CHAPTER II.
After Lambert's imitation of Oliver Cromwell, in dissolving the House of Commons, England might be said to be without any Government at all. In contrast with our conscious security twenty years ago, and our reliance upon the stability of the Constitution at a moment when political changes were sweeping over Europe, as rapidly as the shadows of the clouds chase each other over the corn-fields, our fathers, in the latter part of the year 1659, felt they had no political constitution whatever in existence, except as it might be preserved in lawyers' books, and in people's memories. The Republicans were at sixes and sevens. Some were for a select Senate, and a Parliamentary representation; some for an Assembly chosen by the people, and for Councils of State chosen by that Assembly; some for a couple of Councils, both chosen by the popular voice; and some for a scheme which seemed like a revival of the Lacedæmonian Ephori.[46] Amidst distractions of opinion these speculatists were inspired by personal animosities; and, being mutually jealous, they constantly misapprehended each other's motives. It was a strange time, and as sad as it was strange—when, at the Rota Club, which met at the Turk's Head, in New Palace Yard, where Harrington and his friends were wont to drink their glasses of water—it had become a practical question, under what sort of Government they were to live the following year?
INTERREGNUM—CONFUSION.
London was a Babel of ecclesiastical no less than of political theories. Presbyterians contended that the Solemn League and Covenant alone could heal the nation's wounds. Fifth Monarchy men could see no hope but in the second coming of Christ. Some contended for toleration to a limited extent, with a national religion exercised according to Parliamentary law—the legal and ancient provision for a national ministry being augmented, so as to secure to each clergyman £100 per annum. Others contended for "the way of old, laid down by Christ," to bring it about again, and settle it in the world; and such teachers declared that there needed to be an utter plucking up of all that was in esteem or desire, or had been for many hundred years.[47] In the Modest Plea for an Equal Commonwealth, published in 1659, it was proposed to abolish tithes, upon composition being made for them by landholders; the money so raised to be used for satisfying the proprietors, and paying the arrears of the Army; also for discharging public debts, and providing for the dispossessed incumbents during the remainder of their lives.[48] Causes of discontent and disquiet, often overlooked, existed at that period. Scarcity always aggravates when it does not produce political confusion. The price of corn had singularly fluctuated during the Commonwealth: like the tide it had gradually ebbed during the first half; like the tide it had gradually flowed during the second. In 1649, the year of Charles' execution, wheat had reached eighty shillings a quarter; in 1654, the first year of Oliver's protectorate, it fell as low as twenty-six shillings—good harvests coming to bless his new administration. After that year wheat rose again, till in 1659 it attained the price of sixty-six shillings; the dearness of bread being, as we might expect, however unjustly, laid at the door of a Government arrived at the last stage of incompetency and weakness.[49] The result of combined calamities speedily became apparent. The military were dissatisfied and divided. Troops lawlessly prowled about the country; they levied contributions in all quarters, threatening their enemies, and harassing their friends. Their swords were warrants for exaction; and when told that their conduct would lead to the return of Charles Stuart, they answered such an event could never happen so long as they continued to carry arms. Colonels and Captains lost command over their men; the latter did what was right in their own eyes, and nothing else.[50]
1659.
It is startling to find how rapidly change succeeded change in high places. The remains of the Long Parliament, as it existed at the time of its dissolution by Oliver Cromwell, were, for want of better rulers, restored the day after Christmas-day,[51] according to the wishes of the soldiers, not the Generals. Lenthall, after summoning such members as could be found, again arrayed himself in his Speaker's robes; again went in state to the House to reoccupy the old chair; and the soldiers, who ten weeks before had driven him from the doors of St. Stephen's, now shouted, at the top of their voices, in honour of his solemn re-entrance. Prynne, and other gentlemen excluded by Pride's purge, were once more excepted from the number summoned, and sought in vain re-admission to their vacant seats. The remnant of legislators upon assembling anew appointed a Council of State; but never was any form of Government so unmercifully ridiculed as was this.
INTERREGNUM.—CONFUSION.
Something needed to be done. The Royalists throughout all this tumult had not been asleep. They had increased the miserable confusion, and even rejoiced in the gloom, because the darker the night the nearer the dawn. Booth's rising in August had been repressed, but an enormous flood of disaffection, of which that had been a sort of Geyser outgush, continued to boil beneath the surface. Secret conferences were held; plots were laid. The deeply engrained love of Monarchy in the English mind—only painted over of late years—now that the paint was being rubbed off, became distinctly visible. The press took the utmost license. Evelyn in his Apology for the Royal Party denounced the Rump as a coffin which was yet less empty than the heads of certain politicians. He boldly demanded the restoration of Charles Stuart, maintaining that he might be trusted because of his innate love of justice, and his father's dying injunctions; and because there were none, however crimson-dyed their crimes, whom he would not pardon in the abundance of his clemency and mercy. The author of A Plea for Limited Monarchy adds the sorrows of memory to the pleasures of hope, as motives for restoring the King; for he dwells upon the decay of trade, and complains that the oil and honey promised by Oliver had been turned to bitterness and gall; and that Lambert's free quarterings had licked up the little which had been left in the people's cruse.[52]
1659.
These appeals fell on willing ears. The nation was weary—weary of inefficient rulers, weary of ideal Republics. Had there been some master-spirit equal to the departed one, with a strong and well-disciplined Army at his back, the Commonwealth might even now at last have been restored to what it was two years before; but nobody like the vanished man remained, and the Army fell to pieces.
MONK.
General Monk had a large portion of it under his immediate control in the North. The Committee of Safety had, in the month of November, appointed him Commander-in-Chief of all the forces, and he now determined to employ his influence for purposes of his own. The troops under Lambert, who still cherished Republican ideas and designs, were ordered by a messenger of Parliament to withdraw to their respective quarters; consequently that ambitious and turbulent personage retired into privacy. The soldiers in London, tired of their commanders, had asked for the restoration of the Rump, and had placed themselves under its authority. Monk alone possessed much military power. In the month of January we find him marching up to London. On entering the gates of York two Presbyterian ministers escorted him to his lodgings; one of them, the eminent Edward Bowles, "the spring that moved all the wheels in that city," who "dealt with the General about weighty and dangerous affairs," keeping him up till midnight, and pressing him very hard to stay there, and declare for the King. "Have you made any such promise?" inquired Monk's chaplain. "No, truly, I have not; or, I have not yet," was the reply. After a pause the chaplain remarked, "When the famous Gustavus entered Germany, he said, 'that if his shirt knew what he intended to do, he would tear it from his back, and burn it.'" The speaker applied the story to his master, entreating him to sleep between York and London; and when he entered the walls of the Metropolis to open his eyes, and look about him.[53] Perhaps the chaplain knew that such counsel would be agreeable to his patron; but it was quite unnecessary to talk in this fashion to one pre-eminently reticent, and as watchful with his eyes as he was cautious with his lips.
1660.
Monk, at the time, was far from being reputed a Royalist. He, with his officers, had in the month of June, 1659, expressed Republican opinions. In the following November the same person corresponding with Dr. Owen, and other representatives of the Independents in London, promised that their interests should ever be dear to his heart; and gave it as his opinion that the laws and rights for which they had been struggling through eighteen years might be "reduced to a Parliamentary Government, and the people's consenting to the laws."[54] The General reached St. Albans on the 28th of January, when Hugh Peters preached before him a characteristic sermon, little thinking of what the chief person in the audience was about to accomplish. "As for his sermon," says one who heard it, "he managed it with some dexterity at the first (allowing the cantings of his expressions.) His text was Psalm cvii. 7. 'He led them forth by the right way, that they might go to the city where they dwelt.'[55] With his fingers on the cushion he measured the right way from the Red Sea through the wilderness to Canaan; told us it was not forty days' march, but God led Israel forty years through the wilderness before they came thither; yet this was still the Lord's right way, who led his people crinkledom cum crankledom; and he particularly descended into the lives of the patriarchs, how they journeyed up and down though there were promises of blessing and rest to them. Then he reviewed our civil wars, our intervals of peace and fresh distractions, and hopes of rest; but though the Lord's people (he said) were not yet come to the City of Habitation, He was still leading them on in the right way, how dark soever His dispensations might appear to us."[56]
As I am writing an Ecclesiastical, and not a Political History, I leave untouched the tangled web of incidents occurring in the City in the councils of the Republicans; and in the relations of Monk to the conflicting parties, between the 6th and 11th of February. I can only state, that on the last of these days the martial chief appeared at Guildhall, and said, "What I have to tell you is this: I have this morning sent to the Parliament to issue out writs within seven days, for the filling up of their House, and when filled to sit no longer than the 6th of May, but then to give place to a full and free Parliament."[57]
MONK.
The joy which this intelligence produced in the City was unbounded, and it comes before us with the vividness of a present event in the garrulous Diary of Pepys. As merry peals rolled and fired from the London steeples, fourteen bonfires were kindled between St. Dunstan's and Temple Bar; and at Strand Bridge the gossip at the same time counted thirty-one of those English demonstrations of delight. The butchers, at the Maypole in the Strand, rang a peal with their knives; and on Ludgate-hill a man occupied himself with turning a spit, on which was tied a rump of beef, whilst another man basted it. At one end of the street there seemed "a whole lane of fire," so hot that people were fain to keep on the side farthest off.[58]
The excitement following the news in other parts seems to have been not less intense.
At Nottingham, "as almost all the rest of the island," the town "began to grow mad." Boys marched about with drums and colours, and offered insults to Republican soldiers. One night some forty of the latter class were wounded by stones, thrown at them as they attempted to seize the obstreperous lads. Two Presbyterians were shot in the scuffle; one a zealous Royalist, master of the Magazine, at Nottingham Castle. "Upon the killing of this man," the Presbyterians "were hugely enraged, and prayed very seditiously in their pulpits, and began openly to desire the King; not for good will, neither to him, but for destruction to all the fanatics."[59]
1660.
The rabble raved with joy. Milton mourned over the madness in strains of majestic sorrow. "And what will they at best say of us, and of the whole English name, but scoffingly, as of that foolish builder mentioned by our Saviour, who began to build a tower, and was not able to finish it? Where is this goodly tower of a Commonwealth, which the English boasted they would build to overshadow kings, and be another Rome in the West? The foundation indeed they laid gallantly; but fell into a worse confusion, not of tongues, but of factions, than those at the tower of Babel; and have left no memorial of their work behind them remaining, but in the common laughter of Europe! Which must needs redound the more to our shame, if we but look on our neighbours, the United Provinces, to us inferior in all outward advantages; who notwithstanding, in the midst of greater difficulties, courageously, wisely, constantly went through with the same work, and are settled in all the happy enjoyments of a potent and flourishing Republic to this day."[60]
The political importance of the Independents had declined with the humiliation of Fleetwood, and of the officers who sympathized with him. Their strength had rested on the Army, and with the dislocation of the Army came the termination of their ascendancy. On the 21st of February the surviving members of the Commons House, who had been excluded by Colonel Pride, were restored to their former seats, a measure which placed power once more in Presbyterian hands.
MONK.
Monk, the author of this revolution, addressed Parliament on that same day, and gave it as his opinion that the interests of London must lie in a Commonwealth—that Government only being capable of making the country, through the Lord's blessing, the metropolis and bank of trade for all Christendom; "and as to a government in the Church," he proceeded to say, "the want whereof hath been no small cause of these nations' distractions; it is most manifest that if it be monarchical in the State, the Church must follow, and Prelacy must be brought in, which these nations, I know, cannot bear, and against which they have so solemnly sworn: and, indeed, moderate not rigid Presbyterian government, with a sufficient liberty for consciences truly tender, appears at present to be the most indifferent and acceptable way to the Church's settlement."[61]
The fortunes of Presbyterianism had been changeful fortunes. It had been established by the Long Parliament; its power had waned under the predominant sway of the Army; though adopted more or less throughout the country, it had been nowhere so fully developed as in Lancashire; and it had received no special encouragement from Oliver Cromwell. After his death it received a slight impetus, only to be checked by the Republican policy of Vane and the Military. But now Presbyterianism appears reconstituted in the Church of England—re-established as the national religion; and it is of great importance to remember this fact throughout the narrative of the Restoration; for it was with Presbyterianism thus situated, rather than with Independency, or any other ecclesiastical systems, that Episcopacy came first into competition and conflict after the King's return.
1660.
It soon became plain to which ecclesiastical party most influence belonged. On the 2nd of March the Westminster Confession was readopted; a proclamation was issued for enforcing all existing laws against popish priests, Jesuits, and recusants; and a bill was introduced to provide for an authorized approval of ministers previously to their holding benefices. The Solemn League and Covenant reappeared on the wall of the House of Commons, and also was ordered to be read in every church once a year. Upon the 13th, Dr. Owen, the Independent, was removed from the Deanery of Christ Church, and Dr. Reynolds, the Presbyterian, appointed in his room.
But appearances were fallacious. The Restoration was inevitable, and with the Restoration, the Puritan Establishment, which had been the offspring of the Civil Wars, virtually expired.