman, a responsible being, might have seemed to deserve a more respectful mention from philosophers and philanthropists. The same observations willapply to the contempt with which, in the last century, it was fashionable to speak of the pilgrimages, the sanc- tuaries, the crusades and the monastic institutions of the middle ages, In times when men were scarcely ever induced to travel by liberal curiosity, or by the pursuit of gain, it was better that the rude inhabi- tant of the North should visit Italy and the East as a pilgrim, than that he should never see anything but those squalid cabins and un- cleared woods amidst which he was born. In times when life and when female honour were exposed to daily risk from tyrants and marauders, it was better that the precinct of a shrine should be re- garded with an irrational awe, than that there should be no refuge inaccessible to cruelty and licentiousness. In times when statesmen were incapable of forming extensive political combinations, it was better that the Christian nations should be roused and united for the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre, than that they should, one by one, be overwhelmed by the Mahometan power. Whatever reproach may, at alater period. have been justly thrown on the indolence and luxury of religious orders, it was surely good that, in an age of ‘igno- rance and violence, there should be quiet cloisters and gardens, in which the arts of peace could be safty cultivated, in which gentle and con- templative natures could find an asylum, in which one brother could employ himself in transcribing the Aineid of Virgil, and another in meditating the Analytics of Aristotle, in which he who had a genius for art might illuminate a martyrology’or carve a crucifix, and in which he who had a turn for natural philosophy might make experi- ments on the properties of plants and minerals. Had not such retreats been scattered here and there, among the huts of a miserable peasantry, and the castles of a ferocious aristocracy, European society would have consisted inerely of beasts of burden and beasts of pray. The Church has many times been compared by divines to the ark of which we read in the Book of Genesis: but never was the resemblance more perfect than during that evil time when she alone rode, amidst darkness and tempest, on the deluge beneath which all the great 6 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. works of ancient power and wisdom lay entombed, bearing within her that feeble germ from which a second and more glorious civilisa- tion was to spring. Even the spiritual supremacy arrogated by the Pope was, in the dark ages, produtive of far more good than evil. Its effect was to unite the nations of Western Europe in one great commonwealth. What the Olympian chariot course and the Pythian oracle were to all the Greek cities, from Trebizond to Marseilles, Rome and her Bishop were to all Christians of the Latin communion, from Calabria to the Hebrides. Thus grew up sentiments of enlarged benevolence, Races separated from each other by seas and mountains acknowledged a fraternal tie and a common code of public law. Even in war, the cruelty of the conqueror was not seldom mitigated by the recollection that he and his vanquished enemies were all members of one great federation. Into this federation our Saxon ancestors were now admitted. A regular communication was opened between our shores and that part of Europe in which the traces of ancient power and policy were yet ~ discernible. Many noble monuments which have since been destroy- ed or defaced still retain their pristine magnificence; and travellers, to whom Livy and Sallust were unintelligible, might gain from the Roman aqueducts and temples some faint notion of Roman history. The dome of Agrippa, still glittering with bronze, the mausoleum of Adrain, not yet deprived of its columns and statues, the Flavian amphitheatre, not yet degraded into a quarry, told to the rude Eng- lish pilgrims some part of the story of that great civilised world which had passed away. ‘The islanders returned, with awe deeply impress- ed on their half opened minds, and told the wondering inhabitants of the hovelsof London and York that, near the grave of Saint Peter, a mighty race, now extinct, had piled up buildings which would never be dissolved till the judgment day. Learning followed in the train of Christianity. The poetry and eloquence of the Augustan age was assiduously studied in Mercian and Northumbrian monasteries. The names of Bede and Alcuin were justly celebrated throughout Europe. Such was the state of our country when, in the ninth century, began the last great migration of the northern barbarians. During many years Denmark and Scandinavia continued to pour forth innumerable pirates, distinguished by strength, by valour, by merciless ferocity, and by hatred of the Christian name. No country suffered so much from these invaders as England. Her coast lay near to the ports whence they sailed; nor was any shire so far distant — from the sea as to be secure from attack. The same atrocities which had attended the victory of the Saxon over the Celt were now, after the lapse of ages, suffered by the Saxon at the hand of the Dane. Yivilization, just as it began to rise, was met by this blow, and sank down once more. Large colonies of adventurers from the Baltic established themselves on the eastern shores of our island, spread Seo Pg HISTORY OF ENGLAND. | 7 gradually westward, and, supported by constant reinforcements from beyond the sea, aspired to the dominion of the whole realm. The struggle between the two fierce Teutonic breeds lasted through six generations. Each was alternately paramount. Cruel massacres followed by cruel retribution, provinces wasted, convents plundered, and cities rased to the ground, made up the greater part of the his- tory of those evil days. At length the North ceased to send forth a constant stream of fresh depredators; and from that time the mu- tual aversion of the races began to subside. Intermarriage became frequent. The Danes learned the religion of the Saxons; and thus one cause of deadly animosity was removed. The Danish and Saxon tongues, both dialects of one widespread language, were blended to- gether. But the distinction between the two nations was by no - means effaced, when an event took place which prostrated both, in common slavery and degradation, at the feet of a third people. The Normans were then the foremost race of Christendom. Their valour and ferocity had made them conspicuous among the rovers whom Scandinavia had sent forth to ravage Western Europe. Their sails were long the terror of both coasts of the Channel. Their arms were repeatedly. carried far into the heart of the Carlovingian empire, and were victorious under the walls of Maestricht and Paris. At length one of the feeble heirs of Charlemagne ceded to the strangers a fertile province, watered by a noble river, and contiguous to the sea which was their favourite element. In that province they found- ed a mighty state, which graduatiy extended its influence over the neighbouring principalities of Britanny and Maine. Without laying aside that dauntless valour which had been the terror of every land from the Elbe to the Pyrenees, the Normans rapidly acquired all, and more than all, the knowledge and refinement which they found in the country where they settled. Their courage secured their terri- tory against foreign invasion. They established internal order, such as had long been unknown in the Frank empire. They embraced Christianity; and with Christianity they learned a great part of what the clergy had to teach. They abandoned their native speech, and adopted the French tongue, in which the Latin was the predominant element. They speedily raised their new language to a dignity and importance which it had never before possessed. They found it a barbarous jargon; they fixed it in writing; and they employed it in legislation, in poetry, and in romance. They renounced that brutal intemperance to which all the other branches of the great German family were too much inclined. The polite luxury of the Norman * presented a striking contrast to the coarse voracity and drunkenness of his Saxon and Danish neighbours. He loved to display his magnificence, not in huge piles of food and hogsheads of strong drink, but in large and stately edifices, rich armour, gallant horses, choice falcons, well ordered tournaments, banquets delicate rather than abundant, and wines remarkable rather for their exquisite at HISTORY OF ENGLAND. flavour than for their intoxicating power. That chivalrous spirit, which has exercised so powerful an influence on the politics, morals, and manners of all the European nations, was found in the highest exaltation among the Norman nobles. Those nobles were dis- tinguished by their graceful bearing and insinuating address. They were distinguished also by their skill in negotiation, and by a natural eloquence which they assiduously cultivated. It was the boast of one of their historians that the Norman gentlemen were orators from the cradle. But their chief fame was derived from their military exploits. Every country, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Dead Sea, witnessed the prodigies of their discipline and valour: One Norman knight, at the head of a handful of warriors, scattered _ the Celts of Connaught. Another founded the monarchy of the Two Sicilies, and saw the emperors both of the East and of the West fly before his arms. A third, the Ulysses of the first crusade, was in- vested by his fellow soldiers with the sovereignty of Antioch; and a fourth, the Tancred whose name lives in the great poem of Tasso, was celebrated through Christendom as the bravest and most gener- ous of the deliverers of the Holy Sepulchre The vicinity of so remarkable a people early began to produce an effect on the public mind of England. Before the Conquest, English princes received their education in Normandy. English sees and English estates were bestowed on Normans. The French of Nor- mandy was familiarly spoken in the palace of Westminster. The court of Rouen seems to have been to the court of Edward the Con: fessor what the court of Versailles long afterwards was to the court of Charles the Second. The battle of Hastings, and the events which followed it, not only placed a Duke of Normandy on the English throne, but gave up the whole population of England to the tyranny of the Norman race. The subjugation of a nation by a nation has seldom, even in Asia, been more complete. The country was portioned out among the captains of the invaders. Strong military institutions, closely con- nected with the institution of property, enabled the foreign conquer-_ ors to oppress the children of the soil. A cruel penal code, cruelly enforced, guarded the privileges, and even the sports, of the alien tyrants. Yet the subject race, though beaten down and trodden un-_ der foot, still made its sting felt. Some bold men, the favourite ~ heroes of our oldest ballads, betook themselves to the woods, and there, in defiance of curfew laws and forest laws, waged a predatory war against their oppressors. Assassination was an event of daily occurrence. Many Normans suddenly disappeared leaving no trace. The corpses of many were found bearing the marks of violence. Death by torture was denounced against the murderers, and strict search was made for them, but generally in vain; for the whole- nation was in a conspiracy to screen them. It was at length thought . necessary to lay a heavy fine on every Hundred in which a person of HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 9 French extraction should be found slain; and this regulation was followed up by another regulation, providing that every person who was found slain should be supposed to be a Frenchman, unless he was proved be a Saxon. During the century and a half which followed the Conquest, there is, to speak strictly,.no English history. The French Kings of Eng- land rose, indeed, to an eminence which was the wonder and dread of all neighbouring nations. They conquered Ireland. They received the homage of Scotland. By their valour, by their policy, by their fortunate matrimonial alliances, they became far more popular on the Continent than their liege lords the Kings of France. Asia, as well as Europe, was dazzled by the power and glory of our tyrants. Arabian chroniclers recorded with unwilling admiration the fall of Acre, the defence of Joppa, and the victorious march to Ascalon; and Arabian mothers long awed their infants to silence with the name of the lionhearted Plantagenet. At one time it seemed that the line of Hugh Capet was about to end as the Merovingian and Carlovingian lines had ended, and that a single great monarchy would spread from the Orkneys to the Pyrenees. So strong an association is established in most minds between the greatness of a sovereign and the greatness of the nation which he rules, that almost every historian of England has expatiated with a sentiment of exultation on the power and splendour of her foreign masters, and has lamented the decay of that power and splendour as a calamity toour country. This is, in truth, as absurd as it would be in a Haytian negro of our time to dwell with national pride on the greatness of Lewis the Fourteenth, and to speak of Blenheim and Ramilies with patriotic regret and shame. The Conqueror and his descendants to the fourth generation were not Englishmen: most of them were. born in France: they spent the greater part of their lives in France: their ordinary speech was French: almost every high office in their gift was filled by a French- man: every acquisition which they made on the Continent estranged them more and more from the population of our island. One of the ablest among them indeed attempted to win the hearts of his English subjects by espousing an English princess. But, by many of his barons, this marriage was regarded as a marriage between a white planter and a quadroon girl would now be regarded in Virginia. In history he is known by the honourable surname of Beauclerc; but, in his own time, his own countrymen called him by a Saxon nick- name, in contemptuous allusion to his Saxon connection. Had the Plantagenets, as at one time seemed likely, succeeded in uniting all France under their government, it is probable that England would never have had an independent existence. Her princes, her lords, her prelates, would have been men differing in race and language from the artisans and the tillers of the earth. The revenucs of her great proprietors would have been spent in festivities and di- versions on the banks of the Seine. The noble language of Milton 10 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. and Burke would have remained a rustic dialect, without a literature, a fixed grammar, or a fixed orthography, and would have been con- temptuously abandoned to the use of boors. No man of English ex- traction would have risen to eminence, except by becoming in speech and habits a Frenchman. England owes her escape from such calamities to an event which her historians have generally represented as disastrous. Her interest was so directly opposed to the interests of her rulers that she had no hope but in their errors and misfortunes. The talents and even the virtues of her first six French Kings were a curse toher. ‘The follies and vices of the seventh were her salvation. Had John inherited the great qualities of his father, of Henry Beauclere, or of the Conqueror, nay, had he even possessed the martial courage of Stephen or of Richard, and had the King of France at the same time been as inca- pable as all the other successors of Hugh Capet had been, the House of Plantagenet must have risen to unrivalled ascendency in Europe. But, just at this conjuncture, France, for the first time since the death of Charlemagne, was governed by a prince of great firmness and ability. On the other hand England, which, since the battle of Hastings, had been ruled generally by wise statesmen, always by brave soldiers, fell under the dominion of atrifler and a coward. From that moment her prospects brightened. John was driven from Normandy. The Norman nobles were compelled to make their election between the island and the continent. Shut up by the sea with the people whom they had hitherto oppressed and despised, they gradually came to regard England as their country, and the English as their countrymen. ‘The two races, so long hostile, soon found that they had common interests and common enemies. Both were alike aggrieved by the tranny of a bad king. Both were alike in- dignant at the favour shown by the court to the natives of Poitou and Aquitaine. The greatgrandsons of those who had fought under William and the greatgrandsons of those who had fought under Harold began to draw near to each other in friendship; and the first pledge of their reconciliation was the Great Charter, won by their united exertions, and framed for their common benefit. Here commences the history of the English nation. The history of the preceding events is the history of wrongs inflicted and sus- tained by various tribes, which indeed all dwelt on English ground, but which regarded each other with aversion such as has scarcely ever existed between communities separated by physical barriers, For even the mutual animosity of countries at war with each other is languid when compared with the animosity of nations which, morally separated, are yet locally intermingled. In no coun- try has the enmity of race been carried farther than m England. In no country has that enmity been more completely effaced. The stages of the process by which the hostile elements were melted down into one homogeneous mass are not accurately known to us. But it 4 aa co —— ee HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 11 is certain that, when John became King, the distinction between Saxons and Normans was strongly marked, and that before the end of the reign of his grandson it had almost disappeared. In the time of Richard the First, the ordinary imprecation of a Norman gentle- man was ‘‘May I become an Englishman!” His ordinary form of indignant denial was ‘‘ Do you take me for an Englishman?” The descendant of such a gentleman a hundred years later was proud of the English name. The sources of the noblest rivers which spread fertility over conti- nents, and bear richly laden fleets to the sea, are to be sought in wild and barren mountain tracts, incorrectly laid down in maps, and rarely explored by travellers. To such a tract the history of our country during the thirteenth century may not unaptly be compared. Sterile and obscure as is that portion of our annals, it is there that we must seek for the origin of our freedom, our prosperity, and our glory. Then it was that the great English people was formed, that the national character began to exhibit those pe- culiarities which it has ever since retained, and that our fathers became emphatically islanders, islanders not merely in geographi- cal position, but in their politics, their feelings, and their man- ners. Then first appeared with distinctness that constitution which has ever since, through all changes, preserved its identity; that constitution of which all the other free constitutions in the world are copies, and which, in spite of some defects, deserves to be re- garded as the best under which any great society has ever yet existed during many ages. Then it was that the House of Commons, the archetype of all the representative assemblies which now meet, either in the old or in the new world, held its first sittings. Then it was that the common law rose to the dignity of a science, and rapidly be- came a not unworthy rival of the imperial jurisprudence. Then it was that the courage of those sailors who manned the rude barks of the Cinque Ports first made the flag of England terrible on the seas. Then it was that the most ancient colleges which still exist at both the great national seats of learning were founded. Then was formed that language, less musical indeed that the languages of the south, but in force, in richness, in aptitude for all the highest purposes of the poet, the philosopher, and the orator, inferior to the tongue of Greece alone. Then too appeared the first faint dawn of that noble literature, the most splendid and the most durable of the many glories of England. Harly in the fourteenth century the amalgamation of the races was all but complete; and it was soon made manifest, by signs not to be mistaken, that a people inferior to none existing in the world had been formed by the mixture of three branches of the great Teutonic family with each other, and with the aboriginal Britons. There was, indeed, scarcely any thing in common between the England to ~ which John had been chased by Philip Augustus, and the England 12 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. from which the armies of Edward the Third went forth to conquer France. A period of more than a hundred years followed, during which the chief object of the English was to establish, by force of arms, a great empire on the Continent. The claim of Edward to the inheritance occupied by the House of Valois was a claim in which it might seem that his subjects were little interested. But the passion for conquest spread fast from the prince to the people. The war differed widely from the wars which the Plantagenets of the twelfth century had waged against the descendants of Hugh Capet. For the success of Henry the Second, or of Richard the First, would have made Eng- land a province of France. The effect of the successes of Edward the Third and Henry the Fifth was to make France, for a time, a province of England. The disdain with which, in the twelfth cen- tury, the conquerors from the Continent had regarded the islanders, was now retorted by the islanders on the people of the Continent. Every yeoman from Kent to Northumberland valued himself as one of a race born for victory and dominion, and looked down with scorn on the nation before which his ancestors had trembled. Even those knights of Gascony and Guienne who had fought gallantly under the Black Prince were regarded by the English as men of an inferior breed, and were contemptuously excluded from honourable and lucrative commands. In no long time our ancestors altogether lost sight of the original ground of quarrel. They began to consider the crown of France as a mere appendage to the crown of England; and when, in violation of the ordinary law of succession, they trans- ferred the crown of England to the House of Lancaster, they seem to have thought that the right of Richard the Second to the crown of France passed, as of course, to that house. The zeal and vigour which they displayed present a remarkable contrast to the torpor of the French, who were far more deeply interested in the event of the struggle. The most splendid victories recorded in the history of the middle ages were gained at this time, against great odds, by the English armies. Victories indeed they were of which a nation may justly be proud; for they are to be attributed to the moral superiority of the victors, a superiority which was most striking in the lowest ranks. The knights of England found worthy rivals in the knights of France. Chandos encountered an equal foe in Du Guesclin. But France had no infantry that dared to face the English bows and bills. A French King was brought prisonér to London. An English King was crowned at Paris. The banner of St. George was carried far beyond the Pyrenees and the Alps. On the south of the Ebro the English won a great battle, which for a time decided the fate of Leon and Castile; and the English Companies obtained a terrible preémi- nence among the bands of warriors who let out their weapons for hire to the princes and commonwealths of Italy. Nor were the arts of peace neglected by our fathers during that HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 13 _ stirring period. While France was wasted by war, till she at length found in her own desolation a miserable defence against invaders, | _ the English gathered in their harvests, adorned their cities , pleaded, traded, and studied in security. Many of our noblest architectural monuments belong to that age. Then rose the fair chapels of New College and of Saint George, the nave of Winchester and the choir of York, the spire of Salisbury and the majestic towers of Lincoln. A copious and forcible language, formed by an infusion of French into German, was now the common property of the aristocracy and of the people. Nor was it long before genius began to apply that ad- mirable machine to worthy purposes. While English warriors, leav- ing behind them the devastated provinces of France, entered Val- -Jadolid in triumph, and spread terror.to the gates of Florence, Eng- lish poets depicted in vivid tints all the wide variety of human man- ners and fortunes, and English thinkers aspired to know, or dared to doubt, where bigots had been content to wonder and to believe. The same age which produced the Black Prince and Derby, Chandos and Hawkwood,-produced also Geoffrey Chaucer and John Wycliffe. In so splendid and imper a a manner did the English people, properly so called, first take place among the nations of the world, Yet while we contemplate with pleasure “the high and commanding qualities which our forefathers displayed, we cannot but admit that the end which they pursued was an end condemned both by humanity and by enlightened policy, and that the reverses which compelled them, after a long and bloody struggle, to relinquish the hope of establishing a ereat continental empire, were really blessings in the guise of disasters. The spirit of the French was at last aroused: they began to oppose a vigorous national resistance to the foreign con- querors; and from that time the skill of the English captains ‘and the courage of the English soldiers were, happily for mankind, exerted invain. After many desperate strugeles, and with many bitter re- egrets, our ancestors gave up the contest. Since that age no British government has ever seriously and steadily pursued the design of making great conquests on the Continent. The people, indeed, con- ‘tinued to cherish with pride the recollection of Cressy, of Poitiers, and of Agincourt. Even after the lapse of many years it was casy to fire their blood and to draw forth their subsidies by promising them an expedition for the conquest of France. But happily the energies of our country have been directed to better objects; and she now occupies in the history of mankind a place far more glorious than if she had, as at one time seemed not improbable, acquired by the sword an ascendency similar to that which formerly belonged to the Roman republic. Cooped up once more within the limits of the island, the warlike peop!e employed in civil strife those arms which had been the terror of Europe. The means of profuse expenditure had long been drawn by the English barons from the oppressed provinces of France. That Tt ee HISTORY OF ENGLAND. source of supply was gone: but the ostentatious and luxurious habits which prosperity had engendered still remained; and the great lords, unable to gratify their tastes by plundering the French, were eager to plunder each other. The realm to which they were now confined would not, in the phrase of Comines, the most judicious observer of that time, suffice for them all. Two aristocratical factions, headed by two branches of the royal family, engaged in a long and fierce struggle for supremacy. As the animosity of those factions did not really arise from the dispute about the succession, it lasted long after all ground of dispute about the succession was removed. The party of the Red Rose survived the last prince who claimed the crown in right of Henry the Fourth. The party of the White Rose survived the marriage of Richmond and Elizabeth. Left without chiefs who had any decent show of right, the adherents of Lancaster rallied round a line of bastards, and the adherents of York set up a succession of impostors. When, at length, many aspiring nobles had perished on tne field of battle or by the hands of the executioner, when many illustrious houses had disappeared forever from history, when those great families which remained had been exhausted and sobered by calamities, it was universally acknowledged that the claims of all the contending Plantagenets were united in the house of Tudor. Meanwhile a change was proceeding infinitely more momentous than the acquisition or loss of any province, than the rise or fall of any dynasty. Slavery and the evils by which slavery is everywhere accompanied were fast disappearing. It is remarkable that the two greatest and most salutary social revo- lutions which have taken place in England, that revolution which, in the thirteenth century, put an end to the tyranny of nation over nation, and that revolution which, a few generations later, put an end to the property of man in man, were silently #nd imperceptibly effected. They struck contemporary observers with no suprise, and have received from historians a very scanty measure of attention. They were brought about neither by legislative regulations nor by physicial force. Moral causes noiselessly effaced first the distinction between Norman and Saxon, and then the distinction between master and slave. None can venture to fix the precise moment at which either distinction ceased. Some faint traces of the old Norman feel- ing might perhaps have been found late in the fourteenth century. Some faint traces of the institution of villenage were detected by the curious so late as the days of the Stuarts; nor has that institution ever, to this hour, been abolished by statute. ( It would be most unjust not to acknowledge that the chief agent in these two great deliverances was religion; and it may perhaps be doubted whether a purer religion might not have been found a less efficient agent. The benevolent spirit of the Christian morality is undoubtedly adverse to distinctions of caste. But to the Church of Rome such distinctions are peculiarly odious; for they are incom Peel ees oe ‘ s HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 15 patible with other distinctions which are essential to her system. She ascribes to every priest a mysterious dignity which entitles him to the reverence of every Jayman; and she does not consider any man as disqualified, by reason of his nation or of his family, for the priest: -hood. Her doctrines respecting the sacerdotal character, however erroneous they may be, have repeatedly mitigated some of the worst evils which can afflict society. That superstition cannot be regarded as unmixediy noxious which, in regions cursed by the tyranny of race over race, creates an aristocracy altogether independent of race, inverts the relation between the oppressor and the oppressed, and compels the hereditary master to kneel before the spiritual tribunal of the hereditary bondman. ‘To this day, in some countries where negro slavery exists, Popery appears in advantageous contrast to other forms of Christianity. It is notorious that the antipathy between the European and African races is by no means so strong at Rio Janeiro as at Washington. In our own country this peculiarity of the Roman Catholic system produced, during the middle ages, many salutary effects. It is true that, shortly after the battle of Has- tings, Saxon prelates and abbots were violently deposed, and that ecclesiastical adventurers from the Continent were intruded by hun- dreds into lucrative benefices. Yet even then pious divines of Nor- man blood raised their voices against such a violation of the constitu- tion of the Church, refused to accept mitres from the hands of William, and charged him, on the peril of his soul, not to forget that the vanquished islanders were his fellow Christians. The first pro- tector whom the English found among the dominant caste was Arch- bishop Anselm. At atime when the English name was a reproach, and when all the civil and military dignities of the kingdom were supposed to belong exclusively to the countrymen of the Conqueror, the despised race learned, with transports of delight, that one of themselves, Nicholas Breakspear, had been elevated to the papal throne, and had held out his foot to be kissed by ambassadors sprung from the noblest houses of Normandy. It was a national as well as a religious feeling that drew great multitudes to the shrine of Becket, whom they regarded as the enemy of their enemies. Whether he was a Norman or a Saxon may be doubted: but there is doubt that he perished by Norman hands, and that the Saxons cherished his memory with peculiar tenderness and veneration, and, in their pop- ular poetry, represented him as one of their own race. A succes- sor of Becket was foremost among the refractory magnates who obtained that charter which secured the privileges both of the Nor- man barons and of the Saxon yeomanry. How great a part the Roman Catholic ecclesiastics subsequently had in the abolition of villenage we learn from the unexceptionable testimony of Sir Thomas Smith, one of the ablest Protestant counsellors of Elizabeth. When the dying slaveholder asked for the last sacraments, his spiritual at- tendants regularly adjured him, as he loved his soul, to emancipate Ay pre HISTORY OF ENGLAND. his brethren for whom Christ had died. So successfully had the Church used her formidable machinery that, before the Reformation ame, She had enfranchised almost all the bondmen in the kingdom except her own, who, to do her justice, seem to have been very tenderly treated. There can be no doubt that, when these two great revolutions had been effected, our forefathers were by far the best governed people in Europe. During three hundred years the social system had been in a constant course of improvement. Under the first Plantagenets there had been barons able to bid defiance to the sovercign, and peasants degraded to the level of the swine and oxen which they tended. The exorbitant power of the baron had been gradually re duced. The condition of the peasant had been gradually elevated. Between the aristocracy and the working people had sprung up a middle class, agricultural and commercial. ‘There was still, it may be, more inequality than is favourable to the happiness and virtue of our species: but no man was altogether above the restraints of law, and no man was altogether below its protection. That the political institutions of England were, at this early period, regarded by the English with pride and affection, and by the most enlightened men of neighbouring nations with admiration and envy, is proved by the clearest evidence. But touching the nature of thes¢ institutions there has been much dishonest and acrimonicus contre- versy. The historical literature of England has indeed suffered grievously from a circumstance which has not a little contributed to her pros perity. The change, great as it is, which her polity has undergone during the last six centuries, has been the effect of gradual develop ment, not of demolition and reconstruction. The present constitu ion of our country is, to the constitution under which she flourished five hundred years ago, what the tree is to the sapling, what the man is to the boy. The alteration has been great. Yet there nevei Was a moment at which the chief part of what existed was not old A polity thus formed must abound in anomalies. But for the evii¢ arising from mere anomalies we have ample compensation. Othe societies possess written constitutions more symmetrical. But ne other society has yet succeeded in uniting revolution with prescrip tion, progress: with stability, the energy of youth with the majesty o° immemorial antiquity. This great blessing, however, has its drawbacks: and one of those drawbacks is that ever y source of information as to our early history has been poisoned by party spirit. As there is no country wher2 statesmen have been so much under the influence of the past, so there is no country where historians have been so much under the influence of the pesca Between these two things, indeed, there is a natural connection. Where history is regarded merely as a picture of life and manners, or as a collection of experiments from wv hich ae HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 17 general maxims of civil wisdom may be drawn, a writer lies under no very pressing temptation to misrepresent transactions of ancient date. But where history is regarded as a repository. of titledeeds, on which the rights of governments and nations depend, the motive to falsification becomes almost irresistible. A Frenchman is not now impelled by any strong interest either to exaggerate or to underrate the power of the Kings of the house of Valois. The privileges of the States General, of the States of Brittany, of the States of Bur- gundy, are to him matters of as little practical importance as the con- stitution of the Jewish Sanhedrim or of the Amphictyonic Council: The gulph of a great revolution completely separates the new from the old system. No such chasm divides the existence of the English nation into two distinct parts. Our laws and customs have never been lost in general and irreparable ruin. With us the precedents of the middle ages are still valid precedents, and are still cited, on the gravest occasions, by the most eminent statesmen. For example, when King George the Third was attacked by the malady which made him incapable of performing his regal functions, and when the most distinguished lawyers and politicians differed widely as to the course which ought, in such circumstances, to be pursued, the Houses of Parliament would not proceed to discuss any plan of re- gency till all the precedents which were to be found in our annals, from the earliest times, had been collected and arranged. Commit- tees were appointed to examine the ancient records of the realm. The first case reported was that of the year 1217: much importance was attached to the cases of 13826, of 1877, and of 1422: but the case which was justly considered as most in point was that of 1455. Thus in our country the dearest interests of parties have frequently been staked on the results of the researches of antiquaries. The inevitable consequence was that our antiquaries conducted their researches in the spirit of partisans. It is therefore not Surprising that those who have written concern- ing the limits of prerogative and liberty in the old polity of Eng- land should generally have shown the temper, not of judges, but of angry and uncandid advocates. For they were discussing, not a speculative matter, but a matter which had a direct and practical connection with the most momentous and-exciting disputes of their own day. From the commencement of the long contest between the Parliament and the Stuarts down to the time when the pretensions of the Stuarts ceased to be formidable, few questions were practically more important than the question whether the administration of that family had or had not been in accordance with the ancient constitu- tion of the kingdom. This question could be decided only by refer- ence to the records of preceding reigns. Bracton and Fleta, the Mirror of Justice and the Rolls of Parliament, were ransacked to find pretexts for the excesses of the Star Chamber on one side, and of the High Court of Justice on the other. During a long course of 18 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. years every Whig historian was anxious to prove that the old Eng- lish government was all but republican, every Tory historian to prove that it was ali but despotic. With such feelings, both parties looked into the chronicles of the middle ages. Both readily found what they sought; and both ob- stinately refused to see anything but what they sought. The cham- pions of the Stuarts could easily point out instances of oppression exercised on the subject. The defenders of the Roundheads could as easily produce instances of determined and successful resistance offered to the Crown. The Tories quoted, from ancient writings, expressions almost as servile as were heard from the pulpit of Main- waring. The Whigs discovered expressions as bold and severe as any that resounded from the judgment seat of Bradshaw. One set of writers adduced numerous instances in which Kings had extorted money without the authority of Parliament. Another set cited cases in which the Parliament had assumed to itself the power of inflicting punishment on Kings. Those who saw only one half of the evi- dence would have concluded that the Plantagenets were as absolute as the Sultans of Turkey: those who saw only the other half would have concluded that the Plantagenets had as little real power as the Doges of Venice; and both conclusions would have been equally re- mote from the truth. The old English government was one of a class of limited mon- — archies which sprang up in Western Europe during the middle ages, and which, notwithstanding many diversities, bore to one another a strong family likeness. That there should have been such a likeness is not strange. The countries in which those monarchies arose had been provinces of the same great civilised empire, and had been overrun and conquered, about the same time, by tribes of the same rude and warlike nation. They were members of the same great coalition against Islam. They were in communion with the same superb and ambitious Church. Their polity naturally took the same form. They had institutions derived partly from imperial Rome, partly from papal Rome, partly from the old Germany. All had Kings; and in all the kingly office became by degrees strictly hereditary. All had nobles bearing titles which had originally indicated military rank. The dignity of knighthood, the rules of heraldry, were com- mon to all. All had richly endowed ecclesiastical establishments, municipal corporations enjoying large franchises, and senates whose consent was necessary to the validity of some public acts. Of these kindred constitutions the English was, from an early period, justly reputed the best. The prerogatives of the sovereign were undoubtedly extensive. The spirit of religion and the spirit of chivalry concurred to exalt his dignity. The sacred oil had been poured on his head. It was no disparagement to the bravest and noblest knights to kneel at his feet. His person was inviolable. He - alone was entitled to convoke the Estates of the realm: he could at HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 19 his pleasure dismiss them; and his assent was necessary to all their legislative acts. He was the chief of the executive administration, the sole organ of communication with foreign powers, the captain of the military and naval forces of the state, the fountain of justice, of mercy, and of honour. He had large powers for the regulation of trade. It was by him that money was coined, that weights and measures were fixed, that marts and havens were appointed. His ecclesiastical patronage was immense. His hereditary revenues, economically administered, sufficed to meet the ordinary charges of government. His own domains were of vast extent. He was also feudal lord paramount of the whole soil of his kingdom, and, in that capacity, possessed many lucrative and many formidable rights, which enabled him to annoy and depress those who thwarted him, and to enrich and aggrandize, without any cost to himself, those who enjoyed his favour. But his power, though ample, was limited by three great consti- tutional principles, so ancient that none can say when they began to exist, so potent that their natural development, continued through many generations, has produced the order of things under which we now live. First, the King could not legislate without the consent of his Par- liament. Secondly, he could impose no tax without the consent of his Parliament. ‘Thirdly, he was bound to conduct the executive administration according to the laws of the land, and, if he broke those laws, his advisers and his agents were responsible. No candid Tory will deny that these principles had, five hundred years ago, acquired the authority of fundamental rules. On the - other hand, no candid Whig will affirm that they were, till a later period, cleared from all ambiguity, or followed out to all their conse- quences. A constitution of the middle ages was not, like a constitu- tion of the eighteeneth or nineteenth century, created entire by a single act, and fully set forth in a single document. It is only in a refined and speculative age that a polity is constructed on system. In rude societies the progress of government resembles the progress of language and of versification. Rude societies have language, and often copious and energetic language: but they have no scientific grammar, no definitions of nouns and verbs, no names for declen- sions, moods, tenses, and voices. Rude societies have versification, and often versification of great power and sweetness: but they have no metrical canons; and the minstrel whose numbers, regulated solely by his ear, are the delight of his audience, would himself be unable to say of how many dactyls and trochees each of his lines consists. As eloquence exists before syntax, and song before pros- ody, so government may exist in a high degree of excellence long before the limits of legislative, executive, and judicial power have been traced with precision. It was thus in our country. The line which bounded the royal 20 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. prerogative, though in general sufficiently clear, had not everywhere been drawn with accuracy and distinctness. There was, therefore, near the border some debatable ground on which incursions and re- prisals continued to take place, till, after ages of strife, plain and durable landmarks were at length set up. lt may be instructive to note in what way, and to what extent, our ancient sovereigns were in the habit of violating the three great principles by which the lib- erties of the nation were protected. No English King has ever laid claim to the general legislative power. The most violent and imperious Plantagenet never fancied himself competent to enact, without the consent of his great council, that a jury should consist of ten persons instead of twelve, that a widow’s dower should be a fourth part instead of a third, that per- jury should be a felony, or that the custom of gavelkind should be introduced into Yorkshire.* But the King had the power of par- doning offenders; and there is one point at which the power of par doning and the power of legislating seem to fade into each other, and may easily, at least in a simple age, be confounded. A penal statute is virtually annulled if the penalties which it imposes are reg- ularly remitted as often as they are incurred. ‘The sovereign was undoubtedly competent to remit penalties without limit. He was therefore competent to annul virtually a penal statute. It might seem that there could be no serious objection to his doing formally what he might do virtually. Thus, with the help of subtle and courtly lawyers, grew up, on the doubtful frontier which separates — executive from legislative functions, that great anomaly known as the dispensing power. That the King could not impose taxes without the consent of Par- liament is admitted to have been, from time immemorial, a funda- mental law of England. It was among the articles which John was compelled by the Barons to sign. Edward the First ventured to break through the rule: but, able, powerful, and popular as he was, he encountered an opposition to which he found it expedient to yield. He covenanted accordingly in express terms, for himself and his heirs, that they would never again levy any aid without the as- sent and goodwill of the Estates of the realm. His powerful and victorious grandson attempted to violate this solemn compact: but the attempt was strenuously withstood. At length the Plantagenets gave up the. point in despair: but, though they ceased to infringe the law openly, they occasionally contrived, by evading it, to pro- cure an extraordinary supply for a temporary purpose. They were interdicted from taxing; but they claimed the right of begging and borrowing. They therefore sometimes begged in a tone not easily to be distinguished from that of command, and sometimes borrowed Fae a ee A ee rn Se EN ee ee ee ee *This is excellently put by Mr, Hallam in the first chapter of his Constitn- tional History. SOT one ee HISTORY OF ENGLAND. | 21 with small thought of repaying. But the fact that they thought it necessary to disguise their exactions under the names of benevolences and loans sufficiently proves that the authority of the great constitu- tional rule was universally recognised. The principle that the King of England was bound to conduct the administration according to law, and that, if he did anything against law, his advisers and agents were answerable, was established at a very early period, as the severe judgments pronounced and executed on many royal favourites sufficiently prove. It is, however, certain that the rights of individuals were often violated by the Plantagenet, and that the injured parties were often unable to obtain redress. According to law no Englishman could be arrested or detained in confinement merely by the mandate of the sovereign. In fact, per- sons obnoxious to the government were frequently imprisoned without any other authority than a royal order. According to law, torture, the disgrace of the Roman jurisprudence, could not, in any circumstances, be inflicted on an English subject. Nevertheless, during the troubles of the fifteenth centur y, a rack was introduced into the Tower, and was occasionally used under the plea of political necessity. But it would be a great error to infer from such irregu- Jarities that the English monarchs were, either in theory or in practice, absolute. We live in a highly civilised society, through which intelligence is so rapidly diffused by means of the press and of the post office that any gross act of oppression committed in any part of our island is, in a few hours, discussed by millions, If the sovereign were now to immure a subject in defiance of the writ of Habeas. Corpus, or to put a conspirator to the torture, the whole nation would be instantly electrified by the news. In the middle ages the state of society was widely different. Rarely and with great difficulty did the wrongs of individuals come to the knowledge of the public. A man might be illegally confined during many months n the castle of Carlisle or Norw ich; and no whisper of the transacuon might reach London. It is highly probable that the rack had been many years in use before the great majority of the nation had the least suspicion that it was ever employed. Nor were our ancestors by any means so much alive as we are to the importance of maintaining great general rules. We have been taught by long ex- perience that we cannot without danger suffer any breach of the constitution to pass unnoticed. It is therefore now universally held that a government which unnecessarily exceeds its powers ought to be visited with severe parliamentary censure, and that a gover nment which, under the pressure of a great exigency, and with pure inten- tions, has exceeded its powers, ought without delay to apply to Parliament for an act of indemnity. But such were not the feelings of the Englishmen of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. They were little disposed to contend for a principle merely as a principle, or to cry out against an irregularity which was not also felt to be a 22 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. grievance. As long as the general spirit of the administration was mild and popular, they were willing to allow some latitude to their sovereign. If, for ends generally acknowledged to be good, he ex- erted a vigour beyond the law, they not only forgave, but applauded him, and while they enjoyed security and prosperity under his rule, were but too ready to believe that whoever had incurred his dis- pleasure had deserved it. But to this indulgence there was a limit; nor was that King wise who presumed far on the forbearance of the English people. They might sometimes allow him to overstep the constitutional line: but they also claimed the privilege of overstep- ping that line themselves, whenever his encroachments were so serious as to excite alarm. If, not content with occasionally oppress- ing individuals, he dared to oppress great masses, his subjects promptly appealed to the laws, and, that appeal failing, appealed as promptly to the God of battles. Our forefathers might indeed safely tolerate a king ina few ex- cesses; for they had in reserve a check which soon brought the fiercest and proudest king to reason, the check of physical force. It is difficult for an Englishman of the nineteenth century to imagine to himself the facility and rapidity with which, four hundred years ago, this cheek was applied. The people have long unlearned the use of arms. The art of war has been carried to a perfection un- known to former ages; and the knowledge of that art is confined to a particular class. A hundred thousand soldiers, well disciplined and commanded, will keep down ten millions of ploughmen and ar- tisans. A few regiments of household troops are sufficient to over- awe all the discontented spirits of a large capital. In the meantime the effect of the constant progress of wealth has been to make insur rection far more terrible to thinking men than maladministration. Immense sums have been expended on works which, if a rebellion broke out, might perish in a few hours. The mass of movable - wealth collected in the shops and warehouses of London alone ex ceeds five hundredfold that which the whole island contained in the days of the Plantagenets; and, if the government were subverted by physical force, all this movable wealth would be exposed to immi‘ nent risk of spoliation and destruction. Still greater would be the risk to public credit, on which thousands of families directly depend for subsistence, and with which the credit of the whole commercial world is inseparably connected. It is no exaggeration to say that a civil war of a week on English ground would now produce ' nk: a elt gine a SS ee ee HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 65 heads. They were subsequently called Tories and Whigs; nor does it seem that these appellations are likely soon to become obsolete. It would not be difficult to compose a lampoon or panegyric on either of these renowned factions. For no man not utterly destitute of judgment and candor will deny that there are many deep stains on the fame of the party to which he belongs, or that the party to which he is opposed may justly boast of many illustrious names, of many heroic actions, and of many great services rendered to the state. The truth is that, though both parties have often seriously erred, England could have spared neither. If, in her institutions, freedom and order, the advantages arising from innovation and the advantages arising from prescription, have been combined to an extent elsewhere unknown, we may attribute this happy peculiarity to the strenuous conflicts and alternate victories of two rival confederacies of states- men, a confederacy zealous for authority and antiquity, and a con- federacy zealous for liberty and progress. It ought to be remembered that the difference between the two great sections of English politicians has always been a difference rather of degree than of principle. ‘There were certain limits on the right and on the left, which were very rarely overstepped. A few enthusiasts on one side were ready to lay all our laws and franchises at the feet of our Kings. A few enthusiasts on the other side were bent on pursuing, through endless civil troubles, their darling phan- tom of a republic. But the great majority of those who fought for the crown were averse to despotism; and the great majority of the champions of popular rights were averse to anarchy. ‘Twice, in the course of the seventeenth century, the two parties suspended their dissensions, and united their strength in a common cause. Their first coalition restored hereditary monarchy. Their second coalition rescued constitutional freedom. It is also to be noted that these two parties have never been the whole nation, nay, that they have never, taken together, made up a majority of the nation. Between them has always been a great mass, which has not steadfastly adhered to either, which has sometimes re- mained inertly neutral, and which has sometimes oscillated to and fro. That mass has more than once passed in afew years from one - extreme to the other, and back again. Sometimes it has changed sides, merely because it was tired of supporting the same men, some- times because it was dismayed by its own excesses, sometimes be- cause it had expected impossibilities. and had been disappointed. But whenever it has leaned with its whole weight in either direction, that weight has, for the time, been irresistible. When the rival parties first appeared in a distinct form, they seemed to be not unequally matched. On the side of the government was a large majority of the nobles, and of those opulent and well descended gentlemen to whom nothing was wanting of nobility but the name. These, with the dependents whose support they could command, 66 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. were no small power in the state. On the same side were the great body of the clergy, both the Universities, and all those laymen who were strongly attached to episcopal government and to the Angli- can ritual. ‘These respectable classes found themselves in the com- pany of some allies much less decorous than themselves. The Puri- tan austerity drove to the King’s faction all who made pleasure their business, who affected gallantry, splendour of dress, or taste in the higher arts. With these went all who live by amusing the leisure of others, from the painter and the comic poet, down to the ropedancer and the Merry Andrew. For these artists well knew that they might thrive under a superb and luxurious despotism, but must starve under the rigid rule of the precisians. In the same interest were the Roman Catholics toa man. The Queen, a daughter of France, was of their own faith. Her husband was known to be strongly attached to her, and not a little in aweof her. Though undoubtedly a Prot-— estant on conviction, he regarded the professors of the old religion with no ill-will, and would gladly have granted them amuch larger toleration than he was disposed to concede to the Presbyterians. If the opposition obtained the mastery, it was probable that the san- guinary laws enacted against Papists, in the reign of Elizabeth, would be severely enforced. The Roman Catholics were therefore induced by the strongest motives to espouse the cause of the court. They in general acted with a caution which brought on them the reproach of cowardice and lukewarmness; but it is probable that, in maintaining reat reserve, they consulted the King’s interest as well as their own. t was not for his service that they should be conspicuous among his friends. The main strength of the opposition lay among the small free- holders in the country, and among the merchants and shopkeepers of the towns. But these were‘headed by a formidable minority of the aristocracy, a minority which included the rich and powerful Earls — of Northumberland, Bedford, Warwick, Stamford, and Essex, and — several other Lords of great wealth and influence. In the same ranks was found the whole body of Protestant Nonconformists, and most of those members of the Established Church who still adhered to the Calvinistic opinions which, forty years before, had been generally held by the prelates and clergy. ‘The municipal corporations took, — with few exceptions, the same side. In the House of Commons the — opposition preponderated, but not very decidedly. ’ Neither party wanted strong arguments for the course which itwas — disposed to take. The reasoningsof the most enlightened Royalists may be summed up thus :—‘‘ It is true that great abuses have existed, but they have been redressed. It is true that precious rights have — been invaded; but they have been vindicated and surrounded with — new securities. The sittings of the Estates of the realm have been. — in defiance of all precedent and of the spirit of the constitution, inter mitted during eleven years; but it has now been provided that hence HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 67 forth three years shall never elapse without a Parliament. The Star Chamber, the High Commission, the Council of York, oppressed and plundered us; but those hateful courts have now ceased to exist. The Lord Lieutenant aimed at establishing military despotism; but he has answered for his treason with hishead. The Primate tainted our worship with Popish rites and punished our scruples with Popish cruelty; but he is awaiting in the Tower the judgment of his peers. The Lord Keeper sanctioned a plan by which the property of every man in England was placed at the mercy of the Crown; but he has _ been disgraced, ruined, and compelled to take refuge in a foreign Jand. ‘The ministers of tyranny have expiated their crimes) The victims of tyranny have been compensated for their sufferings. It would therefore be most unwise to persevere further in that course which was justifiable and neccssary when we first met after a long interval, and found the whole administration one mass of abuses. It is time to take heed that we do notso pursue our victory over des- potism as to runintoanarchy. It was not in our power to overturn _ the bad institutions which lately afflicted our country, without shocks which have loosened the foundations of government. Now that those institutions have fallen, we must hasten to prop the edifice which it was lately our duty to batter Henceforth it will be our wisdom to look with jealousy on schemes of innovation, and to guard from en. croachment all the prerogatives with which the law has, for the public good, armed the sovereign.” Such were the views of those men of whom the excellent Falkland may be regarded as the leader. It was contended on the other side with not less force, by men of not less ability and virtue, that the safety which the liberties of the English people enjoyed was rather apparent than real, and that the arbitrary projects of the courts would be resumed as soon as the vigilance of the Commons was relaxed. - True it was,—such was the reasoning of Pym, of Hollis, and of Hampden,—that many good laws had been passed: but, if good laws had been sufficient to restrain the King, his subjects would have had little reason ever to complain of his administration. The recent statutes were surely not of more authority than the Great Charter or the Petition of Right. Yet neither the Great Charter, hallowed by the veneration of four centuries, nor the Petition of Right, sanctioned, after mature reflection, and for valuable consideration, by Charles himself, had been found effectual for the protection of the people. If once the check of fear were withdrawn, if once the spirit of opposi- tion were suffered to slumber, all the securities for English freedom resolved themselves into a single one, the royal word; and it had been proved by a long and severe experience that the royal word could not be trusted. The two parties were still regarding each other with cautious hos- tility, and had not yet measured their strength, when news arrived which inflamed the passions and confirmed the opinions of both. The 68 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. great chieftains of Ulster, who, at the time of the accession of James had, after a long struggle, submitted to the royal authority had not long brooked the humiliation of dependence. They had conspired against the English government, and had been attainted of treason Their immense domains had been forfeited to the crown, and had soon been peopled by thousands of English and Scotch emigrants The new settlers were, in civilisation and intelligence, far superior to the native population, and sometimes abused their superiority. The animosity produced by difference of race was increased by difference — of religion. Under the iron rule of Wentworth, scarcely a murmur was heard: but, when that strong pressure was withdrawn, when Scotland had set the example of successful resistance, when England was distracted by internal quarrels, the smothered rage of the Irish broke forth into acts of fearful violence. On a sudden, the aboriginal population rose on the colonists A war, to which national and theological hatred gave a character of peculiar ferocity, desolated Ulster, and spread to the neighbouring provinces. The castle of Dublin was scarcely thought secure. Every post brought to London | exaggerated accounts of outrages which, without any exaggeration, were sufficient to move pity and horror. These evil tidings roused to the height the zeal of both the great parties which were marshalled against each other at Westminster. The Royalists maintained that it was the first duty of every good Englishman and Protestant, at such a crisis, to strengthen the hands of the sovereign. To the oppo sition 1t seemed that there were now stronger reasons than ever for thwarting and restraining him. That the commonwealth was in danger was undoubtedly a good reason for giving large powers to a trust worthy magistrate: but it was a good reason for taking away powers from a magistrate who was at heart a public enemy. To raise a great army had always been the King’s first object. A great army must now be raised. It was to befeared that, unless some new securities were devised, the forces levied for the reduction of Ireland would be employed against the liberties of England. Nor was this all A horrible suspicion, unjust indeed, but not altogether unnatural, had arisen in many minds. The Queen was an avowed Roman Catholic: the King was not regarded by the Puritans, whom he had mercilessly persecuted, as a sincere Protestant; and so notorious was his duplicity, that there was no treachery of which his subjects might not, with * some show of reason, believe him capable. It was soon whispered that the rebellion of the Roman Catholics of Ulster was part of a vast work of darkness which had been planned at Whitehall. After some weeks of prelude, the first great parliamentary conflict between the parties, which have ever since contended, and are still contending, for the government of the nation, took place on the twenty-second of November, 1641. It was moved by the opposition, that the House of Commons should present to the King a remon- strance, enumerating the faults of his administration from the time of wl Py HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 69 his accession, and expressing the distrust with which his policy was still regarded by his people. That assembly, which afew months be- fore had been unanimous in calling for the reform of abuses, was now divided into two fierce and eager factions of nearly equal strength. After a hot debate of many hours, the remonstrance was carried by only eleven votes. The result of this struggle was highly favourable to the conserva- tive party. It could not be doubted that only some great indiscre- tion could prevent them from shortly obtaining the predominance in the Lower House. The Upper House was already their own. Noth- ing was wanting to ensure their success, but that the King should, in all his conduct, show respect for the laws and scrupulous good faith towards his subjects. His first measures promised well. He had, it seemed, at last dis- covered that an entire change of system was necessary, and had wisely made up his mind to what could nolonger be avoided. He declared his determination to govern in harmony with the Commons, and, for that end, to call to his councils men in whose talents and character the Commons might place confidence. Nor was the selection ill made. Falkland, Hyde, and Colepepper, all three distinguished by the part which they had.taken in reforming abuses and in punishing evil ministers, were invited to become the confidential advisers of the _ Crown, and were solemnly assured by Charles that he would take no step in any way affecting the Lower House of Parliament without their privity. . Had he kept this promise, it cannot be doubted that the reaction which was already in progaess would very soon have become quite as strong as the most respectable Royalists would have desired. Al- ready the violent members of the opposition had begun to despair of the fortunes of their party, to tremble for their own safety, and to talk of selling their estates and emigrating to America. That the fair prospects which had begun to open before the King were sudden, ly overcast, that his life was darkened by adversity, and at length shortened by violence, is to be attributed to his own faithlessness and contempt of law. The truth seems to be that he detested both the parties into which the House of Commons was divided: nor is this strange; for in both those parties the love of liberty and the love of order were mingled, though in different proportions. The advisers whom necessity had compelled him to call round him were by no means after his own heart. They had joined in condemning his tyranny, in abridging his power, and in punishing his instruments. They were now indeed prepared to defend in a strictly legal way his strictly legal preroga- tive; but they would have recoiled with horror from the thought of reviving Wentworth’s projects of Thorough. They were, therefore, ' inthe King’s opinion, traitors, who differed only in the degree of their seditious malignity from Pym and Hampden. , 70 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. He accordingly, a few days after he had promised the chiefs of the constitutional Royalists that no step of importance should be taken without their knowledge, formed a resolution the most momentous of his whole life, carefully concealed that resolution from them, and ex- ecuted it in a manner which overwhelmed them with shame and dis- may. He sent the Attorney General to impeach Pym, Hollis, Hamp- den, and other members of the House of Commons of high-treason at the bar of the House of Lords. Not content with this flagrant vio- lation of the Great Charter and of the uninterrupted practice of cen- turies, he went in person, accompanied by armed men, to seize the leaders of the opposition within the walls of Parliament: The attempt failed. The accused members had left the House a short time before Charles entered it. A sudden and violent revulsion of feeling, both in the Parliament and in the country, followed. The most favourable view that has ever been taken of the King’s conduct on this occasion by his most partial advocates is that he had weakly suffered himself to be hurried into a gross indiscretion by the evil counsels of his wife and of his courtiers. But the general voice loudly charged him with far deeper guilt. At the very moment at which his subjects, after a long estrangement produced by his maladminis- tration, were returning to him with feelings of confidence and affec- tion, he had aimed a deadly blow at all their dearest rights, at the privileges of Parliament, at the very principle of trial by jury. He had shown that he considered opposition to his arbitrary designs as a crime to be expiated only by blood. He had broken faith, not only with his Great Council and with his people, but with his own ad- herents. He had done what, but for an unforeseen accident, would probably have produced a bloody conflict round the Speaker’s chair. Those who had the chief sway in the Lower House now felt that not only their power and popularity, but their lands and their necks, were staked on the event of the struggle in which they were en- gaged. The flagging zeal of the party opposed to the court revived in an instant. During the night which followed the outrage the whole city of London was inarms. In a few hours the roads lead- ing to the capital were covered with multitudes of yeomen spurring hard to Westminster with the badges of the parliamentary cause in their hats. In the House of Commons the opposition became at once irresistible, and carried, by more than two votes to one, resolu- tions of unprecedented violence. Strong bodies of the trainbands, regularly relieved, mounted guard round Westminster Hall. The gates of the King’s palace were daily besieged by a furious multitude whose taunts and execrations were heard even in the presence chamber, and who could scarcely be kept out of the royal apartments by the gentle- men of the household. Had Charles remained much longer in his stormy capital, it is probable that the Commons would have found a plea for making him, under outward forms of respect, a state prisoner. j HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 71 He quitted London, never to return till the day of a terrible and memorable reckoning had arrived. vived: and the apostate Lords, who had lately fied from Westminster to Oxford, hastened back from Oxford to Westminster. And now a new and alarming class of symptoms began to appear in the distempered body politic. There had been, from the first, in the parliamentary party, some men whose minds were set on objects from which the majority of that party would have shrunk with horror. These men were, in religion, Independents. They con- ceived that every Christian congregation had, under Christ, supreme jurisdiction in things spiritual; that appeals to provincial and na- tional synods were scarcely less unscriptural than appeals to the Court of Arches, or to the Vatican; and that Popery, Prelacy, and Presbyterianism were merely three forms of one great apostasy. In politics, the Independents were, to use the phrase of their time, root and branch men, or, to use the kindred phrase of our own time, rad- icals. Not content with limiting the power of the monarch, they were desirous to erect a commonwealth on the ruins of the old Eng- lish polity. At first they had been inconsiderable, both in numbers and in weight; but before the war had lasted two years they became, not indeed the largest, but the most powerful faction in the country. Some of the old parliamentary leaders had been removed by death; and others had furfeited the public confidence. Pym had been borne, with princely honours, to a grave among the Plantagenets. Hampden had fallen, as became him, while vainly endeavouring, by his heroic example, to inspire his followers with courage to face the fiery cavalry of Rupert. Bedford had been untrue to the cause. Northumberland was known to be lukewarm. Essex and his lieu- tenants had shown little vigour and ability in the conduct of military operations. At such a conjuncture it was that the Independent pany: ardent, resolute, and uncompromising, began to raise its head, oth in the camp and in the House of Commons. The soul of that party was Oliver Cromwell. Bred to peaceful oc- cupations, he had, at more than forty years of age, accepted a com- mission in the parliamentary army. No sooner had he become a soldier than he discerned, with the keen glance of genius, what Essex, and men like Essex, with all their experience, were unable to per- | ceive. He saw precisely where the strength of the Royalists lay, and by what means alone that strength could be overpowered. e Saw that it was necessary to reconstruct the army of the Parliament. He saw also that there were abundant and excellent materials for the pur- 76 . HISTORY OF ENGLAND. pose, materials less showy, indeed, but more solid, than those of — which the gallant squadrons of the King were composed. It was — necessary to look for recruits who were not mere mercenaries, for re- cruits of decent station and grave character, fearing God and zealous - for public liberty. With such men he filled his own regiment, and, while he subjected them to a discipline more rigid than had ever be- fore been known in England, he administered to theirintellectual and moral nature stimulants of fearful potency. The events of the year 1644 fully proved the superiority of his abilities. In the south, where Essex held the command, the parlia- mentary forces underwent a succession of shameful disasters; but in — the north the victory of Marston Moor fully compensated for all that — had been lost elsewhere. That victory was not a more serious blow — to the Royalists than to the party which had hitherto been dominant at Westminster; for it was notorious that the day, disgracefully lost by the Presbyterians, had been retrieved by the energy of Cromwell, and by the steady valour of the warriors whom he had trained. These events produced the Selfdenying Ordinance and the new © model of the army. Under decorous pretexts, and with every mark of respect, Essex and most of those who had held high posts under him were removed; and the conduct of the war was intrusted to very different hands. Fairfax, a brave soldier, but of mean understanding and irresolute temper, was the nominal Lord General of the forces; but Cromwell was their real head. Cromwell made haste to organise the whole army on the same prin- ciples on which he had organised his own regiment. As soon as this process was complete, the event of the war was decided. The Cava- liers had now to encounter natural courage equal to their own, enthu- — siasm stronger than their own, and discipline such as was utterly wanting to them. It soon became a proverb that the soldiers of Fair- fax and Cromwell were men of a different breed from the soldiers of Essex. At Naseby took place the first great encounter between the Royalists and the remodelled army of the Houses. The victory of the Roundheads was complete and decisive. It was followed by other triumphs in rapid succession. In a few months the authority of the Parliament was fully established over the whole kingdom. Charles fled to the Scots, and was by them, in a manner which did not much exalt their national character, delivered up to his English subjects. While the event of the war was still doubtful, the Houses had put the Primate to death, had interdicted, within the sphere of their au- — thority, the use of the Liturgy, and had required all men to subscribe — that renowned instrument known by the name of the Solemn League and Covenant. Covenanting work, as it was called, went on fast. Hundreds of thousands affixed their names to the rolls, and, with © hands lifted up towards heaven, swore to endeavour, without respect — of persons, the extirpation of Popery and Prelacy, heresy and schism, — and to bring to public trial and condign punishment all who should — ae HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 77 hinder the reformation of religion. When the struggle was over, the work of innovation and revenge was pushed on with increased ardour, The ecclesiastical polity of the kingdom was remodelled. Most of the old clergy were ejected from their benefices, Fines, often of ruinous amount, were laid on the Royalists, already impoverished by sarge aids furnished to the King. Many estates were confiscated. Many proscribed Cavaliers found it expedient to purchase, at an enormous cost, the protection of eminent members of the victorious party. Large domains, belonging to the crown, to the bishops, and to the chapters, were seized, and either granted away or put up to auction. In consequence of these spoliations, a great part of the soil of England was at onca&offered for sale. As money was scarce, as the market was glutted, as the title was insecure, and as the awe in- ‘spired by powerful bidders prevented free competition, the prices were often merely nominal. Thus many old and honourable families disappeared and were heard of no more; and many new men rose rapidly to affluence. ut, while the Houses were employing their authority thus, it suddenly passed out of their hands. It had been obtained by calling into existence a power which could not be controlled. In the sum- mer of 1647, about twelve months after the last fortress of the Cava- liers had submitted to the Parliament, the Parliament was compelled to submit to its own soldiers. Thirteen years followed, during which England was, under various names and forms, really governed by the sword. Never before that time, or since that time, was the civil power in our country subjected to military dictation. The army which now’ became supreme in the state was an army very different from any that has since been seen among us. At present the pay of the common soldier is not such as can seduce any but the humblest class of English labourers from their calling. A barrier almost impassable separates him from the commissioned Officer. The great majority of those who rise high in the service rise by purchase. So numerous and extensive are the remote dependen- cies of England, that every man who enlists in the line must expect to pass many years in exile, and some years in climates unfavourable to the health and vigour of the European race. The army of the Long Parliament was raised for home service. The pay of the pri- vate soldier was much above the wages earned by the great body of the people; and, if he distinguished himself by intelligence and courage, he might hope to attain high commands. The ranks were accordingly composed of persons superior in station and education to the multitude. These persons, sober, moral, diligent, and accus- tomed to reflect, had been induced to take up arms, not by the pres- sure of want, not by the love of novelty and license, not by the arts of recruiting officers, but by religious and political zeal, mingled with the desire of distinction and promotion. The boast of the soldiers, 73 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. as we find it recorded in their solemn resolutions, was that they had not been forced into the service, nor had enlisted chiefly for the sake of lucre, that they were no janissaries, but freeborn Englishmen, who had, of their own accord, put their lives in jeopardy for the liberties and religion of England, and whose right and duty it was to watch over the welfare of the nation which they had saved. A force thus composed might, without injury to its efficiency, be indulged in some liberties which, if allowed to any other troops, would have proved subversive of all discipline. In general, soldiers who should form themselves into political clubs, elect delegates, and pass resolutions on high questions of state, would soon break loose from all control, would cease to form an army, and would become the worst and most dangerous of mobs. Nor would it be safe, in our time, to tolerate in any regiment religious meetings, at which a cor- poral versed in Scripture should lead the devotions of his less gifted colonel, and admonish a backsliding major. But such was the intelligence, the gravity, and the selfecommand of the warriors whom Cromwell had trained, that in their camp a political organisation.and a religious organisation could exist without destroying military organisation. ‘The same men, who, off duty, were noted as dema- gogues and field preachers, were distinguished by steadiness, by the spirit of order, and by prompt obedience on watch, on drill, and on the field of battle. In war this strange force was irresistible. The stubborn courage characteristic of the English people was, by the system of Cromwell, at once regulated and stimulated. Other leaders have maintained orders as strict. Other leaders have inspired their followers with zeal as ardent. But in his camp alone the most rigid discipline was found in company with the fiercest enthusiasm. His troops moved to victory with the precision of machines, while burning with the wildest fanaticism of Crusaders. From the time when the army was remodelled to the time when it was disbanded, it never found, either in the British islands or on the Continent, an enemy who could stand its onset. In England, Scotland, Ireland, Flanders, the Puritan warriors, often surrounded by difficulties, sometimes contending against threefold odds, not only never failed to conquer, but never failed to destroy and break in pieces whatever force was opposed to them. They at length came to regard the day of battle as a day of certain triumph, and marched against the most renowned battalions of Europe with disdainful confidence. Turenne was startled by the shout of stern exultation with which his English allies advanced to the combat, and expressed the delight of a true soldier, when he learned that it was ever the fashion of Cromwell’s pikemen to rejoice greatly when they beheld the enemy; and the banished Cavaliers felt an emotion of national pride, when they saw a brigade of their countrymen, outnumbered by foes and abandoned by friends, drive before it in headlong rout the finest infantry of Spain, and force a HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 99 passage into a counterscarp which hgd just been pronounced im- pregnable by the ablest of the Marshals of France. But that which chiefly distinguished the army of Cromwell from other armies was the austere morality and the fear of God which pervaded all ranks. It is acknowledged by the most zealous Royal- ists that, in that singular camp, no oath was heard, no drunkenness or gambling was seen, and that, during the long dominion of the -soldiery, the property of the peaceable citizen and the honour of woman were held sacred. If outrages were committed, they were outrages of a very different kind from those of which a victorious army is generally guilty. No servant girl complained of the rough gallantry of the redcoats. Notan ounce of plate was taken from the shops of the goldsmiths. Buta Pelagian sermon, ora window on which the Virgin and Child were painted, produced in the Puritan ranks an excitement which it required the utmost exertions of the officers to quell. One of Cromwell’s chief difficulties was to restrain his musketeers and dragoons from invading by main force the pulpits of ministers whose discourses, to use the language of that time, were not savoury; and too many of our cathedrals still bear the marks of the hatred with which those stern spirits regarded evcry vestige of Popery. ‘To keep down the English people was no light task even for that army. No sooner was the first pressure of military tyranny felt, than the nation, unbroken to such servitude, began to struggle fiercely. Insurrections broke out even in those counties which, during the recent war, had been the most submissive to the Parliament. In- deed, the Parliament itself abhorred its old defenders more than its old enemies, and was desirous to come to terms of accommodation with Charles at the expense of the troops. In Scotland at the same time, a coalition was formed between the Royalists and a large body of Presbyterians who regarded the doctrines of the Independents with detestation. Atlength the storm burst. There were risings in Nor- folk, Suffolk, Essex, Kent, Wales. The fleet in the Thames sudden- ly hoisted the royal colours, stood out to sea, and menaced the southern coast. A great Scottish force crossed the frontier and advanced into Lancashire. It might well be suspected that these movements were contemplated with secret complacency by a majority both of the _ Lords and of the Commons. But the yoke of the army was not to be so shaken off. While Fairfax suppressed the risings in the neighbourhood of the capital, Oliver routed the Welsh insurgents, and, leaving their castles in Tuins, marched against the Scots. His troops were few, when com- pared with the invaders; but he was little in the habit of counting his enemies. The Scottish army was utterly destroyed. A change in . the Scottish government followed. An administration, hostile to the King, was formed at Edinburgh; and Cromwell, more than ever the darling of his soldiers,returned in triumph to London, And now a design, to which, at the commencement of the civil 80 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. war, no man would have dared to allude, and which was not less inconsistent with the Solemn League and Covenant than with the old law of England, began to take a distinct form, The austere warriors who ruled the nation had, during some months, meditated a fearful vengeance on the captive King. When and how the scheme originated ; whether it spread from the general to the ranks, or from the ranks to the general; whether it is to be ascribed to policy using fanaticism as a tool, or to fanaticism bearing down policy with headlong impulse, are questions which, even at this day, cannot be answered with per- fect confidence. It seems, however, on the whole, probable that he who seemed to lead was really forced to follow, and that, on this occasion, aS on another great occasion a few years later, he sacrified his own judgment and his own inclinations to the wishes of the army. For the power which he had called into existence was a power which even he could not always control; and, that he might ordinarily com- mand, it was necessary that he should sometimes obey. He publicly protested that he was no mover in the matter, that the first steps had been taken without his privity, that he could not advise the Parlia- ment to strike the blow, but that he submitted his own feelings to the force of circumstances which seemed to him to indicate the purposes of Providence. It has been the fashion to consider these professions as instances of the hypocrisy which is vulgarly imputed to him. But even those who pronounce him a hypocrite will scarcely venture to call him a fool. They are therefore bound to show that he had some purpose to serve by secretly stimulating the army to take that course which he did not venture openly to recommend. It would be absurd to suppose that he who was never by his respectable enemies repre- sented as wantonly cruel or implacably vindictive, would have taken the most important step of his life under the influence of mere malevolence. He was far too wise a man not to know, when he con- sented to shed that august blood, that he was doing a deed which was inexpiable, and which would move the grief and horror, not only of the Royalists, but of nine tenths of those who had stood by the Parliament. Whatever visions may have deluded others, he was assuredly dreaming neither of a republic on the antique pattern, nor of the millennial reign of the Saints. If he already aspired to be himself the founder of a new dynasty, it was plain that Charles the First was a less formidable competitor than Charles the Second would be. At the moment of the death of Charles the First the loyalty of every Cavalier would be transferred, unimpaired, to Charles the Second. Charles the First was a captive: Charles the Second would be at liberty. Charles the First was an object of suspicion and dislike to a large proportion of those who yet shuddered at the thought of slaying him: Charles the Second would excite all the interest which belongs to — distressed youth and innocence. It is impossible to believe that con- siderations so obvious, and so important, escaped the most profound ~ politician of that age. The truth is that Cromwell had, at one time, — HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 81 meant to mediate between the throne and the Parliament, and to re- organise the distracted State by the power of the sword, under the sanction of the royal name. In this design he persisted till he _ was compelled to abandon it by the refractory temper of the soldiers, and by the incurable duplicity of the King. A party in the camp began to clamour for the head of the traitor, who was for treating with Agag. Conspiracies were formed. Threats of impeachment were loudly uttered. A mutiny broke out, which all the vigour and resolution of Oliver could hardly quell. And though, by a judicious mixture of severity and kindness, he succeeded in restoring order, he saw that it would be in the highest degree difficult and perilous to con- tend against the rage of warriors, who regarded the fallen tyrant as their foe, and as the foe of their God. At the same time it became more evident than ever that the King could not be trusted. The vices of Charles had grown upon him. They were, indeed, vices which difficulties and perplexities generally bring out in the strongest light. Cunning is the natural defence of the weak. A prince, therefore, -who is habitually a deceiver when at the height of power, is not likely to learn frankness in the midst of embarrassments and distresses. Charles was not only a most uncrupulous but a most unlucky dis- -sembler. There never was a politician to whom so many frauds and falsehoods were brought home by undeniable evidence. He publicly recognised the Houses of Westminster as a legal Parliament, and, at the same time, made a private minute in council declaring the recognition null. He publicly disclaimed all thought of calling in foreign aid against his people: he privately solicited aid from France, from Denmark, and from Lorraine. He publicly denied that he _ employed Papists: at the same time he privately sent to his generals directions to employ every Papist that would serve. He publicly took the sacrament at Oxford, as a pledge that he never would even -connive at Popery. He privately assured his wife, that he intended to tolerate Popery in England; and he authorised Lord Glamorgan to promise that Popery should be established in Ireland. Then he attempted to clear himself at his agent’s expense. Glamorgan re- ceived, in the Royal handwriting, reprimands intended to be read by others, and eulogies which were to be seen only by himself. To such an extent, indeed, had insincerity now tainted the King’s whole nature, that his most devoted friends could not refrain from complain- ing to each other, with bitter grief and shame, of his crooked politics. His defeats, they said, gave them less pain than his intrigues. Since he had been a prisoner, there was no section of the victorious part which had not been the object both of his flatteries and of his machi- nations; but never was he more unfortunate than when he attempted at once to cajole and to undermine Cromwell. Cromwell had to determine whether he would put to hazard the attachment of his party, the attachment of his army, his own great- ‘ness, nay his own life, in an attempt which would probably have 99 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. been vain, to save a prince whom no engagement could bind. With many struggles and misgivings, and probably not without many prayers, the decision was made. Charles was left to his fate. The military saints resolved that, in defiance of the old laws of the realm, and of the almost universal sentiment of the nation, the King should expiate his crimes with his blood. He for a time expected a death like that of his unhappy predecessors, Edward the Second and Richard the Second. But he was in no danger of such treason. Those who had him in their gripe were not midnight stabbers. What they did they did in order that it might be a spectacle to heaven and earth, and that it might be held in everlasting remembrance. They enjoyed keenly the very scandal which they gave. That the ancient consti- tution and the public opinion of England were directly opposed to regicide made regicide seem strangely fascinating to a party bent on effecting a complete political and social revolution. In order to ac- complish their purpose, it was necessary that they should first break _ in pieces every part of the machinery of the government; and this necessity was rather agreeable than painful to them. The Commons passed a vote tending to accommodation with the King. The soldiers excluded the majority by force. The Lords unanimously rejected the proposition that the King should be brought to trial. Their house | was instantly closed. No court, known to the law, would take on itself the oflice of judging the fountain of justice. A revolutionary tribunal was created. That tribunal pronounced Charles a tyrant, a traitor, a murderer, and a public enemy; and his head was severed from his shoulders, before thousands of spectators, in front of the banqueting hall of his own palace. In no long time it became manifest that those political and religious zealots, to whom this deed is to be ascribed, had committed, not only a crime, but an error. They had given to a prince, hitherto known to his people chiefly by his faults, an opportunity of displaying, on a great theatre, before the eyes of all nations and all ages, some qualities which irresistibly call forth the admiration and love of mankind, the high spirit of a gallant gentleman, the patience and meekness of a penitent Christian. Nay, they had so contrived their revenge that the very man whose life had been a series of attacks on the liberties of England now seemed to die a martyr in the cause of those liberties. No demagogue ever produced such an impression on the public mind as the captive King, who, retaining in that extremity all his regal dignity, and confronting death with dauntless courage, gave utterance to the feelings of his oppressed people, manfully refused to plead before a court unknown to the law, appealed from military violence to the principles of the constitution, asked by what right the House of Commons had been purged of its most respectable members and the House of Lords deprived of its legislative functions, and told his weeping hearers that he was defending, not only his own cause, but theirs. His long misgovernment, his innumerable perfidies, were 4 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 88 forgotten. His memory was, in the minds of the great majority of his subjects, associated with those free institutions which he had, during many years, laboured to destroy: for those free institutions had erished with him, and, amidst the mournful silence of a community ept down by arms, had been defended by his voice alone. From that day began a reaction in favour of monarchy and of the exiled house, a reaction which never ceased till the throne had again been set up in all its old dignity. At first, however, the slayers of the King seemed to have derived new energy from that sacrament of blood by which they had bound themselves closely together, and separated themselves for ever from the great body of their countrymen. England was declared a com- monwealth. The House of Commons, reduced to a small number of members, was nominally the supreme power in the state. In fact, the army and its great chief governed everything. Oliver had made his choice. He had kept the hearts of his soldiers, and had broken with almost every other class of his fellow citizens. Beyond the limits of his camps and fortresses he could scarcely be said to have a party. Those elements of force which, when the civil war broke out, had appeared arrayed against each other, were combined against him, all the Cavaliers, the great majority of the Roundheads, the Anglican Church, the Presbyterian Church, the Roman Catholic Church, England, Scotland, Ireland. Yet such was his genius and resolution that he was able to overpower and crush everything that crossed his path, to make himself more absolute master of his coun- try than any of her legitimate Kings had been, and to make his coun- try more dreaded and respected than she had been during many gen- erations under the rule of her legitimate Kings. England had already ceased to struggle. But the two other king- doms which had been governed by the Stuarts were hostile to the new republic. The Independent party was equally odious to the Roman Catholics of Ireland and to the Presbyterians of Scotland. Both those countries, lately in rebellion against Charles the First, now acknowl- edged the authority of Charles the Second. But everything yielded to the vigour and ability of Cromwell. In a few months he subjugated Ireland, as Ireland had never been sub- jugated during the five centuries of slaughter which had elapsed since the landing of the first Norman settlers. He resolved to put an end to that conflict of races and religions which had so long distracted the island, by making the English and Protestant population decidedly predominant. For this end he gave the rein to the fierce enthusiasm of his followers, waged war resembling that which Israel waged on the Canaanites, smote the idolaters with the edge of the sword, so that great cities were left without inhabitants, drove many thousands to the Continent, shipped off many thousands to the West Indies, and supplied the void thus made by pouring in numerous colonists, of Saxon blood, and of Calvinistic faith. Strange to say, under that 84 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. iron rule, the conquered country began to wear an outward face of prosperity. Districts, which had recently been as wild as those where the first white settlers of Connecticut were contending with the red men, were in a few years transformed into the likeness of Kent and Norfork. New buildings, roads, and plantations were everywhere seen. The rent of estates rose fast; and soon the English landowners began to complain that they were met in every market by the prod- ucts of Ireland, and to clamour for protecting laws. From Ireland the victorious chief, who was now in name, as he had. long been in reality, Lord General of the armies of the Common- wealth, turned to Scotland. The Young King was there. He had consented to profess himself a Presbyterian, and to subscribe the Covenant; and, in return for these concessions, the austere Puritans who bore sway at Edinburgh had permitted him to assume the crown, and to hold, under their inspection and control, a solemn and melan- choly court. This mock royalty was of short duration. In two great battles Cromwell annihilated the military force of Scotland. Charles fled for his life, and, with extreme difficulty, escaped the fate of his father. The ancient kingdom of the Stuarts was reduced, for the first time, to profound submission. Of that independence, so man- fully defended against the mightiest and ablest of the Plantagenets, no vestige was left. The English Parliament made laws for Scotland. English judges held assizes in Scotland. Even that stubborn Church, which has held its own against so many governments, scarce dared to utter an audible murmur. Thus far there had been at least the semblance of harmony between the warriors who had subjugated Ireland and Scotland and the poli- ticians who sate at Westminster: but the alliance which had been cemented by danger was dissolved by victory. ‘The Parliament for- got that it was but the creature of the army. ‘The army was less disposed than ever to submit to the dictation of the Parliament. In- deed the few members who made up what was contemptuously called the Rump of the House of Commons had no more claim than the military chiefs to be esteemed the representatives of the nation. The dispute was soon brought to a decisive issue. Cromwell filled the House with armed men. The Speaker was pulled out of his chair, the mace taken from the table, the room cleared, and the door locked. The nation, which loved neither of the contending parties, but which was forced, in its own despite, to respect the capacity and resolution of the General, looked on with patience, if not with com- placency. King, Lords, and Commons, had now in turn been vanquished and destroyed; and Cromwell seemed to be left the sole heir of the powers of all three. Yet were certain limitations still imposed on him by the very army to which he owed his immense authority. That sin- gular body of men was, for the most part, composed of zealous re- publicans, In the act of enslaving their country, they had deceived >. ee, a ee ‘oF \ HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 85 themselves into the belief that they were emancipating her. The book which they most venerated furnished them with a precedent which was frequently in their mouths. It was true that the ignorant and ungrateful nation murmured against its deliverers. ven so had another chosen nation murmuréd against the leader who brought it, by painful and dreary paths, from the house of bondage to the land flowing with milk and honey. Yet had that leader rescued his brethren in spite of themselves; nor had he shrunk from making terrible examples of those who contemned the proffered freedom, and pined for the fleshpots, the taskmasters and the idolatries of Egypt. The object of the warlike saints who surrounded Cromwell was the settlement of a free and pious commonwealth. For that end they were ready to employ, without scruple, any means, how- ever violent and lawless. It was not impossible, therefore, to estab- lish by their aid a dictatorship such as no King had even exercised: but it was probable that their aid would be at once withdrawn from a ruler who, even under strict constitutional restraints, should ven- ture to assume the kingly name and dignity. The sentiments of Cromwell were widely different. He was not what he had been; nor would it be just to consider the change which his views had undergone as the effect merely of selfish ambition. He had, when he came up to the Long Parliament, brought with him from his rural retreat little knowledge of books, no experience of great affairs, and a temper galled by the long tyranny of the govern- ment and of the hierarchy. He had, during the thirteen years which followed, gone through a political education of no common kind. He had been a chief actor in a succession of revolutions. He had been long the soul, and at last the head, of a party. He had commanded armies, won battles, negotiated treaties, subdued, paci- fied, and regulated kingdoms. It would have been strange indeed if his notions had been still the same as in the days when his mind was principally occupied by his fields and his religion, and when the eatest events which diversified the course of his life were a cattle air or a prayer meeting at Huntingdon. He saw that some schemes of innovation for which he had once been zealous, whether good or bad in themselves, were opposed to the general feeling of the country, and that, if he persevered in those schemes, he had nothing before him but constant troubles, which must be suppressed by the constant use of the sword. He therefore wished to restore, in all essentials, that ancient constitution which the majority of the people had al- ways loved, and for which they now pined. The course afterwards taken by Monk was not open to Cromwell, The memory of one terrible day separated the great regicide for ever from the House of Stuart. What remained was that he should mount the ancient Eng- lish throne, and reign according to the ancient English polity. If he could effect this, he might hope that the wounds of the lacerated State would heal fast, Great numbers of honest and quiet men 86 - HISTORY OF ENGLAND. would speedily rally round him. Those Royalists whose attachment — was rather to institutions than to persons, to the kingly office than to King Charles the First or King Charles the Seeond, would soon kiss the hand of King Oliver. The peers, who now remained sullenly at their country houses, and refused to take any part in public affairs, would, when summoned to their House by the writ of a King in pos- session, gladly resume their ancient functions. | Northumberland and Bedford, Manchester and Pembroke, would be proud to bear the crown and the spurs, the sceptre and the globe, before the restorer of aristocracy. A sentiment of loyalty would gradually bind the people to the new dynasty; and, on the decease of the founder of that dynasty, the royal dignity might descend with general acqui- escence to his posterity. The ablest Royalists were of opinion that these views were correct, and that, if Cromwell had been permitted to follow his own judg- ment, the exiled line would never have been restored. But his plan was directly opposed to the feelings of the only class which he dared ~ not offend. The name of King was hateful to the soldiers. Some of them were indeed unwilling to see the administration in the hands of any single person. ‘The great majority, however, were disposed ~ to support their general, as elective first magistrate of a common- wealth, against all factions which might resist his authority: but they would not consent that he should assume the regal title, or that the dignity, which was the just reward of his personal merit, should be declared hereditary in his family. All that was left to him was to give to the new republic a constitution as like the constitution of the old monarchy as the army would bear. That his elevation to power. . might not seem to be merely his own act, he convoked a council, com- posed partly of persons on whose support he could depend, and partly of persons whose opposition he might safely defy. This assembly, which he called a Parliament, and which the populace nicknamed, from one of the most conspicuous members, Barebones’s Parliament, ~~ after exposing itself during a short time to the public contempt, surrendered back to the General the powers which it had received from him, and left him at liberty to frame a plan of government. His plan bore, from the first, a considerable resemblance to the old English constitution: but, in a few years, he thought it safe to pro- ceed further, and to restore almost every part of the ancient system under new names and forms. The title of King was not revived; but the kingly prerogatives were intrusted to a Lord High Protector. The sovereign was called not His Majesty, but His Highness. He-~ ~ was not crowned and anointed in Westminster Abbey, but was solemnly enthroned, girt with a sword of state, clad in a robe of purple, and presented with a rich Bible, in Westminster Hall. His office was not declared hereditary: but he was permitted to name his successor; and none could doubt that he would name his son. A House of Commons was a necessary part of the new polity. In é HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 87 ’ constituting this body, the Protector showed a wisdom and a public \ spirit which were not duly appreciated by his contemporaries. The vices of the old representative system, though by no means so serious as they afterwards became, had already been remarked by farsighted men. Cromwell reformed that system on the same principles on which Mr. Pitt, a hundred and thirty years later, attempted to re- form it, and on which it was at length reformed.in our own times. Small boroughs were disfranchised even more unsparingly than in 1832; and thenumber of county members was greatly increased. Very few unrepresented towns had yet grown into importance. Of those ' towns the most considerable were Manchester, Leeds, and Halifax. Representatives were given to allthree. Anaddition was made to the number of the members for the capital. The elective franchise was placed on such a footing that every man of substance, whether pos- sessed of freehold estates in land or not, had a vote for the county in which he resided. A few Scotchmen and a few of the English colo- nists settled in Ireland were summoned to the assembly which was to legislate, at Westminster, for every part of the British isles. To create a House of Lords was a less easy task. Democracy does not require the support of prescription. Monarchy has often stood - without that support. But a patrician order is the work of time. Oliver found already existing a nobility, opulent, highly considered, and as popular with the commonalty as any nobility has ever been. Had he, as King of England, commanded the peers to meet him in Parliament according to the old usage of the realm, many of them would undoubtedly have obeyed the call. This he could not do; and it was to no purpose that. he offered to the chiefs of illustrious families seats in his new senate. They conceived that they could not accept a nomination to an upstart assembly without renouncing their birthright and betraying their order. The Protector was, therefore, under the necessity of filling his Upper House with new men who, during the late stirring times, had made themselves con- spicuous. This was the least happy of his contrivances, and dis- pleased all parties. The Levellers were angry with him for instituting a privileged class. The multitude, which felt respect and fondness for the great historical names of the land, laughed without restraint at a House of Lords, in which lucky draymen and shoemakers were seated, to which few of the old nobles were invited, and from which almost all those old nobles who were invited turned dis- dainfully away. How Oliver’s Parliaments were constituted, however, was practi- cally of little moment: for he possessed the means of conducting the administration without their support, and in defiance of their oppo- sition. His wish seems to have been to govern constitutionally, and _ to substitute the empire of the Jaws for that of the sword. But he soon found that, hated as he was, both by Royalists and Presbyte- rians, he could be safe only by being absolute, The first House of 88 : HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Commons which the people elected by his command, questioned his authority, and was dissolved without having passed a single act. His second House of Commons, though it recognised him as Pro- tector, and would gladly have made him King, obstinately refused to acknowledge his new Lords. He had no course left but to dis- solve the Parliament. ‘‘ God,” he exclaimed, at parting, ‘‘be judge between you and me!” : Yet was the energy of the Protector’s administration in nowise re- laxed by these dissensions. Those soldiers who would not suffer him to assume the kingly title stood by him when he ventured on’ acts of power, as high as any English King has ever attempted. The government, therefore, though in form a republic, was in truth a _ despotism, moderated only by the wisdom, the sobriety, and the — magnanimity of the despot. The country was divided into military districts. Those districts were placed under the command of Major Generals. Every insurrectionary movement was promptly put down and punished. The fear inspired by the power of the sword, in so strong, steady, and expert a hand, quelled the spirit both of Cavaliers and Levellers. The loyal gentry declared that they were still as ready as ever to risk their lives for the old government and the old dynasty, if there were the slightest hope of success: but to rush, at the head of their serving men and tenants, on the pikes of brigades victorious in a hundred battles and sieges, would be a frantic waste of innocent and honourable blood. Both Royalists.and Republicans, having no hope in open resistance, began to revolve dark schemes of assassination: but the Protector’s intelligence was good: his vigi- lance was unremitting; and, whenever he moved beyond the walls of his palace, the drawn swords and cuirasses of his trusty body- guards encompassed him thick on every side. 5 Had he been a cruel, licentious, and rapacious prince, the nation might have found courage in despair, and might have made a con- vulsive effort to free itself from military domination. But the grievances which the country suffered, though such as excited seri- ous discontent, were by no means such as impel great masses of men to stake their lives, their fortunes, and the welfare of their families against fearful odds. The taxation, though heavier than it had been under the Stuarts, was not heavy when compared with that of the neighbouring states and with the resources of England. Property was secure. Even the Cavalier, who refrained from giving disturb- ance to the new settlement, enjoyed in peace whatever the civil troubles had left him. The laws were violated only in cases where the safety of the Protector’s person and government was concerned. Justice was administered between man and man with an exactness and purity not before known. Under no English government since the Reformation, had there been so little religious persecution. The unfortunate Roman Catholics, indeed, were held to be scarcely Within the pale of Christian charity. But the clergy of the fallen ; ; am : - oe HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 89 Anglican Church were suffered to celebrate their worship on con- dition that they would abstain from preaching about politics. Even the Jews, whose public worship had, ever since the thirteenth cen- tury, been interdicted, were, in spite of the strong opposition of jealous traders and fanatical theologians, permitted to build a syna- -gogue in London. he Protector’s foreign policy at the same time extorted the un- gracious approbation of those who most detested him. The Cavaliers could searcely refrain from wishing that one who had done so much to raise the fame of the nation had been a legitimate King; and the Republicans were forced to own that the tyrant suffered none but himself to wrong his country, and that, if he had robbed her of liberty, he had at least given her glory in exchange. After half a century during which England had been of scarcely more weight in European politics than Venice or Saxony, she at once became the most formidable power in the world, dictated terms of peace to the United Provinces, avenged the common injuries of Christendom on the pirates of Barbary, vanquished the Spaniards by land and sea, seized one of the finest West Indian islands, and acquired on the Flemish coast a fortress which consoled the national pride for the loss of Calais. She was supreme on the ocean. She was the head, of the Protestant interest. All the reformed Churches scattered over Roman Catholic kingdoms acknowledged Cromwell as their guardian. The Huguenots of Languedoc, the shepherds who, in the hamlets of the Alps, professed a Fe anti older than that of Augsburg, were secured from oppression by the mere terror of his great name. The Pope himself was forced to preach humanity and moderation to Popish princes. For a voice which seldom threatened in vain had declared that, unless favour were shown to the people of God, the English guns slyould be heard in the Castle of Saint Angelo. In ‘truth, there was nothing which Cromwell had, for his own sake and that of his family, so much reason to desire as a general religious war _inEurope. In suchawarhe must have been the captain of the Protes- tantarmies. The heart of England would have been with him. His victories would have been hailed with an unanimous enthusiasm un- known in the country since the rout of the Armada, and would have effaced the stain which one act, condemned by the general voice of the nation, has left on his splendid fame. Unhappily for him he had no opportunity of displaying his admirable military talents, ex- enone the inhabitants of the British isles. hile he lived his power stood firm, an object of mingled aver- sion, admiration, and dread to his subjects. Few indeed loved his government; but those who hated it most hated it less than they feared it. Had it been a worse government, it might perhaps have been overthrown in spite of all its strength. Had it been a weaker overnment, it would certainly have been overthrown in spite of all ‘its merits. But it had moderation enough to abstain from those 90 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. oppressions which drive men mad; and it had a force and energy | which none but men driven mad by oppression would venture to en- counter. It has often been affirmed, but with little reason, that Oliver died — at a time fortunate for his renown, and that, if his life had been pro- — longed, it would probably have closed amidst disgraces and disasters. It:is certain that he was, to the last, honoured by his soldiers, obeyed by the whole population of the British islands, and dreaded by all foreign powers, that he was laid among the ancient sovereigns of England with funeral pomp such as London had never before seen, — and that he was succeeded by his son Richard as quietly as any King had ever been succeeded by any Prince of Wales. During five months, the administration of Richard Cromwell — went on so tranquilly and regularly that all Europe believed him to be firmly established on the chair ‘of state. In truth his situation was in some respects much more advantageous than that. of his father. The young man had made no enemy. His hands were un- — stained by civil blood. The Cavaliers themselves allowed him to be an honest, good-natured gentleman. The Presbyterian party, power- “ ful both in numbers and in wealth, had been at deadly feud with the late Protector, but was disposed to regard the present Protector with — favour. That party had always been desirous to see the old civil polity of the realm restored with some clearer definitions and some — stronger safeguards for public liberty, but had many reasons for dreading the restoration of the old family. Richard was the very man for politicians of this description. His humanity, ingenuous- ness, and modesty, the mediocrity of his abilities, and the docility with which he submitted to the guidance of persons wiser than him- ; self, admirably qualified him to be the head of a limited monarchy. For a time it seemed highly probable that he would, under the direction of able advisers, effect what his father had attempted in vain. A Parliament was called, and the writs were directed after the old fashion. The small boroughs which had recently been dis- franchised regained their lost privilege: Manchester, Leeds, and Halifax ceased to return members; and the county of York was again limited to two knights. It may seem strange to a generation which has been excited almost to madness by the question of parlia- mentary reform that great shires and towns should have submitted with patience, and even with complacency, tothis change: but though speculative men might, even in that age, discern the vices of the old representative system, and predict that those vices would, sooner or later, produce serious practical evil, the practical evil had not yet been felt. Oliver’s representative system, on the other hand, though con- — structed on sound principles, was not popular. Both the events in which it originated, and the effects which it had produced, prejudiced — men against it. It had sprung from military violence. It had been — fruitful of nothing but disputes. The whole nation was sick of goy- Pe a a. ee HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 91 ernment by the sword, and pined for government by the law. The restoration, therefore, even of anomalies and abuses, which were in _ strict conformity with the law, and which had been destroyed by the sword, gave general satisfaction. Among the Commons there was a strong opposition, consisting partly of avowed Republicans, and partly of concealed Royalists: but a large and steady majority appeared to be favourable to the plan of reviving the old civil constitution under a new dynasty. Rich- ard was solemnly recognised as first -magistrate. The Commons not only consented to transact business with Oliver’s Lords, but passed a a vote acknowledging the right of those nobles who had, in the late troubles, taken the side of public liberty, to sit “a the Upper House of Parliament without any new creation. Thus far the statesmen by whose advice Richard acted had been successful. Almost all the parts of the government were now consti- tuted as they had been constituted at the commencement of the civil war. Had the Protector and the Parliament been suffered to proceed undisturbed, there can be little doubt that an order of things similar to that which was afterwards established un- der the House of Hanover would have been established under the House of Cromwell. But there was in the state a power more than sufficient to deal with Protector and Parliament to- gether. Over the soldiers Ricbard had no authority except that which he derived from the great name which he had inherited. He had never led them to victory. He had never even borne arms. All his tastes and habits were pacific. Nor were his opinions and feelings on religious subjects _»proved by the military saints. That he was a good man he evinced by proofs more satisfactory than deep groans or long sermons, by humility and suavity when he was at the height of human greatness, and by cheerful resignation under cruel wrongs and misfortunes: but the cant then common in every guardroom gave him a disgust which he had not always the pru- dence to conceal. The officers who had the principal influence among the troops stationed near London were not his friends. They were men distinguished by valour and conduct in the field, but des- titute of the wisdom and civil courage which had been conspicuous ~ oT sf ’ | A iz itienial 122 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. which ought to have supported their households had, by some inex- plicable process, gone to the favourites of the King. ~The minds of men were now in.such a temper that every public act excited discontent. Charles had taken to wife Catharine Princess of Portugal. The marriage was generally disliked; and the murmurs became loud when it appeared that the King was not likely to have any legitimate posterity. Dunkirk, won by Oliver from Spain, was sold to Lewis the Fourteenth, King of France. This bargain excited general indignation. Englishmen were already beginning to observe with uneasiness the progress of the French power, and to regard the House of Bourbon with the same feeling with which their grand-— fathers had regarded the House of Austria. Was it wise, men asked, © at such a time, to make any addition to the strength of a monarchy already too formidable? Dunkirk was, moreover, prized by the people, not merely as a place of arms, and as a key to the Low Coun- tries, but also as a trophy of English valour. It was to the subjects of Charles what Calais had been to an earlier generation, and what the rock of Gibraltar, so manfully defended, through disastrous and perilous years, against the fleets and armies of a mighty coalition, is to ourselves. The plea of economy might have had some weight, if it had been urged by an economical government. But it was noto- rious that the charges of Dunkirk fell far short of the sums which were wasted at court in vice and folly. It seemed insupportable — that a sovereign, profuse beyond example in all that regarded his own pleasures, should be niggardly in all that regarded the safety and honour of the state. The public discontent was heightened, when it was found that, while Dunkirk was abandoned on the plea of economy, the fortress of Tangier, which was part of the dower of Queen Catharine, was re- paired and kept up at an enormous charge. ‘That place was asso- ciated with no recollections gratifying to the national pride: it could in no way promote the national interests: it involved us in inglorious, unprofitable, and interminable wars with tribes of half savage Mus- sulmans; and it was situated in a climate singularly unfavourable to the health and vigour of the English race. But the murmurs excited by these errors were faint, when compared with the clamours which soon broke forth. The government en- gaged in war with the United Provinces. The House of Commons — readily voted sums unexampled in our history, sums exceeding those which had supported the fleets and armies of Cromwell at the time when his power was the terror of all the world. But such was the extravagance, dishonesty, and incapacity of those who had succeeded to his authority, that this liberality proved worse than useless. ‘The sycophants of the court, ill qualified to contend against the great men who then directed the arms of Holland, against such a states- man as De Witt, and such a commander as De Ruyter, made for- tunes. rapidly, while the sailors mutinicd from very hunger, while 2°) Pm 7 av ae as A Yi vl HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 123 the dockyards were unguarded, while the ships were leaky and with- ‘out rigging. It was at length determined to abandon all schemes of offensive war; and it soon appeared that even a defensive war was a task too hard for that administration. The Dutch fleet sailed up the Thames, and burned the ships of war which lay at Chatham. It was said that, on the very day of that great humiliation, the King _ feasted with the ladies of his seraglio, and amused himself with hunt- ing amoth about the supper room. ‘Then, at length, tardy justice was done to the memory of Oliver. . Everywhere men magnified his valour, genius and patriotism. Everywhere it was remembered how, © _when he ruled, all foreign powers had trembled at the name of Eng- land, how the States General, now so haughty, had crouched at his feet, and how, when it was known that he was no more, Amsterdam was lighted up as for a great deliverance, and children ran along the canals, shouting for joy that the Devil was dead. Even Royalists exclaimed that the state could be saved only by calling the old soldiers of the Commonwealth to arms. Soon the capital began to feel the miseries of a blockade. Fuel was scarcely to be procured. Tilbury Fort, the place where Elizabeth had, with manly spirit, hurled foul scorn at Parma and Spain, was insulted by the invaders. The roar of foreign guns was heard, for the first time, by the citi- zens of London. In the Council it was seriously proposed that, if the enemy advanced, the Tower should be abandoned. Great mul- titudes of people assembled in the streets crying out that England was bought and sold. The houses and carriages of the ministers were attacked by the populace; and it seemed likely that the govern- ment would have to deal at once with an invasion and with an insur- rection. The extreme danger, it is true, soon passed by. A treaty was concluded, very different from the treaties which Oliver had been in the habit of signing; and the nation was once more at peace, but was in a mood scarcely less fierce and sullen than in the days of shipmoney. The discontent engendered by maladministration was heightened by calamities which the best administration could not have averted. ' While the ignominious war with Holland was raging, London suf- fered two great disasters, such as never, in so short a space of time, befel one city. A pestilence, surpassing in horror any that during three centuries had visited the island, swept away, in six months, more than a hundred thousand human beings. And scarcely had the dead cart ceased to go its rounds, when a fire, such as had not been known in Europe since the conflagration of Rome under Nero, laid in ruins the whole city, from the Tower to the Temple, and from the river to the purlieus of Smithfield. Had there been a general election while the nation was smarting under so many disgraces and misfortunes, it is probable that the Roundheads would have regained ascendency in the state. But the _ Parliament was still the Cavalier Parliament, chosen in the transport zi 124 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. of loyalty which had followed the Restoration. Nevertheless it soon became evident that no English legislature, however loyal, would now consent to be merely what the legislature had been under the Tudors. From the death of Elizabeth to the eve of the civil war, the Puritans, who predominated in the representative body, had been constantly, by a dexterous use of the power of the purse, encroach- ing on the province of the executive government. The gentlemen who, after the Restoration, filled the Lower House, though they ab- horred the Puritan name, were well pleased to inherit the fruit of the Puritan policy. They were indeed most willing to employ the power which they possessed in the state for the purpose of making their King mighty and honoured, both at home and abroad: but with the power itself they were resolved not to part. The great English revo-- lution of the seventeenth century, that is to say, the transfer of the su- preme control of the executive administration from the crown to the House of Commons, was, through the whole long existence of this Parliament, proceeding noiselessly, but rapidly and steadily. Charles, kept poor by his follies and vices, wanted money. The Commons alone could legally grant him money. They could not be prevented from putting their own price on their grants. The price which they ~ put_on their grants was this, that they should be allowed to interfere with every one of the King’s prerogatives, to wring from him his consent to laws which he disliked, to break up cabinets, to dictate — the course of foreign policy, and even to direct the administration of war. To the royal office, and the royal person, they loudly and sin- cerely professed the strongest attachment. But to Clarendon they — owed no allegiance; and they fell on him as furiously as their prede- cessors had fallen on Strafford. The minister’s virtues and vices alike contributed to his ruin. He was the ostensible head of the ad- ministration, and was therefore held responsible even for those acts which he had strongly, but vainly, opposed in Council. He was re- garded by the Puritans, and by all who pitied them, as an implacable bigot, a second Laud, with much more than Laud’s understanding. — He had on all occasions maintained that the Act of Indemnity ought to be strictly observed; and this part of his conduct, though highly honourable to him, made him hateful to all those Royalists who wished to repair their ruined fortunes by suing the Roundheads for damages and mesne profits. The Presbyterians of Scotland attributed to him the downfall of their Church. The Papists of Ireland attribu- ted to him the loss of their lands. As father of the Duchess of York, he had an obvious motive for wishing that there might be a barren Queen; and he was therefore suspected of having purposely recom- mended one. ‘The sale of Dunkirk was justly imputed to him, For the war with Holland, he was, with less justice, held accountable. — His hot temper, his arrogant deportment, the indelicate eagerness with which he grasped at riches, the ostentation with which he squandered them, his picture gallery, filled with masterpieces of Van- ’ S HISTORY OF ENGLAND.. 125 dyke which had once been the property of ruined Cavaliers, his palace, which reared its long and stately front right opposite to the humbler residence of our Kings, drew on him much deserved, and some undeserved, censure. Whenthe Dutch fleet was in the Thames, it Was against the Chancellor that the rage of the populace was chiefly directed. His windows were broken; the trees of his garden were eut down; anda gibbet was set up before his door. But nowhere was he more detested than in the House of Commons. He was un- able to perceive that the time was fast approaching when that House, if it continued to exist at all, must be supreme in the state, when the management of that House would be the most important department of politics, and when, without the help of men possessing the ear of that House, it would be impossible to carry on the government. He obstinately persisted in considering the Parliament as a body in no ‘respect differing from the Parliament which had been sitting when, forty years before, he first began to study law at the Temple. He did not wish to deprive the legislature of those powers which were inherent in it by the old constitution of the realm: but the new de- velopment of those powers, thougha development natural, inevitable, and to be prevented only by utterly destroying the powers themselves, disgusted and alarmed him. Nothing would have induced him to put the great seal to a writ for raising shipmoney, or to give his voice in Council for committing a member of Parliament to the Tower, on account of words spoken in debate: but, when the Commons began to inquire in what manner the money voted for the war had been wasted, and to examine into the maladministration of the navy, he flamed with indignation. Such inquiry, according to him, was out of their province. He admitted that the House was a most loyal as- sembly, that it had done good service to the crown, and that its in- -tentions were excellent. But, both in public and in the closet, he, on -€very occasion, expressed his concern that gentlemen so sincerely attached to monarchy should unadvisedly encroach on the prerogative of the monarch. Widely as they differed in spirit from the members of the Long Parliament, they yet, he said, imitated that Parliament in meddling with matters which lay beyond the sphere of the Estates of the realm, and which were subject to the authority of the crown alone. ‘The country, he maintained, would never be well governed till the knights of shires and the burgesses were content to be what their predecessors had been in the days of Elizabeth. All the plans which men more observant than himself of the signs of that time proposed, for the purpose of maintaining a good understanding be- tween the Court and the Commons, he disdainfully rejected as crude projects, inconsistent with the old polity of England. Towards the oung orators, who were rising to distinction and authority in the _Lower House, his deportment was ungracious: and he succeeded in -tInaking them, with scarcely an exception, his deadly enemies. | In- deed one of his most serious faults was an inordinate contempt for M. E. i.—d 4 a i. af - J * “a. U 126 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. youth: and this contempt was the more unjustifiable, because his own experience in English politics was by no means proportioned to — his age. For so great a part of his life had been passed abroad that he. knew less of that world in which he found himself on his return than many who might have been his sons. | For these reasons he was disliked by the Commons. For very dif- ferent reasons he was equally disliked by the Court. His morals as well as his politics were those of an earlier generation. Even when he was a young law student, living much with men of wit and pleas- — ure, his natural gravity and his religious principles had to a great extent preserved him from the contagion of fashionable debauchery; — and he was by no. means likely, in advanced years and in declining ~ health, to turn libertine. On the vices of the young and gay he looked ~ with an aversion almost as bitter and contemptuous as that which he felt for the theological errors of the sectaries. He missed no oppor- tunity of showing his scorn of the mimics, revellers, and courtesans who crowded the palace; and the admonitions which he addressed to the King himself were very sharp, and, what Charles disliked still more, very long. Scarcely any voice was raised in favour of a minis- ter loaded with the double odium of faults which roused the fury of the people, and of virtues which annoyed and importuned the sover- eign. Southampton was no more. Ormond performed the duties of friendship manfully and faithfully, but in vain. The Chancellor fell with a great ruin. The seal was taken from him: the Commons im-'— peached him: his head was not safe: he fled from the country: an act was passed which doomed him to perpetual exile; and those who ~ had assailed and undermined him began to struggle for the fragments — of his power. “= The sacrifice of Clarendon in some degree took off the edge of the public appetite for revenge. Yet was the anger excited by the pro- — fusion and negligence of the government, and by the miscarriages of the late war, by no means extinguished. ‘The counsellors of Charles, — with the fate of the Chancéllor before their eyes, were anxious for ~ their own safety. They accordingly advised their master to soothe the irritation which prevailed both in the Parliament and throughout the country, and for that end, to take a step which has no parallel in the history of the House of Stuart, and which was worthy of the ~ prudence and magnanimity of Oliver. ' We have now reached a point at which the history of the great — English revolution begins to be complicated with the history of for- — eign politics. The power of Spain had, during many years, been ~ declining. She still, it is true, held in Europe the Milanese and the ip two Sicilies, Belgium, and Franche Comté. In America her domin- ° ions still spread, on both sides of the equator, far beyond the limits ~ of the torrid zone. But this great body had been smitten with palsy, and was not only incapable of giving molestation to other i states, but could not, without assistance, repel aggression. France x - HISTORY OF ENGLAND. , 127 as now, beyond all doubt, the greatest power in Europe. Her re- rces have, since those days, absolutely increased, but have not creased so fast as the resources of England. It must also be re- “membered that, a hundred and eighty years ago, the empire of Russia, now a monarchy of the first class, was as entirely out of the system of European politics as Abyssinia or Siam, that the House of | Bt adenbare was then hardly more powerful than the House of Sax- ony, and that the republic of the United States had not then begun to exist. The weight of France, therefore, though still very considerable, has relatively diminished. Her territory was not in the days of Lewis the Fourteenth quite so extensive as at present: but it was large, -eompact, fertile, well placed both for attack and for defence, situated in a happy climate, and inhabited by a brave, active, and ingenious people. ‘he state implicitly obeyed the direction of a single mind. ‘The great fiefs which, three hundred years before, had been, in all but name, independent principalities, had been. annexed to the “crown: Only a few old men could remember the last meeting of the ‘States General. The resistance which the Huguenots, the nobles, and the parliaments had offered to the kingly power, had been put down by the two great Cardinals who had ruled the nation during forty years. The government was now a despotism, but, at least in its dealings with the upper classes, a mild and generous despotism, tempered by courteous manners and chivalrous sentiments. The - “means at the disposal of the sovercign were, for that age, truly for- ‘Midable. His revenue, raised, it is true, by a severe and unequal ‘taxation which pressed heavily on the cultivators of the soil, far ex- “ceeded that of any other potentate. is army, excellenly disci- ‘plined, and commanded by the greatest generals then living, already “consisted of more than a hundred and twenty thousand men. Such an array of regular troops had not been seen in Europe since the downfall of the Roman empire. Of maritime powers France was ot the first. But, though she had rivals on the sea, she had not yet ‘asuperior. Such was her strength during the last forty years of the mee weconth century, that no enemy could singly withstand her, and ‘that two great coalitions, in which half Christendom was united “against her, failed of success. _ The personal qualities of the French King added to the respect in- Spired by the power and importance of his kingdom. No sovereign as ever represented the majesty of a great state with more dignity and grace. He was his own prime minister, and performed the duties of a prime minister with an ability and industry which could not be reasonably expected from, one who had in infancy succeeded to a crown, and who had been surrounded by flatterers before he could speak. He had. shown, in an eminent degree, two talents in- valuable to a prince, the talent of choosing his servants well, and the talent of appropriating to himself the chief part of the credit of their acts. In his dealings with foreign powers he had some generosity, 128 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. but no justice. To unhappy allies who threw themselves at his feet, — and had no hope but in his compassion, he extended his protection — with a romantic disinterestedness, which seemed better suited toa — knight errant than to a statesman. But he broke through the most sacred ties of public faith without scruple or shame, whenever they interfered with his interest, or with what he called his glory. His perfidy and violence, however, excited less enmity than the insolence with which he constantly reminded his neighbours of his own great- ness and of their littleness. He did not at this time profess the austere devotion which, at a later period, gave to his court the aspect of a monastery. On the contrary, he was as licentious, though by no means as frivolous and indolent, as his brother of England. But he was a sincere Roman Catholic; and both his conscience and his vanity impelled him to use his power for the defence and propaga- tion of the true faith, after the example of his renowned predeces- sors, Clovis, Charlemagne, and Saint Lewis. Our ancestors naturally looked with serious alarm on the growing power of France. This feeling, in itself perfectly reasonable, was mingled with other feelings less praiseworthy. France was our old enemy. It was against France that the most glorious battles re- corded in our annals had been fought. The conquest of France had been twice effected by the Plantagenets. The Joss of France had been long remembered as a great national disaster. The title of King of France was still borne by our sovereigns. The lilies of France still appeared mingled with our own lions, on the shield of the House of Stuart. In the sixteenth century the dread inspired by Spain had suspended the animosity of which France had anciently been the object. But the dread inspired by Spain had given place to contemptuous compassion; and France was again regarded as our national foe. The sale of Dunkirk to France had been the most gener- ally unpopular act of the restored King. Attachment to France had © been prominent among the crimes imputed by the Commons to Clarendon. Even in trifles the public feeling showed itself. When a brawl took place in streets of Westminster between the retinues of — the French and Spanish embassies, the populace, though forcibly prevented from interfering, had given unequivocal proofs that the old antipathy to France was not extinct. France and Spain were now engaged in a more serious contest. One of the chief objects of the policy of Lewis throughout his life was to extend his dominions towards the Rhine. For this end he had engaged in war with Spain, and he was now in the full career — of conquest. The United Provinces saw with anxiety the progress — of his arms. That renowned federation had reached the height of power, prosperity, and glory. The Batavian territory, conquered i from the waves and defended against them by human art, was in ex- tent little superior to the principality of Wales. But all that narrow space was a busy and populous hive, in which new wealth was every Pat a, - , - a z a hoe ~ » A — HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 129 day created, and in which vast masses of old wealth were hoarded. - The aspect of Holland, the rich cultivation, the innumerable canals, the ever whirling mills, the endless fleets of barges, the quick succes- sion of great towns, the ports bristling with thousands of masts, the large and stately mansions, the trim villas, the richly furnished apartments, the picture galleries, the summer houses, the tulip beds, produced on English travellers in that age an effect sim- ilar to the effect which the first sight of England now produces on a Norwegian or a Canadian. The States General had been com- p:lled to humble themselves before Cromwell. But after the Res- toration they had taken their revenge, had waged war with success against Charles, and had concluded peace on honourable terms. Rich, however, as the Republic was, and highly considered in Europe, she was no match for the power of Lewis. She appre- hended, not without good cause, that his kingdom might soon be ex- tended to her frontiers; and she might well dread the immediate Vicinity of a monarch so great, so ambitious, and so unscrupulous. Yet it was not easy to devise any expedient which might avert the danger. The Dutch alone could not turn the scale against France. On the side of the Rhine no help was to be expeeted. Several Ger- man princes had been gained by Lewis; and the Emperor himself was embarrassed by the discontents of Hungary. England was sep- _ arated from the United Provinces by the recollection of cruel injuries recently inflicted and endured; and her policy had, since the restora- tion, been so devoid of wisdom and spirit, that it was scarcely possi- ble to expect from her any valuable assistance. __ But the fate of Clarendon and the growing ill humour of the Par- liament determined the advisers of Charles to adopt on a sudden a policy which amazed and delighted the nation. The English resident at Brussels, Sir William Temple, one of the - most expert diplomatists and most pleasing writers of that age, had - already represented to this court that it was both desirable and practi- ~ cable to enter into engagements with the States General for the pur- pose of checking the progressof France. For a time his suggestions had been slighted; but it was now thought expedient to act on them. He was commissioned to negotiate with the States General. He proceeded to the Hague, and soon came to an understanding with John De Witt, then the chief minister of Holland. Sweden, small as her resources were, had, forty years before, been raised by the genius _ of Gustavus Adolphus to a high rank among European powers, and _ had not yet descended to her natural position. She was induced to _ join on this occasion with England and the States. Thus was formed _ that coalition known as the Triple Alliance. Lewis showed signs of vexation and resentment, but did not think it politic to draw on himself the hostility of such a confederacy in addition to that of Spain. He consented, therefore, to relinquish a large part of the territory which his armies had occupied. Peace was restored to Eu- a no fs. 130 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. rope; and the English government, lately an object of general con- tempt, was, during a few months, regarded by foreign powers with respect scar rely less than that which the Protector had inspired. At home the Triple Alliance was popular in the highest degree. It gratified alike national animosity and national pride. It put a limit to the encroachments of a powerful and ambitious neighbour, It bound the leading Protestant states together in close union. Cava- liers and Roundheads rejoiced in common: but the joy of the Round- head was even greater than that of the Cavalier. For England had now allied herself strictly with a country republican in government and Presbyterian in religion, against a country ruled by an arbitrary prince and attached to the Roman Catholic Church. - The House of ‘Commons loudly applauded the treaty; and some uncourtly grum- blers described it as the only good thing that had been done since the King came in. The King, however, cared little for the approbation of his Parlia- ment or of his people. The Triple Alliance he regarded merely as a temporary expedient for quicting discontents which had seemed likely to become serious. The independence, the safety, the dignity of the nation over which he presided were nothing to him. He had begun to find constitutional restraints galling. Already had been formed in the Parliament a str ong connection known by the name of the Country Party. That party included all the-public men who leaned towards Puritanism and Republicanism, and many who, though attached to the Church and to hereditary monarchy, had been driven into opposition by dread of Popery, by dread of France, and by dis- gust at the extravagance, dissoluteness, and faithlessness ‘of the court. ‘The power of this band of politicians was constantly growing. Every year some of those members who had been returned to Parliament during the loyal excitement of 1661 had dropped off; and the vacant seats had generally been filled by persons less tractable. Charles did not think himself a King while an assembly of subjects could call for his accounts before paying his debts, and could insist on knowing which of his mistresses or boon companions had intercepted the money destined for the equipping and manning of the fleet. Though not very studious of fame, he was galled by the taunts which were sometimes uttered in the discussions of the Commons, and on one occasion attempted to restrain the freedom of speech by disgraceful means. Sir John Coventry, a country gentleman, had, in debate, sneered at the profligacy of the court. In any former reign he would probably have been called before the Privy Council and committed to” the Tower. A different course was now taken. A gang of bullies was” secretly sent to slit the nose of the offender. This ignoble revenge, rintiad of quelling the spirit of opposition, raised such a tempest that the King was compelled to submit to the cruel humiliation of passing an act which attainted the instruments of his revenge, and which: took from him the power of pardoning them. ri P | , 1s co eel ee “HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 131 “a But, impatient as he was of constitutional restraints, how was he to emancipate himself from them? He could make himself despotic - only by the help of a great standing army; and such an army was not | 4 m existence. His revenues did indeed enable him to keep up some regular troops: but those troops, though numerous enough to excite a reat jealousy and apprehension in the House of Commons and in oe the country, were scarcely rumerous enough to protect Whitehall and _ “the Tower against a rising of the mob ‘of London. Such risings were, indeed, to be dreaded; for it-was calculated that in the capital and its suburbs dwelt not less than 20,000 of Oliver’s old soldiers. Since the King was bent on emancipating himself from the control of Parliament, and since, in such an enterprise, he could not hope for effectual aid at home, it followed that he must look foraid abroad, The power and wealth of the King of France might be equal to the | Biandas task of establishing absolute mot rarchy in England. Such an ally would undoubtedly ‘expect substantial proofs-of g “eratitude for such a service. Charles must descend to the rank of a great vassal, and must make peace and war according to the directions of the gov- _ ernment which protected him. His relation to Lewis would closely resemble that in which the Rajah of Nagpore and the King of Oude. now stand to the British Government. Those princes are “bound to : “aid the East India Company in all hostilities, defensive and offensive, and to have no diplomatic relations but such as the East India Company shall sanction. The Company in return guarantees the: against insurrection. As long as they faithfully discharge their obli- “gations to the paramount power, they are permitted to dispose of large revenues, to fill their palaces with beautiful women, to besot themselves i in the company of their favourite revellers, and to oppress “with impunity any subject who may incur their displeasure. e.* Such a Jife would be insupportable to'a man of high spirit and of powerful understanding. But to Charles, sensual, indolent, unequal to any _ Strong intellectual exertion. and destitute alike of all patriotism and r. of all sense of personal dignity, the prospect had nothing unpleasing. That the Duke of York should have concurred in the de sign of degrading that crown which it was probable that he would himself one day wear may seem more extraordinary. For his nature was haughty and imperious; and, indeed, he continued to the very last to show, by occasional starts and struggles, his impatience of the French yoke. But he was almost as much debased by superstition as his _ brother by indolence and vice. James was now a Roman Catholic. Beslizious bigotry had become the dominant sentiment of his narrow “and stubborn mind, and had so mingled itself with his love of rule, _ that the two passions could hardly be distinguished from each other. # Iam happy to say, that, since this passage was written, the territories both _ of the am by ot Nagpore and of the King of Oude have been added to the British dominions, 1857.) 132 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. It seemed highly improbable that, without foreign aid, he would be able to obtain ascendency, or even toleration, for his own faith: and _ he was in atemper to see nothing humiliating in any step which might promote the interests of the true Church. A negotiation was opened which lasted during several months, The chief agent between the English and French courts was the beautiful, graceful, and intelligent Henrietta, Duchess of Orleans, sister of Charles, sister in law of Lewis, and a favourite with both. The King of England offered to declare himself a Roman Catholic, to dissolve the Triple Alliance, and to join with France against Hol- land, if France would engage to lend him such military and pecuniary aid as might make him independent of his parliament. Lewis at first affected to receive these propositions coolly, and at length agreed to- them with the air of a man who is conferring a great favour: but in truth, the course which he had resolved to take was one by which he might gain and could not lose. It seems certain that he never seriously thought of establishing des- potism and Popery in England by force of arms. He must have been aware that such an enterprise would be in the highest degree arduous and hazardous, that it would task to the utmost all the energies of France during many years, and that it would be alto- gether incompatible with more promising schemes of aggrandise- ment, which were dear to his heart. He would indeed willingly have acquired the merit and the glory of doing a great service on reason- able terms to the Church:of which he was a member. But he was little disposed to imitate his ancestors who, in the twelfth and thir- teenth centuries, had led the flower of French chivalry to die in Syria and Egypt: and he well knew that a crusade against Protestantism in Great Britain would not be less perilous than the expeditions. in which the armies of Lewis the Seventh and of Lewis the Ninth had perished. He had no motive for wishing the Stuarts to be absolute. He did not regard the English constitution with feelings at all resem- bling those which have in later times induced princes to make war on the free institutions of neighbouring nations. At presenta great party” zealous for popular government has ramifications in every civilised country. Any important advantage gained anywhere by that party is almost certain to be the signal for general commotion. It is not wonderful that governments threatened by a common danger should combine for the purpose of mutual insurance. But in the seven- teenth century no such danger existed. Between the public mind of England and the public mind of France, there was a great gulph. Our institutions and our factions were as little understood at Paris as at Constantinople. It may be doubted whether anyone of the forty members of the French Academy had an English volume in his” library, or knew Shakespeare, Jonson, or Spenser even by name. A few Huguenots, who had inherited the mutinous spirit of their an- cestors, might perhaps have a fellow feeling with their brethren in HISTORY OF ENGLAND. : 135 the faith, the English Roundheads: but the Huguenots had ceased to _ be formidable. The French, as a people, attached to the Church of _ Rome, and proud of the greatness of tiaeir King and of their own loyalty, looked on our struggles against Popery and arbitrary power, not only without admiration or sympathy, but with strong disappro- bation and disgust. It would therefore be a great error to ascribe the conduct of Lewis to apprehensions at all resembling those which, in our age, induced the Holy Alliance to interfere in the internal troubles of Naples and Spain. . Nevertheless, the propositions made by the court of Whitehall were most welcome to him. He already meditated gigantic designs, which were destined to keep Europe in constant fermentation during more than forty years. He wished to humble the United Provinces, and to annex Belgium, Franche Comté, and Lorraine to his dominions. Nor was this all. The King of Spain was a sickly child. It was likely that he would die without issue. His eldest sister was Queen of France. A day would almost certainly come, and might come very soon, when the House of Bourbon might lay claim to that vast empire on which the sun never set. The union of two great mon- archies under one head would doubtless be opposed by a continental coalition. But for any continental coalition France single-handed was a match. England would turn the scale. On the course which, in such a crisis, England might pursue, the destinies of the world would depend; and it was notorious that the English Parliament and nation were strongly attached to the policy which had dictated the Triple Alliance. Nothing, therefore, could be more gratifying to Lewis than to learn that the princes of the House of Stuart needed his help, and were willing to purchase that help by unbounded sub- serviency. He determined to profit by the opportunity, and laid down for himself a plan to which, without deviation, he adhered, till the Revolution of 1688 disconcerted all his politics. He professed himself desirous to promote the designs of the English court. He promised large aid. He from time to time doled out such aid as might serve to keep hope alive, and as he could without risk or in- “convenience spare. In this way, at an expense very much less than that which he incurred in building and decorating Versailles or Marli, _ he succeeded in making England, during nearly twenty years, almost as insignificant a member of the political system of Europe as the republic of San Marino. His object was not to destroy our constitution, but to keep the ‘various elements of which it was composed in a perpetual state of conflict, and to set irreconcilable enmity between those who had the "power of the purse and those who had the power of the sword. With this view he bribed and stimulated both parties in turn, pensioned at once the ministers of the crown and the chiefs of the opposition, en- couraged the court to withstand the seditious encroachments of the _ Parliament, and conveyed to the Parliament intimations of the ar- _bitrary designs of the court. tn ah, ‘ — (bts) Ie HISTORY OF ENGLAND. One of the devices to which he rescrted for the purpose of ob- taining an ascendency in the English counsels deserves especial notice. Charles, though incapable of love in the highest sense of the word, was the slave of any woman whose person excited his desires, and whose airs and prattle amused his leisure. Indeed a husband would be justly derided who should bear from a wife of exalted rank and spotless virtue half the insolence which the King of England bore from the concubines who, while they owed everything to his bounty, caressed his courtiers almost before his face. He had pa- tiently endured the termayant passions of Barbara Palmer and the pert vivacity of Eleanor Gwynn. Lewis thought that the most use-- ful envoy who could be sent to London, would be a handsome, licen-_ tious, and crafty Frenchwoman. Such a woman was Louisa, a lady of the House of Querouaille, whom our rude ancestors called Madam Carwell. She was soon triumphant over all her rivals, was created Duchess of Portsmouth, was loaded with wealth, and obtained a do-— minion which ended only with the life of Charles. The most important conditions of the alliance between the crowns were digested into a secret treaty which was signed at Dover in May, 1670, just ten years after the day on which Charles had landed at_ that very port amidst the acclamations and joyful tears of a too con-— fiding people. . By this treaty Charles bound himself to make public profession of the Roman Catholic religion, to join his arms to those of Lewis for the purpose of destroying the power of the United Provinces, and to employ the whole strength of England, by land and sea, in support of the rights of the House of Bourbon to the vast monarchy of Spain. Lewi is, on the other hand, engaged to pay a large sub-— sidy, and promised that, if any insurrection should break out in England, he would send an army at his own hae to support his" ally. This compact was made with gloomy auspices. Six weeks after it had been signed and sealed, the charming princess, whose influence over her brother and brother in law had been so pernicious to her country, was no more. Her death gave rise to horrible suspicions” which, for a moment, seemed likely to interrupt the newly formed friendship between the Houses of Stuart and Bourbon: but in a short time fresh assurances of undiminished good will were exchanged between the confederates. The Duke of York, too dull to apprehend danger, or too fanatical to care about it, was impatient to see the article touching the Roman» Catholic religion carried into immediate éxecution: but Lewis had the” wisdom to perceive that, if this course were taken, there would be such an explosion in England as would probably frustrate those parts of the plan which he had most at heart. It was therefore determined that Charles should still call himself a Protestant, and should still, at high festivals, receive the sacrament according to the ritual of the Church — 4 Ba HISTORY OF ENGLAND. rs 135 a England. His more scrupulous brother ceased to appear in the royal chapel. About this time died the Duchess of York, daughter of the banished Earl of Clarendon. She had been, during some years, a concealed man Catholic. She left two daughters, Mary and Anne, after- Bards successively Queens of Great Britain. They were bred Protes- tants by the positive command of the King, who knew that it would _ be vain for him to profess himself a member of the Church of Eng- land, if children who seemed likely to inherit his throne were, by his permission, brought up as members of the Church of Rome. The principal servants of the crow.1 at this time were men whose names have justly acquired an unenviable notoriety. We must take _ heed, however, that we do not load their memory with infamy which of right belongs to their master. For the treaty of Dover the King ‘himself is chiefly answerable. He held conferences on it with the _ French agents: he wrote many letters concerning it with his own hand: he was the person who first suggested the most disgraceful arti- cles which it contained; and he carefully concealed some of those articles from the majority of his Cabinct. _ Few things in our history are more curious than the origin and “growth of the power now possessed by the Cabinet. From an early ection the Kings of England had been assisted by a Privy Council to _ Which the law assigned | many important functions and duties. Dur- “ing several centuries this body deliberated on the gravest and most delicate affairs. But by degrees its character changed. : It became too large for despatch and secrecy. Tne rank of Privy Councillor me ‘was often bestowed as an honorary distinction on persons to whom if ‘nothing was confided, and whose opinion was never asked. The sov- _ ereign, on the most important occasions, resorted for advice to a small _ knot of leading ministers. The advantages and disadvantages of this _ course were early pointed out by Bacon, “with his usual judgment and - Sagacity: but it was not till after the Restoration that the interior ' council began to attract general notice. During many years old r: fashioned politicians continued to regard the Cabinet as an unconsti- ~ tutional and dangerous board. Nevertheless, it constantly became more and more important. Tt at length drew to itself the chief execu- _ tive power, and has now been regarded, during several generations, as an essential part of our polity. Yet, strange to say, it still con- 4 tinues to be altogether unknown to the law: the names of the noble- _ Inen and gentlemen who compose it are never officially announced to _ the public: no record is kept of its meetings and resolutions; nor has its existence ever been recognised by any Act of Parliament. a During some years the word Cabal was popularly used as synony- - mous with Cabinet. But it happened by a whimsical coincidence - that, in 1671, the Cabinet consisted of five persons the initial letters of whose names made up the word Cabal; Clifford, Arlington, Buck- aa Ashley, and Lauderdale. These ministers were therefore 136 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. emphatically called the Cabal; and they soon made that appellatia” so infamous that it has never since their time been used except as a term of reproach. Sir Thomas Clifford was a Commissioner of the Treasury, and had greatly distinguished himself in the House of Commons. Of the members of the Cabal he was the most respectable. For, with a fiery - and imperious temper, he had a strong though a lamentably perverted sense of duty and honour. Henry Bennet, Lord Arlington, then Secretary of State, had, since he came to manhood, resided principally on the Continent, and had learned that cosmopolitan indifference to constitutions and religions which is often observable in persons whose life has been passed in vagrant diplomacy. If there was any form of government which he liked it was that of France. If there was any Church for which he- felt a preference, it was that of Rome. He had some talent for con- versation, and some talent also for transacting the ordinary business of office. He had learned, during a life passed in travelling and negotiating, the art of accommodating his language and deportment to the society in which he found himself. His vivacity in the closet amused the King: his gravity in debates and conferences imposed on — the public; and he had succeeded in attaching to himself, partly by services and partly by hopes, a considerable number of personal re- tainers. Buckingham, Ashley, and Lauderdale were men in whom the im- morality which was epidemic among the politicians of that age ap- peared in its most malignant type, but variously modified by great diversities of temper and understanding. Buckingham was a sated man of pleasure, who had turned to ambition as to a pastime. As he had tried to amuse himself with architecture and music, with write farces and with seeking for the philosopher’s stone, so he now trie to amuse himself with a secret negotiation and a Dutch war. He had ~ already, rather from fickleness and love of novelty than from any deep design, been faithless to every party. At one time he had ranked among the Cavaliers. At another time warrants had been out — against him for maintainin g a treasonable correspondence with the re- mains of the Republican party in the city. He was now again a cour- tier, and was eager to win the favour of the King by services from which the most illustrious of those who had fought and suffered for the royal house would have recoiled with horror. Ashley, with a far stronger head, and with a far fiercer and more earnest ambition, had been. equally Versatile. But Ashley’s versatility was the effect, not of levity, but of deliberate selfishness. He had- served and betr ayed a succession of government. But he had timed all his treacheries so well that, through all revolutions, his fortunes had constantly been rising. The multitude, struck with admiration by a prosperity which, while everything else was constantly changing, re- mained unchangeable, attributed to him a prescience almost miracu mi oa 1 oe # HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 137 fous, and likened him to the Hebrew statesman of whom it is written that his counsel was as if a man had inquired of the oracle of God. Lauderdale, loud and coarse both in mirth and anger, was perhaps, under the outward show of boisterous frankness, the most dishonest man in the whole Cabal. He had made himsely conspicuous among the Scotch insurgents of 1638 by his zeal for the Covenant. He was accused of having been deeply concerned in the sale of Charles the First to the English Parliament, and was therefore, in the estimation of good Cavaliers, a traitor, if possible, of a worse description than those who had sate in the High Court of Justice. He often talked with a noisy jocularity of the days when he was a canter and a rebel. He was now the chief instrument employed by the court in the work of forcing episcopacy on his reluctant countrymen; nor did he in that cause shrink from the unsparing use of the sword, the halter, and the boot. Yet those who knew him knew that thirty years had made no change in his real sentiments, that he still hated the memory of Charles the First, and that he still preferred the Presbyterian form of church government to every other. Unscrupulous as Buckingham, Ashley, and Lauderdate were, it was not thought safe to intrust to them the King’s intention of de- claring himself a Roman Catholic. and the Duke of York was consequently under the necessity of igning the great place of Lord High Admiral. _ Hitherto the Commons had not declared against the Dutch war, But, when the King had, in return for money 7 cautiously doled out, ‘ relinquished his whole plan of domestic policy, they fell impetuously _ on his foreign policy. They requested him to dismiss Buckingham and Lauderdale from his councils forever, and appointed a committee to consider the propriety of impeaching Arlington. In a short time the Cabal was no more., Clifford, who, alone of the five, had any claim to be regarded as an honest man, refused to take the new test, laid down his white staff, and retired to his country seat. Arlington q juitted the pnst of Secretary of State for a quiet and dignified employ- ment in the Royal household. Shaftesbury and Buckingham made their peace with the opposition, and appeared at the head of the stormy democracy of the city. Lauderdale, however, still continued io be minister for Scotch affairs, with which the English Parliament - could not interfere. _ And now the Commons urged the King to make peace with Hol- and, and expressly declared ‘that no more supplies should be granted ah or the war, unless it should appear that the enemy obstinately re- e sed to consent to reasonable terms. Charles found it necessary to postpone to a more convenient season all thought of executing the t aty of Dover, and to cajole the nation by pretending to return to the policy of the Triple Alliance. Temple, who, during the ascend- e mney of the Cabal, had lived in seclusion among his books and flower be ds, was called forth from his hermitage. By his instrumentality a s separate peace was concluded with the United Provinces; and he a in became ambassador at the Hague, where his presence was re- ga arded as a sure pledge for the sincerity of his court. _ The chief direction of affairs was now intrusted to Sir Thomas Osborne, a Yorkshire baronet, who had, in the House of Commons, shown eminent talents for business and debate. Osborne became si ord Treasurer, and was soon created Earl of Danby. He was not a ‘man whose character, if tried by any high standard of morality, would appear to merit approbation. He was greedy of wealth and honours, corrupt himself, and a corrupter of others. The Cabal had 144 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. i bequeathed to him the art of bribing Parliaments, an art still rude, and giving little promise of the rare perfection to which it was brought in the following century. He improved greatly on the plan of the first inventors. They had merely purchased orators: but every man who had a vote, might sell himself to Danby. Yet the ~ new minister must not be confounded with the negotiators of Dover. He was not without the feelings of an Englishman and a Protestant; nor did he, in his solicitude for his own interests, ever wholly forget the interests of his country and of his religion. He was desirous, indeed, to exalt the prerogative. but the means by which he proposed to exalt it were widely different from those which had been contem- plated by Arlington and Clifford. The tnought of establishing ar- bitrary power, by calling in the aid of foreign arms, and by reducing the kingdom to the rank ct a dependent principality, never entered into his mind. His plan was to rally round the monarchy those classes which had been the firm allies of the monarchy during the troubles of the preceding generation, and which had been disgusted by the recent crimes and errors of the court. With the help of the old Cavalier interest, of the nobles, of the country gentlemen, of the clergy, and of the Universities, it might, he conceived, be possible to make Charles, not indeed an absolute sovereign, but a sovereign scarcely less powerful than Elizabeth had been. Prompted by these feelings, Danby formed the design of securing to the Cavalier party the exclusive possession of all political power both executive and legislative. In the year 1675, accordingly, a bill was offered to the Lords which provided that no person should hold any office, or should sit in either House of Parliament, without first declaring on oath that he considered resistance to the kingly power as in all cases criminal, and that he would never endeavour to alter the government either in Church or State. During several weeks the debates, divisions, and protests caused by this proposition kept the country in a state of excitement. The opposition in the House of Lords, headed by two members of the Cabal who were desirous to make their peace with the nation, Buckingham and Shaftesbury, was beyond all precedent vehement and pertinacious, and at length proved successful. The bill was not indeed rejected, but was retarded, mu tilated, and at length suffered to drop. So arbitrary and so exclusive was Danby’s scheme of domestic PECY: His opinions touching foreign policy did him more honour. hey were in truth directly opposed to those of the Cabal and dif- fered little from those of the Country Party. He bitterly lamented the degraded situation to which England was reduced, and declared, with more energy than politeness, that his dearest wish was to cudgel the French into a proper respect for her. So little did he disguise his feelings that, at a great banquet where the most illustrious dig- nitaries of the State and of the Church were assembled, he not very decorously filled his glass to the confusion of all who were against a . HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 145 o war with France. He would indeed most gladly have seen his coun- ‘try united with the powers which were then combined against Lewis, and was for that end bent on placing Temple, the author of the Triple Alliance, at the head of the department which directed foreign af- fairs. But the power of the prime minister was limited. In his ue most confidential letters he complained that the infatuation of his master prevented England from taking her proper place among Eu- ropean nations. Charles was insatiably greedy of French gold: he had by no means relinquished the hope that he might, at some future " day, be able to establish absolute monarchy by the heip of the French arms; and for both reasons he wished to maintain a good un- derstanding with the court of Versailles. _ Thus the sovereign leaned towards one system of foreign politics, ? _ and the minister towards a system diametrically opposite. Neither _ the sovereign nor the minister, indeed, was of a temper to pursue any object with undeviating constancy. Each occasionally yielded to the importunity of the other; and their jarring inclinations and mutual concessions gave to the whole administration a strangely capricious character. Charles sometimes, from levity and indolence, suffered Danby to take steps which Lewis resented as mortal injuries. Danby, on the other hand, rather than relinquish his great place, ‘sometimes stooped to compliances which caused him bitter pain and shame. The King was brought to consent to a marriage between the Lady Mary, eldest daughter and presumptive heiress of the Duke of a York, and William of Orange, the deadly enemy of France and the hereditary champion of the Reformation. Nay, the brave Earl of , Ossory, son of Ormond, was sent to assist the Dutch with some Brit- a ish troops, who, on the most bloody day of the whole war, signally Vinuicated the national reputation for stubborn courage. The Treasurer, on the other hand, was induced not only to connive at _ some scandalous pecuniary transactions which took place between _ his master and the court of Versailles, but to become, unwillingly indeed and ungraciously, an agent in those transactions. Meanwhile the Country Party was driven by two strong feelings in two opposite directions. ‘The popular leaders were afraid of the greatness of Lewis, who was not only making head against the whole strength of the continental alliance, but was even gaining ground. Yet they were afraid to entrust their own King with the means of curbing France, lest those means should be used to destroy the lib- erties of England. The conflict between these apprehensions, both of which were perfectly legitimate, made the policy of the Opposition seem as eccentric and fickle as that of the Court. The Commons called for a war with France, till the King, pressed by Danby to comply with their wish, seemed disposed to yield, and began to raise an army. But, as soon as they saw that the recruiting had com- _ menced, their dread of Lewis gave place to a nearer dread. They began to fear that the new levies might be employed on a service in 146 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. which Charles took much more interest than in the defence of Flanders. They therefore refused supplies, and clamoured for dis- banding as loudly as they had just before clamoured for arming. Those historians who have severely reprehended this inconsistency do not appear to have made sufficient allowance for the embarrassing situation of subjects who have reason to believe that their prince is conspiring with a foreign and hostile power against their liberties. To refuse him military resources is to leave the state defenceless. Yet to give him military resources may be only to arm him against the state. In such circumstances vacillation cannot be considered as a proof of dishonesty or even of weakness. | These jealousies were studiously fomented by the French King. He had long kept England passive by promising to support the throne against the Parliament. He now, alarmed at finding that the patriotic counsels of Danby seemed likely to prevail in the closet, be- gan to inflame the Parliament against the throne. Between Lewis and the Country Party there was one thing, and one only in com- mon, profound distrust of Charles. Could the Country Party have been certain that their sovereign meant only to make war on France, they would have been eager to support him. Could Lewis have been certain that the new levies were intended only to make war on the constitution of England, he would have made no attempt to stop them. But the unsteadiness and faithlessness of Charles were such that the French Government and the English opposition, agreeing im nothing else, agreed in disbelieving his protestations, and were equally desirous to keep him poorand without anarmy. Communi- cations were opened between Barillon, the Ambassador of Lewis, anl those English politicians who had always professed, and who indeed sincerely felt, the greatest dread and dislike of the French ascend- ency. The most upright of the Country Party, William Lord Rus- sell, son of the Earl of Bedford, did not scruple to concert with 2 foreign mission schemes for embarrassing his own sovereign. ‘This was the whole extent of Russell’s offence. His principles and his fortune alike raised him above e211 temptations of a sordid kind: but there is too much reason to believe that some of his associates were less scrupulous. It would be unjust to impute to them the extreme wickedness of taking bribes to injure their country. On the con- trary, they meant to serve her: but it is impossible to deny that they were mean and indelicate enough to let a foreign prince pay them for serving her. Among those who cannot be acquitted of this de- grading charge was one man who is popularly considered as the per- sonification of public spirit, and who, in spite of some great moral and intellectual faults, has a just claim to be called a hero, a philoso- pher, and a patriot. It is impossible to see without pain such a name in the list of the pensioners of France. Yet it is some conso- lation to reflect that, in our time, a public man would be thought lost to all sense of duty and of shame, who should not spurn from Ie, HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 147 him a temptation which conquered the virtue and the pride of Al- gernon Sydney. - The éffect of these intrigues was that England, though she occasion- y took a menacing attitude, remained inactive till the continental war, having lasted near seven years, was terminated by the treaty of Nimeguen. The United Provinces, which in 1672 had seemed to be the verge of utter ruin, obtained honourable and advantageous mms. ‘This narrow escape was generally ascribed to the ability and courage of the young Stadtholder. His fame was great throughout Europe, and especially among the English, who regarded him as one of their own princes, and rejoiced to see him the husband of their future Queen. France retained many important towns in the Low Countries and the great province of Franche Comté. Almost the whole loss was borne by the decaying monarchy of Spain. _ A few months after the termination of hostilities on the Continent came a great crisis in English politics. Towards such a crisis things had been tending during eighteen years. The whole stock of popu- ¥ ity, great as it was, with which the King had commenced his “administration, had long been expended. To loyal enthusiasm had ‘succeeded profound disaffection. The public mind had now meas- ured back again the space over which it had passed between 1640 and 1660, and was once more in the state in which it had been when the Long Parliament met. __ The prevailing discontent was compounded of many feelings. One of these was wounded national pride. That generation had seen England, during a few years, allied on equal terms with France, victorious over Holland and Spain, the mistress of the sea, the terror of Rome, the head of the Protestant interest. Her resources had not “diminished; and it might have been expected that she would have Deen at least as highly considered in Europe under a legitimate King, ‘strong in the affection and willing obedience of his subjects, as she had been under an usurper whose utmost vigilance and energy were required tokeepdownamutinous people. Yet she had, in consequence of the imbecility and meanness of her rulers, sunk so low that any Ger- Man or Italian principality which brought five thousand men, into the field was a more important member of the commonwealth of nations. ~ __ With the sense of national humiliation was mingled anxiety for Civil liberty. Rumours, indistinct indeed, but perhaps the more ‘alarming by reason of their indistinctness, imputed to the court a deliberate design against all the constitutional rights of Englishmen. it had even been whispered that this design was to be carried into eitect by the intervention of foreign arms. The thought of such tervention made the blood, even of the Cavaliers, boil in their eins. Some who had always professed the doctrine of non-resist- ce in its full extent were now heard to mutter that there was one nitation to that doctrine. If a foreign force were brought over ta ‘ce the nation, they would not answer for their own patience. Pred 148 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. But neither national pride nor anxiety for public liberty had so great an influence on the popular mind as hatred of the Roman Cath- plic religion. That hatred had become one of the ruling passions of the community, and was as strong in the ignorant and profane as in those who were Protestant from conviction. The cruelties of Mary’s reign, cruelties which even in the most accurate and sober narrative excite just detestation, and which were neither accurately nor soberly related in the popular martyrologies, the conspiracies against Eliza- beth, and above all the Gunpowder Plot, had Jeft in the minds of the vulgar a deep and bitter feeling which was kept up by annual com- memorations, prayers, bonfires, and processions. I1t should be added that those classes which were peculiarly distinguished by attachment to the throne, the clergy and the landed gentry, had peculiar reasons for regarding the Church of Rome with aversion. The clergy trem- bled for their benefices; the landed gentry for their abbeys and great tithes. While the memory of the reign of the Saints was still recent, hatred of Popery had in some degree given place to hatred of Puri- tanism; but, during the eighteen years which had elapsed since the Restoration, the hatred of Puritanism had abated, and the hatred of Popery had increased. The stipulations of the treaty of Dover were accurately known to very few; but some hints had got abroad. The general impression was that a great blow was about to be aimed at the Protestant religion. The King was suspected by many of a lean- ing towards Rome. His brother and heir presumptive was known to be a bigoted Roman Catholic. The first Duchess of York had died a Roman Catholic. James had then, in defiance of the remonstrances — of the House of Commons, taken to wife the Princess Mary of Modena, another Roman Catholic. If there should be sons by this marriage, there was reason to fear that they might be bred Roman Catholics, and that a long succession of princes, hostile to the established faith, might sit on the English throne. The constitution had recently been violated for the purpose of protecting the Roman Catholics from the penal laws. The ally by whom the policy of England had, during” many years, been chiefly governed, was not only a Roman Catholic, but a persecutor of the reformed Churches. nder such circum- stances it is not strange that the common people should have been inclined to apprehend a return of the times of her whom they called Bloody Mary. ; Thus the nation was in such a temper thai the smallest spark might raise aflame. At this conjuncture fire was set in two places at once — to the vast mass of combustible matter; and in a moment the whole was in a blaze. The French court, which knew Danby to be its mortal enemy, art- — fully contrived to ruin him by making him pass for its friend. Lewis, ~ by the instrumentality of Ralph Montague, a faithless and shameless — man who had resided in France as minister from England, laid before the House of Commons proofs that the Treasurer had been concerned — ; a i Ww HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 149 i _ in an application made by the Court of Whitehall to the Court of Versailles forasum of money. This discovery produced its natural effect. The Treasurer was, in truth, exposed to the vengeance of Parliament, not on account of his delinquencies, but on account of his merits; not because he had been an accomplice in a criminal transaction, but because he had been a most unwilling and unservice- able accomplice. But of the circumstances, which have, in the judg- ment of posterity, greatly extenuated his fault, his contemporaries were ignorant. In their view he was the broker who had sold Eng- land to France. It seemed clear that his greatness was at an end, and doubtful whether his head could be saved. Yet was the ferment excited by this discovery slight, when com- pared with the commotion which arose when it was noised abroad - that a great Popish plot had been detected. One Titus Oates, a clergyman of the Church of England, had, by his disorderly life and heterodox doctrine, drawn on himself the censure of his spiritual _ superiors, had been compelled to quit his benefice, and had ever since led an infamous and vagrant life. He had once professed himself a Roman Catholic, and had passed some time on the Continent in Eng- lish colleges of the order of Jesus. In those seminaries he had heard much wild talk about the best means of bringing England back to the true Church. From hints thus furnished he constructed a hid- eous romance, resembling rather the dream of a sick man than any transaction which ever took place in the real world. The Pope, he said, had entrusted the government of England to the Jesuits. The Jesuits had, by commissions under the seal of their society, appointed Roman Catholic clergymen, noblemen, and gentlemen, to all the highest offices in Church and State. The Papists had burned down London once. They had tried to burn it down again. They were at that moment planning a scheme for setting fire to all the shipping ‘inthe Thames. They were to rise at a signal and massacre all their Protestant neighbours.- A French army was at the same time to land in Ireland. All the leading statesmen and divines of England were to be murdered. Three or four schemes had been formed for assas- Sinating the King. He was to be stabbed. He was to be poisoned ‘in his medicine. He was to be shot with silver bullets. The public mind was so sore and excitable that these lies readily found credit with the vulgar; and two events which speedily took place led even some reflecting men to suspect that the tale, though evidently dis- torted and exaggerated, might have some foundation. Kdward Coleman, a very busy, and not very honest, Roman Cath- Olic intriguer, had been among the persons accused. Search was made for his papers. It was found that he had just destroyed the greater part of them. But afew which had escaped contained some passages such as, to minds strongly prepossessed, might seem to con- firm the evidence of Oates. Those passages indeed, when candidly construed, appear to express little more than the hopes which the \ 150 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. mY posture of affairs, the predilections, of Charles, the still stronger predi lections of James, and the relations existing between the French and Euglish courts, might naturally excite in the mind of a Roman Catholic strongly attached to the interests of his Church. But the country was not then inclined to construe the letters of Papists can- didly; and it was urged, with some show of reason, that, if papers which had been passed over as unimportant were filled with matter so suspicious, some great mystery of iniquity must have been con- tained in those documents which had been carefully committed to the flames. A few days later it was known that Sir Edmondsbury Godfrey, an eminent justice of the peace-who had taken the depositions of Oates against Coleman, had disappeared. Search was made; and Godfrey's corpse was found in a field near London. It was clear that he had died by violence. It was equally clear that he had not been set upon by robbers. His fate is to this day a secret. Scme think that he perished by his own hand; some, that he was slain by a private enemy. ‘The most improbable supposition is that he was murdered by the party hostile to the court, in order to give colour to the story of theplot. Themostprobable supposition seems, on the whole, to be that some hotheaded Roman Catholic, driven to frenzy by the liesof Oates and by the insults of the multitude, and not nicely distinguish- ing bétween the perjured accuser and the innocent magistrate, had taken a revenge of which the history of persecuted sects furnishes but too many examples. If this were co, the assassin must have afterwards bitterly execrated his own wickedness and folly. The capital and the whole nation went mad with hatred and fear. The penal laws, which had begun to lose scmething of their edge, were sharpened anew. Everywhere justices were Lusied in searching houses and seizing papers. All the gaols were filled with Papists. London had the aspect of a city in a state of siege. The trainbands were under arms all night. Fieparations were made for barricading the great thoroughfares. Fatrols marched up and down the streets. Cannon were planted round Whitehall. No citizen thought himself safe unless he carried under his coat a small flail loaded with lead to brain the Popish assassins. ‘Ihe corpse of the muideircd magistrate was exhibited during several Cays tothe gaze of grcat multitudes, and was then committed to the grave with strange and terrible cercmonies, - which indicated rather fear and the thirst of vengeance than sorrow or religious hope. The Hcusesinsistcd that a guaid should be placed in the vaults over which they sate, in o1der to secure them against a second Gunpowder Plot. All their picceedings were of a piece with ~ this demand. Ever since thereign of Elizabeth the oath of supremacy had been exacted frcm members of the House of Ccmmons. fome Reman Catholics, however, had ccntrived so to interpret this oath that they could take it without scruple. A more stringent test was now added: every member of Parliament was required to make the = 4 i’ HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 151 Jeclaration against Transubstantiation; and thus the Roman tholic Lords weve for the first time excluded from their seats. rong resolutions were adopted against the Queen. The Commons threw one of the Secretaries of State into prison for having counter- igned commissions directed to gentlemen who were not good Protes- ants. ‘They impeached the Lord Treasurer of high treason. Nay, they so far forgot the doctrine which, while the memory of the civil war was still recent, they had loudly professed, that they even ttempted to wrest the command of the’ militia out. of the King’s Hands. To such atemper had eighteen years of miszovernment ght the most loyal Parliament that had ever met in England. . "Yet it may seem strange that, even in that extremity, ‘the King should have ventured to appeal to the people; for the people were more excited than their representatives. The Lower House, discon- tented as it was, contained a lar ger number of Cavaliers than were likely to find seats again. But “it was thought that a dissolution would put a stop to the prosecution of the Lord Treasurer, a prose- ‘ution which might probably bring to light all the guilty mysteries of the French alliance, and might ‘thus cause extreme personal an- oyance and embarrassment to Charles. Accordingly, in January, 679, the Parliament, which had been-in existence ever since the be- inning of tae year 1661, was dissolved; and writs were issued for a neral election. During some weeks the contention over the whole country was erce and obstinate beyond example. Unprecedented sums were expended. New tactics were employed. It was remarked by the pamphileteers of that time as something extraordinary that horses were ired at a great charge for the conveyance of electors. The practice of splitting freeholds for the purpose of multiplying votes dates from this memorable struggle. Dissenting preachers, who had long hidden themselves in quiet hooks from persecution, now emerged from their retreats, and rode from village to village, for the purpose of rekind- g¢ the zeal of the scattered people of God. The tide ran strong | oe . the government. Most of the new members came up to : estminster in a mood little differing from that of their predecessors who had sent Strafford and Laud to the Tower. - Meanwhile the courts of justice, which ought to be, in the midst * political commotions, sure places of refuge for the innocent of every party, were diseraced by wilder passions and fouler corrup- tions than w:re to be found even on the hustings. The tale of Oates, though it had sufficed to convulse the who'e realm, would not, unless confirmed by other evidence, suffice to destroy the humblest of those hom he had accused. For, by the old law of England. two wit- messes are necessary to establish a charge of treason. But the suc- cess of the first impostor produced its natural consequences. In a few weeks he had been raised from penury and obscurity to opu- lence, to power which made him the dread of princes and nobles, v od is 152 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. ard to notoriety such as bas for low and bad minds all the attrae tions of glory. He was not long without ccadjutors and rivals. A wretch named Carstairs, who had earned a livelihcod in Scotiand Ly going disguised to conventicles and then informing against the preachers, led the way. Bedloe, a noted swindler, followed; and soon from all the brothels, gambling houses, and spunging houses of London, false witnesses poured forth to swear away the lives of Roman Catholics. One came with a story about an army of thirty thousand men who were to muster in the disguise of pilgrims at Corunna, and to sail thence to Wales. Another had been promised canonisation and five hundred pcunds tomurder the King. A third had stepped into an cating house in Covent Garden, and had there leard a great Roman Catholic banker vow, in the hearing of all the guests and drawers, to kill the heretical tyrant. Oates, that he might not be eclipsed by his imitators, soon added a large supplement to his original narrative. He had the portentous impudence to affirm, among other things, that he had once stood behind a door which was ajar, and had there overheard the Queen declare that she had resolved to give her consent to the assassination of her husband. The vulgar believed, and the highest magistrates pretended to believe, even such ficticns as these. The chief judges of the realm were cor- rupt, cruel, and timid. The leaders of the Country Party encour- aged the prevailing delusion. The most respectable among them, indeed, were themselves so far deluded as to believe the greater part of the evidence of the plot to be true. Such men as Shaftesbury and Buckingham doubtless perceived that the whole was a romance. But it was a romance which served their turn; and to their seared consciences the death of an innocent man gave DO more uneasiness than the death of a partridge. The juries partook of the feelings then common throughout the nation, and were encouraged by the bench to indulge those feelings without restraint. The multitude applauded Oates and his confederates, hooted and pelted the wit- nesses who appeared on behalf of the accused, and shouted with joy when the verdict of Guilty was pronounced. It was in vain that the sufferers appealed to the respectability of their past lives: for the public mind was possessed with a belief that the more conscientious a Papist was, the more likely he must be to plot against a Protestant government. It was in vain that, just before the cart passed from under their feet, they resolutely affirmed their innocence: for the general opinion was that a good Papist considered all lies which were serviceable to his Church as not only excusable but meritorious. While innocent blood was shedding under the forms of justice; the new Parliament met; and such was the violence of the predomi- nant party that even men whose youth had been passed amidst revolu- tions, men who remembered the attainder of Strafford, the attempt on the five members, the abolition of the House of Lords, the execu- tion of the King, stood aghast at the aspect of public affairs. The im- i HISTORY OF ENGLAND. . 153 peachment of Danby was resumed. He pleaded the royal pardon. But the Commons treated the plea with contempt, and insisted that the trial should proceed. Danby, however, was not their chief ob- ject. ‘They were convinced that the only effectual way of securing the liberties ana religion of the nation was to exclude the Duke of York from the throne. _ The King was in great perplexity. He had insisted that hig brother, the sight of whom inflamed the populace to madness, should retire for a time to Brussels: but this’‘concession did not seem to have produced any favourable effect. The Roundhead party was now decidedly preponderant, ‘Towards that party leaned millions who had, at the time of the Restoration, leaned towards the side of preroe ative. Of the old Cavaliers many participated in the prevailing feat of Popery, and many, bitterly resenting the ingratitude of the prince for whom they had sacrificed so much, looked on his distress as carelessly as he had looked on theirs. Even the Anglican clergy, mortified and alarmed by the apostasy of the Duke of York, so far countenanced the opposition as to join cordially in the outcry against the Roman Catholics. _ The King in this extremity had recourse to Sir William Temple. Of all the official men of that age Temple had preserved the fairest character. The Triple Alliance had been his work. He had refused to take any part in the politics of the Cabal, and had, while that administration directed affairs, lived in strict privacy. He had quitted his retreat at the call of Danby, had made peace between England and Holland, and had borne a chief part in bringing about the marriage of the Lady Mary to her cousin the Prince of Orange. Thus he had the credit of every one of the few good things which had been done by the government since the Restoration. Of the numerous crimes and blunders of the last eighteen years none could be imputed to him. His private life, though not austere, was deco- rous: his manners were popular; and he was not to be corrupted either by titles or by money. Something, however, was wanting to the character of this respectable statesman. The temperature of his patriotism was lukewarm. He prized his ease and his personal dignity too much, and shrank from responsibility with a pusillani- mous fear. Nor indeed had his habits fitted him to bear a part in the conflicts of our domestic factions. He had reached his fiftieth year without having sate in the English Parliament; and his official experience had been almost entirely acquired at foreign courts. He Was justly esteemed one of the first diplomatists in Europe: but the talents and accomplishments of a diplomatist are widely different from those which qualify a politician to lead the House of Commons 1n agitated times. The scheme which he proposed showed considerable ingenuity. Though not a profound philosopher, he had thought more than most busy men of the world on the general principles of government; and ’ 154 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. his mind had been palersed by historical studies and foreign travel. He seems to have discerned more Clearly than most of his contem poraries one cause of the difficulties by which the government was beset. The character of the English polity was gradually changing. The Parliament was slowly, but constantly, gaining ground on the prerogative. 'The line between the legislative and executive powers was in theory as strongly marked as ever, but in practice was daily becoming fainter and fainter. The theory of the constitution was that the King might name his own ministers. But the House of Commons had driven Clarendon, the Cabal, and Danby successively from the direction of affairs. The theory of the constitution was that the King alone had the power of making peace and war. But. the House of Commons had forced him to make peace with Holland, and had all but forced him to make war with France. The theory of the constitution was that the King was the sole judge of the-cases. in which it might be proper to pardon offenders. Yet he was so much in dread of the House of Commons that, at that moment, he could not venture to rescue from the gallows men whom he well knew to be the innocent victims of perjury. Temple, it should seem, was desirous to secure to the legislature its undoubted constitutional powers, and yet to prevent it, if possi-— ble. from encroaching further on the province of the executive admin- istration. With this view he determined to mterpose between the sovereign and the Parliament a body which might break the shock of their collision. ‘There was a body, ancient, highly honourable, and recognised by the law, which, he thought, might Le so remodelled’ as to serve this purpose. He determined to give to the Privy Coun- cil a new character and office in the government. The number of Councillors he fixed at thirty. Fifteen of them were to be the chief ministers of state, of law, and of religion. The other fifteen were to be unplaced noblemen and gentlemen of ample fortune and high character. There was to be no interior cabinet. AJ] the thirty were to be entrusted with every political secret, and summoned to every meeting; and the King was to declare that he would, on every occa- sion, be guided by their advice. ; Temple seems to have thought that, by this contrivance, he could at once secure the nation against the tyranny of the Crown, and the Crown against the encroachments of the Parliament. It was, on one hand, highly improbable that schemes such as had teen formed by the Cabal would be even propounded for discussion in an assembly consisting of thirty eminent men, fifteen of whom were bound by no tie of interest to the court. On the other hand, it might be hoped that the Commons, content with the guarantee against misgovern- ment which such a Privy Council furnished, would confine them- selves more than they had of late done to their strictly legislative functions, and would no longer think it necessary to pry into every | part of the executive administration. . HISTORY OF ENGLAND. : 155 ‘This plan, though in some respects not unworthy of the abilities of uthor, was in principle vicious, The new board was half a cabi- and half a Parliament, and, like almost every other contrivance, ether mechanical or political, which is meant to serve two purposes fogether different, failed of accomplishing either. It was too large d too divided to be a good administrative body. It was too closely onnected with the Crown to be a good checking body. It contained enough of popular ingredients to make it a “bad council of state, Bc for the keeping of secrets, for the conducting of delicate nego- ations, and for the administration of war. Yet were these popular igredients by no means sufficient to secure the nation against mis- vernment. The plan, therefore, even if it had been fairly tried, : uld scarcely have succeeded; and it was not fairly tried. The ing was fickle and perfidious: *the Parliament was excited and un- asonable; and the materials out of which the new Council was e, though perhaps the best which that age afforded, were still The commencement of the new system was, however, hailed with neral delight; for the people were in a temper to think any change improvement. They were also pleased by some of the new nom- nations Shaftesbury, now their favourite, was appointed Lord sident. Russell and some other distinguished members of the untry Party were sworn of the Council. Buta few days later all again in confusion. The inconveniences of having so numerous binet were such that Temple himself consented to infringe one the fundamental rules which he had laid down, and to become one a small knot which really directed everything: With him were ned three other ministers, Arthur Capel, Earl of Essex, George vile, Viscount Halifax, and Robert Spencer, Ear] of Sunderland. Of the Earl of Essex, then First Commissioner of the Treasury, it ‘Sufficient to say that he was a man of solid, though not brilliant rts, and of grave and melancholy character, that he had been con- nected with the Country Party, and that he was at this time honestly sirous to effect, on terms beneficial to the state, a reconciliation etween that party and the throne. Among the statesmen of those times Halifax was, in genius, the St. His intellect was fertile, subtle, and capacious. His polished, minous, and animated eloquence, set off by the silver tones of his ice, was the delight of the House of Lords. His conversation erflowed with thought, fancy, and wit. His political tracts well rve to be studied for their literary merit, and fully entitle him to uace among English classics. ‘T'o the weight derived from talents ‘great and various he united all the influence which belongs to rank ample possessions, Yet he was less successful in politics than many who enjoyed smaller advantages. Indeed those intellectual culiariries which make his writings valuable frequently impeded m in the contests of active life. For he always saw passing events, > ee 156 “HISTORY OF ENGLAND. not in the point of view in which they commonly appear to one who bears a part in them, but in the point of view in which, after the lapse of many years, they appear to the philosophic: historian. With such a turn of mind, he could not long continue tv act cordiallv with any body of men. All the prejudices, all the exaggerations, of both the great parties in the state moved his scorn. He despised the mean arts and unreasonable clamours of demagogues. He despised still more the doctrines of divine right and passive obedience. He sneer- ed impartially at the bigotry of the Churchman and at the bigotry of the Puritan. He was equally unable to comprehend how any man should object to Saints’ days and surplices, and how any man should persecute any other man for objecting to them. In temper he was what, in our time, is called a Conservative, in theory he was a Republican. Even when his dread of anarchy and his disdain — for vulgar delusions led him to side for a time with the defenders of ar pitrary power, his intellect was always with Locke and Milton. In- deed, his jests upon hereditary monarchy were somctimes such as would have better become a member of the Calf’s Head Club then a Privy Councillor of the Stuarts. In religion he was so far from being a zealot that he was called by the uncharitable an atheist: but this imputation he vehemently repelled; and in truth, though he sometimes gave scandal by the way in which he exerted his rare powers both of reasoning and of ridicule on serious subjects, he seems to have been by no means unsusceptible of religious impres- _ sions. He was the chief of those politicians whom the two great parties contemptuously called Trimmers. Instead of quarrelling with this nickname, he assumed it as a title of honour, and vindicated, with great vivacity, the dignity of the appellation. Everything good, he said, trims between extremes. The temperate zone trims between the climate in which men are roasted and the climate in which they — are frozen. The English Church trims between the Anabaptist mad- ness and the Papist. lethargy. The English constitution trims be- tween Turkish despotism and Polish anarchy. Virtue is nothing — but a just temper between propensities any one of which, if indulged to excess, becomes vice. Nay, the perfection of the Supreme Being himself consists in the exact equilibrium of attributes, none of which could preponderate without disturbing the whole moral and physical — order of the world.* Thus Halifax was a Trimmer on principle. He was also a Trimmer by the constitution both of his head and of his heart. His understanding was keen, sceptical, inexhaustibly fertile in distinctions and objections; his taste refined; his sense of the ludicrous exquisite; his temper placid and forgiving, but fastid- ious, and by no means prone either to malevolence or to enthusiastic — * Halifax was undoubtedly the real author of the Character of a Trimmer, which, for a time, went under the name of his kinsman, Sir William Coventry. HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 157 admiration, Such a man could not long be constant to any band of political allies. He must not, however, be confounded with the vulgar crowd of renegades. For though, like them, he passed from side to side, his transition was always in the direction opposite to theirs. He had nothing in common with those who fly from extreme to extreme, and who regard the party which they have deserted with an animosity far exceeding that of consistent enemies, His place was on the debatable ground between the hostile divisions of the community, and he never wandered far beyond the frontier of either. The party to which he at any moment belonged was the party which, _ at that moment, he liked least, because it was the party of which at that moment he had the nearest view. He was therefore always _ Severe upon his violent associates, and was always in friendly rela- tions with his moderate opponents. Every faction in the day of its insolent and vindictive triumph incurred his censure; and every faction, when vanquished and persecuted, found in him a protector. To his lasting honour it must be mentioned that he attempted to save those victims whose fate has left the deepest stain both on the Whig and on the Tory name. He had greatly distinguished himself in opposition, and had thus ‘drawn on himself the royal displeasure, which was indeed so strong _ that he was not admitted into the Council of Thirty without much ’ difficulty and long altercation. As soon, however, ashe had obtained a footing at court, the charms of his manner and of his conversation made him a favourite. He was seriously alarmed by the violence of the public discontent. He thought that liberty was for the present safe, and that order and legitimate authority were in danger. He therefore, as was his fashion, joined himself to the weaker side. _ Perhaps his conversion was not wholly disinterested. For study and reflection, though they had emancipated him from many vulgar _ prejudices, had left him a slave to vulgar desires. Money he did _ not want; and there is no evidence that he ever obtained it by any means which, in that age, even severe censors considered as dishonourable; but rank and power had strong attractions for him. He pretended, indeed, that he considered titles and great offices as baits which - could allure none but fools, that he hated business, pomp, and pag- eantry, and that his dearest wish was to escape from the bustle and glitter of Whitehall to the quiet woods which surrounded his ancient _ Inansion in Nottinghamshire; but his conduct was not a little at vari- ance with his professions. In truth he wished to command the _ Tespect at once of courtiers and of philosophers, to be admired for _ attaining high dignities, and to be at the same time admired for de- 'spising them. Sunderland was Secretary of State. In this man the political im- Morality of his age was personified in the most lively manner. Nature had given him a keen understanding, a restless and mischiev- ous temper, a cold heart, and an abject spirit. His mind had under- M E.i—6 ~~ A A Ve } — 158 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. gone a, training by which all his vices had been nursed up to the rankest maturity. At his entrance into public life, he had passed several years in diplomatic posts abroad, and had been, during some time, minister in France. Every calling has its peculiar temptations. There is no injustice in saying that diplomatists, as a class, have always been more distinguished by their address, by the art with which they win the confidence of those with whom they have to deal, and by the ease with which they catch the tone of every society into which they are admitted, than by generous enthusiasm or austere rectitude; and the relations between Charles and Lewis were such that no English nobleman could long reside in France as envoy, and retain any patriotic or honourable sentiment. Sunderland camg¢ forth from the bad school in which he had been brought up, cunning, supple, shameless, free from all prejudices, and destitute of all prin ciples. He was, by hereditary connection, a Cavalier: but with the Cavaliers he had nothing in common. They were zealous for mon archy, and condemned in theory all resistance. Yet they had sturdy English hearts which would never have endured realdespotism. He, on the contrary, had a languid speculative liking for republican insti tutions which was compatible with perfect readiness to bein practice the most servile instrument of arbitrary power. Like many other accomplished flatterers and negotiators, he was far more skilful in the art of reading the characters and practising on the weaknesses of in- dividuals, than in the art of discerning the feelings of great masses, and of foreseeing the approach of great revolutions. He was adroit in intrigue; and it was difficult even for shrewd and experienced men who had been amply forewarned of his perfidy to withstand the fas. cination of his manner, and to refuse credit to his professions of attachment. But he was so intent on observing and courting partic- ular persons, that he often forgot to study the temper of the nation. He therefore miscalculated grossly with respect to some of the most momentous events of his time. More than one 1mportant movement and rebound of the public mind took him by surprise; and the world, unable to understand how so clever a man could be blind to what was clearly discerned by the politicians of the coffee houses, some- times attributed to deep design what were in truth mere blunders. It was only in private conference that his eminent abilities display- ed themselves. In the royal closet, or in a very small circle, he ex- ercised great influence. But at the Council board he was taciturn; and in the House of Lords he never opened his lips. The four confidential advisers of the crown soon found that their position was embarrassing and invidious. The other members of the Council murmured at a distinction inconsistent with the King’s prom- ises; and some of them, with Shaftesbury at their head, again betook themselves to strenuous opposition in Parliament. The agitation, which had been suspended by the late changes, speedily became more violent than ever. It was in vain that Charles offered to grant to the HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 159 Commons any security for the Protestant religion which they could _ devise, rovided only that they would not touch the order of succes- sion. They would hear of no compromise. They would have the _ Exclusion Bill, and nothing but the Exclusion Bill. The King, there- _ fore, a few weeks after he had publicly promised to take no step _ without the advice of his new Council, went down to the House of _ Lords without mentioning his intention in Council, and prorogued the _ Parliament. _ The day of that prorogation, the twenty-sixth of May, 1679, is a ‘great era in our history. For on that day the Habeas Corpus Act re- ceived the royal assent. From the time of the Great Charter the sub- ‘stantive law respecting the personal liberty of Englishmen had been nearly the same as at present: but it had been ineflicacious for want of astringent system of procedure. What was needed was not a new Tight, but a prompt and searching remedy; and such a remedy the _ Habeas Corpus Act supplied. The King would gladly have refused his consent to that measure: but he was about to appeal from his Par- liament to his people on the question of the succession, and he could not venture, at so critical a moment, to reject a bill which was in the highest degree popular. _ On the same day the press of England became for a short time free. In old times printers had been strictly controlled by the Court of Star Chamber. The Long Parliament had abolished the Star Chamber, but had, in spite of the philosophical and eloquent expostulation of ‘Milton, established and maintained a censorship. Soon after the Res- _ toration, an Act had been passed which prohibited the printing of un- licensed books; and it had been provided that this Act should con- _ tinue in force till the end of the first session of the next Parliament. _ That moment had now arrived; and the King, in the very act of dis- Missing the House, emancipated the Press. ’ Shortly after the prorogation came a dissolution and another gen- eral election. The zeal and strength of the opposition were at the height. The cry for the Exclusion Bill was louder than ever; and with this cry was mingled another cry, which fired the blood of the ‘multitude, but which was heard with regret and alarm by all judi- cious friends of freedom. Not only the rights of the Duke of York, an avowed Papist, but those of his two daughters, sincere and zealous _ Protestants, were assailed. It was confidently affirmed that the eldest hatural son of the King had been born in wedlock, and was lawful _ heir to the crown. __ Charles, while a wanderer on the Continent, had fallen in at the te with Lucy Walters, a Welsh girl of great beauty, but of weak _ understanding and dissolute manners. She became his mistress, and ae him witha son. A suspicious lover might have had _his doubts; for the lady had several admirers, and was not supposed to becruel to any. Charles, however, readily took her word, and pour- ed forth on little James Crofts, as the boy was then called, an over- , 7 160 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. flowing fondness, such as seemed hardly to belong to that cool and careless nature. Soon after the restoration, the young favourite, who- had learned in France the exercises then considered necessary to a fine gentleman, made his appearance at Whitehall. He was lodgedin the palace, attended by pages, and permitted to enjoy several distinc- tions which had till then been confined to princes of the blood royal. He was married, while still in tender youth, to Anne &cott, heiress of the noble house of Buccleuch. He took her name, and received with her hands possession of her ample domains. The estate which he had acquired by this match was popularly estimated at not less than ten thousand pounds a year. ‘Titles, and favours more substantial than titles, were lavished on him. He was made Duke of Monmouth, in England, Duke of Buccleuch in Scotland, a Knight of the Garter, Master of the Horse, Commander of the first troop of Life Guards, Chief Justice of Eyre south of Trent, and Chancellor of the University of Cambridge. Nor did he appear to the public unworthy of his high fortunes. His countenance was eminently handsome and engaging, his temper sweet, his manners polite and affable. Though a libertine, he won the hearts of the Puritans. Though he was known to have been privy to the shameful attack on Sir John Coventry, he easily ob- tained the forgiveness of the Country Party. Even austere moralists owned that, in such a court, strict conjugal fidelity was scarcely to be expected from one who, while a child, had been married to another child. Even patriots were willing to excuse a headstrong boy for visiting with immoderate vengeance an insult offered to his father. And soon the stain left by loose amours and midnight brawls was ef- faced by honourable exploits. When Charles and Lewis united their forces against Holland, Monmouth commanded the English auxiliaries who were sent to the Continent, and approved himself a gallant sol- dier and a not unintelligent officer. On his return he found himself the most popular man in the kingdom. Nothing was withheld from him but the crown; nor did even the crown seem to be absolutely beyond his reach. The distinction which had most injudiciously been made between him and the highest nobles had produced evil consequences. "When a boy he had been invited to put on his hat in the presence chamber, while Howards and Seymours stood uncovered round him. When foreign princes died, he had mourned for them in the long purple cloak, which no other subject, except the Duke of York and Prince Rupert, was permitted to wear. It was natural that these things should lead him to regard himself as a legitimate prince of the House of Stuart. Charles, even at a ripe age, was devoted to his pleasures and regardless of his dignity. It could hardly be thought incredible that he should at twenty have secretly gone through the form of espousing a lady whose beauty had fascinated him. hile Monmouth was still a child, and while the Duke of York still passed for a Protestant, it was rumoured throughout the country, and even in circles which ought to have been well informed, that the King had HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 161 ; made Lucy Walters his wife, and that, if every one had his right, her 7 : son would be Prince of Wales. Much was said of a certain black box which, according to the vulgar belief, contained the contract of mar- ‘riage. When Monmouth had returned from the Low Countries with a high character for valour and conduct, and when the Duke of York was known to be a member of a church detested by the great majority of the nation, this idle story became important. For it there was not the slightest evidence. Against it there was the solemn asseveration of the King, made before his Council, and by his order communicated to his people. But the multitude, always fond of romantic adven- tures, drank in eagerly the tale of the secret espousals and the black box. Some chiefs of the opposition acted on this occasion as they acted with respect to the more odious fable of Oates, and countenanced a story which they must have despised. The interest which the populace took in him whom they regarded -as the champion of the true religion, and the rightful heir of the British throne, was kept up by every artifice. When Monmouth ar- _ rived in London at midnight, the watchmen were ordered by the magistrates to proclaim the joyful event through the streets of the City: the people left their beds: bonfires were lighted: the windows _ were illuminated: the churches were opened; and a merry peal rose from all the steeples. When he travelled, he was everywhere re- - ceived with not less pomp, and with far more enthusiasm, than had ea been displayed when Kings had made progresses through the realm. He was escorted from mansion to mansion by long cavalcades of armed gentlemen and yeomen. Cities poured forth their whole population to receive him. Electors thronged round him, to assure him that their votes were at his disposal. To such a height were his pretensions carried, that he not only exhibited on his escutcheon _ the lions of England and the lilies of France without the baton sin- ister under which, according to the law of heraldry, they should have _ been debruised in token of his illegitimate birth, but ventured to _ touch for the king’s evil. At the same time he neglected no art of condescension by which the love of the multitude could be concili- ated. He stood godfather to the children of the peasantry, mingled _ In every rustic sport, wrestled, played at quarterstaff, and won foot- races in his boots against fleet runners in shoes. _ itis acurious circumstance that, at two of the greatest conjunctures in our history, the chiefs of the Protestant party should have com- mitted the same error, and should by that error have greatly endan- ered their country and their religion. At the death of Edward the ‘Sixth they set up the Lady Jane, without any show of birthright, in Opposition, not only to their enemy Mary, but also to Elizabeth, the true hope of England and of the Reformation. Thus the most re- spectable Protestants, with Elizabeth at their head, were forced to make common cause with the Papists. In the same manner, a hundred and thirty years later, a part of the opposition, by setting TG 20/4, HISTORY OF ENGLAND. up Monmouth asa claimant of the crown, attacked the rights, not only of James, whom they justly regarded as_ an implacable foe of their faith and their liberties, but also of the Prince and Princess of Orange, who were eminently marked out, both by situation and by personal qualities, as the defenders of all free governments and of all reformed churches. The folly of this course speedily became manifest. At present the popularity of Monmouth constituted a great part of the strength of the opposition. The elections went against the court: the day fixed for the meeting of the Houses drew near; and it was necessary that the King should determine on some line of conduct. Those who advised him discerned the first faint signs of a change of public feeling, and hoped that, by mney postponing the conflict, he would be able to secure the victory. e therefore, without even asking the opinion of the Council of Thirty, resolved to prorogue the new Parliament before it entered on business. Atthe same time the Duke of York, who had returned from Brussels, was ordered to retire to Scotland, and was placed at the head of the administration of that kingdom. Temple’s plan of government was now avowedly abandoned and very soon forgotten. The Privy Council again became what it had been. Shaftesbury and those who were connected with him in pol- itics resigned their seats. Temple himself, as was his wont in unquiet times, retired to his garden and his library. Essex quitted the Board of Treasury, and cast in his lot with the opposition. But Halifax, disgusted and alarmed by the violence of his old associates, and Sunderland, who never quitted place while he could hold it, re- mained in the King’s service. In consequence of the resignations which took place at this con- eed Radia the way to greatness was left clear to a new set of aspirants. wo statesmen, who subsequently rose to the highest eminence which a British subject can reach, soon began to attract a large share of the public attention. These were Lawrence Hyde and Sidney Godolphin. iawrence Hyde was the second son of the Chancellor Clarendon, and was brother of the first Duchess of York. He had excellent parts, which had been improved by parliamentary and diplomatic experience; but the infirmities of his temper detracted much from the effective strength of his abilities. Negotiator and courtier as he was, he never learned the art of governing or of concealing his emo- tions. When prosperous, he was insolent and boastful: when he sustained a check, his undisguised mortification doubled the triumph of his enemies: very slight provocations sufficed to kindle his anger; and when he was angry he said bitter things which he forgot as soon as he was pacified, but which others remembered many years. His quickness and penetration would have made him a consummate man of business but for his selfsufficiency and impatience. His writings ‘> n f {; 2 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 163 4 te that he had many of the qualities of an orator: but his irrita ility prevented him from doing himself justice in debate; for nothing was easier than to goad him into a passion; and, from the moment when he went into a passion, he was at the mercy of opponents far _ inferior to him in capacity. Unlike most of the leading politicians of that generation he was a _ consistent, dogged, and rancorous party man, a Cavalier of the old - school, a zealous champion of the Crown and of the Church, and a _ hater of Republicans and Nonconformists. He had consequently a great body of personal adherents. The clergy especially looked on _ him as their own man, and extended to his foibles an indulgence of which, to say the truth, he stood in some need: for he drank deep; and when he was in a rage,—and he very often was in a rage,—he _ swore like a porter. a. is He now succeeded Essex at the treasury. It is to be observed _ that the place of First Lord of the Treasury had not then the impor- __ tance and dignity which now belong to it. When there was a Lord Treasurer, that great officer was generally prime minister: but, when the white staff was in commission, the chief commissioner hardly ranked so high as a Secretary of State. It was not till the time of Walpole that the First Lord of the Treasury became, ag a humbler name, all that the Lord High Treasurer had en. Godolphin had been bred a page at Whitehall, and had early acquired all the flexibility and the selfpossession of a veteran courtier. He was laborious, clearheaded, and profoundly versed in the details of finance. Every government, therefore, found him an useful servant; and there was nothing in his opinions or in his character which could prevent him from serving any government. ‘‘Sidney Godolphin,” _ said Charles, ‘‘is never in the way, and never out of the way.” This pointed remark goes far to explain Godolphin’s extraordinary _ success in life. He acted at different times with both the great political parties: but he never shared in the passions of either. Like most men of cautious tempers and prosperous fortunes, he had a strong disposition to support whatever existed. He disliked revolutions; and, for the same reason for which he disliked revolutions, he disliked counter revolutions. His deportment was remarkably grave and reserved: but his personal tastes were low and frivolous; and most of the time which he could save from public business was spent in racing, card- Y playing, and cockfighting. He now sate below Rochester