CHAPTER XV.
The Royalist Army.
Charles went to Oxford after the battle of Edge Hill, and there, during the civil wars, set up his head quarters. Occasionally he was absent with the army, but that central city, which was so convenient for the purpose in many respects, he made his fortress and his home. It underwent great alterations. Fortifications were contrived by Richard Rallingson, who also drew "a mathematical scheme or plot of the garrison;" and in an old print, by Anthony Wood, may be traced the zig-zag lines of defence, which were drawn on every side about the city.[465] Gownsmen transformed themselves into cavaliers, and exchanged college caps for steel bonnets. Streets echoed with the tramp of war horses and the clatter of iron-heeled hoots. Wagons, guarded by pikemen, and laden with ammunition and stores, rolled through the picturesque gateways; and valiant and loyal subjects rallied around their Sovereign in the hour of his need, ready to shed their last drop of blood beneath his standard. The colleges melted down their plate to supply military chests; and Magdalen especially stood true to the King's cause. Rupert took up his residence there, and the sound of his trumpets calling to horse disturbed the silence of the beautiful cloisters. Whilst most of the Fellows, being Divines, could only help with their prayers and their purses, one of them, who was a doctor of civil law, raised a troop of under-graduates, and fell fighting in his Majesty's service.[466] Amidst the excitement which followed the King's turns of fortune, he gathered together the relics of his court, and established in Christ Church Hall a mock parliament, which was intended to rival the real one at Westminster. Charles had grasped at absolute power, now nothing remained but the shadow of dominion. At Oxford he but played at kingship.
The Royalist Army.
1643.
In the Royal army, of which, perhaps, the worst portion might be found at Oxford, the principal officers were men of high spirit and courage, with a strong dash in them of old English chivalry; but, with some of the virtues of mediæval knighthood, they possessed a more than ordinary share of its vices. In retired parts of the country, especially in Cornwall, yeomen and peasants, of pure life and artless manners, followed Royalist commanders with a sort of feudal devotion; but it must be admitted, with regard to most of the regiments who fought for the King, that the men in the ranks were worse than those in command—for, wanting that tone of manners which marks the well-bred gentleman, they had nothing to check the ebullitions of coarse impiety and brutal ruffianism. We are not concerned to vindicate the soldiers on the other side. No doubt they were chargeable with excesses, some of which have been indicated in these pages. Irreligious people mixed with Puritans; tapsters and serving men appeared among patriots; but, whatever the drawbacks on the reputation of the Parliamentary forces, there is but little doubt that the moral character of the men on the other side was far worse. Indeed, this is virtually admitted by Royalists themselves; for Clarendon paints dark pictures of the debauchery of the Lords Goring and Wilmot; and Chillingworth, in a sermon preached at Oxford in the autumn of 1643, while charging the enemy with Pharisaism, hypocrisy, falsehood, want of justice, and pretence of reformation, is also unsparing in his reproofs of Royalist profanity, irreligion, and blasphemy.[467]
Fiery resentment burned in both camps, and was industriously fanned by the newspapers of the day. Parliamentary journals had nothing but what was good to say of their own party, and nothing but what was bad of their adversaries. Led away by idle rumours, editors and correspondents made mountains of molehills, and often stated as facts what only existed in their own distempered brains; all this the scribblers for the Oxford press paid back with interest.
The Royalist Army.
Reports were industriously circulated throughout the country affecting the religious character of the King and court, upon the tender point of popish sympathies. An Irish minister, who had spent seven weeks at the University in the summer of 1643, afterwards declared that Irish Papists, who had committed atrocious barbarities in the rebellion, were received at court with signal favour; that Franciscans and Jesuits encouraged the soldiers to fight against the Roundheads, and were themselves enrolled as cornets; that Roman Catholic worship was performed in every street, and, he believed, that for every single sermon in the city there were four masses.[468] How much of truth there might be in these broad accusations, it is impossible for us to determine; but the adage no doubt is applicable here, that where there is much smoke there is some fire.[469]
1643.
Charles met all such charges with recriminations. He felt shocked, he said, at the impieties and profanations which were committed in sacred places; at the countenance which was given to ignorant and scandalous laymen who had usurped the ministry; at the suspension and reviling of Common Prayer which had become so prevalent; at religion being made the cause and ground of rebellion; and at the destruction of discipline in the "most unblemished Church of Christendom."[470] Nothing could appear right in his estimation which the Parliament did, and even their ordinances for national fasts were met with counter ordinances for fasts at another season. Prelatists and Puritans would not, even for the sins of the nation, fast on the same day; for as at Westminster one party commanded that the last Wednesday in the month should be devoted to humiliation and prayer, at Oxford the other party denounced that appointment, and substituted the second Friday. The Royalists threatened to sequester the estates of such clergymen as would not obey their command; and, amidst all this most unseemly strife, we hear Thomas Fuller exclaiming, in his "Meditations on the Times," "Alas! when two messengers, being sent together on the same errand, fall out and fight by the way, will not the work be worse done than if none were employed? In such a pair of fasts, it is to be feared that the divisions of our affections rather would increase than abate God's anger towards us. Two negatives make an affirmative. Days of humiliation are appointed for men to deny themselves and their sinful lusts. But do not our two fasts more peremptorily affirm and avouch our mutual malice and hatred? God forgive us: we have cause enough to keep ten, but not care enough to keep one monthly day of humiliation."[471]
To rebut the charge of popery, the King publicly received the sacrament at the hands of Archbishop Ussher, in Christ Church, at the same time making a solemn protestation, that he had prepared his soul to be a worthy receiver, that he derived comfort from the blessed sacrament, and that he supported the true reformed Protestant religion, as it stood in its beauty in the days of Elizabeth, without any connivance at popery. He imprecated, in conclusion, Divine wrath upon himself, if his heart did not join with his lips in this protestation.[472]
The King at Oxford.
For his conduct on this occasion he is accused of hypocrisy, because a few days afterwards he agreed to a truce with Ireland, and to the toleration of Papists in that country. To grant such a truce and such a toleration would not in the present day be deemed inconsistent with the sincerest Protestantism; but the matter was otherwise regarded at that time, and most advocates of religious liberty then denied the privilege to Roman Catholics, because they knew that Catholics would deny the privilege to them. Indeed, they reckoned such persons no better than social incendiaries, and incorrigible rebels against constitutional government; and, however unreasonable it may seem to us, they considered that to allow any scope for popish worship was to connive at the practices of popish treason. Charles himself was by no means prepared to place the toleration of Roman Catholics on its righteous grounds. He was willing, when it served his purpose, to declare himself of one mind with those who condemned all religious freedom; and he must have wished the declaration made by him, upon receiving the Lord's supper from the hands of Ussher, to be understood as meaning that he would not tolerate popery at all. Therefore, to proclaim toleration to Irish Catholics immediately after this declaration could not but lay him open to the charge of hypocrisy on the part of his contemporaries. But at the same time we have no doubt that his expression of attachment to the Protestant religion as it stood in the days of Elizabeth, understanding by that expression a religion both anti-papal and anti-puritanical, was perfectly sincere. Prelacy was an essential principle in the reformed religion of Charles; and with prelacy were associated in his mind forms of worship which many of his subjects pronounced to be "flat popery." His notions of reformation, perhaps, mainly hinged on a separation from Rome, with the abolition of monachism and the removal of certain gross abuses which had been prevalent in the mediæval church. He inherited, in fact, the Protestantism of the Tudors: but at the same time he had none of the magnanimity of Elizabeth, none of that religious patriotism which made her the idol of her subjects, none of that indignation against popish wrongs and cruelties, which she so strongly felt and expressed—as, for example, when she dressed herself in deep mourning to receive the gay French ambassador after the St. Bartholomew massacre:—in short, Charles had none of that spirit which made Elizabeth appear, without any tinge of hypocrisy, so much more of a Protestant than she really was. And we may add, that he had a trick of saying and doing things with a smooth artificial gravity which awakened suspicion, so that even when really honest he found it difficult to obtain credit for sincerity.
1643.
It is remarkable that we do not find any High Church Bishops with the King at Oxford. Even Skinner, Bishop of the diocese, had retired from the city to the rectory of Taunton. The absence of others may be attributed to personal restraint, or the dangers of travelling in a time of civil war, or a sense of duty towards their scattered flocks, or a disinclination to throw themselves into a military camp. But some other prelates and clergymen of a different character come under our notice, as present at Oxford at this critical period.
Bishops at Oxford.
Bryan Duppa, Bishop of Salisbury—whose fine face and silvery locks, set off to advantage by the robes of the Garter, may be seen in his portrait on the walls of Christ Church—upon being stripped of his episcopal revenues waited on his Majesty, and was entrusted by him with business of the greatest importance. Archbishop Ussher preached before the court, carried on his literary labours in the University, and, as an opponent of the toleration of Papists, took part in a discussion held in the royal presence upon that subject. Soon afterwards he further offended the Roman Catholics by a discourse from the words of Nehemiah, iv. 11:—"And our adversaries said, they shall not know, neither see, till we come in the midst among them, and slay them, and cause the work to cease." In this discourse he contended, that no dependence could be placed on Romanists, and that on the first opportunity they would act towards the Protestants of England as they had recently done towards the Protestants of Ireland. He also preached sermons to his Royalist auditory in a tone of remarkable fidelity and earnestness, dwelling upon the folly of expecting that God would prosper the cause of those who provoked Him to anger by the dissoluteness of their lives.[473]
Perhaps Jeremy Taylor also might be found at Oxford, after having lost the rectory of Uppingham, in Rutlandshire. Wood says that he preached before the King, and followed the Royal army in the capacity of a chaplain; and probably it was during this part of his life that he reaped some of those military allusions which we find in his sermons. As, for example, when he compares the man who prays in a discomposed spirit, to him that sets up his closet in the outquarters of an army, and chooses a frontier garrison to be wise in: and when he speaks of the poor soldier, standing in the breach, "almost starved with cold and hunger," "pale and faint, weary and watchful," and of the same person in his tent by dim lantern light, having a "bullet pulled out of his flesh, and shivers from his bones, and enduring his mouth to be sewed up, from a violent rent, to its own dimensions."[474]
1643.
Dr. Thomas Fuller, we may add, after being deprived of his preferment at the Savoy, and leaving behind him his library, found refuge in Lincoln College, and preached before the King; the losses which this cheerful Divine suffered at the time leading him to observe, with his accustomed humour, "that his going to Oxford cost him all that he had, a dear seventeen weeks compared with the seventeen years he spent in Cambridge." Whilst Fuller tarried in the former University, there arrived Lord Hopton, an eminent Royalist officer of moderate opinions and of a pacific disposition. The ejected minister of the Savoy became a chaplain to the regiment of this brave soldier and sincerely religious man, and he hoped by filling this office to wipe off the stain of disaffection with which his enemies had endeavoured to spot his fame. He accompanied Hopton to the west, where he accepted a nominal chaplaincy to the infant Princess Henrietta, who was born at Bedford House, in the city of Exeter, on the 16th June, 1644.[475]
Clergy at Oxford.
Another eminent churchman was now at Oxford. William Chillingworth, after the raising of the siege of Gloucester, left the construction of his Roman testudines, and more befittingly employed himself in preaching before the University, and in writing polemical tracts, especially one, entitled "The Apostolical Institution of Episcopacy." This publication, which was not answered for years afterwards, is very characteristic of its author, and takes a ground of defence for the Church of England not at all agreeable to high Prelatists; for he reduces Episcopal government to the smallest dimensions, specifying its essence to be no more than the appointment of one person of eminent sanctity, to take care of all the churches in a diocese—his authority being bounded by law and moderated by assistants. Even this scantling of rule he seems to defend rather than enforce—stating as the ground of adopting it, that there is no record of our Saviour against it, that it is not repugnant to the apostolic government, and that it is as compliable with the reformation of the Church, as any other kind of polity.[476] Chillingworth did not long survive his employment at Oxford; and the short remaining history of his life is so curious, so illustrative of the religious aspects of the war, and of the oddities of people engaged in it, that we venture to transfer it to these pages.
1643.
He was taken prisoner in Arundel Castle; whither, in the month of January, 1644, he had repaired, to recover from an indisposition brought on by the inclemency of the winter. As he was not fit to travel to London with the captured garrison, the victorious Parliamentarians removed the distinguished Episcopalian to Chichester, a favour for which he was indebted to Mr. Cheynell, whose story is curiously entwined with his own. Cheynell, a rigid, zealous Presbyterian, "exactly orthodox, and very unwilling that any should be supposed to go to heaven but in the right way," had been ejected from his living in Sussex by the Royalists, and happened to be at Chichester when Chillingworth reached it as a prisoner. With sympathy for his old antagonist, Cheynell procured for him lodgings in the bishop's palace. Chillingworth, who had never been violent enough to please the Royalists, was infamously denounced by one of them; but Cheynell defended his reputation, guarded his health, and, as he informs us, took care of "something more precious than either, to wit, his beloved soul." Yet he wearied him with interrogations and arguments about King and Parliament, Prelate and Puritan. "I desired," he says, "to know his opinion concerning that liturgy, which had been formerly so much extolled, and even idolized amongst the people; but all the answer that I could get was to this purpose, that there were some truths which the ministers of the gospel are not bound, upon pain of damnation, to publish to the people; and, indeed, he conceived it very unfit to publish anything concerning the Common Prayer Book or the Book of Ordination for fear of scandal." "When I found him pretty hearty one day, I desired him to tell me whether he conceived that a man living and dying a Turk, Papist, or Socinian; could be saved." No doubt the question was so pointed, on account of the dying man's reputation for latitudinarianism, or as he believed it to be, charity, and in this respect Chillingworth was consistent to the last. "All the answer that I could gain from him," says Cheynell, "was that he did not absolve them, and would not condemn them." It is pleasant amidst all this gossip, and much more of the same description, to find Cheynell telling his old friend and controversialist that he prayed for him in private, and asking him whether he desired public intercession as well. He replied, "Yes, with all his heart, and he said withal, that he hoped he should fare better for their prayers."[477]
Clergy at Oxford.
After Chillingworth's death, Cheynell had the corpse laid out in a coffin covered with a hearse-cloth. The friends of the deceased were entertained, according to their own desire, with wine and cakes. Those who bore his remains to the grave were Episcopalians; and—as a further touch of description to illustrate those times—it may be added that, according to the custom of the country, they had each a bunch of rosemary, a mourning ribband, and a pair of gloves. Different opinions were expressed as to where the churchman ought to be interred. It was at last decided in favour of Chichester, liberty being granted to "all the malignants" to attend the hearse. When they came to the grave, Cheynell, as he held in his hand what he called the "mortal book" of the great Protestant advocate—the very book which has received the praises of all generations since as immortal—proceeded with strange infatuation to denounce it in terms of the most violent abuse, after which he flung the volume into the open grave.[478]
1643.
Charles, whilst remaining at Oxford, had amongst the Episcopal clergy other staunch friends residing elsewhere. Of this number was John Barwick, a Fellow of St. John's, Cambridge,[479] who acted as chaplain to Bishop Morton during the civil wars, and who continued with him as long as he remained in Durham House. This he did, his biographer tells us, for the express purpose of being serviceable to the King; concealing himself there "as in a great wood," carrying on a private correspondence betwixt London and Oxford, conveying, on the one hand, to the loyalists his Majesty's orders and commands, and, on the other hand, to his royal master, what he could pick up of the "designs and endeavours of the rebels." Resolving to tell no lies, but rather "with silence to answer all captious and ensnaring questions," he yet clandestinely wrote and received letters in cypher, the key to which he carefully kept. The letters were slid in by stealth, amidst pedlar's wares, and carried to and fro, "as it were through a lattice, and enveloped in mist." He employed adventurous women to disperse everywhere, among friends and foes, books favourable to the Royal cause; such emissaries trudging on foot, receiving the books from bargemen on the Thames, and distributing them wherever they had opportunity. Letters were sometimes sewed in the covers of volumes, and secret marks were given to notify their insertion. When the Royal cause became desperate, and the King was shut up "as in a net within the walls of Oxford," he continued to write to Barwick to do what he could, especially by securing, through favour of the Parliamentary authorities, those individuals for his personal attendants, upon whose faithfulness his Majesty could depend. These notices, extracted from "Barwick's Life"—not, on the whole, a very trustworthy book, though accurate enough, no doubt, in reference to his contrivances and intrigues in favour of the King—throw an interesting light upon a great deal which was clandestinely going on at the time in the royal service.
